Hey, I decided to share with you my thoughts on the upcoming update. I'm not coming from an English-speaking country so I couldn't express myself in 100% due to lack of vocabulary, but I did my best and I hope you will get what I mean.
Let's start with the ratings on upcoming changes.
Mythic Alchemy - well, you can see from the first sight, that these new stones just don't fit with original ones. My general impression on it is that new class is not exactly what DSA needed. Actually, the current DSA seems to be working perfectly, and I guess it's impossible to add something new here, without ruining it. It doesn't change the fact, that I don't understad people crying about it. The fact that there will be new, more powerful alchemy, doesn't mean that you have to throw away your current alchemy, especially when you have excellent stones. What would be the point of wearing the matt alchemy then (well that's what 95% of users of alchemy do)? New alchemy won't pop up on servers immediately. I think, at least for first few months, it will be something really rare. I tried to make some excellent mythic stones on the beta server - while it took me 150 antics to make first mythic excellent jade, I needed over 360 for my first excellent ruby (without bonuses btw). Quick maths - on my server (PL - Tasmania), antic ruby costs ~6 won, 6w * 360 = 2160 won. For the useless one. Being optimistic, let's say I would make the quite good one on the third try, that makes it over 6000 won. You can't forget, that you need to buy them first - good luck on buing 1000 antics on the market. It's barely achievable. So you, excellent alchemy users, have nothing to worry about, you will still be unique for a long time. Another thing is making the DSS untradeable. I'm not really sure what GF is thinking here. 5 stones per character without possibility of trading will make things a bit harder and I guess many of low-lvl characters will lose their main source of income. For now it looks bad, we will see how it will turn out later. Summing up the mythic alchemy - it's not needed, but still it's not that bad. It's 3/10 from me.
Basic resistances - another important case. It's true that we all became really comfortable since they made these resistances working. I've already forgot how it is to tryhard in grotto of exile for countless hours. Now you just set this auto hunting on maxi maxi and then come out after a week with 95 lvl, not making any effort except for buying the right equipment. I'm not gonna lie - I like it and for me, the pvm should be as easy as possible. Now they make things harder, I would say too hard. I could see the importance of defence while testing it on beta. Maybe that's the thing, but I still find that drop of resistance's efectiveness too big. But maybe it's crucial for the future balance, I don't know. The thing is similar to the mythic alchemy - I don't find it useful, but maybe it won't be that bad. 4/10.
The refreshing of Pet System - beautiful. I used to spend a lot on Blue Dragon's eggs back in time and I'm so glad that I will finally be able to make use of them. Also, I think it won't affect the prices of eggs of normal pets (like Meley and Razador), because simply it will be cheaper to buy another egg, than spend DC and trying to mix the current one (well, I don't believe they will make it cheaper than 80 DC). These changes reward the people with high level pets, who have been keeping them alive for a long time. For me it's 9/10.
New Pet Skills - It depends on how big impact this additional few % of strong against mob will have on game balance. The idea with the skill increasing EXP is also interesting, if it will be big enough. I also wonder what will be the difference between HP Absorption and Vampire. 6/10.
Shoulder SS Update - obviously there is a lot of ugly ones in the game, so it's good that we will have the possibility to change their looks, but I think the requirement to both SS to have the same absorption % is stupid. Most of the players won't decide to pay double price just to change the look of their SS, especially when you basically never put anything expensive in <20% SS, so in that case it will be cheaper just to buy the better looking one, and if it comes to >20% SS, I think no one would buy another >20% SS just to change the look of another one. 4/10.
Graphic settings - it's nice to see that something is happening in terms of optimization of the game, but it was hard to test the options of the shops, while on beta there was no shops. 7/10.
New emotions - cool thing, but I think that "Emotion Mask" is a bit old thing today and using emotions in game should be just allowed without any special items. There are many things players spend a lot of money on, I don't think Emotion Mask will become one of them thanks to the new emotions. 7/10.
Summing up, I have to add, that I didn't test those changes in terms of "yes/no", because I know that these changes will be implemented anyway and the beta is more to find out how do they work and how to make them work properly. So that's why I related to them in that way. Obviously, it would be more comfortable to leave everything the way it is, but unfortunately, the game needs to change continuously, to set new challenges for the old players, to keep them in the game, because it won't have the new ones.
Another thing that makes it hard to relate to upcoming changes is that we don't know the GF's idea for the future of this game. I mean - maybe mythic alchemy will be crucial for the final balance of the game? We don't know. The same thing is with untradeable DSSs, for now it looks bad, but maybe in the future we will be able to make decent alchemy with just 5 cors a day? I remember the situation in last year, when people were furious when the Zodiac Temple update came. I was one of these people, I was angry because for a moment everything in the game became harder for me. But after a month or two, it turned to be the biggest facilitation ever in terms of pvm. So, having that experience, I would not cross out 18.4 update already, I would give it a chance. I see what direction the game is going in. They try to make a game, where you can play with just one character, without buffs, drops, farmers etc., and I like it, and I hope all these changes and all this suffering we, players, have to experience, is leading to get a good-balanced game based on teamwork and good pvp.
But still it doesn't change the fact, that the game is broken, and I don't like the fact there are bugs which are here for months or even years, and there are many issues we keep calling all the time, and they are still not being fixed. It's kinda disappointing when it takes GF/Webzen a few weeks to repair the stupid bug with the 2nd page of equipment (items not being marked while trading or opening the shop), while when it comes to a mistake with an Item Shop promo, they make an urgent technical break to fix it the same day. We were promised the server fusion about two years ago, but still each time this topic comes up, we get no information. We struggle with bots and yangsellers who ruin the market, but still bots are unpunished (on Polish servers you can meet 65+ lvl bots easily). Lags and kicks you experience no matter how good your PC is. I'm tired with all that. So, apart of the changes, maybe it's time to start fixing the game.
I would like to know what you guys think about the update and how do you see the game in upcoming months.
Let's start with the ratings on upcoming changes.
Mythic Alchemy - well, you can see from the first sight, that these new stones just don't fit with original ones. My general impression on it is that new class is not exactly what DSA needed. Actually, the current DSA seems to be working perfectly, and I guess it's impossible to add something new here, without ruining it. It doesn't change the fact, that I don't understad people crying about it. The fact that there will be new, more powerful alchemy, doesn't mean that you have to throw away your current alchemy, especially when you have excellent stones. What would be the point of wearing the matt alchemy then (well that's what 95% of users of alchemy do)? New alchemy won't pop up on servers immediately. I think, at least for first few months, it will be something really rare. I tried to make some excellent mythic stones on the beta server - while it took me 150 antics to make first mythic excellent jade, I needed over 360 for my first excellent ruby (without bonuses btw). Quick maths - on my server (PL - Tasmania), antic ruby costs ~6 won, 6w * 360 = 2160 won. For the useless one. Being optimistic, let's say I would make the quite good one on the third try, that makes it over 6000 won. You can't forget, that you need to buy them first - good luck on buing 1000 antics on the market. It's barely achievable. So you, excellent alchemy users, have nothing to worry about, you will still be unique for a long time. Another thing is making the DSS untradeable. I'm not really sure what GF is thinking here. 5 stones per character without possibility of trading will make things a bit harder and I guess many of low-lvl characters will lose their main source of income. For now it looks bad, we will see how it will turn out later. Summing up the mythic alchemy - it's not needed, but still it's not that bad. It's 3/10 from me.
Basic resistances - another important case. It's true that we all became really comfortable since they made these resistances working. I've already forgot how it is to tryhard in grotto of exile for countless hours. Now you just set this auto hunting on maxi maxi and then come out after a week with 95 lvl, not making any effort except for buying the right equipment. I'm not gonna lie - I like it and for me, the pvm should be as easy as possible. Now they make things harder, I would say too hard. I could see the importance of defence while testing it on beta. Maybe that's the thing, but I still find that drop of resistance's efectiveness too big. But maybe it's crucial for the future balance, I don't know. The thing is similar to the mythic alchemy - I don't find it useful, but maybe it won't be that bad. 4/10.
The refreshing of Pet System - beautiful. I used to spend a lot on Blue Dragon's eggs back in time and I'm so glad that I will finally be able to make use of them. Also, I think it won't affect the prices of eggs of normal pets (like Meley and Razador), because simply it will be cheaper to buy another egg, than spend DC and trying to mix the current one (well, I don't believe they will make it cheaper than 80 DC). These changes reward the people with high level pets, who have been keeping them alive for a long time. For me it's 9/10.
New Pet Skills - It depends on how big impact this additional few % of strong against mob will have on game balance. The idea with the skill increasing EXP is also interesting, if it will be big enough. I also wonder what will be the difference between HP Absorption and Vampire. 6/10.
Shoulder SS Update - obviously there is a lot of ugly ones in the game, so it's good that we will have the possibility to change their looks, but I think the requirement to both SS to have the same absorption % is stupid. Most of the players won't decide to pay double price just to change the look of their SS, especially when you basically never put anything expensive in <20% SS, so in that case it will be cheaper just to buy the better looking one, and if it comes to >20% SS, I think no one would buy another >20% SS just to change the look of another one. 4/10.
Graphic settings - it's nice to see that something is happening in terms of optimization of the game, but it was hard to test the options of the shops, while on beta there was no shops. 7/10.
New emotions - cool thing, but I think that "Emotion Mask" is a bit old thing today and using emotions in game should be just allowed without any special items. There are many things players spend a lot of money on, I don't think Emotion Mask will become one of them thanks to the new emotions. 7/10.
Summing up, I have to add, that I didn't test those changes in terms of "yes/no", because I know that these changes will be implemented anyway and the beta is more to find out how do they work and how to make them work properly. So that's why I related to them in that way. Obviously, it would be more comfortable to leave everything the way it is, but unfortunately, the game needs to change continuously, to set new challenges for the old players, to keep them in the game, because it won't have the new ones.
Another thing that makes it hard to relate to upcoming changes is that we don't know the GF's idea for the future of this game. I mean - maybe mythic alchemy will be crucial for the final balance of the game? We don't know. The same thing is with untradeable DSSs, for now it looks bad, but maybe in the future we will be able to make decent alchemy with just 5 cors a day? I remember the situation in last year, when people were furious when the Zodiac Temple update came. I was one of these people, I was angry because for a moment everything in the game became harder for me. But after a month or two, it turned to be the biggest facilitation ever in terms of pvm. So, having that experience, I would not cross out 18.4 update already, I would give it a chance. I see what direction the game is going in. They try to make a game, where you can play with just one character, without buffs, drops, farmers etc., and I like it, and I hope all these changes and all this suffering we, players, have to experience, is leading to get a good-balanced game based on teamwork and good pvp.
But still it doesn't change the fact, that the game is broken, and I don't like the fact there are bugs which are here for months or even years, and there are many issues we keep calling all the time, and they are still not being fixed. It's kinda disappointing when it takes GF/Webzen a few weeks to repair the stupid bug with the 2nd page of equipment (items not being marked while trading or opening the shop), while when it comes to a mistake with an Item Shop promo, they make an urgent technical break to fix it the same day. We were promised the server fusion about two years ago, but still each time this topic comes up, we get no information. We struggle with bots and yangsellers who ruin the market, but still bots are unpunished (on Polish servers you can meet 65+ lvl bots easily). Lags and kicks you experience no matter how good your PC is. I'm tired with all that. So, apart of the changes, maybe it's time to start fixing the game.
I would like to know what you guys think about the update and how do you see the game in upcoming months.