Tree of Savior Forum

Power Creep: What's Comes Next?

I just returned a month ago after a year-long hiatus, and I noticed something pretty weird: the increasingly insurmountable gap between veterans and newbies.

God gear (+16 and 10 trans velco with quad/penta stats) is such a huge step up from the average lvl 380 gear (+6 0-5 trans zvag/asio/wastrel with single/double stats) that it’s hard to find content that everyone enjoys.

Take for example dungeons and challenge mode. This content used to be run with other players. Now it’s expected of god-geared players to solo them, partying up with other players only in unique raids (velcoffer, asio, igni, and wastrel) where the content is only slightly challenging.

Slightly challenging for god-geared players is nigh impossible for the average 380 primus gear.

It’s pretty hard to run this content because the vets see non-vets as liabilities instead of assets here. After all, why party with an undergeared noob when you can party with fellow vets who melt mobs in the blink of an eye?

And never mind PvP like in crystal feud. God-geared toons only need to sneeze in my general direction, and my toon melts apart like wet tissue paper.

I’m genuinely worried about where all this is going, especially when the level cap increases once more. The power gap is wide enough as it is, and it’ll be sad to see that gap widen even further in the future.

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I don’t understand the issue from your post.

You’re saying you’ve come back to the game after a year off, and see that the gear gap is large? That makes perfect sense, someone who has farmed and played the game for a year should have good gear compared to someone who didn’t.

Mostly everyone that does dungeons still queues up for them.

Challenge mode has changed because people want all the silver and drops for themselves. But people still shout for groups for them. I have yet to run into a challenge mode or raid where someone was kicked because of their gear.

Gem feud is not what I’d consider pvp. I barely involve myself in pvp if I don’t have to in there. Focus on farming crystals so you can get your rewards.

Power creep is normal in mmos where it’s basically a gear treadmill game.

4 Likes

Well, no.
The power creep in ToS is way too much and became much worse with Rebuild. This is IMC choice to push everybody to endless farming without adding anything.

PvP is a huge mess and Feud can be frustrating as hell when one geared char can kill 10 ppl with a single skill. To be called PvP it shouldn’t have been so much gear-based.

I have been playing for a month now. Got level 380 primus gear. weapon is +11 trans 5. armor is +6 no trans yet. Steadily farming up in feud (yes, I focus on collecting crystals), silver in dungeons, and more silver in hunting grounds to get my armor to at least +4 trans.

True, power creep is normal in mmos–but my issue is with runaway power creep that alienates new players and discourages them from competing with and against veterans.

I wrote up this topic because the power gap now is much wider than when I last played, which was 1 year ago. It is ridiculous how easy god-geared toons wipe out bosses, much less regular mobs in CM and irredian hunting grounds.

And like what dragonfeian said, god-geared lvl390 toons can easily shrug off the damage of multiple average-gear 390 toons in PVP. Not only that, but they can literally kill them all in with one skill. No debuffs, no tactics, no skills–just plain old bigger numbers trumping everything else.

What’s worse is that you can’t even obtain end-game gear if you don’t have veteran friends/guildies willing to run velcoffers/ignis/asio/wastrel with you. You can’t run end-game raids until you get your end-game gear, but you can only get end-game gear from end-game raids.

That is unless you’re willing to spend a couple hundred hours slowly farming silver… which is exactly what I’m doing in feud, level dungeons, and irredian shelter T_T

2 Likes

One year ago was r9, so you should have either primus 350 or solmiki gear. I can tell you: that’s pretty fine even for current content. Don’t feel rushed to close the gap, you have time. What I’ve learned is that primus 380 vs primus 350 isn’t that great of an upgrade, and you would lose time and ressurces upgrading. Same goes for Wastrel/Asio, people do the raids to get weapons for ichoring their Velcoffer weapons. Take your time and start running Velcoffer to upgrade your stuff.

Yes it is a huge step. But unless you want to PvP, you don’t need god gear. I don’t use any Velcoffer stuff and I have no trouble doing everything the game offers.

There’s no reason to do dungeons solo unless you don’t want to wait in the queue. For CM, you want to solo them to get more drops and silver, I can understand, but nothing will prevent you from joining a party if you don’t want to solo. And the “god gear” will only help you solo CM stage 7. I’m soloing CM with my shitty primuses and I have no trouble as long as I decide to stop at stage 5. Good enough for me until they decide to up the rewards for stages 6/7, because atm you’re just getting those “discard on sight” potion recipes.

What? Velcoffer? Ignas? Asio/Wastrel? Those present no challenge whatsoever unless you forget to equip your armor and go without a healer…

Simple solution: find yourself a guild to enjoy content with others. In my guild, 90% of the people are like you and they still enjoy regular content like veterans.

Yes, PvP is another story. You need heavy investment for that: a build with high DPS and survivability, top tier weapon/armor, maxed attributes, and a lot of useful extras (accessories, sets, cards…). Unless you’re focusing into PvP exclusively, just farm your crystals in Feud and get your daily gems that way.

Don’t worry. The last update we had, Irredian Shelter, was supposed to bring us powerful mobs and dreadful bosses. The result: mobs there can be killed with Magic Missile by a wizard holding a Pajoritas Rod, and the Amiss Dog is so stupid he keeps swinging his mace at empty air while you’re pelting him with skills from behind. From what I’ve seen, the r11 content will be even more casual with legendary random items that will be the alternative to Velcoffer for people that don’t want to invest much time upgrading their stuff.

That’s better that what I have on half of my toons. It’s fine for now.

I know people on my server that play probably 6+ hours a day every day non stop and so have gathered top stuff for their PvP chars. You simply cannot compete with them, whatever you do, because they’ve put so much effort in the game and you will never be able to close the gap unless you do the same. No need to be discouraged, just play the game as you enjoy it and give your best.

2 Likes

I don’t think pvp is so geared based. I think it has more do to do with awful pvp balance of classes, the pvp content itself, and server issues (hello desyncing).

I’m trying to wrap my head around this concept. Can you elaborate on what you think is acceptable difference in new or returning player compared to veterans? If I farmed for a year, and someone takes a year off, I would expect to be stronger and do better than the person who took a year off or is new. Otherwise, no one would put in the time and effort to farm for so long. I guess we’re arguing to degree of difference, which goes back to what gap is “acceptable”

But they are alleviating this gap a bit with Ch11. You’ll be able to get legend grade gear from field farming. Basically the next tier after primus. And also it will have random transcendence. All crafted gear will have t5 automatically too.

I can’t recall, but I do believe the developers mention irredian was supposed to be a low entry hg even if it is the max level one. They want people to be able to farm it. So if it’s doable for new players, Of course veterans will steam roll it.

I think this is a poor excuse, you don’t need end game gear to do end game. Since rebuild, velcoffer and the raids are not difficult. I see shouts for pick up groups of raids nearly every day (especially beginning and end of the weeks).

You’re doing what everyone is doing, I do dungeons, saalus, gem feud, cm like everyday. People have just been doing it longer.

I think the biggest factors to slow gear progression are:

  1. Poor planning and sinking resources into poor choices.
  2. Not farming efficiently or recognizing how to use your time wisely. Especially true for their more rewarding events.
  3. Overreaching your resources.

And I’ve been guilty of all three.

  1. I spent hundreds of million ichoring borderline items that I’m now replacing.
  2. Example is the pig event currently. It gives extra 1k attributes to the person(s) who finds the most pigs. I don’t random queue for it, I find one friend and we zone in as a party and intentionally tie for first so we both get the bonus. Another was farming mats for wastrel, asio, ignas items that I was crafting where it was better to farm a certain mat, sell those and buy the mat I needed instead.
  3. Overspending on gears or items when I could prolly have waited for a better deal. Impatience sets you back.

These are just things people need to be mindful of if they want to eventually catch up to the veteran players. But as others have pointed out, some people just farm so much more, it is not realistic to catch up to some people unless you want to put in more time, effort, $$, into the game.

There are classes that can pvp with just a beefy weapon, so that should be your first focus, to get a +11 velco weapon and transcend it. I would avoid TBL for the most part since it is dominated by those with gear and attributes and dedicated pvp builds, but you can go gemstone daily with just a decent weapon.

This is why mmorpg died long time ago and moba/battle royale games become so popular.

All that a PvP player needs is a balanced environment that values more skill than gear or overpowered meta builds.

Lots of changes coming down the pipes in Ktos that will make a velcro/solmiki weapon just 2 weeks of raids instead of the current 5+ weeks. They’re also changing unique raids looting systems and trying to make it more new player friendly.

That said with a month back you could be well on your way to a velcoffer weapon. I’d ignore the armor for now beyone trans 2 or 3 because it isn’t going to add enough for the investment whereas a +11 velcoffer +5 would be a substantial DPS improvement (1 weapon vs 4 armor pieces… go weapon first always).

If you aren’t in a guild yet I’d highly encourage you to join one asap as well as they will make it easier to find CM7, Unique Raids, and Velcoffer parties.

Keep your chin up and set small goals. Prioritize a weapon and everything else will follow sooner after.

~Azura Skyy

2 Likes

Well… we have been doing velco for half a year by now… while u go on hiatua = w=
Its normal

not forgetting the double velco cube event, and half cost for rerolling them. That event really made velco the norm

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Like a few people have mentioned. What you are doing now is what the veterans are doing too. Weekly raids, daily challenge modes, gem feud etc. Just keep farming and you will get your gears too.

people can do content with moderatelly gear that requires a low ammount of invest
but if you wanna get strong in TOS you must invest a lot of time and effort to overcome a lot of RNG layers, the game is like this since rank 6 and will be forever lol, no news.
you play to get better gear, always.

that’s why they should fix gemstone asap

hi guys, dont be upset, pay to win!! buy premium item and sell for silver every month, everyone can catchup latest update selling premium wing then buy velco weapon +11 transd 10. :slight_smile:
current premium item is a transform magic girl worth 130-250m silver :wink:

the previous premium item is bless scroll transd 8 value around 130m silver

Trying to derail a semi-productive thread with your anti-mtx agenda doesn’t help. Make your own post for that as some of your criticism is fair but not warranted in this thread. OP has legitimate concerns on gearing and catching up and they can be addressed through gameplay.

Its fine if you aren’t willing to put in the effort to gear up but the options are there and OP could do it too. It you are convinced the game is so hheavily favoring to P2W players and trying to catch up is pointless, quietly retire and let people more interested in answer OP’s question stick around to help.

~Azura Skyy

MMORPG choice:
P2W or play casual

if OP really want to make a gap not far need a bit P2W, but if just want fun around no need P2W way maybe a bit luck can enjoy the casual style,

just like 2 last day I got asio and wastrel selection recipe from pokemon event,lol
irredian I got total until now 3 magic stone and I sell it at market, I play casual with a bit luck to adapt player whale P2W outhere :wink:

Take Berthas weapons / armor with no Trascendence and try to pvp with a somebody in Velco. Then come back and repeat me it’s not geared based :smiley:

So you’re saying a person in berthas gear and T0 should be able to 1v1 a person in full velco and T10? How does that make any sense?

I never said gear doesn’t play a part, I said I don’t think it’s such a huge contributor for the awful pvp atm.

PvP means Player vs Player, not Gear vs Gear.
A pvp where you do next to 0 dmg while being oneshotted it’s completely unbalanced.

So you want pvp content where everyone zones in naked and fight?

In MMOs that’s not feasible. You’re essentially discouraging people to do any gear farming in a gear farming game.

The middle ground would be to introduce pvp gear that is better for pvp than pve gear is. And only attained through pvp, something similar to what WoW did in their early pvp days into battlegrounds and arena. But you still run into the issues of highly geared pvp players beating lowly geared pvp players, which will most always be the case.

You want pvp where gear plays no role in a game where it’s all about the gear treadmill and farming. You’re playing the wrong game man, you want an fps game.