There's probably a fair few of these threads around, but I felt like posting my thoughts as well. There wasn't really a big "What is your feedback on renewal and the test." thread, so here I am.
Played a Thief for about five hours, got to 36/36. Avoided using quad Andre Carded weapons to get a more accurate feel of how it plays for a new player.
Note: Wall of Text, probably better to skip most of it and go straight to the ideas, unless you got 10 mins to read.
The good:
Leveling progression from one area to the next is generally good. It's not hard to tell when it's time to move on to a better place (Your exp goes down and it shows in your chat bar on the level you should move on), the map was reasonably accurate as to where the next good area was, but was still not sufficient in telling me about what was ON a map. Time spent leveling is generally not excessive and you get a decent amount of variety, there are usually two or three zones for your level range. If you dislike one, there is always another you can try.
New interface... I generally liked it, especially with the new chat bar. The two new shortcut slots are convenient and mapping your keys to your shortcuts was not difficult, though hardly necessary so early on. I disliked the new main top left HP/SP and exp bar, it's smaller and more compact, but doesn't fit well with your inventory bar at all. That and the new expandable shortcut bars were a little big on the screen, whilst to be expected and not really a complaint in itself, it took getting used to.
"Feels" like vanilla RO, the fighting hasn't really changed at all, it's pretty fast paced still (depending on class). The first 15 levels are a bit slow and sloggy, but once you get past that, it speeds up. Double Attack probably assisted with this a lot.
It's a little clunky, but the new "booking" party system is good.
Storage searching, a feature that was required long before renewal. Late, but welcome.
The Eden Group quest system, training quests were good.
The bad:
Some monster placement and balance was... not that good. Hunter Flies in Geffen Tower? Good idea!... No, not a good idea, Gravity. There were some spots that were progressively worse as I went through the game, but a HUGE one was Ant Hell 1. If you camp the door, the Ant Eggs give 200 base exp, 220 job. They not only give more exp than Andres, Pieres and Deniros, but they don't even have a chance to fight back. If they weren't level 33 and not worth doing til 23, I'd recommend coming here at level 6 straight out of training grounds. If you happen to be a Mage with Fireball, christmas just came early for you.
Also, why bother killing Condors, when you can kill Rockers and get 30%ish more exp for the same level monster? You might as well just skip both and go straight to Spores at level 11. It sounds a little contradictory to what I said above, but it's really more that the balance is still a bit off. Why not have the Condors and Rockers give the same exp and make Spores a tad tougher to discourage speeding to level 23 there?
The Eden Group board quests were a good idea, but not sufficient in giving any incentive to do them instead of grinding. I don't think that doing all of the ones on one board should shoot you to the level ready for the next board, but they should supply you and make you ready to get there on your own. They ARE nice to do if you happen to be leveling at say Spores and you are tasked to kill 30 Spores.
The new stats.... Are a little whack, why bother getting Str when it adds virtually no damage? Str has been relegated to the "Dump a spare point or two into it occasionally" camp.
Agi is good, you can pump it and attack fast, but you won't always dodge. In exchange you gain a little bit more defense too. I like it. Dex is great too!... But more shoehorned essential great. If you don't have it, you won't hit anything anyway.
HP/SP regen is still terrible and worthless. Either pot your way through or get an Aco, but bring a book if you have neither... Getting 4 HP every 1.5 seconds sitting was not really adequate regeneration.
Weapon variety and leveling is still bad.............. It's still buy the strongest weapon of the 2-3 available at your level. It doesn't go Knife level 1, Cutter level 10, Main Gauche level 15. There is no progression at all! No point to getting the mid range weapons.
There were no Mercenaries to test! Please implement them.
Overall, it's a mixed bag. There's no doubt I found it enjoyable, but for every enjoyable aspect, there was something annoying. I understand that iRO is not exactly capable of changing formulae or the game engine on their own, but I thought up a few suggestions that might improve the game, especially for newer players that the iRO team may be able to implement.
Suggestions:
Idea 1: A field control manual; I've seen those book items in regular RO that you can click on and read a short story. How about if a book like that was made specifically for players to read in order to learn the functions of the game. It could be given to you if you complete or skip the training grounds as a 0 weight character bound item. If it gets annoying, allow it to be removed by an NPC past level 30 or so for free. This would assist new players if they need to find out about a function that they have forgotten, because once you have left the training grounds, you can never go back on that character. This would be superior to using the /help command as well.
Idea 2: Quest tokens, every quest you do for the Eden Group gives you one token. They can be cashed in for supplies. This would give incentive to do the quests without lining the player's wallet with zeny, but alternatively, if they have too many supplies, can still get minimal money out of it by vending/NPCing the extra. Also give players a "First Aid Kit" box item for clearing the entire board.
IE:
1 Token could get you
30 Novice Potions.
or
10 Grapes.
5 Tokens
180 Novice Potions, 5 Aloe Leaflets.
or
60 Grapes, 3 Honey.
10 Tokens
400 Novice Potions, 10 Aloe Leaflets, Gift Box.
or
135 Grapes, 5 Honey, Gift Box.
or
Equipment for your level, IE a Dirk or Stiletto.
I dunno, thought it was an interesting idea, as you get higher you can give out more tokens. In this sense, you could implement a daily token quest for level 150s to get lower level supplies, thus avoiding the item drop penalty to some extent.
Idea 3: Put the Eden Quest turn in NPCs on the map you go to do the quest, you gotta kill 30 Spores, then 20 Wormtails? That NPC is on the map then and gives you the next quest for that map, when you are done, you return to the secret base for the next set if you wish. IE: Make the Desert wolf quest on every map that has multiple quests.
Idea 4: Harder party maps. Have a map at your level range, but make it extra hard so that it requires a party co-ordinating to be able to level there. But ONLY have these maps as an alternative to regular maps. Perhaps make it a copy of a normal map with buffed monsters, that you need a specific item to access (Tokens?), boost the difficulty by 3x, but boost the exp and drops by 2x and 2x to compensate.
Anyway, if I think of more suggestions or feedback, I'll edit up my post. I wonder what other people and even the GMs think.
Edited by Wazza, 11 September 2010 - 12:00 AM.
