ProSophist
11-15-2012, 06:01 PM
I've been playing the game for a few days now and I am certain that by now, we are all aware of how the game works. Let me just start off that personally, this is on-par with PL as the best game STS has released. I am pretty excited that you guys finally listened to what we wanted, and basically take the aspects that we love from the previous titles and mash them together in one game. Also, many of the "toxic" aspects (though not all of them) that made players cringe, whine, quit, and second guess on playing the game were eliminated.
Now, after a few days of poking around, the game very much still feels like it is on beta. There are still a lot of bugs and re-balancing that needs to be addressed, and I hope to give you a player's perspective and how I would personally like to see things pan out in the near future, more or less.
Hosting a game with an option to put a password:
We all loved this feature. It simply gives people more freedom. It is quite annoying that we have to remake a game over and over a game for a chance of an empty map. Either that or we have to create a party just to ensure a private room. Simply add the option to host our own games, and keep the "Go To" option on quests that would put you on a current game.
Increased gold resources:
On release day, we had plenty of this, but you guys took it away. We had 2 Allies that gave gold every few hours, and the 24 hours gift gave a chance of getting gold as well. The game economy is in a bad place because players for some reason, are pricing the items way above the current gold supply. Combine this with other expenses like potions and pet food(which I will touch on next), there simply isn't enough gold to go around. There are a few solutions to this. An increase in gold drop would be nice. As of right now, most mobs only drop around 1 to 4, maybe 5 gold tops.An increase in trash and green loots may also combat this problem, along with increasing the gold value when they are liquidated. Increase in the reward gold from the daily quests would also be a great addition.
Feed your pet issue:
It was bad enough that we had to pay 250 every few minutes, but now the price scales along the pet level. I think it is safe to assume that everyone hates this. Like mentioned before, gold is very valuable at the game's current state, but we do not have enough resources to get it from. I would love to see a DECREASE in the cost, rather than removing it completely. I like this feature because it adds another dimension to the game.
Nerf boss damage. Make them punish you for failing mechanics.:
Some of the bosses hit hard without much of a chance of avoiding them. Krax Wildstorm was incredibly frustrating because he would just shoot you constantly with your spheres that took 1/3 of your total HP. Ghul would almost one-hit K.O any class outside of a Warrior with his enraged charge attack without having much of a chance of avoiding it, unless maybe if you were in a group. Instead of having these ridiculous WTF moments, I would like to see bosses to involve a lot more strategy where it would punish you greatly if you fail, rather than the boring way of avoiding the red cone line of sight of most bosses. Great examples would be Gurgox and Overlord from AO3 of PL. These bosses involved teamwork, right timing of skills, and attention to detail to kill them. If not, you get punished by, well, getting your whole team killed. The Mysterious Figure from SL is another great example. Hopefully you guys can go back to making bosses like these for AL.
Rare spawn or timed bosses and make them HARD to kill:
Remember Fridge and Vyxnaar from PL? I'd like to see similar bosses in AL. What I love about these 2 bosses is that they excruciatingly painful to farm but the rewards were worth it.Would be great to have a rare spawn boss in random maps that yielded a chance to get a item.
Story Token gear rewards:
The rewards in exchanged for these tokens are very lack luster. Even the ones that cost 50 tokens are much worse than most of the items that are looted in game.Please improve these items that will make the tokens worth farming.
Classes needs major re-balancing:
Warriors are currently sitting pretty as the top echelon class in the game. My concern is that they can do everything that the other 2 classes VERY well without making big sacrifices, and this makes the Rogue and Sorcerer much less appealing to the casual gamers it is not uncommon for most people to play the most overpowered class. I started the game as a Warrior because that was what I initially wanted to play, but I soon realized that the game started to look like it was 90% populated by the same class and it was less enjoyable for me to have 4 Warriors in the same game more often than not. To put it in perspective, my Warrior can basically run through any map in the game outside of Elite and Hauntlet with an eye close and a cheeseburger in my dominant hand while using maybe a potion or two. Meanwhile, my Rogue and Sorcerer are struggling to get past the first few pack of mobs in the Crypts.
The skill Vengeful Blood it a great example. It gives Warriors close to an unlimited mana pool along with a crit and damage. With the recent decrease in their mana costs, this Warrior's ability to self sustain goes off the charts. They can tank, kill, and heal themselves, and like I said, without any significant sacrifice, stat-wise and gear-wise.
What do I mean by this? At the moment, Rogues are unable to self-sustain due to the high mana costs of their skills. It takes almost twice the mana of a Warrior's skill, but they don't have a mana regeneration ablity like one. Because of this, Rogues have to sacrifice stats from Dex and dump it into Int to be able to cast more spells, and even Str to survive hits. I do believe that the mana costs for Rogues have to be SLIGHTY reduced to somewhat compensate.
I am still doing some experimenting on the Sorcerer, but at this time, I personally feel that they are where they should be at. Of course, I haven't done much testing yet but I will be sure to share my insights about the class.
Let classes fulfill their roles and promote party play. Bring back shields, and possibly bows:
The reason why the party play was successful for both PL and SL is that you always needed one of each class. Bears and Commandos with shields were mandatory to clear maps, especially with tough bosses. I feel that the Warrior class has turned into more of a bruiser, dealing great damage and able to take hits, rather than a meat shield. You can probably take 4 Warriors and finish the end game content. I would love for shields to be implemented in this game and maybe in the future, make 1h+shield specific skills for Warriors so we have a choice to either go tank or dps.
I put the bows up there because of the rogue skills. Could it be a possibility to have an option to wear a bow? In PL, birds had this choice. Of course, a bow vs dagger would have its own pros and cons.
DL was lacking in this department and that is why I was so disappointed in that game. Not a lot of variety and it felt more of a offline solo game rather than an MMORPG.
My whole point here is to add more variety in how you want to play your character and inspire more party play..
This is all I got for you guys right now. Hopefully our voices continually be heard and I am pretty excited for this game's future.
Now, after a few days of poking around, the game very much still feels like it is on beta. There are still a lot of bugs and re-balancing that needs to be addressed, and I hope to give you a player's perspective and how I would personally like to see things pan out in the near future, more or less.
Hosting a game with an option to put a password:
We all loved this feature. It simply gives people more freedom. It is quite annoying that we have to remake a game over and over a game for a chance of an empty map. Either that or we have to create a party just to ensure a private room. Simply add the option to host our own games, and keep the "Go To" option on quests that would put you on a current game.
Increased gold resources:
On release day, we had plenty of this, but you guys took it away. We had 2 Allies that gave gold every few hours, and the 24 hours gift gave a chance of getting gold as well. The game economy is in a bad place because players for some reason, are pricing the items way above the current gold supply. Combine this with other expenses like potions and pet food(which I will touch on next), there simply isn't enough gold to go around. There are a few solutions to this. An increase in gold drop would be nice. As of right now, most mobs only drop around 1 to 4, maybe 5 gold tops.An increase in trash and green loots may also combat this problem, along with increasing the gold value when they are liquidated. Increase in the reward gold from the daily quests would also be a great addition.
Feed your pet issue:
It was bad enough that we had to pay 250 every few minutes, but now the price scales along the pet level. I think it is safe to assume that everyone hates this. Like mentioned before, gold is very valuable at the game's current state, but we do not have enough resources to get it from. I would love to see a DECREASE in the cost, rather than removing it completely. I like this feature because it adds another dimension to the game.
Nerf boss damage. Make them punish you for failing mechanics.:
Some of the bosses hit hard without much of a chance of avoiding them. Krax Wildstorm was incredibly frustrating because he would just shoot you constantly with your spheres that took 1/3 of your total HP. Ghul would almost one-hit K.O any class outside of a Warrior with his enraged charge attack without having much of a chance of avoiding it, unless maybe if you were in a group. Instead of having these ridiculous WTF moments, I would like to see bosses to involve a lot more strategy where it would punish you greatly if you fail, rather than the boring way of avoiding the red cone line of sight of most bosses. Great examples would be Gurgox and Overlord from AO3 of PL. These bosses involved teamwork, right timing of skills, and attention to detail to kill them. If not, you get punished by, well, getting your whole team killed. The Mysterious Figure from SL is another great example. Hopefully you guys can go back to making bosses like these for AL.
Rare spawn or timed bosses and make them HARD to kill:
Remember Fridge and Vyxnaar from PL? I'd like to see similar bosses in AL. What I love about these 2 bosses is that they excruciatingly painful to farm but the rewards were worth it.Would be great to have a rare spawn boss in random maps that yielded a chance to get a item.
Story Token gear rewards:
The rewards in exchanged for these tokens are very lack luster. Even the ones that cost 50 tokens are much worse than most of the items that are looted in game.Please improve these items that will make the tokens worth farming.
Classes needs major re-balancing:
Warriors are currently sitting pretty as the top echelon class in the game. My concern is that they can do everything that the other 2 classes VERY well without making big sacrifices, and this makes the Rogue and Sorcerer much less appealing to the casual gamers it is not uncommon for most people to play the most overpowered class. I started the game as a Warrior because that was what I initially wanted to play, but I soon realized that the game started to look like it was 90% populated by the same class and it was less enjoyable for me to have 4 Warriors in the same game more often than not. To put it in perspective, my Warrior can basically run through any map in the game outside of Elite and Hauntlet with an eye close and a cheeseburger in my dominant hand while using maybe a potion or two. Meanwhile, my Rogue and Sorcerer are struggling to get past the first few pack of mobs in the Crypts.
The skill Vengeful Blood it a great example. It gives Warriors close to an unlimited mana pool along with a crit and damage. With the recent decrease in their mana costs, this Warrior's ability to self sustain goes off the charts. They can tank, kill, and heal themselves, and like I said, without any significant sacrifice, stat-wise and gear-wise.
What do I mean by this? At the moment, Rogues are unable to self-sustain due to the high mana costs of their skills. It takes almost twice the mana of a Warrior's skill, but they don't have a mana regeneration ablity like one. Because of this, Rogues have to sacrifice stats from Dex and dump it into Int to be able to cast more spells, and even Str to survive hits. I do believe that the mana costs for Rogues have to be SLIGHTY reduced to somewhat compensate.
I am still doing some experimenting on the Sorcerer, but at this time, I personally feel that they are where they should be at. Of course, I haven't done much testing yet but I will be sure to share my insights about the class.
Let classes fulfill their roles and promote party play. Bring back shields, and possibly bows:
The reason why the party play was successful for both PL and SL is that you always needed one of each class. Bears and Commandos with shields were mandatory to clear maps, especially with tough bosses. I feel that the Warrior class has turned into more of a bruiser, dealing great damage and able to take hits, rather than a meat shield. You can probably take 4 Warriors and finish the end game content. I would love for shields to be implemented in this game and maybe in the future, make 1h+shield specific skills for Warriors so we have a choice to either go tank or dps.
I put the bows up there because of the rogue skills. Could it be a possibility to have an option to wear a bow? In PL, birds had this choice. Of course, a bow vs dagger would have its own pros and cons.
DL was lacking in this department and that is why I was so disappointed in that game. Not a lot of variety and it felt more of a offline solo game rather than an MMORPG.
My whole point here is to add more variety in how you want to play your character and inspire more party play..
This is all I got for you guys right now. Hopefully our voices continually be heard and I am pretty excited for this game's future.