Hello hello! I’m splitting this feedback into two parts: one for all my general observations as a player, and one for my specific class/skills. This thread will contain all my general feedback, such as EXP rates/levelling speed, overall gameplay, major issues that have bugged me but don’t pertain to my specific class(es) that I have experience with, etc.
These are all just my opinions based on my own personal experiences, so if you disagree that’s fine! Feel free to offer your own thoughts and suggestions in this thread, but for the most part I’d prefer to keep it on the topic of my own ideas.
And with that part out of the way…
1. EXP Rates
Personally, I feel that the current EXP rates are pretty good. I’ve heard a lot of different stories about how this isn’t the “true” EXP rate, but I’ve yet to see any real sources for it. Most people seem to be saying that it’s 3x the “true” rate, but I’ve also heard that it’s higher than last CBT’s, and that before it was slowed down to prevent players from reaching untranslated/unpolished content. That makes me question the validity of this 3x EXP claim. Why would they start with an intentionally slowed EXP rate for CBT1, then change it to 3x the normal rate for CBT2? Doesn’t make much sense to me.
That aside, I like the current EXP rate. It’s a decent pace. There have been a few spots where I had trouble levelling when I ran out of quests and had to compete with other players in popular grinding areas, but overall I got by easily enough once I pulled together a full party in a good location. Lv200 is still fairly low for the expected scope of the game, so I think 1-2 months to hit 200 at my own pace is pretty reasonable (I’m sitting right now at lv128 because I got kind of lazy tbh). I felt like I was making good progress, and I’ve yet to reach a point where levelling feels like too much of a chore.
I like how the exp scaling resets at certain points, too. In the grand scheme of things it isn’t actually a big difference since you’d probably level at about the same speed if it were set up more linearly, but it makes it feel like I’m suddenly making huge steps in progress whenever my EXP scaling resets and suddenly I’m getting a bunch of levels at once.
In summary:
- EXP rates are good as they are now!
- The EXP tables having “milestones” where the scaling resets is great and makes it feel like you’re making speedy progress even when it’s stuck between periods of hours-long grinding. A nice touch! I like it!
2. Questing
I enjoy doing quests, and I feel like the quests we have right now are pretty good. They’re not “amazing”, but they’re what I expect from quests, and the rewards are decent enough. I mainly play as a solo player, so for levelling I’ve been doing quests for the most part and then running instances/grinding in dungeons with parties once I hit a gap. It got a little tough around 80~85, but I also skipped doing the lv50 instance at all before moving on, so… I probably could’ve gotten by much more smoothly by running that a few times in my 50’s before using my cards. Ah well.
Quests, though. Improvement is always a good thing, but right now, I don’t think changing quests should be a major priority. I like how I have to hunt around to find quests. My compulsive need to 100%-explore every map definitely pays off, and I like to look up each map online once I clear it to see if I missed any hidden quests so I can go back and hunt them down. Even if it’s only for one more EXP card, it always feels like a reward when I know I’ve fully cleared an area. One thing I’d like to see added, though, would be some way to track how many quests are left in an area without having to cheat and look it up online. Like how there’s a map exploration %, maybe there could be a quest completion % on each map, or an NPC/object interaction %? At the very least it’d be nice to know I’ve talked to every NPC on the map.
In summary:
- Quests are fine, but not amazing. Improvements and more variety would be wonderful!
- Maybe add a method to check how many quests are left in an area, such as a completion % similar to map exploration. This would allow players to know if they’ve done all the quests in an area without taking away the fun of exploring and finding the hidden quests on their own.
3. Grinding/Mob Density
As for grinding, which seems to be a sore point with a wide variety of players… personally, I haven’t had any problems with grinding, and I haven’t had to do it very much either. Instances give excellent EXP for those who don’t want to grind in a dungeon all day long, but still want to fight hordes of mobs and a boss for quick EXP. Forming a party with others also speeds up grinding immensely. As a solo player I know all too well how slow it is to grind alone, but keep in mind that when you’re in a party you’re gaining experience for every kill that every player in the group gets, and there’s a party bonus to make up for the fact that it’s divided between you all. A good party can make a huge difference in grinding speed.
The main issue with grinding in dungeons and fields is that mob density is weird. I feel like dungeons are set up to be packed with an obscene number of mobs while fields are supposed to be more sparse. I think that in itself is a fine way of doing things. However, I think both of these could use some adjustments. There should be some “safe” areas in dungeons for players to put down a bonfire, squires to set up repair/buff shops, etc. More often than not I’ll try to sit down at the edge of a dungeon in a spot that looks safe (usually next to the area’s statue or entrance) and barely a minute later some mob will come running at me from across the screen because someone happened to walk past with it chasing them.
The idea for this that I’ve come up with is that Goddess Statues could generate a sort of safe-haven in a tight area around them, and players standing in this area would be undetectable to monsters. Attacking a monster would still cause it to aggro the player as normal, but standing in the safe zone without initiating any attacks would leave players safe from attack, even if another nearby player is luring monsters near them. Basically, it would treat any players standing in this safe zone as invisible to monsters they aren’t directly attacking. Alternatively, monsters entering the safe zone could go into the “return” status and be teleported/forced to run back to their spawn point. The safe zone should be a small area, but just big enough for players to comfortably huddle around if they need a breather.
I don’t know much about Dievdirbys, but I know that class can carve goddess statues as well, so maybe that could be an extra side effect of the Vakarine statue for them to give it a little extra utility. Not sure if they need it, but a small portable no-aggro zone would be a nice thing to have in a party.
As for fields, it feels completely random which areas have dense packs of mobs and which areas are so sparse you can barely find anything. Fields should have a good number of enemies in them, but not as dense as dungeons. Dungeons should be the go-to spot for grinding. Fields should be designed to accommodate questing for the most part, so quest enemies should be easy to find and plentiful, but not so populated that you have no room to talk to NPCs or interact with quest objects. As it is now, it’s almost right, but the areas that are packed and the areas that are sparse don’t make a lot of sense. Sparse areas should be around NPCs and interactable objects, but a lot of the time the empty spots are in the middle of nowhere. These empty spots could instead be moved to areas with NPCs/quest objects, or just filled with more enemies so there’s more to go around.
One thing that I think would help out the more grinding-oriented players would be to add some sort of bonus to grinding in an area for a long period of time. I’ve seen mention of a Reaper boss that appears if you grind in one area too quickly, but it sounds like it’s more of an anti-bot feature right now and doesn’t give a lot of EXP or amazing rewards. Maybe this could be changed so that the boss is more of a reward than a punishment? Give it some really rare drops, or a high EXP reward, the difficulty of beating it + the limited time you’re given to do so should easily prevent it from being abused by AFKers and bots. Give players a reason to want to grind besides just levels and regular drops!
If that doesn’t work, maybe grinding in one spot for a long time could build up a meter of some sort, and filling this meter increases the chances of rare mobs appearing, adds a bonus modifier to EXP gain or drop rate, etc., that would be unique to each player or party. Something like that! It should take at least 1-2 hours of grinding in a full party to build this up to full, and the resulting bonus should be significant enough to encourage further grinding, but not so much that it makes levelling too easy. Solo grinding should take a bit longer to encourage party play, which is already the faster and preferred method of doing it anyway.
In summary:
- Keep dungeons tightly-packed for proper grinding, and fields more sparse and open for questing and casual play.
- Goddess Statues could create a small safe zone to give players (particularly dungeoning players!) a place where they can relax without worry of being attacked by passing enemies. This could also be a buff to Dievdirbys’ Vakarine Statue to give that class extra utility, because why not.
- Mob density in fields should be adjusted to fill up the barren, empty spaces and maybe clear out areas that are used for item interactions or talking to NPCs. This way, players can interact with quest objects without being interrupted by constant mob aggro.
- Reward players for grinding through methods such as kill-based boss spawns, a “grinding” meter that fills up as mobs are killed, or something else like that. Basically, there should be some tangible reward to grinding besides just gained EXP and items to make it more comparable to questing.
4. Channels/Social Features/Economy
The later regions need more channels. The issue was more prominent when the CBT had just started, since there was a huge wave of players all going through the same areas, but even after that wave dispersed I still run into issues where I sometimes can’t teleport to a map because the channel is full. There should be AT LEAST two or three channels for each map. More may be needed for more popular grinding spots, but I think 2-3 should be okay based on what I’ve seen in this CBT. One channel is just not acceptable.
The social features are a bit lacking right now, but I think that’s mainly because of all the glitches that have plagued them this CBT. The market is completely useless right now because when it isn’t down, it’s eating up items left and right. This absolutely needs to be fixed. Honestly, I’d rather have no market at all than a broken one come OBT. The buy-in shops are a nice touch. In most of the MMOs I’ve played players could only make shops for selling items, not buying, but I’ve quickly come to love how the buy-in shops work over regular ol’ selling shops.
The crafting classes’ shops are also really cool and it’s always great to see a helpful Squire setting up shop in a good grinding spot or next to a dungeon entrance. I haven’t seen many Pardoners, but I’ve seen a few Alchemists and I like what I’ve seen. I’m planning to go Alchemist myself so I can craft my own potions. However, I was a bit disappointed to find out Alchemist can’t make a potion shop like Pardoner’s buff shop… I think that’d be a nice touch to Alchemist, since they can craft handy potions and all. Squire gets two shops, so why not Alchemist as well? The Alchemist’s shop could allow them to sell the potions they’ve crafted. This way, they could also set up shop near a grinding area to give players somewhere to stock up on items, like how they can repair/buff at a Squire.
To continue being obviously biased towards Alchemist (a-ahaha…) I think they should be able to initiate Item Awakening with items in their party members’ inventory. Once I get Alch myself I’d really like to be able to help out my friends by buffing their items, and it could be another service to encourage players to seek out Alchemists for help. In the current state of things, from my understanding the Alchemist can use Item Awakening on an item by having it traded to them and trading it back after, but this uses up 2 points of potential and seems like it could be used for scams. Maybe Alchemist could have an option to open a portal for a party member to drop an item into, and this would start the Item Awakening and consume an extra point of potential, but the item would go right back to its owner’s inventory afterwards. This would make it impossible for a seedy Alchemist to scam another player out of an item, while also making it easier for other players to have their items buffed by a friendly Alchemist player.
Pardoner sounds like it could use a buff to its crafting/shop features as well, but I don’t know enough about the class to talk about it. I’ll leave that matter to a more knowledgeable player, I think.
Back to the other social features… well. Everything is broken, basically. Friends list is broken, guilds don’t exist yet, heck, even parties keep getting broken. Chatting is also a struggle, whispering other players doesn’t always go through and switching maps or channels can wipe out the whisper log completely. Being able to setup group whispers is cool, but the other issues with chatting make it kind of moot.
In summary:
- More channels in later areas, please! At least 2-3 channels per map would be ideal.
- Fix all the bugs related to the market, friends list, chatting, etc. We’ve all said it a million times by now, I think.
- Buy-in shops and class shops are cool!
- Maybe give Alchemist class a potion-selling shop and give them the option to use Item Awakening on party members’ items without having to trade the item to the Alchemist and back to the item’s owner. This would prevent possible scams and make Alchemists friends more handy to have around.
- Something something Pardoner shops. Not sure what, but they probably need something, anyway.
5. Combat/Boss Fights/General Gameplay (Mouse Controls)
Somehow, this ended up at the bottom of my list…
Mouse controls definitely need some work. I have a nifty gaming mouse and keyboard, so I generally prefer mouse controls when playing MMOs. It definitely feels like this setup was designed for ranges characters, but sometimes the cursor jumps around strangely, usually when I’m using WASD to move and then pop out a casting circle. There are also a lot of objects in the game that I cannot interact with using mouse controls. To be more specific, the altars in Altar Way wouldn’t even show up as interactable for me until I swapped to keyboard, and the NPC Lena in Klaipeda can only be talked to with keyboard controls. For general combat, though, mouse controls work very smoothly for the most part. Not sure how they fare with melee characters, but for ranged/magic classes I think they’ll do a good job once the bugs are smoothed out.
I, like many others, would very much like more hotkey customization. The settings for the mouse control shortcuts are strange and make no sense to me. Ctrl+# seems kind of awkward and I’m thankful that I have customizable hotkeys built into my mouse/keyboard as a workaround. I actually liked having jump on the X button like it is for keyboard mode, and I’m baffled as to why it was changed to the space bar in mouse mode. The X button doesn’t do anything different in mouse mode, so why change it? It’s a bit awkward to have Z and C serve a purpose in combat, but then X just does nothing.
Combat in general feels good. I have few complaints in that category, I genuinely enjoy running around blasting enemies away with magic. Bosses could use a bit of revamping, though. Some bosses have huge AoE attacks that are difficult to avoid, and as a squishy mage class this means a lot of getting smacked to the ground because I need to be in melee- to mid-range to use Fireball, my main DPS skill. This on its own isn’t that big a deal, because attacks like those can’t one-shot me even if they deal a good chunk… unless it’s a world boss. World bosses are incredibly unforgiving to non-tanking classes. This leads to a lot of frustration as a glass cannon build, because even if I do sacrifice some of my damage for more defence, I’m still going to get one- or two-shotted by an AoE skill that I can’t dodge at some point or another. It also doesn’t help that world bosses lead to a HUGE amount of lag, either due to the boss itself or the sheer number of players that flock to it, and my game will very frequently crash when trying to fight the boss. And if I can’t deal enough damage due to my frequent and often unavoidable deaths, all my efforts are completely wasted and I get nothing.
World bosses should require a minimum contribution of damage to give a reward, but I don’t think it’s fair to punish players for dying or crashing. Maybe as a compromise it could be set up so that contributing X% of damage, regardless of deaths, would count you as a participant and give you a reward, but breaking over the average or being in the top X% of damage dealt would reward you an extra cube. Being in a party would still cause this number to be shared between all players, and their contribution would basically be the party’s contribution divided by the number of players. This would also make it fair to solo players who can keep up with the DPS of the players in parties.
Aside from world bosses being a huge pain, though, the boss AI needs work. Some bosses provided a tough challenge for me, but some of them seemed kind of… broken. Sometimes lag would cause a boss to just stop responding for awhile. I’ve actually ran into world bosses before that have glitched like this and basically facetanked everything from attacking players from 100% hp to 0%, not even attempting to fight back. Glitches like this really need fixing. A boss fight should be tough, but not unfair.
In summary:
- Mouse controls need more fine-tuning. Some objects/NPCs can only be interacted with using keyboard controls, which can cause a lot of frustration and confusion for mouse-using players.
- Fully-customizable hotkeys! Please! I’ll do anything for them!!
- Adjust world boss damage or AoE warnings to make it more fair for glass cannon-type characters, and/or adjust the reward requirements so that dying doesn’t immediately nullify all the contributions you’ve already made. Getting one-shotted and wasting all your time and effort doesn’t make a boss fun to fight against!
- Fix bugs in boss AI that can cause them to stop responding and turn into animated punching bags.
There are probably more things I’ve missed or forgotten, but I’ll add those in if I remember them. I’ll also post my feedback on the classes I’ve had a chance to play (Wizard/PyromancerC2/Thaumaturge/Sorceror) later on. Right now I’m too tired to type up more @_@ But thank you for reading this far!