FIRST OF ALL: I know that there might be people that disagree and those that agree, but please keep it down and no flaming/harassing/ insulting etc. Everyone is entitled to have a point of view. Also, I'm new so please spare me ;)
I've been a fan of L2 ever since I found out about it ( long long time ago) but I couldn't afford it so I was really happy when it came out to be f2p, but there are some things that make me give a big minus to the game and I know there are others that may think so too.
Firstly, when you start is all good, but since i went on one of the new servers, Magmeld, and even on Chronos, it surely was a chaos. The GM's did help at start, but it went a bit over board. They should have thought it a bit more thoroughly as there will be more than 1k maybe 3k new players since all the servers are most of the time on heavy. Of course players will start ksing if they wait but jerks come and think they are entitled to the mob first when others were there before them.
I'll start with the Talking Island and the ruins: yes in the first 2 days the GM's kept and eye out and spawned the quest mobs, BUT, now there are still a lot of new players plus alts, and too few mobs. This is a first problem. Then moving on to the continent, it happens the same. And why not a variety in quests and places? I understood they took out the catacombs, but for what reasons? You want to have more players, but take out grinding zones? It doesn't really connect well. As for the quests mobs, people tend to forget there are others like them behind the pixels and go into a "i wanna take the mob first" mode. This is not nice, and most of the time annoying.
You may say that if you don't want this trouble to annoy you, you can just grind, but where? There are too few places and too many players, and lets face it, almost everyone wants to get higher faster :) and there are exceptions, like the second job change quest, where you do have to face the mobs and most annoyingly the ksing. We are not like the Koreans that do have respect and do line up for a single boss even if it takes hours until your turn!
I'm level 60 now, with a bit of work and patience, and I say it was worth yet, I am facing another big minus for the game: why make quests that require mobs which are scarce, far from each other and needed by so many people? Of course: ksing, pking, harassing and calling names will be around as well. The game is huge, and the old towns are empty so why not gather a bunch of mobs, put them there and make quests for them :)? I know it might take a while but still do-able. Also, there are so many empty zones, so why not fill-em-up with some mobs?
I do not mind grinding, but I do mind less zones, more players idea which does not make any sense. Also I'm opened to other ideas and suggestions, so please do tell me what you think.
i think you are right too, is awesome that now you got many 76-99 zones but the zones they left for -76 are to scarce with fewer mobs and not great xp either, so when you have 3k* ppl on it get annoting to find an spot free.
for example frozen labyrinths now have 50 mobs at best in that huge zone which is a waste, ivory tower crater is only good for bots or polers with healers, etc.
another thing i will add is the mobs red xp penalty, i understand you don't get xp from lower level mobs and im 100% ok with it but why with red mobs? im a summoner and i can easily xp mobs 20 levels higher than me but that penalty force me to level using crappy mobs in ultra crowded places. not whining ok but many classes can xp with deep red mobs like summoners or heavy warriors and it would awesome be able do that since your class allow it, so if in the next update someone could consider removing this limitation would free up these zones and allow more diversity for xping for these classes.
in case someone don't get it summoners and heavy warriors (orcs mostly) kill much slower than mages (sph,sps, sorc, necros) but deal bigger dmg and have bigger defenses, so mages 1 hit kill 100 mobs and we face 30 or 40 harder mobs.
Note: i know this is not new, im saying that now having new servers and new population this doesn't make sense anymore, sure before god or even when i anciently played in official was weird to see 100 newbies in one place at the same time and with clans properly formed you got lots of help so it compensated a bit but here everyone is new and clans are level 6 at best and gear is from rewards in the 99% of the cases it gets too crowded and a summoner having to xp in vos being 52 is sad(30k exp is nice but i can do much better in other zones but all are deep red it sucks <.< )
I've been a fan of L2 ever since I found out about it ( long long time ago) but I couldn't afford it so I was really happy when it came out to be f2p, but there are some things that make me give a big minus to the game and I know there are others that may think so too.
Thank you,
Nyonil
Pretty much the response to everything you've said:
"Because Lineage 2 designers can't design worth **** and in "designing" GoD/L2Aion, they're merely copying as much as they can from WoW and ham-fistedly shoving it into L2 and expecting all the content to meld together when it's creating significant design-culture shock starting from last update (notice how the market was pretty much destroyed last chronicle) until now."
The only thing that L2 designers have ever known how to do is create new grinds in order to increase the time necessary to keep playing/subscribing to accomplish any given goal.
That is their design philosophy. It's not "What can we do to make more 'fun' for the players?" It's "What can we do to make players subscribe for longer?"
That was the reason for the creation of the Necroplises/Catacombs that you miss - it added a new layer of grind for players to have to trudge through.
People suddenly had to start grinding again for a brand-new resource; something for which their bountiful adena piles (made by way of the previous chronicle's generosity) could not be substituted - the Mammons only accepted Ancient Adena.
There was nothing "fun" about this design choice. No one liked logging into the game and realizing that in order to advance further, the game currency that you had been amassing was now very much inconsequential relative to a new, seemingly-arbitrary currency introduced into the game for the sole reason of making players have to grind further to obtain.
And let's not talk about how the Mammons port around (and still do), forcing (at least some) players to spend adena on exorbitant porting fees to find them. Is that really "fun" for anyone?
Now that they've effectively found new ways to make us grind again, the Necroplis/Catacomb/7 Signs system has largely been deleted.
Simple: Cause GOD wasn't designed to be an update which would introduce free to play. It wasn't designed to be an update where suddenly 20,000 new people would join. GOD was designed to be an update like any other, the Koreans had no clue a year ago when they were creating GOD that a year later NA would go F2P and get swarmed with newbies.
And for the millionth time the game is designed, built and tested in Korea. NCWest doesn't have the capacity (nor the permission) to change anything about it. They can't add more quests. They can't create events (they have to ask Korea to create an event for them) etc etc etc.
Simple: Cause GOD wasn't designed to be an update which would introduce free to play. It wasn't designed to be an update where suddenly 20,000 new people would join. GOD was designed to be an update like any other, the Koreans had no clue a year ago when they were creating GOD that a year later NA would go F2P and get swarmed with newbies.
And for the millionth time the game is designed, built and tested in Korea. NCWest doesn't have the capacity (nor the permission) to change anything about it. They can't add more quests. They can't create events (they have to ask Korea to create an event for them) etc etc etc.
Going by threaded mode, this post was in response to mine.
If that's the case and it's a response to what I wrote, I don't see how this is relevant to anything that I said.
At the end of the day that's what all MMO's do. How can we keep expanding to keep the crowd here?
You can't really complain about Mammon's porting around, in actuality you spend far less adena finding them now then you would have before, they are all together instead of one being in a necro and one being in a cata, not to mention that for every 1 town there were at least 2 necro's/cata's, also note that you'd have swim down and run in to discover if the mammon's were even there or not.
The reason for the deletion of the Cata's/Necro's is that out side of farmers and bot trains they were highly underused. Not only were they not the best possible Xp per hour for their levels they took forever and a day to kill being 4x, people would rather hunt on the field rather then waste time swimming down there and looking for an open room.
as for what Junior said, it's not that there are fewer mobs in those areas, its that those areas are just that heavily farmed. If you were to land in one of those areas by yourself needed for a quest, unless you are AoEing you likely will not be able to clear the area by yourself. Due to some of the mobs being social with one another if they respawn them too quickly you'll have people back on these boards complaining that the respawn is too fast and that they can't handle it and are dying too often.
Being 60 I can tell you if you can handle the mobs you can grind ToI for about 60-70k xp a kill if you can solo there, some die faster then others but good luck finding a room that isn't taken. The respawn time there is nuts and yet the rooms are still mostly empty due to over population.
If you give it time, don't forget this patch is only a week old, I'm sure you'll find majority of people out leveling zones and or ragequitting.
Just like any patch for any game, there are things you'll like about it and things you won't, you cant stand there and say "i hate everything about this patch right down to the color and textures" and continue to play the game, you're playing because there is something you like about it whether you realize it or not.
At the end of the day that's what all MMO's do. How can we keep expanding to keep the crowd here?
You can't really complain about Mammon's porting around, in actuality you spend far less adena finding them now then you would have before, they are all together instead of one being in a necro and one being in a cata, not to mention that for every 1 town there were at least 2 necro's/cata's, also note that you'd have swim down and run in to discover if the mammon's were even there or not.
The reason for the deletion of the Cata's/Necro's is that out side of farmers and bot trains they were highly underused. Not only were they not the best possible Xp per hour for their levels they took forever and a day to kill being 4x, people would rather hunt on the field rather then waste time swimming down there and looking for an open room.
as for what Junior said, it's not that there are fewer mobs in those areas, its that those areas are just that heavily farmed. If you were to land in one of those areas by yourself needed for a quest, unless you are AoEing you likely will not be able to clear the area by yourself. Due to some of the mobs being social with one another if they respawn them too quickly you'll have people back on these boards complaining that the respawn is too fast and that they can't handle it and are dying too often.
Being 60 I can tell you if you can handle the mobs you can grind ToI for about 60-70k xp a kill if you can solo there, some die faster then others but good luck finding a room that isn't taken. The respawn time there is nuts and yet the rooms are still mostly empty due to over population.
If you give it time, don't forget this patch is only a week old, I'm sure you'll find majority of people out leveling zones and or ragequitting.
Just like any patch for any game, there are things you'll like about it and things you won't, you cant stand there and say "i hate everything about this patch right down to the color and textures" and continue to play the game, you're playing because there is something you like about it whether you realize it or not.
yeap you are right and im slowing a lot my grind and mostly waiting for daily quest now giving a couple of relaxed weeks waiting the begining of the massive emo quitters wave that should be coming (especially when they begging hitting 70ish levels) at least the new pk system work as a shield for pkers and loosers beyond level 20 (at the cost of 400 post of whines but that will fade too)
@OP: If this is how you feel about Lineage 2, you're playing the wrong game. Someone had to say it. Do you all really think that the developers create the game to be angry towards players? Or just because designing it this way makes them more money? No they designed the game this way for a reason. It is the bloody mantra of Lineage: Scarce resources, high population, closed quarters, cause players to bump heads and force conflict to breed. Cruma tower is the perfect example of the old C1 styling of this mantra.
Developer 1: "Hey, lets make it so these mobs spoil an expensive item, so players want to fight them..."
Developer 2: "Yeah crafted leather! Perfect. Now since everyone needs it, lets put it in a zone where practically everyone will need to Exp through. That way they have to bring dwarfs!"
Developer 1: "Perfect, lets stick them in this tower near Dion, 38-58 will be spent there!...But its still a good item, and will be worth a lot. So lets only put the mobs in the first four corner rooms."
Developer 2: "Sounds good, and if someone wants the room, they'll likely have to fight over it with our awesome pvp system that most games want to have but don't have the balls to implement."
The end.
Seriously, Lineage 2 was developed this way for a reason. Situations like this breed drama, which breeds conflict which leads to PVP. If it didn't do those things for you then you're doing it wrong.
At the end of the day that's what all MMO's do. How can we keep expanding to keep the crowd here?
The way they go about it is the difference.
In WoW (or any MMO for that matter), of course there's grind.
However, WoW designers are focused on creating compelling and "fun" experiences to keep players subscribing - compare an average raid in WoW to one here in L2 as an example.
Compare WoW's loot philosophy to that of L2's.
In WoW, with very few exceptions, you are certain to obtain whatever it is that you're trying to get after a reasonable "grind," and you'll likely have fun during the "grind."
In L2, the simple matter of crafting (or enchanting or getting tattoos or whatever) has huge elements of randomness that results in players spending an inordinately disproportionate degree of effort/time to get anything in 9 out of 10 cases. There was a thread here in the general forum recently concerning failing skill enchantments with a listed 97% rate of success. And you'll likely not have fun during the weeks of grind required (seriously, how many animal bones?).
L2 designers are solely interested in creating more grind, and it shows when they can't design an original concept to compete with WoW's "fun" focus and have to resort to essentially WoW-ifying L2 (and adding grind to it).
You can't really complain about Mammon's porting around, in actuality you spend far less adena finding them now then you would have before, they are all together instead of one being in a necro and one being in a cata, not to mention that for every 1 town there were at least 2 necro's/cata's, also note that you'd have swim down and run in to discover if the mammon's were even there or not.
It's not a debate over whether or not the porting around has gotten "better" - they've already served their purpose for the designers (to make people port around looking for them since C3) and there are new ways to drain players of their adena in place now.
That they were ever made to port around in the first place to drain players of their money is the problem and an example of the designers' intentions/philosophy.
The reason for the deletion of the Cata's/Necro's is that out side of farmers and bot trains they were highly underused. Not only were they not the best possible Xp per hour for their levels they took forever and a day to kill being 4x, people would rather hunt on the field rather then waste time swimming down there and looking for an open room.
No one ever used them because no one wanted to use them unless they had to. It's because they weren't designed with "fun" in mind, which is why (surprise) no one thought it was fun to xp in them!
That they weren't even efficient levelling places is further indication of the designers' only creating and implementing them into the game was to force more grind upon players.
Just like any patch for any game, there are things you'll like about it and things you won't, you cant stand there and say "i hate everything about this patch right down to the color and textures" and continue to play the game, you're playing because there is something you like about it whether you realize it or not.
That's just not true.
The only thing keeping me here is my clan and the friends I've made playing this game. If they were gone tomorrow, I'd be gone the very next moment afterwards.
@OP: If this is how you feel about Lineage 2, you're playing the wrong game. Someone had to say it. Do you all really think that the developers create the game to be angry towards players? Or just because designing it this way makes them more money? No they designed the game this way for a reason. It is the bloody mantra of Lineage: Scarce resources, high population, closed quarters, cause players to bump heads and force conflict to breed. Cruma tower is the perfect example of the old C1 styling of this mantra.
However, that's not even the way that players have responded to the design. Not even in Korea.
Designing a game a particular way is one thing.
Stubbornly clinging to that design philosophy despite player response is another.
Developer 1: "Hey, lets make it so these mobs spoil an expensive item, so players want to fight them..."
Developer 2: "Yeah crafted leather! Perfect. Now since everyone needs it, lets put it in a zone where practically everyone will need to Exp through. That way they have to bring dwarfs!"
Developer 1: "Perfect, lets stick them in this tower near Dion, 38-58 will be spent there!...But its still a good item, and will be worth a lot. So lets only put the mobs in the first four corner rooms."
Developer 2: "Sounds good, and if someone wants the room, they'll likely have to fight over it with our awesome pvp system that most games want to have but don't have the balls to implement."
The end.
The problem with what you wrote is that, for example, instead of bringing live Dwarves to the parties, boxed Dwarves were started and used, invited and dropped from parties as needed.
There's a reason why BHs were given dagger skills and DV was redesigned with added benefits for bringing BHs.
There's a reason why, pre-Awakening, there's absolutely no reason to play as a Dwarf as your main - because everyone either has a Dwarf alt or access to Dwarf alts.
Seriously, Lineage 2 was developed this way for a reason. Situations like this breed drama, which breeds conflict which leads to PVP. If it didn't do those things for you then you're doing it wrong.
Koreans in general don't PvP as much as the designers want them to, which is the impetus for the development of not only Olympiad (PvP without consequence and with huge potential benefit while also promoting more grinding to improve performance), all the easing of PvP rules until now (and the new PK system that protects people from unwanted PvP), instances (which was taken directly from WoW), and Akamanah/whatever the other one is called.
Over here, PvP is perverted through the use of PvP programs.
All this goes to show that while the designers had a vision of what they wanted their game to be, the players very much played differently to that vision.
Now, if only we could get NCKorea to make changes according to our tendencies (PvP programs).
In WoW (or any MMO for that matter), of course there's grind.
However, WoW designers are focused on creating compelling and "fun" experiences to keep players subscribing - compare an average raid in WoW to one here in L2 as an example.
Compare WoW's loot philosophy to that of L2's.
In WoW, with very few exceptions, you are certain to obtain whatever it is that you're trying to get after a reasonable "grind," and you'll likely have fun during the "grind."
In L2, the simple matter of crafting (or enchanting or getting tattoos or whatever) has huge elements of randomness that results in players spending an inordinately disproportionate degree of effort/time to get anything in 9 out of 10 cases. There was a thread here in the general forum recently concerning failing skill enchantments with a listed 97% rate of success. And you'll likely not have fun during the weeks of grind required (seriously, how many animal bones?).
L2 designers are solely interested in creating more grind, and it shows when they can't design an original concept to compete with WoW's "fun" focus and have to resort to essentially WoW-ifying L2 (and adding grind to it).
It's not a debate over whether or not the porting around has gotten "better" - they've already served their purpose for the designers (to make people port around looking for them since C3) and there are new ways to drain players of their adena in place now.
That they were ever made to port around in the first place to drain players of their money is the problem and an example of the designers' intentions/philosophy.
No one ever used them because no one wanted to use them unless they had to. It's because they weren't designed with "fun" in mind, which is why (surprise) no one thought it was fun to xp in them!
That they weren't even efficient levelling places is further indication of the designers' only creating and implementing them into the game was to force more grind upon players.
That's just not true.
The only thing keeping me here is my clan and the friends I've made playing this game. If they were gone tomorrow, I'd be gone the very next moment afterwards.
@my quote.. yes you are right WoW does go about things differently, but Lineage 2 is designed and developed in an entirely different section of the world where hard grinds and raid bosses require 50-100 players to kill. Lineage 2 had initially been designed as Open PVP, and now seems to be taking a turn toward the more leveling and endgame based MMO, while still keeping it's open PVP concept.
I've played WoW/Aion/Rift/L2, and of them all it feels more like L2 is a brand seperate from the other 3. Aion is NC's (failed)attempt to follow in WoW's footsteps, Rift is a breath of fresh air from WoW, having alot of innovative things (such as the invasion's) but still having a very WoW feel in terms of game play and interface. L2 stands very different, while incorporating things that most L2vet's don't think will help the game they are at the same time attempting to attract new players and in order to do so must add things to the game that make it so much different from the way it was.
Now the problem with WoW, is that you can be in a top ranked guild, but the raid grind is so much more demanding, in order to remain in one of those guilds you are grinding raid bosses 2-6 nights of the week, for several hours, not allowed to leave, not allowed to do anything if you want to remain guilded. Once you complete the hardest possible instance then it becomes a weekly rinse and repeat until your guild is geared up. Now that you've accomplished everything what's next? WoW's dev team still hasn't figured out how to balance their PVP system, and so that is still very imba. Battle grounds are a good idea but are instanced and so restricted, repetetive and boring.
I've always said, "if you want to spend a month grinding raid bosses go play WoW, if you want the ability to PvP the way it should be done play L2"
I like the way loot happens here, it all falls on the ground and when you pick it up it goes to the next person in line in the party, what's not fun about that? In WoW you have some **** appointing where the gear goes based on your participation on a week to week basis, they have a need/greed roll system but do those ever get used outside of the week and a half it takes to go from 1-85, nah, you get the ****.
@my quote.. yes you are right WoW does go about things differently, but Lineage 2 is designed and developed in an entirely different section of the world where hard grinds and raid bosses require 50-100 players to kill. Lineage 2 had initially been designed as Open PVP, and now seems to be taking a turn toward the more leveling and endgame based MMO, while still keeping it's open PVP concept.
I've played WoW/Aion/Rift/L2, and of them all it feels more like L2 is a brand seperate from the other 3. Aion is NC's (failed)attempt to follow in WoW's footsteps, Rift is a breath of fresh air from WoW, having alot of innovative things (such as the invasion's) but still having a very WoW feel in terms of game play and interface. L2 stands very different, while incorporating things that most L2vet's don't think will help the game they are at the same time attempting to attract new players and in order to do so must add things to the game that make it so much different from the way it was.
And the L2 devs pretty much copying WoW and trying to merge those copied concepts into L2 rather than coming up with original design concepts isn't indicative of how terrible they are at design?
Now the problem with WoW, is that you can be in a top ranked guild, but the raid grind is so much more demanding, in order to remain in one of those guilds you are grinding raid bosses 2-6 nights of the week, for several hours, not allowed to leave, not allowed to do anything if you want to remain guilded. Once you complete the hardest possible instance then it becomes a weekly rinse and repeat until your guild is geared up. Now that you've accomplished everything what's next? WoW's dev team still hasn't figured out how to balance their PVP system, and so that is still very imba. Battle grounds are a good idea but are instanced and so restricted, repetetive and boring.
However, in WoW, you aren't required to be in a top-raiding, no-fun guild in order to gear yourself up - the only thing that makes the "grind" not fun is the player choice to make the "grind" not fun by wanting the gear faster (by joining a top-raiding, no-fun guild). You can raid as leisurely as you want, and eventually, you will get your gear.
As for balancing PvP, there's no such thing as complete PvP balance.
However, I would say that Lineage 2 has had far worse PvP balance than WoW, despite despite supposedly being an Open PvP game marketed as having PvP as its core value.
Dwarves, until GoD, have been useless in PvP since the beginning of the game until now, when they've been lumped into the Warrior and Dagger camps.
Aura flare, Might Mortal, Cancel, Archers, etc. Lineage 2 has had plenty of PvP balance issues that have gone on for several chronicles until they were finally fixed.
Was there even a point in entering Olympiad unless you were an Oly enforcer class or had your clan's enforcers signing with/around you?
I've always said, "if you want to spend a month grinding raid bosses go play WoW, if you want the ability to PvP the way it should be done play L2"
The way it should be? With PvP programs deciding who wins? Or with the PK system that discourages "Open PvP?"
And let's be honest - PvP in Lineage 2 doesn't even start until after a very lengthy grind (both level-se and gear-wise). You should be saying "If you want to spend several months/years grinding to PvP, play L2."
I like the way loot happens here, it all falls on the ground and when you pick it up it goes to the next person in line in the party, what's not fun about that? In WoW you have some **** appointing where the gear goes based on your participation on a week to week basis, they have a need/greed roll system but do those ever get used outside of the week and a half it takes to go from 1-85, nah, you get the ****.
What's not fun about grinding for hours for the possible chance at a random drop that you have absolutely no ability to affect whether or not it goes to you?
What's not fun about grinding for weeks/months to gather 10k animal bones to possibly craft something that may end up failing, forcing you to start the entire gathering grind over again?
What's not fun about paying 1m adena for a random chance of getting a dye, of which you need 10 of the same type, which would invariably leave you with a lot of dyes you don't need and can't even sell off because everyone else will be trying to get the same dyes as you are, and will also be burdened with the same trash dyes as you?
And your WoW comparison is still dictated by personal choice and not universal requirement as dictated by the game itself (basically, your WoW comparison can be solved simply by joining a guild that has different looting rules while L2's grind is universally true for all players, regardless of playstyle).