You experimenting too much

NovaX · December 7, 2021, 1:43pm

[a little critics for dev]

DISCLAIMER.CLICK BEFORE YOU READ

if you dev glad you are here. thx for spending time reading this.
if you whiteknight you can skip.
if you imc zealous fans you can skip.
if you sick of negative comment about the game, dont blame me, im giving comment, critics, and whether its positive or negative its due to object im discussing about, its not depend on me but my experience about the object in this case tos development.

it was good time. mostly great arts!! [praise maggi]

though after almost a year playing this game, with slight hiatus here and there, i gotta say im done with tos, now fully done, moved on, hiatus → quit

my biggest disappointment is because i think you experimenting too much devs!

im not disappointed because the last update, or my favorite class nerfed, not at all, im just disappointed with overall game progression all these time

at this rate i would never call this game an alpha game. its not ready to be served.

i wouldnt even call every changes you did to class system, skills, etc is improvement
but i absolutely sure that many of in game systems like classes and skills changes a lot not truly because unbalance issue

its because the game has no good base to begin with

like a building you build on an unstable land, and what you build is keep on breaking and you end up keep changing things, you might call it adapt, but what you did is actually struggling with the same thing over and over where you could just build on stable land and get your effort channeled for an actual improvement

theres saying changes for better, but thats when you have a standard, you cant just changing not knowing where you were stand

you dev basically god of the game, but in tos you made me feel like you are a fickle god

gotta say im sick of these

i felt like im not a player, more like a test subject

of couse having no changes to the system would also be ridiculous because its clearly seen that unbalance is an issue. its vibrant.

but whats more ridiculous is serving something that isnt ready yet to be served

mmorpg is indeed not a complete game, its work into a completion, with additions and improvements along the way, but this isnt what i expected of “non completed” game in mind.

if you were a chef you should serving things on my plate when its cooked and ready. i can accept such things like topping, extra sauce, new side dish, but i wouldnt want you to cook right on my plate when im eating it.

this game better be saved under “work in progress” section and build a better base until its ready as right now it is not

and if you keep continues you just gonna build on disappointment

nobody like to get disappointed and you will build more negative sentiments, which you already deserved.

feel free to comment or hate me i wont look back. feel free to flag this though you just hides another bitter truth imc shouldve realized

ridenraiden · December 8, 2021, 6:31pm

I agree, when I started playing I felt like I was having fun in the sense that I am the player. Currently, as you said, we go from player to testers. I don’t expect you to agree with what I wrote, but above all I just want you to respect my opinion, feel free to agree or disagree with my position.

draconis · December 9, 2021, 9:27am

This. When I started, the first year was a blast. I was slowly clearing the main story, exploring every map, killing mobs for AJ points and exp cards. Everything was challenging (Nahash Forest, Sausys Room 9, ET…). Now I can’t even play with mouse or keyboard while it would be plain trivial to fix, spend all my playtime in empty automatching Qs, have to suffer through a zillion visual effects for every enemy skill in the game that are not even properly placed (I’m looking at you Vasilisa), have my char permanently debilitated by sleep, petrification, poison, paralyzation, frost, stunning, silence (which also prevents you from HITTING mobs, go figure) and many more effect that pretty much every mob now has, not mentioning damage not registered sometimes (yeah how can AA vs tree root crystal miss). A new player wouldn’t even have to experience the fun of the early game anymore, as you now get everything to equip a level 460 character instantly and what’s left? nothing… you’re left alone in a world you don’t understand. Imagine you go skiing as a beginner and you’re given a monoski, forced to the top of the olympic track and then told “here’s the way down to the station, good luck…”

Blackwargreymon · December 11, 2021, 5:05am

Totally agree.
Their development cycles is somewhat messy, sorry to say, and you can tell from many past patches that more things must changes because new addition or new standard like damages, heal amount, how things work etcs

And like you said I also wouldn’t call it adapt but it’s just the base is so fragile

One among many reasons I believe this could happen is frequent dev changes in which no main dev who held the value of the base to defend it enough why it is this way, and there are more devs to agree why it has to change

With this settings keep continue the base will also continually changes in the future and players like you, us, left with confusion whether the devs know what they are doing or not and in the end left more negative sentiments about the game

So not only rebalance issue that is like a loop, their development is pretty much like a loop as well

Business wise they basically waste money on this loop like development where they can throw it off for better goals and potentially hook more players with better development achievements

A bad assumption that I would rather not believe is that this loop development is kept this way because it’s the most affordable way for devs to show they are working for the game by changing same thing over and over with totally less effort rather than make actual improvement so in short they prefer doing this lazy redoing same stuff, up and down numbers, rather than making new progress. Again Its bad assumption I rather not believe but It suddenly ecome one hipotesis of why this loops keep happen.

I mean look, most veteran or player who stick long enough talks about the development is just about whether their favorite class will get buff or nerfed in the future. Is this nerve wracking thought is what to expect from mmo development? No.

Agree. The game need a strong base. A base that adapt to recent addition, not a base that will continually changes with more additions. At least not this intense.

AinsOoalGown · December 11, 2021, 1:11am

I dont think this is opinion. it sound more like a fact to me.
i hope dev read this.

For me what I don’t get is how they don’t appreciate option at all

For example we had heal tiles, lots of people love it, but instead of making option (because duh we have attribute or even art that works like skill modifier) they just change it all the way. Why didn’t they applied it as option and so the game riches with more options? With more option theory crafting is gonna be more lively, attribute tab is rich, and we have the ability to choose what suits us the most. Did they not believe the idea players can leave because they change even a simple stuff like this when it’s one of players favorites?

I’m not trying to bring back heal tile debate, heal tile is just one single example of probably hundreds of things where they could apply option instead, which I personally believe it’s better decision because its prevent players disappointment, negative sentiments, and questions your past changes decisions

Another thing is indeed loop like development as mentioned
Let’s take an example of krivis. Krivis went to lots of overhaul mostly melstis(now piety) and Daino. It never really played that much until it’s dps output somewhat acceptable for many cleric players, it has its own vaivora, and in the end used by many top players and it become meta. And just when people start loving it you again nerf krivis damage skills cooldown which I think the most sucks of all nerf because it ruin skill cycles especially for time rush content like wbr or jsr. This 100% left disappointment and gonna leave you with more negative sentiments because that makes us question did you even know what you did back then to made krivis somewhat good just so you unsure about it now that you have to change it right when people start to love it?

Why couldn’t you just provide options?
Like for example if zaibas and divine stigma damage is considered top tier dmg skill why not add options to nerf the dmg but with old cd? For example if mid tier skill output should be x amount and the average cd is x amount than bring those two skills to that point and make this an option rather than forcing cd nerf

Also instead of focusing of nerfing why not focusing on making better options on bigger scale? Like if krivis is getting more attention that means other dps class are not at krivis level so the problem is not krivis but to bring the rest dps classes to krivis level so it produce same dps output. That’s more work to do but that’s absolutely not gonna leave any disappointment and instead enjoyment because the rest of dps classes that being compared to krivis literally feel neglected and with some level up across dps classes that means you equally care to all the classes not fully focusing on one even when it means nerf

And also give us more details… why it’s considered too op, what’s the test result, what is this skill categorized as top tier? Mid tier? What are the other examples? Let us compare… let us know…

And again, this krivis is just one single example, of what actually happened to many classes. So I hope if you are players you dont focus on what happens to krivis issues i mentioned but rather you focus on your favorite class or basicall any clearly this issue is apply to all.

the similarities with this issue is right now classes development mostly left majority with disappointment, inducing rage, and make us questions with your past decision, even left us question with the recent decision, and overall your decision making

This is an interesting pov. A perfect one to represent you dev and your decisions. because every decisions that alter previous decisions we as players be like “cmon dev get your sh*t together”.
you think a religion will having more follower knowing its god is so uncertain about its own past decision?? you have us vibe of a god regretting what you did and have no idea where are you heading to and what result you expected

ligerre98 · December 11, 2021, 10:52am

I always use the joke that IMC actually just throw ToS to some first year student as a project and each year we have a new batch of student work on it. And honestly this show clearly why each year a new system got introduced, a “balance patch” happen that make 1 build ridiculously overpowered and the rest of the year is spent on buffing to let other build catch up until a new batch of student come and experimenting again.

anbu.shinlona · December 11, 2021, 11:03am

While I’m not disagreeing with the criticisms stated here or anywhere else, I would like to just point out one simple fact…

The truth is… you all love this game, otherwise you would just quit and move on without an afterthought. Why so tsundere? Why can’t you just be honest about your feelings?

Blackwargreymon · December 11, 2021, 11:58am

Meh
I loved this game, loved, past tense
Now I won’t even hesitate to call it [insert any curse word]
It’s not the game problem, the game is just object, the game is just passenger and the driver who lead the game into their own doom is the one to blame
The game didn’t fail us the developments does

Hillgarm · December 11, 2021, 9:29pm

The main issue here is that they either don’t understand what’s the core feature that was supposed to sell the game or that some higher up isn’t allowing it to happen (maybe the risk is too high to bear). Which is the cause of all these wonky changes and rererereworks.

The thing ToS can offer that no other game can (as far as i’m aware) is the class combination system, yet few classes have a real reason to be picked over others. Any game that allows players to use a wide selection of characters will try to make the cast as diverse as possible, that’s a basic logical principle that many games in many genres follow. Of course, there will be some overlap as once the possibilities start drying out, but the case here is that these weren’t explored and those that existed were replaced by a slight variation of whatever is working/popular at time (to the point they deleted Sadhu for a while). I’ve played MMOs with less class options and they still managed to tried to make them as unique as they could, there’s no way the opposite approach would work in ToS. Class diversity should be their prime goal, yet we have class tress full of pure offensive classes and most of them are just remixes of other classes.

It also an issue that the game combat is so simplistic that they can’t explore a wide range of possibilities to expand the class diversity. There’s just one AI setup (maybe 2?). Monsters will always perform the same slow and telegraphed attacks, that can be avoided by walking in circles, and you don’t get any interaction from using a certain attack over other - at best, they’re just used as part of your combo/rotation, but that ignores the foe completely. No matter your build or class, the combat is solved by brute force. As a result, players are driven towards the “objectively stronger” option and devs are forced into breaking the meta to justify the existence of all the other options, and we get the current loop.

Which ties to the last thing that is… polarizing stats. Stats have been pushed to be on the hit kill side, which is a good idea when combat is pure brute force, but that excludes other playstyles like tank and control. There’s no room for them if the average DPS can nuke the room in a blink, well… tanks still have some in boss content (aside solo), too bad all of it time gated and you still have/had to level the character.

There’s a strong opposition between what the game core aspect needs and the direction set, either they have to abandon the class system and multiple class options or do a major overhaul to all of the core experience (newest releases are better than average but not nearly enough to salvage it).

Considering there haven’t been a single significant update to the combat experience, non related to damage numbers, in years (and when we had some, it was to remove features). It is possible. Yet again, they either aren’t allowed to pursue the natural direction or they just don’t ever take the time to step back and look what the natural direction is.

Here’s some trivia. The tsundere trope changed over the many iterations, now being reduced to people that bash on what they like as they lack the courage (or social aptitude) to be honest. However, the original was a bit more complicated. Tsundere see the true potential in their love interest and how that person doesn’t see it nor tries to achieve, which is the root of their frustration and negative interactions. All they want is that their love interest finally get its ■■■■ together so they can finally take a shot and, maybe, they can finally be a couple.

In this sense, i can say for sure that i’m tsundere towards ToS. Still waiting it to explore the potential it has, yet it keeps disappointing me (a bit less recently, still not enough).

hybrid01 · December 11, 2021, 9:48pm

so critics equal love eh? Lmao
It’s quite the opposite
Even a simple googling will enlighten you
Critics may equal care, but as someone who already leave something, critics may be the latest bit of concern
Like someone leaving a company, filling a feedback form is almost like a must
I get it if you haven’t reach to that life points, no good company ever hired you or your own company was just bad that doesn’t demand improvement via feedbacks, even informally and or verbally, i can understand

So anyway i didn’t see any love in his critics, and many of others critic above
Only love for maggi arts is mentioned and love for maggi arts is everlasting, and apparently despite they don’t hire maggi anymore the game arts assets 90%++ are maggi’s so if any love the game still deserve it’s for using maggi arts
As video games/mmo aspects tos have? It’s generic. Nothing special or groundbreaking
The game was good because it’s beautiful arts style, it’s pre rebuild class system, and the pleasure of build crafting which after every patches getting even more boring

draconis · December 13, 2021, 8:53am

Anyway there is something coming out this year called… ToS mobile. It’s the same as ToS… and completely different. I wonder if they could adapt the class system to use the mobile version one…

hybrid01 · December 13, 2021, 8:01pm

Idk where this faith coming from, but good luck on that. Im pretty much sure the game is developed by the same brain who develops pc tos so I don’t see why they will do any better here If their performance is kinda lacking in developing the pc one, especially their capricious decision making

Can anyone imagine if pc tos development which kinda like a mess implemented to mobile tos? Like the intensive skill rebalancing, uncompleted maintenance, abrupt temporary maintenance etcs etcs…

if they failed to generate money on this one this will be an extra workload for their small team and in the end making money will be their topmost priority and serving good game comes next

Blackwargreymon · December 13, 2021, 8:40pm

Yeah.
We discussed it somewhere else that full combat experience is too pricey for imc. They can only apply it to bosses and the rest of mobs are just punching bags that at the very best apply debuff, that’s what they translate combat experience for any mobs except bosses.
But talk about their loop development and this assumption, I was thinking that they just making an excuse, a lazy one, by keep redoing same thing, messing around with skill variables, just so it’s look like, for higher up who pay them and players who have faith in them, they make improvements where in actuality its just an easy outlet for them to show that they are working for the game, so in the end it takes a toll of their workload meanwhile the actual improvement end up become slow and rather shallow. But again this is just bad assumption I rather not believe, noone need to be triggered

neechan · December 15, 2021, 6:34am

good ol days like many people always said
i also always think that early tos is greater, maybe because things are more simple back then? it wasnt as complicated as now and there are less experimentation involved, even when its alpha, which is kinda funny
also the game was not fully about how to reach caps damage, how to acquired all available power ups, and all that. there were even more active mmo social aspects that i found more fascinating back then and no longer exist in the current in-game situation
theres even less things i love now with exception assisters
im lovin it
too bad i dont think they gonna improve it any further tho
i see that they are too busy with skill rebalancing to the point its seems endless and become like a pattern that players are waiting for
like when will my class get buffed??? or no… why did you nerf it??? what?? x tree rebalance schedule got delayed?? that kind of thing is like loop imc want to treasure.
i mean if they gonna redo or change skills and stuffs then what happened with the stuffs applied the last time?? why didnt they did it right back then and call it a day?? and if they change it again now, are they gonna change it again later?? when will this actually end?? is rebalance is really a viable goal or is it just a dream?? because with this so much loops, buff things to get it nerf later back and forth, its seems like its a total endless mess
i questions those as well
so in the end i get why you think that we are more like a tester than players, because we keep trying different things out, and see if it fit, and if its not, they will change it
its worse that the change isnt considered us here but mostly what kr players want and we just got whatever kr has
i believe if they want to they can actually use the effort for this endless rebalance for something else for example assisters that i love
i kinda sympathize them tho
i mean their updates quality would equal their earning from the game which i believe is low, but if they keep offer bad performance, or slow pace development, there is no way people will spend their money because they dont want to invest in wrong game, neither time or money, so they end up in a trap like situation.
as not so active players and not so active forumer i will just enjoy the game to the bare minimum and expect nothing much
its always easier that way, given the experience between me and imc and what they did to stuffs i loved in-game

Sunarya · February 16, 2022, 2:43am

Those examples are totally on point
especially the chef part, loved it

its like i ordered pepperoni pizza, then i loved their pepperoni, and along the way they remove the pepperoni and change it with broccoli !!.
its not only disappointing but also outraging.
Now they even rebrand their pepperoni pizza, now with another new stuffs in it, and i started to love and also hate things about it, and again they change it, removed what i loved and add more stuff i couldnt careless about to it, and thats all happening while im eating it, lol
this is such hilarious on point examples on whats happening in tos development
.
one thing i surprised is whiteknight didnt get butthurt by this thread and play with their toy flags
or maybe did we came to an agreement?
or they can finally read disclaimer?
whatever it is i do sincerely wish imc dev or even kim himself read this thread instead going for that secret interview
this requires you less effort, just willingnes to read or even translate it to kr instead of making your employees scheduling interviews with some boring questions
personally i see this may be big part of the answer you seek and this man give you the answer for free
no exp tomes needed

NovaX · February 18, 2022, 2:38am

thanks for the like @Staff_Alex i feel honored
now if you agree on what i stated i wish you can actually direct this message to imc devs thank you

still not interested to be back, im here just because of a popup and “window shopping” new gacha costumes.
looks good i`ll admit, but the rest of the games contents though and even future contents
not enough bait

fernando60957 · April 9, 2022, 12:36pm

This topic really resonates with how I feel and basically is making me want to close ToS right now (Literally giving it a chance for a week now…) because its simply true that regardless of all these ‘returning player keeping strategies’ going on, I do not feel like a player of a game but a test subject.

What is wrong with you IMC? You had a great game first year, with slow grindy progression, like a MMO should have, with great resource-boosting events that just made it even greater.

I really wonder if anybody invests real money on this game nowadays, and I wonder why they hate the game so much that they would do that, they only promote our suffering.