Zakyrie


Posts: 19
Likes: 17
Member since: v6

After going through every major quest and already feeling like I've reached "end game" there are some major problems that stand out. While imo this was the best reset Cyntara's ever had "content" wise. The overall experience starts to get drowned out by things that seem stupid and not properly thought out, or changed to fit how Cyntara is evolving. I don't know how thing this post is going to be. I'm basically just going to rant out and see where this goes, probably in the form of a list.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

1: EXP is insanely high and needs to be re-evaluated.

Leveling is the core experience in most MMOs. Having a super high level character and feeling much stronger because of all the work you've put in. It doesn't feel like you've just wasted your time. You see the reward from the time you put into leveling and then are able to hunt in high level spawns / do end game quests.

The problem with Cyntara is you reach that "end game" feeling within just a week or two.

I made a sorcerer on January 8th, it's the 14th today. I got from level 900 to 1400 in just 3 days of manual hunting. Basically going from the level that most people are just a few days in, to end game being able to take part in any quest available in the game and get most of the items. All in just the span of a few days.

Which leaves me to wonder… what now? Do I just keep mindlessly leveling, even though monsters aren't getting harder.. quests aren't getting harder.. there will just be that much more of a gap between me and newer players, making it feel like an impossible climb for them seeing a player with over 1200 more levels than them.

The answer is not "just add more content". We'll get level 1800 just a week later than it took us this reset. We'd then do all that content within a day or two and we'd be back to square one.

The place to look in my opinion is the current experience rates for Cyntara. The point of high experience rates isn't to get already high level players even higher… it's to help lower level players catch up to those high level players. So only dropping values down to 1x at level 2000 feels insane to me. They should look something more like this..

1-99 60x
100-199 30x
200-249 25x
250-299 20x
300-349 15x
350-399 12x
400-499 10x
500-599 8x
600-699 7x
700-799 5x
800-899 3.5x
900-999 3x
1000-1099 2.5x
1100-1199 2x
1200-1399 1.5x
1400+ 1x

By that change alone. We now have content for a solid 1-2 months because we literally can't just reach end game level a week in.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

2: Current Itemization

Obviously with a change like the one I've mentioned above, equipment acquired in the early parts of the game need to be better thought out. 90% of the items dropped from monsters are complete trash. You don't get anything useful until you actually start doing proper quests. You're stuck with a pair of brown paper bags on your feet until you finish POI and get soft boots, which is a whole other issue.

Soft boots and firewalker boots in their current iteration are actually the worst thought out things in the game. I actually can't even believe they exist as they current do and haven't been changed with the removal of donors. I really don't get it. They're focused as being "mage style" boots. Giving high mana regen and almost no defense. But they need to be recharged, which costs quite a bit of money. Something mages aren't exactly overflowing with.

They also give fairly shit regen if we're being honest, for what they are. Soft Boots give 250 mana per second and last 4 hours. It requires 9cc to repair them. Meanwhile, Royal Scale Robe gives 200 mana per second. Literally only 25% less, and never runs out. I don't need to go breaking the bank to keep this item from being viable and not completely useless.

I'm sitting here on a level 1400 arcane sorcerer and my equipment is basically maxed out. I have demons legs, arcana spellbook, royal scale robe, ect. Then a random pair of worn out boots that honestly don't even make a noticeable difference when they're repaired vs when they aren't. If you're gonna make them "wear out" it better be a damn noticeable change between when they're active and when they aren't. Because right now I can't even tell the difference between the two. My soft boots will run out and I won't even notice until later in the day and I won't even repair them for the "mana regen". I repair them because the "worn out" sprite is actually ugly and ruins the entire look of my set, which I've been grinding for and spending so much time enchanting.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

3: Enchanting and Inconsistent Enchant Slots

While the system is by no means perfect, I think overall it does what it needs too. It gives you a noticeable difference, whether it be luck, crit, or skills / magic level.

The things I don't like though, are how for example you'll get Yalahari Helmet from cyntara zone. A LEVEL "500" QUEST. The requirement is 500, even though I know realistically no one that level will actually do it. But that's not the point. You get 4 enchant slots with that helmet which is actually amazing, this helmet carries you through most of the game as a mage. But then you'll do the astral planes quest, A LEVEL "1400" QUEST that is actually somewhat difficult and gives you the next helmet upgrade. This helmet is just SLIGHTLY better in terms of raw stats and you'd think "well its still somewhat better so then it's worth it, right?". Wrong, the new helmet you get from this quest meant for players 900+ levels higher than cyntara zone players, gives no enchant slots. Not even 1. Meaning you can't even "transfer" the enchants from the old helmet onto the new. Only a few mages on the team of 10+ people that finished the quest even took the mage helmet. The rest just took either a EK or RP helmet because it honestly wasn't worth ditching their already fully enchanted Yalahari Helmet.

It's the same problem with Helmet of the Ancients. Literally no enchant slots to be found yet it's a extremely tedious quest which takes a lot of time and players to complete.

I can go on with more examples.. artifact weapons, firewalker boots, demon armor, demon helmet…. and if the problem is "well if everything has enchant slots then enchant orbs are useless"… No, just give some items at least 2 slots instead of a full 4, unless it's a super late game item. That way if you want to have a 4x magic level enchant stack on an "mid game" item like yalahari helmet, you'll need to find orbs first. And then when you get a item like "the ancient tiara" which should have 4 enchant slots and better raw stats. It actually feels like a real upgrade if you haven't added extra enchant slots to your current item.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

4: An interesting idea for charms which I actually love

I've seen a lot of people saying with crit, magic level and artifact weapons that things like ToTs just hit too hard. Which makes sense, I agree they hit pretty damn hard. It's also just another gap between low and high level players that requires a fairly highly contested item ("eternal flame" ) to even try to attempt the quest for the rune insignia.

Anyways, to the point. After doing "the astral planes" today and seeing how that charm changes my "exevo vis hur" graphics and makes it do more damage. I was thinking about how that's a really cool system overall for things like charms. Maybe it's time to abandon DoTs and ToTs all together. Instead adding a charm you equip which can strengthen your SD damage comparable to a DoT (I honestly don't even think ToTs should exist with crit and artifact wands in the game. I can solo a level 1.1k RP on my mage with a lucky crit and ToTs currently). I would suggest the same thing for Curaga rune and make it a quest reward that's widely available to players of decent level and also well known. A new player coming into Cyntara has no chance at even competing when they don't even know what ToTs or eternal flames are in the first place and all the old school players can get it within a day or two of a reset starting.

It honestly just feels like a missed opportunity after seeing how cool charms can be, altering spells and damages like that..

—————————————————————————————————————————-

5: Endlessly adding new content is just a band-aid fix

While I appreciate all the new content as many players do. It's not gonna solve the core problems with Cyntara. The same thing will keep repeating itself, with the next resets maybe taking an extra day or two to grind out the extra content.

It's time to think a little deeper, make the overall game experience stretch out, get rid of things that are honestly just out dated and not new player friendly..

Focus on improving the content you have now, not what you can have because I'd love to see the day where Cyntara didn't need to rely on resets.

#1344 Reply

Winter Soldier


Posts: 22
Likes: 1
Member since: v8
Discord: AngelGOD#1021

bye

#1345 Reply

Winter Soldier


Posts: 22
Likes: 1
Member since: v8
Discord: AngelGOD#1021

want a advice? dont use bots..

#1346 Reply

Zakyrie


Posts: 19
Likes: 17
Member since: v6

Did you even read the post? I literally said how I manual leveled from 900 to 1400 in 3 days

#1347 Reply

Winter Soldier


Posts: 22
Likes: 1
Member since: v8
Discord: AngelGOD#1021

withuse estamina refill, full enchans, equipment from your main character

#1348 Reply

Zakyrie


Posts: 19
Likes: 17
Member since: v6

I didn't use a single stamina refiller

#1349 Reply

Joan


Posts: 22
Likes: 5
Member since: v10-s2

Great thread, only thing I have to disagree on is the EXP being too high, EXP is in a good spot right now, I mean, I understand better than anyone how satisfying working hard towards leveling a charcter up and reaching end game on MMORPGs feels, however, for Cyntara specifically this wouldn't work, the reason is the fact that, when you come play Cyntara, you know full well that its a matter of time for it to undergo another reset, this makes investing too much time and effort into a character feel unrewarding and thus unappealing, by making it significantly harder to level up, only the three or four extremely dedicated RPG players the server has will ever reach end-game, several of my team refused to play this reset because "they hate the first 900 or so levels", and even though this is not about my whinny team being too casual to AFK bot for the like 6-10 hours it takes to reach 900, their input is something worth noting, because it might aswell be what many other players think.

So for as long as Cyntara relies on resets, you cannot reasonably expect anyone to take Cyntara as serious as an actual MMORPG developed and maintained by a trustworthy company with funds that you know aren't gonna screw all your hard worked progress up at any time.


Regarding the boots, I'm not sure if Crystal Boots are still around, but its sprite is by far my favorite within all of Tibia, might consider bringing that item back as the best unlimited/non-rechargeable footwear, either for all or for mages and then bring its green counterpart; the Dragon Scale Boots for RP/EK.


Edit: I want to further expand onto this, because I don't want anyone to misunderstand my post or think I'm expecting too much from Cyntara, comparing Cyntara, an obscure game's(Tibia) private server, to (official) games developed by powerful companies isn't fair at all, so let's instead match it against slightly fairer opponents, namely other Private Servers, if you check on what makes a successful Private Server of any game, Tibia included, there are many factors to account for, and one of them, I'd dare say the most important, is reliability, reliability in this context can mean many things, Cyntara is certainly reliable in many ways, but Cyntara is also something very few people is looking for, a scheduled for wipe server, if you look at the top Private Servers of games like Ragnarok Online, Lineage 2, World of Warcraft and guess what? even Tibia(go check what the flavor/descriptive text of the current top server on otservlist is), there are keywords that everyone is looking for, such as "Stable/No Wipes Ever/Running since <several years>", those are things people care about, and although those things weren't my focus back when I started playing Cyntara in 2010-2011, it is now, and today's me wouldn't give a private server like Cyntara a chance if it weren't because of the emotional attachment I already have to it. That's really what I meant by stating that you cannot expect people to invest so much time and effort here.

Regards, Zaul

#1350 Reply

Zakyrie


Posts: 19
Likes: 17
Member since: v6

EXP is definitely too high. It's 2 weeks in and I have a level 1440 MS, a 1180 ED and a 1030 EK. Considering all the "end game" quests are at level 1400, this leaves nothing to do for the player base who is actually putting time into the game. So when they get bored and leave just out of nothing to do, then the server just dies out. Which is why it heavily relys on resets.

It's too the point the game lasts like 3 weeks then everyone has already basically finished the game and has to sit in temple or trainers all day because they don't see the point in getting higher level. Which leads to resets even sooner than 1 year. This one was only 5 and a half months from the last.

Obviously you're not gonna make it like RL tibia where you're pouring years of your life into 1 character for it to just reset in the state Cyntara is currently in. But at least 2 months instead of 2 weeks to get the same progress I have now isn't unreasonable.

Also, the only reason it NEEDS to reset. Is because the average playerbase sits at level 400-1000. You have kids near level 2000 a month down the road, which makes it impossible for lower level players do to anything. Which is why cutting exp rates, lowers that gap.

#1351 Reply

Zakyrie


Posts: 19
Likes: 17
Member since: v6

I agree, having everything you worked for wiped at least once a year doesn't feel great in a game as grindy as tibia. I think a lot of people realized it wasn't worth the effort after v6. There were a ton of players who literally grinded for 3-5 months to get 20 rebirths and past level 1.2k. Just to have the server reset a few months later and they had nothing to show for it.

I just don't think leveling for 2 weeks then reaching end game, having the server die for the next 10 months just to have that repeat over and over is a very healthy thing.

#1352 Reply

Joan


Posts: 22
Likes: 5
Member since: v10-s2

I get your point, however you have to understand that a dead/dying server doesn't have to end with a reset or a shut down, one of the highest rated Ragnarok Online servers, which was the highest rated for several years until very recently has been running since 2006 or so, without a single wipe ever, for the first 3 or 4 years it was considered a dead server, with between 50 and 200 players at any given point, its Staff's perseverance on the development of the server despite its "low" playerbase and income eventually paid off, when within months this server's playerbase increased to between 1200 and 2000 online players at any given point, bringing it to the top of the Ragnarok servers list and keeping it there for several years until like I said very recently that another server took its place, and now its rests at the 2nd place with the same 1200-2000 players at any given point, occasionally re-gaining its #1 place and then losing it again to the same competitor.

However there's a difference: The server I am talking about is a low rates server of a Korean grinder game that was extremely popular during its glory days in 2002-2004, which means it does actually takes years to get everything you want, I'm not sure how would this work for a high rates server like Cyntara.

A private server is an investment, if you cannot sustain it without screwing your players' progress every year, then you cannot expect to keep a sizable fanbase that is willing to invest a lot of time and effort into it.

Regards, Zaul

#1353 Reply