I am typically a crown player other than the first year I played this game. General game design concepts concerning immersion, along with appropriate incentives seem to have been lost in the planning process for this update. While many of the updates do bring improvements to the game, the new world is a strictly a grind to Level 100 with no rewards.
As it stands, there is no top gear, best wands in the game are still coming from crown packs, and there are no planned crown drops in the world. Yes I did look at all the crafted wands.
While the pets along with the hybrids are cute, collecting hybrids with funky mixed up talents lost its ginger long ago, they are just lawn furniture for decorating a house. Considering that the one of every color collector is very small portion of any gaming community, the hybrid pet is no incentive to a large portion of your usership. The proposed casting wands have as much value to a high level that can brandish that item as the old idea of pets casting spells. After putting up a full setup of feints and what not, a trashy spell that has not been colossaled has no value to a character at that level (may cast rebirth is the exception, but I am confident that the PVP community will deem it over powered so it is a moot point).
I believe that the most aggrevating proposed update is a new icon for the crown player. Regardless if they have spent money in the last month or not, they get a new icon on the game window advertising areas to rent.
not sure if you have a point here or are just ranting but let me just go line for line here.
"straight shot to level 100"
that's the facts man. i basically completed a bunch of side quests in K1 and never turned them in, so lets see how fast my xp shoots up once I DO turn them all in. I mean no matter what, if you're sitting at level 95 you're gonna have an easy ride to 100 (unless you completed every little quest there was to do)
"crown drops/top gear"
I dont think they put those in until it hits live realm if i'm not mistaken. But i mean as far as top gear in reality it's just personalization. I typically like to have a great balance between block and damage. my storm never fails to block a critical (thanks to the level 90 wand from the dino bundle) and my death probably blocks about 90% of the criticals thrown his way, only exception to both is when a boss decides to use vengeance and even then a miss is rare.
"pets"
I mean i agree with you to an extent but most people by this point already have a pet they consider "the best" no? at least i do for most characters. I have a pet that works for me in the way i want it to, and I am not really hatching it out anymore for any reason.
"MC wands"
total agreement there. Don't see a point to them. especially considering you're essentially giving up a lot of the critical statistics for the MC. might as well go back to the Sky Iron Hasta since i'm sure the MC rebirth rate will be dropped once everyone starts complaining about it in pvp. If anyone disagrees with that just look what they did to "Fairy Friend" and "Spritely"
John RavenCatcher - lvl95 John StormWalker - lvl95 John DragonPyre - lvl55 John FrostShard - lvl63
"Bambi is my old name. Now.. Now they call me Deer Knight."
The dropped decks and amulets are outstanding. I like the pets, and some of the crafted items are pretty good. I'd like to see some real top level gear, but I expect that to come later in a new optional side area or Aquilla expansion, maybe some time this summer (I'm just guessing about this).
The story line and game play are creative and have some interesting challenges. It's a great world IMO.
I see your point about the advertizing icon though. That's a bit obnoxious.
I am typically a crown player other than the first year I played this game. General game design concepts concerning immersion, along with appropriate incentives seem to have been lost in the planning process for this update. While many of the updates do bring improvements to the game, the new world is a strictly a grind to Level 100 with no rewards.
As it stands, there is no top gear, best wands in the game are still coming from crown packs, and there are no planned crown drops in the world. Yes I did look at all the crafted wands.
While the pets along with the hybrids are cute, collecting hybrids with funky mixed up talents lost its ginger long ago, they are just lawn furniture for decorating a house. Considering that the one of every color collector is very small portion of any gaming community, the hybrid pet is no incentive to a large portion of your usership. The proposed casting wands have as much value to a high level that can brandish that item as the old idea of pets casting spells. After putting up a full setup of feints and what not, a trashy spell that has not been colossaled has no value to a character at that level (may cast rebirth is the exception, but I am confident that the PVP community will deem it over powered so it is a moot point).
I believe that the most aggrevating proposed update is a new icon for the crown player. Regardless if they have spent money in the last month or not, they get a new icon on the game window advertising areas to rent.
I do get what you mean about grinding to L100 without rewards. I have been playing on my second account for a while now, trying to get the magic back. I have several baby noobs, and my highest one is in Mooshu right now. In that time from the beginning, there have been tons of drops, both so-so and the good stuff you normally spend lots of gold on in the bazaar. Lots of plants, gear, a few pet drops, reagents, and snacks.
If I remember correctly, I believe the last decent gear dropped was in Celestia. Also, after L58, gear in the bazaar is useless. As we get higher and higher level-wise, the gear gets worse and worse, both in stats and amount of drops.
So far in K2, my friend and I have fought many battles, and so far, I have almost nothing to show for it. A couple of hats and boots is it, along with very low-level reagents that are worth nothing. The best wands are still ones you get from packs. NONE of the crafted wands are any good, and that includes the ones dropped in Aquila (the only exception is the low-level Fire Hasta wand).
I do a lot of pet hatching. I don't see myself getting too excited about the new pets, and they will be lawn decoration, because I already have several awesome pets for each of my wizards and I don't plan on changing that.
