Make or Break MEGATHREAD - important things that I (and hopefully we) consider important to adress soon in order to keep the game alive between content releases

EnVysion · May 2nd 2018

Hi Guys and GF team,

It's nice to see that we have a passionate community that is creative and willing to share suggestions with Gameforge - this really shows that there are many who care a lot about the future of Soulworker.

While the game has just recently launched and there are many improvements bound to come in the future, I believe some things need to be addressed sooner than others. This thread is about the things that make or break the game, and will not include "nice to have". Granted, I have been looking over the forums, but I'm not an all-knowing being. If there are other major things that you believe are currently impacting the overall game and player-base, please state them in the comments and I'll consider adding them.

Let's begin - order numbers are not important.

#1 - Login rewards and playtime bonus rewards

One does not need to be an expert in Soulworker to realize that the rewards we are getting are abysmal. Normally, the login calendar should make you look forward towards getting some actual cool stuff after X days, and in the process driving you to actually log in at least a bit each day.

You guys already know it, but most notable rewards for second log in month calendar (yes, after logging in every day for 28 days) are:

- 1 Anti-destruction

- 4 Bonus Keycards

- 4 Akasha transmitters

And these are the rewards you get for an entire month, for all your potential 6 (5 for now, as of tomorrow) characters on the account. If you add the fact that the playtime rewards are 5 Grutin Gold boxes and "Item Dispensers" which usually give you random crap, I'm starting to feel downright insulted.

*Suggestion* - Vastly improve rewards starting with next month. Please take into consideration the fact that JP server had 10x times (or more) better login rewards, and you could get them on each character (most likely related with the fact that the bank was not shared between characters, so considering that it's the other way around here we should get 60x times better rewards). As it stands, current login rewards will not motivate new players and can actually demotivate active players. Address this too late and it won't matter anymore. It's time to show what's more important: player base and longevity of the game or the cash shop.

#2 - XP rate boost for normal difficulty dungeons, especially in first 3 zones

New players that do not have the gear or skill to do Hard/Manic should not be penalized this hard. While around lvl 40s-50s, a normal dungeon can yield ~ 1/3 of XP compared to a Manic one (which is ok-ish I guess...), in Candus City for example one normal dungeon can yield around 1/5 of the Manic equivalent (same rank).

If this is the chosen method to encourage new players to buy XP books from the store(which should not even exist in the first place if you ask me), then you might want to reconsider. instead of giving new players reasons to play, enjoy the game and potentially buy costumes and other stuff, you're just hitting them with a wall in the face.

*Suggestion* XP received per Normal dungeon should never be less than 1/3 of XP yielded from Manic version. Players who do Hard/Manic modes will not be affected. Just give new players a chance. (Don't start talking about auto-teams, that most of the time you can't find parties with; or guildies - you need to be in the same level range of the player otherwise you will cut his XP in half if you party together).

#3 - Rookie Raids (non-elemental version) difficulty adjustment for solo queue

"Rookie" raids (you translation, not mine) should be accessible content for players that have reached level 55 and have somewhat decent gear. It should provide a non-difficult introduction to what they can expect from raids, but instead it smashes their face if they try to attempt it solo (if you allow solo queue, you should balance it).

Assuming I'm a solo player (no guild, no friends playing the game), my only other option is to beg random people to help me clear the "standard rookie raid" which no-one is doing now anymore, because everyone is doing the elemental versions. And as far as I see, you cannot run the elemental versions until you've done the quests for standard version. Can you spot the evil here?

*Suggestion* Standard (non elemental) rookie raids difficulty for solo players should be re-balanced. (e.g. -50% mob and boss HP&damage, -% rewards-> just don't turn it into current login rewards).

#4 - Better ways to obtain Anti-destructs, Akasha transmitters and other enhancers (e.g login rewards, events, etc)

By popular demand, this needs to happen sooner than later.

Note: I know many of you already hit endgame and don't care about #2 and #3. But in order for this game to survive longer, it needs new players as well. Unless you have really thick wallets and don't mind playing by yourselves.

Let me know what you guys think and whatever major topics of interest that I have missed. Please keep it constructive, and do not derail the topic.

Thanks!

Bumluffa · May 2nd 2018

I'm a completely f2p player and the main things I would agree with here are SOME of the login rewards, exp gaps while levelling and ways to obtain anti destructs

Some of the login rewards are very decent for us, they include the premium brooch transmitters and akashas. The inferior transmitters do feel like a slap in the face considering almost half of the rewards contain them AND the fact that now we can farm them from the rookie raids. Imo a simple fix for the login rewards would be to just bump all of these to premium transmitters or replace some of them with other premium shop items like more anti-destructs.

The exp gap while levelling is the biggest problem in this game. When I'm alt farming I will regularly see (what i can assume from their chat) new players desperately looking for people to queue a dungeon with because I'm guessing they are stuck and unable to level. That should never be the case in a game where a newbie has to find other people in order to progress. It is just forcing a new playerbase away when they hit that wall and it becomes too much effort for them to push through and progress. These new players are the life and soul of the game. Already when I'm alt farming it takes so long just to complete Candus city and get to lvl 24, and that's with full exp gear, rank B exp bonus + the event 30% bonus exp we have right now which will end tomorrow. And still I am running the same dungeons up to 10 times including with manic runs just to bridge the exp gap. I can't imagine how that doesn't drive a large amount of players away from ever reaching endgame content.

The difficulty of the rookie raids I think is perfectly fine. All the gold and equipment I have on the game i've earned through playing the game and i've never had a problem with completing endgame content. Great thing about this game is you can beat a lot of things from just playing better (mainly because of the ability to utilise the i-frame mechanic). With fresh lvl 55 gear it's not hard at all to solo the normal lvl of rookie raids and if you can't do it you always have the ability to learn to play better whether it be how to manage the mobs better, changing which skills you use and when so some are off cd when you need it or just dodging more mechanics. Imo that's how it should be

With #4 I think it's asking gameforge a lot since a large part of their revenue from the game will come from antis and akashas, which imo is actually perfectly fine since alt farming is still very much a thing and you can get a lot of premium items that way. I think the problem people will have with not having enough of those is because they tend to waste it upgrading bad items early on not understanding the importance of saving them only for truly worthwhile items. That's not really a problem with gameforge but rather a player needing to play and think smarter. I have never bought an anti-destruct or akasha and I have upgraded multiple +7 vicarious weapons and also have a full set of optimal akasha cards (not including 5*s). I'm also a relatively new player and most of my alt farming has happened since the nerf a couple weeks ago. That's mainly because I saved all of my weapon chips and anti-destructs for a decent lvl 55 weapon, using a lvl 38 weapon all the way to lvl 55 and it being only +6. I don't expect those 5* or the ability to upgrade to +8 and beyond to fall into my lap, because those things should be extremely hard to obtain just as they are. In fact I would argue the system they had before that was much easier to obtain akashas was rightfully lowered since this game has not been out for half a year and already many players have upgraded big plasticas. Those things should really be a lottery and only a very very small percentage of the population should be lucky enough to have them - they are not an entitlement

EnVysion · May 3rd 2018

Quote from Bumluffa

I'm a completely f2p player and the main things I would agree with here are SOME of the login rewards, exp gaps while levelling and ways to obtain anti destructs

Some of the login rewards are very decent for us, they include the premium brooch transmitters and akashas. The inferior transmitters do feel like a slap in the face considering almost half of the rewards contain them AND the fact that now we can farm them from the rookie raids. Imo a simple fix for the login rewards would be to just bump all of these to premium transmitters or replace some of them with other premium shop items like more anti-destructs.

The exp gap while levelling is the biggest problem in this game. When I'm alt farming I will regularly see (what i can assume from their chat) new players desperately looking for people to queue a dungeon with because I'm guessing they are stuck and unable to level. That should never be the case in a game where a newbie has to find other people in order to progress. It is just forcing a new playerbase away when they hit that wall and it becomes too much effort for them to push through and progress. These new players are the life and soul of the game. Already when I'm alt farming it takes so long just to complete Candus city and get to lvl 24, and that's with full exp gear, rank B exp bonus + the event 30% bonus exp we have right now which will end tomorrow. And still I am running the same dungeons up to 10 times including with manic runs just to bridge the exp gap. I can't imagine how that doesn't drive a large amount of players away from ever reaching endgame content.

The difficulty of the rookie raids I think is perfectly fine. All the gold and equipment I have on the game i've earned through playing the game and i've never had a problem with completing endgame content. Great thing about this game is you can beat a lot of things from just playing better (mainly because of the ability to utilise the i-frame mechanic). With fresh lvl 55 gear it's not hard at all to solo the normal lvl of rookie raids and if you can't do it you always have the ability to learn to play better whether it be how to manage the mobs better, changing which skills you use and when so some are off cd when you need it or just dodging more mechanics. Imo that's how it should be

With #4 I think it's asking gameforge a lot since a large part of their revenue from the game will come from antis and akashas, which imo is actually perfectly fine since alt farming is still very much a thing and you can get a lot of premium items that way. I think the problem people will have with not having enough of those is because they tend to waste it upgrading bad items early on not understanding the importance of saving them only for truly worthwhile items. That's not really a problem with gameforge but rather a player needing to play and think smarter. I have never bought an anti-destruct or akasha and I have upgraded multiple +7 vicarious weapons and also have a full set of optimal akasha cards (not including 5*s). I'm also a relatively new player and most of my alt farming has happened since the nerf a couple weeks ago. That's mainly because I saved all of my weapon chips and anti-destructs for a decent lvl 55 weapon, using a lvl 38 weapon all the way to lvl 55 and it being only +6. I don't expect those 5* or the ability to upgrade to +8 and beyond to fall into my lap, because those things should be extremely hard to obtain just as they are. In fact I would argue the system they had before that was much easier to obtain akashas was rightfully lowered since this game has not been out for half a year and already many players have upgraded big plasticas. Those things should really be a lottery and only a very very small percentage of the population should be lucky enough to have them - they are not an entitlement

Display More

Hi Bumluffa ,

Thank you for your feedback.

I don't know when is the last time you have ran the (normal) rookie raids. You see, after the latest updates the difficulty has ramped up considerably. And there's one major thing - you can no longer keep aggro of all the mobs on yourself and kite like before. So the mobs will stay focused on objectives like generators or the tank and destroy them before you can kill them.

Soloing normal Junk Hive or Iron Castle for fresh 55 players is currently virtually impossible. I have doubts that you can solo those even with +9 gear (maybe with some OP akasha cards?). You should try it.

Alt farming should have never been a thing - deleting characters to farm for rewards is dumb and this is my personal opinion. Should GF remove this completely at some point, I guess you might be inclined to agree with me that we need better ways to get those resources ingame

Bumluffa · May 4th 2018

Quote from EnVysion

Quote from Bumluffa

I'm a completely f2p player and the main things I would agree with here are SOME of the login rewards, exp gaps while levelling and ways to obtain anti destructs

Some of the login rewards are very decent for us, they include the premium brooch transmitters and akashas. The inferior transmitters do feel like a slap in the face considering almost half of the rewards contain them AND the fact that now we can farm them from the rookie raids. Imo a simple fix for the login rewards would be to just bump all of these to premium transmitters or replace some of them with other premium shop items like more anti-destructs.

The exp gap while levelling is the biggest problem in this game. When I'm alt farming I will regularly see (what i can assume from their chat) new players desperately looking for people to queue a dungeon with because I'm guessing they are stuck and unable to level. That should never be the case in a game where a newbie has to find other people in order to progress. It is just forcing a new playerbase away when they hit that wall and it becomes too much effort for them to push through and progress. These new players are the life and soul of the game. Already when I'm alt farming it takes so long just to complete Candus city and get to lvl 24, and that's with full exp gear, rank B exp bonus + the event 30% bonus exp we have right now which will end tomorrow. And still I am running the same dungeons up to 10 times including with manic runs just to bridge the exp gap. I can't imagine how that doesn't drive a large amount of players away from ever reaching endgame content.

The difficulty of the rookie raids I think is perfectly fine. All the gold and equipment I have on the game i've earned through playing the game and i've never had a problem with completing endgame content. Great thing about this game is you can beat a lot of things from just playing better (mainly because of the ability to utilise the i-frame mechanic). With fresh lvl 55 gear it's not hard at all to solo the normal lvl of rookie raids and if you can't do it you always have the ability to learn to play better whether it be how to manage the mobs better, changing which skills you use and when so some are off cd when you need it or just dodging more mechanics. Imo that's how it should be

With #4 I think it's asking gameforge a lot since a large part of their revenue from the game will come from antis and akashas, which imo is actually perfectly fine since alt farming is still very much a thing and you can get a lot of premium items that way. I think the problem people will have with not having enough of those is because they tend to waste it upgrading bad items early on not understanding the importance of saving them only for truly worthwhile items. That's not really a problem with gameforge but rather a player needing to play and think smarter. I have never bought an anti-destruct or akasha and I have upgraded multiple +7 vicarious weapons and also have a full set of optimal akasha cards (not including 5*s). I'm also a relatively new player and most of my alt farming has happened since the nerf a couple weeks ago. That's mainly because I saved all of my weapon chips and anti-destructs for a decent lvl 55 weapon, using a lvl 38 weapon all the way to lvl 55 and it being only +6. I don't expect those 5* or the ability to upgrade to +8 and beyond to fall into my lap, because those things should be extremely hard to obtain just as they are. In fact I would argue the system they had before that was much easier to obtain akashas was rightfully lowered since this game has not been out for half a year and already many players have upgraded big plasticas. Those things should really be a lottery and only a very very small percentage of the population should be lucky enough to have them - they are not an entitlement

Display More
Hi Bumluffa ,

Thank you for your feedback.

I don't know when is the last time you have ran the (normal) rookie raids. You see, after the latest updates the difficulty has ramped up considerably. And there's one major thing - you can no longer keep aggro of all the mobs on yourself and kite like before. So the mobs will stay focused on objectives like generators or the tank and destroy them before you can kill them.

Soloing normal Junk Hive or Iron Castle for fresh 55 players is currently virtually impossible. I have doubts that you can solo those even with +9 gear (maybe with some OP akasha cards?). You should try it.

Alt farming should have never been a thing - deleting characters to farm for rewards is dumb and this is my personal opinion. Should GF remove this completely at some point, I guess you might be inclined to agree with me that we need better ways to get those resources ingame

Display More

I solo all 4 raids on a daily basis. I don't have any op Akasha cards, all you need are some easily buyable 1* cards

Like I said the great thing about this game is the ability to learn to do things a different way than before, play better and achieve a good outcome. If you know how to rotate your CDs and Akasha properly soloing JH and IC is rather easy and this applies whether you are geared to the max or a fresh 55

I do agree there should be other more interactive ways to farm for premium items, but then again they are premium items and gameforge main source of revenue. It's not unheard of in many other MMOs for players to discover gimmicky ways to get the things they want and farm them even if it is not necessarily intended by the developer. It's the same here and I can understand if GF didn't want to advocate a proper way to farm these premium items

Make or Break MEGATHREAD - important things that I (and hopefully we) consider important to adress soon in order to keep the game alive between content releases

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