2012-11-13, 02:35 PM
[MENTION=4235]KhainiWest[/MENTION]; I never said the game was free to play, I said there are things you can do in the game that don't require you to throw piles of money at it, and there are, because some people seem to think that you can't get anywhere at all in this game without breaking the bank, and outside of bossing there are plenty of things you can do.
What ever happened to spamming that you were selling crap in the Free Market entrance, do people not do that anymore? With the way NX is, you're gonna have to drop $10 if you wanna buy a permit. Or, possibly buy one from a friend with mesos, which is ~90m in Windia, ouch, tough for a new player, or borrow one until you make enough to pay them, or hell, ask if they can sell your stuff for you.
Everything outside of boss drops isn't exactly worthless. Monsters still drop scrolls, recipes (mostly worthless, though), and those new weapons that look like Cash Shop items, they're worth a pretty penny. Even the equips you get, NPC them, sell them as is to other players, extract them and sell the crystals, or use the crystals to make your own equips. They're not worth much in comparison to boss drops, but they're not worthless.
There are six out of, what, twenty three classes now, that require skill books from Zak, which you can now get from Hilla, and if you happen to choose one of those six, neither boss is that difficult such that you would need massive upgrading to do, especially with a group. You're not required to go through this game alone, after all, and it'd probably be a lot harder if you do.
While 3 out of the 5 classes, Mage, Thief, Pirate, comprising 14 out of the 23 non-Cygnus classes, require secondary stats now, along with Archer weapons, come Tempest, secondary stats will be a thing of the past, so it's not like you'll be forced to pump into your secondary stat and cripple your character to wear standard, but greatly subpar equips.
It's not like any old Angelic Burster can walk up to Magnus and wipe the floor with him. I don't think anyone expected her to be able to solo it, but one guy wanted to, he beefed up his character to the very extreme, and he did, and he couldn't even do that until the buff AB got from Hyper Skills. It wasn't an expected outcome, it was a fluke. And now it can't, it took half the time before, and now, with the last patch, and this one, over half its damage is gone.
The easy way out is to throw money at the game, but that's not the only way for everything. You don't have to go from beginner clothes to decked out in perfect 30% stat Empress equips, you don't have to instantly begin saving all your money in the hopes that one day, you'll get enough mesos to afford the absolute best equip. How to get some okay percent stat equips? Craft them, craft a million of them, earrings, belts, tops, bottoms, weapons, whatever. Monster Park, do it five times a day until you get what you want, fuse those, sell the other equips. You're not gonna be rolling in hundreds of percents worth of equips, or getting some 70% boss legendary weapon, but there are options. While we're at it, pots? Make your own, it's pretty cheap, and the comparison between crafted MP pots and regular MP pots is even better, and even the lowest ones heal 1k, better than the crappy pots that drop. Scrounge up your Aswan coins, use those scrolls, it'll take you days, probably, and unless you're incredibly lucky, it probably won't be very good, but it's okay. Even luckier if you're playing during a coin shop event, save up your coins, do all the events, get free pots from whatever boxes you're getting, buy weapons, buy scrolls, buy equips. These are all there, they're means. Why disregard it? Because it's difficult? Because it takes time? I don't promise that you can do this and become God tier, but you'll probably be better off than you were. And I'm pretty sure slowly upgrading your gear is closer to the idea of progression than being able to get the best tier equips at a cheap, affordable price and scroll them nicely, without having to go through the interim steps.
Yes, this game can hardly be called free to play, but it's not completely pay to play either.
Damage reflect is actually pretty nice for most bosses. Most of them don't damage reflect until a certain percentage of their HP has been chipped off, and it's a bit more difficult if you don't have the luxury of crash, but you can continue attacking as long as they're doing some other animation because they won't break it just to do damage reflect, and from then on, it's just timing. It's not immediately obvious within the game when a boss will begin casting DR or how long the cooldown on their damage reflect skill is, it'd take multiple trials of testing to get it right, but, we also have the luxury of being able to view such things in the data through extractions and what not.
What ever happened to spamming that you were selling crap in the Free Market entrance, do people not do that anymore? With the way NX is, you're gonna have to drop $10 if you wanna buy a permit. Or, possibly buy one from a friend with mesos, which is ~90m in Windia, ouch, tough for a new player, or borrow one until you make enough to pay them, or hell, ask if they can sell your stuff for you.
Everything outside of boss drops isn't exactly worthless. Monsters still drop scrolls, recipes (mostly worthless, though), and those new weapons that look like Cash Shop items, they're worth a pretty penny. Even the equips you get, NPC them, sell them as is to other players, extract them and sell the crystals, or use the crystals to make your own equips. They're not worth much in comparison to boss drops, but they're not worthless.
There are six out of, what, twenty three classes now, that require skill books from Zak, which you can now get from Hilla, and if you happen to choose one of those six, neither boss is that difficult such that you would need massive upgrading to do, especially with a group. You're not required to go through this game alone, after all, and it'd probably be a lot harder if you do.
While 3 out of the 5 classes, Mage, Thief, Pirate, comprising 14 out of the 23 non-Cygnus classes, require secondary stats now, along with Archer weapons, come Tempest, secondary stats will be a thing of the past, so it's not like you'll be forced to pump into your secondary stat and cripple your character to wear standard, but greatly subpar equips.
It's not like any old Angelic Burster can walk up to Magnus and wipe the floor with him. I don't think anyone expected her to be able to solo it, but one guy wanted to, he beefed up his character to the very extreme, and he did, and he couldn't even do that until the buff AB got from Hyper Skills. It wasn't an expected outcome, it was a fluke. And now it can't, it took half the time before, and now, with the last patch, and this one, over half its damage is gone.
The easy way out is to throw money at the game, but that's not the only way for everything. You don't have to go from beginner clothes to decked out in perfect 30% stat Empress equips, you don't have to instantly begin saving all your money in the hopes that one day, you'll get enough mesos to afford the absolute best equip. How to get some okay percent stat equips? Craft them, craft a million of them, earrings, belts, tops, bottoms, weapons, whatever. Monster Park, do it five times a day until you get what you want, fuse those, sell the other equips. You're not gonna be rolling in hundreds of percents worth of equips, or getting some 70% boss legendary weapon, but there are options. While we're at it, pots? Make your own, it's pretty cheap, and the comparison between crafted MP pots and regular MP pots is even better, and even the lowest ones heal 1k, better than the crappy pots that drop. Scrounge up your Aswan coins, use those scrolls, it'll take you days, probably, and unless you're incredibly lucky, it probably won't be very good, but it's okay. Even luckier if you're playing during a coin shop event, save up your coins, do all the events, get free pots from whatever boxes you're getting, buy weapons, buy scrolls, buy equips. These are all there, they're means. Why disregard it? Because it's difficult? Because it takes time? I don't promise that you can do this and become God tier, but you'll probably be better off than you were. And I'm pretty sure slowly upgrading your gear is closer to the idea of progression than being able to get the best tier equips at a cheap, affordable price and scroll them nicely, without having to go through the interim steps.
Yes, this game can hardly be called free to play, but it's not completely pay to play either.
ZeekFox Wrote:Damage Reflect could have taken a similar road, had bosses been given a clear, unmissable casting animation of 2-3 seconds before the buff turned on..
Damage reflect is actually pretty nice for most bosses. Most of them don't damage reflect until a certain percentage of their HP has been chipped off, and it's a bit more difficult if you don't have the luxury of crash, but you can continue attacking as long as they're doing some other animation because they won't break it just to do damage reflect, and from then on, it's just timing. It's not immediately obvious within the game when a boss will begin casting DR or how long the cooldown on their damage reflect skill is, it'd take multiple trials of testing to get it right, but, we also have the luxury of being able to view such things in the data through extractions and what not.