I have played a number of new characters through IoD now with the new changes and I must say, even as an experienced player, I feel at a disadvantage not having the extra abilities and options in combat. It is rather boring just mashing the same buttons over and over again and I really hope this does not deter new subscriptions due to the lack of excitement when playing at such a low level, this is of course going to be their first impression and ultimately the reason they either subscribe and stay or take their money else where. For what it is worth, I have received quite a bit of feedback while on the IoD about the lack of abilities and I must say, a lot of it is players frowning upon the changes. It's actually a hindrance and slightly more difficult not having those extra abilities in my opinion, despite the increase in experience and mob adjustments. Is the Dev team aware of the players feedback , dullness and repetitive nature of these abilities being removed? Would the Dev team be willing to discuss adding them back in or is this set in stone now and will not be changed?
I have to agree with this. I have a warrior and a rogue on my trial account so I can access Test, and the warrior seems like he is lacking a skill or two. The rogue, I feel like I'm gimped. I played a rogue to 55 and I remember the first time I made an IoD character, the rogue didn't feel this gimped. Give us back our skills. It isn't helping stream line anything. EQ2 gives you more skills at level 8 than VG seems to, and I don't remember it being that way before.
i hate to say it, but streamlining abilities from 1-10 has made leveling an alt extremely boring, at least from the melee perspective. low level characters are basically spamming two special attacks in combat and that is the total opposite of what the vg combat system has always been. vg combat is definitely complex but thats one of the things that makes the game so addicting. you actually have to pay attention to what youre doing. i doubt the devs will change things back, but please reconsider whats been done.
I agree, it really has made leveling 1-10 boring. What makes it worse is that the decision was based on "players becoming overwhelmed"... Now at level 10 you get bombarded with abilites and have to spend the next half hour reading through them to see what they do and then place them on your hotbar in a decent order. I fear the ability revamp has caused more issues than it will resolve. I really do hope they will take a hard look at the decision, level a few characters to 10 and see if they are still awake after.
/takes a deep breath... This was a very sore subject for myself, considering that after they asked for feedback on it and when everyone (vets and new players both) pleaded with them not to change it they went ahead and did it anyways. So, along with Kilsin, I will make one final plea. Please revert the class abilities and spells to their original state. Never once have I ever heard of a single player stating in any form that they were overwhelmed by the number of abilities they recieved in levels 1-10. Reducing these skills not only diminishes the uniqueness of alot of the classes but also dumbs down the first 10 levels so much more than was ever needed. Having stated that the only reason for this change was so that new players didnt feel overwhelemed. Please give gamers credit we are not mindless fools who cant handle a bit of a challenge. Unless your target audience for F2P is 6 year olds, the gamers across the world today can handle the number of skills that were originally given. By reducing them and stating "we don't want you to feel overwhelmed" is all but simply saying "you are all mindless idiots who cant handle pushing more than 1-2 buttons repeatedly". I once again beg, plead with you do not treat the gamers of the world as 6 year olds, we are more intelligent than that, please return the skills to their previous state.
my 8 year old has now levelled up two characters on test and is already asking why she doesnt have more spells in her spell book like her wizard 101 character. No, i didnt prompt her to ask that. She is simply comparing one thing she plays to another. She does like the crafting though and has been harvesting her little heart out for mats.
I had my 10 year old start playing Vanguard before the change as a reading exercise while he is out of school for the summer (He has to read all quest dialog out loud to me ). He had no issues with the skills before the changes, and recently started a new character and asked why this one didn't have as many abilities. His only other "RPG" type game was Wizard 101, other than that he mostly plays shooters and sports games...he had next to zero prior experience with ability systems and advanced strategy in game play... That tells me one thing...it wasn't hard to start with and is now extremely simple.
Karii wrote: +1 I could not agree more with what you have posted and if they try to make this a wow clone it will fail and die for good. We all like this game as it is tough and rewards for good game play but sdaly I'll be off if it stays as is planned...
I myself had my wife rejoin me the other night and play. She didn't even bother going past level 6 and exclaimed, "This is lame! I'm not really doing anything. I used to love playing my necro but this is just plain stupid." She logged out and went back to her tablet games which apparently are more engaging than the new low level drivel you guys have churned out. LOL Amazing! And she's an alt-aholic when she gets rollin.
Ok, so I got messing around with my baby druid on IoD again today, just to see how affected by the differences in skills I was... and let me say OMG! /snore... level 7, I have 2 buttons to push in combat.. really? I could teach a half brain dead monkey to do that. Also, come on its a Druid, why was root spell taken away? gone are the moments of rooting the mob and nuking it down.. well until level 10. At this point I know, I realize that no matter how much we complain about this, it wont change, but, really come on.. even console games have more buttons to hit than that anymore...
Karii wrote: OMG, this. At level 2 I was hoping to get the Peircing Roots spell, gone until level 10, WH?. Then looked and the other DoT Venomous Thorns at level 4 is now level 12. How much do I need to pay in the cash shop to get those spells back and make the 1-9 druid enjoyable?
Kelnozz wrote: It really did.. And todays console game controllers have what? 8+ buttons each one doing something different?!? but yet a MMO player sitting at a keyboard cant handle pushing more than 2 maybe 3 buttons at a time as they level up, run, and jump?.. come on put a PS3 controller in the hands of a 8 year old, he's running, strafing, switching weapons, shooting ducking and rolling like instantly pushing how many buttons?! So a 8 year old can handle 8+ buttons and how many joysticks, but cant handle moving a mouse and pushing more than 2-3 buttons on keyboard? Please, those of us in the community who have been overly vocal about this (and im sure others as well) beg for the development staff to see reason and put the Skills back to the way they were before they started messing with them.
I wish the Devs would spend a day or two logged in on the LIVE IoD server to listen to the feedback first hand. Don't listen to us Veterans, that's fine, i couldn't care less, we are used to being ignored but listen to the new players who you are trying to help! They are the ones complaining about these abilities missing or how dull the classes are, I am hearing more and more complaints about it being too hard now as opposed to previously when all the abilities were in place, the most we heard was asking about crafting, diplo or end game viability with classes and main role questions. If you were trying to simplify it, you have succeeded, as now there is only 1-3 buttons to push but it is now harder and extremely boring. Why would a new player want to continue a sub or pay money on a class that in their eyes "sucks" from level 1 through to 10? It is essentially the "try before you buy" period and is the hardest and the least fun. I see the Devs commenting on other issues and fluff questions but no one is going to comment on a legitimate question and listen to honest feedback about an issue that is questioned by many? Hardly any new players post on these forums, so you will not hear it from them unless you get on the live server and listen for yourself. Is this level strip permanent or can it be put back in place to bring the low end of the game back to life?
Kilsin@Telon wrote: your close, but the devs woudl actually have to play, enjoy, and love the game. Since they do not play, and it shows with such dreadful errors as the new sprint, we will continue to see these kinds of changes. When Sigil and VG failed it was said the biggest failure of any game company is that its designers/coders do not actually play the game their making. Ask 38 Studios about that, appears their team did not play it either because it wasn't fun. I have given up, not sure my subs will be here much longer.
So thats why my paladinin on Isle at Dawn at lvl 10 have several skills he cant use? Why on earth would you do that? The huge amount of skills, the fun you can have with them, is one of the key features of Vanguard. Next you'll be removing Illusion spells because they "serve no purpose"?
