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DEVELOPER'S BLOG
kTOS User Meetup Summary
Greetings, Saviors! Recently, a meetup with players from our Korean servers took place, where questions were answered and our dev team shared a bit of what we have in mind in terms of the development of Tree of Savior. Today, we thought we’d share some details of this meetup with you here at the dev blog to let you in on some of the things we’re preparing and also gauge your opinions on the themes we discussed. First, these are the main goals our dev team is working to implement in the near future: 1. Improve the damage calculation system. 2. Increase the efficiency and revise the effects of each stat. 3. Create formulas to replace the currently fixed-number skill attack values and effects. 4. Revise the basic stats of all equipment items. 5. Readjust the efficiency and cost of enhancement/transcendence. 6. Readjust the difficulty of all fields and dungeons. 7. Overall improve the chat UI and develop new group chat functions. 8. Standardize and simplify item trade policies. As for the contents of our session, below are some of the topics we discussed with the players, summarized in a Q&A format. Transcendence and Balance Q: Item transcendence comes up too early in the game, and the effect it has on overall balance seems a little excessive. A: Originally, we introduced the transcendence system to give items a higher degree of importance in the game. We don’t want to devalue transcendence, since it would negatively affect players who already invested in it, so we are reviewing ways to increase the supply of transcendence items in order to reduce the gap. Q: Being a magic class is tough… A: We want to make it easier for magic classes to play solo in regular fields. We expect some of the difficulties felt by these classes can be alleviated by readjustments in the transcendence system and item rebalancing, so we’re going to make more specific plans after we test these out. Q: If you think about all the new equipment that’s going to come out in the future, it becomes a little too difficult to invest in transcendence, especially if you use a sub-weapon. Even with multiple characters, it’s a lot of work. A: In a way, the game already allows you to “recycle” your transcended items by restoring either part of the Blessed Gems or the item itself, but we are also considering making transcended equipment tradable. Perfecting the transcendence system is a bigger priority at the moment, however. The group of kTOS players met with IMC representatives at our offices in Seoul. Announcements and Communication Q: We don’t get many updates from you on what you’re working on and what your projects are for the game. Even if your plans end up not working out, we’d rather you at least communicate with us and let us in on the progress. A: The truth is that it has always been a little intimidating for us to talk about our plans for TOS, considering the amount of well-documented bugs we have yet to fix. Slowly but surely, however, we’ve started to work more on communicating our ideas and plans for the game, and we continue to strive for improvement on that area. One concern we have is figuring out the right stage of development at which to announce anything we might be working on, given that we do need to be at least somewhat sure that we can carry it out… Premium and Cosmetic Items Q: We get the feeling that new costumes are often released too late, and even when we do want to buy them, their prices aren’t exactly affordable. A: Last year was a constant struggle against bugs. We refrained from pushing the marketing of the game too much until we had some of the most basic issues fixed, and at the same time we didn’t want the gameplay at the time to rely excessively on paid items. In order to be able to service TOS in the long run, we don't think premium items should have too high of a priority on our list of aspects to improve on. We will continue to review our stance on this, but we don’t want anything premium to have too big of an effect on the core gameplay. Q: We understand that you want the game to be working at its best, but the players don’t want to wait. We wish we had more non-combat-related things to do in the game, decorative elements, housing, etc. The lack of premium items means that, even when we do spend money on TOS, there isn’t much we can do with it. A: We have received similar suggestions from players regarding non-combat play, including some really interesting ones we would surely like to review. We will continue to ponder on them and hopefully we can introduce more interesting items in the future. Addons Q: Some addons give unfair advantages to those who use them; we want to know your stance on these. Also, would you develop convenience addons for TOS? A: We wish we could review every single addon used for TOS, but realistically it’s something we cannot do. We can’t vouch for the reliability of any external addon, so our general stance is that it’s best to avoid them, although we do not punish the use of addons unless they are considered harmful to the game. We are, however, considering applying some functions of existing addons into TOS. It was definitely interesting hearing the players talk about their experiences with TOS face-to-face. Item Performance and Stats Q: Can you explain why certain leather armor now increases INT?? A: Our intent with this was to reduce the restrictions on the various types of armor for each class tree. Our impression is that it’s currently tilting towards plate armor. Q: Each class has always had its own suitable type of armor; if you start changing things now it will only confuse players. We think it’s best for each type of armor to have a concrete concept attached to it. A: This isn’t the first time we set out a strong concept then ended up making a compromise on it. Our current plans are to make hard-concept equipment more focused towards PvP. It’s a subject we still need to consider. Instanced Dungeon Matching Q: Auto-matching in instanced dungeons sometimes creates parties that are really unbalanced in terms of class distribution. A: If we focus on having a more equal distribution of classes in auto-matched parties, it will end up extending the time necessary to create a party. We need to consider what the optimal way to go about this is, since we also have to take in account the number of players in the queue. Q: How about allowing us to enter missions with a mercenary NPC or adjusting the mobs’ HP according to the number of party members? A: Both suggestions are already being considered and have a chance of making it into the game sooner or later. Bugs and Testing Q: How do you test for bugs? How do you go about fixing bugs that you can’t recreate on the test server and only manifest on the live servers? A: We encounter many different types of bugs, from those that affect both the live and test servers, to those that only sometimes appear on the test server. In cases where it’s difficult for us to recreate the bug, the process of analyzing and fixing it often gets delayed. Q: When is Briquetting going to be fixed? A: We are very sorry for the trouble it’s causing. We are still investigating the cause of this bug and hope we can find a solution soon. Guild Upgrades and Guild Wars Q: Guild raids lack a lot of practicality and it’s currently too difficult to increase the level of our guilds. We need more motivation for investing Talt, and we wish we could get better reward items, like titles or decorations. Also, after you introduced neutrality, guild war contents are pretty much dead. Do you have any plans to take it back? A: We don’t really want to remove guild neutrality. We do want to improve on issues like delays, location errors, lag, etc. and create a better environment for PvP gameplay. The option for neutrality will remain, however. What would you ask the TOS devs if you had the chance to meet the team in person? Other Feedback and Complaints Q: Can you allow us to use TP to extract gems without a penalty? A: The value of gems varies a lot depending on their grade, so it’s not easy to put a TP price on it. We’ll try to think of ways to make this work. Q: There are so many problems with Sorcerer bats. If the Wugushi poisonous insect disappears, the Sorcerer summons disappear with it. You also can’t control the direction in which the summons attack. Not to mention the SP consumption is out of this world… A: We agree that these are issues that cause inconvenience for players, although we should clarify that the fact that you can’t control the direction of summon attacks is indeed an intended feature. Q: We wish it was easier to recognize lucky mobs… A: We will consider ways to make them more visible. Skill-related User Opinions 1) The damage of low-rank attack skills is too low. 2) We wish it was easier to view the amount of skill-related material items. It’s also very inconvenient to have to visit an NPC every time we need these skill materials. 3) One minute is way too short for buffs. The cooldown time for skills is also too long. 4) The pros and cons of skills should be more balanced. Some skills only have pros, which makes them disproportionally popular. 5) Make skill values a percentage instead of fixed numbers. Other User Opinions 1) It can be hard to tell where each of our items is when we have a lot of characters. 2) There’s too much competition for field bosses, which often leads to arguments between players. We wish there was more content we can enjoy together as allies. 3) Regular monsters use stun way too often, especially considering there’s no way for our characters to cancel it. 4) We wish there was a system that would allow us to “hire” NPCs. 5) If you aren’t going to allow us to trade silver, will you at least consider an alternative? This game has so many restrictions, it feels like an RPG from the ‘90s :( 6) Please increase the number of basic slots in the Team Storage. Also, we need a way to deal with the problem of being unable to retrieve silver from the Team Storage after our Token period ends. 7) So many beautiful fields in TOS are abandoned… I suggest you improve the effects of their Collections? 8) The fact that clicking on mouse mode controls both moving and attacking causes many unnecessary problems. Please separate the controls for these two actions. 9) Having Team Battles be 2:2 can cause a big gap between the participating characters. I think 3:3 would be a better option. We look forward to your reactions on the subjects we discussed in this Q&A, so do leave a comment and let us know what you think. And if you’re wondering, we are preparing another GM meetup soon in our Steam servers! We will make a separate announcement on it once we have the details, so keep an eye on the News page.
A Real Wonder : Mystical Cube
Staff_Max : Hello everyone, this is Staff_Max who wasted spent 47 days (unlike Staff_Amy who only took 1 try) trying to get Practonium from the Mystical Cube. Today, I’m with the person in charge of designing that particular nightmare item. Could you please introduce yourself to the players? PrinceKen : Hello everyone, please call me PrinceKen. I hope you’ll forgive the somewhat sad mood I am in. It’s because spring is around the corner. Staff_Max : I would like to, on behalf of the players, complain ask about the Mystical box. Something that a lot of players are quite annoyed and angry curious about. PrinceKen : I think I can see what is coming, and I would like to use this opportunity to apologize in advance…. Staff_Max : Could you please tell us the reasoning behind setting the 24 hour cooldown period and the impossibly extremely low chance to get Practonium? PrinceKen : There are a few ways to get the best equipment for Rank 8 content. Most of it can be obtained from end-game content such as the Earth Tower. However, we wanted to give the players that can’t enjoy that content a way to catch up. That’s why the Mystical Cube was created. A way for players, with a bit of luck on their side, to catch up with hard-core players. However, since Practonium is a core ingredient for crafting some of the best equipment for Rank 8 content, we had to set it at really low chances so it wouldn’t trivialize the effort that the hard-core players put into clearing end-game content. Staff_Max : I see(Give me back my 47 days)…. What do you think about the inconveniences that the players are experiencing because of the short expiration time(5 hours) on the Unstable Cube which they get when they don’t get Practonium? PrinceKen : I do think that we need to tweak the current settings a bit in order to make it less inconvenient for the players. These are some things that we are currently considering. 1. The Mystical Cube can be located in the Cube section of a player’s inventory, while the Unstable Cube is in the Item section. We plan on making it so that they will always be in the Cube section 2. We are currently developing a warning UI that will tell you if an item is about to reach it’s expiration time. Staff_Max : I think such changes will be able to help many players from missing the expiration date. Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. I hope that this Dev Blog will help answer some of the questions you all may have had about Mystical Cubes. How many days did it take for you to get your Practonium? You could brag or lament on how quickly/long it took for you to get it. I had to try 47 times(lucky that I’m not a gambling man). Also, please let us know what you would like to be discussed in such fashion. I’ll see if I can ask the devs for a short interview so I can share some insight into how Tree of Savior was made.
Dev Interview: Legend Cards
Greetings, Saviors! In a previous roadmap post, our devs talked about a new type of cards – called the Legend Boss Cards – that are being developed for the middle slot in the card equip system. We were curious to see how this feature was looking so far and what we could expect when it finally comes out in the game, so we took some time to test it out with the developer in charge. <Card equip window showing a Legend Card with +10 movement speed. Nice.> Staff: It looks like your plans for the Legend Card feature are coming along really well! Though, looking at how these new cards are being referred to, I noticed you’re not calling them “Legend Monster Cards” anymore, but only “Legend Cards”. Are you worried that players might confuse them for cards with legendary monsters in them, or…? Dev: Actually, we decided to call them that because there’s a chance we might want to make Legend Cards out of TOS characters that aren’t monsters. Staff: Gasp! Do you mean human NPCs? Maybe even… villains? Like this one? Dev: Well… I’m a big fan of Giltine myself, so I can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind. Staff: Sweet. Moving on to another topic, last December during the Rank update we got new quest lines and a new Revelation thrown into the lore of TOS. It also seems like the quest to unlock the Legend Card slot is going to connect to the Revelations. I’m just wondering: where does it end? I see myself playing TOS for many years to come (☆ TOS 4EVER ☆) so I’m worried that we’ll never see the end of all these Revelations. Are you going to continue adding new Legend Card quests as well? Dev: The Legend Card unlock quest will only deal with Revelations introduced up to the point when the feature is first released. Staff: So that is the first and last time Legend Cards and Revelation quests will ever be related? Dev: I can’t really talk about what’s going to happen to the story in the future, so… Staff: Right, spoilers. Well, I had a look at the list of cards you’re planning to add and I saw a lot of familiar names. Apart from the “Powerful Kugheri Balzermancer” and the “Pantorex”, they were all Monster Cards we already have in the game. Does that mean these cards have a regular version and a Legend version? Dev: Yes. The regular cards are going to have the same stats they do now; the new ones are going to have more. The difference is that the regular cards will be available from Mercenary Post missions and Card Albums. Also, if you summon a monster from a Legend Card instead of a regular demon card, your summon will be bigger and the visual effects will be different. <Summoning with a Boss Card.> <Summoning with a Legend Card.> Staff: Cool. Looking at the stats of the new Legend Cards, it seems like there’s a big difference in what stats these cards have depending on where you get them. Is that meant to reflect the difficulty of the different game features from where the Legend Cards drop? Dev: Correct. Legend Cards obtained from more difficult game features will come with juicier stats. The Powerful Kugheri Balzermancer, for example, is a card you can get from the Unique raid dungeon. Unlike other places that drop Legend Cards, this dungeon has no competitive component and it has a lower degree of entrance restrictions. In this context, we’ll be increasing the competitive factor of field bosses and upping their difficulty level in order to boost the chances of acquiring Legend Cards. The Pantorex monster from guild quests is also going to see an increase in difficulty. Staff: So I was right. But there’s something I’m really curious about. How many cards do you need to get a Legend Card to Lv 10? Dev: Legend Cards are going to increase levels via card enhancement, a system different from traditional card synthesis. The reason we chose this was that, although combining cards is a safer mechanism, it requires large amounts of fodder to reach maximum level. Applying the exact same method to Legend Cards would make it way too tiring for players to boost up them up, so we added a shortcut process that lets you get to your target level faster with a bit of luck. Staff: When I was testing the card enhancement, I noticed that you can only use 4 other cards to enhance a Legend Card, though. And even with four Lv 10 Legend Cards as fodder, the chance of success from 3 to 4 stars still wasn’t 100%. Why is that? Is there no way to get 100% chance of enhancement with Legend Cards? Dev: That’s the shortcut process I was talking about. We realize that some players – like yourself – will still prefer the original card combination method, so we created another mechanism that lets you use high-grade, high-level cards to achieve 100% chances of enhancement. Under this mechanism, using other Legend Cards or enhancement cards designed specifically for Legends guarantees that your card gets another star. <Legend Card with 100% chance of enhancement.> Staff: I see, that’s a relief. I’d rather go the safe route, even if it takes a little longer. It looks like you can also increase the star level of Legend Enhancing Cards by combining them with other cards; is that right? How does that work? Dev: That’s right. You can feed regular cards to a Legend Enhancing Card via the normal card combination process to increase its star level. As you can probably guess, Legend Enhancing Cards are used to enhance Legend Cards only. The chances of success when using a Legend Enhancing Card as fodder are up to 5 times higher when compared to regular cards, so they’re something to keep in mind if you want to play safe. <You can increase the star level of a Legend Enhancing Card by combining it with other cards.> Staff: Alright! Those are all the questions I had for you today. Thank you very much for your time and for letting us play around with this new feature. I can’t wait for it to come out. Dev: No problem! I’m looking forward to what our players have to say about it too.
Future Updates: Guild Promotion, Quests, Title Collection
Greetings, Saviors! We’re back today with another series of neat functions that are being developed for future patches. In this post we’re going to show you our plans for a new guild promotion feature, some quest improvements and a nice addition to the title system. Don’t forget that these plans aren’t final, so the actual content may end up looking a little different when it is applied to the game. Guild Promotion Board We’re creating a notice board which guilds can use to promote themselves and recruit members. The promotion board includes different information about the guilds like guild level, activity (Adventure Journal points), average team level, etc., which all players can access. The board allows players to directly send join requests to the guilds they are interested in, and guild administrators can then use the promotion board to manage and process the applications. In order to register the guild at the promotion board, the guild master must upload the guild’s banner (512 x 200 png) and cover page (1024 x 768-3840 png). Guild masters can set up the guild’s banner, cover page, intro text and promotion status under the guild settings menu. Players interested in the guild can look at the Info tab for more details and use the Apply button to send a join request. Since any player can apply to join a guild through the promotion board, there is no need for the applicant and the guild master to meet in-game in order to process the request. The guild’s administrator can simply access the board and accept or decline the application. Master Quests With the omission of advancement quests from Ranks 2 to 8, the function of Class Master NPCs became limited to selling attributes and consumables. Now, we want to bring quests back to the Class Masters. Starting from the lower levels, each Master will include their own independent subquests, most of them rewarding your character with Attribute Points. We expect to update Master quests over multiple patches in the future. Daily Quest Rewards We have plans to update the rewards and frequency of the Mercenary Post’s daily quests. First, we’re going to make these quests playable 2 times per day, per character. The quests will consist of simple monster hunting (adjusted to your character level), without the current item gathering component. The basic EXP rewards, on the other hand, are getting big boost with added Silver and Attribute Points. According to the day of the week, the daily quests will include only one of the new rewards: Silver from Monday to Thursday; Attribute Points from Friday to Sunday. Silver rewards will be calculated based on your level (level x n Silver), while Attribute Point prizes are awarded as 1 or 2 tickets of 100 Points (or up to 3 tickets if you’re at maximum level). Title Collection Finally, we want to introduce a system that grants characters minor passive stat increases according to the total amount of titles they possess. The image above gives you an idea of how the system works. We don’t want each stat to depend on a different kind of title, so we expect it to apply the stat boosts based only on the overall number of titles. Stay tuned to the News page for more updates!
Future Improvements: Chat UI and Trade Policies
Greetings, Saviors! You may remember from our ‘kTOS User Meetup Summary’ that the dev team is working on a list of goals to improve different aspects of the game. Today, we would like to share a preview of what we have planned for two of those goals: improving the chat UI and standardizing trade policies. 1. Chat UI Improvements We realize that social functions play a big role in the way many choose to take part in the world of TOS. The basic conversation tool that unites Saviors with friends, party members and guild members is of course the chat function, which is why we wanted to make it a little more convenient and useful. We added in a few new features to the regular chat window: - You can open up to 3 separate chat windows. - You can set a different chat type (Shout, Party, Whisper, etc.) for each of the chat windows open. - Pressing Shift+Tab lets you switch between open chat windows. - Chat window size can be adjusted horizontally (width). 1.1 New Group Chat Function Not all relationships in TOS can be measured in parties and guilds, so we wanted to give players another, more flexible way to organize themselves by developing a group chat function. Here’s a rundown of how it’s going to work: - You can create up to 50 group chat rooms, each room with a maximum of 20 users. - Clicking the top of the chat room UI will expand/minimize it. - Each chat room will have different settings you can configure to taste. - Regular whisper chats will be in the new ‘1:1’ tab. - If you’re whispering with a friend, the chat log will be under ‘Friends’. - Chat rooms in the ‘Group’ tab will have a few added functions. 1) Create Invite Tag: Lets you link to a chat room invitation, the same way you do with party invite links. 2) Invite: Enter the team name of another player to invite them to the chat room. 3) User List: Shows you a list of all the players in the chat room, and whether they are logged in. 2. Trade Policy Changes Item circulation was an area we felt was still not running as smoothly as it should be, considering the difficulties posed by trading restrictions and regulations. With this in mind, we wanted to standardize our item trade policies in a way that would make it easier for players to assess the degree of tradability of the game’s different items. Below are the new policies we have planned, organized according to degree of tradability: 1) Items untradeable by any means (Team Storage NO, Market NO, 1:1 NO) - Items obtained under circumstances specific to a character (collections, cubes, Earth Tower rewards, etc.) - Transcended equipment items - Items that became untradeable after a 1:1 trade with one or more non-Token users - Items with time limits (expiration dates) 2) Items which CAN be moved via Team Storage but NOT traded in the Market or on 1:1 - Exchange medals - All other items that don’t fall under the “tradable by all means” category 3) Items which CAN be sold at the Market but NOT moved via Team Storage or traded 1:1 - Tokens 4) Items tradable by all means (Team Storage YES, Market YES, 1:1 YES) - Items obtained through regular gameplay, not dependent on character-specific conditions (gems, recipes, monster cards, etc.) - Premium costumes - Enchantment scrolls - Emoticon packages - Items obtained from premium cubes Note 1: Trading an item 1:1 between Token users with one or more trades left and selling an item at the Market will no longer make the item untradeable. This applies to all items. Note 2: Personal trades where one or more players are either not using a Token or have no trades left will continue to be considered “non-Token trades”. In these cases, the item traded will become untradeable by any means. This applies to all items. 2.1 Token Benefit Improvements If you are a Token and Market user, you’ll be familiar with this set of changes, already applied to iTOS, planned under the dev team’s improvement project. If you’re not, here’s a summary of how Token benefits changed regarding Market sales: - Tokens sold through the Market no longer become untradeable. - Token users can now retrieve silver from the Market immediately after the item is sold. - Token users can now sell items for prices above or under the maximum/minimum price limits on the Market. And, another change is set to be applied along with these improvements: - A silver commission fee will be applied to Tokens sold at the Market, similarly to what happens with other items. Besides the Token benefit improvements already applied to Steam, the changes mentioned here have already been introduced to our kTOS test server and, after polishing all the corners, we hope to bring them over to iTOS later in the year. The team is working hard to keep up with the goal list, and we do have other improvements planned which we look forward to introducing here on the dev blog. Do let us know your opinions on the new chat functions and item trade policies. We’ll be back soon with more previews.
The Lore You Know : Fencer
Fencer Master : Sorsha Hutton Sorsha Hutton constantly betters herself as the Fencer Master. This growth is not just limited to her swordsmanship. When she was inaugurated as the Fencer Master, she only cared for her family and her swordsmanship. This all changed when she faced the world after Medzio Diena and all the decimation it left. She began to grow. She even sold the treasure of her family to secure the fund to help those in need. Today, she not only fulfill her duties as the Fencer Master but also the obligation of the nobility. Many people quite rightfully believe that her emotional growth along with ever expanding swordsmanship will be of great help for the Kingdom and its people. Fencer? Fencers rapidly attack enemies with rapiers. Skills of Fencing Attaque ? Attaque means “To Confess One’s Eternal Love for Someone” in French. Just kidding it means “Attack.” In fencing, it is the initial attacking move used through Fente, Fleche or other attack moves with your arm stretched. Attaque Composee ? In fencing Attaque Composee “composite attack” is a type of Attaque preceded by one or more feinting moves. It is a go-to skill for a fencer and create great synergy when used with Epee garde. However, please, do mind the SP consumption. : ) Fleche ? In fencing, Fleche is an attack movement you do with your arm stretched, legs crossed, and upper body lowered. Through this position, a fencer can do a triple stab Fleche. Sept Etoiles : Fencer's Skill Those who speak the language of love might guess how many times you strike while using the skill “Sept Etoiles.” Sept Etoliles, which means Seven Stars, but attacking eight precise stabs like a star. The Fencer Master did tell us that many of you got mesmerized by this skill and became a Fencer. Knowledge of Fencing for our saviors :D The expression “touche”, which was originally a fencing term, has entered common parlance and is used to acknowledge a good or clever point made by the opposite party. If you really think about its origin, the pure sportsmanship can be found. The movement speed often exceeds what human eyes can handle. So, it is the one who is hit or ‘touched’, acknowledge it for the opponent by uttering that famous phrase. Such graceful acknowledgement of a defeat is certainly expected of a sport closely associated with nobility.
Client Performance Optimization Tests
Greetings, Saviors! This video is a preview of our latest client optimization patch, set to be released this April 10th. We recorded densely populated maps in three different situations (city map, Territory Wars and field boss) before and after the application of the patch. Check out the results below. Test Results For this optimization patch, our main focus was addressing lag issues and improving frame update processing times. Overall, we noticed a visible improvement in loading times, reduction of lag, and general smoother frame performance. Recording Environment All videos were recorded using TOS' F12 video recording function. The BEFORE videos (city map and field boss) were recorded in iTOS during the GM Playdate of March 13, 2018. Since Guild Territory Wars haven't been updated on Steam yet, the corresponding BEFORE video was recorded in our own test environment. The AFTER videos were also recorded internally at IMC from March 30 to April 2, after applying the client optimization patch set to be released on April 10, 2018. PC Specifications [City Map] CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4690 CPU @ 3.50Ghz RAM: 16.0GB GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550Ti OS: Windows 7 (64 bit) [Territory Wars] CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4150 CPU @ 3.50Ghz RAM: 8.00GB GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 OS: Windows 7 (64 bit) [Field Boss] CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6600 CPU @ 3.30Ghz RAM: 8.00GB GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti OS: Windows 10 (64 bit)
Dev Interview: Adventure Journal Overhaul
Greetings, Saviors! If you keep up with our Announcements here at the website, you’ll know that the devs are getting up to some pretty major changes to the old Adventure Journal. Today we sat down with the developer in charge of the transformation to find out what's in store. Staff: Well, hello, Mr. Adventure Journal Dev, it’s nice to have you. How do you feel today? AJD: To be honest, this is my first interview ever, so I do feel a little nervous. Staff: Don’t worry, I won’t bite… I want to start by asking about how the process of revising the Adventure Journal came about. I remember the first notice from a few months ago that got players excited about the new version of the Journal, and it seems you’re now making real alterations to it. What made you want to revise this feature of the game? AJD: With the Adventure Journal the way it is now, there were always times when we felt like it displayed unnecessary information, or that it was shown in an ineffective way. We also felt that the rewards players got from the achievements weren’t always the best incentives for exploration. With this in mind, we decided to reorganize the information in the Adventure Journal and introduce new rewards that would better motivate players to complete different achievements. Staff: As a developer, what part of the process of changing the Adventure Journal concerned you the most? AJD: The biggest worry for me was the new reward system; figuring out which rewards would better suit each achievement and what would get players exploring the maps in a way that felt satisfactory. Staff: That certainly sounds like a challenge, although as a player of TOS myself, it also makes me excited for the changes that are to come. Now, onto the next question. The latest announcement about the Adventure Journal mentions that some of the new content is going to be reset every month. I would like to know more about what this content is, how it will be different from the permanent-type content, and why you decided to divide it into these two categories. AJD: The types of content we’re thinking of including in the resetting category are monster kills, item drops, item crafting, personal shops, fishing and dungeons. The difference between the two categories is that you won’t be able to access your records for the resetting content after the period corresponding to that month is over, while the permanent content will remain recorded in your team’s Journal for as long as it exists. The content we put in the permanent category is there mostly for practical reasons; like quests, for example. I don’t think most players would be too happy if all their quest records were deleted every month and they had to create another character just to fill them up again… As for the resetting content, we thought the current ranking system made it hard for new players to try and make it into the top spots, a problem which is only aggravated as the game’s service continues. We wanted to give more of our dedicated players the chance to compete for meaningful rewards. Staff: That sounds fair. If you make the scores appear in real-time on the Adventure Journal, that’s definitely going to increase the competitive aspect of Journal achievements. I’m sure you know better than anyone that, in the current system, to be a top ranker you really need to step up your enhancement investments. This time, however, it seems you’re shifting the focus towards monsters and items; is there a reason for this? AJD: Well, we thought that, if we’re going to revise the achievement rewards, we should focus on those related to the content that the players most easily and commonly encounter in the game. Staff: I see. Does that mean it will be easier for players to get points for their Journal? And if so, what would you say is the best method for getting into the top ranks of the Adventure Journal under the new system? AJD: We’re increasing the points attributed to monster kills, item drops and crafting, so hunting more varieties of monsters and crafting different types of items is probably your best bet. This isn’t set in stone, however. After the big Adventure Journal changes are applied, we’re going to continue monitoring the way players use the new system and adjust the content as necessary. Staff: Considering the rewards that are at stake, and the fact that players will have to compete to get them, I think we can expect people to eventually devise more efficient, “pain-free” ways to achieve their goals… What are your thoughts on this? Does this match the purpose you have in mind for the Adventure Journal? AJD: The main purpose we envision for the Adventure Journal is to record your team’s activities within TOS. I believe the players will always be clever enough to come up with optimized ways to play whatever content we put out – the Journal included – and we’re certainly not against it. That said, if we find that there are any tricks or any harmful ways to achieve those goals beyond honest competition, then we will have to revise the content accordingly. Staff: In the current system, for example, the “easy” way some players have found to maximize their points is to buy items from the Market, slightly enhance them, then sell them back, which isn’t harmful to other players, but doesn’t really fit with the purpose of the Adventure Journal either. Will you be giving different points to items obtained from hunting monsters and those bought from the Market? AJD: We did want to include purchased and re-purchased items in the total count, but the possibility of abuses like the one you mentioned made us rethink it. In the end, we decided not to have items obtained through the Market count towards the Adventure Journal. Staff: Hunting is the way to go. Got it. I’m a pretty competitive person myself, so I couldn’t help wondering about that. Now that my curiosity is satisfied, I want to ask about the “life” content records you’ll be adding to the Adventure Journal. What are those about? AJD: If records related to monsters, item drops and crafting are going to be the basis for the combat portion of the Adventure Journal, the “life” section is going to be about non-combat content, like fishing and shops. Staff: Oh! I did notice the two tabs related to that content in the preview images, along with a little gap just big enough to house another tab… Could it be for a future content update, perhaps…? AJD: Hahah, you got me. Yes, we wanted to leave a little room for any non-combat content that may be developed and happen to fit with the record-keeping function of the Adventure Journal. Staff: The Growth category feels somewhat like collecting badges, I would say. I personally can’t stand seeing those empty spaces there left to fill, so I did some research and I found out that, in order to complete all the spots, you really need to raise a whole family of characters. Is this intended as part of the Journal achievements? AJD: “Raising” characters of different classes is a big part of what makes Tree of Savior interesting, so we felt that it needed to be incorporated in the Adventure Journal as well. Staff: I don’t know, I tend to feel very attached to my characters, but I’m worried that this kind of system might encourage players to create characters just for the collection, then throw them away. What are your thoughts on this? AJD: Though some classes may be more popular, every class has its own value in Tree of Savior. I can see how some players would be tempted to create characters just for the Journal rewards, but our hope remains that it will help people experience different classes that they may not have tried otherwise. The Adventure Journal records are also proof of all the diverse activities the player has done within the game, so we believe it’s still a valuable addition. Staff: The new Exploration tab was interesting, too. For one, it really makes you want to go back to all the spots you missed along the way. The Achievements section, on the other hand, was a little unexpected. I couldn’t figure out what else we’re supposed to do in this tab just by looking at the info on it. Was this intentional? AJD: Yes, you can access that information from the Achievements section in the Character Info window. We didn’t want to have the same information repeated in two different places, so we opted for removing it from the Adventure Journal. Staff: Since the permanent content won’t be reset, I’m assuming any rewards that come from that can only be received once per team, is that correct? What I want to ask is: exactly how much TOS would you have to play to get to, say, level 13 in Growth? AJD: To get to level 13 in the Growth section, you need 5,600 points. That’s 100 points per team level and 50 points per class. The minimum you would need to achieve this would be 5 max-level characters, with 4 characters composed of 8 unique classes each. Staff: That’s… a lot of work indeed. I should start planning. Now that the new Adventure Journal is finally gaining form, are you satisfied with how it functions, or do you have plans to keep working on it? AJD: We’ll definitely keep working on it. Tree of Savior still has a lot of room to grow and integrate new content, content which will need to be recorded through the Adventure Journal. Besides, like I mentioned earlier, we also have to consider the players’ feedback to assess which parts need to be adjusted and how, so we’re confident that you’ll see more Journal updates later on. Staff: Very well! I only have one final question. What does the Adventure Journal mean to you, as a developer? AJD: Rather than answering that question myself, I would like to ask the players. I want to know how they felt about the Adventure Journal so far, and what they would like it to become in the future. We’ll always need to take into account the player’s vision of the Journal in our plans, so any feedback is more than welcome. Staff: I’m sure the players will have a lot to say in the comments. Alright, as promised, that was my last question. Thank you for letting me pick your brain for this interview. I’ll look forward to more news on the Adventure Journal from you! AJD: No problem, I’ll make sure to keep you updated!
Weekly Question and Answer – September 9th, 2016
Q1. Being unable to trade items between characters in my team makes it much harder to level other characters. Will we ever be able to share currently untradable items between characters in the same team? A1. We are considering the removal of sharing restrictions on items up to the 'Rare(purple)' tier. However, we do not have any plans on removing the restrictions on 'Unique(red)' tier items which will continue to be character specific. While slightly off topic, recipes that use other recipes as ingredients will appear in the future to add more variety to the crafting system. Q2. Lower level players are having trouble in the Siauliai mission since the level of boss monsters are set to the highest level player. Are there any plans to make things more fair for all the players? A2. We realize that the large level gap may have made it much harder for lower level players than we had intended. We plan to balance the monster levels according to each party. We expect that this will alleviate this issue and this feature is expected to be implemented soon. Q3. It has been a while since we had our last event. Are there going to be any more events? A3. We are currently planning and testing various types of events in order to provide more things to look forward to every time you log in. We hope that you will enjoy the next event we have planned for you. Q4. It has been a while since the x4 and x8 EXP Tomes have been introduced in kTOS. When are we going to be able to use them? A4. We had decided to postpone their introduction in order to make sure that players would be able to get their full potential. You will soon be able to craft them in the enhanced form that is currently available on kTOS.