Ok… i’ve bought my founder package because i wanted to support game and developers and i don’t regret it… i’ve played this first weeks, i’ve been active on the forum to give feedback and suggestions as to how the game could be bettere, some were liked other were not, as usual.
But at the end of these first weeks i’ve come to the conclusion that ToS, as it is now, is not a game i’m willing to spend time and money on.
And yeah you can tell me “ok then see you, goodbye, go away already” as usual… no worries i will, but since feedback is required by the ToS team i will give my final one neertheless.
I will not talk about bugs, nor about lag or server issues: i’ve espected every single one that happened since it was a first release and i’m firmly convinced all these things need time to be fixed so… wathever.
What i’m going to talk about tho is the fact that the game seems to be designed by someone that has absolutly no idea of what “fun” means.
Tree of Savior has all the right features that a game should have to be fun… implemented in the most stupid way i’ve have ever seen in an online game.
Graphic & Sountrack:
I really have nothing negative to say about these first two… they are both a great work of art.
Classes:
Classes customization in this game is absolutly awesome! Or at least it would be if most of the skills weren’t clearly tought for the actual lvl cap of 280 without scaling instead of beeing tought for the future lvl cap of 600. The way most skills are at the moment will make them be useless when the lvl cap will rise to 600 forcing the dev team to redesign them from scratch in an absurd work that could easely be avoided.
This also mean that when new lvls will be implemented, a great majority of the builds people are using now will probably be useless BUT there’s no way to respec.
Long story short… the people will create characters based on the current game state, the game will change itself making such builds useless, the players will be stuck with useless classes because there is no respec… this will potentially be an issue… but now i want to focus on present issues.
The fact that if someone mess up a build he has to completely reroll is really game breaking… expecially since, with the class system as it is now, it’s extremly easy to mess up at higher lvls.
I know that most of people say “Plan before hand” but those people should be remembered that we do not have an “in game stat app” like we have on fan sites and it’s not like a player that will see ToS on steam will think “oh… let me do a google research to see if i find an external website that will allow me to think my build beforehand”.
The point beeing… players will get into the game and will eperiment with classes… they will mess up… they will find out that there’s no way to respec… and they will leave the game becayse the truth is this game PUNISH players for trying builds in game.
Grinding, Collections, Achievements:
I put them togheter because i really think they’re releated.
So in this game we need to grind for almost everything… and really it’s not a bad thing. It’s like going bak in the past, when i was a young kind getting into mmos for the first time and the nostalgia is great.
Problem is once again… the way grinding was implemented in this game is the worst i’ve ever seen in an mmo.
I’m not talking about drop rates and such… what i’m saying is that this game actually make it so that:
- if you want something you need to grind -> to grind you need enemies to kill -> there are no enemies to kill.
There, good feature implemented so badly that it is game breaking.
Real grinding spots in the game are very few and they’re usually taken over by grinding parties. Most of the time it’ll be impossible to have more than a tot number of grinding parties at the same time so a lot of people are left with no spot to grind in.
If we talk about grinding in other areas well… the mob density and the respawn rate is so low that even a simple killing quest that asks to kill 10-20 enemies can take hourse depengin on how many other players are in the map… it really is not rare to walk around a seemingly totally empty map for a lot of time without even seeing a single enemy to kill.
This decisions forces a lot of people to compete over a very small amount of enemies thus encouraging kill steal.
That is the point: the game itself is designed in such a way as to encourage kill steal and anti-social behavior over coop and actually punish a very large part of the gamers that would like to use the main feature of the game: grinding.
Missions & Dungeons:
Having missions and dungeons in a game is an extremly good feature because it really gives more thing for people to do… once again tho the way these are implemented in ToS is one of the worst i’ve ever seen in an mmo… and i’m not talking about modern mmo… it’s the worst even compared to mmos i’ve seen and played 10 years ago.
It’s actually kind of clear that both dungeons and missions were designed with absolutly no tought into it… a map was built, enemies were planted in it, enemies were made overpowered, enemies were stripped of any form of item drop… a cube was given to the final boss to drop and that is it.
Not only this but… early dungeons give way too much experience… later dungeons give way too few experience…
If this wasn’t enough we can run them such a small amount of times… i mean… playing a full support class missions and dungeons, even if so badly designed, are really the only part of the game i find enjoyable to play because my character is actually usefull… expecially since it’s almost impossible to grind thanks to the mob density and respawn rate in the game… and i can’t run them more than a couple of times… so basically the game is telling me that i can have fun only about 2 hours each day and i have to feel disappointed all of the other ones… bad played.
Of course this also makes it possible for people to screw up other people as it’s happening right now! because some people will want the exp… others will want to rush to the boss for the cube… and if these people end up partying togheter well… wasted dungeon runs for 4/5 of the party!
Not to mention that it’s totally possible for idio*** to exploit this to pisso off everyone else by joining a party lying about a full run and then just rush.
So once again… good feature, very badly implemented into the game in such a way to actually punish players that enjoy playing dungeons etc.
I’d rather have free entries with with a lowered drop rate from the bosses than these limited entries as they are now because really, these entries are the only fun thing the game allow me to do when i log in.
Trade, Storage and Market:
Where to start? trade, storage, team storage and marketplace are basic features for any mmos… and i’ve neer seen a game designing them in such a bad way.
Everything is locked under a paywall… even if you pay you have a lot of restrictions… i really don’t want to go over this another time.
Oh well IMC said there’re changes on these subjects in the future about these so i hope for the best.
Other Stuff:
Skills not scaling thus making builds useless at high lvl… and i find out it’s a purposedly designed game mechanics…
And i can see why: plan your build for early levels and you’ll be forced to buy a skill reset potiont from the CS at higher lvl if you want to be useful! You really need to choose: be competitive at low lvls and useless at high lvls… be useless at low lvls but competitive at high lvls… or pay them, easy.
Way to talk about tricky and “slimy” selling methods…
Party gameplay that penalize friends…
There’s just too many to write them all
CONCLUSIONS:
I’m going to repeat myself one more time by saying that the problem with ToS is that they implemented all the right features into the game… but they did it in such a way that every single one of them feels like a punishment and not like an enjoyable feature.
If i play games… i play them because they are fun and keep me entertained… if i find out that a game, instead of beeing fun, is frustrating and every single aspect of it just get me nervous… i suppose there’s no point in going on playing.
And about spendind money on a game… the way i see it if a game is providing me fun then i will spend money on the game…that way i did for ESO, that way i did for The Secret World, that way i did for RO, that way i did other games.
But i feel like Tree of Savior is designed in such a way to mix the most aweful gameplay mechanics i’ve ever seen togheter with tricks trying to make me spend money not because i enjoy the game but because if i dont i’ll be stressed out and agry at the game… so no, thanks but no.
At first i was thinking of keep logging in at least for the missions… since it kind of was the only aspect about the game that i still liked… but after finding out the decision about not making skill scale, thus forcing me to spend money in the future for the reset, and some other stuff well… i’ve decided to give the game my final goodbye for sure and go back to more fun and healty games.
I’ll check from time to time if changes are made even tho i’m not really optimistic about the fact that changes will make things better because really… this game needs to change so many things to become fun in every aspect that they might as well re-design at leat half of it from scratch.
I did give ToS a positive review on steam… but i’ll saly be changing it to negative right away.
Now you can start insulting me in the comments, have fun ^^