[NEW MERCENARIES] Please note that all new forum users have to be approved before posting. This process can take up to 24 hours, and we appreciate your patience.
I used to play vindictus back when the things were so fine.Now, not really..Why you took the choice to change difficulty.People like to see some struggling in games..
Comments
If you want difficulty get to lv 95 and run iron fist.
Season 2: Bosses require a little effort if you're on lvl with regular gear. Use this to learn your character.
Season 2.5: Technically this is hero mode season 2. This brings back the bosses pre-nerf mechanics. They're still not as hard as their original versions, but they're fun solo.
Season 3: The real meat of the game. Prepare your ****.
Ein Lacher: Area wherein 10 random bosses are selected to be the days challenge. The bosses can come from any season. Your stats and the boss's are scaled to a point that brings back the old feel.
you already gave the game a chance;brand new players' opinion matters now
And where are the new players then ? These changes killed the game . screw rise!
new players are out there ,playing; I don't think rise had any impact on players leaving the game,just a few loudmouths that won't shut up.I can recall logging into the game in mid season2 and it was a lot more desolated than it is right now.
Also I don't get it why veterans are so mad about s1/2 changes.They already experienced them before,now it's the voice of new players that matter on how difficult the content is.
The whole community is stuck with the attitude "I had fun and had to work hard to get through the game,everyone should do the same"
Agreed.
There's just too much content in the game and making it all relevant isn't possible in an old game.
Making content that was still challenging for most players irrelevant isn't good game design. On top of that, at least some of the S2 raids were fun. Used to be great doing S2 & 3 raid trains with groups on multiple characters. Powering through S3 only doesn't give the same freedom of play as being able to do S2 & 3 as you like while still being efficient. Concentrating everything also leads to burn out. I log in right now to do my S3 runs for the pup event then log out because the same maps with the same few groups of three other players gets old.
I'll never understand why games like TERA and Vindi invalidate older areas that were still challenging and that people still played. Until the additional damage garbage of Rise S2 was still plenty of fun to run, as was S1. Heck, people even still did S1 & S2 Hero for the fun of it, drops or no. Watching Iset get one shot by a Karok's blast just makes me shake my head.
Anyway, the few can continue to enjoy running what's left and having to mega for people to join four person boats. Fewer zones to run and smaller party quotas yet still having to beg to get people into those runs tells the story well.
The only thing I ever need to mega for is Niflheim boats. Everything else fills instantly or, at worst, takes a few minutes for the less popular battles. Even nifl fills instantly occasionally.
As for streamlined content - I personally don't care and feel like most of the hate towards it is just misguided nostalgia. I don't feel like slaving away when trying to powerlevel new characters and I don't have time to deal with all of S3 and all of pre-nerf S2 every day. I do moderately miss 8 man boats but, in general, streamlined content is a net positive.
That said, they could have left classic S1/S2 difficulty as an option for the people who still care about it - just something to tick at boat creation. On that note, they could have also left 4/8 man as an option as well. Streamlining is fine but the removal of choice is never really accepted too well by players.
When 8-man was still a thing even before S3 launched when the game was in a "lull" you could get S1 & 2 trains going pretty much 24/7. While S1 & 2 are certainly easier now, it's also detrimental to the game to have to play a multiplayer title solo pretty much all the way up to 90. Vindi's combat makes or breaks retention for it, because the social aspect is next to zero with the current system. Add to that the small group sizes for most content even when you hit S3 and still having to wait on boats at times and it's not a very vibrant-looking picture to be a part of. Yes, sometimes the boats that only require four people now fill instantly, and sometimes they wait with only one other person joining them until the host gets bored and disbands it or that one other player leaves.
As to an easy leveling experience, why couldn't they just up the XP and leave the difficulty in? The clear times wouldn't have been that much slower, it could have still been streamlined, players would have had an idea of what Vindi is supposed to be about, and people wouldn't be with no idea of how to play their characters when they hit S3. I think those changes and the fact that the majority--only three exceptions in the past year or more--of new cash shop items come in RNG boxes instead of direct sales speak to this game not being something meant to attract and retain players any longer. It's a processing plant for the whales who remain and the little fish who get caught in the nets for a time.
The Steam charts, the lack of mega activity in comparison to the old days, the slow movement of the For Sale and Recruiting sections, Off-topic, and Future Content on the forums, and word of mouth elsewhere all speak to how poorly received this game is as a whole now.
Actually, if you're a legitimately brand new player, the leveling experience is still challenging. S1 will be a mostly on rails tutorial for them but S2 will most definitely kill them repeatedly until they learn their characters.
Anyways, as for the rest - I never argued that Vindictus is a bustling game. It's very clearly a shadow of what it used to be in terms of population but it has been that way since quite a bit before Rise ever hit. All I said is that Rise was a net positive for the user experience, which it mostly is.
If they wear the gear given to them for free they won't have much of any issues with the old raid bosses. That said yes, ones like Kielu or Monark might give them 2 min of work, unless they decide to trans... (The folks that I see QQing about it being to tough are almost always for some reason still wearing ~lv 40 armor/weapons, when the game gave them full lv 70 armor/weapons back when they were still in lv 60s.)
And remember... before rise we had easy mode. You could solo the "hard" S2 raids and finish story content without the need to wait for an 8 man raid if you wanted.
Don't get me wrong, rise implemented some good things. But breaking S1/S2 wasn't one of them. They made the content such that they only want you to run it once and then you are never suppose to visit again... Then they force us to visit it time and time again if you do dailies/weeklies.
I can understand wanting to force folks to run the same content so that it seems like there are more people playing. But just try filling up a Nifheim without megas... or worse still a dul/aes when you don't have the bal + crit to run it QB (like most new folks do).
Obviously I still play this game, a lot, but it has been a long time since I would even consider telling friends to give it a try. Heck since Rise I refuse to pay any NX on this game. That should say what I think about the loss of S1/S2 content/challenge, loss of 8 man raids, mythical +20, no double boom, AD inflation = easy mode if you want to play with high atspd. Top it off new bosses are obviously designed with the assumption that everyone has +12/13 gear. (Folks running with free gear hate the jump from S2 they were able to be hit 10+ times to suddenly being killed in 1-2 hits in S3. Top it off fully geared folks that enjoy "hard" bosses hate that now everything but dul/aes/Arca/Neam have no hope of being a challenge, let alone killing them unless they purposely nerf themselves.)
Who said you HAVE TO do all the s2 s3 content togheter?
It's up to you do decide what and how many raids you do daily...
It's not written anywhere that you have to do all the raids available. But you should also consider other ppl who have different tastes than you.
This game is already instanced and closed into 3 (which is really only one) towns.
I agree with Protypemind, this game compared to other open world mmos, with A LOT more options and activities, already felt like being literally CAGED in on single town (the other 2 towns lost their meaning since long), and now that everything is focused on those few S3 Raids they reduced even more the power of CHOICE.
Reading such things makes be think you're one of those players who play 45 more games a day or just a casual player so yeah..
You log in, do your s3 and log off and u're perfectly fine with it. IF you're such player sorry but u shouldn't even have voice to talk about it compared to who actually play the game more seriously.
For the ppl who love the game and spend their time here doing the same boring things over and over and over because you have no other choice but doing S3 it's quite painful. The cage became even smaller than it was and it feels like we run inside a wheel like hamsters over and over and over.
-- About the newbes --
- As Prototype said we already had the EASY MODE which allow anyone to solo everything if too hard. Nerfing the bosses was a very stupid move same as focusing everything on S3. What's the point to nerfing if we had such option already??
- We had also a pretty useful feature called Party scaled HP where the boss have HP based on the party size. Whatelse you want?
Why reduce important bosses to a stupid mob?
Since Easy mode was implemented i saw close to 0 ppl asking for help till S3 where the game start to require some skills rightfully.
-- About old content --
- There was a time when S2 and S3 were used to drop the R7 scrolls and you had many options back then, many raids to choose.
- Even S1 was still relevant because raids as the Giant was used to drop 3 stars accessories.
- Some S1 break off parts were still relevant and granted an income (Rocheste).
- You could farm 'different' places to drop the scroll you need at the precise place instead of Randomly do raids and HOPING to drop the one u want (ex. Lionotus and keghan for Well balanced), which also mean more longevity to the old raids and dungeons as well.
Might be old content but having the chance to 'Change' atmosphere/place instead of spamming those freaking closed number raids would preserve your brain cells. So, it's not ''nostalgia''. There's an actual meaning/purpose to keep such content alive.
-- About parties --
- Why do not put back the old 8ppl raids? Yes many ppl can't host for 8, but this is not necessarely needed.
With the scaled HP everything is possible. You can solo, go with 4ppl or choose to do a fun 8 man raid with increased HP and why not even giving 1 core more, to reward the ppl who choose to do it and at the same time is not game breaking. Also socially talking many ppl would enjoy a 8 man raids as it was before.
Everyone would be happy, who can't host can just do them solo, or party with their 3 4 friends or join the 8 ppl parties. Variety of choice.
-- About the playerbase --
I read someone saying players increased after RISE. That makes me laugh and cry at the same time.
It is true that QB parties fill pretty fast simply because are more inviting (more cores + notification everytime someone open a boat + easy to access ). Who would look for a normal party not QB nowadays? Who still check the board? Nobody...
But the number of players is drastically decreased. Who said the opposite have no clue of what they are talking.
Many guilds died as well and those which are still alive lack a lot of ppl inside.
The towns feels a lot more empty and even the sakura tree that was placed during the spring event gave the, temporary, feeling to have something 'more' in this desolated place.
The other games are at least crowded with npcs which give the game a lively aspect. We have just an annoying 24/7 barking dog and some chickens.
So, imo, no RISE brought a lot of bad things which can't stand the few positive sides and the results are quite clear.
Who can't see them is just a casual player or someone who always played with their closed group of friends not caring about what happen outside of their circle.
Too bad this isn't our game. Nexon pushed rise out even to a vocal majority of the KR community who didn't want it and it didn't change anything and they have the most sway for changes. Na is pretty much an afterthought for some extra cash.
Remember at one point they wanted to -1 enhance on ap restoring as well as prevent further enhance and retroactively apply it to ap restored items?
If you're a hardcore player, you will certainly feel pressured to do all relevant content. This is partly why games have content cycles - so people aren't overwhelmed and don't feel like they're losing out on progression by not playing extreme hours every day.
I do; and I quote -
I don't advocate for the removal of choice in this or any other game and tbh I'm not sure you really understand what I'm trying to say.
There's a significant difference between streamlining content to benefit the user experience and simply removing content - and note that when I say "content" in this context, I'm not only referring to raids but rather the entirety of systems changes that came with Rise, many of which made the game more enjoyable and accessible. Irrespective of the fact that those changes came a little too late, the changes were, again, a net positive for the user experience. Cutting raids was a probable loss, yeah, but that's one piece of the puzzle.
It's also important to understand that this game has been functionally dead for a long time - certainly since before Rise ever dropped. I'm not sure why you (and other people in this thread) are trying to make it sound like the game was flourishing beforehand. It wasn't. Guilds were dead long before Rise. Market and recruitment forums were dead long before Rise. People had to mega for boats long before Rise. This is the definition of misguided nostalgia. The Vindi playerbase has been abysmally low for years, always having enough of a population to fill boats and sustain a borderline functional economy but never having enough to be anything but a shadow of its long lost past. It remains in more or less the same state post-Rise.
This made me laugh a little.
It was certainly a lot of fun either staring at the board or scrambling to the board as soon as somebody mega'd in hopes that you didn't miss the S1/2 train because finding somebody willing and able to host 8 man boats was actually like finding a unicorn in the wild. That was the reality for many players who didn't play with a "closed group of friends", as you say. We care about them, right?
Let's not pretend that QB, and the consequent elimination of the need to physically scavenge boards, wasn't one of the single greatest QoL improvements this game has ever seen in terms of general accessibility.
I play Vindi probably 5-6 hours a day, on average. Dunno what your definition of a casual is. More importantly, I have very distinct memories of what made me quit this game multiple times pre-Rise and what made me come back post-Rise. 8 man boats are missed but, in general, the game feels and plays better, and is more accessible to a wider range of players.
The problem with Rise wasn't its changes. It was the fact that the update came when the game was ALREADY dead. Far, far too late.
I find this comment a little strange considering you posted the following earlier in this thread -
Can't have it both ways.
From more skill based gameplay it went to gear based gameplay -> thus making game more grindy than fun (that's my opinion)
But this makes them more money (probably) so they choose to follow standard grindy mmo style...