KayoAemskey

Hurricane622 wrote: »

But back to the low difficulty problems - I can't really judge that too well, because all three of my characters are level 90 already, but I DID notice that there's no option for hero mode, which I really miss a lot. How am I supposed to have fun if all bosses die after one or two hits? That's seriously uncool. Why was it necessary to nerf all bosses in the first place? Isn't there lots of very good free equipment for lower levels in the game now??? I just don't get it.

This ^^^^

A thousand times over this. One of the best changes the RISE update brought with it (in my opinion at least) is the much greater frequency of items generated through actually hunting. It would be great if we had something to use them on though, like higher difficulty enemies or harder maps. As things stand now, I don't even want to play. What felt like steady progress on learning and defeating massive creatures I have no business being near, has become a mindless romp through every map with no change in strategy. I don't really need to do much other than mash left click anymore, since everything falls so quickly.

SlyGoat wrote: »

Face tanking your way through the game is what they want to encourage, because less skill = more gear reliance and therefore more cash shop transactions.

I really, really don't doubt this, sadly. The way the update was pushed out, and with how the mechanics have changed (no potion animations, higher enchanting returns, etc...) it really seems like they want you to care less about skill of any kind, and more like they want to capitalize on what's left in the collective community wallet.

Prototypemind wrote: »

@KayoAemskey Thank you for the entertaining and well informed post on a new players experience immediately before and after RISE.

I appreciate all the feedback everyone has offered thus far. I just hope this post gets noticed by the right people so things get changed.

Great idea! Let me play the *entire* game to level 90 first, then backtrack to the Perilous Ruins area with my level 90 gear. I'm surely getting the same experience as I would've gotten playing through there on a higher difficulty the first time, right?

Yanno what my favorite part of Vindictus was, when I joined the game like, three weeks ago?

Actually getting to yanno, fight things.

Engage in combat? Dodge because I NEEDED to, right? Find space to drink potions, and recover. ACTUALLY PUT THE BAREST BIT OF EFFORT INTO FIGHTING? Because yanno, I couldn't just facetank every. Single. Living thing. By myself. As an unfunded, under equipped noob, expecting to win a contest of DPS against a 50 foot tall lightning spitting earth dragon that can knock me over by *breathing* too hard.

For some sick, twisted reason, someone at devcat had this BRILLIANT idea, right. That every single boss in the game up until roughly level 90 should have about 1/100th of the HP they had before. That it's *fun* to get into a fight with a TOWERING REINCARNATED YETI ZOMBIE, and then kill it in two full combos (barring crits! God help that creature if you score even ONE crit on those smashes.) That it's enjoyable, engaging and most importantly FULFILLING as a player to just obliterate these massive beast with really no effort at all and for basically just as much reward.

It's not.

This game originally attracted me with it's promises of rewarding skill. When I fought Lionotus with my friend earlier this week, it took us almost 30 minutes to kill the guy between the two of us. We were only barely at his level, sporting the 60 gear they give you prior, mostly unenhanced other than our weapons. The boss was vicious, fast, *unforgiving* compared to what we had fought getting there. And when we FINALLY brought Lionotus (and his jock riding shaman friend) down? It felt great. We put in EFFORT, TIME, and some amount of skill. And using this formula, we had found an enriching and fulfilling experience from that fight.

What about this new system facilitates or encourages new players to be good? What growth is anyone going to see with these tiny, 10 second long encounters that do NOTHING to help you learn your character's individual strengths and weaknesses? Why bother learning the difference between Meteor Swarm or Reverse Gravity as an Evie now? Who cares if one is strictly better for most situations. For 1000 SP, you too will instantly kill the boss, his mooks, and his close relatives without any of that pesky seditious "thinking" you might have done prior! Doesn't that make you feel good gamer? You sure killed that big mean nasty guy real good. Maybe the next big bad guy will actually get a chance to throw a singular hit in your general direction before you turn him inside out WITH ONE SPELL.

The way things are now, no one is going to get any enjoyment out of the game. Veterans are going to quit out of unadulterated boredom, and new players are going to laugh at this mockery of what was advertised as a "skill based MMORPG." I don't know how devcat has managed it, but congratulations are definitely in order. They've managed to alienate every single potential fanbase this update could've attracted to the game. Good job guys!



tl;dr this game sucks now, fix it.