First impressions, the good and the bad

[soulholder]

Initial Review: After Day 1 from a R:BF beta tester ten years ago

I do agree with most of what the OP expresses, though I have a few differing opinions:

My guess (or at least hope) is that most of the quests are missing from the game as it stands, and hopefully many will return once the beta ends, particularly the repeatable ones. That said, I haven't looked at Korea, so I could be dead wrong. Its highly-linear approach to questing and lack of portal stones makes inventory management and general travel feel stale and rather uneventful. I feel like I'm on a guided tour of the maps rather than on an epic adventure. Long-term, I don't think this approach is sustainable when trying to retain players; one of the perks of the refinement system was allowing players to GH -> Portal Stone -> Start right off on higher level mobs when making a second/third/fourth character.


THE GOOD:
I disagree with the OP about the SES drop rate being too high. I haven't looked at all of the characters, but I can absolutely tell now from the HE perspective, an outright need for getting a majority of skills to 6/7 is making me happy to be constantly getting these things to drop. I'll never discount drops like this; it also makes making alts a lot easier and sustainable if you don't like the character; before you sold it on the EM to hopefully make a bit of the SES costs back, now there's no EM and you'll need to re-grind the stones yourself, or buy them. But since there's also no EM for buying things in the IM, this makes the upfront costs drop considerably while still keeping level 7's a source of income for the company. That said, I criticize some level 7 dependency below.

More granular approach to stats and builds will definitely make endgame more interesting.

Some skill changes are awesome, and were much-needed. Again from the HE perspective, the reworked Scout looks absolutely fantastic.

The community reboot and fan-service for this is super awesome. The whole notion of "10 years ago..." made me smile ear-to-ear, this being the game's 10th year after R:BF's release in Korea.

Main questline is at least a bit more engaging early on, and the general story seems better. There's a conflict, and at least from the Ein side, it's not just a total partisan war for no reason; many NPC's seem to recognize the legitimacy of the other side of sympathize with them. Storytelling 101, moral ambiguity is much better than a bunch of zealotry.

Removal of stat refinement - it was a hassle more than anything.

Higher resolution game client is a big win. Good job for addressing this QoL issue.

Item mall rewards being permanent and never resetting is a reasonable strategy to add incentive for players to spend over time, and not all at once or feel an imperative need to go all-out repeatedly. It also prevents giving inherent advantages to high-rollers over and over.

Fatigue: Concept is cool to deny botting and so on. I think R:BF lost itself with HK's, and the consistent pushes to the level cap weren't helping anyone in terms of healthy playstyle choices, and bringing back the days of social/good partying to make the time more worthwhile is better for all. Implementation could use some potential future-tweaking, but I like the notion as a whole.

Stat deflation: Keeps the game much more manageable and balance easier, while also opening more doors for viable pieces of gear. Nicely done.

Sockets: Building a ton of small modifiers off of a large number of sockets is a great idea, and one I proposed years ago. We'll need to see this feature elaborated on more.



THE BAD:
Linear content layout/leveling. One of the coolest parts about R:BF was that even low-level zones had a very big variety of levels and encounters, such as the knight boss in Ein (I can't remember the name). There's a real lack of sense of exploration in this game, and no lie, it doesn't feel that amazing. I'm hoping this is largely a beta test design to keep players progressing and clearing content, and isn't part of the final design intent. It really needs more openness. This after all is an MMO where players decide how things unfold, and it should be up to them to play the game as they wish.

No tutorial zone. Getting some fundamental systems explained will help, especially new players. I can only assume we don't have one now just because this is a beta.

Experience rates are weird, and from my < 20 levels in so far, I preferred the old values a bit better. It feels very slow for just starting out. It may be too early for me to tell, however. If the rate stays similar, it's probably a net improvement, but I have my doubts on this, and I don't think that grinding lower exp rates is a good idea, especially early on. The game is about PvP at its core.

Mob placement is awkward and feels at times both totally barren and completely flooded. Grind spots are necessary, but some areas feel too desolate and others nightmarish to cross.

Skill tooltips have weird descriptions, and there's a huge emphasis on having abilities at level 7 over level 6. This wouldn't so much be a problem if so many weren't just totally defined by their level 7 behaviors. Realistically, without the EM funding players, the IM prices for level 7 stones and other IM items are going to need to drop dramatically compared to R:BF. I looked at what I'd consider "required" level 7 abilities for a functional character as a HE, and was quickly pushed into the 15+ mark. Unless these things are priced at like $0.50 each per month, you're going to end up with people losing interest with the game too quickly due to its relatively dated gameplay for how pricey it'd be. Top-of-the-line games are being put out for one-time purchases of $10-60 like BDO and GW2. That's ultimately competition, and your core audience is probably going to be lower-end or lower-budget players, emphasizing a breadth of audience versus milking a few for big bucks. That was the demise of R:BF, and don't let it happen again.

I never liked the move to level requirements for unlocking skills in R:BF, and I think to really bring back the core experience of the original game, level requirements should be removed from the skills when ranking them up. If I want level 5 frozen by level 6, I should be allowed to do so.

No minor health/mana potions and spammable healing effect cooldowns will lead to cost issues for low-level solo players and PvP balance issues.

Lack of critical PvE option items/sockets available like Tears of Edoneh to keep mana values high given the nature of how low the cooldowns in the game are, now. This makes playing mana-hungry skillbuilds like the Scout a lot more frustrating than it needs to be.

HK's are still around - these really need to be removed ASAP. They're so much more destructive than one might think.


THE UGLY:

Forge/Refine Costs: These are just awful. 45k/try to make a 3x rare, and 15k/delvl on a 3x white. Formula needs some adjusting because the new player experience with the prices so high is really miserable.

The removal of Ahkma Cave entrance from Wild Highlands... Y U DO DIS?! This really hit me in the feels, since so much of my time was spent there in the past. Walking up the path from the bindstone brought me down memory lane and hit me super hard in the feels, and then seeing the lack of a cave altogether felt only a little bit soul-crushing. Further, I think this would be an awesome contention point between the Ally/Dhan starting questline conflicts, and it marked a great entry-level dungeon. Edit: I know it's moved, but the change of location to me at least is pretty saddening. This is mostly a nit-pick, though.

We really need the ability to keybind what's settable for movement abilities in the y-keybind menu. Q+E strafe is really hard for people unfamiliar with the game (including old veterans who haven't played in a long time like myself), and makes the experience downright frustrating. This has been an issue all the way back to the core game, and if not fixed will be a pretty huge impairment to getting new players on board. Custom keybinds have a huge place in PvP environments, and if that's what we're selling, those need to happen. Otherwise it just screams that the product isn't being taken seriously by the company. The niche for the game is old-timers and low-budget/low-spec gamers looking for some PvP action in an MMO, and this audience generally isn't easy to get loyalty from. This game was a top-tier product ten years ago, but it hasn't been updated mechanically since. Quality in deliverance of the product to the known audience/market is really going to need to be pushed.

The ranger itself seemed totally gored of most of its purpose. Winged Foot is seemingly no longer permanent, with just a 12s duration on a 90s cooldown, and Siege shot at level 7 providing only 30% RA is questionably useful given that it still immobilizes. Speed Wind has also been heavily nerfed. I haven't looked thoroughly at all of the classes, but there are some definite concerns about balance and utility into the future. The team is going to really need to be on top of this.

Sockets: I've only seen temporary bonus stats to sockets, and they seem very out of the price range of reason for a more casual audience, not to mention that I've only seen a few low-impact socket options be made available. High-time commitment and high-cost are not demands that the game is going to succeed with making due to its age. Recognize the game's place and its niche and the money will come as appropriate. Again, this game's strength is its capacity to have huge battles unfold near-endlessly. There shouldn't be much of a reason to go and keep farming once you reach endgame aside from just doing so for the sake of doing so or to maintain some low-cost consumables like pet food and pots.

Option Items: Insanely expensive for how short-term they are, and how many you can apply to gear. Optimized characters would need to spend several dollars every single day for just a few hours of play. Long-term, these things actually make epics/upgrades look like a good deal. Make them permanent, even if it means upping the cost to a dollar or so each. The 2-hour duration is just downright insulting and is more P2W than R:BF. It's bad to a point where if this doesn't change very soon, I'm just dropping out. It's a horrendously bad deal.

Time-expiring pets/no food. They're just way too expensive. While crone sinks were needed, I don't think this was the way to go. High-level consumables (a la potions/tears/etc.) sold for a reasonable-but-endgame crone cost at NPC's that'd eventually run non-PvE'ers dry would probably be a wiser approach.

Bez costumes at the end-of-the-line VIP rewards. This is a massive amount of power-gain and you know it. Rewards should act as freebies and incentives to keep spending over a long time and playing the game for a long time, not as free power. R:BF started losing control of its consistent revenue when we started seeing costumes with +20 stats be limited-time offers or be part of the fail-heavy minigames in the IM. Given the stat deflation here, this will carry big consequences.


CONCLUSION:
Overall, it's fun, but mostly I think from nostalgia. The game still has an audience to profit from, but it needs some pretty substantial changes to make it a success. The new-player experience needs substantial work to keep players around, particularly due to how pricey forging is given is lack of guarantees, and I think Origin is still better off trying to close the gap on release-candidate R:BF than making a whole new game; release R:BF was honestly one of the most wholesome experiences I've had playing a game, and I think a lot of people will agree.

I'll probably update this as time goes on. Overall, it's been a fun little ride of nostalgia, especially reconnecting with some people I've not seen in years.

Updated Feedback 4/1
[+GOOD]
[+BAD] HK's still being around, lack of PvE tools for mana/health management
[+UGLY] Forge/refine cost scaling for earlier levels, Bez items in VIP rewards

Updated Feedback 4/6
[+GOOD]
[+BAD]
[+UGLY] Duration on option stones and how expensive they are to maintain. This is probably a bigger priority to fix than even the Forge costs. This is REALLY, REALLY bad.

Cheers,

THH

[DeadMansEnd]

Initial Review: After Day 1 from a R:BF beta tester ten years ago

I do agree with most of what the OP expresses, though I have a few differing opinions:

My guess (or at least hope) is that most of the quests are missing from the game as it stands, and hopefully many will return once the beta ends, particularly the repeatable ones. That said, I haven't looked at Korea, so I could be dead wrong. Its highly-linear approach to questing and lack of portal stones makes inventory management and general travel feel stale and rather uneventful. I feel like I'm on a guided tour of the maps rather than on an epic adventure. Long-term, I don't think this approach is sustainable when trying to retain players; one of the perks of the refinement system was allowing players to GH -> Portal Stone -> Start right off on higher level mobs when making a second/third/fourth character.


THE GOOD:
I disagree with the OP about the SES drop rate being too high. I haven't looked at all of the characters, but I can absolutely tell now from the HE perspective, an outright need for getting a majority of skills to 6/7 is making me happy to be constantly getting these things to drop. I'll never discount drops like this; it also makes making alts a lot easier and sustainable if you don't like the character; before you sold it on the EM to hopefully make a bit of the SES costs back, now there's no EM and you'll need to re-grind the stones yourself, or buy them. But since there's also no EM for buying things in the IM, this makes the upfront costs drop considerably while still keeping level 7's a source of income for the company. That said, I criticize some level 7 dependency below.

More granular approach to stats and builds will definitely make endgame more interesting.

Some skill changes are awesome, and were much-needed. Again from the HE perspective, the reworked Scout looks absolutely fantastic.

The community reboot and fan-service for this is super awesome. The whole notion of "10 years ago..." made me smile ear-to-ear, this being the game's 10th year after R:BF's release in Korea.

Main questline is at least a bit more engaging early on, and the general story seems better. There's a conflict, and at least from the Ein side, it's not just a total partisan war for no reason; many NPC's seem to recognize the legitimacy of the other side of sympathize with them. Storytelling 101, moral ambiguity is much better than a bunch of zealotry.

Removal of stat refinement - it was a hassle more than anything.

Higher resolution game client is a big win. Good job for addressing this QoL issue.

Item mall rewards being permanent and never resetting is a reasonable strategy to add incentive for players to spend over time, and not all at once or feel an imperative need to go all-out repeatedly. It also prevents giving inherent advantages to high-rollers over and over.

Fatigue: Concept is cool to deny botting and so on. I think R:BF lost itself with HK's, and the consistent pushes to the level cap weren't helping anyone in terms of healthy playstyle choices, and bringing back the days of social/good partying to make the time more worthwhile is better for all. Implementation could use some potential future-tweaking, but I like the notion as a whole.

Stat deflation: Keeps the game much more manageable and balance easier, while also opening more doors for viable pieces of gear. Nicely done.

Sockets: Building a ton of small modifiers off of a large number of sockets is a great idea, and one I proposed years ago. We'll need to see this feature elaborated on more.



THE BAD:
Linear content layout/leveling. One of the coolest parts about R:BF was that even low-level zones had a very big variety of levels and encounters, such as the knight boss in Ein (I can't remember the name). There's a real lack of sense of exploration in this game, and no lie, it doesn't feel that amazing. I'm hoping this is largely a beta test design to keep players progressing and clearing content, and isn't part of the final design intent. It really needs more openness. This after all is an MMO where players decide how things unfold, and it should be up to them to play the game as they wish.

No tutorial zone. Getting some fundamental systems explained will help. I can only assume we don't have one now just because this is a beta.

Experience rates are weird, and from my < 20 levels in so far, I preferred the old values a bit better. It feels very slow for just starting out. It may be too early for me to tell, however. If the rate stays similar, it's probably a net improvement, but I have my doubts on this, and I don't think that grinding lower exp rates is a good idea, especially early on. The game is about PvP at its core.

Mob placement is awkward and feels at times both totally barren and completely flooded. Grind spots are necessary, but some areas feel too desolate and others nightmarish to cross.

Skill tooltips have weird descriptions, and there's a huge emphasis on having abilities at level 7 over level 6. This wouldn't so much be a problem if so many weren't just totally defined by their level 7 behaviors. Realistically, without the EM funding players, the IM prices for level 7 stones and other IM items are going to need to drop dramatically compared to R:BF. I looked at what I'd consider "required" level 7 abilities for a functional character as a HE, and was quickly pushed into the 15+ mark. Unless these things are priced at like $0.50 each per month, you're going to end up with people losing interest with the game too quickly due to its relatively dated gameplay for how pricey it'd be. Top-of-the-line games are being put out for one-time purchases of $10-60 like BDO and GW2. That's ultimately competition, and your core audience is probably going to be lower-end or lower-budget players, emphasizing a breadth of audience versus milking a few for big bucks. That was the demise of R:BF, and don't let it happen again.

I never liked the move to level requirements for unlocking skills in R:BF, and I think to really bring back the core experience of the original game, level requirements should be removed from the skills when ranking them up. If I want level 5 frozen by level 6, I should be allowed to do so.

No minor health/mana potions and spammable healing effect cooldowns will lead to cost issues and PvP balance issues.


THE UGLY:
The removal of Ahkma Cave entrance from Wild Highlands... Y U DO DIS?! This really hit me in the feels, since so much of my time was spent there in the past. Walking up the path from the bindstone brought me down memory lane and hit me super hard in the feels, and then seeing the lack of a cave altogether felt only a little bit soul-crushing. Further, I think this would be an awesome contention point between the Ally/Dhan starting questline conflicts, and it marked a great entry-level dungeon.

We really need the ability to keybind what's settable for movement abilities in the y-keybind menu. Q+E strafe is really hard for people unfamiliar with the game (including old veterans who haven't played in a long time like myself), and makes the experience downright frustrating. This has been an issue all the way back to the core game, and if not fixed will be a pretty huge impairment to getting new players on board. Custom keybinds have a huge place in PvP environments, and if that's what we're selling, those need to happen. Otherwise it just screams that the product isn't being taken seriously by the company. The niche for the game is old-timers and low-budget/low-spec gamers looking for some PvP action in an MMO, and this audience generally isn't easy to get loyalty from. This game was a top-tier product ten years ago, but it hasn't been updated mechanically since. Quality in deliverance of the product to the known audience/market is really going to need to be pushed.

The ranger itself seemed totally gored of most of its purpose. Winged Foot is seemingly no longer permanent, with just a 12s duration on a 90s cooldown, and Siege shot at level 7 providing only 30% RA is questionably useful given that it still immobilizes. Speed Wind has also been heavily nerfed. I haven't looked thoroughly at all of the classes, but there are some definite concerns about balance and utility into the future. The team is going to really need to be on top of this.

Sockets: I've only seen temporary bonus stats to sockets, and they seem very out of the price range of reason for a more casual audience, not to mention that I've only seen a few low-impact socket options be made available. High-time commitment and high-cost are not demands that the game is going to succeed with making due to its age. Recognize the game's place and its niche and the money will come as appropriate. Again, this game's strength is its capacity to have huge battles unfold near-endlessly. There shouldn't be much of a reason to go and keep farming once you reach endgame aside from just doing so for the sake of doing so or to maintain some low-cost consumables like pet food and pots.

Time-expiring pets/no food. They're just way too expensive. While crone sinks were needed, I don't think this was the way to go. High-level consumables (a la potions/tears/etc.) sold for a reasonable-but-endgame crone cost at NPC's that'd eventually run non-PvE'ers dry would probably be a wiser approach.

I'll probably update this as time goes on. Overall, it's been a fun little ride of nostalgia, especially reconnecting with some people I've not seen in years.

Cheers,

THH

To Adress somethings in this Post:

Repeatables Quest: They Start at lvl 31, recently hit that and well yeah they are there. Nothing impressiv thou.
Lack of PortalStones: You can teleport around just by opening map and clicking on desired spot. Want Altar of Roha? click on it it will tell you a Price in crones.
Quest = no Grinding : thats pretty wrong you can grind at a desired spot for xp and do quest after wards for rewards the quest it self never gives much XP just about 2-10%. Only Rewards like 100% Ses make it worth.
No Ahkma, No Dungeons: You havent checked the map then. Ahkma is there on 2nd map equal each Race( lvl 16-28 Mobs inside). Other Dungeon are also on Other maps.

[soulholder]

To Adress somethings in this Post:

Repeatables Quest: They Start at lvl 31, recently hit that and well yeah they are there. Nothing impressiv thou.
Lack of PortalStones: You can teleport around just by opening map and clicking on desired spot. Want Altar of Roha? click on it it will tell you a Price in crones.
Quest = no Grinding : thats pretty wrong you can grind at a desired spot for xp and do quest after wards for rewards the quest it self never gives much XP just about 2-10%. Only Rewards like 100% Ses make it worth.
No Ahkma, No Dungeons: You havent checked the map then. Ahkma is there on 2nd map equal each Race( lvl 16-28 Mobs inside). Other Dungeon are also on Other maps.

That's good to see things improve a bit as one levels up. I didn't even think to click the map to teleport. And here I've been running around lol.

The early game still not having them makes things go a little bit slowly, especially as far as getting money is concerned for forging. My criticism with Ahkma was mostly just the fact the location changed from WH. There wasn't much of a reason to have the move happen.

I havent had a chance to look around, but do we have a magic shop npc here?

Edit, the npc that you can buy items with "magic" stats I mean

The merchants in the major cities default to magic items. I don't think you can buy outright vanilla ones.

[xXxAurorAxXx]

it is , but now at forger npc after 3x -4x lvl weps need more 30 000 crones / 1 mobs for that lvl drop like 300 crones / to kill that moob need 5 hits or less ......but if u like it and have time , its good to try it

That's good to see things improve a bit as one levels up. I didn't even think to click the map to teleport. And here I've been running around lol.

The early game still not having them makes things go a little bit slowly, especially as far as getting money is concerned for forging. My criticism with Ahkma was mostly just the fact the location changed from WH. There wasn't much of a reason to have the move happen.



The merchants in the major cities default to magic items. I don't think you can buy outright vanilla ones.

Yeap, I found it and saw, ty.

Can anyone tell me how to access my "piggy bank" plz. ty

Nvm, that, I was told, ty

[White Arctic Fox]

Yeap, I found it and saw, ty.

Can anyone tell me how to access my "piggy bank" plz. ty

You gotta make that oink oink noise pigs make at your screen XD

[xXxAurorAxXx]

You gotta make that oink oink noise pigs make at your screen XD

hahaha this games got us making farm animal impersonations.

First the chicken "bok bok" and now "oink oink" ;p

[PenguinJoe]

Just as an aside I managed to get the crones out of my pig (no "oink!" needed ). Any copper keys you find are now actually useful!