28 days later after the expansion, oh wait ...

Cristalwhite - Harshlands

Dear PWI Support,
this Ticket is meant to be as a simple information/status report/point of view
about PWI after the expansion from my site to you.

[...]

First of all i want to talk about things that did not change after the expansion:
--
PWI has many issues in many things but one of the major problem is that game content
became useless or unused by the players over the time. The reasons are many.

I talk about things like the "Palace of Nirvana", which became useless after you released the new "Nation Wars"-Event.
"Palace of Nirvana" had one major problem from the beginning:
You need to run it to often to be able to craft anything with the materials which you earn in Nirvana.
I talk about like 100 runs for a single piece of G15 Armor.
You need 6 pieces so 600 runs, and G15 is outdated by G16 armor.
Fortunately "Nation Wars" made it possible for everyone to obtain G15 pretty fast now,
but "Nirvana" became totally useless because its simply not worth to run a single run.
I complained about it in the past via Ticket and on Forum but over a year nothing changed.

"Faction Base Trials" is the next example.
It was to hard from the beginning and the reward was to low compared to the time you need
to spend to obtain anything. Fortunately the Trials are hidden part of "Perfect World"
which normal players will not even recognize and the rewards were replaced by "Nation Wars"-Forges.
But it is still unused Game-Content like the "Palace of Nirvana".

After the disabling of Hyper-Exp-Stone in "Frostcovered City", this dungeon became now a part of that list too.
And we can also add the low level dungeon now too (Cave Of the Vicious, Den of Rabid, Firecrag Grotto),
to this list, even if there are now "Nuemas" in the low level instances and some reawakening quest,
but from my point of view there is no real use for them anymore, there is not even a Bounty Hunter quest inside.
--
Break.
What i talk about above is that PWI has plenty unused game-content and that this has an effect on the player's feeling.
Beside the dead game-content there are many contents which does not match
between the things you would receive by doing them and the ability todo those things.
For example: "Twilight Temple" or short "TT"
"TT" is doable without any problem at level 100 and with G15 or better armor. (Or G12 APS)
But in "TT" you would farm material for lower armor than that, so you would expect that
someone who is farming "TT" would not already have better armor, would you?
But what armor is lower than the armor of "Twilight Temple"? Back in the old days
there was only armor from npc or 3*** (3 star) armor lower than "TT"-armor.
But with that armor it took ages to defeat a boss in "TT".
It took so long that it was not worth it for people with bad armor so they did not really run it.
Instead they found ways to generate money and buy material from other players who could do the same dungeon
much much faster.

"Twilight Temple" is a example but can be seen on the dungeon "The Lunar Glade" (which additionally cost 3 million coins to enter)
and "Warsong City".

Ok, TO THE POINT:
A major problem of PWI is, that the game is looking very dead for new players,
because they will not see the majority of the content at all because it is either not worth doing it,
hidden in special zones like a faction base (marshall or higher who can see the trial quest?)
or because it is to hard todo it for them alone (or even with 2~3 friends).
So new player end up in generating money (Charge Zen or farm in game) and just buy everything they need.
But why would you charge Zen for a Game where so many game content seems dead or unfair?
And here it becomes a economical issue for PW.
You want to attracted new players and people who want to charge Zen,
but new players meet only a maximum of 5 players till they arrive in the major City.
The major City is filled up with many people but 80% are AFK or/and in Catshop mode.
As soon as they leave the major City/'s they are almost alone on the map.
Only a few HotSpots are left over where they can still meet some people but its rare.
The majority of elite-players are hidden in the reawakening zone of "Primal World" or "Morai".
The special Zone of "Momaganon" and "Lothranis" are only used for cultivation quests,
the dungeon "Seat of Torment" and "Abaddonn" and Herb-Farming.

Expnasion:
Before the Expansion, it was not worth doing all the quest which were available.
Only a few special quest where actually worth doing it.
I know this because i did every possible quest when i start with my very first character on "Harshlands" 4 years ago.
After the expansion i started the new class "Stormbringer" and started again all the quests.
I was very surprised and happy how fast i was able to level up and even earn a valuable amount of money just by doing quest.
Unfortunately i leveled up so fast just by all the quest, that i soon run into a level restriction on the quest,
where i could not complete a quest because i was already to high. I created a Ticket for that case.
Basically its not a big deal but it give a bad impression to new players and give you a idea how inconsistent the quest design is.
After the "Earthguard"-Expansion i personally already thought myself that there are TO many Quest.
It was so much that no one really would be able to finish all the quest without leveling up to high for the remaining quests.

The Expansion made it worth doing the quests, but i think there are to many quests at all.

Personal confusion:
I created this Ticket because i just started a new character and realized,
that i only saw 3 people in the new start area "Celestial Vale". Thinking about the fact,
that the expansion is not even 1 month old, i found it sad.
When Earthguards came out, even one month later, there were still many many people in the new part of the Map.
Thinking about the fact that the new start zone is only used for level 1~20 and that this can be skipped with the
power level up item, i came to the conclusion, that this new start area, even if it awesome designed, will be dead game content too.

PW is putting so much time in creating new content that i do not understand why no one just reawaken the old content.
It should be much less of effort but the impact on pwi would be much much bigger.

Suggestion:
For example. Rank9 is the total endgame gear. It is only available from boutique.
It will not hurt PWI if "Lunar Glade" and "Twilight Temple" would become much much easier or more rewarding
and if the fee on "Lunar" would be removed.
People should be able to farm G10~G12 equipment on their own within a reasonable time and
enjoying the game content without relying on Rank9-Elite-Power-Aps-Super-Speed-Farmers to buy from them.
And also Nirvana could be get reawaken to be more rewarding and easier todo.
They all were never be meant to be a challenge for Rank9/G16 people,
they be meant to farm lower armor from lower people.

Give the content back to the lower level people and reawaken pwi.
Remove the Level restriction on G1 - G15 armor.
(I dont see any reasons, you need still the attributes
to wear it and it would be more fair compared to reawaken characters and: Level difference > than armor)
Remove any level restriction of the majority of Quests (Why can i be to high?)

Final Thoughts:
PWI has high potential but many things need to be fixed
The expansion changed many many basic things for new players.
I see many many improvements and the new classes bring some interesting things to discover.
It is a lot of fun but it doesn't last long.
There is still much to be done for a major improvement and long term motivation.
And i did not even started to talk about PvP, Tomes, primal skills, rank 8 second recast, Undercurrent Hall.

thanks.
cristal

p.s.: this is a copy from a ticket

WannaBM - Archosaur

Eh is it any use bothering those poor indian student workers with this ?

tinkerbell76

tl; dr

...but it does shed (some) light on why players with valid ticket-inquiries are in a queue a mile long.

Chrisalys - Dreamweaver

I did read believe it or not. But 100% sure PWE won't bother giving you attention unless you have cashed over 10k USD in this account b:bye

Now really, you're expecting PWI to be projected and designed as good games are, PWI is not a good game at all.

I could mention some Korean, Japanese and American MMORPGs I have played here, compare where they fail and where they succeed, but forum 'rules' prohibits from mentioning other MMORPGs.

But, I believe you may have played a 32Gb+ Korean Action-MMORPG which went from P2P to F2P, and that game is everything PWI is not: Easy to farm, easy to gear up, enjoyable, stunning graphics and effects, possiblity to participate in a "System-Balanced" PvP that equalizes everyone. But, that game suffers from the "Way too easy" syndrome and they're trying to fix this.

A game must be challenging, yes to a certain point.
But when the game is WAY TOO OVER-HARDENED and you can PAY to bypass all challenge that is called "Pay to Win".

Also, the biggest fail of PWI is having endgame gears to be cash-shop only. That is outrageous.
Yet, meh. I don't give a ****, I play my lame alts casually, I don't spend a dime and I do what I can to troll people who takes this game too serious...

Because really, this game is not worth of being taken serious, being that not even their devs/publishers take it serious anyways.

LuckingFoco - Raging Tide

OP sounds way too ticket happy

DionDagger - Dreamweaver

Chrisalys - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Also, the biggest fail of PWI is having endgame gears to be cash-shop only.

I agree with everything you said up til this. This is BS. I and plenty of others have farmed gears close to or basically end game without cashing. Just because you are not able, doesn't mean its 100% cash shop. You can get items from the boutique without spending real money.

opkossy

... Why was this even a ticket? This sort of thing should go in like the Suggestion Box or something, not be a ticket.

Dx

Cristalwhite - Harshlands

OPKossy wrote: »

... Why was this even a ticket? This sort of thing should go in like the Suggestion Box or something, not be a ticket.

Dx

because i do not understand the communication way of PW and if and who actually read forum posts. I felt like they should know this.




i know i know ... but .. i wanted ...

Chrisalys - Dreamweaver

DionDagger - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I agree with everything you said up til this. This is BS. I and plenty of others have farmed gears close to or basically end game without cashing. Just because you are not able, doesn't mean its 100% cash shop. You can get items from the boutique without spending real money.

One can get R9 gears from in game... As long as someone else cashed in for them.
Because you can't get medals of glory by pure in-game, and saying you can get 205 million mysterious chip in-game is also foolish, since it would take much longer than 200 years to do so.

If no one ever cashes, no one will ever have endgame gears.

And the same goes for War Avatar Catalysts.

Means, the fewer persons cashing in to buy those items to sell, more expensive and more effort is necessary to make endgame gears.
Which tends to make someone's gears cheaper in time/effort than the other's.

What in all this do you not understand?

Now, I understand that the game requires maintenance, for reference a single High-performance cloud computer goes for 4000 USD monthly rental.
But with all the little money grab mechanics such as fashions, flyers, packs, charms, utilitaries like auto-recovery & teleport bell, and more they can achieve a decent amount.

Now I don't complaing much about those gears being there on the shop, my ranting is about it being cash-shop ONLY and no way to get it from in-game mechanics.

Aubree - Dreamweaver

Chrisalys - Dreamweaver wrote: »

This is the point Dione Daniels wannabe, if no one ever cashes, no one will ever have endgame gears.

Means, the fewer persons cashing in to buy those items to sell, more expensive and more effort is necessary to make endgame gears.

What in all this do you not understand?

They don't know any other way than pay to gear. I disagree wholeheartedly with cash for gears, but PW can't make a business model any other way.

TT is easy to farm. Cost to open is minimal, lunar is an effective coin sink. I don't see change needed for either of those.

The amount of time/money they sink into creating some of these instances just to see them go unused after later update, is disturbing. I can only imagine what we could have had instead.

Peccable - Raging Tide

OPKossy wrote: »

... Why was this even a ticket? This sort of thing should go in like the Suggestion Box or something, not be a ticket.

Dx

aka the trashcan for complaints b:laugh

Joe - Morai

28 days? WTF? It's been 22 days since the expansion has launched..

Cotillion - Dreamweaver

OP seems to have had a lot of unrealistic and unfounded expectations from the expansion (and the intern-based support system too that has nothing to do with the actual implementation of things in game, I might add).

This was most likely skimmed over and deleted as it has no real direct problem with the game that can be fixed via support.
People using the support system like this would also contribute to slowing down the response time to people who are using ticket support for actual in-game problems.

Fail_BM - Raging Tide

that i only saw 3 people in the new start area "Celestial Vale". Thinking about the fact,
that the expansion is not even 1 month old, i found it sad.

Not surprising at all, most of those new players at celestial vale were only alts. PW has a really hard time attracting new players with the reputation they actualy have.

It will not hurt PWI if "Lunar Glade" and "Twilight Temple" would become much much easier or more rewarding
and if the fee on "Lunar" would be removed.
People should be able to farm G10~G12 equipment on their own within a reasonable time and
enjoying the game content without relying on Rank9-Elite-Power-Aps-Super-Speed-Farmers to buy from them.

We still need that money sick, there is still too many coins out there thanks to the bots. Also, I have seen small factions doing lunar runs for the drops, you don't need OP people or R9 for a lvl 95 instance (be aware you can still get your G16 through TT, so lunar G16 is an unnecessary luxury).

Remove the Level restriction on G1 - G15 armor.

Level restrictions are there for a reason, it is not hard to figure out why most games have level restrictions for their items.

Also, if you want to talk about non used instances, there is Valley of Reciprocity [alpha, beta and gamma], that have been ignored since BH was added to the game.

camoodii

Here are some smaller things I would of love to seen fix.

Quest items, that is items that state they are quest item on them and can not be used as anythhing else should go in the...QUEST ITEM TAB! So simple but PWE can't seem to get that.

Bigger HP and MP pots. We have way more HP and MP then we did when crab meat and Herb pots where introduced you would think they would make some bigger pots! With that I will add bigger charms too.

More space in our bag and bank, you keep giving us more stuff to hold and use but not more space! Extend the bag/ bank more! Or put in more tabs. A Gem bag would be awesome for those that rune craft for example!

Mods in world chat to cut out some of the more inappropriate stuff, mean the stuff that is against PWEs own ToS.

Those and some other stuff that I can't at the moment think of but might add in a later post as it comes to me.

Cristalwhite - Harshlands

Cotillion - Dreamweaver wrote: »

OP seems to have had a lot of unrealistic and unfounded expectations from the expansion (and the intern-based support system too that has nothing to do with the actual implementation of things in game, I might add).

This was most likely skimmed over and deleted as it has no real direct problem with the game that can be fixed via support.
People using the support system like this would also contribute to slowing down the response time to people who are using ticket support for actual in-game problems.

I did not have any expectation on the expansion, because by looking in the past i know what a expansion in PWI means. I was only making a statement about the current game status. nothing more.

And now, since you obviously know how the pwi information channel works, tell me where i should have send this information too! I dont believe that anyone beside the moderators read the forum and i dont believe that the moderators have a relyable communication channel to the responsible staff.

I know they will probably not read it, but it was worth a try, don't you think?

Fail_BM - Raging Tide wrote: »

...

We still need that money sick, there is still too many coins out there thanks to the bots. Also, I have seen small factions doing lunar runs for the drops, you don't need OP people or R9 for a lvl 95 instance (be aware you can still get your G16 through TT, so lunar G16 is an unnecessary luxury).

yes, as i said, it is possible to run either Lunar or TT with bad gear but good people to help.
But it will take to long and to many runs for just one piece of armor.
I am able to solo most of the TT Bosses but i admit i am lazy and rather buy that stuff from
other players since its not to hard to earn the coins. I just think that new player will totally miss out this whole instance if they do the same as me simply because it take already 1 minute just to kill one monster, not even the boss.

Fail_BM - Raging Tide wrote: »

Level restrictions are there for a reason, it is not hard to figure out why most games have level restrictions for their items.

I agree, but with reborn characters who can wear full rank 9 set at level 40, i disagree on the armor restriction.

Fail_BM - Raging Tide wrote: »

Also, if you want to talk about non used instances, there is Valley of Reciprocity [alpha, beta and gamma], that have been ignored since BH was added to the game.

[/QUOTE]
I forgot about it yes thank you.

camoodii wrote: »

Quest items, that is items that state they are quest item on them and can not be used as anythhing else should go in the...QUEST ITEM TAB! So simple but PWE can't seem to get that.

Bigger HP and MP pots. We have way more HP and MP then we did when crab meat and Herb pots where introduced you would think they would make some bigger pots! With that I will add bigger charms too.

More space in our bag and bank, you keep giving us more stuff to hold and use but not more space! Extend the bag/ bank more! Or put in more tabs. A Gem bag would be awesome for those that rune craft for example!

i agree to this statement

camoodii

Thought of something else. EVERYTHING should stack! With the limited space we have everthing that is the same and can be stacked, should stack. That means the Genie EXP cubes all shards, gems and stones, everything that doesn't have stats on it that could be different should stack!

Also PWE really, really needs to over haul the Genie system. There are no class skills for the new classes but some of the skills that are only useable but the old classes, by that I mean Barb, veno, cleric, barb, bm and wizzy could be used by the new classes. So why not take those restriction off. But really the whole thing needs to be updated.

Cotillion - Dreamweaver

Cristalwhite - Harshlands wrote: »

I did not have any expecation on the expansion, because by looking in the past i know what a expansion in PWI means. I was only making a statement about the current game status. nothing more.

And now, since you obviously know how the pwi information channel works, tell me where i should have send this information too! I dont believe that anyone beside the moderators read the forum and i dont believe that the moderators have a relyable communication channel to the responsible staff.

I know they will probably not read it, but it was worth a try, don't you think?

Sorry if I misread your expectations, but given the title of the thread and the opening statement of the ticket clearly stating 'about things that did not change after the expansion' really implies you expected things from it that were never talked about or even rumored.


I don't know how PWE info channels work. I do know that the ticket support team is a small group of interns who not only deal with PWI, but the whole of PWE's game library.
Frankly, this is wasting their time as it has nothing to do with them, bogs down an already slow system making people wait who have actual in game issues. PWE has no development team here in NA. They are not allowed to alter the game code in any way, shape or form. They merely localize and publish the game here.
You're probably right about the forum stuff being an unreliable form of communication. The only place I would think was fitting for this to be would be in the Quality Corner section of the forums as that was put there for issues like the ones you have. I have to assume that some of that is passed along.
Aside from translating the whole thing to Mandarin (I believe is the native language for PW's dev team) and sending it to Wanmei, I don't think there's much else you can do.

I think some of your points are valid and would be nice if they were addressed......it just bothers me that when people are having trouble getting support and response times are slow that tickets like this have to be filtered out from the ones with current, actual issues.

freygin

Imo selling R9 in boutique was the root of all bad, it derailed from CN server after that while wanmei would still develop this game based on their own server, like when the patch arrived, the nw forges were using CN forges.

R9 is OP and supposed to be hard to obtain so it won't populate the server by too many. Then came NV g3 to counter it a bit. One cashshop, one can be farmed, but both surpass any other gears even from today's content (R8 g3) or probably a few future patches. The forges are different too.

I wonder if people will be farming in the new desert instance or it'll become useless right off the bat.

Kieve - Dreamweaver

It's amusing how the old adage "the more things change..." remains true. According to the forum header, I have not set paw on these boards since April 2012.
And yet, nearly three years later, I see the same problems, the same complaints, and the same hopelessness. The status quo has, barring some minor details, not changed at all.

Cristalwhite - Harshlands wrote: »

And now, since you obviously know how the pwi information channel works, tell me where i should have send this information too! I dont believe that anyone beside the moderators read the forum and i dont believe that the moderators have a relyable communication channel to the responsible staff.

I know they will probably not read it, but it was worth a try, don't you think?

Cristalwhite, for you I break my cold deathlike slumber to impart some wisdom - something that took me a couple years and some rather hard and bitter lessons to learn.
There is no channel.
The flow of information is downward only, from China, through translators and marketers and sales reps and all manner of people - some good, some not - whose sole interest is ensuring the fading light of Perfect World International still returns enough revenue each quarter to justify keeping the servers up.
The furthest up the chain you can get is a community manager, if you're lucky enough for your words to warrant their attention. And their job is not to fix things for you or to better the game on your behalf (or anyone's), but to soothe the masses. They are a buffer between the ones who make decisions on how the game is managed (note: not designed!), and the players who still care enough to try influencing those decisions.

Now yes, over the years I've seen some clever ideas, such as mailing hardcopy letters to the PWE honchos (now ARC management, I suppose), or even translating and mailing letters to China. If you're feeling particularly optimistic, you could go that route. I've yet to hear of a case where it made any difference, but there's a first for everything I suppose.

But to answer your question, honestly:

Cristalwhite - Harshlands wrote: »

I know they will probably not read it, but it was worth a try, don't you think?

No, I don't think it was worth a try. I did once, and had that foolishness beaten out of me quite hard by then-CM Frankieraye. Other staff have come and gone since, but in the end it never matters. Your concerns can only go so high before they're ignored by a level of management interested only in the bottom line and how much is left in your wallet.

I suppose the obvious question is, aside from the very "doom & gloom" response, why am I even back here to post such a thing? Partly out of nostalgia - there was a point, a long time ago, when I did love PWI and could not wait to see what new content it held.
But mostly? Because I thought you deserved to know the truth.

PWE/ARC/Wanmei is not listening, and they never have been.

Cristalwhite - Harshlands

Kieve - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I suppose the obvious question is, aside from the very "doom & gloom" response, why am I even back here to post such a thing? Partly out of nostalgia - there was a point, a long time ago, when I did love PWI and could not wait to see what new content it held.
But mostly? Because I thought you deserved to know the truth.

PWE/ARC/Wanmei is not listening, and they never have been.[/COLOR]

well, tyvm, and hello old pwi player b:bye
i was already guessing that there is no way.
but i was bored and felt sad when i saw the situation of pwi only a couple weeks after a huge expansion. somehow i feel like they burned money only for a short little peek.

Quilue - Sanctuary

The game thrusts new players in direct competition against richer and older players who have spent the money and the time almost right off the bat. Level means jack ****, there can be enormous gear difference between one level 100 to the next.

This is presumably so they would be titillated to pay a bunch of money. However, the amount of money to do this right off the bat is so enormous people don't see this as a good trade-off, plus this is not working because no one wants to gush money at an older game. Even though players have proven to be able to reach endgame without charging money themselves, but those players that made it have been in the game for years, spent lots of time making coin their way. Yet again, why spend all this time on an older game?

This game's business model and design was not for longevity.