Suggestion How to keep/make the old players return to DSO

Hey there!

My name is Oskari and I come from Finland

I have been playing this game for a long time and during that time I have had a lot of long and short breaks. All of those were due to new updates or current issues that made the game less really not that enjoyable at all. Every now and than I would come back and I would be disappointed yet again. I would play for a day or at most a week and than another 2 months of break. Nowadays the number 1 reason why I want to stop playing DSO is that all my old characters are POOP thanks to the equipment updates. Which is also why many others left. So much hard work for op items at the time has gone down the drain. I'm really struggling to start all of it all over again.

1rst suggestion: Give every old character(if not possible than to all the characters) 13 refining thingies to update their armor. They will still have some old armor stored but at least now they can update their main set and go farming for better gear. (maybe a unique emote/costume for us old players, eh?)

In the good old days you could exploit the game mechanics a bit which was the reason the game was so popular. Farming with XP blocks as a low level character was the thing everybody loved to do. Everybody could do it if they had friends so people got together more often and it was all free. You could than go to the pvp arena and show off your cool gear and laugh at the people who would call you a payer and most importantly challenge the actual payers. This was the reason the pvp arenas were so full. This was the time when you could also be a "runner" which I was and I loved it. All of the arena coming together as one to hunt me down because all of them disliked runners so much :dd.

Nowadays there is no xp block so if you get lucky and find good gear that very gear will be obsolete in a few levels which you will get because there is no xp block to stop that. So all of the fun of gearing your self up with the best gear in low level(or any level before lvl 50-) is gone because it's not possible anymore as far as I'm aware. You can try paying but there are not enough payers to fill up queues to start pvp matches (in lower levels). Also nowadays the unique items dropped in the wilderness are worth nothing if you only want melt them.

2nd Suggestion: Enable/create the Xp blocking mechanism. Make it so when 2-5 people join a group they have an option to stop gaining exp. This will stop people from leveling up so quickly as many of them will want try to make a good low lvl pvp character. Pvp queues would be filled with players wanting to test their new stuff that they farmed. Slowly but surely they will level up by doing pvp and move on to the next pvp arena. Meaning that the arenas would be filled with players once more. The pvp in the lower levels will return to it's former glory. (bunch of kids screaming "noob" at everybody who kills them in the arena :3 ) Than eventually they will reach the lvl 55 though it will take a while if they don't do pve without xp block. That doesn't matter because they most likely already have a lvl 55 character which they will start using again because they have regained they interest in the game. So more active players at lvl 55 meaning more people doing pvp at that lvl.

This change with make the game thrive in the long run. At first it all of it will be quite slow because a lot people haven't heard about this change but eventually the message will get to them and old players will start returning. This makes the game more popular which mean more people talking about the game which means more new players and all of this means more people spending money so DSO team should be happy. Lower level pvp is once again restored as well as the games future has been secured.

3nd Suggestion: Improve the unique items! Give back the better melting value of random unique items found in the wilderness because most of the time people wont use them nowadays anyway so at least that would give them some value. Than it would actually be nice to find unique items even if you don't use them instead of it being a depressed "oh". Also every unique should have it's own unique value and all the unique items you get from the normal quests should be updated for example the Golden Horn Cap.

4th Suggestion: Make the characters looks more customizable. A small but a nice change if you want a bit more players. Players want to make the character look like them in their fantasies(idk :d). I would personally would rejoice if this section of the game got improved a bit. Make new presets and make it so you can choose the color for your hair etc. They should make it so you can choose different colors from a separate color palate and the hair styles and different beards would be it's own selection with the color you have chosen.(Also make the Npc:s in the world look more like the art that is shown when you talk to them)

5th suggestion: *Uniqueness intensifies* The game can get boring quite quick because you keep killing the same monsters that are just in different colors so make the monsters of every map more unique to that map(Even slight changes to the models will do). Also make the monsters look more random aka more models for 1 type of a monster(I know it can be a lot of work ).
Items more unique to the different maps. Make lvl 37-(40?) items dropped from the Atlantis unique to that area instead of you getting the same looking lvl 37-(40?) items from everywhere, it doesn't make sense(getting fishy gear from everywhere is silly). Make more variations with them. Each map has it's own type of armor it can drop or something along those lines.(Reuse some of the current textures maybe?) So the only difference with these items are the graphics/textures meaning no new stats. They aren't unique items they are items with unique textures.

6th suggestion: Improve graphics and the options for them! Start making items and the world more HD so people with beefy computers will be more interested in the game. More options in the settings for lower and higher graphics so players with potato computers can join the fun as well. Graphics are already good in this game so this part isn't as important.

It's simple bring/bring back more players you also bring people who want to trow their money at you. The first 3 suggestions are the most important the rest is just luxury updates. I know the last 3 suggestions will be a lot of work for the graphics team but it will bring you a lot of money if you do good enough job of it.

 

1 I don't agree with prizes for old players or new players.
I will consider a good change from BP if they will allow old players to move some value from an old character to a new character on the same account - commun stash or a bag to transfer gems, runes, and other stuff on a new character on the same account.Maybe i don't like my old ranger anymore and you want to grow a mage why don't they let us transfer our value from a character to another?(value i understand gems, runes, items, glyphs,cores and so on )
This way they grow replayability of this game, they can revive and bring some money in BP pockets since you will need to buy inventory, costumes, mounts and many others for that new character.
To prevent abuses they need to make that special tab or bag to be unlocked with a quest or an achievement at max level only after you finish all quest from parallel worlds.
The shape of this consumable bag that allow you to transfer between characters can be like a stash inside with just few slots that will vanish after transfer.
First bag can be free as a quest reward and will disappear after transaction and after that you should buy another one from gnob with drakens , that way we limit those non essential transfers between characters.
Also those next bags can have exponential increased prices like slots on equipment first 2400, second 5600 and the last one 12600 drakens.... to prevent you to transfer things that has low value.
This bag thing that i suggest here can be something nice for old players.
(i hope this time i write that much clear and you can understand, sorry for my english)
2. Yes they should rework all unique items from level 1 to 50 .
3 You don't need xp block is not a good thing for game. I have done pvp on low lev is fun but they should not let us block xp, maybe they should give less xp on arena per kill but not lock the xp.Was fun but is not a solution to slaughter players in arena and is p2win based so i don't recommend.
4.Agree but your character is covered by items so they should put on shop some invisible paint that will make items invisible so that others can see how your character looks.I understand at 4. that you want more facial expressions, body shape, with or without muscle, tattoos, eye colors and so on, but how someone can see that if you wear helmet, armor? you need to disable them to make them invisible.Ok i understand that you want only you to see them but it will be sucha waist to make that customisation and no one else to see that.
5. Don't agree, it will become much boring to farm one single map for a certain unique that you need. Think about elemental cores. Is much fun to farm an item in many maps to not get bored.
6.I think dso has a nice graphic for a 1.4 GB game. Many players that play dso have bad PC they cant run a game with HD graphic so for me is ok.There are games with better graphic if you want, i have seen a ARPG made with CryEngine V and it looks outstanding.

 

Your argument's haven't improved. I still stand by what I've said in my suggestions.

(3.+) XP blocking mechanism is something I'm still very much for even after seeing this reply. This change would bring back the DSO pvp in the lower levels (lvl 5-49). All the low op characters and everybody else has rushed to lvl 55 because Exp block was removed so there was no reason to stay still. Rest of them started to level up or quit because there were no pvp matches anymore. Now if it were to be brought back you would see a rapid growth in the lower level arenas and in the long run a large amount of new players in lvl 55 pvp as well.
The Whole point is to make the lover lvl pvp thrive again therefore: The sharing mechanism you suggested would only make the lower lvl pvp purely pay to win with payed equipment from premium stores full of gems. Normal players would have no change. If it wont be for the lover lvls then it wont solve the problem that my suggestion was trying to solve.

(4.) I was more thinking about more presets and choices for hair and facial features etc. (Different looking faces) Also they should make it so you can choose different colors from a separate color palate and the hair styles and different beards would be it's own selection with the color you have chosen. You can see them if you look at your inventory and you have the the right gear. A little thing to make the game more fun. The new player will appreciate this as well.

(5.) What are you talking about?? It's just the looks that would change not the stats just textures/graphics. I used the word "Unique" as an adjective.

Unique
/juːˈniːk/
adjective

1. 1.
   being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
   "the situation was unique in British politics"
   

   synonyms:

   distinctive, individual, special, especial, idiosyncratic, quirky, eccentric, isolated

(6.+) Graphics are good but there is always room for improvements. And as I mentioned these 3 last ones (4-6) were the less important changes which they should look at later.
I will not go searching for another game rather I would like to see this game thrive which is why I am here in the first place. So many good memories connected to this game. All of my friends and "enemies" quit the game. Many of them would return and also others outside of our friend group if these suggestion were to be taken seriously and implemented.

Your English wasn't that great (Still) so it's (still a bit) difficult to interpret what you were trying to say. This is not me being mean, it's just how I see it (Still).

I made a second and a better response but it was deleted because reasons(i know the reason but it was bad)??:dd(This is the edited version of my first response)

 

Don't worry, man. If the current version of PvP on the TS is what we're gonna see on the live severs (big IF), then tell all your twink friends to come back. They won't need to farm, just need a credit card to build an OP twink. XD That's all the hint I'm going to give here on the forums about how to make a twink in this new era of base stats pvp.

 

My friends weren't "payers", they were just hard farmers so they wont come back if DSO Team implements just more Pay to win aspects in to the game. I miss the old days a lot :/ Sure some things were buggy/broken but the game all in all it was way more enjoyable. It just feels like the game isn't worth the time and effort nowadays. Quitting the game is starting to seem like the better option but still I have hope that DSO team gets their poop together and starts making better decisions.

 

I have played DSO for a number of years, one thing I've noticed is DSO has gone from having 'hard farmers' for their equipment to people who buy their way through the game. What this has done is devalued the achievements in game and made many old players move on to other MMO's but yet they continue to add more and more ways to buy your way through the game. Its come to a point where anderment is almost becoming a necessity to having a good character and keeping up with the rest of the players on DSO, I think the company has moved towards more profits than the game play and honestly i think to fix it i think removing ways to buy your way through the game would be a start. Another way i think would be to add xp blocking again, yes it made many people overpowered for their level but people liked having low level champions because there's really no point to reaching max level in the game anymore and it would make people want to grind out for their character and maybe attract others to do the same whilst still buying anderment here and there.

 

No, keep the situation as it is, XP block removal was one of the few good things bp did

Oh, the twinks cry? I don't care, screw them, i like their tears, serves them right

Yes, they liked their low level character, so that low life scum could bully new players out of the game or out of pvp, damaging the game as a whole

Keep pvp as it is and implement pvp block then, but on the condition that those low level twinks will be facing powerful level 55 characters, people who have crafted
Let's see if they'll enjoy being bullied by stronger players
I suspect the low life twink scum would not enjoy it

 

Such an absolutely stupid comment that it makes me want to answer in 2019

"Bully new players out of the game"?? How come after XP block was removed the game stopped being popular? We all were newcomers at some point! Sure it was frustrating when you were only beginning but pvp was and is optional. If you wanted to be good at it, you had to put some time and effort in to it. Pain and gain, and from that a bunch of enjoyment. We had the tool to get to the levels of the "payers" but now we don't have such things anymore. But at least the payers have also disappeared since the pvp has completely died down. Now we are all equal in that nobody plays PVP anymore! NOBODY PLAYS THE GAME ANYMORE! YEY! [EDIT] dream come true!

 

I just HAD to respond to all of this....Just Because People Pay in this game for Gems, Ander, Whatever, does not mean they are not avid Farmers and Players. Does it help u to up your Gems, YES, Does it let u Purchase Essences so u can continue to farm higher levels...YES. As for the Gear? The Unique PW Gear from Bosses and say for Full Moon and New Moon etc., u cannot buy ( and when u could purchase it, it was with Matteri or Draken, neither of which u can buy, you had / have to FARM for it). The Gear Most of your Stronger Players wear, can only be obtained through some hard and serious farming, whether u Pay or Not has Nothing to do with this. Big Point Needs to make a profit from the game in some way, and just like in real life, those willing to fork over Real Hard Earned Cash, will and SHOULD receive something advantageous to them for that money, if not, then no one would purchase a thing, Big Point would be taking a loss and guess what? No More Drakensang to play for the Non-Paying Players OR the ones willing to support the Game through Real Money Purchases. Rather than Dissing those Players who are willing to Use Real Money (and thus Give Big Point a Reason to continue giving us a Game to Play, how about coming up with a "real and reasonable" Solution? Removing the option to purchase items, will remove the Game, Period. I have low level toons and higher levels as well that I do not put a dime on, are they as good as my Pay Toon? No, nor should they be. Again, just like in real life, u want something a little bit better than what u have gotten for free, you (or someone else) is going to Pay For It. If and when I decide, it is more than I am willing to spend in the Game, then I will move on to a Game Geared more to what I am willing to spend in order to have a Good - Really Good Toon. If too many of the Spenders move on, you won't have a game to play at all, nothing is for Free, unless someone else is paying for your Free Game Play through their purchases, think about it. U can always go to X-Box, PS3, Wii, Etc. Make a one time purchase and play that, We all have a "CHOICE" here. I Pay for many Items in Drakensang for my main toon, and I make no apologies to anyone for it. Rather than putting Down what many call "Cashers and Whales", you should be thanking them for making sure Big Point is making enough Profit to allow anyone to be able to Play for Free. The Only solution I see here if all want EVEN Playing Ground, is for ALL to PAY for a subscription like, Monthly, Period. No Cash Purchases, in game. That way we would ALL be sharing the load but guess what?, THEN there would be no FREE to Play for ANYONE. I personally would welcome this, then my purchases would become Much less, and all players would be TRULY Equal. My only concern with this solution is that, there are people out there who are on VERY limited incomes, and probably come to this game because they can play for free and it brings them some enjoyment, which in my opinion is a good thing. I would hate to see that taken away from them. But for me, a Subscription would ease the load of carrying Non-Paying Players (meaning giving Big Point a Reason to Continue providing the Game at all), so I am good either way. I wear my Cape Proudly! ;-)


--------- MERGED ----------

Exploit the Game Mechanics = Cheating in my humble opinion UNLESS Twinks Play against only Other Twinks. U could have a Twink Arena, Letting it be known all who enter have "Exploited The Game Mechanics" and if that Twink enters a Normal Arena to "Show Off" how Good they are against New Players or others who choose not to or do not KNOW about Game Exploitations, They are banned from Server. Fair Play and All that. May The Best Game Exploiter (Twink) Win! Also, what are you thinking about Big Point would want to Allow "Paying" Players who are NOT Twinking either because they choose not to or more likely than not, know nothing about this whole TWINK / Game Mechanics Exploitation business, be run off by NON Paying Players. It would not be good business, trust me, which is probably One of the MAIN reason they put a stop to it. That and many a New Player who knows nothing about the game yet, would not stick around long enough to give the game a chance if every time they walked into the Arena a Twink knocked their socks off. Many which have potential to be Payers, which is the Life Blood of Big Point, or any Business for that matter. I think you have many good Ideas however, I just do not agree with the whole Twinking Business when using it against unsuspecting Players whether they be Paying Players or Free To Play Players. Best Regards.

 

the game didn't stop being popular due to XP block, those who (ab)used the XP block were a minority of players

indeed, you had to put effort into farming in pve to be good at pvp, you didn't have to be carried so that you could bully newbies
maybe the problem isn't the removal of XP block, which was good, but because they removed the incentive to farm to be good at pvp, for example

 

Okay firstly
Their graphics engine is OLD, they can only do so much with the current tech they developed over 8 years ago, so like before I have proposed html5 like some other incoming games or even better than that would be unity or unreal engine
however if they go that route the whole game will have to be remade <- maybe not a bad idea
As for their old clients etc they have had over 895000 registrations since launch <- all it takes is mailing the whole bunch yes 900k people in 1 go and they would be ALIVE

Fully agreed, this whole conversation has been reflected in other media forms too.
The concept behind gearless pvp was nice because it gives everyone a fair shot <- or so they thought.
In the end arguments can swing back and forth 1000 times but the end result in pvp speaks for itself:
Those who thought they were going to gain against players with an "unfair" advantage did not improve much at all.
It also chased away a whole multitude of players that spent years on their builds for pvp <- that even excludes the cash spent on being strong in pvp with gems.
A friend of mine pointed to something today, I never thought of it until he mentioned it. His words:
"for some reason I always feel like developers are stuck to lv 40/45 on this game"
"every set that have stable stats no matter if is dmg. resistance, hp and so on.....are extremely low compared to % lines"
And he is right, unique enchants aka plat lines broke the game, heck even blue gems is fine until you add insane percentages to them.
And like my friend mentioned percentages from set bonuses heck even base values from set bonuses
3 Dragan parts 55 damage <- its 2019 55 damage = old value green essences.
Not that I would want to have to refine my Dragan set but that green essence value would = 50% damage now as a 3 pieces bonus.
But how they change this game, so drastically heck even I tell myself sometimes it is 60k damage how does this thing not die?
Thing is you cannot make everything "next level" and then adjust everything in the game around that "next level"
Let me explain and here I will quote rak so to speak.
He calls everything stats inflations.
But the same is true for the content, so now you got 60k damage and it makes infernal 3 manageable, so whats the difference between when you had 35k damage and was able to run inf3.
Nothing, totally absolutely nothing, except the bar has been set much higher for new players.
At the same time they have created a niche and a bigger split between new and old players.
And I totally understand how players feel, heck I was there when it happened, I had just gotten everything with more gold lines than not and then boom
Everything you crafted is worthless
Start over
Now I do feel sorry for them because it makes it look like nothing they do is right <- whatever you do the players will keep leaving.
First balance throw thanks to plat enchants was the game became to easy for end game players so they left.
Then they made the game harder but that included a huge market share of the newer players struggling.
So some of them left as the bar became too high.
Multiple progress bars
Awesome idea because it keeps the players busy
entry requirements not adjusted to the multiple bars like dtu for example made them costly
now this has already been mentioned by the players, however multiple progress bars became nothing but a tool to make people spend money.
This is so so so wrong this is not what I envisioned for the players <- you know the negative effect on the player base?
So the devs would much rather milk a few players than to take bits from a lot of players.
This logic is redundant would you rather have 50k people spending 10 dollars or rather have 10k players spending 30 dollars?
Anyways like I said before xD
I talk too much.

 

Dso lost his atmosphere.. i mean about hunting on unique items and just what every next year was more boring just game die for old players i think that game goes in bad directory if developers not give players more fun just game will boring hunting for items was the best for me just like it. I remeber time when player have unique items (dragan,mortis,kali) he have very big respect and PRIDE with have it so if dso have be better it need a lot change with eventsdungeons,items) developers should inspire yourself old dso because they was just to much better than now

 

you know what's boring? Farming a boss hundreds of time, wasting essences and yet not getting anything worth wile, like a unique
Like back in those days and like now

 

OMG folks... anyone know how to use paragraphs? I am guessing from the few words and phrases my mind gleaned from the solid walls of text above, that there may be some good ideas in there...please!

I have been playing DSO a while...not as long as some but longer than many. Most of those players who I'd like to see return, left because the grind became oppressive. That may have been because of some "nerf" to their character, or because every event forced the player to grind for a resource that you needed to grind for a resource that you needed to grind...well you get it.

I don't think it is the equipment that is the issue, per se, but the effort needed to make it useful. I get that DSO needs to find a way to generate revenue. And I know that making things so difficult to succeed that paying might be a solution the player takes. However it causes many players to give up in frustration. The game ends up losing some truly wonderful players who shared their knowledge, making everyone else's experience that much better.

Until DSO changes their philosophy from one of immediate gratification to one of long-term stability, we are stuck enduring the grind until, we too, leave for greener pastures.

 

-Yes we should give everyone all for a few hours game... for everyone is good way? Look whats happend when dso added merchants ... everybody can buy everything so game fast has become boring so you know now why a lot players left the game ok but your arguments are good i know that peoples dont like lose time for nothing but is here something good because this items are more liked and unqiue for players and giving more happy when drop ok if someone dont get unique should can buy items for drakens (dark set,old dragan etc is like) game goes in bad directory for me and you can see effects

-Old players want challenge or forever left i think that search items from bosses and map is good but this must be create with head,

-Events are boring just what every year it same ...

(my problem)Players with premium/deluxe (you must have royal stone or you will noob) without this is very hard (imposible) so game is not f2p i like play free but drops are very bad... so im doing only events but this my opinion for this thopic

!!!Old draken was better in my opinion everyone who dont like olds rules must very like current dso !!!

 

Old players know deep down this game just try to twist out your soul and drop it to the void.
Thats why they wont play this grindfest game that is getting abbadoned.
Even if they would pay me I wouldn't come back, many other would agree.
Imagine saving money on shuting down each nations seperated forum pages. Thats how you shut down a game slowly.. thats how you kill communities.

 

I wasn't against removing the jesters.... but the didn't give us anther way to get the purple and oranges essence. --> game unfriendly.

I wasn't against removing the merchants at the bosses.... but they made all the monsters and especially the bosses so much more difficult that you only get there 1/2 to 1/5 as many times (if at all), thus the so called increased drop rate was cut drastically resulting in far less drops of what was being sought after. --> game unfriendly.

When I came here 5 years ago, PvP wasn't "player vs player". It was PvG... Player vs God. It wasn't fun. I went years after that without ever stepping into the arena. It was only after my mage became level 55 and someone pointed out that there was a good source of clovers that I was missing that I reluctantly entered the PvP. And only under dailies using "Play x". The few "Win x" were again disastrous.
Thus, my conclusion on the PvP topic... Twinks ruined it for many, many players. --> PvG unfriendly.

Now that I'm no longer Premium... and the fact that a mere 15 clovers is the only reward (which under current prices is worth way less than the 1 clover we used to get), and the chance to get all 3 "plays" without spending ander is nearly impossible... you won't be seeing my naked character in the arena very much if at all.

 

Loathe xp block. It results in pvp abuse.

Only way I would even consider xp block is if it resulted in a permaban for that account from any form of pvp, including arena and open world.