An analysis of PL's current state

[Blyzzor]

I'm sorry if this is hard to read, I'm not a native english speaker but I tried making it interesting to read, hope you can invest some time into reading this and give me thoughts, I may not have come up with the best solutions to these problems, nor have I thought of solutions too much, but these things need fixing.


1. Low levels

I've said this before, low levels still need help. Despite adding the guaranteed combo elixirs through daily blessings, low levels still need help. This game is slowly going to die for certain if this problem isn't fixed. It needs some work, but it's going to be a game changer for PL if it's done the right way. Now more than ever lower levels are pretty dead. After removing all pvp level restrictions, low level item prices have gone drastically down due to their low amount of use, which is actually a fairly good thing for new players. The dedicated endgame community sits in oktal towns and levels to endgame buying all access elixirs using expensive pets which a typical new player will not be able to buy especially after seeing the game's state in lower levels. Very few experienced players level in a traditional way in the old maps, which leaves new players to level by themselves (mostly alone).

Proper runs still don't really exist in lower levels and despite new people getting decent items and guaranteed combo elixir now, it is still extremely hard for them to level.

1. Few players playing and running, which makes leveling friends very hard to come by

2. Low knowledge, where to go + what to do + how to level efficiently... big questions

3. The amount of work in relation to new players' average time spent playing this game. We know an average new player doesn't grind 6 hours a day.

4. Bad game searching tool (interface), which goes hand in hand with low knowledge. Even if a new player understands how it works, I don't believe it helps much as they don't know which runs to join etc etc. I think 80% of new players don't use this tool the proper way and all this lowers the amount of runs quite a lot.

5. The rough endgame barrier 70-85. A typical new player doesn't buy platinum nor does he/she have enough gold for a good pet, disabling their access to good dungeons completely. Blacksmoke is a map with very low activity on top of huge amounts of xp required to level up. I believe Maze can be still joined only through a Zone rift. I think now it would be reasonable to give everyone free access OR 10-20 platinum permanent access to prison. Prison/dungeon/maze are all dungeons in which a lot of people don't run (usually empty, and blacksmoke is as bad if not worse), this way we would have a valid way to level to 85 and do it with other people. Blacksmoke should be forgotten, there's no reason to make people get stuck there.

Right now even when a player hits 80, lvling is very hard as oktal rax still lacks people running and you will end up there by yourself most of the time, and not owning a pet makes running rax so slow while earning very little xp. After getting to 85 a player can join the journey to lvl 100.

There's a good amount of low level people wanting to play this game and proceed to endgame, but it is near impossible at the moment if you look at it through a new players perspective. Right now they're stuck in balefort castle BEGGING people to level them. It's quite depressing actually. I suggest nerfing armor and adding xp orbs to all dungeons below 80 making it possible to run alone and reach lvl 80 in about 10-15 hours.

2. Clean platinum store and make it ATTRACTIVE

Right now platinum store is a mess, containing a lot of old and useless things which cost an absurd amount of platinum. It would be amazing if the platinum store contained things people want to spend platinum on. This would mean removing useless over-expensive tickets and adding things with a reasonable cost and use, such as the 20 platinum prison access.

3. Fix endgame leveling/dungeons

At the moment endgame leveling is a tad bit too boring and long. All 3 maps consist of Green big monsters with an absurd amount of health and dodge which increases every map. While people wanted long and rewarding leveling, this takes long yes, but it is definitely not rewarding and it is boring. The mobs have too much dodge making it impossible for bears to make proper pulls. The dungeons should contain ranged and melee mobs with lower dodge in narrow hallways where we could do runs like we used to, meaning no full map pulls and uncontrollable stunning mobs, with some interesting farming. This takes too long and it gets boring pretty quick. I'm already struggling to find runs during the day and I can see people complaining in a couple of weeks. Maybe just start with decreasing dodge a bit and increasing xp orbs drop rate a bit.

4. Elite farming and elite quests

3 words, CHALLENGING, GRINDING AND REWARDING. It has been asked for earlier countless times and maybe it's in the making but we need it. Pve is the real way to activate people in this game. No dull maps please

5. Balance between p2p and f2p

I don't have a proper idea on this, but I don't like this current imbalance between f2p and p2p players, I guess my previous suggestions kind of fix the problem but I'd like to see stability for free to play players as well as rewarding plat users in the right way. I think this game is definitely playable for f2p players, even more now since combo elixirs are free.
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Maybe I'm missing something but I hope Cinco can take a look at this and take the time to read it, these are some issues that seriously need to get fixed before pvp or any other not that productive stuff. We need longevity in this game.

[XghostzX]

Great post!

One thing I might add to #4 (elite farming at the bottom) is that a simple recoloration of starries/holo shields/dragon armor would get players farming again. Make these items farmable but tough to get.

[Dolloway]

1. Low levels

I've said this before, low levels still need help. Despite adding the guaranteed combo elixirs through daily blessings, low levels still need help. This game is slowly going to die for certain if this problem isn't fixed. It needs some work, but it's going to be a game changer for PL if it's done the right way. Now more than ever lower levels are pretty dead. After removing all pvp level restrictions, low level item prices have gone drastically down due to their low amount of use, which is actually a fairly good thing for new players. The dedicated endgame community sits in oktal towns and levels to endgame buying all access elixirs using expensive pets which a typical new player will not be able to buy especially after seeing the game's state in lower levels. Very few experienced players level in a traditional way in the old maps, which leaves new players to level by themselves (mostly alone).

I was thinking about this the other day while talking to a friend of mine. The market for levels 1-84 items has completely dipped because of the pvp level restriction change, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The thing is though, those items are still not being bought and used by players because of the little demand for them.

To add to this, as you said, very few experienced players will level in old maps, so the newer players will have to go on their own and often alone. This means that players most likely won't develop and hone skills for the class they decide to play, whether that's mage with proper healing, revs and aoe dmg, bears with aggro, crowd control, debuffs, and so forth. Some players will even quit before unlocking all skills, purely out of frustration because maps are often empty compared to the higher end maps (and even then, those are becoming empty because of the tediousness).

Proper runs still don't really exist in lower levels and despite new people getting decent items and guaranteed combo elixir now, it is still extremely hard for them to level.

2. Low knowledge, where to go + what to do + how to level efficiently... big questions

There are plenty of guides on forums that explain all this in detail. I wish they would again utilize the info section where they've put links to past community contest winners and such and just replace some of these links with guides, even if your idea is implemented and it's just an in-depth guide on how to level from 1-85 in the most efficient way after leveling is made much easier for the newer players.

4. Bad game searching tool (interface), which goes hand in hand with low knowledge. Even if a new player understands how it works, I don't believe it helps much as they don't know which runs to join etc etc. I think 80% of new players don't use this tool the proper way and all this lowers the amount of runs quite a lot.

The searching tool is pretty bad, especially for pvp games. I have to go to the 'All' section to find all pvp rooms because they don't show up on the 'Pvp' section outside of a 5 level range. There are a lot of other players who don't know to do this as well. I imagine this is very similar for PVE games as well.

5. The rough endgame barrier 70-85. A typical new player doesn't buy platinum nor does he/she have enough gold for a good pet, disabling their access to good dungeons completely. Blacksmoke is a map with very low activity on top of huge amounts of xp required to level up. I believe Maze can be still joined only through a Zone rift. I think now it would be reasonable to give everyone free access OR 10-20 platinum permanent access to prison. Prison/dungeon/maze are all dungeons in which a lot of people don't run (usually empty, and blacksmoke is as bad if not worse), this way we would have a valid way to level to 85 and do it with other people. Blacksmoke should be forgotten, there's no reason to make people get stuck there.

I wouldn't be opposed to this idea, although I think a much better idea is this one below:

There's a good amount of low level people wanting to play this game and proceed to endgame, but it is near impossible at the moment if you look at it through a new players perspective. Right now they're stuck in balefort castle BEGGING people to level them. It's quite depressing actually. I suggest nerfing armor and adding xp orbs to all dungeons below 80 making it possible to run alone and reach lvl 80 in about 10-15 hours.

Adding xp orbs to all dungeons below 80 would be great. People wouldn't need Prison access until it's the best map for their character to level in (around 75-80). The older maps could use this addition, since they're sort of outdated ever since the orbs were implemented into the game. This could also revitalize the activity in these maps, if people want to farm a particular item or set but also want to level in the quickest ways possible.

2. Clean platinum store and make it ATTRACTIVE

Right now platinum store is a mess, containing a lot of old and useless things which cost an absurd amount of platinum. It would be amazing if the platinum store contained things people want to spend platinum on. This would mean removing useless over-expensive tickets and adding things with a reasonable cost and use, such as the 20 platinum prison access.

I agree. Either give things like platinum rings a purpose or delete them from the store entirely. They serve no purpose in the game as of right now. There's a lot of other useless items in the store like these rings.

3. Fix endgame leveling/dungeons

At the moment endgame leveling is a tad bit too boring and long. All 3 maps consist of Green big monsters with an absurd amount of health and dodge which increases every map. While people wanted long and rewarding leveling, this takes long yes, but it is definitely not rewarding and it is boring. The mobs have too much dodge making it impossible for bears to make proper pulls. The dungeons should contain ranged and melee mobs with lower dodge in narrow hallways where we could do runs like we used to, meaning no full map pulls and uncontrollable stunning mobs, with some interesting farming. This takes too long and it gets boring pretty quick. I'm already struggling to find runs during the day and I can see people complaining in a couple of weeks. Maybe just start with decreasing dodge a bit and increasing xp orbs drop rate a bit.

The way the Swamps maps work is just bad. First off, you can just equip a pet and wear any gear you want after that because the pet gives insane stats and whatever gear you wear doesn't matter after that. If you equip an aoe weapon that can shoot all mobs at once while you have the pet equipped, you're all set. Doesn't matter the level of the weapon, even if it's a level 30 brain freeze staff. The fact that level 30 brain freeze staves are better to deal with Swamps mobs than a level 85 Rysac staff (single target shooting) to me means that this wasn't thought through enough. I see mostly every class going int just to equip an aoe weapon for the easiest way of clearing these maps (pulling all and then hitting all with aoe weapon). The higher tier items (85) or at least the new items (90 or 95) perhaps should have been aoe.

As to your point that leveling and questing isn't rewarding, I would have to agree. What people wanted before this cap was even implemented were elite quests with elite rewards, similar to that of the Dragonet quest rewards. What was great about that quest was that you could farm a map for Black Dragon (which was going to be discontinued) and also get your quest done while you farm. And of course, each quest reward had a cool and unique proc that suited each class well.

The current rewards are sort of lackluster. The 90 shield can be worn by any class, the 95 reward is just a ring that is used to complete the 100 sets, and the 100 reward is just a non-statted pet that you have to spend 15-20m on before it gives you any use. Even after leveling all the way to 100, you still have to spend 15-20m to craft it just to get any use out of your 'reward'.

As for the style and shape of the maps, this definitely needs work. The maps are not in a close and narrow shape where a bear can pull all mobs to a corner or wall while the rest of the team finishes. Long gone are the days where a melee bear is actually useful to the team in the way that it was originally designed to be in PVE. Nowadays I'd take a ranged bear over a melee bear any day on my team. Even if a melee bear does decide to do pull mobs on Swamps maps, 1) the bear would get stunned to death for trying to hit the mobs with a melee weapon in close range 2) it's more advantageous to pull the entire map for faster clearing and to run in circles rather than wall mobs for a potential scattering of mobs/beckon being dodged and then mobs not being all bunched up. The player producing the most dmg will likely gain aggro anyway and completely mess this up and further scatter/spread mobs anyway while your poor bear gets his beckon dodged by half the mobs like usual.

The mobs need a huge dodge reduction. There's no real reason one third or half the mobs should be dodging beckon every time the bear casts the skill (well, depending on which map you do, I suppose). They also need a stun reduction. The stuns are honestly tedious after a while.

To add onto this point, the same goes for the Warlord boss on Asylum Earth maps. The boss dodges blast/barrels way too much, to the point where you're just sitting there falling asleep while either your blast gets charged up again (if you're a bird), or a barrel respawns. Also, and this is a huge point, the bosses for the last two (maybe you can say three) caps have been hugely favored towards birds. If you don't have a bird on your team, you're at a major disadvantage, but if you don't have any of the other classes on your team, you won't lose any major advantage like you would with a lack of a bird. After 2-3 caps, this just seems overdone and too much favored towards birds rather than even distribution.

4. Elite farming and elite quests

3 words, CHALLENGING, GRINDING AND REWARDING. It has been asked for earlier countless times and maybe it's in the making but we need it. Pve is the real way to activate people in this game. No dull maps please

There should be elite maps where each class utilizes a certain skill to help the team complete the map. Perhaps there are a lot of mobs in the map and the mobs do 2-3x dmg than they do to a bear (or maybe rhino even), making it so that a tank is necessary for proper mob control and clearing in a narrow path. Perhaps there is a toxic chemical or acid that is sprayed onto the team which can only be healed by a mage/rhino. If the chemical is not healed away, it will slowly chip your health to death. Perhaps there is a switch that needs to be hit in a certain amount of time (in order to open up a gate to the boss, or avoid a big bomb going off and killing you all) on the other end of a path but the only class that can hit the switch in that amount of time is a fox or rhino with charge/dash ability. Perhaps there is a winged boss that flies in the air and can only be touched by birds (also able to fly) and birds must use roots in order to ground the boss so that the rest of the team can kill it.

Of course, we can also make it more challenging by disabling potions or elixirs on this map entirely. And to make it rewarding, the map could drop gear or vanities that would either be very rare to drop or discontinued in the future and a quest reward that is actually useful (like a new weapon that gives a unique proc, White Dragon vanity that can be used to get a ring and craft it with Green Gimmel to give even better stats, or a pet that gives a unique buff or also attacks mobs with a unique attack).

I don't know, I'm just shooting ideas. The current cap just feels like it sort of damaged the hope of longevity.

[Blyzzor]

I thought of something like a 3pc yellow and orange dragon armor and helm + yellow/orange tourney shield which would be farmable and EXTREMELY rare. The set would give a set bonus effect. But yes people want anything that is rare right now, and people want elite farming like that, no matter what it is really.

[Armourslash]

Yep, agreed this would definitely help the game grow.

[plpr]

Great post. Nothing else to say its all up to them now.


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[Mymysticalmage]

One thing they need to fix. Is mage. Mage is really bad in pvp. Bird can auto mana shield with 2 shots. Mage set needs more mana and armor. And its not very fair. The whole issue with mages using dex set was because they nerfed int into the ground. They make sets class bound and continue to give us garbage. It doesnt make much sense. I dont play much anymore for that reason. And the quests and leveling are so boring that i dont level a bird or bear. Cinco, please fix this. #makemageusable

[Blyzzor]

Pvp balancing needs to be taken care of for sure, but for me the most important thing is making PL become an active and a healthy game. If pvp restrictions are removed and everything is focused in endgame, then it is necessary to make it possible for those low level players to reach endgame in the first place, if it stays like this PL will die out quite quick. All we need is a couple changes to make PL a great game just the way it is. Many games have solo leveling to near endgame and it is nothing embarassing or stupid making it that way, it is completely inevitable so PL wouldn't die. Lvling and Pve inactivity and imbalance has been a problem for as long as I can remember, since 76 cap when I properly started playing this game. Leveling is way too hard for a regular player, HELP!

[XghostzX]

One thing they need to fix. Is mage. Mage is really bad in pvp. Bird can auto mana shield with 2 shots. Mage set needs more mana and armor. And its not very fair. The whole issue with mages using dex set was because they nerfed int into the ground. They make sets class bound and continue to give us garbage. It doesnt make much sense. I dont play much anymore for that reason. And the quests and leveling are so boring that i dont level a bird or bear. Cinco, please fix this. #makemageusable

Lol please, mage is not even that underpowered. We've been OP for so many caps, I think it's okay that for once we're not the best.

I have not had trouble as a mage in 1v1 and FFA situations.

[Justg]

You realize this game was released over 7 years ago, right?

[XghostzX]

You realize this game was released over 7 years ago, right?

True, but you can't disagree that there are a few (subtle) implementations that could really improve the state of the game and even the player-base to some degree.

[Blyzzor]

Most of this stuff is fixable by just removing/adding stuff that already exists and editing numbers, it's not as if you need new designs for things (when I mentioned the run searching tool I was just pointing it out to be one of the reasons for Pve inactivity). For pve map you could've copied any of the existing other maps and mobs and just tweak numbers, low lvls too. As for plat store remove some of the unnecessary stuff and maybe edit some prices so people would actually buy more elixirs, some of them are too expensive for what you're getting. Maybe introduce week long elixirs and stuff like that for like 200-300 platinum, trashers and such. PL is running very weak because of the fact that we don't get enough new players despite having so many competent people that would love to go to endgame. There's always a balefort castle full of lower lvl players that never get to endgame! Whenever I go to balefort castle I am asked to help these players lvl, simply because they cant do it themselves. For me there's nothing more depressing than me seeing these players log onto Pl every day try play a little pve and have some fun and remember at the same time that there's no way they can do those things in an appropriate way.

[Justg]

Any of our games could benefit from time being spent, we are trying to balance supporting existing ones and what is the Next Big Thing for us.

We're a small studio, so our bandwidth is limited and precious. It is a tough call, but one that we have to make. Glad you guys are still paying PL after 7 years, it is kinda amazing to me that it is still running!

[Blyzzor]

To me it's kind of sad though as I know dozens, if not a hundred players that spend hundreds of dollars on this game (which is a lot of money on any of the seriously big games) and we can't be provided with essential basic stuff to make this game playable and actually guarantee its stability. If things stay like this it's gonna die out pretty quick, on the other hand if mentioned changes are made I believe I think it would set PL in a good position for a pretty solid amount of time. We had these same problems in 85 cap but it's even worse now because of people having to level past oktal rax 80-85 as well now. An ultra rare farmable item is what would keep us current endgame players invested, recoloured no problem.

I hope you can consider this and take time to do something when you're able to. Even promising would give people hope! Through the little updates notification bar

[Zojak]

Any of our games could benefit from time being spent, we are trying to balance supporting existing ones and what is the Next Big Thing for us.

We're a small studio, so our bandwidth is limited and precious. It is a tough call, but one that we have to make. Glad you guys are still paying PL after 7 years, it is kinda amazing to me that it is still running!

So this next big thing.....when can we expect some teases? :P

[Justg]

...we can't be provided with essential basic stuff to make this game playable and actually guarantee its stability. If things stay like this it's gonna die out pretty quick...

Game has been stable for 7 years, and it is not, despite lots of reports of the sky falling, gonna die quick.

I get that you would like us to do more for the game. So would we, but we have launched 7 games since we launched PL. We are a company, in business. Our goal is to delight and entertain, but also to grow. We need to continually evolve in order to do so. Are you still playing on an original iPhone, or iPod Touch? No, because Apple (like most companies) continue to evolve and innovate.

I appreciate your analysis, but you need to understand that most companies would have shut down PL a long time ago. We love the game, and the community, so we will continue to run it for as long as we can.

[XghostzX]

I appreciate your analysis, but you need to understand that most companies would have shut down PL a long time ago. We love the game, and the community, so we will continue to run it for as long as we can.

Sometimes I think us remaining players need to see this periodically. Makes me appreciate the game, the community, and all that is still available to us, so thank you.

[Congeniality]

Sometimes I think us remaining players need to see this periodically. Makes me appreciate the game, the community, and all that is still available to us, so thank you.

I also need professional help.... 7 years of my life... Oh no....

[3pc]

Game has been stable for 7 years, and it is not, despite lots of reports of the sky falling, gonna die quick.

I get that you would like us to do more for the game. So would we, but we have launched 7 games since we launched PL. We are a company, in business. Our goal is to delight and entertain, but also to grow. We need to continually evolve in order to do so. Are you still playing on an original iPhone, or iPod Touch? No, because Apple (like most companies) continue to evolve and innovate.

I appreciate your analysis, but you need to understand that most companies would have shut down PL a long time ago. We love the game, and the community, so we will continue to run it for as long as we can.

That really means a lot and PL will never die to me in my opinion.

[Kurvy]

You realize this game was released over 7 years ago, right?

I think its the most social and interactive game so far. I love it.