Like what Chalkie said, you won’t find that depth in the low levels, nor at the content you mentioned in the first post (dungeon, challenge… up to Lv 5).
The contents you are looking for might be in raids, some solo, some by party wherein learning mechanics is kinda important… and having some certain classes might be more advantageous
Play Path of Exile if you are looking for depth. ToS is not the game you want to play if you are looking for a challenge, this is just an anime inspired theme park.
Lemme clarify some things about this depth question. First, depth and challenge aren’t the same thing.
A challenge is composed of 3 main elements that the player has control over and can use to their advantage - (game) knowledge, (mechanical) execution and preparation. In ToS the one that has the most impact is preparation as challenges are designed around your equipment stats (around 80~95% value, the remaining split between knowledge and execution).
Depth is an aspect that is tied to the ability of a player to be a better player (as an active agent), which is directly related to knowledge and execution. This is the exact thing that the question that can be answered by “measuring” the gap between a long time veteran and a (competent) newcomer in several different scenarios, in conjunction with the playtime required to get to move from the lower end to the higher end.
This is where ToS faces a big issue regarding depth. Since most of the challenge weight is on preparation (equipment), there are rare occasions in which the player action/decision would change the win/defeat outcome, the times it happens it will be an specific thing that has only one way to deal with (or, fortunately, a particular class skill to counter it) and a massive punishment for not doing so. Depth needs the player self improvement to be expressive.
Here is where we get to the bottom line, if the content that has depth has level and equipment entry gates and is also limited (on team basis) what more of the game there is to enjoy? Is it right to say that the game has depth if only 10~5% of it has it and it is also limited? Even when you reach that point, how much of the player action/decision making has impact on the content? You can’t just say “well, you can’t expect the average/regular content to have depth” when you need to do that to reach the content with “depth”, and is also what you’ll be experiencing the most while playing the game.
The only depth i see in ToS is in the mechanical execution, and the gap isn’t that significant.
That’s a hard thing to balance out, but the more depth a game has the less likely is for a newcomer to be able to do it. The first game you mentioned had some interesting AI traits that made combat less stale, like casting detection, packing (enemies target players when on of their kind is harmed), shape shifting (not that common), invisibility (and invisibility detection) and utility skill casting (which is present but not expressive in ToS), and they would also always connect the attack. Since almost every enemy behaves the same you can’t get a sense of live from the game nor be pushed into changing your combat approach.
Fashion truly sets the veterans apart from the newbies in this game.
Jokes aside, what you’re looking for are probably class combinations that are either full support, whose gear can be spezialized in healing power, pvp-focused classes with gear special in con, block, resistances, etc. or debuff builds where you add certain classes to your build like Retiarius, Rangda, Psychokino, etc. that can be mixed with pvp-focused builds.
this game used to have more depths.
especially with the old class circle system. i love the discussions about how many circle of each class should we take back then for our build,the crazy combination, the limitation of class rank, and so on. When they advertised rebuild that we can make more combination with the new class system just because they remove the rank limitation, i said its bs. more class-focus?yes, more balance?yes, more boring?yes, more combination?no.
the old stat free distribution also created more depths rather than our current fixed distribution and some distributable extra stats. its something i still really disappointed about this game, kinda make this rpg like some auto mobile game where you just watch your toon slaying mobs and do a little click here and there. what disappoint me more is the reason behind this is to prevent newbs from messing with their stats. like cmon… this is like the cheapest reason you could make.its like “im not gonna selling more knife cause im afraid people will use it to kill instead of slicing potato”. even in game you need to be wise and careful.
if i have to read the history back with imc decisions theres more to hurt than pleasant.well the new update give some ease, but majority would think they could`ve made a better decision.or maybe not just yet.
we all here just waiting on how kr community will shape this game.
the reason im still back to the game is the art style.
if you look for depths, better moving on to the one you believe have more depth and have fun with it. comparing it just wont work. its like comparing banana to apple that created by different gods.
let me enjoy the gumiho tails i just got by buying cubes, having euphoric moment for couple of seconds, and i ll be back in 4 months until they add 4ever update.
Bosses here also have pesky mechanics you have to deal with. It so just happens that people are mowing through the bosses’ HP for any mechanic to not matter at all.
You think ragnarok has interesting mechanics and ■■■■? The only depth Ragnarok have over this game is that you need to have multiple sets of armors for hard-hitting elemental skills. (Which actually makes the it easier because you can just tank the hits if you brought the right elemental armor).
Watch this video:
So where exactly is the difference?
I’d never say RO isa better game (or even a good game), i’ve played that game long enough to know all the bad things it has, for a long time i’ve believed ToS was an upgrade in game design but now i’m not that sure…
Even the way RO is (or was) it still has some interesting design elements that aren’t present in ToS, such as the feel of threat you have when isolated and the ability to spot enemies by sound. No matter your level or equipment, you can always die in a map of corresponding level. The enemy traits i mentioned also made a clearer distinction on which enemies were stronger and weaker against specific class archetypes, yet players had means to win fights with new different strategies that weren’t only related to their equipment (even if it was buying a lot of potions, which is also part of preparation). A regular player in RO will die a lot while grinding, and death has a significant penalty there.
The classic roster classes there also have a more clearer strength, weaknesses and playstyles when compared to others, with some being unique and exclusive to them. It’s a shame that this doesn’t really matter when you can just rely on a single damage skill and spam the hell out of it or just use basic attacks all the way, but at least there you may have to reconsider your strategy once in a while once the SP management reaches critical levels.
Now, for bosses in particular? Those were always a huge pile of garbage that had insane stats to just kill you as fast as possible and minimum counterplay, to the point the only viable strategies were to spam a nuke skill as much as you can and try to minimize the damage received. I can’t think about any game that had such bad boss fight design than RO. The only redeeming value on their bosses was that each one had an individual drop table so you had reasons to fight one over other, and that’s it…
That one guy had a full party working to maximize their individual power. Now being serious, it’s indeed on the same level. It isn’t as bad for RO to be like that considering it’s a 18y old game that has barely being updated to modern game standards
Since i haven’t played in any newer content from unique Skiaclipse onward, i can’t know how different it is from the other bosses, but as far as i know (which is also the majority) the only significant mechanic is to walk outside their attacks, ocasional special events at certain % threshold (for instance bosses) and rare special buffs/skills that aren’t fun (like Tutu’s reflect that is barely can be noticed when casted). It’s indeed more interesting than monster combat but still not enough.
Now if you excuse me i need to cleanse myself after defending RO for that long.
Bad thing about this game is that the devs didn’t seem to taken into account the difficulty vs fully geared players. Then it’s magnified by the fact that more than half of the players are fully geared. It’s rare to find a fully party of intermediate players doign the hard dungeons, it’s usually 3 veterans + 2 newbies/intermediate players.
For example, Legend Skiaclipe’s first round would be a pose a challenge to immediate players because you have to kill the mobs at the same time. But because fully geared players just easily burst the mobs, it becomes slightly a no-brainer.
I’d bet that if a party of newcomers and intermediate players do Velco they would still find it slightly difficult even though it’s old content, even with event Savinose.
Do note that the video I linked is a boss that is supposedly take 10-20mins to kill for intermediate players, and have a lot of skills that can 1hit you if you don’t dodge. But it’s negated by the fact that it got statchecked before it was able to do anything. It’s the same problem this game have.
RO’s difficulty in grind and normal content has something to do with following the design of older MMOs. I believe ToS followed the same principle way back(from what I’ve heard) but made it more casual on newer updates since the game is dying anyways.
Agreed. I also have well over 1000 hours in. This game is torture. Sure it’s fun because of the MMORPG addiction we all have, but in my case because I work over 70 hours a week, I’m losing my sleep over this.
Though I’ll clarify that I only came back because of the recent 2020 event, but I’m still here because I need to finish rebuilding all of my characters that got messed up from re:build before the time limit to change my base classes are over.
I only have like 10 more days left to decide on my builds for all of my characters. Do you know how long it takes to theorycraft and balance your team again when you had 12+ characters from only 4 bass classes before and now they’ve been split into 5 base classes??
This is the most stressful experience I am going through with this game. I wish I never logged in truthfully. Lol. The +10 T8 Savinose stuff from the event isn’t even worth the headache that I could have dealt with at a later time after preparing myself.
I feel like the company has a gun against my head to decide on my characters’ builds before the time limit is up or else I will forever lose the opportunity to re-make the characters that I’ve built up with the previous class system.
I still absolutely loathe that they penalize and capitalize on any mistake you make in building up a character.
I just want to have the freedom to un-do and re-work and play around with all these build ideas! For example, let me try level 3 Bunshin and then level 10 Bunshin and see what the difference is. The tooltip doesn’t explain the difference. Let me test this without needing to pay for a skill reset because of the lack of information available.
Why can’t things be straightforward and fun and not daunting to do without putting in the exhorbitent amount of time required to create a new character from scratch or paying a substantial amount of cash for each little change?
I’m scared to make big decisions because of how big the penalties are.
This is supposed to be a game, not a job. I believe the fun here is the theorycrafting and testing the skill synergies that the game is plentiful in. But you can’t test everything, only those who spend $10 for each little test can do this. Or those who can put in 20 hours a day to max level a new character for each little change you want to test out. It’s like the company doesn’t want you to have fun.
No Fun Allowed.
On a side note, for any executives or administrators reading, my advice to improve TOS and to regain and maintain the player base for iTOS, at least in NA demographic, is to be more generous to customizing builds. And stop being generous with all these free legendary equipment giveaways.
Events should be for fun and to be enjoyed by the community, not be forced on to players as a job to keep up with everyone else.
Honestly, focusing on bribing players with “end game” equipment is the wrong way to appease the player base. You already have a great monetization system with tokens, gatcha and layers of enhancement hurdles. But by crippling the players and punishing them for their mistakes in building their characters, you’re just driving away the f2p player base. By driving away f2p players, you are effectively advertising yourself as an unpopular game and thus losing potential p2p players.
Case in point how your kind of events don’t work is myself. I purchased TP before for cosmetic costumes, hairstyles and token. But I stopped purchasing TP because I don’t need to. There’s no new costumes or hairstyles and token is too cheap on the market.
As for gear, I was one of the winners of the Solmiki weapon box from the 2017 Halloween event. I’m confident to say that that event was a huge failure and you lost a large percentage of your player base due to the ridiculousness of the reward at the time. Solmiki weapons took a geared team months! And with the event, just about anyone could save hundreds of hours and get a solmiki weapon for free.
Leading to now, I came back for the 2020 event to just pick up the free legendary gear. And guess what, I still don’t charge TP. Why? Because I’m given all these legendary equipment for free!!! Why!!! Lol.
I’m not going to spend $10 to see if my build would be better with 3 points in skill x or 10 points. I’d rather just abandon the game. Is how a lot of players think, more often than you’d expect. The monetization on this aspect is off the mark.
Trying to earn a few % revenue from this aspect of the game is not worth the risk of losing player base. Return rate is absolutely horrid.
I just don’t understand how people with no substantial business acumen are in charge of these gems of a project. TOS can be an amazing game if it was lead by the right team.
/End rant. /Satisficafion
Haha this is so true. We’re all trapped forever.
When you work 70 hours a day and still wanna play this game which causes you lose sleep. I don’t know man. either the game is just too good and it keeps you going, or you just made bad call losing sleep over a below average game.
I think you’ve misunderstood the context; I agree, after playing this new meta environment, that the savinose gear they gave away is not end game. It’s “end game”. On the contrary, for the 2017 Halloween event, if you were able to play during that meta, the solmiki weapons were God tier with only a handful of players on each server able to obtain them for many reasons.
The point I was trying to make is that they’re doing the wrong things to attract and/or retain players.
And yes… Tokens are cheap… At least on Klai server. Silver is a whole lot easier to obtain now than ever before in my opinion and token prices have not inflated accordingly. But I suppose my views may be skewed as I am not a new player.
To reiterate, I am only still playing because I haven’t yet finalized my builds for all of my characters. They gave me a time limit of 30 days since logging into my characters to change the base class. And I only logged in to obtain the event gear and check up on the game since it’s been a while.
For example, my swordsman shinobi? What do I do, make him the same build? Wait, I can’t because shinobi got moved to the new scout base class. My wizard rune caster enchanter? No I can’t, enchanter got moved to scout.
I have to rework these characters by switching their base classes and I only have so much time to do this. If I don’t finish within the time limit, my characters will be forever disfigured to the 4 base classes in the old system while lacking the core classes that made them unique.
I’m outta here once I finish the builds. Lol.
Edit: at least until work eases up 
then I’ll be back to explore the new changes in the game I missed out on. A full 2 years of content, gonna be interesting.
there are only 24 hours a day
Like I have mentioned in my previous reply, I have been doing less and less hours into ToS and I can safely say I feel “free”.
Not logging in for daily attendace or a quick saalus run still makes me sometimes feel I am “wasting my opportunity” for quick rewards. However, having the the same issues, same gameplay, and doing it becomes so tedious it feels I am “working”. I am exhausted of this game.
I won’t deny, I have recently moved to another fantasy shooter game. Perhaps I needed something new? Maybe. I am not here to promote it but, the game feels very much rewarding with all my efforts, graphics is awesome and I don’t get those nasty lags and disconnects I experience in ToS.
I honestly feel liberated simply by not logging to ToS anymore. But that is just me. And we have our own reasons for playing/not playing a game.
Perhaps if ep12 comes, will give it another go a few days. But seeing that there are simply other games out there that are flat out better in all aspects, I highly doubt ever returning.
The +11 t8 savi will be the level 400 equivalent to the free “kedorian” stuff you get from WoV till level 350 and the free Pajauta stuff you get at level 380. For episode 12, we’ll be “in between”, as there will be no Disnai stuff to plug the gap yet. I guess it’ll be ok to simply level up your chars by doing the quests, but not enough if you plan on doing the forthcoming endgame stuff.
using savinose has its own merit tho: you dont obligated to prepare a perfect random lv 430 ichor (which what the developer aim to make veteran busy for a while).
I feel sad to all the newbie who buying +16 savinose weapon within this last weekend of episode 11 from older players panic shouting, wasting all their hard-earned money for soon-to-be obsolete weapon, instead of buying clean varna
Just cause your wep isnt the best doesnt mean its worthless or completely obsolete. It is just not the optimal piece to use.
Though, the crit increase from savinose to primus disney is really significant, and is probably required to get any good crit chance. But otherwise, its not the end of the world for intermediate equipment.
Obviously savinose legva is not endgame capable, but its more than enough to do most content in the game comfortably.
still, rather than buying +16 savinose weapon for 150m, you better buy clean varna weapon for <100m, right? evil seller or gullible buyer?
What Fenatte had said. Besides, the savi armor set had been a giveaway since 2 events ago. How is something free really worth it…?