So, I wanted to save this until the CBT was over so I could have an even broader range of experience to draw from, but I’ll just go ahead and start this now and update it if/when some new information arises. So to start:
I really enjoy Tree of Savior. I have played it every day of iCBT and haven’t particularly gotten bored of it. I play with an Xbox controller and I feel as if this game has the right combat pacing and skill system to make combat feel really rewarding with it and I enjoy having an MMO with action combat rather than WoW style auto-combat.
Combat
Combat is mostly the strong point of the game for me. I think that traps and ground AoE encourages movement rather than face tanking for most builds and that in higher level areas the game really encourages you to form parties in order to progress more efficiently through fights. I spent most of my experience playing solo and with the way the difficulty level is now, it isn’t that hard to do for certain builds, but there is definitely a huge improvement in gameplay in certain maps when you are able to coordinate with party members. I am surprised at how complementary certain classes are to each other and I think that is indicative of good team-based gameplay design.
Combat: Team Play
So, I have had 3 archers and 2 clerics to date and I feel as if they serve a very specific purpose in teams. I have found clerics are strong at soloing, but not very efficient at it because they lack early-game AoE to clear areas quickly, but have the tools to buff their party to ridiculous levels in order to dominate boss and mob farming. Sustain is also a huge issue in solo/group play and this is something that Clerics are in no short supply of. I haven’t found ressurection/revive to be very useful (because it’s a beta and we have so many iCoins to do it ourselves), but I can easily see these skills being the most desired in parties.
For my archers, the two handed bow perks really, really, really help farming in areas with flying mobs and there is nothing comparable to it. Areas with Operors/Kvailas/Pilgrim Road/Tenet Chapel F2 are perfect for archers and with maps where the density is almost exclusively flying mobs, especially ghost-type, it’s hard to do them otherwise. Archers when in the presence of Clerics or damage buffing Pyros can lay waste to priority targets with an Enchant Fire/Blessing multi-shot and Sappers + Peltasta can easily and passively control entire grinding areas.
General team play has been the best moments of the game to me because it really makes individual builds shine and there are attributes which only work when coupled with someone to enable that function to happen. Having 1 Support, 1 CC/Linker/aggressive support and 3 DPS has been very efficient from my experience. This way, no one is required to be a jack-of-all-trades and shortcomings are managed by the rest of the team.
Combat: Bosses
There has been a lot of mention of bosses being too easy and 9/10 times I have to agree. I feel as if they were designed to be more challenging for certain builds/classes compared to others, but some of their mechanics are all-around too simple to be a threat while the other 1/10 times bosses are a complete nuisance. Some of the bosses I can think of that gave me trouble (for each of my classes rather than a specific one) were Capria (hardest early game boss for me), Denoptic, Ravinpede, Necroventer (besides a Cure/Blessing Cleric) and Harpeia (eff her, seriously).
The things about these bosses are that they are all very mobile, they do a lot of damage (of course), they have ground AoEs that force movement and they can cancel charged skills through attacks with some crowd control. A lot of the other bosses, especially the Beast-type bosses, tend to be too easy because they only have 1 of these or their AI is so simplistic that if you dodge their charge like a matador versus a bull, you will definitely win regardless of how long it takes.
I would like to see more bosses that are more mobile or have better mechanics that require the player to be attentive.
What I would like to see less of:
Invincibility frames. Bosses don’t always follow a set pattern and don’t seem to have an internal CD. When we have CDs that we rely on (some very long), it is really frustrating to face an Unknocker or Capria or Denoptic that decides to use their invincibility event attack 3 times in a row.
Restrict attack traps. These do nothing besides disrupt the flow of combat and punish people for not being ranged. Other traps typically are more threatening anyways (Fire/Mine) and don’t throw the entire battle off and combined with I-Frames they make boss fights a chore rather than an experience.
Bosses running away: This is by far my #1 pet peeve in the entire game. Fighting Necroventer or Nepenthes and having them run away and heal to full is rage inducing and a pointless mechanic for a boss fight, especially if you are by any degree ranged and are required to already be a certain distance away from them to fight them.
Leveling
The leveling experience has been a hot topic as far as feedback goes, so I’m not going to delve too deeply into this particular aspect. The pacing for the iCBT2 experience feels good and I can’t imagine going back to the iCBT1 rates. I played both and the first CBT made you reliant on finding blue mobs to make any sort of progress. Experience from mobs now is still extremely unbalanced compared to quests and that should be an area for reevaluation.
Personally, I prefer questing to grinding and have in any quest-related MMO I’ve played besides La Tale (where grinding was vastly superior and questing was to get the free potions). This does not mean that questing should be the only viable source for quick progressing. A feeling of accomplishment is what keeps players playing and people will purchase more from the Premium Shop if they feel as if they can be more successful with those purchases. If players feel OBLIGATED to buy something like EXP boosters or EXP cards, they will most likely shut off and become disenchanted rather than inspired, besides the small core of extremely loyal players.
On that note, I think saving EXP cards is an interesting strategy and I don’t mind that it exists. From leveling 5 characters, I’ve found that it is best to save cards at all stages of the game to stay within a 4-5 level range of the enemies so that all the experience you get when doing quest objectives/grinding is at a 1:1 ratio. This is also useful in a mundane sense when you know you will be spending time in an area grinding for money/a certain recipe/materials. Using the cards helps bridge the gaps when you need to quickly progress from one area to another.
Classes
I had a C1 Swordsman C2 Highlander in iCBT1 and a Level 80 C2 Archer, C2 Sapper, a level 91 C1 Archer, C2 Ranger, C1 Wugushi, A level 47 C2 Archer, C1 Quarrel Shooter, a level 127 C1 Cleric, C1 Priest, C1 Kirvis, C2 Priest, C1 Monk and currently a level 57 C2 Cleric, C1 Priest.
I do not think archers are weak, but I do feel as if additional class balancing is necessary. Archers need less penalties on their damage or higher base numbers to compensate and Quarrel Shooter, imo, needs to be either pushed to a higher circle or have their C1 given some additional quality of life adjustments. Deploy Pavise should have a better hitbox, like using a Safety Zone for Quarrel Shooters. I was excited to try Deploy Pavise with Kneeling Shot, but that idea was completely blown out of the water when I realized how poor the actual block zone of it was. I was also excited to try out Stake Stockades on either side of a Pavise until I learned that Stake Stockades aren’t actually a wall and do not stop movement. I think these QOL things can be reevaluated.
Sapper’s Claymore needs some attention because it never seemed all that valuable to me for its cost and its damage. It could hit flying monsters, sure, but once I ranked Oblique Shot I never even needed the claymore anymore. Punji stakes took forever to set up, but had good utility, so I kept some of them around.
Clerics, I have little complaint with. Their build paths seem balanced depending on the route you intend to go (physical/magical based) and they have obvious strengths and weakness, although still being good at soloing. I think Priest is a bit too mandatory though, regardless of build path and certain skill trees seem really bad at C1. I deleted a C1 Cleric, C1 Priest, C1 Bokor because I felt as if it didn’t do enough of anything efficiently to be worth the wait until the next circle.
Linearity
Unlike most people, I really don’t have a problem with this. I like the way the game guides the players through the different areas with main quest lines and it does have several (actually a lot) of hidden quests and some side areas to explore which are not covered by main quests. As far as MMORPGs go, I find this to be sufficient. It is not the best in terms of exploration, but it does what it can to encourage players to actually try to find quests and different areas. If there wasn’t a Wiki with a lot of this information already posted, many, many, many players would have missed more than they likely already have.
As far as “sandbox” goes, I don’t think every game needs to be sandbox, especially with an old-school style vibe that Tree of Savior has. My argument references Grand Theft Auto V. There is SO much to do in that game, even hyper mundane things like working out or watching TV, but you rarely see players taking advantage of all the opportunities they have to do things other than steal cars and go on rampages. I couldn’t imagine IMC putting in all this time to give so many options just for people to grind in optimal grinding spots anyways and not take advantage of it.
An MMO comparison is Mabinogi. There are countless things to do in that game which would keep players occupied for years, but a lot of the maps are left completely empty. Even when servers were more populated, it was rare to see people explore the other areas possible just for the purpose of doing so.
Itemization
I think this is a major area of improvement. A lot of the items in the game seem extremely underwhelming and although the low level gaming experience isn’t (and I hope won’t be) a long and important process, there are few weapons that are really worth keeping. A lot of weapons simply gives some basic/secondary stats, if anything at all, and can be discarded once the next upgrade of slightly higher valued stats is available. I really want to see more unique effects on weapons and other gear like these:
Meteor
Toy Hammer
Elektus
Kaloo Hammer
…and so on. Think about Diablo 3 and its “Loot 1.0.” It was a game based around end-game and a western game focused heavily on grinding. Grinding hasn’t gone out of style and there will always be people willing to do so as a sense of competition / accomplishment can be gained from it. The issue was that the best gear didn’t feel like it was even all that good and a lot of it just gave slightly more stats which were negligible at best. Once Loot 2.0 hit and the legendaries were revamped, there was a lot more interest in the game and people who doubted it before were converted with the allure of better gear, shinier effects and a feeling of power and superiority over the enemy.
The Stat System
I personally do not mind the way stats work in this game. Once again, to me it is like Diablo 3. The stats in that game provided some multipliers (which we know they don’t in ToS) to the character’s damage, but the other 3 stats besides your character’s main stat did almost nothing. Your character, regardless of what their stats were, was useless without its gear. ToS functions in a similar way, except gear magnifies your character rather than enabling it to function and the Stats have a variety of uses rather than going “full” builds in a single stat.
The obvious exception to this is Dex Highlanders/Barbs, but that’s a different story.
The stats in this game make it accessible and make attributing stat points a personal choice based on play style and the specific necessities of the character/class that is being played. I also believe that the way stats work now allow build diversity, rather than limiting it, when players attempt to compensate their builds with their items. On my first archer, I was going full SPR, but I wanted more CON for survivability so I kept my Tenet Chainmail (which offers +8, a huge boost) and got a shield which offered +CON. He was well rounded for his level and capable of going through the content solo without major setbacks.
Of the stats, I feel as if INT needs to do more and DEX needs to do less. CON, STR and SPR are pretty balanced and good choices if you so choose to use them.
[will update more later]