So I finally managed to get a party for Story Regina and did compositing, and I noticed tons of other things like cash models and plotholes... Just going to list them, you'll understand.
1. Vindi was designed to be a challenging skill-based game. Stats were kept as a genre legacy, but really the only ones that mattered were attack speed, weapon length, stamina, and durability, because these were based on the game's mechanics. Attack power, defense, etc were detected by the game, but they were passive - the effects of atk spd, length, stam, and dura could easily be seen by the naked eye without the need for damage numbers.
Everything in S2 was designed around that vision. Premier was just the testing ground, and XE - which S2 was designed around - was the true skill-based experience. Then the developers got lazy, deciding to go back the Pre which was easier to balance and program for (and it had nothing to do with which was the favorite, since even in KR it was 50/50). They cut off S2 halfway, then entered a long hiatus for actual content which slowly yet surely killed the population, which was doomed even more when they destroyed Europe's integrity (XE, tons more IPs allowed, Tir Coins, just overall better) just to save money...which ended up losing them tons of revenue instead.
Then RISE happened. Everything became stat-heavy, length had long been abandoned, most weapons released now are copy-paste from how previous weapons work, and the cash model got even suckier while Oceanic players had to deal with an entire ocean between them and the server. They failed to keep the male:female character ratio by releasing the new character as a female who is too much of a stick to be dragonkin, even more of a loli than Lynn, who is honestly just a hybrid between Delia BS and Chainblades...plus a super OP insta-KO everything Mary Sue. It doesn't matter if she's a glass cannon since the cannon aspect gets attack speed and additional damage straight from that p2w cash flow.
2. So let's talk Compositing. The Compositing interface - heck, the entire experience - is extremely nice. This is what crafting should have been in the first place. My problem with it is that it should just require normal mats instead of recipes and its own unique mats, it should have just been a reskin of the crafting interface so that profession levels would still matter, and all equips should have been able to do replacement so everyone could fashionogi any equips at max level - in fact, it should have been possible to turn costumes into equips (equip menu from then on instead of still working as costumes) by doing replacement, while other equips would need to be crafted at their initial level before equipment upgrade. If done right, replacement would require profession levels, so the market would burst with activity due to max professions making max gear out of all equips and perhaps even costumes through a "commission" system (a player could put a costume in a lend queue and any professional of appropriate level that sees it can take the commission, upgrading it without taking it away).
So much money could have been made there. Heck, if they kept focusing on pets, if they even had released S2 and S3 as paid expansions (S2 would have actually been finished instead of cut off halfway), if they hadn't gone on a hiatus that naturally decreased their players and screwed over tons of their European customers, they would have kept making tons of money. Enchant/enhance items don't make as much as appearance items; that's always been the case, always will be the case, and won't stop being the case no matter how stat-heavy the game becomes, because Vindi was designed around challenge and appearance.
3. And the plotholes! If we went back in time, yet it was implied that the dead were already being forgotten, why the hell did the Druid and Princess remember their dead families? That was literally the cause for the ending of S2; so why did they remember when the curse was in effect? This is ridiculous and just another example of DevCat not paying attention anymore. How come the devs retconned the initial claim than Vindi was Mabi's prequel just because they didn't want to read up on the lore before doing S3?
Heck, they could have made the character registration packs cash items instead of buggy website click items, but no - they choose the worst things to make money, and the worst methods of earning without money. They even prematurely allow people to use NX before they even verify the exchange was successful, then blame players for it when it's likely their own clerical error that caused the exchange to get rejected! And the new customer support team just makes this 100x worse.
Kommentare
Wat
S2 was hot, steamy, buggy garbage and thankfully it got reworked the way it is now. Which, by the way, is still terrible.
It always was
This happened with Ep9.5/10 actually
Literally only Arisha whip
Guess what, it's a f2p game. If a certain server doesn't bring enough profit, they close it, end of the story
That was never a thing, christ. S1 had 3 males 2 females, S2 had 2 female 1 male, S3 2 females 1 male. Arisha was released in that weird period between S2 and S3 where we didn't have any new story-related content, only Niflheim, which is closer to S2 than S3, so if we go by your "male:female ratio" it's S2 who threw that away already
Now you're talking out of your ass
And Vella is a female Lann, Hurk a Karok with a sword, Lynn a scythe Evie without magic and so on
Everything is OP with OP stats, what's your point?
Jesus Christ no
You know the game is based in KR, right?
Yeah the story has become a [text removed]
Let alone the KR negative feedback did nothing from half a year ago to now, there is a non-existent chance anything will happen, even if one does as stated.
S2 was amazing. The aerial attacks and free-roam map worked great; the only problem was with the difficulty scaling, which should have stayed like S1.
Perhaps you should pay attention to the Whip Test thread.
Wrong. Vella and Kai were released at the beginning of S2, which means S1 had Lann, Fiona, Evie, and Karok. 2F, 2M. S2 also had Hurk and Lynn, so 2F, 2M. S3 had everyone after that, and it's still ongoing. Unless they break the status quo by releasing 2 more characters for S3, both male, my point will still stand.
Go make a Miri and mess with the sliders, then compare to other female character models. She's a freaking stick with the thinnest bones in existence, and a dwarf.
Lynn works nothing like Scythe. Do you even stack-nuke? Do you even shadow-slide? Do you even hover-twirl? I'll give you the other two, though.
best era for me is S3: numerous raids with okay drops,normal battles for orange and material farming and many other activities.Anything like crafting changes or hero mode removal for some battles mean nothing to me,they are minor concerns
You must have only played Pre. They likely reworked ATK because your chicken dance didn't deal the damage the XE combos did.
i played XE and what u said makes no difference
sh*t damage with 50% multiplier on oldschool S2 bosses is still sh*t dmg,just a bit less sh*ttier
I would assume you weren't around when bloodlord and glas were first released. That was the time frame when this game was at its best.
S3 was basically a joke from the get go if you already had decent lv 80 gear. (Crit red attacks were the only gimmic they tossed in since everyone was over buffed on their dodge capabilities.) And at least in NA, it was really easy to gear up to lv 90 due to some events/seal shop having the rng feather drops.
Found this game right after my previous game 'died' in late 2009 when NA had Early Access Open Beta.
I loved this game straight away and played very actively from that point till S2 relase on NA or so,eve tho I was playing from EU with a proxy to login I had a stable 3 bars but then I lost my chars for whatever reason so I went to EU when it opened later that year.
There I played actively again and had a blast for years with multiple chars and a main guild.
Vindictus was my everything both as a game and socially,I was never a casher or anything but I always managed to stay up to date with either gear or with knowledge in general.
Sure I kinda lost all that even before Rise or the NA merge thing but it was Rise that put the final nail in the coffin for me.
This thing just killed the game for me in many ways,I don't want to make a list but its pretty much the same as for most of the ppl who 'complained' about Rise when it was relased.
In short I really liked he old days with Season 1 especially the times on NA and then on EU with Season 1 and 2.
S3 was already the start of the downfall for me regarding fun in the game but it was still alright I guess.
I really did not mind the XE switch to Pre since I already knew Pre anyway,I was playing the same after the switch till Rise.
But my conlusion after Rise is like this:
This is not the game I fell in 'love' with many years ago,its merely a shell of it and its a shame to see it like this cause I still miss it but I just can't get back to it the way it is now.
I don't know what to tell you except that people don't speak enough with their wallets. Sadly players dropping their +15s and gear in the trash hasn't had the impact that it should have, but we didn't get server mergers because the game was thriving.
Aerial Smashes/Combos were in the game since xe got released, later added to pre only with s2 and eventually removed because, guess what, they worked terribly, extremely low damage and they left you open to enemies combo for too much time. Let me guess, you were a sword lann and used the jump combo because it looked cool?
I'm not really paying attention to the Whip thread because I couldn't be less interested in it even if I tried. I did see some video from test server, and it was a copy paste from spellsword in everything.
Kai was released after EP10 but before Ignition/S2, so he still counts as S1. Vella was released together with Ignition, though right now I'm not 100% sure if we got her before actual S2 hit EU. Still, I don't get your obsession with this ratio, since what should matter is how a character plays and not if they have a hole or a rod between their legs
I always make my female characters with all the sliders to the left, including, of course, my Lynn and Miri, and like I said, you have no idea what you're talking about. If anything, Miri may have the best proportions among females
I main Lynn so you tell me. While it's rather an exaggerated example, you can't deny glaive and scythe are similar in concept (get snaps/put marks, make them explode, use sp in-between Combos to increase your damage)
And let's be honest, Blute is the most original (and, in my opinion, funniest) weapon they made in ages
Is blute that good? More fun to play than miri?
I haven't had the chance to do any s3 raid with it due to both vpn and no time to play, but I found it as hard as glaive while being more rewarding. It requires a lot of micromanagement and it always keep you engaged during battle: choosing whether to do a faster attack to also restore stamina or a stronger one, choosing among her 3 different dodges (a slip dash-like one, a standing one and an sp one that cancel most animations) and 2 different blocks (one bound to rmb that also lets you go through bosses or an sp one that chains in a counterattack that can cancel Combos and be enhanced for more damage or to be done faster).
Compared to Miri I'm not sure either, low level Miri is a beast due to the many aoe attacks she has, but again, right now I haven't had time to properly try her. According to Korea she's number 1 in the dps chart, followed by glaive, spellsword and blute, then everyone else iirc. Imho low level blute is not as fun as Miri since you need to wait level 60 (and to rank a skill to rA) to get an actual aoe attack, with another, with smaller range being unlocked since the very start, but if you like hugging bosses like there's no tomorrow I'd say she's funnier than miri
The game was great up to roch. Equipment was pretty easy to craft aside from some rare drops like glas pants. Titan weapons were really easy to make because it only needed skill based breakoffs and trash mats. Breakoffs were actually relevant...thor's breakoff was really hard to do without crossgun kai however, as the "official" method of hooking often resulted in the chains breaking for no clear reason. And lets face it, most people were awful with chains.
Scrolls were originally easy to get, then their drop rate got nerfed into the ground. People had to farm hero hoarfrost depths for 300+ runs, each run taking close to 10 mins, most of which was running and fighting tanky mobs. Armor scrolls were insanely rare....aside from WB from keag/lion, and evies with the super rare enthus from hero succubus, most people only had enduring/master es. People with full tut/sentinel sets were massive whales.
Up till roch, +10 level 60 weapons and level 60 armor were sufficient for end game raids. This was great, because it meant that new players could quickly get geared up for end game content. Hero mode was optional, and even hero succubus could be done with 2nd trans to get enough ATT.
Level 70 content was where things started going downhill. Roch raids had bosses with about 8.5k DEF off the top of my head...most people had 12.5k-13.5k ATT, but bosses werent that tanky. Drags had 9.6k def and were obviously balanced for players with level 70 gear...the problem being that drag mats were insanely rare. I did drags every day for more than 3 months and didnt get a single one. Anyone who did get one was hoarding them for their own use or their friends. On AUS, no amoutn of gold could allow you to buy one because simply put, nobody was selling.
The grind was so bad that people started mass quitting. Doing roch/drags for months got you nowhere...drag mats were just too rare and there was no way to progress.
Then they came out with s2, which was a complete flop. Most people still had +10 level 60 gear at this point...there was no AP restore, and events giving out runes were pretty rare. Odds of going from +5 to +8 was like 1/8...the amount of stones needed was insane. The attack requirements of s2 were so insane that most people couldnt even hurt the bosses. Jumping mechancis were awful...parties had to spam graces on bosses like willy. s2 rare mats were being sold for insane amounts of gold, and insane amounts of RL cash. I know someone who sold a krak fang for like $60 or something silly.
Poeple got greedy and changed for the worse. There was a definate upswing in guild robberies and scams due to s2. S2 hosting requirements were much higher, and not everyone had a high end PC for it. Guilds would actually fight over people who could host 8 man s2 raids. The chill atmosphere of roch raids were gone. People started sucking up hard to anyone who could host 8 man s2 raids and people who had the gear to do them. People would literally run up to my raid parties in malina and try to get our party membes to ditch our party to join theirs instead, they were so desperate.
Nexon greed came back to bite them in the ass...there was a massive exodus from the game, especially in KR. It took a LONG time but the game is a lot better now, although it still needs a lot of work. Unfortunately stats are a huge part of the game now...gone are the days where +10 level 60 weapons and swift set were all you needed for end game raids. But at least drop rates and events are better now....ive actually gotte OJ stuff from dullaha multiple times, when i never got a single drag/s2 rare in the old days.
Mods need to do their jobs and warn/ban idiots like this going to every thread that they're too stupid to read through saying nothing but "TL;DR" posting off-topic bullsh!t just to get their post count up like someone thinks they're cool for being stupid. These 4chan wannabes are annoying.
@Aquasol
Quit letting idiots like this get away with spamming threads man, you're slacking hard.
But back on topic though, I agree with some of your points about Vindi originally being a challenge based game. Like you I was playing since beta and these were the best times for the game. Having to figure out how to beat gnoll chieftain with a spear lann and only 12 or 15 pots, when you actually needed skill to do it and couldn't just take the pay2win route and shell out cash to stack defense like is done now. It was very rewarding learning to dance with those bosses and working with your team to figure out the best way to get his breakoffs and those breakoffs were valuable, another reward to top it all off. This is what made me fall in love with Vindictus.
Now spear lann is completely ruined due to there being many ways to get around that glass part of it being a glass cannon class like you mentioned with another class and S2 raids are ruined as well. Instead of just nerfing all the s2 raids they could've just provided adequate gear so players have a good chance at those raids and it would still be challenging so these newer players would have that same experience we had when the game first came out, enjoying the thrill of a truly challenging battle - what kind of impression do you think you're making on newer players when the s2 bosses they're facing for their levels can be defeated in just a few minutes with them nerfed to hell like this?
One thing I'm seeing now is that while new players are getting through the s1 and s2 raids fairly quickly they're ill-equipped both in terms of stats AND skillwise, they didn't get much of a chance to learn those basic fundamentals of boss mechanics that older players like us did back when s2 was actually challenging and this would've helped prepare them for s3 raids a little better and then when these newbies get into a party with no better geared player to help, those raids are torture for them, it's beyond being just a challenge at that point, it's a nightmare, the run may just fail altogether and there's a lot more details to this issue.
So at this point they (Nexon/devcat) have dug themselves into a pretty deep hole, they're set on doing things their way, the money way and...looks like it's backfiring in too many ways to name with this "Rise" update. Yeah you may have made your wallets rise a little but you've completely destroyed the foundation the game was built on in the process and we're seeing it come back to bite you in the ass and it's coming with a vengeance, players new and old are dropping like flies and moving on to something else because it's nothing but a pay2win whale fest now, this is what the game is now catered to which is the worst route to take and we're seeing why now. Yes, those who spend the most help keep the game running the most but when you make it so the game is purely targeted at them the other 80-90% will leave. What happens when that small group of whales has barely anyone to even do raids with after the others that aren't shelling out several hundreds a month leave? Then they will follow suit and begin complaining about the game being empty, dead, the same way we are now about the game being too pay2win based and Rise having a lot to do with that. I've seen pay2win players dropping one by one in the past year as well so now not only are those who used to support the game the most monetarily leaving but a large majority of those who can't spend as much but help build that playerbase are leaving as well.
Sad that Vindictus is coming to this and is taking a turn for the worst (has been since around the time crossgun Kai and Hurk was released, two overpowered classes I'm convinced were created purely for monetary gain and quick/easy revenue for many reasons, a lot being psychologically based) but this seems to be a trend with some games based in Korea - game is amazing at first but as time goes by they flip that switch from it being fun organically to just...now you need to pay to have fun period and we aren't hearing anything you have to say. Server quietly shuts down. Or once a sequel is released like '[Insert Game Name] 2' that marks the death of the game because they've changed the game so much and its been driven purely by money and monetary gain, just completely destroying the game and forgetting or not realizing what got the game's popularity to that point in the first place and they pay the price for that.
Try to reinvent the wheel and you will pay for it.