Tree of Savior Forum

Survivability of the game

General Discussion
#1

Not a doomsday thread, nor a troll thread. You guys know how I have been serious about making contributory discussions about the game, and my alter ego profile has been following since Project R1, and right now in light of a recent string of bad decisions, and looking of their financial and SEC reports (which are basically non-existent unless you really look in the right places, thank you, KOSDAQ), I guess now’s better than ever to discuss.

For the record, IMC stands for Impress. Motivate. Connect. at least according to their website, so yea, in case I hear another asking what the name even means or mock it. They are also a subsidiary of HanbitSoft, Inc. So Kim Hakkyu, and the rest, while influential, are smaller in the grand scheme of things pretty much the same way Gravity is now owned by Gungho, which is owned by Softbank (and believe me, recently it seems GungHo cared more about RO than Gravity does, not to mention the additional inclusion of Dream Square since those idiots back in Korea can’t innovate anymore and just want to milk it until the contract expires at 2033).

An MMO especially with a niche like that of RO or ToS has a life span of about 7-8 years, and reaches the peak and the 2nd to third year. Recently the peak actually passed us by, and stagnated, then spiked (did it back to what it originally was?) during F2P launch. Look, I know you guys hate comparing, but it’s inevitable to look in the past to predict the future if you need a model to sample it on, and RO is it, either that or GE.

RO survived for 16 years starting alpha, peaked at 2004-2005, declined steadily with poor business decisions (like the anime) and fell sharply in 2009-2010 following renewal, etc, but survives to this day, although now they are facing another yet decline.

I don’'t know much data for GE, so could GE players please provide?

Anyway, I would say that at this rate, the game would peak at…a year at best (if it didn’t already, but even kToS faced a decline and it just stagnated when not even a year passed, with maybe an occasional spike or dip). How long can its survivability be ensured?

Let’s take a look at the factors why they might survive or fail. Let the discussion commence. Weird little psychopaths and trolls are barred from entry. Economists are extremely welcome, especially those with access to KOSDAQ stocks.

1 Like
#2
#3

I recently quit this game because the way they executed this game was not good. I like the ideas behind this game but execution is key to anything. I believe its more important than creativity.

To be more specific about execution, one issue with this game right now is class balance. TOS has a very neat idea of building your class but right now the way they execute this idea, you can’t be too creative with your class build. There is some classes that is just better than other classes in almost every aspect.

Some issues with the class system is that, players do not know how far in advance the class ranks will hit. And what kind of classes are coming out. This makes it very hard for players to plan their character because most players right now are going to assume that there is not class reset. But because of this unknown, its making a lot of players worried about the class they choose. I think if the game will at least answer the players about having a class reset or giving the class jobs in advance before release will help players plan their character a bit better. Can you imagine how messed up it would be if a new class is introduce at rank 8 and all your build gets messed up because you had no way of planning for the new rank 8 class.

Furthermore, the party system is pretty bad right now. At higher levels it is hard to queue for a dungeon which made a lot of high level players just making a new character to play. Those who are fortunate enough to have a good guild or 5 party friend with similar level will not have this issue but for those who play this game alone and relies on auto-matching party system, this system will fail at higher level. Theres a lot of players like me who only log on to do daily missions and then log off because its too hard to find people for lv217+ dungoen queues.

Another issue is questing, at higher level its pretty tough to quest as an Archer. I play a Fletcher and at higher level, its so tough to do everything on my own. We need some kind of system that can easily pair you up with another player. I do like the idea that higher level questing pushes you to find a party but if the game is going to make you do that, at least find a way to make it easy for players to party up.

I think this game should never have released. It is much harder to bring back player after a game has finish fixing its flaws because by then the hype died already. And players already know that TOS have a bad history with these flaws. Had these big flaws been fixed and then launched, players would’ve stayed.

13 Likes
#4

This is the most well thought out review I’ve ever seen on the forums. Bravo.

1 Like
#5

thanks, its because i really looked forward to this game. But after playing since early access I just see so many flaws that makes me not want to play anymore. I thought I’d share this to people who really wants to invest time should know these troubles coming ahead. And hopefully the game developers and marketing team will see this and fix it despite the game already launched and the hype has already begin.

#6

I’m actually one of those who are having second thoughts right now about this game.

Every time I’m gonna grind or farm for like 2~3 hrs, I’ll end up thinking
“Is this really worth it?”

I’m starting to feel like I am wasting my time.

5 Likes
#7

Yup;

Reason why I think limiting dungeon entries this heavily is dumb. Dungeons give a way to people to play in a controlled environment WITH other people. So classes that are meant for supporting other classes can do their jobs.

They need to ease up on those dungeon entry restrictions for reals. Otherwise, what’s the point of going full support, because you love it if you’ll be forced to field hunting at end game.

They also need to fix the damn dungeon search for party, to allow people to join in the queue with a half formed party. Some times I feel this game’s systems are moving backwards.

Where are all the information we had from decades of failed MMORPGs. IMC should know what will work and what doesn’t.

Also, dungeons give people something challenging to do at endgame. What are they thinking people will do when they hit level cap? Login, play pvp nonstop and leave? What about people that don’t like PVP, specially witth the huge FPS drops the game has…

Heroic dungeons, legendary dungeons, etc. Ways to PVE with something to look for is never something you should limit as hard as they did, allowing only 2 dungeon entries a day. This is REALLY dumb and pisses me off.

1 Like
#8

in my opinion, this games need more party quests, party dungeons, guild quests, quests and adventures

the problems are
limited party dungeon,and no party quests. most of quests can be done with no party…

and too many bots

4 Likes
#9

I think its not too bad that they limit the dungeon entries. Because look, if a game is too focused in dungeon then that removes the aspect of open world. I personally prefer playing an mmorpg that is open world. Guild Wars 1 was a pretty fail game to me because it was mainly instance/dungeon based.

Open world in TOS does come with a flaw of finding players to play with. Most players will just ignore you if you try to party with them. This is actually a flaw in most mmorpg not even TOS. But because TOS makes questing so difficult at higher level (speaking for Archer-Fletcher specifically since thats my character), you pretty much have to find a party or else you will be sitting on a bonfire after killing 3 mobs only. That will be very time-consuming and not efficient.

There is a system in TOS that helps you find players around the same level with you. I think their idea is a very good idea that just needs to be executed better. If there was an easier way for players to party with each other in quest then that would make one aspect of the game much better.

I also agree with you about dungeons should be more challenging. As of right now Earth Tower is about killing XXX amount of monster in a certain amount of time. I rather have a dungeon that have more obstacle and puzzles. Maybe some people wont agree with this idea since they prefer mindless kills but I personally think it be much more fun if boss kills have obstacles and puzzles. Sort of like WoW bosses for those who played WoW. If the end-game dungeons were more based on how well you can detect patterns and doing obstacles and puzzles that is much more interesting than getting that one viable build for Earth Tower to kill mobs efficiently before a timer ticks off.

#10

Nice review! claps

#11

Thing about dungeons is simple:

They should not be limited. 50% of the players like to play solo, do field hunting and stuff like that while the other half enjoys dungeon crawling. Since this game is an action RPG it can be exhausting to play it specially for support classes.

I disagree with you when you say dungeons take away from field hunting. They have a ton of quests that people will need to do in order to level. Dungeons are a gap filler. A much necessary gap filler that can be also used by support class players to ACTUALLY make a difference.

It’s easy to notice that this is necessary if you ask yourself, what will you do if you are, say… A Chronolinker… You have very little damage dealing capabilities but you’ll enhance the gameplay for other classes.

You can’t expect a game to survive solely on a single playstyle. Meaning if people are forced to do only questing on the field, and they are obligated to look for parties on said party finder to grind, they’ll stop playing.

Why? Because at level cap, people that enjoy PVE wont go out for no reason to grind cause they don’t need to do so anymore. This will become Chatnarok all over again and I don’t want to have no reason to log into the game. It’s all about options. You should be able to choose rather than be forced into a path.

  • Do quests and grind mobs on the field to get materials for neat gear crafting;
  • Reach level requirement for dungeons and run them with friends or random parties like a real dungeon crawler to try and get your hands on that sweet rare gear;
  • Do guild questing or party questing to get rewards, money and achievements while enjoying a free roaming group content;
  • PvP and guild PVP;

Right now the game only offers:

  • Grind quests to get EXP cards, mostly solo because nobody will ever run with randoms (It happens sometimes but it’s rare and the parties usually disband fast);
  • Grind
  • Laggy guild PVP or pointless dueling;
  • Many dungeons but you can only do 2 a day, thus making the variety irrelevant since people will just stick to the most popular ones that are easier to find parties to and the matchmaking is garbage, not allowing you to have 2 friends and 2 randoms joining through the queue;
  • Party questing only at Fedimian… Level 100+;

You see… There is no choice on how you want to level up. That’s why most people will quit before they even reach level 100. I don’t want that to happen, that’s why Im so concerned.

I think we had a lot of experiences as MMORPG players and so did IMC. People watched games succeed and fail for decades now.

I’m playing MMORPGs since the early 2000s and it’s frustrating to see things that already failed back then being treated like it’s OK now.

2 Likes
#12

What they can do? Normally this kind of game should be play in a casual way but developer choose its to be in this way…
We do really need more grind spots to maintain the leveling grap along with dungeon, this way we can level much more effective…

#13

I should’ve known better…okay, glossing over some of the complaints (where are the positive posts that actually point out the improvement of the game’s survivability?), I’d say…58% of making it past the third year?

#14

Maybe Remove the Level Limit is good ?
In RO we can party with High level friend and farm at higher level place (leveling fast for new player) but TOS cant…

#15

You do know that how the game is designed directly affects how it will survive, right?

We can’t bring positive commentary when the game is not expected to last that long in it’s current state.

But if it’s that what you ask. Based on current review metadata and past MMORPG experiences from the company like Granado Espada, I’d say 4 to 5 years of survival. Cause of death would be the difficulty to retain and attract new players due to bad reputation and lack of content. Something similar to what happened to HoN.

Old MMORPGs survived so long because they were the first. RO just exists until now because it has a loyal playerbase that was acquired throughout it’s first years of existence. It’s rare to see people creating new accounts in RO servers now-a-days. Gravity actually almost left KOSDAQ, being saved by GungHo, they were completely broken.

With current competition ToS is expected to survive even less then that if they don’t do something about the game’s state. I’d agree with your prediction of 3 years at best.

Steam review ratios are dropping super fast and soon enough they’ll only have negative feedback which will draw people back from downloading and trying the game which will cause a snowball effect from there, downhill unfortunately.

#16

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

1 Like
#17

@satomitakashi if you are having problems questing as a fletcher you are doing something seriously wrong. sorry to be this rude, but fletcher is easy mode for questing.

Regarding this game being buggy and being released too early:
the community asked for this. people complain and complain that the game is not done. but you brought this upon yourself. IMC had plans for a 3 months staggered early access phase.
we are now half way through this and IMC is loosing so much time because of too many users since day one of ea and now even more because of f2p.

They have to focus nearly all their resources to stop the servers from breaking apart. If they stuck to the initial plan the game would be in a much better shape now and even better when the initially planned 3 months of early access would have ended.

to make a long story short, the community is to blame as much as imc is for giving in to the cry babies and not sticking to their initial plan because there was a good reason for it.

1 Like
#18

So, you mean to say that the game being successful at launch means the community is to blame for the problems?

I really don’t mean to be rude, but do you really believe that if a new very anticipated Store opens up with half their stock and they run out of stuff to sell and people complain about it, it’s the customer’s fault? >_>

Anyway, that aside… Game design choices has nothing to do with release plans. The game would have it’s flaws by design even if launch was smooth and according to plan.

#19

The problem with choosing comes balancing out what the elitists will do.

Say if, Dungeoning didn’t have a limit. So you’d grind straight from 50 to 70, 90 to 105~110, 115 to 130, and dungeoning yields onward, you’d destroy the want to actually have the fields around those levels, unless you wanted to backtrack once you were done grinding.

It’s exactly what happened in LaTale, alas. The game is just basically a Maplestory clone but with some innovations that made it casual and fun to play as you just chilled with friend and junk. It had a fairly vibrant world as you ran around the places retrieving the memories of a fallen warrior. But then, the Coliseum update came out. The game had it’s instances but they were more farm based

It was an instance that let you farm and level, and what ended up happening is that the speed you’d level up in Coliseum was much faster than most of the beginning game, and so people mostly grinded there and forsake the rest of the world simply because it was faster. It took like, a good year~2 years in itself until the game was revamped in itself to nerf the leveling of Early coliseum and buff the early leveling so people would actually go into the fields to quest, but that was the issue.

The point is, with options of how you want to level, come balancing issues. Letting dungeons become unlimited would require some sort of round-about nerf to them, as it’d just straight be better as it is to field grinding for cards. I do think that the game should have options for those without damage though, make it easier for Chronolinkers and full Tanks to level up, but they’d have to adjust ratios in my opinion.

2 Likes
#20

God damn it man.

You already have to backtrack as hell in this game. Either that or you’ll be grinding your ass off nonstop.

Dungeons don’t give that much Exp. It’s because they come right after a EXP reset that it feels like it. And to be fair I don’t think people would mind having more people to play with at level cap. Don’t need to make it super carebear style. They just need to tone down the dungeon Exp a bit. No biggy seriously.

Thing is. I don’t really care about “balancing issues”. That’s not my job. I am a player that loves the game but can’t play with my friends on something we love doing such as dungeons. I know that there are a lot of people that feel this way but don’t complain about it precisely because we have a portion of the playerbase that gets annoyed with the slight possibility of their non-lifeness grinding becoming easier for future players.

I agree that it needs to be tweaked. I’m not saying I want things easy, on the contrair I love challenges. I just want to not be forced to do the same thing everytime I log into the game. Sometimes I’m fine with grinding field mobs. Sometimes I want to experience various dungeons with my friends and right now ToS doesn’t even have that. Dungeons have no lore what-so-ever but they are fun to play, having to do your role and stuff. Different from field hunting which involves you killing stuff regardless of what class you are.