KayoAemskey

Drusa wrote: »

Treating Vindictus like an old school MMO. snrk.

The game was never truly challenging. You only perceive it that way simply because you had a hard time learning the bosses until you finally got geared properly and knew how to fight them. The same applies to new players coming into the game even right now. If anything this perception of Vindictus being a challenging game is merely a delusion. Only way to make this game challenging, since the start, is handicapping yourself or trying 0 hits.

Those are certainly opinions.

I started playing Vindictus for the first time 3 weeks before RISE dropped in the US, alongside a buddy who hadn't played since boat tokens were a thing. To a small extent, you are right. Vindictus WASN'T mind mindbogglingly challenging for the most part. Generally once you knew a boss' patterns, individually you could handle it on your own well enough. But it still required *some* measure of intelligence to play. Still needed to dodge, find room to heal, repair your armor, etc.

I don't know when the last time *YOU* leveled from 0 on a *FRESH* account *BEFORE THE RISE UPDATE HIT* was, but mine was quite recent. I never *once* considered that the game was too easy. Were some levels throwaway junk battles? Sure. Most of them are for the sake of argument. And beyond that a large majority of bosses are just glorified sandbags waiting for you to beat them down. But for every dozen missions that exist you don't remember, I bet there are 2 bosses or boss fights you've had before RISE that you *CAN'T FORGET.*

I'd love to ask you to prove your sentiments on how Vindictus having challenge before was merely a "delusion," but you physically *CAN'T* anymore. I'd ask you to level to mid 50's roughly. Fresh and new. Unfunded. And tell you fight Irukul. From the chase to the battle proper. Alone. Just like I did my first time. It should be easy, according to you right? Just a simple stroll through a cave, followed by a battle that won't last more than oh say....15 or 20 minutes(depending on your character of course). Where every time you make a mistake, you are brutally tossed aside for a big chunk of life, and forced to pick yourself back up while the boss stays up and ready to put you back down.

I *would* ask you to demonstrate. But I can't anymore. The devs decided they didn't want their game to be challenging to new players/alts. Irukul has no chase. He doesn't hurt. His HP has been nerfed into obscurity, along with the rest of the game's early content. You don't need anything. You could *LEGITIMATELY* strip yourself down to nothing but a wooden weapon and your boxers and that giant ugly pos would never even come close to killing you now. And hell even if he did you could just suck down a couple of these new instant HP potions.

Drusa wrote: »

Delete your account. Forget everything about the current bosses that are relevant and try again.

Guess what, same experience as you've described.

If this feels like the same experience you were getting however long ago, I'm happy for you. Ignorance must be bliss.

pootisman wrote: »

Considering how fast it takes from lv1-90, making it challenging before lv90 seems pointless. Anyone who's half decent will be lv90 in like 2-3 days. Might as well make people finish leveling first and then do whatever they want after.

Do not use new players and what they want as an excuse. You are not a new player so you can't assume anything. For a game that is now more and more catered to the casual playerbase and with a relatively low playerbase remaining, this might be for the best.

The reason leveling takes no time, is because the game is too bloody easy. Making it challenging before 90 ensures people learn the most basic things about the game and their character. Knowing these kind of things was pretty important before RISE, since yanno. The game required you to have a functional human level of skill to succeed. Now anyone with a potion hotkey and a mouse can faceroll everything until endgame. Anyone who fondly remembers ANYTHING about Vindictus' combat pre-RISE, should absolutely make a fresh alt with no gear and play again. Just take in the fact that you don't have to run from Irukul anymore before you click him to death in two combos. Get hit by as many attacks as you want forever. Who cares? Infinite Potion HP BAYH BEEEEE

I can speak from the new player perspective as well. Pre-RISE leveling wasn't slow at all, as far as MMO's go. I was gaining 2-5 levels a day with my buddy when we duo'd. The main quest basically feeds you until 85 or so. So what's the difference now?

It ain't fun.

At least before I felt entitled to those levels I was gaining by the day. "Yeah I killed a rampant fallen general before he could doom the world, I'm a pretty big deal" has become, "Oh yeah I gained 40 levels today and left clicked a dragon, every shaman of every race, and the whole tribe of gnolls to death before lunch."

EnigmaTaro wrote: »

Maybe people should start using rookie weapon and armors and see how they fare in these battles.

I haven't tried old contents on new characters to see how boss mechanics got eradicated but haven't geared players been oneshotting and got bored of these s1/s2 bosses even before update? Who even does ekinar if fast ES doesn't drop there? People are claiming as if they even do hero mode s1, when people only run minimal stuff that yields any source of gold.

Relevant contents are still as hard as they were, and I bet only a few of you here ever thought about soloing neamhain (but that's really gear dependent to finish within one hour). If you really call the game too easy, just downgrade yourself, own weapon ranging from +0 to +10 or higher like I do and calibrate difficulties that way. Players complain all the times instead of finding solutions of their own. Feel free to correct flaws in my argument since I wrote this in a rush.

This isn't just geared players that are being debated here. What about new players? I joined Vindi a few weeks pre-Rise. Do I just, not count, under your demographic of players this update should be targeting? I'm not geared crazy well, but the difficulty in the level of content is just STAGGERINGLY low now. I can beat Lionotus in seconds with left clicks now. Pre-RISE? Hell no. That wouldn't have flown.

Also I have no real defense for this point other than the statement, "I did..." but uh. On the topic of whether anyone played Hero mode pre-endgame....I did.

As for relevant content goes, like...I'm sorry if my opinion is wrong, but isn't *all* the content *any* player could be put into important? Do new players or alts just. Not matter? It's fine to strip the enjoyment and challenge out of raising these other characters if it means getting these people into the endgame tier of players ASAP? The stuff any new player would be put into just isn't fun. It is painfully uninteresting now. People in this thread have made a ton of examples as to how easy the content is now, so don't just take my word for it.

The final point I'd like to address is the topic of self nerfing. If the game is SO painfully, bloody easy, that you need to GIVE UP the items that DEFINE your character progression in this MMO, in order to make the content *slightly* more bearable...There's a problem. There are a lot of ideas on how the balance between character strength and player skill should be. Vindi used to lean on the side of player skill: Your gear is great, but it's not going to be the reason you obliterate bosses. Your player skill defined how often you'd be doing your dps, or how frequently you'd be wasting time and resources getting hit, etc. The additions this update brought with it have *focused* the entire game around gear instead of skill now. Everything has significantly less HP so higher DPS will likely get greater rewards for the end of the mission, enhancing can be taken farther (for diminishing returns) and the additional ATK stat has been buffed immensely (so now enhancing is SUPER important.)

All these things mash together to create these terrible, god awful 10 second long pissing contests between players and their gear. Gear which is only really actively contributing to a new leaderboard of pointless stats.

I made a whole topic addressing my personal issues with this update while ago, but I can list the bullet points here.

The game is frighteningly easy. Every advertisement, and guide is going to tote Vindictus around as this skill heavy action RPG. That simply isn't the case anymore, what with most of the changes RISE has brought. The additional ATK stat becoming more powerful, the even larger and harder to obtain enhancements being thrust at the community for little return, the leaderboards that track practically meaningless things about your stats, the instant chug HP pots, the massive downgrade in difficulty, etc...All of this attributes to why I haven't played the game since the update hit. Frankly I couldn't see myself coming back to the game in this environment either. It really seems like this skill based game I used to love has taken a backseat to mindless stat-whoring.

jeddyhi wrote: »

If you do not like the update, you have two choices. One is do what you did and cry and moan and complain, even stomp your feet and hold your breath if you like. The other is to quit the game and move on. A 3 week investment is minuscule compared to people who have been here since 2010. As a matter of fact, I find your post somewhat insulting, crying like that and being a 3 week noob.

Moan and complain, hm? Have you ever noticed that Developers tend to ask for feedback, or comments/criticism? That's exactly what I'm providing. A detailed, thorough explaination of my experiences with the game, before AND after RISE. And yes, I suppose a three week investment is minimal compared to others, but what difference does that make? My experience with the game is *just as diminished* with these changes. It doesn't matter if you were level 90, or level 1; the game isn't fun anymore.

The entire post was made in hopes that it would reach the right ears. These changes don't have to be the new reality for Vindi players. They're only going to be as permanent as the people supporting them. The more that the whales/vets/noobs/whatever in between complain, the more ears it's going to reach.

The big issue is that corporations tend to listen and talk with money though. They need to see a difference in their wallet before *we* see a difference in the game we loved.