How to sum up my feelings about the last few updates into one word?
CONFUSION
I am more and more confused, trying to figure out what is happening inside the developer heads, because whatever they did recently, doesn't make sense to me. Do you know, that they took from Dwarves their uniqueness away? (They lost Crafting Skill)
Which brings us to the Herald of Light "update". What they want from us to do? Hitting those OPE characters, and die while doing so? What is the actual purpose of the new Hunting Zone? But first thing first.
Items:
Fallen Angel's Ring?? - I don't care.
Dragon Shirt Augmentation?? - I don't care.
Collection changes?? - I don't care.
Hunting Zones:
Krofin 110 ?? - I am not 110 yet, so whatever.
Swamp of Screams ?? - never been there.
Forest of Spirits 105 ?? - Tried that, mobs yellow at lvl 109, give a lot of dmg to to me as a Tank... never finished, pt members said they are bored, so we PR out.
Mobs in instanced zones ?? - IoS change is most visible, can't do it anymore (well, even before it wasn't great either)
Neutral Zone Hunting Ground:
When i was reading the patch notes, i was like.... Yes, Yes, Yes, that's exactly what we need.. and not only one zone, but more of these!
But from what i saw ingame, i was a little bit disappointed...
1) I kinda miss the social behavior of the monsters. (Meaning, if you attack one member of the group, whole group, or other group will attack you)
I believe, that while in Party Zone, you actually need the party, not just for the exp bonus... The EXP BONUS is what is is... a bonus.
2) Not sure what to think about the Adena reward in the Neutral Zone... It is the highest reward from all the non-instanced zones right? That lured high level players there, obviously. I can't believe that the Developers did such a mistake... Are we supposed to fight with these players for the spot? Not sure how a 107~108 characters in Exalted could prevail, but alright. In case this is indeed a mistake, how to fix it?
Increasing the Adena reward in higher level areas could bring more problems... Decreasing the Adena reward in the Neutral Zone cancels the purpose of the zone... to give low level players some Adena for gear. (If this is the true purpose of the zone ) I wish there's a way how to let lowbies get Adena, and also keep higher players out....
Hmm, i have an idea... what about we use some forgotten/long-time burried feature??
I mean QUEST.
Decrease the Adena reward to the appropriate level, so the high level players will loose an incentive to be there.
Create a quest for the zone... there are many types of quests... We need Repeatible/Daily one, that doesn't require a certain number of QI to complete (Unlimited, so, the more quest items you give in, the more Adena you get), where every party member gets QI for each kill, and for each QI a player gets Adena as a reward, in an amount that corresponds to the difference of Adena reward before and after the change.
Why Quest you ask? The beauty of the quest is that you can set the level range in which the quest can be taken!
That should cover both of our criteria.
And if anyone would be using a stacked alt character for solo there, you could still set the monsters there to be more social.... Ha, that will teach them to solo that zone!
About the Lineage in General:
This is not the same game that i discovered 16 years ago... Back then, you entered into vast, open world full of opportunities (things to do), it depended on the player which path he choose... The Game was hard, but fair!
That is no more... the game is boring, no incetive to login, let alone to play .
I mean, if you just do Crisis, PI, Storm instances ( If you're lucky, then also daily like Baylor, Kamaloka, Gludio, IT ... (Krofin if you dare)) You will get bored of it, don't you think?
Your decisions are also limited, this is not a MMORPG game, but a game from the Call of Duty franchise. Even the core RPG elements were deleted! (XP upon death penalty, Equipment drop upon death, Item grade penalty)
Developers deleted almost the entire PvE content... like Quests (except the starter/fishing ones)/Most of the non-instanced RBs/Factions.
I don't count the afk-autohunting, i don't consider it as part of the"game play". You just start it when you go to sleep/work. It's a Turn ON and forget thing.
The game is simply centered around the L2 Store items, and redesigned in a way so that only those items can be obtained. And that makes the game unfair, since you need RL money for those items.... And like it or not, in RL, every one doesn't have the same salary, taxes, inflation... The "game" is biased in favor of those with money from the very start. That got to the point, where everyone is ignored... even the ones who have some money to spend (The "Game" is interested in only in the Top money Spenders)
But why should we spend our money? For PvE? 70% approx. of the hunting zones are outdated, not usable. There is no goal, light at the end of the tunnel... So PvP? Don't let me start about PvP... that thing is dead for an decade, really.
Pardon me, but i am old (30+), i am not a sack of hormons for quite some time, so i don't get upset/angry easily.
If i ignore the fact, that don't have equipment for PvP, and never will be... why should i PvP? I just don't get it.
For Hunting Spot? You don't need levels, if there is not a content, where you could use it.
Dragons? Dragons are fought by one player that kills them under 1 min (Zero challenge), and only usefull thing they give is a claw, imho.
Castles? There are only 2 Castles, that have meaning... Aden, and Giran. They have adena revenue atleast. Other castles don't have financial, territorial use... If someday developers would delete their static meshes from the client, nothing would happen.
There is more that don't make sence ingame, I just can't remember it all, and the deadline for this pool is comming.
So let me end with one last word, where i try to summarize my feel, i have from the game at the moment.... The Lineage II is a complete FUBAR!