I don’t mean to be rude, but my god i am tilted. Please allow me to explain.
So i came back to this game after not playing for a year and a half. I’ve got about 1000 hours in it, all on official pvp servers. I was excited to be in the atmosphere of this game again, and socialize with the pretty populated server.
I don’t know where to start with the changes that are not only just bad, but bad for the game and everyone involved. I guess i’ll start with what seems the most offensive to me right now.
You made it so that the names of the people online can no longer be seen unless they type in chat. This is awful, and I can only assume you didn’t think of this because you’ve never actually played on an official server like one of us. There are people that will change their entire steam name, picture, and profile to match another person in order to impersonate them, usually to incriminate them with the server. In my case, i had been on a server for two days and a group had been banned for cheating 3 weeks prior. They came back on my 2nd day on the server and the clan leader and i got into an argument in global chat. Within an hour of this group being back, they had one of their members impersonate my profile name to put my name on an undermeshed base. This probably won’t result in me being banned, but it will result in the entire server believing i cheated. If only there was a way to prove that i was being impersonated, right? Well there isn’t anymore, because you can’t see the names of people. Battle metrics can’t show you the names of people bc you guys don’t allow player lists. And steam’s “current game” list doesn’t work either, for likely the same reason. This impersonation nonsense use to happen all the time, but it was easy to prove someone’s innocence because there were multiple of them in the player list. No longer the case.
Second point of frustration: the gimped roll dodge mechanic. Initially i actually liked this change, because previously pvp was a nightmare because it was hard to land a hit on someone with high stamina. But i realized that the long roll dodge was a bandaid fix for the AWFUL knockdown mechanics that mobs (and players) have. A rocknose can sit there infinitely knocking you down because you cannot roll away from it like before. There NEEDS to be knockdown immunity for a short period of time (3-5 seconds maybe) after you get knocked down the 1st time. Being chain-knocked over until death is not only frustrating, it’s poor design.
Also, the rot branch world boss. So frustrating, because you HAVE to let him get close to you in order for him to do an attack. This is how you create an opening to attack him. However, he has an attack that, if you are in range (which you MUST be in range to make him do anything, remember) comes out too instantly to avoid. The quick slap that causes sunder. There is no avoiding that attack if you are range of it, and you have to be in range of it in order to create openings to fight this thing.
Also, getting stuck inside of mobs. Like, why? You purposefully place 9 rocknoses within a 20 meter area and then if they get to you, you become stuck inside them all (getting knocked down infinitely lmao) and die. Same with some of the area with absurd amount of wolves in a close area.
Last point of frustration, all of the separate benches that perform the same functions the old benches did. Why can’t dyes & potions remain in the cauldron? It makes so much sense for them to be in the cauldron. Why can’t we strip hides at an armorer’s bench anymore? That really needs its own bench?
All in all, the new systems seem so unnecessary and un-asked for, meanwhile so many of the glitches and bugs remain from years ago, and the bandaid mechanics we used to use to avoid them have all but been removed. For 3 days, this game was nothing but insufferable and frustrating. And the cherry on top is that the grind is twice as long now. Half the harvest from before. It just doesn’t feel good to play this game like it use to.
I doubt anyone read this far. If you did, you’re a legend.