Tree of Savior - Review

Now that I've played for a couple of hours, I've got more things to say.

First of all, the community is foul. There were some things said in chat earlier that were pretty shocking, especially in a game that does have a chat filter. The fact that there is no report button is rather problematic as well. This brings me to gold sellers/spammers/bots. The game has a bunch, and you can't report them so they just kind of stick around, clogging up areas. You can block them so you can't see their chat anymore, but I'm certain that they're clogging the cities more than necessary due to no way to get them reported as far as I can tell.

You do get to job advance at level 15, which is nice. You choose your next class / circle for your current class, and then the game does not appear to let you know that you then need to locate your class trainer to actually change to that class. I was wondering why I couldn't equip a two-handed sword or add any Highlander skills after selecting that I would like to change to Highlander. Turns out I had to locate the trainer!

This brings me to another annoyance, which is learning Attributes (traits). These cost quite a large portion of silver for a new player, but I don't have a problem with that. The problem is that many of these Attributes take 30 minutes to learn, so basically you select that you'd like to learn the attribute and then you wait or run around and do something else while you learn it. It was quite disappointing to change to Highlander only to find out that I'd have to wait in order to equip my new weapon type. Attribute learning does not appear to stack either, so I already had an attribute in progress to learn to wear Plate armor, so it appears I have to wait 20 extra minutes for that to finish so I can begin learning Two-handed Swords. Kind of annoying.

Gameplay itself is decent. I'm getting a bit more used to the wonky controls. I wish that skills didn't take up quite so much SP though. I feel like I'm burning through SP extremely quickly just by trying to kill normal enemies. I got to the first dungeon, which appears to be soloable with some effort. I am mostly spamming my basic attack and going slow so as to preserve SP for boss fights.

Character customization makes me rather sad. Hair looks really nice, but I can't find any way to change the color. Also, armor that you pick up appears to have no appearance, and instead you have to get "costumes" to change your outfit. You get these upon job advancing, and there's some available for real money in the TP store (or whatever it's called). Always makes me sad to see systems like this; I like seeing my character change as I level.

The game is very in-depth and good for people that enjoy messing with systems and min-maxing stats on gear and such. Very reminiscent of older MMOs, so great for nostalgia. You have to assign your stats like many older MMOs, so you need to know your stat builds and such. You also need to level up skills with your very limited amount of skill points. On your basic class you have 15 points to spend between 5 skills, each maxing out at level 5. I opted to max three skills and ignore the other two, but I'm sure there are other ways of going about it. I'm also sure that, with time, optimal builds will form and making your character effective will get easier with guidance.

As I said in my last post, the controls are rather clunky and unfamiliar to someone who has played other MMOs. It is very similar to Maplestory if you select the "familiar with other MMOs" type of control setup instead of the "traditional Maplestory" setup.

Leveling seems relatively slow (undoubtedly to get you to buy some cash shop items which increase your exp gains), especially since I've heard the max level is 200. This game will surely be grindy at later levels. If it's not, then I will be very impressed. The game itself feels rather slow-paced, in an almost relaxing sort of way. Quest givers are not always obviously marked for you, so talking to random NPCs in questing hubs is rather important if you want the extra quests.

There is a gem-socketing system that I cannot figure out. When I hover over gems it says to right-click them to attach them to an item, and then it tells me to click an item...which does nothing. So I don't know how to do that.

The sheer amount of classes is wonderful, but I can already feel the "optimal" and "meta" builds coming already. The amount of classes will be worthless once an optimal setup is found, as anyone straying from it will likely be ostracized from dungeons.

SPEAKING of dungeons. The first dungeon in the game is rather obnoxious. You're brought into it at level 10-ish when everything in there is level 20-ish, and even if you level up to 15 to job advance, it's still difficult. And that's because it's meant to be group content. Problem is, I can't find any groups! There's not an LFG tool that I can find, and there's no groups for it up in the party finder tool. There's a bunch of groups, but all for levels that I'm not even remotely close to, and certainly not for this lowly little dungeon.

The game has really, really nice foundations, but wonky systems are holding it back, I think. I'd rather give up nostalgia to have a better game with modernized systems.

Tree of Savior First Impressions

I got to play the game for about 20 minutes and now I'm writing this quickly before I go to bed.

So far, rather enjoyable! I mean, I'm not even out of the very first area, but still. The game itself is much prettier than I was anticipating. Seriously impressed with that. Despite the very limited character creator, I think my character looks cute enough. My Swordsman feels like she has some punch to her.

Controls are a bit wonky, but they are adjustable. I think I'll keep them as they are for the most part (already had to go in and re-bind the key to sit/recover since my laptop apparently doesn't have an Insert key). If you've ever played Maplestory before they're a bit like that, but a even a bit odder than that. I've never jumped with X before, and I certainly have never opened my UI stuff with the F keys. F1 is stats, F2 is inventory, F3 is skills, etc. Rather counter-intuitive since I want to just click C for stats, I or B for inventory, and K for skills. F4 is Quests I think, which, again, I'd rather just click Q or J.

BUT I get why the menus are in weird places. Basically you control the game with the arrow keys (thank goodness; I thought for a minute there that it was click-to-move and I was deeply regretting spending $10!). Basic attack is Z, and jump is X. Interact is Spacebar. Your skills are bound to, like, ASDFG and QWERTY or something like that, and I already went over the F keys and menus. The only predictable control button is M for Map!

The stats and such remind me of my FlyFF days. It's been a rather long time since I've had to manually put in stat points, and the chat happening in-game is also very old-grindy-MMO-esque what with people selling weapons and talking about the best weapons and such. Hopefully the game will not be even remotely as grindy as FlyFF though.

I look forward to being able to upgrade my Barracks so I can have more characters. I'm saving one slot of my four because I heard you need a slot for a Companion, but I really want one of each class. I have my Swordsman for now, and an Archer, but I can't decide between Cleric or Wizard for the other one. I have reasons to want both!

I haven't run into any other players yet, although maybe the starting area is instanced, I don't know.

I will say that figuring out where to go is a bit wonky. The Map is pretty decent at showing you the general area of quest targets, and you do have an instant-warp thing that brings you straight back to the quest-giver when you're done, I'm seeing an issue with actually finding the quests themselves. Maybe I'm missing something, but there was no obvious exclamation point over anyone's heads (or maybe there was and it was just too subtle for my sleepy eyes?) or any reason to believe the random NPCs around would give me quests. Maybe there was a marker on my map, but it didn't occur to me to open it when I was getting the first round of quests.

One quest in particular, which I think was called "Lost in the Forest" or something like that, confused me immensely for a few moments. It involved starting bonfires from firewood that you found lying around in an area. Well, I found what I thought was the Firewood. I swear it said Firewood, but it was not interactable, and I kept trying to figure out some way to make it work. I tried hitting it, jumping on it, killing enemies next to it, sitting down next to it, etc. Nothing. It wasn't until it occurred to me to go across a nearby bridge that I found the actual firewood I needed. Note that at this time it was past 12 PM, the marker on the map showed the area I was in, and for some reason the quest had removed itself from my on-screen quest list. Turns out that the Firewood I was trying to use was for part 2 of the quest, so it all worked out in the end.

As a huge plus, my character currently has a cute little onion monster on her head, so that's nice.

Okay, I'm too sleepy to keep typing, so I'll play a bit more tomorrow and then I'll surely have more to say!

Tree of Savior!

Just bought my $10 founder's pack for Tree of Savior, and installing it!

Very excited!

I don't know very much about the game or what kind of builds are considered good, but I really want to play a support-ey type character. Not healing, but lots of buffs or other useful utility or something. Really looking at doing something with Pardoner, but I don't know what other classes to pair with it. Krivis maybe? Cleric? Or, a Paladin + Oracle seems okay too... I don't know!

Or maybe something with Archer? Like a Scout or something? Scout + Sapper?
Or maybe a Squire?

Oh well, I probably won't get to play tonight anyway; it's not even halfway done installing and it's already 11:15, so I guess I'll spend the rest of the night deciding and then play tomorrow (although I'll inevitably change my mind about a build by then).

I just left a dungeon for the first time in my life

I don't want to call it a "ragequit" because I didn't yell at anyone or anything. I just knew that I could. not. do that. And so left before the inevitable yelling began.

That was awful. Absolutely, completely, and totally awful.

I had just a sliver of exp remaining before I would be level 53, so I decided to do another random leveling roulette. I had just done three today, and they'd all gone smoothly, and I am confident in my healing abilities.

The roulette places me in Brayflox normal. Tank asks if anyone is new. We have one newbie DPS. Alright, totally fine. I could run Brayflox in my sleep at this point. Nocturnal Stance. Protection. Get my food exp buff.

First pull goes very rough. Tank takes a LOT of damage very quickly, but I get him back up. No problem. Rough start, but very rarely does this dungeon go bad until the end. Next pull, same thing, except this time the tank doesn't hold aggro so great.

We get to the first boss. At this point I am skeptical about this tank. Enter combat. The tank pull the boss, but doesn't bother to aggro the little ones. I wait until his HP gets down to a fairly dangerous level before healing him, in hopes that he'd pick up the adds in the meantime. Nope. All the adds go after me. Adds switch between me and the DPS, the tank uses seemingly no cooldowns, and barely even their enmity combo because they're taking immense amounts of damage and the boss starts chasing me. Luminiferous Aether in a vain attempt at getting these monsters off of me. First DPS goes down. Swiftcast + Ascend and they're. Conveniently in time for Swiftcast to be available again, the tank goes down. Swiftcast + Ascend, all set. I'm still tanking the boss. Running low on MP and the boss still has half a health bar. BLM is trying to help me heal. I feel like I'm grabbing too much enmity from my healing, but I also know that if I stop spamming Bene / Bene II then we're all dead. I run out of MP and die. Group wipes.

Experienced DPS attempts to dissect what happened, and starts talking to the tank about aggro management. Turns out this Dark Knight is a brand-new tank. Never tanked before, let alone on Dark Knight, and something possessed them to enter Brayflox as their first dungeon. Tank doesn't wait around for the DPS to explain how to tank, and rushes into the boss again.

Again, I try to wait until his HP is low for him to pick up adds, but no luck. I'm too slow on healing this time (do I have to mention again that the tank was using zero cooldowns?) and he goes down immediately. Boss goes for the experienced DPS while I'm raising the tank, and the DPS goes down. Don't have Swiftcast up, and now the boss is after me, so I don't have time to long-cast Ascend. The DPS warps back to the entrance, so they're out of the fight completely, and cheering us on from the outside.

Same thing as the first attempt happened. I ended up tanking everything, the tank didn't use Unleash at all. I still feel bad about spamming Bene II but again, it's the only possible way for us to stay alive at this point. Strategic uses of Luminiferous Aether to try to keep my MP up. A lucky Ewer gets my MP up more. Tank finally gets a hold of the boss and things are looking up, except that I still have three waves of adds still after me that the tank isn't even bothering with, so I die.

I warp back to the entrance and immediately leave the group. No, I am not staying in that group. That is my limit. I am not one to leave a group when things are going badly. I always stick it out until the end, no matter how bad the group is. I pride myself on being patient and helpful and generally a good healer. Not this time though. No no no no no no!

The tank seemingly had no idea that he was doing anything wrong, nor did he seem to have any inclination to attempt to do the fight differently, and I am not going to bash my head against the wall over and over for the same result. I also don't want to be yelled at for something that was not my fault, and my intuition tells me that was coming. I'll happily take the 30 minute penalty over staying in that situation.

Also, why on earth would a brand new Dark Knight that has never ever tanked before, start with Brayflox? If you have DRK unlocked at all, then that means you've done Brayflox before, so surely you know it is a spike in difficulty? Why why why would you not start with a lower level dungeon to learn how to tank first? And why not pick up Provoke first?  I mean, not knowing how to AoE or use defensive CDs in Brayflox is kind of inexcusable.

I feel really, really awful about leaving. I really do. I feel sick to my stomach because I feel bad about it. I never want to seem like the healer that leaves as soon as something isn't going well, but I don't know. I think that situation was awful. All those times I've complained about Toto-Rak have nothing on this. Healing Titan Hard was easier than this. Healing Garuda normal for the first time on my original character was waaay easier than this. I'll have to do Ravana hard at some point tomorrow, and I know it'll be easier than this Brayflox attempt was.

I'm sad now :(

Success

I've successfully just completed Dusk Vigil, meaning that I have just completed my first Heavensward dungeon! Yay!

I also got my Astrologian to 50 yesterday, so I'm using AST for Heavensward!

I feel like my healing was really low in Dusk Vigil, and I don't know why. I don't think I was doing anything wrong, really; it's just that normal Benefic was doing practically nothing, Benefic II was doing barely any better, Essential Dignity wasn't being too effective either. I was in Diurnal for the regens too. Most of my equips are Ironworks with the exception of accessories and my gloves, which are from the patch MSQ quests.

Ultimately, no one died but me though. I died on the first boss when it focused on me for its attack things that it does, and while I was paralyzed from the attack it then hit me with an extra AoE. I would have been fine otherwise! Luckily, we had a SMN in the party who got me up quickly.

Everything else went flawlessly, despite my low healing and bad luck with cards :)

Neat idea

Do you know what would be really neat to have in FFXIV?

A training hall area with training dummies, and the area puts you at level 50 with all abilities (up to level 50), so you can try out a class before you level it.

I want to try Ninja to see if my computer can handle the Mudras (or if I even like doing them!), but it seems like it would be a waste to level Rogue / Ninja that far if it doesn't end up working out. I want to level something I enjoy since I just tortured myself leveling Dragoon to 34 for Blood for Blood (I HATE Lnc/Drg), but I don't know what DPS class I enjoy!

Monk seems okay right now, so I'm working on that. I don't like Machinist right now (level 30), but maybe I would later?

I just wish there was some way to try out classes. Kind of like how in GW2 you can try out your class at max level by going to the Heart of the Mists.

I don't know what the lore excuse for this could be, but it would still be nice, I think.

Well, that's a new one.

Ah, Maws of Toto-Rak, you never cease to disappoint me.

Today I got a tank who, to be fair, did not walk face-first into the Fleshy Pods. No, no. Instead, he would try to use his ranged attack to kill them, but he stood too close to them and got poisoned anyway. This is understandable once or twice while you figure out what's going on, but not a bunch of times.

I also ran into a couple tanks today who appear to subscribe to the idea of "you get enmity, you tank it."
Even when the person that grabs enmity is the healer, and they grab enmity from an enemy that you didn't bother to try and tank and instead just assumed that the healer wouldn't grab enmity on even though you pulled it and aren't tanking it, and the healer is just trying to keep you alive. Sorry for the run-on sentence there.
I hate, hate, hate healing the tank when they haven't grabbed enmity on enemies. Like, when the enemy names show up as orange on my screen rather than whatever-color-they-usually are (but I know orange means I'll pull it if I heal!). I try to hold off healing for as long as I can, but when the tank, say, has two stacks of poison from running into Fleshy Pods and is losing health fast, sometimes you need to throw out a heal. And then, if I do get enmity, I pop Luminiferous Aether if available, and run to the tank. Who then proceeds to ignore me. Which leads me to end up having to heal myself to stay alive. Which then solidifies my enmity.
I've even had tanks then continue to ignore the enemy attacking me after they kill the ones they were working on, and just go on to the next set of mobs while I'm still dying.

Fun.

If I were a more bold and assertive person I would have stopped healing myself and just let myself die to make a point. I'm too afraid of being yelled at to do that though ^^;



I do not like The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, in case that isn't clear by now.

That said, it is significantly less painful as an Astrologian, purely because of Luminiferous Aether, and also Lightspeed for the second boss fight (insta-cleanse Slow off of self!). No fun on Scholar because no Leeches, and no fun on White Mage because that second boss is rough because of Slow.


Oh, and I changed back to Au Ra. Remind me never to try and recustomize my character ever again.