[2020] 1.5.0 Feedback MEGATHREAD

Originally posted by _RitZ_

Thank you for the megathread. As said here, please don't mindlessly liter the Reddit. Put your thoughts constructively here and move on. This is how they process feedback since a lot of patches. I'd encourage to read some feedback given here and upvote them instead of repeating it here too.

Originally posted by MrHorris

Unlike the angry mob I actually quite like the core foundation of Reforged. My post on it is currently drowning in downvotes because I dared to disagree, so I'll put my criticisms here I guess. Just note that I like the big stuff in the update.

• Why are Trials affected by your weapon level? I get that Trials are due for a rework but being told not to prestige your favorite weapon class to do Trials is... uh... dumb.
• The heavy handed limits on Bounty Tokens continues to feel bad. Actually, it is even worse now because they tie into core progression now. Bounties are a perfect complement to the varied gameplay Reforging encourages, I'd go so far as say that there shouldn't be a limit at all on Bounties we pull... probably going to make a topic about that later.
• Reforging time feels a bit overtuned, especially when you run out of bounties. I should always feel like I am making progress, the later ranks turn into a slog.
• We needed Cells 2.0 yesterday. Losing the perfect perk economy on non-power-surged gear is probably what feels the worst about the refunds. It is the fault of the current balance of cells that losing the perfect perk economy feels like a "slap in the face", the sandbox that Cells currently offer isn't well made for not having maxed versions of Cells. I don't know what the solution is here as Cells 2.0 is (hopefully) a massive undertaking thus still a ways out, but I don't think nuking everyone's perk economy (that did not grind out +15 on everything) was a smart play.
• My god the UI... I am starting to feel like I am playing an MMO (in a bad way). Slayer Path is rough to put it nicely and everything else is starting to look horribly cluttered.
• Nodes in the Slayer Path are boring. A ton of copy-pasted nodes (+15% damage on boop grenades, just what I wanted) and very little room for player expression. Despite being a tree the Slayer Path feels linear.
• Servers are mad.
• Public Hunting Grounds can be rough. I have nearly exclusively played with randoms since the game's Alpha, I know how public groups go, but something about this update has been extra rough. Maybe it is just growing pains for the community, but I have never had more angst for my team mates than with Hunting Grounds.
• Getting to the action (and rest of the players) is a pain. Joining an island to see everyone on the opposite side isn't fun. I would love to see a UI when joining a Hunting Ground that showed a top-down map of the Island with the location of all players and an option of multiple spawn points.
• Islands will eventually get boring once we find the optimal steps to get from 1-20. Something to rotate the Hunting Grounds to keep it fresh in the long term will be important.
• Escalations were already questionably grindy, now that they basically demand you to be using rank 20 stuff the time investment feels even worse. Escalations serving as a piece of content to do at rank 20 is cool, but the time spent in Escalations should be scaled accordingly with you losing out on Reforged progression. Some crafting requirements (15 runs for a single weapon is insane) and experience requirements need a massive reduction. Escalations need a 1.5 but they need something in the short term as well.

Originally posted by LotusGene

PHXL , in my personal opinion, you failed as a company with this update :) P2W game .! I'm a founder ,i'm out

Originally posted by nightvisions21

I’ve been playing for over a year and it feels as if everything I’ve worked for has gotten thrown out the window. Nobody wants to spend hours grinding their weapon to level 20, just to prestige it and then get sent back to square one and suddenly not be able to fight endgame content again. It’s a grind just for the sake of grinding. I’m all for having maybe a fun little COSMETIC prestige system to show off your devotion to a certain weapon, like what’s in Deep Rock Galactic for instance, but this is as far from that as you could get.

Tying almost all of our power/resistance to weapon level-ups makes armor feel like it doesn’t matter at all.

The merits + rams costs of the new slayer’s path upgrades are absolutely atrocious, and there’s no new way to earn more rams than before to get the funds needed for said ridiculously-priced upgrades.

Also, it seems as if Phoenix doesn’t really listen. There were loads of players who sat down and did the math beforehand and realized we were going to get completely boned after the update went through. It was pointed out numerous times, and yet things were allowed to go through. Everyone’s months/years of progress were allowed to be taken away and replaced with a new, broken system that does not respect the player’s time.

Oh, and not to mention the P2W mechanics. So you introduce a ridiculous backbreaking grind and then conveniently give us the ability to skip it via buying aethersparks in the store? Give me a break.

Originally posted by GreatMadWombat

Pros: the actual mechanic of hunting in an open world is fun. The core part of the gameplay, the "you go and hunt monsters" rocks still.

Cons: it feels like the "you're powering up your character to the point where they're strong" part of the game got mixed in with the "here's this ultimate super-duper endgame for our most dedicate fans".

So there's a LOT of "you need 200k rams and 10 bounties worth of merits in order to get this tiny incremental boost, and that's just 1 boost out of 50 so you'll be grinding for months to finish the treadmill that's put in front of you" going on.

It feels like you wanted to make a talent tree(i.e. a fast mark if progress your character fills out as they level up), and a prestige system(a bananas long treadmill for people to do between content), and got the weaknesses of both, without the strengths.

Like...a prestige system is good, a huge impossible treadmill to get something(like fancy titles, and icons) that doesn't have to do with actual gameplay? Also good.

A prestige system as a core method of advancement? Significantly less good.

Talent tree so you feel like your progressing as you level up? Good. Talent tree that takes so long to level/get a point that it feels like it was designed to be completed at the same time as the prestige system? Not good.

Prestige systems for minor stuff you want to farm is fun. Prestige systems for cosmetics? Fun. Prestige system as the core way to progress ingame? Significantly less fun.

Edit: if there are major changes to be made(like a script to give more behemoth parts. Or rams not dropping off of monsters), you should send out an ingame mail so everyone knows changes will be dropping, and don't evaluate the new update just on how it currently plays/feels

Originally posted by hoodrat-law54

One thing I want to say is give us more context into how power works now, trails is 700 and from what I see we can hit under 600 barely, is this intentional are there other methods of power boosting that we are not aware of? Just slightly more clarification on that end.

I personally am a pretty endgame level player and had around 40-50 aetherhearts after the switch and nearly 600k rams even after blowing tons on potions over time. I was barely able to get upgrades with the amount of rams and merits I had, keep in mind I’m also max mastery in every category. If I struggled this much to get slayers path upgrades I couldn’t imagine what early-mid game players are going through right now. Work on making that more balanced, main suggestion from me is reduce the costs of slayers path upgrades.

Tbh my thoughts on public hunts is eh, doesn’t bother me much. I think you should re add pursuits if players want to focus a certain behemoth. Doesn’t even need to give merits or aether sparks.

An issue is getting weapon xp, I had a metric shitload of premium bounty tokens so I can barrel through the levels, other players not so much.

Originally posted by Displaything55

Ok so escalations level 8 rewards I haven't seen anyone else bring this up but the current reward is no where near the current value of the previous one

Im sure many would appreciate it if it was changed to bonus merits from patrol keys instead of just a flat one time merit reward.

For example maybe instead of getting 100 merits for each one once

They would each give a bonus of 5 extra merits from the chests opened with patrol keys

Maybe half the escalations could give a merit bonus and the other half would give a aether spark bonus

But anyway the hunting grounds are fun but I would really appreciate if esculations would give bonuses like that again

Originally posted by Lqvism

Can’t craft any tonics. So my acc is also among the glitched ones with being unable to access hunts or the training grounds. Several people told me to try and complete my quests (craft 5 tonics of 2 types) to fix it and when I went to go do that I literally don’t even have the option to craft them. I was told to go granny NPC (forgot the name sorry) but she doesn’t even give the option to open the menu for it

Originally posted by Oinegue696

My main complain on the current update is that you didn't just redo the progression, you made it unbelievably grindy. From unlocking nodes to gaining aetherhearts, everything now needs a lot more time to be completed, while shopping items that boost progression now are a lot more meaningful, if you don't want to be slowed too much by the timegate of certain items that now are "mandatory" to progress (notably, bounties). I don't think that this wasn't intentional.

Also, you didn't really create an endgame with hunting grounds. Instead, you just reshuffled existing content (islands, behemoths) and made them repeatable without any loading screen. Gameplay-wise, nothing changed. In fact, gameplay is as shallow as it always have been.

Oh, and we shouldn't forget that this new mandatory (if you want to upgrade stuff) system which reforging is, not only forces you to choose between what we have now as "endgame content" and upgrading your character inventory and skills, but also makes very hard for your groups of friends to play together becase if everyone has a different weapon level, you can't play the same area lvl because you would get too low xp or be oneshotted. It seems you made this system without thinking that people may want to play together, which is kinda ironic considering how you justified the introduction of hunting grounds.

Overall, please, be sincere with us and be clear on how heavy was Garena/Tencent's influence over your decision on delivering this mess of update.

Regards

Originally posted by cakehavenvitriol

Not gonna tackle the meat that's been addressed ad nauseum elsewhere because I'm sure it can be put better by others (except the biggie that, for real, Reforging 10 freakin' times each weapon for crumbs is just... much), but some little QoL fixes off the top of my head: (edited a few, and out of order, to kinda of group like with like.)

• Downed Indicators It is too difficult to find downed teammates. Don't know if it's a bug, but the Downed indicator doesn't hover over people. Also, having downed indicators display for other areas is fine, but is disorienting being given the same priority as ones in your current hunt. If they could scale to proximity, with Downeds in other areas being smaller, it would be a big help. It's too much superfluous information otherwise.

• Compass Add cardinal directions back to compass. Harder to communicate areas without them.

• Combat Areas The combat areas boundaries are too generous. You should not be able to be in a combat area counting toward the scale and be distant from the behemoth and harm. Had one guy run around the perimeter up on cliffs and bouldrs so he still counted toward the behemoth scale and only jump in at last half of the last round of the Event. Also some chests are within the boundaries, which makes me feels bad getting them and temporarily screwing some people over.

• Reporting On that note, you can't do the triangle(PS4) interaction where you can interact with a player (whisper/friend/report). Makes reporting leeches kinda just not even worth the effort.

• Supply Chests There is a massive delay between the end of a hunt and the ability to drop a Supply Chest. Everyone has run off by the time it becomes selectable and it goes to waste. Also maybe add a directional indicator to a supply chest. Getting the name of who dropped it is handy but mostly only if you are practically already there, anyway.

• Supply Chest Equipment Inventory If you manage to open your Equipment at a Supply Chest, having it timeout on you and lock you out of changes is seriously inconvenient and can even screw you over if you were swapping a cell. If you got the menu open, you should still be able to adjust things until you exit, even if the Chest has gone.

• Patrol Chest Visibility The glow is ridiculously dim and does so only at such a short proximity, you have to be on top of them, anyway. This makes them extremely tedious to locate, especially in dark areas.

• Stars Explain what the silver stars assigned to Hunting Grounds are. They don't scale by level, so it is confusing. I don't know what they indicate.

• Event Visibility Hard to see the Event icon to locate it. It's very dim.

• Split Bounties I've elaborated on this previously, but I think tying Bounties to compulsory Daily Logins hurts players. It makes keeping up with the game a chore and punishing. I feel a 50/50 split of 2 in the core and 2 passively obtained like it used to be is a good compromise.

• (Less a QoL, but still) Freetrack HP Also, this was a huge point of contention for me in the past that I've gone on about, but the Freetrack is so barren, it is pretty awful. I have been able to keep up the Elite lately with the Platback, but just seeing the state of the Freetrack is demotivating to me for continuing the game, because I see the value and priority a F2P person has now. Abysmal.

Originally posted by LotusGene

Hello CreatureTech-PHX,

First things first,

I consider that we were not awarded ( were not converted) all the materials we used to have. Because i've been playing since 2017, have all the founder stuff ,farmed a lot of hours just to find out after this update that i couldn't max all my gear which i had.

Secondly, the new bounty system , in my opinion is very much a PayToWin aspect. It DOES directly give you advantages over players ( not just pvm ) Because you skip content faster --- > then you get on trials leaderboards faster.

One thing that i like is the hunting grounds ,in my opinion you did a very good job there ! But there also needs to be a option for SOLO , i've been playing all day today, got my sword back to lvl 20 after reforged, and in my playtime ,i've came across at least 8 leechers, who were just there for the EXP , doing absolutly nothing.

All in all i do believe the slayer path is a nice addition to the game, BUT the GEAR conversion was not fair ,it did not respect the players time. also , the new bounty system is P2W.

Sorry for my english,

With love from east europe ,

Mark

Originally posted by phonon_us

I'm a founder, have been around since early beta, and have logged hundreds of hours in Dauntless. I had to read the update several times and was really confused by the in-game UI for a bit. I think we need a better intro to the new system(s), a lot of folks are confused because it looks like a wipe/reset. I do think overall patch 1.5.0 is a good for the game's future.

 

Please add a display of total Exploration and Combat Merits to the UI.

 

PHXL have addressed the missing legendary mats, but I feel that not enough Rams were given out. I cannot use all my converted Aetherhearts without grinding Rams, so most of my gear is not at the level it was before the patch. This is unnacceptable as it is basically an equipment wipe. Letting us sell our extra breakparts or Cells would help with this.

 

I'm on the fence about Power Surging. I think the gradual upgrade we used to have feels better as a progression mechanic. It's probably not an issue for a brand new player, as they will be progressing through the different weapons as they go through the Islands.

 

I don't like the Reforge mechanic and feel it needs a tweak, but I personally have never liked prestige/reset systems. They feel very artificial and reward no-lifing the game. I don't enjoy fighting lower level behemoths when I reforge and start over at level 1 weapon skill.

 

I like the new Slayer Path, as I didn't have much of a reason to play except for new Escalations. Trials was interesting but pretty much ruined. I think alot of people are confused by the Path, since they don't realize that a lot of the nodes are NEW upgrades, not replacements for the old Mastery upgrades. I think PHXL will have to revisit both Trials and Escalation rewards however.

 

Finally, while I think Hunting Grounds is a positive change, I miss targeted or solo hunts. I like being able to hunt a specific behemoth. I think this is a key part of monster hunter games, being able to "track" and hunt down a specific target. Please bring back targeted/solo hunts in some form.

Originally posted by nemthenga

My god, RAMS. I was L49, hovered around a million rams, several sets of +15 weapons and gear, and about half of my Mastery maxed out. Logging in post-update, I didn't even bother checking how many Rams I had; figured that, as before, they were basically meaningless for anything but potions. Wrong-o.

Every "powersurge" took 10k per weapon. 10k per armor piece. Slayer's Path weapon boosts cost me~120k just to get L4; L5 is another 120k. I'm broke now, with half the maxed weapons and armor I had before.

After running hunts for hours, I've accumulated... maybe a couple thou? Most of that was 1200 or so from a solo 1-13 Sesca. How the heck can I make enough to get anything worthwhile? Am I missing something obvious? Waiting 10-15 minutes (hopefully) get 2.5k from an Island Event is... not a good use of time, especially when everything demands Rams, and lots of them.

Originally posted by Trinience

Here is my take on the new update:

---

Hunting Grounds:

+Islands look and feel amazing +Stay and Slay feels really good +Island events are fun and sometimes really challenging

~Glider feels good, could use more upgrades though, bumping up the speed would be nice

-No private hunt option -No way to get more Supply Crates (cooldown?) -Supply Crates should stay on the ground a little longer

Overall: Very positive

---

Hunt Pass:

+Best so far (I dont mind that there is less on the free track)

---

Rumours:

+Generally good idea

-Unengaging, Boring, almost feel like chores -Skippable by paying platinum? Can't really point my finger at it, but it feels wrong

They need some serious work

---

Reforging:

Does not feel very rewarding for the following reasons: Dauntless used to be a Monster Hunting game. Most Monster Hunting games base their entire progression system on getting higher level gear. This makes for a very interesting and satisfying gameplay loop. After killing a behemoth you have been struggling to kill you get to craft gear out of it and thus become significantly stronger. This is a great system because players who achieve something immediately get to feel a lot better and more powerful.

A leveling system on the other hand, makes the increase in power feel significantly less rewarding. You gain XP by just defeating any behemoth. There doesn't have to be a challenging fight before you get more powerful. Getting more powerful through leveling feels less rewarding because I don't really feel like I deserve to get that extra power. I haven't achieved anything major, like killing a difficult behemoth, to actually earn the power increase.

Prestiging resets all of that progress and gives you only a little bit in return. You have to do all of it over again. Making you feel very weak. Thus you lose the feeling of "look how far we have come and how strong we are now". Thats what I really dislike about reforging.

---

Slayers Path:

+Gives a great overview +makes things more accessible

-We need more rams! I am unable to power surge all of my previous maxed out gear because Im missing rams!