Old player returning, some questions
I have not played for probably 3 solid years. I stopped at level 55 somewhere in Season 1. I play a pillar Karok. Upon returning today I noticed some concerning changes in the game. It seems to have gotten a *ton* easier. Bosses that were previously hard for me to kill (like the spider at the end of Hidden) are incredibly weak now. Leveling seems to go much faster, I used to spend a day or two grinding for a single level-up and now it takes 30 minutes. Most of the challenge seems to be gone and the game feels *very* unbalanced in my favor now.
Can anyone give me a tl;dr on what's changed in the last 3 years and why the game feels so different now? What should I be doing to get re-acquainted? Is it safe to just keep pushing ahead with the story, can I trust that later Seasons will bring back the game's challenging aspects?
Edit: for anyone interested, my username is FullAuto and I play on the NA server.
Posted Nov 19, 2018, 3:11 AM UTC · edited
The biggest change is RISE update. That's when everything changes. They removed all the raid status of all S1 and S2 content. So if you want to get Seal of Bravery, you need to do S3 Raids or Royal Army Raid (RAR).
Speaking of Royal Army Raid, it is now only ONE RAR per day; they are rotating everyday. You need minimum of 10 people to start and 12 people max. The daily reset is now midnight PST instead of 9AM PST.
With that removal of raid status on S1 and S2, all content on S1 and S2 is now soloable. Most of dungeons are now only Normal with exception of previously raid maps that will have Hero mode after you do normal mode. The difficulty of normal is set to the previously easy mode. You can run regular map maximum of 5 times daily (this includes previously raid map that has been converted to normal maps). The map are now max 4 people (down from 8), with exception of Redeemer map which i believe still take 8 people.
If you want to experience this "balance" you seek, get to 70 by doing S1 story, get to Malina and finish S2 story, then do S2 boss maps to reach 90, then get the free +12 level 90 equipment to do S3 contents. All those difficult maps you used to experience in S1 and S2 will be there on S3.
One thing to note, all those expensive materials for crafting has been simplified into different levels of additives and pigments. All the old expensive mats are useless now.
Thanks for the explanation. Interesting that mat farming is useless now, that's mainly what I used to do in-game.
Is the +12 level 90 stuff temporary? I know at 90 you got +10 gear, but when did it change to +12? I recently came back and got temp +12 stuff for being a returning player.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Vindictus/comments/9yq87b/vindictus_new_level_90_freebies_are_insane/
Yeah, it's permanent and I do believe it can be further enhanced past +12 unlike the predecessor. Just don't blow it up.
Oh wow. That's insane that they did that. Pretty cool that they listened to players on that matter.
Edit: And to answer your question on that thread, the armor is the same when you are a returning player. All three of my 94+ chars got it but it's temporary.
Can you screenshot one piece of the armor?