Well, there’s only 2 things I didn’t really like…
- Solo play in general
- The grinding
They both kinda go hand in hand since all I’ve really done so far in both the International and Korean server is solo grind a bunch of characters. (Well, not really the International server…I quit after playing in there for 5 hours.)
How I’ve grinded all my characters in the KR server so far was by doing every quest I could find on every map and reaping most of the EXP there via the EXP Cards…in typical linear, on-rails fashion. Even if I got a few blue mobs which would totally outlevel me even further than I already was, I’d still do the quests simply because I believed the EXP given from the cards was that worth it. I’ve done this process exactly 7 times and it only got more boring each time. Hiding the sub-quests did nothing but provide an unnecessary inconvenience for me since really, that’s the only thing IMC did. They didn’t even change the rewards or anything. I do however, appreciate their intention of encouraging exploration.
More on soloing…I’ve been on several MMOs I know I can get by mostly playing alone, but for some strange reason ToS is not one of them. Everything I’ve done solo is somehow twice as boring as it would be compared to every MMO I’ve ever played. I’ve never partied with anyone, so I can’t say for sure, but I believe that if I had done everything I did with at least one other person, the result is that the content would be either tolerable, or possibly even fun. I know IMC wants to make the game so that soloing is viable, but if it’s this boring, then I’m not sure what’s the point in the first place.
And finally, I know this is kind of a dreaded topic, but the EXP rates…they were horrible in iCBT which is the reason why I quit in the first place. I know I would get nothing done if I stayed, so I stuck to the KR server (random note here that the KR server did have iCBT-like rates for the first few days…I wasn’t about to go through that pain again). However, even though I’m nothing like the hardcore gamer I was 10 years ago and now I hate grinding so much, even I thought the current increased rates in KR server was way too much. (I know that’s not going to be the game’s official 1x rates, but just using it as a reference here) I suppose, what I would like is some middle ground between those two EXP rates…just enough for me to max level over 10 characters within a reasonable amount of time. There’s just so many classes and builds I want to try myself, you know? It would be pretty frustrating if I couldn’t try them all out just because it would take like 10 years or something, but it’d also be pretty damn boring if I could have all these max leveled characters within a couple months.
Well, that’s the end of my stupid ranting.