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QB is a pain for that I've noticed but I mean if your already in Colhen just use the board, now if you talking about people who see your attack and don't give you the time of day I agree its BS. You have to be 26k to come on my boat? Well how fair is that, I understand a lot don't want to carry a player of a lower attack, but if they don't have help how are they supposed to reach what you are even asking for. Neam last night has the same issue someone didn't want anyone with lower then a +15 weapon and red title. Which while I personally know Neam is a bznitch in a half, how is anyone else supposed to get passed it if you aren't willing to at least lead a hand, the more people helping each other the more you'll see different faces running things. The constant complaint on the game is that its dead, or the same faces are running the same raids. 1 there isn't that many raids anyway, 2 there are some raids people prefer to others so they are popularly used more, more then often, its just to line the pockets with a good essence for sale or to make a earring or belt. 3 and heres the kicker how can you have new faces if you wont offer help. S3 is a little difficult, I banded together with a good group of friends and now we are all sitting on Neam and try to get into boats as much as we can to get better or beat it. Its not dead its just too many lower ends get left in the cold because someone just doesn't care to help someone willing to pull as much of there weight as possible. But the main point of this was about boat requirements if anything someone who make a discussion looking for help for this raid or that story which will help others think about it if 2 lvl 90s help someone who just hit 90 but doesn't have a full oj set there is already either 1 or 2 new faces for something. But that's just my ramblings.
Anyway to the topic, if you're trying to board of a quick battle, YES, it does have an attack requirement. Regular battles are usually dependent on the host and sometimes you run into one of those guys that go all wild over the attack stat (when it's capped at 23,000 for s3 runs, 18,000 on s2, and freaking 14,000 on s1).
Uh, the attack caps in s2 are 21k and roughly 19k for s1 (drags).
s1 attack cap was largely irrelevant, since most people had 12-14k attack back when s1 was end game (with +10 level 60 weapons, mael being insanely rare and some characters having low ATT weapons like twin swords, etc). The bosses were balanced for parties of average stats (and characters were weaker back then). Drags took maybe 15 mins to kill with an average party. Roch was maybe 10 mins or so IIRC.
s2 ruined this by making everything have insanely high DEF and have massively inflated HP pools. Even a party of attack capped players in s2 can take 10 mins or more to kill bosses like Ulchas. s2 and beyond are obviously balanced for parties of attack capped or near attack capped players. The only s2 bosses that are fast with a party of attack capped players are stuff like panth, kraken, havan, iset, jugg (if you dont fail the bombing phase). Havan being fast only if the party can interrupt the one hit kill and iset being fast only if you can chain disables.
Nowhere is this more obvious than s3 bosses, they average 10 mins to kill with half the party being attack capped (by attack cap I do not mean top DPS characters with +15s obviously) and the others having average stats of 19-21k (min : event gear). The stat requirements of s3 raids are so silly that players with the +9 level 80 gear will almost never break 10% damage (unless the rest of the party is very, very bad) even if they play very well. And that is insanely good gear for level 80s. Your average new player will have +0 gear, no scrolls and spend most of the raid dead.
This is basically flawed progression. Devcat's train of thought is that a level 80 will gladly spend runes to +10 and enchant his level 80 gear before tackling s3. This is wrong. Most level 80 newbies will run into the progression wall and jump straight over to other games like BDO.
If there's a situation where you need better gear, there are dungeons that can be farmed easily and produce gold where said gold can be used to buy better weapons.
9 out of 10 new players won't do that. Why? People almost always take the easiest route. Most people would rather log off and play an easier game than farm something mind numbingly boring to make gold. Ask any veteran who has tried giving advice to new players before. It usually goes like this :
Newbie : Man, I have no gold, what's a good way to make gold?
Veteran : You should try farming enchancement elixirs to sell, you can also sell high level enhancement stones, ore, powders, etc.
Newbie : Too boring/takes too long/too hard. I'm going to play an easier game instead.
OR
Newbie : *stops responding* *logs off to play another game*
I have seen dozens of newbies do exactly this. Hell, most veterans do this too. They complain they have no gold/mats/whatever, but they refuse to do dungeons to get anything because "ceebs", "too lazy", "too hard", "I would rather play another game instead", etc. I know multiple people with very good gear (+13s or higher) that quit because "I have no gold" or "Mats are too hard to get" but they refuse to run anything at all because "ceebs" or "too hard".
A month ago, I was talking to a Kai with a +14 or+15 (cant remember which) and he said he quit because it was too hard to make gold. I asked him why he didnt run s3 dailies to sell the drops and he said it was too hard. He now plays BDO and wont come back, he wont even login to get the free weekend gifts. This is pretty much the typical MMO player these days.
In the last one year I have only seen one newbie actually put in the effort to farm elixirs, etc to sell to make gold compared to the dozens who chose to play other games instead. He was able to make a lot of gold doing this and gear himself up easily with fully enchanted gear, etc. Therefore, its not impossible to make gold via farming as a newbie, but most newbies simply wont do it. He even got lucky and got a +15 coupon from an event. Unfortunately, right after he got the +15 coupon, he started refusing to do any end game content (s3, nif, etc) because "I already have everything I want from this battle". Complete waste of a +15. He quit permanently because he doesn't want to get level 95 gear after Dullhan has released because "I worked so hard to get my gear and it will be obsolete once Dullahan is out" and now plays BDO.
purple weapons are so cheap on the mp. enhance it to +8 (or +5 if youre poor). if that still doesnt get you there, wait for someone to use soap or use a kitty potion.
Yea, a fresh level 80 with almost no money is going to buy a purple weapon (which is worthless because upgrading to orange resets the enhancement rank) and spend a fortune on paradise stones/elixirs trying to +8 it without runes. Have you ever talked to any new level 80s before? Because most of them wont do that, they will simply quit unless they get carried by friends/their guild/etc.
I know a level 90 kai who spent weeks farming muir on multiple characters (most of whom were undergeared) and upgrading empos to paradise stones just so he could +10 a OJ crossgun. People like that are extremely rare...most new players will not like the game enough to spend weeks farming to make a level 90 OJ weapon.
This is, hands down, the most common conversations I have had with new players about end game weapons (not +15s or anything, just +10 basic ones) as they got closer to level cap (this started happening when s2 was introduced by the way, which caused a massive exodus of players) :
When s2 was endgame and level 80 mats werent in the seal shop :
Newbie : Hey im getting closer to level cap, how should I get a level 80 weapon?
Me : You pretty much cant, the drop rate is insanely rare and people have been doing daily raids for more than 3 months without being able to get a single rare.
Newbie : Wow thats fucked up. *tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
When level 80 mats were just introduced to the seal shop :
Newbie : Hey im getting closer to level cap, how should I get a level 80 weapon?
Me : Farm [insert very large amount of seals here] and buy the mats from the seal shop.
Newbie : Wow...that's going to take forever. How do I get seals?
Me : People usually get them from s1 raids like Roch/Colhen raids and solo stuff like Succubus.
Newbie : *does s1 raids for a week or two* This is taking too long, i'm getting bored now. *tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
When s3 mats were in the sealshop in shitty over priced RNG boxes that would usually give you a bound armor feather instead of the weapon feather :
Newbie : Hey, I just finished the s2 story, how do I get geared up for s3?
Me : Well people usually make a +10 level 80 weapon first to do s3 raids since a level 90 oj weapon feather is really rare and it will take a long time to get it....
Newbie : But i don't want to spend money on runes...*tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
OR
Newbie : *makes a +10 level 80 weapon* Man, I've been doing s3 raids for more than a month without getting anything good and I do so little damage...*tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
When the seal shop was FINALLY revamped so it "only" costs 350 seals to make a level 90 oj weapon :
Newbie : Hey, I just finished the s2 story, how do I get geared up for s3?
Me : People usually save up 350 seals to make a level 90 oj weapon from the seal shop, you can do s1 and solo raids to get seals. Abyssal arena also gives lots of seals but is only open two days of the week.
Newbie : Wow thats going to take a long time...*tries getting seals for a while* yeaaaa this is taking too long ceebs *tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
Pretty much every veteran who has tried to get newbies geared up for end game content has similar stories to tell.
I know a level 89 who can't even start the s3 story because s3 bosses are balanced for people with attack capped stats, and he only has the free level 80 gear. He only got that high because I have been inviting him to 60-69 Abyssal arena runs as much as I can. Im amazed he hasnt officially quit yet. He literally only logins to get the free gifts, do some easy solo raids (shakkar, etc) occasionally and arena runs when I invite him. He wont try asking people to do s1 raids because its easier to simply log off and play another game instead. This is what most new players will do. You could put a bunch of new players in a room together and 9 times out of 10 they will all start playing something else instead of trying to form a party, because the latter requires you to put in the effort to talk to people.
Infact, I literally saw this happen recently. Two weeks ago, there were a bunch of people online who I knew wanted seals to make a level 90 weapon. So I suggested they form a party to do roch raids during the +2 raids event. I even gave them a list of names to talk to. 10 minutes later two guys were just standing around asking each other "What's happening?", one guy stopped responding and went off to do random solos and three other guys were just sitting around doing nothing. After telling them they should talk to each other and figure out who can host, 10 minutes later there was still no progress and they were still standing around asking each other if anything was happening. One guy finally made a boat and a few of them joined, but they only did a few roch raids before people started logging off to play another game.
How many of those newbies do you think will end up with 350 seals to make a level 90 oj weapon before they jump ship to another game? You don't need a crystal ball to predict this.
I'm asking the management to actually play the game and take a look at what the walls and constraints are for players enjoying the game.
The management or even most of the GMs dont even play the game. Thats why whenever you try to report bugs, they dont get fixed or you just get confused "We cant replicate this bug" replies for bugs that literally every player in the game can replicate. Thats assuming you get a response at all, the bug report forum is full of dead threads with no official response for a reason. I reported typos more than a year ago that havent been fixed, and thats something that NA Is clearly capable of doing without KR support, so no excuse really.
It's not hard at all to get 18k. You must be playing the game wrong.
There's also the option of joining a guild you know.
Joining a guild is not a great solution. Its the typical solution people suggest for MMOs, but in reality, the guild has very little to gain and everything to lose by helping a newbie gear up.
When a new player joins a guild and gets help with quests, gear, etc, it is expected that the new player will in turn help out the rest of the guild when he gets strong enough to do so. This arrangement falls apart when most new players realise that they can get free help to reach end game and then refuse to help people in return. Or simply get bored and quit.
Imagine spending what could be months helping a casual player to gear up and level from level 1, get full enchants, a +10 weapon, teach him all the tricks to make gold, farm mats, how to do raids, etc. Carrying him in end game content even though he does no damage because he is undergeared and you could have gotten someone else with approrpiate gear instead. Then he jumps ship to another guild because they offered him free stuff, "my friends are making a guild" or "Im bored now k thxs bai". Congrats, you just wasted months of work helping someone to reach endgame only for him to not even want to do endgame because he wants to play BDO now or something.
Why would any sane guild do this? I mean sure, if hes your best bud IRL or something, but some random newbie who just applies to your guild? No sane guild should be doing this because it will burn people out.
I spent months carrying someone with 17-18k ATT in s3 content because he was part of my guild, not to mention helping him learn the game, do s2 content, etc. He made a +15, then refused to do any end game content because he had a +15 now. When the scroll shop event was on he would rather solo roch raids for coins rather than invite other guild members to go because "its faster if i solo" (with his +15). That's what happens when a guild helps people reach endgame.
The QB requirements are there to warn new players that they cant do the battle with low att. At 18k you don't even need equips just a wep and for those that dont reach 18k, just buy a full blue set for 200k and you'll be at 18k att. Also no reason to remove the att min requirements because it does not affect anyone. If you think your skill is amazing and you can do dmg to Regina then setup a party of 8 people with <18k att and tell me how it goes because it will help you understand why the game offers requirements.
When regina first came out most people were at 18-19k att, it would take 20+ min and a bucket of GGs to get through the battle... fun
No, not really. The QB requirements are there to prevent you from filling up the boat with naked afk alts to get the +1 core bonus from a full party. Sure you can still get afk alts in, but they actually need gear to reach the QB requirement which makes it harder/less attractive.
If it was meant to warn new players that the boss had high stats they would have put warnings everywhere instead of just the QB menu.
Not trying to trigger people, because I can think of one person that helped so much about it.. but finding out about new contents seems to have made both our communities (NA/EU) ... 'spoiled'.
I'll explain :
The moment people knew about the new lv95 content, they already started to plan out everything about their lv90 gear. Btw Dullahan's cap is 28.500 ATT, even a +13 90 is able to reach that with multiple buffs, talking about epaulets/soaps/etc.. anyway my point is that, people will already plan their lv95 gear, instead of having to play the content itself to get it.
Watch it happening, some people will already have lv95 gear the very first day of the update, just watch it.
This is why the game get boring pretty fast here, new content is planned months ago and people will only need to play it like a week at best and they'll get what they want already. Simple.
At some point, they'll have to come with another Neamhain or I don't know.
QB is a pain for that I've noticed but I mean if your already in Colhen just use the board, now if you talking about people who see your attack and don't give you the time of day I agree its BS. You have to be 26k to come on my boat? Well how fair is that, I understand a lot don't want to carry a player of a lower attack, but if they don't have help how are they supposed to reach what you are even asking for. Neam last night has the same issue someone didn't want anyone with lower then a +15 weapon and red title. Which while I personally know Neam is a bznitch in a half, how is anyone else supposed to get passed it if you aren't willing to at least lead a hand, the more people helping each other the more you'll see different faces running things. The constant complaint on the game is that its dead, or the same faces are running the same raids. 1 there isn't that many raids anyway, 2 there are some raids people prefer to others so they are popularly used more, more then often, its just to line the pockets with a good essence for sale or to make a earring or belt. 3 and heres the kicker how can you have new faces if you wont offer help. S3 is a little difficult, I banded together with a good group of friends and now we are all sitting on Neam and try to get into boats as much as we can to get better or beat it. Its not dead its just too many lower ends get left in the cold because someone just doesn't care to help someone willing to pull as much of there weight as possible. But the main point of this was about boat requirements if anything someone who make a discussion looking for help for this raid or that story which will help others think about it if 2 lvl 90s help someone who just hit 90 but doesn't have a full oj set there is already either 1 or 2 new faces for something. But that's just my ramblings.
It works both ways, why would a stranger help someone with low stats? Not only do they get nothing out of it, but they probably have to sacrifice time and energy to do it.
Lets say it normally takes you an hour to do s3 raids with a decent party (this is pretty fast when you take into account the boat loading sequence, etc). Now, lets say you decide to carry several newbies who do 5% damage each (or less) and s3 raids now take 2 hours or more. Even if you are fine with that, is the rest of the party fine with the extra time/effort required? What is the impact of the extra time required? You have less time for RL or other stuff. What if you can only play 2-3 hours a day due to work/school/etc? Suddenly that extra hour becomes critical.
If you take extra long to finish s3 raids and it is now too late to find people to do anything else (s2/s3 dailies, nif, etc) because everyone you know is logging off to sleep or whatever, will those newbies help you find others to help you do runs? No, they wont. They will just thank you and go do their own stuff instead. Most of them wont even thank you actually.
And when those newbies do get good stats, will they help you out in return? The vast majority wont. Most wont even invite you to raids when their party has a spot in the future. I spent weeks inviting a friend to raids because his guild was inactive and werent around to bring him on raids, when his guild became active again and they had a free spot while doing raids, he chose to 7 man a raid and refused to let me come when I asked because he wanted it to be "guild only". Great "friend" there.
If your party has free spots and nobody else wants to come, sure, go ahead and let someone undergeared come if it doesnt affect the boss HP, assuming the host can handle it. Its not like it affects your drops ora nything. But its not fair to expect people to take extra long to do raids when they could have gotten someone with appropriate gear instead. It is especially annoying when someone deliberately gimps themselves for end game content and therefore making raids take longer for the entire party.
For example, someone with an attack capped main deliberately using a low attack alt in s3. Refusing to wear armor in s3 with predictable results (and not being able to hit attack cap without armor either). Someone with a +12 or better deliberately using a +5 alternate weapon in s3. Etc.
Someone needs help getting their alt a recipe or two so they can make something via seals or need help with a story raid? Sure, no problem. But its very unfair and selfish to show up with a 16k alt in s3 because you want to farm seals in s3 instead of something like roch or arena. Or just decide to not use proper equipment because you want to mess around or whatever.
Y'all beating dead horse anyway. The issue is much more complex than artificial inflation of stats per season/episode, and at its core lies the korean philosophy of designing games which are to be farming simulators & wallet drillers. The target audience which are Koreans, and much like Chinese, enjoy this type MMOs.
Rest of the regions these games are ported to are usually just an additional source of income, or to put it simply to milk them.
Not trying to trigger people, because I can think of one person that helped so much about it.. but finding out about new contents seems to have made both our communities (NA/EU) ... 'spoiled'.
I'll explain :
The moment people knew about the new lv95 content, they already started to plan out everything about their lv90 gear. Btw Dullahan's cap is 28.500 ATT, even a +13 90 is able to reach that with multiple buffs, talking about epaulets/soaps/etc.. anyway my point is that, people will already plan their lv95 gear, instead of having to play the content itself to get it.
Watch it happening, some people will already have lv95 gear the very first day of the update, just watch it.
This is why the game get boring pretty fast here, new content is planned months ago and people will only need to play it like a week at best and they'll get what they want already. Simple.
At some point, they'll have to come with another Neamhain or I don't know.
What? How will they get level 95 gear on the first day unless they get extremely lucky with drops or NA decides to do something very unexpected and make level 95 mats available in the seal shop on the first day?
(Not counting pay2win gacha boxes, talking strictly about in game sources)
Look at the Eochaid/Abo essences. It doesnt matter how much "planning" you do if the essence doesnt drop for you and nobody wants to sell it because everyone wants it for themselves, their alts or their friends. Neither are in the seal shop, and i dont think they are in any of the gacha boxes atm, so you cant simply decide to get one.
People got bored of Abo without maxing out the content because, frankly, most people get bored easily. When Abo was released, tons of people came back to try him out. But most quit very quickly afterwards. Why? Not because they got the essence and full OJ Abo gear. They quit because :
-Regina has same stats as abo and has been out for ages, and less people want lochlann special abilities
-It didnt drop essence at release, and when it did, most of the people quit didnt care enough to come back
-Of the ones that did want the essence, they refused to come back because "it wont drop for me anyway, cbf farming it for months to get it to drop"
When Neamhain came out, most people stopped bothering within a few weeks because it was "too hard" and they didnt want to farm it for the reedemer bonuses. I literally spoke to a Sylas with a +15 a few days ago who refused to do it more than once for precisely this reason. Hes now playing other games.
@Question2 jfc the amount of stupid and outright lies in your posts is staggering. it's not even mitigated by the fact that you wrote so much, it's so densely packed in there. i could pick a spot at random out of the 5 screens of text and spot at least 1 idiotic rambling.
"nuh uh you lie" isnt a very good argument.
Everything that i wrote was 100% truthful. If you think newbies would rather spend hours farming items to sell for gold rather than quit to play another game, you obviously havent talked to many newbies.
Y'all beating dead horse anyway. The issue is much more complex than artificial inflation of stats per season/episode, and at its core lies the korean philosophy of designing games which are to be farming simulators & wallet drillers. The target audience which are Koreans, and much like Chinese, enjoy this type MMOs.
Rest of the regions these games are ported to are usually just an additional source of income, or to put it simply to milk them.
Things only started getting worse after roch really. Everything up to that point was perfectly reasonable. Drags were "okay" but with 9.6k def were far too tanky for12k attack characters and dragon rares were too difficult to get compared to roch gear. Worst case scenario, you could make a level 60 weapon easily just by doing titan breakoff 7 times. The only really important scrolls that were too hard to get were mael/enthus/force. s2 was when things just went full retarded with the blatant pay2win since gachas were the only reasonable source of level 80 gear.
If the game was designed to be pay2win from the beginning, then we would have run into this problem far earlier than s2. Pretty sure a director change occured that resulted in the s2 fiasco. Lagho set would have taken months of farming to make, not just a couple of days (anyone else remember spamming lagho in beta?) and devcat would have tried to sell the lagho set via gacha boxes.
The fact that the game population was at the highest point when roch/drags at end game proves that was the most well designed point of the game, progression wise. Drags were already making people quit because doing drags for 3 months without a single rare was soul crushing though. But s2 really took the cake with how badly designed it was.
"i personally know of DOZENS of newbies who quit the game for the same reason" yeah ok bud
enough projecting
Ask any veteran who has spent time trying to get newbies to reach and stay in end game. I bet most of them will tell you the same thing : that most newbies quit to play other games instead.
sorry but just because you think it's impossible to reach 18k as a newbie doesn't mean newbies can't find a way. we just had a free +8-10 coupon and are getting another +10(at the very least) coupon this weekend. so your whole rant about cost of paradise stones was groundless. if a newbie cant even shell out 1m on a purple weapon then grind seals for a few weeks to get an orange feather, then vindictus wasn't the right game for them anyway. it doesnt have to be for everyone. fortunately, most people don't need or want handholding.
also, sorry but just because you can't help newbies without expectation of return doesn't mean the rest of us veterans can't as well. and most newbies do try to return the favor or pay it forward. fortunately, statistically speaking sociopaths only make up 1-5% of the population
What? How will they get level 95 gear on the first day unless they get extremely lucky with drops or NA decides to do something very unexpected and make level 95 mats available in the seal shop on the first day?
(Not counting pay2win gacha boxes, talking strictly about in game sources)
Yeah you definitely don't have time in 6 months to make money.
Also, people barely enhance by themselves, people that get the rares the very first day often overprices them and the one-that-wants-everything is going to buy it no matter what.
Only logical point is on the essences and still : I had to run Abo 60+ times to get it, I don't wanna buy a belt that just gives 2 more Balance for 20m+, I'd rather do it myself. Which I did, only asked help of a friend to get 2 oj smooths as i had them once but sold because after 50 raids of 'carrying' people with higher stats than you, the game still says 'f-ck you' and never gave me that essence at all.
Had to wait the 61th time to be precise, yeah right, imagine w/o VIP, that's literally 2 months.
Not trying to trigger people, because I can think of one person that helped so much about it.. but finding out about new contents seems to have made both our communities (NA/EU) ... 'spoiled'.
I'll explain :
The moment people knew about the new lv95 content, they already started to plan out everything about their lv90 gear. Btw Dullahan's cap is 28.500 ATT, even a +13 90 is able to reach that with multiple buffs, talking about epaulets/soaps/etc.. anyway my point is that, people will already plan their lv95 gear, instead of having to play the content itself to get it.
Watch it happening, some people will already have lv95 gear the very first day of the update, just watch it.
This is why the game get boring pretty fast here, new content is planned months ago and people will only need to play it like a week at best and they'll get what they want already. Simple.
At some point, they'll have to come with another Neamhain or I don't know.
Really depends. For me and a lot of others more ease of gearing simply means actually playing alts. It's nice to be able to progress gear-wise with more than one character. It used to be next to impossible to do that. Now at least I can enjoy the majority of my favorites and get them there over time.
Even the people who are very geared still have a long way to go. We've seen a few people maxed on this or that, but how many people have all their shards at max, whether through buying them or through synthesis? With the upcoming content and eventually level 100, there's still plenty to do with characters who are at atk/bal/crit cap right now. Extra crit resist, more def, all of that will come in very handy as we get harder levels of difficulty.
There's still plenty to do for 95% of players with most of their gear, and even the top 5% still have maxing that they can make happen.
@Question2 I normally disagree with a lot of the things I see you post. However, the multiple posts explaining your experiences and other's with helping new players is dead on. I still feel like helping everyone I can, regardless of their situation, but at the end of the day, I'm always left in the same position, alone. I've been playing actively since the game launched, and have seen my guild fluctuate a lot over the 6.5 years. Everything is predictable... The same patterns keep repeating, but I ignore them, hoping for things to change. Every situation you described I have experienced myself, sadly. Nearly all people that put in the effort to come close to end game will leave sooner than latter. For the handful that do remain, there are many different outcomes. For the old Veterans, some of us band together (become elitists), some keep few yet active friends, some go solo, while some of us are still trying to live in the past. The one thing I have realized, yet can't accept, is that by trying to help others, eventually I always end up alone.
Join my boats then,you can pretty much do all raids with 20k att even lower party,the elitists are the one that lose there,having to wait a long time for a 5 minute battle with top tier geared players which is kinda ironic.When the not super geared players finish them all before they even finish one,let them do what they want,its their loss.
Restricted boasts is still a thing after Quick Battle addition? Myself I join only QB, because that's faster to find a party and thus more beneficial, and never cared about restrictions.
I think requirement boats are reasonable: Low stats player just add them because he/she knows he can't do much dmg and will be moping floor most of time. High stats player on the other hand have done that raid so many times that he/she really doesn't want to spend double or triple time (and maybe even some GGs) killing the boss.
You can find many boats without requirements and game became easier when they added orange parts for seals.
But how can low stats players gain good gear if they can't do S3?
1. Farm seals: S1 and S2 raids (20 seals a day) , abyssal arena (additional seals I think 5 per run or so), einrah (even additional seals ya can do 10 battles for 10 seals daily), royal raid = so it's more then 40 seals a day (I know that abyssal arena itsn't enabled everyday)
2. Farm orbs: Twilight desert luminaries spam without gear just pick those two in the beginning and restart (very boring way to earn money)
3. Farm twilight desert luminaries for element stones mats (you don't have to fight bosses so easy for ungeared ppl)
4. Farm ship graveyard 80-90: it drops fast and the dead es from chests (can be difficult for ungeared ppl but ya can go in 4 and prices of the dead es will go up because of the new rings coming)
5. Farm misty summit or moonlight peak: You can do full run if ya know ya can do it or just go for only O boss, you can meet 4 minibosses along the way that drop subdued, berserker, or other es and ya can find shini chest sometimes in the O boss room that can drop some r8,r9 scrolls.
6. Farm fruitful hero for valor es
7. Farm master es (Don't remember the dung now)
8. Farm secret room everyday on hero: Fast dung that gives seal and possibility to drop enthu es
9. It's quest map of ben chenner mountain don't know the name now but there are 6 monsters right before an iron ore so ya only kill those monsters and mine ores and restart (boring )
9*. Farm magic powder: two moons hero or hard
Now more difficult ones
10. Do muir on hard everyday for paradise enhance stones (you will need them in the future but you can still sell them)
11. Spam deep corruption and do bonus mission every battle (7 kickkills) = 100k gold a run + mats
12. Do rohoran prarie it is easiest then ben chenner and got more erg pots and 2 better luminaries (If you are lucky you can find room with 8 erg pots inside)
Now you got 13 possibilities to farm for gear so find the best one for you or change them when they become boring or just find additional. And I would suggest you to find guild with similar players like you not the one with only geared ppl (being carried isn't fun).
PS:
13. p2w
14. be lucker, knew ppl that dropped weapon sp their first run then enhanced weapon to +13 first try and later dropped 4 abo essences when it was still overpriced
1: The only remotely viable option here that will result in you having high end gear. But you still need a massive amount of input in terms of gold and material to create your gear out of the shards.
2-12: You can run the methods you described for 8 hours a day and end up with less than 500m at the end of the year.
11* This is such a stupid (and slow, but at least it's constant, hey, the botters are rolling in now) way of generating gold. And it's just about locked to two classes only so good luck with that if you play something else.
13: When you pay in Vindictus what are you winning at?
Comments
Not to mention most of the characters at the time did not have their revamps to stand a fighting chance (karok, kai and vella).
Uh, the attack caps in s2 are 21k and roughly 19k for s1 (drags).
s1 attack cap was largely irrelevant, since most people had 12-14k attack back when s1 was end game (with +10 level 60 weapons, mael being insanely rare and some characters having low ATT weapons like twin swords, etc). The bosses were balanced for parties of average stats (and characters were weaker back then). Drags took maybe 15 mins to kill with an average party. Roch was maybe 10 mins or so IIRC.
s2 ruined this by making everything have insanely high DEF and have massively inflated HP pools. Even a party of attack capped players in s2 can take 10 mins or more to kill bosses like Ulchas. s2 and beyond are obviously balanced for parties of attack capped or near attack capped players. The only s2 bosses that are fast with a party of attack capped players are stuff like panth, kraken, havan, iset, jugg (if you dont fail the bombing phase). Havan being fast only if the party can interrupt the one hit kill and iset being fast only if you can chain disables.
Nowhere is this more obvious than s3 bosses, they average 10 mins to kill with half the party being attack capped (by attack cap I do not mean top DPS characters with +15s obviously) and the others having average stats of 19-21k (min : event gear). The stat requirements of s3 raids are so silly that players with the +9 level 80 gear will almost never break 10% damage (unless the rest of the party is very, very bad) even if they play very well. And that is insanely good gear for level 80s. Your average new player will have +0 gear, no scrolls and spend most of the raid dead.
This is basically flawed progression. Devcat's train of thought is that a level 80 will gladly spend runes to +10 and enchant his level 80 gear before tackling s3. This is wrong. Most level 80 newbies will run into the progression wall and jump straight over to other games like BDO.
9 out of 10 new players won't do that. Why? People almost always take the easiest route. Most people would rather log off and play an easier game than farm something mind numbingly boring to make gold. Ask any veteran who has tried giving advice to new players before. It usually goes like this :
Newbie : Man, I have no gold, what's a good way to make gold?
Veteran : You should try farming enchancement elixirs to sell, you can also sell high level enhancement stones, ore, powders, etc.
Newbie : Too boring/takes too long/too hard. I'm going to play an easier game instead.
OR
Newbie : *stops responding* *logs off to play another game*
I have seen dozens of newbies do exactly this. Hell, most veterans do this too. They complain they have no gold/mats/whatever, but they refuse to do dungeons to get anything because "ceebs", "too lazy", "too hard", "I would rather play another game instead", etc. I know multiple people with very good gear (+13s or higher) that quit because "I have no gold" or "Mats are too hard to get" but they refuse to run anything at all because "ceebs" or "too hard".
A month ago, I was talking to a Kai with a +14 or+15 (cant remember which) and he said he quit because it was too hard to make gold. I asked him why he didnt run s3 dailies to sell the drops and he said it was too hard. He now plays BDO and wont come back, he wont even login to get the free weekend gifts. This is pretty much the typical MMO player these days.
In the last one year I have only seen one newbie actually put in the effort to farm elixirs, etc to sell to make gold compared to the dozens who chose to play other games instead. He was able to make a lot of gold doing this and gear himself up easily with fully enchanted gear, etc. Therefore, its not impossible to make gold via farming as a newbie, but most newbies simply wont do it. He even got lucky and got a +15 coupon from an event. Unfortunately, right after he got the +15 coupon, he started refusing to do any end game content (s3, nif, etc) because "I already have everything I want from this battle". Complete waste of a +15. He quit permanently because he doesn't want to get level 95 gear after Dullhan has released because "I worked so hard to get my gear and it will be obsolete once Dullahan is out" and now plays BDO.
Yea, a fresh level 80 with almost no money is going to buy a purple weapon (which is worthless because upgrading to orange resets the enhancement rank) and spend a fortune on paradise stones/elixirs trying to +8 it without runes. Have you ever talked to any new level 80s before? Because most of them wont do that, they will simply quit unless they get carried by friends/their guild/etc.
I know a level 90 kai who spent weeks farming muir on multiple characters (most of whom were undergeared) and upgrading empos to paradise stones just so he could +10 a OJ crossgun. People like that are extremely rare...most new players will not like the game enough to spend weeks farming to make a level 90 OJ weapon.
This is, hands down, the most common conversations I have had with new players about end game weapons (not +15s or anything, just +10 basic ones) as they got closer to level cap (this started happening when s2 was introduced by the way, which caused a massive exodus of players) :
When s2 was endgame and level 80 mats werent in the seal shop :
Newbie : Hey im getting closer to level cap, how should I get a level 80 weapon?
Me : You pretty much cant, the drop rate is insanely rare and people have been doing daily raids for more than 3 months without being able to get a single rare.
Newbie : Wow thats fucked up. *tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
When level 80 mats were just introduced to the seal shop :
Newbie : Hey im getting closer to level cap, how should I get a level 80 weapon?
Me : Farm [insert very large amount of seals here] and buy the mats from the seal shop.
Newbie : Wow...that's going to take forever. How do I get seals?
Me : People usually get them from s1 raids like Roch/Colhen raids and solo stuff like Succubus.
Newbie : *does s1 raids for a week or two* This is taking too long, i'm getting bored now. *tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
When s3 mats were in the sealshop in shitty over priced RNG boxes that would usually give you a bound armor feather instead of the weapon feather :
Newbie : Hey, I just finished the s2 story, how do I get geared up for s3?
Me : Well people usually make a +10 level 80 weapon first to do s3 raids since a level 90 oj weapon feather is really rare and it will take a long time to get it....
Newbie : But i don't want to spend money on runes...*tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
OR
Newbie : *makes a +10 level 80 weapon* Man, I've been doing s3 raids for more than a month without getting anything good and I do so little damage...*tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
When the seal shop was FINALLY revamped so it "only" costs 350 seals to make a level 90 oj weapon :
Newbie : Hey, I just finished the s2 story, how do I get geared up for s3?
Me : People usually save up 350 seals to make a level 90 oj weapon from the seal shop, you can do s1 and solo raids to get seals. Abyssal arena also gives lots of seals but is only open two days of the week.
Newbie : Wow thats going to take a long time...*tries getting seals for a while* yeaaaa this is taking too long ceebs *tries another MMORPG* Oh hey this other MMO is so much easier! I'm going to play this instead. Bye guys!
Pretty much every veteran who has tried to get newbies geared up for end game content has similar stories to tell.
I know a level 89 who can't even start the s3 story because s3 bosses are balanced for people with attack capped stats, and he only has the free level 80 gear. He only got that high because I have been inviting him to 60-69 Abyssal arena runs as much as I can. Im amazed he hasnt officially quit yet. He literally only logins to get the free gifts, do some easy solo raids (shakkar, etc) occasionally and arena runs when I invite him. He wont try asking people to do s1 raids because its easier to simply log off and play another game instead. This is what most new players will do. You could put a bunch of new players in a room together and 9 times out of 10 they will all start playing something else instead of trying to form a party, because the latter requires you to put in the effort to talk to people.
Infact, I literally saw this happen recently. Two weeks ago, there were a bunch of people online who I knew wanted seals to make a level 90 weapon. So I suggested they form a party to do roch raids during the +2 raids event. I even gave them a list of names to talk to. 10 minutes later two guys were just standing around asking each other "What's happening?", one guy stopped responding and went off to do random solos and three other guys were just sitting around doing nothing. After telling them they should talk to each other and figure out who can host, 10 minutes later there was still no progress and they were still standing around asking each other if anything was happening. One guy finally made a boat and a few of them joined, but they only did a few roch raids before people started logging off to play another game.
How many of those newbies do you think will end up with 350 seals to make a level 90 oj weapon before they jump ship to another game? You don't need a crystal ball to predict this.
The management or even most of the GMs dont even play the game. Thats why whenever you try to report bugs, they dont get fixed or you just get confused "We cant replicate this bug" replies for bugs that literally every player in the game can replicate. Thats assuming you get a response at all, the bug report forum is full of dead threads with no official response for a reason. I reported typos more than a year ago that havent been fixed, and thats something that NA Is clearly capable of doing without KR support, so no excuse really.
Joining a guild is not a great solution. Its the typical solution people suggest for MMOs, but in reality, the guild has very little to gain and everything to lose by helping a newbie gear up.
When a new player joins a guild and gets help with quests, gear, etc, it is expected that the new player will in turn help out the rest of the guild when he gets strong enough to do so. This arrangement falls apart when most new players realise that they can get free help to reach end game and then refuse to help people in return. Or simply get bored and quit.
Imagine spending what could be months helping a casual player to gear up and level from level 1, get full enchants, a +10 weapon, teach him all the tricks to make gold, farm mats, how to do raids, etc. Carrying him in end game content even though he does no damage because he is undergeared and you could have gotten someone else with approrpiate gear instead. Then he jumps ship to another guild because they offered him free stuff, "my friends are making a guild" or "Im bored now k thxs bai". Congrats, you just wasted months of work helping someone to reach endgame only for him to not even want to do endgame because he wants to play BDO now or something.
Why would any sane guild do this? I mean sure, if hes your best bud IRL or something, but some random newbie who just applies to your guild? No sane guild should be doing this because it will burn people out.
I spent months carrying someone with 17-18k ATT in s3 content because he was part of my guild, not to mention helping him learn the game, do s2 content, etc. He made a +15, then refused to do any end game content because he had a +15 now. When the scroll shop event was on he would rather solo roch raids for coins rather than invite other guild members to go because "its faster if i solo" (with his +15). That's what happens when a guild helps people reach endgame.
No, not really. The QB requirements are there to prevent you from filling up the boat with naked afk alts to get the +1 core bonus from a full party. Sure you can still get afk alts in, but they actually need gear to reach the QB requirement which makes it harder/less attractive.
If it was meant to warn new players that the boss had high stats they would have put warnings everywhere instead of just the QB menu.
I'll explain :
The moment people knew about the new lv95 content, they already started to plan out everything about their lv90 gear. Btw Dullahan's cap is 28.500 ATT, even a +13 90 is able to reach that with multiple buffs, talking about epaulets/soaps/etc.. anyway my point is that, people will already plan their lv95 gear, instead of having to play the content itself to get it.
Watch it happening, some people will already have lv95 gear the very first day of the update, just watch it.
This is why the game get boring pretty fast here, new content is planned months ago and people will only need to play it like a week at best and they'll get what they want already. Simple.
At some point, they'll have to come with another Neamhain or I don't know.
It works both ways, why would a stranger help someone with low stats? Not only do they get nothing out of it, but they probably have to sacrifice time and energy to do it.
Lets say it normally takes you an hour to do s3 raids with a decent party (this is pretty fast when you take into account the boat loading sequence, etc). Now, lets say you decide to carry several newbies who do 5% damage each (or less) and s3 raids now take 2 hours or more. Even if you are fine with that, is the rest of the party fine with the extra time/effort required? What is the impact of the extra time required? You have less time for RL or other stuff. What if you can only play 2-3 hours a day due to work/school/etc? Suddenly that extra hour becomes critical.
If you take extra long to finish s3 raids and it is now too late to find people to do anything else (s2/s3 dailies, nif, etc) because everyone you know is logging off to sleep or whatever, will those newbies help you find others to help you do runs? No, they wont. They will just thank you and go do their own stuff instead. Most of them wont even thank you actually.
And when those newbies do get good stats, will they help you out in return? The vast majority wont. Most wont even invite you to raids when their party has a spot in the future. I spent weeks inviting a friend to raids because his guild was inactive and werent around to bring him on raids, when his guild became active again and they had a free spot while doing raids, he chose to 7 man a raid and refused to let me come when I asked because he wanted it to be "guild only". Great "friend" there.
If your party has free spots and nobody else wants to come, sure, go ahead and let someone undergeared come if it doesnt affect the boss HP, assuming the host can handle it. Its not like it affects your drops ora nything. But its not fair to expect people to take extra long to do raids when they could have gotten someone with appropriate gear instead. It is especially annoying when someone deliberately gimps themselves for end game content and therefore making raids take longer for the entire party.
For example, someone with an attack capped main deliberately using a low attack alt in s3. Refusing to wear armor in s3 with predictable results (and not being able to hit attack cap without armor either). Someone with a +12 or better deliberately using a +5 alternate weapon in s3. Etc.
Someone needs help getting their alt a recipe or two so they can make something via seals or need help with a story raid? Sure, no problem. But its very unfair and selfish to show up with a 16k alt in s3 because you want to farm seals in s3 instead of something like roch or arena. Or just decide to not use proper equipment because you want to mess around or whatever.
Rest of the regions these games are ported to are usually just an additional source of income, or to put it simply to milk them.
What? How will they get level 95 gear on the first day unless they get extremely lucky with drops or NA decides to do something very unexpected and make level 95 mats available in the seal shop on the first day?
(Not counting pay2win gacha boxes, talking strictly about in game sources)
Look at the Eochaid/Abo essences. It doesnt matter how much "planning" you do if the essence doesnt drop for you and nobody wants to sell it because everyone wants it for themselves, their alts or their friends. Neither are in the seal shop, and i dont think they are in any of the gacha boxes atm, so you cant simply decide to get one.
People got bored of Abo without maxing out the content because, frankly, most people get bored easily. When Abo was released, tons of people came back to try him out. But most quit very quickly afterwards. Why? Not because they got the essence and full OJ Abo gear. They quit because :
-Regina has same stats as abo and has been out for ages, and less people want lochlann special abilities
-It didnt drop essence at release, and when it did, most of the people quit didnt care enough to come back
-Of the ones that did want the essence, they refused to come back because "it wont drop for me anyway, cbf farming it for months to get it to drop"
When Neamhain came out, most people stopped bothering within a few weeks because it was "too hard" and they didnt want to farm it for the reedemer bonuses. I literally spoke to a Sylas with a +15 a few days ago who refused to do it more than once for precisely this reason. Hes now playing other games.
"nuh uh you lie" isnt a very good argument.
Everything that i wrote was 100% truthful. If you think newbies would rather spend hours farming items to sell for gold rather than quit to play another game, you obviously havent talked to many newbies.
enough projecting
Things only started getting worse after roch really. Everything up to that point was perfectly reasonable. Drags were "okay" but with 9.6k def were far too tanky for12k attack characters and dragon rares were too difficult to get compared to roch gear. Worst case scenario, you could make a level 60 weapon easily just by doing titan breakoff 7 times. The only really important scrolls that were too hard to get were mael/enthus/force. s2 was when things just went full retarded with the blatant pay2win since gachas were the only reasonable source of level 80 gear.
If the game was designed to be pay2win from the beginning, then we would have run into this problem far earlier than s2. Pretty sure a director change occured that resulted in the s2 fiasco. Lagho set would have taken months of farming to make, not just a couple of days (anyone else remember spamming lagho in beta?) and devcat would have tried to sell the lagho set via gacha boxes.
The fact that the game population was at the highest point when roch/drags at end game proves that was the most well designed point of the game, progression wise. Drags were already making people quit because doing drags for 3 months without a single rare was soul crushing though. But s2 really took the cake with how badly designed it was.
Ask any veteran who has spent time trying to get newbies to reach and stay in end game. I bet most of them will tell you the same thing : that most newbies quit to play other games instead.
also, sorry but just because you can't help newbies without expectation of return doesn't mean the rest of us veterans can't as well. and most newbies do try to return the favor or pay it forward. fortunately, statistically speaking sociopaths only make up 1-5% of the population
Yeah you definitely don't have time in 6 months to make money.
Also, people barely enhance by themselves, people that get the rares the very first day often overprices them and the one-that-wants-everything is going to buy it no matter what.
Only logical point is on the essences and still : I had to run Abo 60+ times to get it, I don't wanna buy a belt that just gives 2 more Balance for 20m+, I'd rather do it myself. Which I did, only asked help of a friend to get 2 oj smooths as i had them once but sold because after 50 raids of 'carrying' people with higher stats than you, the game still says 'f-ck you' and never gave me that essence at all.
Had to wait the 61th time to be precise, yeah right, imagine w/o VIP, that's literally 2 months.
Really depends. For me and a lot of others more ease of gearing simply means actually playing alts. It's nice to be able to progress gear-wise with more than one character. It used to be next to impossible to do that. Now at least I can enjoy the majority of my favorites and get them there over time.
Even the people who are very geared still have a long way to go. We've seen a few people maxed on this or that, but how many people have all their shards at max, whether through buying them or through synthesis? With the upcoming content and eventually level 100, there's still plenty to do with characters who are at atk/bal/crit cap right now. Extra crit resist, more def, all of that will come in very handy as we get harder levels of difficulty.
There's still plenty to do for 95% of players with most of their gear, and even the top 5% still have maxing that they can make happen.
You can find many boats without requirements and game became easier when they added orange parts for seals.
But how can low stats players gain good gear if they can't do S3?
1. Farm seals: S1 and S2 raids (20 seals a day) , abyssal arena (additional seals I think 5 per run or so), einrah (even additional seals ya can do 10 battles for 10 seals daily), royal raid = so it's more then 40 seals a day (I know that abyssal arena itsn't enabled everyday)
2. Farm orbs: Twilight desert luminaries spam without gear just pick those two in the beginning and restart (very boring way to earn money)
3. Farm twilight desert luminaries for element stones mats (you don't have to fight bosses so easy for ungeared ppl)
4. Farm ship graveyard 80-90: it drops fast and the dead es from chests (can be difficult for ungeared ppl but ya can go in 4 and prices of the dead es will go up because of the new rings coming)
5. Farm misty summit or moonlight peak: You can do full run if ya know ya can do it or just go for only O boss, you can meet 4 minibosses along the way that drop subdued, berserker, or other es and ya can find shini chest sometimes in the O boss room that can drop some r8,r9 scrolls.
6. Farm fruitful hero for valor es
7. Farm master es (Don't remember the dung now)
8. Farm secret room everyday on hero: Fast dung that gives seal and possibility to drop enthu es
9. It's quest map of ben chenner mountain don't know the name now but there are 6 monsters right before an iron ore so ya only kill those monsters and mine ores and restart (boring
9*. Farm magic powder: two moons hero or hard
Now more difficult ones
10. Do muir on hard everyday for paradise enhance stones (you will need them in the future but you can still sell them)
11. Spam deep corruption and do bonus mission every battle (7 kickkills) = 100k gold a run + mats
12. Do rohoran prarie it is easiest then ben chenner and got more erg pots and 2 better luminaries (If you are lucky you can find room with 8 erg pots inside)
Now you got 13 possibilities to farm for gear so find the best one for you or change them when they become boring or just find additional. And I would suggest you to find guild with similar players like you not the one with only geared ppl (being carried isn't fun).
PS:
13. p2w
14. be lucker, knew ppl that dropped weapon sp their first run then enhanced weapon to +13 first try and later dropped 4 abo essences when it was still overpriced
1: The only remotely viable option here that will result in you having high end gear. But you still need a massive amount of input in terms of gold and material to create your gear out of the shards.
2-12: You can run the methods you described for 8 hours a day and end up with less than 500m at the end of the year.
11* This is such a stupid (and slow, but at least it's constant, hey, the botters are rolling in now) way of generating gold. And it's just about locked to two classes only so good luck with that if you play something else.
13: When you pay in Vindictus what are you winning at?
14: That's not a method.