So I’ve been pandering about in the forums the last couple days and this crusade to release all the classes in current gen (KR/RU) to the recent western drop. I’m not a developer, and I don’t know exactly what is involved in terms of development. What I can say is over the past 25 years I have been coming across many platforms and games. My MMO experience started with MuDs (Multiuser domains) and of course evolved into the games today. Whenever a release goes live across globe that was previously released in other regions this is nearly ALWAYS the way it happens. A near identical, perfect example is Star Ocean - Anima for mobile. As a gotcha game progress and characters available were withheld and released over time. This of course upsets people because they wanna play with toons like 2B etc. But here are some typical reasons that people either may not know about, or they do and just want stuff now.
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Localization of classes - Clearly this was already an issue. They cut the 1st 10 levels out of each class and you literally start at 10 and go right into advanced classes. Combing through addition classes to fit what may or may not seem appealing to the majority (Take note you might not be the majority).
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Balance - I’ve looked around and can’t say for sure, but if it’s similar to other games it begs to ask: Was every class in the game prior to legion raids? Prior to PVP? How will this change the difficulty of content that will release…will these classes create METAS early and then some of the other classes will simply be neglected. Like I said maybe in KR/RU they were all in play for Argos, but if they weren’t then maybe they want to ensure an “authentic” as possible experience. Yes I know then why not stop us at T1/T2…I’m guess because that level of authenticness might be a bit much with the access of knowledge the average player has and will greatly diminish the time it takes to make discoveries when all the guides are already there.
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Work Load - So the games exist, but definitely require transition into the western version of the game. I don’t know what that requires, but I’m guessing time…labor…these kinds of things. I’m sure the office isn’t sitting around looking for things to do and laughing at everyone asking to play their one and only class for all time. I’m sure there are things scheduled WAYY out, so now we have to interrupt that schedule, replan. Or they could just drive them with whips if thats what people would prefer. We could even rename them EPICGATE games.
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Class development - This one is pretty simple but from technical stand point would make sense to most people that have played a particular MMO for lengths of time, especially challenging some of the most difficult content a game has. When classes are added throughout a games tenor there are complexities added to these classes…certain levels of performance expectation, certain knowledge bases that the individual should understand to make these classes function. For the small player base that is porting over from KR/RU these might all be known, but to a new player certain things won’t make sense until they play and understand this concept. New classes tend to be developed around more complex systems then their older counterparts. This might have nothing to do with it, but it is certainly a consideration.
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Content feed - Yes there will be the much hated aspect of content feed to keep the majority (remember you may be the minority) to find new things with which to play with. New class releases and suddenly there is something new to learn and develop. This content feed is probably not aimed at those stating “My main isn’t releasing for like 6 months and I’m probably going to quit playing”. In fact nothing about this game is even remotely directed at you. If you did pump a character to 1350 over 500+ hours of play, I can almost certainly say it went right from you wallet to the game, because to do so comfortably would have required numerous alts maximizing content. Those individuals are short term gain. Not long term investment.
These might not be literally any of the multitude of reasons behind why classes are being released the way they are. And the developers may and most likely will rearrange certain things to help make as many people happy as possible. The above is just to show that any problem that exists can have any number of complications that are just not known, and probably never will be.
Here is what I can tell you from my experience. If you really are interested in making this game a lasting investment and plan to participate with other players:
- Develop minimally 6 characters (Abyss dungeon gold cap) and level them. Can do so in whatever order you choose but they should all be brough up very similarly.
- Understand every single piece of content and from the respective roles you encounter in that content. What classes do what, what mechanics are frequently used, and will likely be used as the basis of future mechanics.
- Understand that player power is more than a gear score. Player power is derived almost continuously. 4 points of crit for a side quest chain doesn’t sound like a lot. 10…20…quest/content rewards later it starts to become 25% of the value of T3 jewelry.
- For the LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY…Read, comprehend and use engravings appropriately. If you have like 3 items at level 1 and two of them are red…you are not even in the ballpark of doing it right.
- Pursue collectables - many of these rewards are skill points, stat points, or other very utilizable rewards. Same with side quests as stated before…many quests reward the same including battle and strong healing items intended for end game content.
- Get used to “Another day, another failed hone”. It happens, it sucks…some worse than others but its a core mechanic. It’s easy to forget the string of easy successes in light of one string of bad failures.
And if you don’t care about playing with others or min maxing to any degree then play it how you want, but with so little desire to put forth any effort, I’d hope the developers wound not cater class releases to you.