Reikan Posted April 21 Report Posted April 21 Hello, it's me, Sirocco / Reikkan. I decided to create this topic to adress some concerns. My friends and I decided to come back to Eden Eternal together, and the only logical place to gather was Vendetta. This has always been our home, and we're happy to value this staff's work. After a couple of weeks of our return, though, we reached some conclusions regarding our time spent here, and would like to bring it to the table in hopes of contributing towards a healthy environment and a thriving future for our beloved server. Time spent on content We've got new content! Deep Abyss, new zodiacs on Celestial Corridor, LV130 trials, Colosseum... Since we stopped playing a couple of years ago, much content was added (to our enjoyment). The thing is, this content is time gated (as in: You should do it at least everyday if you hope to gear up), which is fine... if we don't consider that each content added was actually stacked up with the previous ones. Doing Deep Abyss doesn't allow you to ignore Abyss, so you effectively added playing time by creating stacking contents. Our group currently can't even "afford" doing the new Zodiacs because we decided to focus on building the new sets, and the available daily gaming time isn't enough to cover everything. If you consider AT/DF (and its new "easier" mode), CC1 and CC2, Abyss and Deep Abyss, Lv130 trials, Colosseum and maybe some source of gold farm (new dungeons, or even Palace of Dreams), that's easily 3 or 4 hours of constant jumping through content. And I say that based on a team of people who is returning, where each player has a myriad of outdated, but still strong gear to start with. I tried to bring new players in, people I found in other MMORPGs or coop games, but the amount of effort and daily commitment necessary to keep up was detrimental to the experience. I can't even begin to imagine the time spent by a group of 5 actual newcomers, who will probably struggle for more than a month doing subpar farming routines in order to do basic achievements and reach the aforementioned dungeons. Most of Eden Eternal's community is ranging around the ages of 30~40. This is an old game, that appeals to nostalgia and a core gameplay loop that is outdated, compared to the newer generation standards. Pretty much everyone playing is employed, having families and daily chores to attend in real life. Consider this paragraph when reading the next topics I'll adress. Changes to how classes interact: The "Targeted Resist Break" feature and changes to Damage Dealt formula This is a welcome feature. It adds depth and shows how much the VGN staff has improved on the programming side, opening room for a variety of ways to adress balancing the game. The issue on this, though, is that by having all classes being somewhat "independent" classes, we've guided players towards a META that favors repeating highest DMG output classes. Most of current content is being done with 1 Paladin, 1 Totem Master (for the very few selection of sources of party-wide RES Breaks) and 3 of the content highest DMG dealers (It's always Kage/Asura or something in this line). In a game with more than 60 classes, it's detrimental to its maintenance to have such a META. I've constantly pressed this button through my stay in VGN, pointing how people shouldn't be forced towards a specific type of DMG but rather have a range of possible classes to start picking from the very beginning. Even the class that you use for gold farming on such an easy dungeon like Palace of Dreams will change how you perceive the game as a new player, so if there is no wiggle room to start, then you'll start demotivated. If all you can do as a new player is sit on a Paladin and break RES, it's not much different than old Trainer gameplay. Old content is now taking longer to complete, which pours salt in the mentioned wound of "time spent doing content". New players might not see it, but returning players suffer the most with this change. While I am happy to have more meaningful content (time spent doing mechanics, enjoying the actual dungeon run instead of rushing through it in 5 minutes), adding extra time without compensation will turn the gameplay sessions into endurance tests. Specially if time spent ends up in no rewards at all. I remember the struggle of figuring out mechanics in Dragonridge Sanctuary without people telling me what to do, only to fail the dungeon after 3h of attempts. Losing the entire reward roster on Celestial Corridor because someone messed up once. This adds up and pushes players out. It's not a sustainable game design. Meaningful content: How we believe that we could tackle these issues while progressing towards a healthier game We believe these changes can be good to the game. Adding DMG back to the game won't solve the issues, and might ruin it in the long run. Our suggestion is towards quality of life while doing the daily routine of time gated content. First and most important one: Make it so that each endgame content is a single entrance, and turn it into a standard. AT/DF, each of CC's rooms, Abyss, Deep Abyss, even VGN exclusive trials (from LV95 and onwards). Change the loot accordingly, so players don't feel this change is a downgrade to how fast they gear up. This keeps the content meaningful (without being a speedrun) without making each game session a torture. Second: Targeted Resist Break should stay as a PVP feature for balancing purposes. On the PVP, repeating classes isn't really an issue and it never happens in a blatant way. We can see maybe 2 holy blades for the extra burst, but it's not common to see a party of 10 players where you have 4 of the same class, because in the PVP scenario, each class brings a specific feature to the formula. When we talk about PVE, all that matters is how fast you can clear content so you can actually do all the content. People WILL repeat 4 classes if it's absolutely faster. If there is no class variety, the "RP" aspect of MMORPG goes out of the window. Third: Resist Breaks should be more versatile on PVE if we don't want to lock teams into specific types of DMG. In fact, we could separate teams into Magical and Physical, where every Physical class that breaks Resists just breaks them all, even if on a lower amount. Same on MDPS side. There are 6 different elements, if we want more class variety, every magic class should just break all 6 instead of very specific ones, opening room for combinations based on buffs/utility and gameplay mechanics. For PVP, the classes could be locked into their own Targeted Resist Breaks for balance. Fourth: RES Break items have no room in the current game. Using a set of RES dropping gears to have a similar or even lower DPS output is absolute madness. Temple Knight's rings, Temple Arena trophies (and their enhanced versions), RES-breaking capes and other accessories should have party-wide effect at least on PVE. Could add the "PVP Changes" to it, making it be "Targeted Resist Break" on PVP maps. Before saying goodbye, I'd like to say that I have a couple of VODs of my own livestream showing our group doing content. I'm not aware if I can share it here, so i'll refrain from that. Still, people who watch it might say "oh well these noobs are using the wrong classes" but believe me, we've tested classes ourselves (and we're still doing it), and we did follow some tips from people who were still active in our absence. These VODs show the reality of what I've mentioned in this entire topic, so feel free to ask me for them if you want to suffer watch. This is a long post, written with care by a non-native english speaker without the use of helping tools. Please point out if anything is wrong or just hard to understand, but don't dismiss it entirely for my lack of ability. Thanks for reading, if you got to this point. I'm happy to be back here 😌 TL;DR> Game is currently a second job if you want to properly do content, would be good for its health to adjust it to actual, human and employed gaming hours @Edit: Formatting 5 Quote
VGN GM Jordan Posted April 21 VGN GM Report Posted April 21 6 hours ago, Reikan said: Since its broken into points I will address them as such. 1. We have been doing work towards this goal as you may have seen from Patch V139's Content change. We have reduced some of the content in the hopes to improve activity. While I do plan to look into Abyss and AT/DF not all the other content mentioned is particularly a must run daily. What you have to remember is its hard to balance the game around new/returning players without ruining it for veteran players. We have been actively working on this. 2 / 3. While I understand the concern of this and I am looking into something regarding pets as I know that is one big area that has become a bit expensive is I guess the best way to put it. One thing people fail to realise with the existance of true resistance in the past, a lot of the bosses actually tend to have similar resistance or less resistance now than before we have changed this system with how people currently play the game. Now you stated about 4 repeat classes and while I believe this is the case for some, it has not been the case for all. And for a matter of fact some of the faster parties I've saw from the mountain of videos I've seen often have 5 different classes across the party, yes there is either a paladin or shielder and yes totem master is 95% of the time the healer but the other 3 classes tend to be unique. That being said you suggested the same thing you suggested in the past for me and after implementing it across all the mdps classes it did not change anything within the game which likely lead to you quitting the last time because mdps was still slower. In the current balance of the game I have tried my best to balance all classes around a point, so in theory played to maximum potential a lot of classes should be around the same. There is classes which are stronger and there are classes that are weaker and that is inevitable. However, the current state of the game is that IMO atleast half the classes seem to be playable at a similar level where as before you had a very small amount of options that where additionally restricted by the rest of your party. So (Executioner + BM + Zerk) or (Rifle + Anni + LA/Rifle/Anni). Im not claiming everything is perfect but from the context I have saw the balance looked much better than prior to the patch. Yes Paladin/Shielder is kinda like a replacement Trainer now but IMO without fixing other issues it's hard to take that away. Just as a small note about equipment that I've saw mentioned before. The reason gear had to be changed was because it forced the hand further of locking into similar or the same classes harder. Take Devil Beard's Ring for Example (First thing that comes to mind). If you where to use that ring, would you then be trolling to have a DB / Equi / Nature Kage in the party over having 4 Fire Arch's. It again promotes stacking gameplay which in turn changes the game to how much of X res can we stack till we need to start adding true resistances back to prevent the end game players killing a boss in 30 seconds and new people taking 10-15 minutes because of gear access and how many people get declined from parties because they dont have x gear yet but nobody will help them run an obscure 60 trial to get it. 4. It was my understanding that people actively use this gear especially if your on a class that does not have as much resistance drop as another or you do not have an appropriate CC set to equipped and from what I understand the CC sets that are currently most popular are the ones that factor in resistance drop. It maybe the top gear but I'm pretty sure its being used as there was a spike in people using it when the patch launched for the first month or so while i was actively hunting. --- Now on to the main thing. One of the main purpose of the patch was to shorten the gap between the new/returning players and the existing players. Not making someone stand there on trainer auto attacking with some random +dmg weapon or res drop weapon and marking but actually having someone on the newer side of things contribute to the party in a way thats enough that they're not just completely dead weight. Now I believe there is improvements that can be made for this still and as a returning player thats the angle I'd prefer feedback for as it's a lived experience. I believe the gap has greatly shortened but I believe improvements can be made. I also have somethings in mind to improve the pet experience as right now atleast one of the things I keep hearing is that pets are too expensive and you kinda need one for each resistance you play. So I believe working on this will solve problems but based on the VOD's you're kinda not even at this problem yet so I think other things to setup the gearing process for yourselfs would be the better goal to tackle first to imprve the game 1 Quote
Reikan Posted April 22 Author Report Posted April 22 22 hours ago, Jordan said: 1. We have been doing work towards this goal as you may have seen from Patch V139's Content change. We have reduced some of the content in the hopes to improve activity. While I do plan to look into Abyss and AT/DF not all the other content mentioned is particularly a must run daily. What you have to remember is its hard to balance the game around new/returning players without ruining it for veteran players. We have been actively working on this. I don't believe that veteran players would complain to complete their daily objectives in 2h instead of 4h. Also, we're not suggesting stuff to make the gameplay easier, the topic was meant to look at current content available/relevant and adress how much time spent on said content is invested to build a character. Let us remember this is a game with 60+ classes and it favors/promotes the idea of gearing multiples of them. Quote 2 / 3. While I understand the concern of this and I am looking into something regarding pets as I know that is one big area that has become a bit expensive is I guess the best way to put it. One thing people fail to realise with the existance of true resistance in the past, a lot of the bosses actually tend to have similar resistance or less resistance now than before we have changed this system with how people currently play the game. Pets being expensive isn't an issue per se, but them becoming the thing that dictates how the gameplay plays out is not interesting, to say the best. It was tolerable with the prayers because even if expensive, a perfect pet would work for a group of weapons/classes, but now we're supposed to invest both in prayer pets and fused -RES pets. It seems as a really weird way to sell more Mystery Boxes, and I believe the community wouldn't be pleased to see game design going this way. Please reconsider the whole "let's force -RES pets into the game" thing. Quote Now on to the main thing. One of the main purpose of the patch was to shorten the gap between the new/returning players and the existing players. Not making someone stand there on trainer auto attacking with some random +dmg weapon or res drop weapon and marking but actually having someone on the newer side of things contribute to the party in a way thats enough that they're not just completely dead weight. VGN's main goal is based in good faith. We've talked about this before and we have a similar point of view when it comes to newcomers/returnees, so I believe in this statement. But this comment is going away from the main objective of this topic, which was: Your community enjoys content, but each new content should come with adjustments to the previous ones, otherwise they'll just stack up and exhaust the players. I do know you have ways to check player count and these numbers might not seem alarming, but the player experience and how anyone perceives the server is devastating at the current moment. I know about other gaming options and all, but these opinions brought here are not mine alone. It was a carefully woven topic made of a collection of opinions from the small community that I could reach once I came back. I know I'm not the bearer of the absolute truth, but many people have told me the reason why they quit was not really because of the changes to how RES works, but how insufferable the content became since it was all too long. Quote That being said you suggested the same thing you suggested in the past for me and after implementing it across all the mdps classes it did not change anything within the game which likely lead to you quitting the last time because mdps was still slower. This is not really relevant but I didn't quit because of the staff decisions. I live in a third world country and sadly my family didn't set up a good start for me. I'm always struggling with basic stuff, and sometimes I have to get away from gaming in order to keep myself alive and living under a roof. I'll not leave upon VGN decisions, as I believe anything can be fixed and this is the only game where I see feedback actually going the correct way. It's the reason why I open these topics, instead of randomly quitting or spreading flame around. Thanks for the feedback. I hope we manage to work together to create a nice place for everyone in our community. Quote
VGN GM Jordan Posted April 23 VGN GM Report Posted April 23 14 hours ago, Reikan said: I don't believe that veteran players would complain to complete their daily objectives in 2h instead of 4h. Also, we're not suggesting stuff to make the gameplay easier, the topic was meant to look at current content available/relevant and adress how much time spent on said content is invested to build a character. Let us remember this is a game with 60+ classes and it favors/promotes the idea of gearing multiples of them. Your under the impression that the veteran players would still run all the content still. If everything was a single run and you only needed 2 pieces of content then thats 2 runs. However, I also understand that if you need everything then thats a lot of runs. It's hard to balance and something thats been actively worked on and improved. 14 hours ago, Reikan said: Pets being expensive isn't an issue per se, but them becoming the thing that dictates how the gameplay plays out is not interesting, to say the best. It was tolerable with the prayers because even if expensive, a perfect pet would work for a group of weapons/classes, but now we're supposed to invest both in prayer pets and fused -RES pets. It seems as a really weird way to sell more Mystery Boxes, and I believe the community wouldn't be pleased to see game design going this way. Please reconsider the whole "let's force -RES pets into the game" thing. The pets are expensive because of the sheer amount you need which was not intended. If you actually look at what the balance patch changed this was a completely unintended side effect and not something designed to "sell more Mystery Boxes". These skills where available since the pet rebalance over a year ago and where used in moderation before then, with the introduction of the targeted res they've become more of a must which is something we're looking to fix. We're working on improvements and hope to deliver some soon. 1 Quote
Yaroku Posted April 23 Report Posted April 23 Hi everyone! I find Reikan’s objections very interesting, but I think Jordan has a point as well. Personally, I feel that it takes players way too long to reach the endgame. The simplest way to fix this would likely be a class that allows you to rush through 0/10 content as quickly as possible, so that new players don't have to spend 1–2 hours on a 10/10 run. Furthermore, you should: Make achievements for stats more accessible. Reduce costs for these upgrades. Ensure that players are not dependent on other guilds, as many have become inactive. In my opinion, class leveling should also be faster. These levels provide essential stats that many players absolutely rely on to progress. Quote
seraph82 Posted April 23 Report Posted April 23 7 hours ago, Yaroku said: Hi everyone! I find Reikan’s objections very interesting, but I think Jordan has a point as well. Personally, I feel that it takes players way too long to reach the endgame. The simplest way to fix this would likely be a class that allows you to rush through 0/10 content as quickly as possible, so that new players don't have to spend 1–2 hours on a 10/10 run. Furthermore, you should: Make achievements for stats more accessible. Reduce costs for these upgrades. Ensure that players are not dependent on other guilds, as many have become inactive. In my opinion, class leveling should also be faster. These levels provide essential stats that many players absolutely rely on to progress. Hi, I Quote you because I feel you are saying this from unawareness, why do I say this? Because there is a class that allows you to rush 0/10 Content such as Palace in around 10/15 min for 10 runs which is Blade Acrobat, it's a class that has a lot of damage and aoe potential, as a 130 player you have bonus damage over the mobs. Achivements are accessible for every single player in the game, and they have gotten adjustment to make them even easier, which was every legendary achivements has 50% success rate so you dont have the risk of failing it and spend more resources than needed. Reduce cost of the upgrades I guess you talking about the craft fee that the most expensive ones are for 125 awaken weapons (around 1.5k) and Awaken sets (around 5k). The prices of it are fine if you compare for the benefit you get from achivements. Class Leveling became even faster on the last patch (I Guess you read that they put on the patch not that lowered the requirements for each lvl) And you can get all your classes to lvl 100 for like 1 right click... you just have to run them 30 lvls and with enough boost you can get 2 clases to 130 in 1 hour or 1:30 hour. One thing is to make the game more efficient (which i think and believe is the main idea of this topic) not to get everything for free as Jordan said once. 1 Quote
Reikan Posted April 23 Author Report Posted April 23 9 hours ago, Jordan said: Your under the impression that the veteran players would still run all the content still. If everything was a single run and you only needed 2 pieces of content then thats 2 runs. However, I also understand that if you need everything then thats a lot of runs. It's hard to balance and something thats been actively worked on and improved. By that angle, we could very well say that once someone decided they're geared enough, they'd stop doing content anyways. I was on the side of the "full BiS" players some years ago. Back when BiS was Awk100 weapons and L95 Awk sets. I've gotten EVERYTHING the trials could offer me. All L100 awk weapons, costumes, title. And I still own 296 extra Trial Coins because I kept running the content to help others. I do not expect everyone to be like this, but "doing content" becomes subjective if we look at it through the lens of "what people want to do". The truth is, there are BiS gears, and in order to obtain it there is X amount of time required to achieve it. If people want to do it or not, it's up to them, but ALL CONTENT related to said gears should be taken in consideration. Even Sky Tower, if a single gem from there is still META. That's my approach when looking at our gaming schedule: We'll have to sort everyone through content in a way that each player can hope to achieve their own BiS at some point. Quote The pets are expensive because of the sheer amount you need which was not intended. If you actually look at what the balance patch changed this was a completely unintended side effect and not something designed to "sell more Mystery Boxes". These skills where available since the pet rebalance over a year ago and where used in moderation before then, with the introduction of the targeted res they've become more of a must which is something we're looking to fix. We're working on improvements and hope to deliver some soon. I'll be OK to pay full price for a Mystery Box pet (which should be a week of the average player's farm by now) if it's a ready-to-go pet, but if we take fusions in consideration, then that will escalate the prices to months of gameplay from the average player. Which is FINE if the pet is just a luxury item but ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS if said pet decides whether this player takes part in content or not . 8 hours ago, Yaroku said: The simplest way to fix this would likely be a class that allows you to rush through 0/10 content as quickly as possible, so that new players don't have to spend 1–2 hours on a 10/10 run. This was already mentioned by @seraph82, but I'll expand on it mentioning other classes such as Blood Knight, Mecha Ares and Arch-Elementalist (my personal favourite) as they all are capable of clearing all entries of Palace of Dreams (the most cost-effective dungeon) in less than 1 hour. My own Arch-Elementalist is decently geared so I can clear it all in about 30 minutes. Everything else was covered by seraph aswell. I'd just say we are pretty good on these QoL changes, the game is better now than it has ever been to new/returning players. Reason why I opened this topic was in hopes to further enhance this experience, not to myself because I can handle the curve, but in order to make the server feel more welcoming of new players. I have a couple of friends from outside of the EE community which I hope to bring here, but some of them are kinda overwhelmed by the amount of information and time spent in order to learn the basics. Thanks for everyone's contribution, though. This discussion is keeping a good pace and each reply from Jordan makes me more hopeful for the near future. Quote
seraph82 Posted April 23 Report Posted April 23 1 hour ago, Reikan said: I'll be OK to pay full price for a Mystery Box pet (which should be a week of the average player's farm by now) if it's a ready-to-go pet, but if we take fusions in consideration, then that will escalate the prices to months of gameplay from the average player. Which is FINE if the pet is just a luxury item but ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS if said pet decides whether this player takes part in content or not . I'd like to add something here or to point something. Pets are expensive because it is a plus, are they consider a must have? Yes, are they really a must have? not really so paying for a Plus which is getting through irl money i dont see it wrong paying 300 to 400k for a pet that cost something that i have to work irl for. Battle pets are fuse pets? yes, but you can get a beagle army on aven to get it to 4stars. Which opens the gate to get a 4th skill. The pet skill rng is crazy but you still can get skills 1, 2, 3, and reduce enough res/deff. The acc stat is really a thing but i think talking about it in two different post is kinda nosense so ill address that on that post. You can buy a 0 start pet for 60-70k and make it out to be a debuff pet only with the books. Quote
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