Larek's blog #1: Low-Level dungeons and wipe party!

    • Larek's blog #1: Low-Level dungeons and wipe party!

      Hello everybody,

      Larek here for my very first BLESS Blog!



      From time to time, I will open a thread with some quick updates from our side and some of the things we have been working on.
      It will also be a good place to get some of your feedback on some specific topics.

      As you might know, we now have our own test server. We use it to get to know the game more.
      While we are still ironing out detailed plans for QA, we try to get a "feel" of the game.
      We try to see what we like and do not like, identify what could be some tweaks necessary for our future players.
      I also use this time to create guides for the team and future Game Masters so everybody can have the information they need.


      Low-Level dungeons and wipe party

      While we can use our "Game Master" powers to explore the land faster and kill everything on our way, we also wanted to get a feel of the dungeons difficulty.
      The BLESS team went through the first two lv13 dungeons as well as the Sleeping Scale ruins (Level 20).



      How did it go?
      Hum... how shall I put this...? It was... messy...
      While we were all impressed with the beauty of the dungeon, we soon learned that we'll need to learn more about our classes...
      We went with 5 level 20 characters (Paladin / Guardian / Assassin / Mage / Ranger) equipped with "common" gear for that level.
      And we died... a lot...

      While the final boss of the dungeon was challenging, it is actually this little fella that caused us the most trouble:

      It really took us a while and a few wipes to get the mechanics and defeat him.

      We also had a lot of aggro issues and mobs going everywhere.
      The temptation to use our GM powers was very high but we did not give up.

      Clearing the dungeon was very rewarding but also left us drained of energy.
      We are now playing our classes a bit more so we can tackle the next dungeons more effectively.



      Now it is time to ask!
      • How do you feel about the lower level dungeons?
      • Did you have any issue clearing them the first time?
      • What level were you when you entered?
      • What was the best class composition for you?
      • Which dungeon was your favorite?
      • Any boss your enjoyed more than the other?
      • How many wipes did you have before clearing the dungeons?


      Let me know everything you have in mind regarding the lower level dungeons by replying to this thread! See you soon!

      Your BLESS Team

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Larek: Added pictures ().

    • Interesting, btw what do you think about the LFG for low-level dungeons or how to improve it?

      In the korean beta almost all players reached the level cap but low-level players who needed to start dungeons to get their green\blue gear were left out and they struggled to find a good low-level party to enter the dungeon..

      What about a "Mentor" system where a high level character receive some bonuses for helping a low-level player to clear his dungeon?

      Or maybe a WoW-like LFG where you need to check your role and then the LFG system will automatically teleport you to the dungeon?

      The post was edited 1 time, last by vegax87: typo ().

    • vegax87 wrote:

      Interesting, btw what do you think about the LFG for low-level dungeons or how to improve it?

      In the korean beta almost all players reached the level cap but low-level players who needed to start dungeons to get their green\blue gear were left out and they struggled to find a good low-level party to enter the dungeon..

      What about a "Mentor" system where a high level character receive some bonunes for helping a low-level player to clear his dungeon?

      Or maybe a WoW-like LFG where you need to check your role and then the LFG system will automatically teleport you to the dungeon?
      Yeah, dead content is always a really bad thing in MMOs and it seems to be a serious problem in Bless right now. I really like how FFXIV solved this issue by adding daily dungeon roulette queues. Even when you are max. level you can queue for the daily roulette, end up in a low-level dungeon and still get rewards like extra gold, tokens for gear, pets, mounts etc.
      It's a simple win-win game. The newbie don't have to wait like an hour to find people and the highlevel can farm tokens for fancy stuff.
      ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Duty_Roulette
    • How do you feel about the lower level dungeons? I love them, give players an option to do something else beside questing and pvp if they get bored of them.

      Did you have any issue clearing them the first time? Of course, these are Elite mobs, not normal mobs. Overcoming them was the fun part, and progressing through the dungeon at a early level was a fun way to feel out the class you choose to play.

      What level were you when you entered? Level 15 was a good number to go into a dungeon.

      What was the best class composition for you? Tank and healer, I like a good challenge to an mmo.

      Which dungeon was your favorite? BFD in Wow. before cata. Felt amazing to actually going into something knowing the story to it

      Any boss your enjoyed more than the other? Im not to good with name from dungeon bosses.

      How many wipes did you have before clearing the dungeons? 10+... maybe won't finish it sometime.



      I agree with Furia. IF they can add some kind of system like the dungeon roulette to the game. It will allow low level content still breath then waste away.
    • Larek wrote:


      • How do you feel about the lower level dungeons?
      • Did you have any issue clearing them the first time?
      • What level were you when you entered?
      • What was the best class composition for you?
      • Which dungeon was your favorite?
      • Any boss your enjoyed more than the other?
      • How many wipes did you have before clearing the dungeons?



      1- They are very unbalanced, me and my friend tried the very first dungeon at level 13 and what we found out? The first boss of the dungeon having 40-60 (i don't remember precisely) HP. It was impossible for only 2 people, and reading your post it's almost impossible with a full group. Perhaps the new patch that will increase the maximum group size to 10 will help?



      2- Clearing is not that hard, you just need to don't go full aggro on every monster you see.


      3- 13 for the first level 13 dungeon, 27 at the level 20 dungeon, 36 at the level 28 dungeon. Each one was a failure and i did all the dungeons later at level 45. The level 35 dungeon (which is named "Kobold stomping ground") was hard even for me with 10 levels of advantage!


      4- Most of all paladins and guardians. You can't really go doing dungeons without a tank or a healer. Then you can start thinking about the composition.


      5- The water temple, it's beautiful and full of details. I look forward to try some other dungeons.


      6- I really enjoyed the fact that you need to do precise things at certain boss (like get frozen to avoid getting damage, walk in a certain area to dodge mortal attacks). If i really have to pick one i'll go with the final boss of the water dungeon (Which is the level 42 by the way).


      7- A lot...that's it.

      Bask within the guidance of the great Palutena!

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Palutena ().

      • How do you feel about the lower level dungeons?
      It was a lot of fun to meet players and try to learn the mechanics, and really enjoyable when we killed a boss, I really liked the low levels dungeons
      • Did you have any issue clearing them the first time?
      This bird was painfull, we try it 2 days after the release of the game, so nobody was understanding the mechanics and we all tryed a strategy... unsuccessful for a long moment (the english patch was a bit buggy, maybe with a proper translation it can be easyer :whistling: But except the bird we have no issue.
      • What level were you when you entered?
      Level 20 with a common gear and as mage
      • What was the best class composition for you?
      I've done the dungeons with this composition : 2 mages, 1 paladin, 1 guardian and 1 assassin
      • Which dungeon was your favorite?
      The first one was the PvE discover magic... Really enjoyes this one.
      • Any boss your enjoyed more than the other?
      Satan's son

      • How many wipes did you have before clearing the dungeons?
      I don't have enought fingers :S
      Check the Bless Companion HERE

      It can be long to load, don't worry refresh and it will be okay :)

      Help me to improve the companion, check HERE for details

    • rpgmaniac wrote:

      vegax87 wrote:

      rpgmaniac wrote:

      Question, were do you try this low lvl dungeon in order to give feedback? was this thread created for people who play the game in KR or Aeria open some test server themselves?
      for both
      What does this mean? is there an ENG test server Aeria have were people can test the game? can you give more details plz?
      There is an intern test server for Aeria employees only.
    • vegax87 wrote:

      Aeria Games has an internal test server only for them, for testing bugs and QA (Quality Assurance)

      if you want to provide feedback you need to play the korean beta with a verified korean account
      i would love to provide feed back but i won't go threw all that to play a Korean server. wish they would do a test server here even if its not done yet so we could test properly

      i have a group of people i run with that would gladly test any of the content of the game no madder how finished it was and give feed back and you wouldn't have to pay us to test your game

      The post was edited 1 time, last by dvj381 ().

    • dvj381 wrote:

      vegax87 wrote:

      Aeria Games has an internal test server only for them, for testing bugs and QA (Quality Assurance)

      if you want to provide feedback you need to play the korean beta with a verified korean account
      i would love to provide feed back but i won't go threw all that to play a Korean server. wish they would do a test server here even if its not done yet so we could test properly
      i have a group of people i run with that would gladly test any of the content of the game no madder how finished it was and give feed back and you wouldn't have to pay us to test your game
      Same Here. I know about 10 or so including myself who would love to test the game and give constructive feedback. Most of your audience in NA can't give you feedback OR had the opportunity to respond to your survey you guys held a few weeks ago. Not to discourage your current efforts, i think it's great you're here asking for feedback, i just wish myself, friends and other NA players could get involved in these types of discussions / relations to help better the game in its entirely.

      PS: I wont support gold / item seller companies and it appears all the websites to buy a KR account are linked to those services. If someone knows of a company/website otherwise, please let me know!

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Dewclaw: added PS note. ().

    • Patience~

      Open testing will likely come around eventually, and I'm sure the early fansite crowds will be the first to know about it. This is the normal workflow of localizing foreign MMORPGs. The publishers will test it for themselves first, then there may or may not be a phase in which they extend private invites to a few more select individuals outside of the company ("Alpha"), then Beta--potentially in two phases ("Closed" and "Open" Beta).

      It'll happen--just not right away. Be patient~ :)
    • Don't Look! I'm Hideous. wrote:

      Patience~

      Open testing will likely come around eventually, and I'm sure the early fansite crowds will be the first to know about it. This is the normal workflow of localizing foreign MMORPGs. The publishers will test it for themselves first, then there may or may not be a phase in which they extend private invites to a few more select individuals outside of the company ("Alpha"), then Beta--potentially in two phases ("Closed" and "Open" Beta).

      It'll happen--just not right away. Be patient~ :)
      being patient is what i been doing sense Feb 6th 2014 when i signed up for this site :)- have been part of a few beta's just was saying if they want opinions and feed back from more the a few people they should open there servers up sooner
    • It's been 6 years since I keep my eyes on Bless, and I've playing the game since 2cbt. Believe me, its better to wait then to do what they did, to launch the game in South Korea with so many things to fix/add. Their 1st cbt was a mess, the 2nd was pretty bad, but since the 3rd one they have been improving a lot. I think Aeria has delayed the game to the next year also because they are waiting for new content to the game. I've seen some of the snow landscapes that are coming on the next update and they are beautiful. In my oppinion, Bless is the last "old style" MMORPG, I don't think we'll see target games anymore or even MMO's with different races and classes in a single game like in Bless. I'm sure that few players had the opportunity to create an character of every race and to observe how detailed and rich is the world they created around the races, the costumes, the architecture of the cities... Bless is a f**** beautiful game but we need end game content and I really hope that Neowiz is working very hard on it. Btw, the dungeons are pretty nice but you definetely need to know your class, since you cant equip 30 skills at the same time, you have to know how to prepare your skill set before the bosses. Patala ruins (lv42 dg) is one of the most beautiful dungeons I've ever seen in a game.
      • How do you feel about the lower level dungeons? Enjoyed them for the most part. Friends and I are playing on the northern side and have run both lv13s, the northern level 20, and attempted the northern 28.
      • Did you have any issue clearing them the first time? Not really. We cleared the first dungeon as a group of 3 that included a lv16guardian tank, 15paladin healer, and 14 mage. Same for the southern though all of us were 15 for that one. We were unable to 3man the 20 dungeon but eventually went back and did it with a 4th person though most of us were high 20s/low 30s then. I will say the Level 28 Northern dungeon though put that right stop. We attempted it with 4 players all lvs 32-36 and couldn't even get past the first boss.
      • What level were you when you entered? 14-16 for the lv13. 20-24 as a 3 man for the 20th, eventually went back as 4 players 26-32.
      • What was the best class composition for you? Guardian+Paladin are a must atm as the only true tank and healer in game. 2-3 dps for the last spots. Though I think having one of those dps be a paladin who can switch between healer/dps/off-tank will be optimal setup.
      • Which dungeon was your favorite? Of the 3 I've actually completed I prefer the dungeon under Marta. 13 dungeon for the north side.
      • Any boss your enjoyed more than the other? Not really. All had their own thing going on but wasn't one I thought stood out. The first boss of the Northern lv28 dungeon is ridiculous though. No idea how we're even suppose to attempt to complete it and no info on how to do it can be found online.
      • How many wipes did you have before clearing the dungeons? First two dungeons we completed with 1-3 wipes each. Think he hit 3 on the first one we did and then only a single wipe on the southern one. Granted we were doing it with only 3 people. The one time we did it with 4 and 5 at level we steamrolled through it.
    • dvj381 wrote:

      Don't Look! I'm Hideous. wrote:

      Patience~

      Open testing will likely come around eventually, and I'm sure the early fansite crowds will be the first to know about it. This is the normal workflow of localizing foreign MMORPGs. The publishers will test it for themselves first, then there may or may not be a phase in which they extend private invites to a few more select individuals outside of the company ("Alpha"), then Beta--potentially in two phases ("Closed" and "Open" Beta).

      It'll happen--just not right away. Be patient~ :)
      being patient is what i been doing sense Feb 6th 2014 when i signed up for this site :)- have been part of a few beta's just was saying if they want opinions and feed back from more the a few people they should open there servers up sooner
      Continue being patient just a little bit longer. Trust me. Though I haven't been with the forums for long, I've been watching Bless since 2014 myself, and I would rather they release an amazing game in 2018 than a broken, half-finished game in 2017. First impressions can make or break an MMO. It's important to have a solid product right out the gate--and opening up a beta to every aspiring tester and their mothers invites early criticism, dismal reviews, and, in the long run, can hurt the game.

      They are more than likely carefully vetting the occasional fan for their initial testing phase, but it would be a huge mistake to fling the gates wide open while not only is localization hardly complete, but the Korean version is still in dire need of fixes, features, and content.
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