Early game disappointment

[Eesley]

I don't know if it's because I have some experience, if it's because I was given premium for a short time for returning to the game after somewhere between 1-2 years hiatus, or if it's just that easy, but there is absolutely no challenge anymore in the early game which was already relatively easy to begin with. I wanted to start over and redo the story since I have been gone from the game for so long and I wanted to get back into the story, but I'm heavily disappointed in the gaming experience I'm having at the moment.

I get the idea, streamlining the early game so people can get faster to the good stuff, but the early game was good stuff in my opinion! Right now I've only just finished act 1, I'm hoping the quest levels catch up to me some because at the moment instead of being happy for every level I gain, I'm frustrated because I remain overlevel constantly from simply doing main quest and ignoring the side quests.

 

I know the old weapon progression thing was an annoyance to some people with how much grinding was needed even in early game, but I don't think just giving us gear like that is the way to go. Doing dungeons to upgrade your weapon and other gear may have been too complex and tedious before but at least when you got it you were happy, you had a sense of achievement. And the dungeons were actually challenging and fun. It gave us a feeling of progession.

There is absolutely no feeling of progression, of achievement, in the early game. MMOs thrive on giving players the feeling that effort = reward, hooking them into playing more. At the moment though, early game seems like an overly long prologue. A lot of the content I liked doing is now completely useless and would make me even more over leveled if I did them. Hell, I wanted to do Blackram Narrows for the nostalgy but after waiting for half an hour I had to abandon getting any party members. And yes, I can do it when I'm high level enough to solo it, but it breaks the flow of the story when the content was placed there to be completed at this specific point.

 

Overall, the change trivialise what is a pretty good story. It dishes out reward for no effort other than the effort of bearing through it till the later content.

Another big part of what I consider to be the problem is how the story presents vilains, talking about them as if they're dangerous and strong etc, but when you defeat them in 5 seconds by simply mashing buttons, it removes the feeling the story is trying to impart about those vilains. No one would have liked Darth Vader if Luke defeated him in a second. Everything is totally anti-climactic and the only feeling I'm getting from this is annoyance. No nostalgia, no challenge, no rewarding feeling I've experienced in this game before. I know it'll probably get better in later Acts, I definitely hope it does, and having already played this game before a good amount I know that the end content is going to be good, so I can bear with it.

 

I already experienced the early story when it had impact, so I can handle it being trivialised. But I'm having a hard time believing that potential new players would enjoy a game like this when the first however many hours of gameplay has none of the appealing aspects of a video game. This game is great, and I recommend it all the time, but I'm very sad to see it go this route.

I'm just one guy ranting on the Internet, I'm not expecting things to change really and I don't even know if the changes originated in the NA/EU version of the game or in Korea (my guess would be Korea), but maybe my opinion will be seen and considered (and potentially translated) by those that have a hand in making decision on the design of the game.

 

If you've read all the way here, thanks and have a great day ^^

[Azuzuzuzu]

I'm with you 100% on this.

I've had a blast when the game released. Everything I did had a meaning. I remember getting a party for Jadestone dungeons, cause solo was nearly impossible!

I remember everything was "not paper" as it is now.

Maybe people didn't like the evolution of items throughout the game, but I did. They could at least leave the wep evolution and adjust values, I kind of bonded with this type of item progression.

 

Now it's just, do main story, don't bother daily, lvl up to 55 HM8 then game starts. 

Eh..

[Zayrafa]

Totally agree

Miss the feeling of achievement on the early game. And it was fun teaming up with people of your level to complete the dungeons and get your breakthrough weapon.

Now it's just a rush to end game... then start the actual game 

Returning players will feel it but for new players I think they're just gonna think there are doing great while the game just got easier XD

[RagingPhenix]

They even took out some steps here and there that were an important part of the feel IMHO. They should also nerf the XP, and give the bare minimum to be lv55 hm 5 by the end of the story from main quests.

[Eesley]

Glad I'm not the only one that feels like this. I was confirmed in game that the change came through Korea, which I suspected anyway. I know part of the process of getting the game in different countries is making sure the content is appropriate and tailored (to a certain limit) to the country it's going to. So I know a lot of that happened when the localisation was donne for BnS in NA. I can't talk much about Korea, I have no idea, but the country have a very big focus on eSports so that kind of change probably suits them just fine.

In NA though I get the feeling, while we're not adverse to eSports, we have a certain bias toward story and progression.

 

I don't know how much NA/EU can diverge from the Korean evolution and leveling system and still be eligible for eSports, which I know is a big concern though I would assume it's more on the balancing and skill availability level, but I do hope there is something that can be done.

[Yndril]

As a player who have been with it since launch, I understand where you come from, the story was more engaging when the game launched, however, the appeal was lost after i've done it once, and having 10 chars at max level, i'm glad they streamlined the chore of leveling... however, i think they could've done it better, for example making level 50 ticket available for HM coins, or given for free once you complete the story (doubt they'd ever do that) and kept the leveling harder...

[SkyStorm]

After quitting when 45 was max level, I came back and ran my bm through the story and got to lvl 55 hm 8. Then I made a new character and ran through the entire storyline and got to lvl 55 hm 8. It was annoying to realize all the effort I'd put into my first character had been pointless - the story just takes you there with little effort. Of course, you don't know crap about how to play your class because all you had to do was spam your right mouse button or hit a couple of keys to defeat any opponent, then you're plunged into multi-player content where your expected to tank, party protect, soulburn, ________, when nothing in the story has prepared you for it.

 

 

[Delanon]

Same, stopped at lvl 45 BM came back and got to lvl again.  You no longer need to do any of the mid dungeons now, can skip it all until the end.  Both good and bad I suppose especially if you want to level multiple to 55.

 

My biggest shock was in crafting.  What in the world happened there, I am still trying to figure out what to do now with it or just forget it now.  My old pottery is toast.

[MCWang]

Not that I've played tons of MMOs, but it seems no game maker has truly figured a good way to handle this change in the community.  As popular as WoW has stayed, they also have similar issues with early content no longer being relevant as the mass majority of the player base are either past the old content or have chosen to skip it.  

[LuIius]

yeah... soryline used to be engaging and you used to actually do things like level the hm weapon etc. now you spam the f key and oneshot mobs and "bosses" it's mainly just a loadingscreen simulator. (spoiler alert) I remember the thrill I got when fighting jinsoyun at the sky altar, that ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ was engaging.

[hrwd]

I don't know. Aren't you supposed to be kinda like Goku? In that case, the current overlevel feeling is actually the accurate one. Though I agree that some challenge here or there would be nice.

[RavTH]

everything went bad when Silverfrost Content released with the First Trove...

[LuIius]

On 7/26/2018 at 5:35 PM, RavTH said:

everything went bad when Silverfrost Content released with the First Trove...

I had a whale of a time with asura 4 man, yeti 4 man, ec 6 man, nf 6 man, those were the days when each boss fight could last 10 minutes and you'd actually need to do mechanics, though it is true that troves etc are kind of messing things up.