Game was better before the latest patch

[Aerroon]

I'm sorry but that's how I feel.

 

1. The new purple dungeons are horrible. They are so short. It takes as much time to find a decent party than it takes to actually do the run. 

 

2. The new blue dungeons are worthless. Half of them can be solod (as an FM) in level 45 gear without breaking a sweat. Loot from them is essentially worthless and they're even shorter than the purple dungeons. It's like they looked at the Pigsty and went "oh, let's remove the first boss and just make it a straight corridor to the boss. Dungeon done. NEXT."

 

3. So many dailies are party quests that you can't do much about alone. This is completely different from what it was at 45 and is a major gripe, because party quests aren't fun when they're in such abundance. There's only so much potatoing I can put up with in a day and soulstone plains takes the majority of that already.

 

4. Grand Harvest Square event is RIDICULOUS. This is putting it lightly. It is beyond a horrible implementation. It might be one of the worst ways to implement such an important event (in terms of daily XP gain) that I have seen in many years. It is channels 1-5 AND only at 3 specific times that aren't even spread out over the day but are concentrated at some specific time? Way to screw over everyone else.

Not only do the channels get full incredibly quickly for that event you also need to get kill credit for bosses that can spawn simultaneously and be killed simultaneously. And if you miss hitting one of them then you can't finish that quest and need to go for another event.

Monsters require you to fight over tagging, but not actually killing. This is also ridiculous.

End boss requires you to not crash and still do your thing while you're running at 10 FPS because everybody is there doing the same thing. This is on an i7-4790k, 24GB RAM, gtx 780 with everything on the lowest setting, ctrl+f and nameplates turned off.

 

5. Soulstone plains are a horrible way of doing faction stuff. It is focused on PvE but supposed to be a PvP battleground. Why? You can't make people engage in PvP without offering some incentive to actually doing that PvP. The whole focus of the area is on PvE and griefing those who are trying to PvE. With the hilariously broken machine gun and bomb mechanics and the way prestige is handled it's an absolute clustertruck.

The only thing in the zone that encourages PvP is the daily quest where the opposing side has to win and you have to try to take back the mines. The rewards are incredibly underwhelming for what you have to accomplish and on top of all that the quest completion is bugged - the 3rd monster's drop credit isn't given to a lot of people even though they participated.

Seriously, this is not a battleground, you don't gain anything for killing an enemy faction player. You only get something for killing the NPCs, that themselves are already hilariously broken. If you get focused by one then you just die (the terrors, the pigs do absolutely nothing).

Dying is fine, but not if you lose all your prestige for it, which means that you just wasted all of the work you did before. Top it off by the fact that you can go grab a machine gun and then just spray the enemy faction down in the span of a couple of seconds and I can't understand what the designers were thinking. "Hey, we have this zone where people can only play when they have ctrl+f enabled so we added this weapon that can kill someone in the span of a few seconds at range and in AoE without you even having to aim. Oh and characters with stealth can fire while stealthed too."

The entire design of the zone encourages factions to NOT fight each other for better efficiency. This means that people are there for the PvE and the only ones that want to do PvP are the ones around there that want to grief. And yes, it *is* griefing, because nobody is fighting you back, because they don't even know you're there until you attack them. At least on Blackwyrm there were no essentially invincible terrors that protected you. (I do like the dailies in the zone though, other than the attack enemy faction one when they win capturing because of how buggy it is and how difficult it is for how little you get from it - you'd be better off just farming the bosses on another channel instead and you'd come out with more soulstones per time invested.)

Just look at this: Youtube video of Soulstone Plains

 

 

I mean the story continuation was nice. I want to know what happens next. The levelling process was fine and all that, but once you're done with that you en dup having to do the things I mentioned above and they're much worse than they were at 45. It feels a lot more like many of the other MMOs where the only way you can play at any decent level is if you have a group of people who are ready to just play the game together at all times making it so the main focus of their life ends up being the game. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to play like that. I don't find it fun if I have to be available to do dungeons at X time every day and then take part in an event at Y time every day. It becomes too much of a job.

 

And from what I can tell the future promises even more of such things to come. The hell's island or whatever it will be called will require you to be in a top guild to do a whole lot. On our server that would be Clarity and if you're not part of that you'll end up screwed.

 

The combat system in the game is great (aside from mass PvP, because then it's just a CC/resistance fest). It's particularly great when you have to do it alone, because it makes the content much more difficult. You have to figure out how it works and all that, but the new patch brought so much party stuff that you end up just zerging or burning down all the enemies without even having to know what they do.

 

I definitely feel like the game was better at 45. Dungeons were longer and more interesting because of that. Like Yeti right now is just the Yeti fight. Everything else is purely blitzing through. Whereas BSH had all the other stuff in it too that was interesting. (I don't particularly like the Naryu Labyrinth stuff mainly because it gives everyone too much HP from the soulshields.) Most of your dailies could be done alone or made with impromptu groups that could actually get the stuff done. There were no events that needed you to be online at some specific time. And there was no soulstone plains. Yes, soulstone gain was worse, but at least it didn't involve potentially losing all your work in the span of a few seconds because someone from the opposing faction decided to come abuse you guys a little (I could understand it at least if they had something to gain, but usually those people don't make it out alive anyway).

 

So yeah, I'm rather disappointed. And I know that most of this has little to do with what NCSoft (west) can even control - most of it is the game's own design. And this means that it will stay this way.

 

PS the music in this game is absolutely amazing in my opinion. If anybody knows what the music is called that plays in the 24-man ice area when you fight bosses I'd love to hear it.

[Fuz]

I agree with point 3, 4 and 5.
And I agree that the game was WAY better at 45 cap. More variety, less solo-unfriendly, less melee-hostile. Harvest and soulstone plains is total garbage and needs to be changed quickly if NC doesn't want to alienate a big share of the playerbase. Farming decently soulstones for a melee is an absolute nightmare, while rangeds have the time of their lives.

This patch has a good chance to kill the game outright.

But I really like the new dungeons.

[Enhance]

P. 1: I actually enjoy the new purple dungeons being less of a marathon between 10000 mobs and sub-bosses and more of a quick large boss showdown.

P. 2: What blue dungeons? (honestly haven't seen even seen them)

P. 3: What's so bad about having a lot of party dailies? I like it when group play is promoted.

P. 4: I agree that with current optimization it's totally outrageous. But I do not have any gripe at all with it being 5-channel or at certain times of the day.

P. 5: Can't help but agree. Though it may or may not be a good thing while factions are not explicitly balanced.

 

1 hour ago, Aerroon said:

 

PS the music in this game is absolutely amazing in my opinion. If anybody knows what the music is called that plays in the 24-man ice area when you fight bosses I'd love to hear it.

 

 

 

[KhaosThanathan]

1. The purple dungeons are ok, I especially like Awakened Necropolis.
2. The blue dungeons are stupid though; they're just a rip-off of old dungeons.
3. Party-Quests are ok, you're playing a MMORPG anyway.
4. Grand Harvest really is stupid. Especially the performance-problems are a major problem.
5. Soulstone Plains are absolutely useless; you're correct. Especially the non-existent faction-balance is a major problem. It's plain PvE and really doesn't encourage PvP in any way. The boss-monsters are far too strong, especially those terrors with their op-pull. Providing flamethrowers and machine-guns is also ridiculous. Misty Woods are a thousand times better than this garbage.

 

The only really good point about the patch was the story-continuation. The Lv. 45 Content really was better.

[Madolche]

I disagree. I love the lv 50 content

[Vincent9]

I have to agree with

3. As a solo player, It is impossible to finish those quests alone.

 

The L45 content was way better than the L50 update. How I wish I was not forced by the hype to upgrade to True Pirate, now everything was a regret.
Not losing hope, I am still aspiring for better optimization, better ping for asian players or even asian server, removal of hacks and bots, returning of 1week and 1month subs, and more love for BMs. 

 

[GalaxyNET]

This patch want to say only 1 thing to you melee players. FUСK YOU!

PS. I'am Destroyer.

[Mesmerize]

1. I partly agree. I never was one of those players asking for AP for dungeons (didn't really have a problem in lab), but these new dungeons with bosses enraging in 3 minutes, people using profane weapons and not even getting to 50% when boss hits enrage. Leechers also made this worse. But I like how short they are, because doing dailies for progression isn't fun, it feels like a job specially if you do it on different characters.
2. I don't mind them for the same reason of point 1, they're fast for dailies, which is fine for me.
3. I completely agree with this. I HATE relying on other people to do my own progression. I understand this is a mmo, I like playing in group, but not for everything. I like being able to do my own personal progression whenever I can. So I have to time my log in schedule with everyone else, can't play whenever I feel like doing so, because there isn't enough people to do group quests with at any time of the day. This is absolutely frustating and makes me want to skip dailies, which I have somewhat done since the patch.
4. I agree. Even though my fps isn't that bad, I just can't complete the quest because bosses die simultaneously and can't receive loot from all bosses.
5. I don't really care about open world PvP, but I have to admit that video made me lol of how broken it is xD.

My worst point in this patch is the forced zerging needed for dailies and overall personal progression. Which is basically the whole lv50 patch.

[Thandius]

I strongly agree with the OP on everything, except for the purple dungeons. I actually like the shorter design on those, beacuse, in the end, boss fights are way mor fun than trash fights.

 

But yes: too much group/mass content, some of which isn't even remotely fun or playable at that (GHS and soulstone plains) have seriously shortened the time I expect to still spend in this game ... and I felt very different at 45 about that.

[Yamyatos]

1. I like the new dungeons. 

2. ALL dungeons can be soloed, unless there is an enrage timer impossible to fulfill solo that insta kills you if you hit it.

3. Agreed. Group content is fun if it isnt the majorits of quests and doesnt fees as forced upon you as it does right now. Also Beastborg is the biggest annoyance ever.. i dont know if i'll enter it ever again. I'm in fear of losing my sanity. Basically all mobs are ranged and if one hits you you are dead since they all stun you on hit of knock you down or catch you with their nets and are there in such an abundance that if you trigger one and dont fight/kill it you will have to many on your tail to ever lose them. The boss also is annoying, obviously talking for meeles here.. which is only like.. oh i dont know.. 5/8 classes.

4. Fully agreeing here. A trainwreck of an event. It encourages players to wait there half in hour in advance, essentially doing nothing, just to enter the event. Then while you're in the event your fps on lowest setting go down to like .. 10? (Having 35+ on max without shadows on blackwyrm). And then there are the crashes.. and well last time i did it i didnt get a single boss but the last one. I'm pretty confident that i'm doing enough damage. Maybe the lag/fps, maybe a bug i dont know. 

TL;DR the event is horrible, not fun at all, not rewarding at all, required you to do nothing for 30 min in advance and crashes often while being a lagfest if not..

They could easily fix most of it tho.. remove chanel limitations, make the event on ALL channels, cap the grand harvest square channels to like 20 people each -> most problems solved.

5. Didnt do them yet.. i heard they are "lots of fun" as meele too. I feel a bid frustrated with meeles right now, nonetheless i like meeles way more and i think they fit way better into the combat system and it's a waste to play ranged classes but well.. ranged seems to be favorised in doing everything literally.

 

Edit: Oh but dont get me wrong. I love the game. And i dont dislike the content patch at all. It's just that i'm a bit frustrated that while meele were fine for everything but terrors in last patch, this "everything but" now includes half the new content... and then there is the optimization and some design flaws that ruin some other aspects of the game right now. I just hope they take this as constructive criticism and do something about it. I cant imagine that they want to encourage players to wait half an hour for example lol.

[Eckogen]

1. They are short and sweet. Party wise, just ask your clan or check with the cross server.

 

2. Generally speaking, the NA audience likes to be "efficient" in dungeon and skip whatever is non-essential. I do like how they just got to the point for the new blue dungeons.

 

3. There are more solo friendly dailys than there are party-forced ones.

 

4. Nothing new here. It's like BW, but in town. Once they come up with a solution it will be better.

 

5. The point I'll agree on here is that yes, the machine gun is broken and should not have that capability.

[NN13]

While I agree with most of the things OP said(especially, since I am a BM, so you can understand my problems in Soulstone Plains and Grand Harvest). One thing I can not understand is what are the things that made OP and others think there is too much group content in Silverfrost patch?

 

I mean I still did the story alone, so no party there. New dungeons are the only ones that need party, but then again, level 45 blue and purple dungeons needed party as well, at least when we were level 45.

[Lurkios]

I wanted to dislike this post but I'm finding myself agreeing on all points but #1, which I still partially agree with. There's a place for the shorter dungeons, but I wish we had some decently sized ones as well.

[Fifi2]

I don't like the new content. It is borring and above all it turns the game into a redicillous grindfest that can ashame even Lineage 2