Random suggestions and feedback

Yet another thread about random suggestions and feedback. Not much to say.

Spoiler: Make the dernel idol grinding spot a bit harder

This grinding spot is absurd. Mobs spawn at a ridiculous pace and aren't nearly threatening enough to make it hard to use, compared to ToL (it is actually kinda easy to use, until the magical trainer spawns. That guy has a ton of health, has ranged attacks and can cast explosions. It is insane how dangerous he is on his own. In another thread I talked about how I wish it was less dangerous to use and now I finally realized why it was so hard to grind.) or half the grinding spots in the game.

It takes about 2-5 minutes to grind a full level there and it remains this viable up until mid level 70s. I think either the higher level grinding spots need to be toned down a bit or this one needs to be made a bit harder, it is just too good. Sure it is locked behind a quest, a very short one with a very easy fight. I don't think the quest requirement alone justifies how good and safe it is.

Spoiler: Spread the early dungeons' levels better

I talked about this in a recent thread about quit moments. Basically, I always skip Lost Sanctuary and sometimes even Infested Pit or Underworld Crypt because I just level up too quickly through these levels and I just don't get to replay them at all.

The level gaps are also super abnormal around this level range. From each dungeon quest to each to dungeon quest there is usually a 9 level gap if we exclude corrupted dungeons and EO (5 (DS) -> 14 (IP) -> 21 (LS) -> 24 (UC) -> 33 (SST) -> 43 (IB) -> 52 (UR) -> 63 (GG)). Every gap is a 9 levels gap except for the gaps between IP and UC. And it shows, because they are always the dungeons I skip. The rest however, I never skip them except for IB, but that's just because it is kinda boring and the quest is super long and filled with cinematic cutscenes.

Personally, I don't really want to see any of the early dungeons gone because they were the OG ones, but Lost Sanctuary is just too in the middle and arguably the worst dungeon currently, and getting rid of it would make it a 10 levels gap, which is far less abnormal. The other option is to make the rest of the gaps smaller in exchange for these ones to be bigger. The last option I can think of would be to remake these dungeons so damn good that skipping them would be a moral crime.

Dungeons are supposed to be replayable content that you are likely to run more than once as suggested by the dungeon shop which wants you to run them multiple times, so it is a shame that I'm skipping two entire dungeons instead of making use of them.

Spoiler: Default weapon skins as paid rewards

Ok so the crate reward weapon skins are cool and all, just got the frostbound dagger skin and I really like it, but can I just talk about how much I like the basic dagger skins? Or the thunder dagger skins? Or the T3 fire wand skin? Or the basic spear skin? Or the old rainbow wand skins? I genuinely believe it would be a really cool reward if you could get the base weapon skins or even some of the old ones like the previously mentioned old rainbow wands as crate or rank rewards.

The only downside to this I can think of is the fact that other people wouldn't be able to even guess what weapon you are using, but to be fair you can't do that on armor unless you use a mod that lets you peep on others' builds and you also can only make a guess on weapons ayways, so...

If it were a crate reward, it wouldn't be much of a mystery how they work, but if they were a rank-based reward, perhaps they could be:
VIP = Basic and T1
VIP+ = T2
HERO = T3
Champion = Retro (yes I'm a HERO rank but I really like some of the old skins like the rainbow wand and as some of the current ones get updated eventually, the eliminated skins could be added to this perk. I don't think it would be a bad reward at all.)

Spoiler: Tower of Ascension needs a revision

Little disclaimer: I haven't touched ToA in a long while for the reasons I'm going to address ahead so if there have been any changes to the quest recently, I had no idea.

Tower of Ascension is honestly too long and a bit too outdated at this point. All rooms are really similar and the idea of fighting all bosses + death at the end is kinda cool but it feels really poorly executed at this point. This affects the LI variant too. I just think 7 divisions each with 9 floors of nothing but random basic mobs is just too repetitive and boring. At least Qira only forces you to grind 5 tokens and there are only 5 divisions, which makes it a lot shorter. Also Qira's bosses have been getting upgrades recently and I think ToA could use some too.

On another note, I think the floors could be a lot more interesting. The mobs could definitely get a lot more love to offer more interesting fights and even then, perhaps they could be more than just a normal fight. Perhaps there could be floors where the goal is to survive (in an interesting way though, not the Yahyabot way). Perhaps there could be floors where first you need to survive something like what has been done in The Canary Calls' boss, the bullet hell stuff, and then fight a proper enemy in a normal fight. I definitely think the normal floors could be a lot more interesting and less repetitive. And this applies to both ToA and to Qira's Hive, although the second one is a lot more bearable and much less in need of a revision.

Also, an issue with ToA is the lack of rewards for each floor. Instead, the reward is entirely at the end. While I definitely think Champion set and 7LE is a really good reward (lots of money and I managed to solo the Eye with the Champion set which says volumes about how good the set is), I think the fact that you are given all of this right at the end of the quest is a problem. I just always skip the entire quest until I'm level 70-80 and then complete it there, which makes the first floors a joke and breaks the idea that you are supposed to come back here every 5 levels or so to try to clear an entire floor. Why would you do that when there is no incentive to? I think the rewards should be better spread, just like Qira's Hive with the vouchers.

Death's fight is also pretty meh. It is just a guy with a shotgun and all the other floors' bosses to aid him. The issue is, they aren't coordinated at all and the boss room is incredibly small so it is absolute chaos and not very fun. I don't think the idea of having the other bosses support Death is bad, but I think just throwing them into the fight just like that is lame. Perhaps they could occasionally pop up to try to cast some spell and then disappear, or apply some effect to the boss room (like, the Ice bear could support Death not by appearing in the fight itself which is pointless since it dies in a hit at level 75 in the first place, but instead make the floor ice or something. Stage hazards basically)

Over all I think this is one of the quests that needs a revision the most, and I think these are the main flaws of the quest.

Spoiler: Orphion's fight is a mess

I recently did Orphion's raid to see if I could get Armour III tomes since TNA didn't seem to be giving them. I didn't get the tomes unfortunately. Though I'm not sure since I've only beaten the raid once. And it is not because I'm bad but because after beating it once, I wasn't willing to go through the gigantic mess that Orphion's boss fight is.

First of all, what in beloved hell is up with the mob quantity? Does everyone who tested this boss in the CT have a supercomputer or what? The amount of mobs in the first phase is beyond absurd and it makes the fight way harder because my FPS drop from a smooth 60 to 3 or 4, and it was the same for every single one of my raid teammates. It is ridiculous. I'm not willing to run the raid again until that gets fixed, it is too serious of an issue and I have no clue on how the idea of having that many enemies on screen made it through, specially when they are such a non-threat in reality.

Second, why can multiple parts of the floor get corrupted at once? This isn't like the Solar Vanguard where at least the center is untouched and you can use it as a gate from one quarter of the room to the other, in case you get blocked from the other two sides. Orphion can actually trap you with the corrupted floor and I think at some point the entire floor was corrupted. Where do I go if that happens?

Third, the crystal thing is pure evil. You become a sitting duck with no warning and either someone saves you inmediately or you get crushed by the 500 enemies that are already killing your computer. The issue is not even having to rely on anyone to go back to normal, the issue is that you can't do anything yourself, not even defend yourself someone. If you got locked in place but could still cast spells, fine, I can't move but perhaps I can get them off me for a few seconds until a teammate saves me. You can't even do that.
This fight is seriously a mess, I think it is in dire need of a revision because specially the first issue is too critical. It makes the boss literally unplayable.

The second phase is fine though, no complaints about that one since I soloed it in the first place.

Spoiler: Add a skip cinematic option

Cinematics are really cool, the first time. They are like a movie. The first time you watch them, they are very cool, but after seeing them 5 times they get a bit boring. This is a problem specially with quests like A Headless Story, which has way too many which are too long and no longer can we just AFK through them thanks to the new dialogue system. So here is my solution:

The game checks if you have beaten the quest before in another class, and if you have, it says "You seem to have watched this cutscene before already. If you wish to skip it, type /skipcutscene" or "You seem to have watched this cutscene before already. Do you wish to skip it?" and you click on it like a dialogue option. something like that. A very basic option that most games have and normally offer, if not during the first playthrough already, after it.

Don't get me wrong, the issue isn't the cutscenes' quality. They are normally outstanding and really cool, but quests like A Headless Story are just a pain at this point since I've beaten them like 5 times. I really wish I could just skip or AFK through the cutscenes so that I could get to actual gameplay.

 

HEYHEYHEY HEY

I AGREE

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FIRST ONE IS

BUT PLEASE WHY IS THE DOXAT (dog fox cat aka orphion) SO FLIPPING CRAZY, I MEAN EVEN THE THING THAT TOOK CONTROL OF HIM IS WEAKER

please skip cinematics...

 

Grind spots as a whole are kind of in a strange position balance-wise, there's little variance in their difficulties and rewards because there's so few, it's just kind of the happenstance of what the nearest-level grindspot is like.

By the way, there are no Armour III tomes yet, just Armour II from TCC and Armour I from NotG.

 

toa rooms were adjusted from 10 token to 5 token; is it enough or do you feel it doesn't solve the problem?

this is a bug (which, tbf, is well-known and hasn't been fixed since nol released)

 

There is a grinding spot at Dernel Jungle that contains some weird idols which you can unlock by picking up a stone at Gracen's house after completing Lost in the Jungle and placing it in the dark stone spot there is at the door. The grinding spot is incredibly easy to use compared to other spots since there are no ranged enemies and the melee ones don't have any crazy stuff like charge spells. The enemies aren't too fast either. The only thing that can throw you out of balance in there is the thing in the center that can cast pulls. Aside from that, the grinding spot is super easy to use and can get you up a full level in like 3 minutes if you can kill them quickly enough, because their spawn rates are also insane. And the thing is, it remains this good up until mid level 70s as a level 60 grinding spot. It is insane.

Over all grinding spots are fairly dangerous but quite profitable too. It's just that said grinding spot is abnormally easy to exploit compared to the rest. I think the spider one near Llevigar is also a bit too easy, but I don't think the xp reward is as insane as it is in the idol grinding spot at Dernel.

I see.

It helps but I still have no reason to do floors at their supposed level when there is no reward for doing so.

Damn

 

Orphion fight was recently changed and a lot of the mob got swapped out. Orphion's Overseer was changed to Pearl Overwatch, theres new stuff like Antipode Bomb, but its overall way less minion heavy I think.





delete tower of ascension.

 

Damn, why am I always one week late with these suggestions

 

B/c they wait to fix this stuff to solely make you look bad :3

 

(My apologies if this is repetitive or incomprehensible - I'm running on two hours of sleep and three liters of caffeine).
If you're suggesting that the currently existing weapon skins should be only locked behind ranks/crates (if I misunderstood, please correct), this is . . . not a very good idea.
First off, this would mean that all of the weapons for each class look identical, which removes a layer of depth from the game, by taking away a bit of personality from the items.
Second, this would mean that only players who paid money would be able to make their items look interesting. Locking cosmetics behind paywalls is one thing, but when this goes so far that anyone who doesn't pay has dull-looking items, I feel like this is would be really unnecessary and make the game overall worse for players who don't pay.
"Something looks cool so only people who pay should get it" is a twisted viewpoint; I personally am against any features being locked behind paywalls (let the people have fun without having to spend exuberant amounts of money), but Salted has to make money somehow, so I suppose ranks are fine. Locking existing features behind ranks, though, is a little messed up - the people have something, and now it's being taken away from them because they didn't decide to spend $120 USD.

Essentially, people shouldn't have their cool weapon skins taken away just so those who decide to spend money on the game can lord them over others.

 

what hes saying is (if i get it correctly lol)

he means that you should be able (i think) use the fire wand skin on a water wand or something and bring back the old weapon skins in crates as well

 

Yeah.

You misunderstood. What I meant is that there should be crate/rank rewards just like the rest that are simply the default skins, not remove them and add them as an exclusively paid reward.

Items keep their current skins AND if I, who paid for this nice HERO rank, decide that I want my Thrundra Ripsaw to look like a basic dagger instead of the T3 thunder dagger, I can make it look like a basic dagger.

Removing the skins from the items and putting them behind a paywall for no reason would be more stupid than even whatever Orphion's minion spawn rates were.

 

That makes sense, and actually does sound like a decent idea. Some of the weapon skins are pretty lame, whilst others look exceedingly cool.

 

Would be nice to see some of the really old weapon textures (Dern stuff as an example) get an updated look without changing the overall theme of it