Cessa

I've been playing since 2010.

At every point there were arguments such as the above.
"It was so much harder to get equipment back then."
At every point of that there were people like you saying that that's just how it is.
And at every point of that we bled players out that we never got back in.

I remember when Elcuhlus drop was 800m and was required for everything. If not more. I remember being among the first to go into Glas and just getting destroyed. Hell, I remember when it was still just Lann and Fiona.

Do you want a return to those days?

How about when S2 drops were 200m each and +10 level weapons were 1bil+?

No?

At every point Nexon has lost players because people simply can't progress their gear to the next level easily. Nexon was still money grubbing with RNG Ferghus and enhancement runes. And they've made concessions with AP restore, level 90 equipment, and now they've added in orange on demand with bravery seals.

And even with all this we are still bleeding players out of Vindictus. Just this time last year I could go to the message boards and see boats up that I would have to fight to join because they filled up quickly. Now I see no one hosting raids in Quick Battle and when I do host I literally alt tab and browse youtube for a bit before even checking back in and the party still hasn't filled up with Quick Battle. Players are leaving this game, players are not coming to this game. And I will tell you right now without hesitation that they leave because their weapons are blown up and they can't replace it easily or they leave because they're stuck playing one character they've been playing for several years now and it's too hard to get a new character going with new equipment. The suggestion I made fixes that. And in fixing that we can hope to get players, new and old, to this game again.

Ein Lacher has been a great way of showing people what Vindictus is really about.

But what do you need to do to keep players in the game and playing the game?

Let's talk about Warframe for a little bit.
Warframe is a MMO3PS that does away with all the traditional MMO stuff. Everyone has the means to deal damage and what makes you different from others are the skills that your "character" employs. It also doesn't lock you into a character choice. You can change characters out as you desire. And your main forms of damage dealing are kept and transferred around freely.

To put this another way, say you have a +13 Terminus weapon on Kai. You can freely change that into a +13 pillar, change to your Karok, and then play Karok for as much as you want and changing again whenever you want.

How does this help? One of the main things that really veteran players quit this game for is that their character becomes stale and it becomes pointless to try and improve your equipment. But they are stuck with one character and can't go on to create a new one because the cost of a new weapon is extortionately incredulous.
So they are stuck with one character, get bored after a long while, and quit. Only to poke their heads back in the game every so often but still not finding it really worthwhile because the same issues that was there before with no progression and no improvement and singular character gameplay still remains.

That's one way you could change the "one dimensionality" of the game and allow people to play what they want. Allow them to swap like for like weapons freely between characters on their own account. Just weapons, not armor or accessories, mind you.

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But really looking at it, the central issue of Vindictus is the weapon and the impossibility of obtaining a really good endgame weapon. Level 90 weapon crafting has helped a lot but it literally did nothing to account for one of the main things. That main thing being attack speed. For many characters attack speed is what makes or breaks them and hitting certain amounts of attack speed is the difference between playing comfortable or dying while trying to attack or just not attacking at all because you're too slow. It is also the difference between achieving optimal damage output against endgame bosses or dealing thousands of damage per hit below what you could be doing.

The issue is compounded when you look at the enhancement rates and the punishment for trying to enhance past +10. Your weapon is destroyed. It can be restored once. And then it's gone. Nevermind that you generally need to obtain at least +13 or higher to feel comfortable with the weapon. And then supplement that weapon with hundreds of dollars of runes and thousands of hours of farming for enchants on your accessories and armor.

The fix is a simple one that will still be profitable for Nexon if not even more profitable. It will also give players an incentive to play while knowing that so long as they play they will improve their gear. And it will give endgame players a reason to continue playing the game in the way of new characters.

-Remove item destruction upon enhancement past +10.
-It is not destroyed, it just loses a portion of max durability. Say, 20 durability for failing +11. 22 durability for failing +12. etc.
-The ONLY way to enhance past +10 is to obtain an incredibly rare item from raids. Let's call this really rare drop "Super Iced Strawberry Brandy."
-This item is what Ferghus demands to try and do an enhance past +10.
-If it fails, durability is lost. Your weapon remains.
-You can only restore max durability with durability potions from the Supply Shop (cash shop).
-Super Iced Strawberry Brandy (SISB) has a time limit of 24 hours and it cannot be traded to another account.
-If you get it, you must use it or it's gone. If you get it on your main character but you have maxed +15 you can put it in Shared Storage and give it to another character you have.
-SISB is used up when Ferghus tries the enhance. If the enhance fails, your durability goes down, the item remains at whatever enhance it is, does not break, the SISB is gone.
-There exists a Cash Shop item which prevents the using up of SISB. Call it something like "Second Bottle of SISB" or whatever. You buy it, you use it like a rune.
-If you use the Second Bottle, the main SISB is not used up if the enhance fails. If the enhance fails, you still lose durability, you lose the Second Bottle. Your weapon remains, the SISB remains. You can attempt again.
-To ensure 100% success rate of the SISB you must expend NX for the Second Bottle and you must expend NX for durability potions to keep your weapon going.
-But at no point will you ever risk the destruction and loss of your primary ability to play the game (your weapon).

How will this help Nexon?
You have to expend NX to get Enhance Runes to get to +10.
You have to play the game to get SISB.
You have to expend NX to get Second Bottle and Durability Potions. Increase Durability Potions a bit in price. Put the Second Bottle at 25k NX.
Money is sure to roll in to Nexon.

How this helps Nexon AND the players.
Your weapon won't get destroyed, you won't feel like you just wasted 5 months of playing to lose your weapon. THIS singular reason of weapon loss makes people rage quit this game more than you would think. People at around level 70 or so often get their first +10 weapon. A few months later they feel the itch to get a better weapon, enhance, and their weapon blows up. The feeling destroys you and you quit playing the game. You have no way to do damage, you do not want to go back to a level 40 weapon and have to get carried in raids again for another year until you can get another +10 weapon.
Players will stay and play the game for that chance to enhance with the SISB raid drop.
Players playing the game proves the game has a healthy population, making other players want to stay and play the game and interact.
More players playing and raiding and getting SISB.
More players spending NX on Second Bottle and Durability Potions to keep their enhancements going and their weapon to +15.
They will keep playing because they don't lose their weapon, and they know that so long as they keep playing and keep raiding and getting better they will eventually be able to increase their weapon.

Really lucky players or players with +15 already and feel like their character is getting stale? Feels like they can't do anything anymore? Or maybe they just have a few characters or one other characters that they would really like to learn to play but can't because of the "no good weapon to use" reason? Well, now they won't feel so bad about doing raids on their main character, then going onto their second character and leveling that one up to also do raids. Why? Because they know that if they put some NX in first to get a nice +10, they can eventually keep raiding and get a +15 so long as they work at it. Leading back to, players playing the game, players playing causes more players to keep playing to interact and to achieve a goal they want, more players stays and play, Second Bottle, Enhance Runes, and Durability Potions, all being bought.

There is no losing here. Nexon will gain in population, in NX income. Players will gain in weapons being maintained and the game allowing you to always improve and always get new characters without feeling like the RNG is going to cheat the hell out of your hard work.

Game goes on to gain a greater population than it ever had before, people stay and play, Vindictus becomes great again. Make Vindictus great again, please.

And before you go around naysaying that this kind of setup won't work. Just look at Warframe. You lose NOTHING in Warframe. You can only ever gain. You can't destroy your weapon. You can't blow up your mods with RNG. You can only increase effectiveness and increase damage output. You got tired of playing your Loki frame? Go level up all of your frames. Now you can play whichever one you want. Go play Excalibur for a while. Get bored of him, level up a nice Lex Prime, try out Mesa. Done with Mesa? Go play Equinox. Got bored of Equinox? Go play Excalibur again. Main just a few frames if you want, main them all. Who cares? YOU CAN NEVER GO DOWN while playing the game. Your progress extends in only one direction. That's Warframe. No RNG.
And how popular and how big is Warframe? A hell of a lot more populated and more played than Vindictus. Meaning much more income as well, I guarantee it.

Adopt this kind of method for Vindictus, and you will see it grow. Thank you for your attention.

There is nothing inherently difficult about playing Arisha at all.

In fact, because she has so many tools at her disposal she has the ability to output consistent and top tier damage at any point of the battle. She can close and dump damage onto a boss almost non-stop.

She has really good defensive tools as well.
Outside of deflection she has one of the most responsive and available blocks in the game. Because of the speed of her attacks as well I will say she has the best block. It comes out of almost all of her attacks really quickly and so you can play almost in a reactionary way with it. Meaning that you can attack almost all you want and the wait time before you can safely attack and have to block or dodge is minimal compared to almost all of the other characters. Try doing your smash attacks non-stop as Vella and then go cross stance out of it in reaction to a boss's attack. You will get hit. You need to pump your attack speed way up to minimize these situations with the other characters. It's much less so with Arisha because of how fast her attacks are executed and how easily she can go out of them into her block or dodge.

Her dodge has a medium distance to it and it has great invincibility frames.
In terms of block and dodge only Delia has it better than Arisha does.
And almost nothing outstrips her in total amount of time spent invincible. With her block, dodge, and warp she can bypass almost all boss attacks that anyone else would find threatening.

Arisha is the best designed character. And in the female lineup, only Scythe Evie is easier to play.

Her warp, her mana flurry, ruin blade, counter drain, and now her ability to change sp to mp as well? Coupled with her defensive mechanics, this gives her great damage potential and I find you really need a top tier scythe Evie to outdamage a well played Arisha.

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Now to play them well? All are pretty hard. Chainblade Vella is the easiest one to play. Then Scythe Evie.
But if you intend to play at the endgame level where you solo raids with no pots and no trans for your scrubby pub party then all of them are difficult.
And in terms of your criteria of "ease of use, damage potential, reliable skills, stylish looking character and moves."

Then it goes in this order

Arisha
scythe Evie
chainblade Vella
staff Evie
twinsword Vella
Lynn
hammer Fiona
sword Fiona
Delia

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For reference, you can check these out in an almost apples to apples comparison.

Delia:

Arisha:

Fiona, hammer + large shield:

Fiona, sword + small shield:

Lynn-

Evie, scythe:

Evie, staff:

Vella, chainblades:

Vella, twinswords:


If it's not already apparent from the videos, Arisha has the most enjoyable and varied endgame playstyle, again, simply because she has options on what to do at any point, block, dodge, attack, counter drain, ruin blade, mana flurry, save mp now or use it now, generate mp from sp, warp, restore stamina, etc. All of these combined together makes for a very efficient and fun to play character. At no point in her gameplay will you have to sit there and go "dang... I didn't have enough time to do what I wanted to do to maximize my dps."

Yeap, Vindictus Armory is gone since Shippu is protesting Sanitee's ban as well.

New way is better.
Why would you only put in one AP or 10 AP at a time? If you don't unlock the skill then what's the point? Either zap it to the next skill rank up or don't put anything into it at all.