First of all, I would like to thank
again those who donated to my Odin kickstarter project. Although we
are still far from the goal, the kind words of support felt really
good, I see the work I did in these past 2 years were not completely
vain.
I wrote a long article about the patch
changes, which I think positive, and which I think negative. Please
comment if you think I missed something or you have a different
opinion!
Positive changes
Treasure inventory
This is the best thing in the new
patch. 5 extra pages for gems, inventory problems solved forever,
hopefully. Yes, it costs 2500 bound balens, but it's a one-time
price, and you can earn at least 4-5000 bound balen per month without
recharge (method described in the hint sheet of this article for
donators), so this is affordable to anyone. They also added a
dimension essence inventory too, but unfortunately, it is bugged, the
dimension essences are in your inventory still, so this addition is
just a useless visual show right now, hopefully they will correct it.
Devotion rewards
A fix fashion core is a nice reward,
and you don't have to fumble with the wheel rolling, thats a small
positive change.
Tatoo and henna
A new feature which requires little
time and gives extra BR is always welcome. However, in this case, the
BR gain seems so neglectable, and maxed so fast, it will be probably
a feature which wont keep us excited for long. When you have gathered
100 henna (you can earn 150 per every 10 hour from the henna lab, and
if you like, you can plunder 20-25 more daily from other players),
you can create a random henna. Like everything in this game, this is
completely random lottery, both the stats you get, and their amount.
So it mostly resembles to refine, with the difference that with every
stat increase, you get a decrease as well. Actually, you can lose
more than you gain, so the only useful tatoo is the one where the
negative stat is charisma. So all you have to do, click a slot, make
a henna, if the negative stat is charisma, and better than the
previous stat, insert it. If you max out everything, your BR might
increase even by 500, whoa! Of course there will be an expert tatoo
but that's for the future (and for balens for sure).
New spirit convenant functions
Spirit covenant was useless since a
long time. The only feature I used lately was power of healing, but I
purchased it separately. With the fishing nerf, even lord of time
lost most of its charm. The current additions, detecting wild boss,
and one-click farm can save you a lot of time, however. The
world boss function I consider useless, since our WB dies in 1-2
rounds, and if I do it manually, I earn twice as much gold as in afk.
Anyway, I think spirit convenant is useful now, just make sure you
buy it from hot sales, with the 200 balen discount coupon for 1099.
New VIP functions
Besides increasing the weekly VIP
reward, the only new VIP function I found is that they decrease gem
conversion cost for VIPs. This means when you use your 1-hour VIP
card (precious now, since you can't fish more!) you not only do guild
blessing, VIP reward claim, sylph arena and adding dimensions, but
you have to time your gem conversions. Still, this small addition is
not something which could make anyone subscribe for VIP.
Eudaemon skill system simplified
In itself, this is a good change, you
can choose which skills to improve, and neglect the useless ones. You
need 640 skill books to improve one skill from lvl 4 to 5. With 72
different skills, it meant you needed 46,080 skill books to get a level
5 skill after level 4. Thats 921 days, and 23 billion gold. I bet not
even the devs made that math :D So, this would be all good - if they
didn't remove the skill books from the guild shop.
Check info of players from different
server
This one was always possible in the
past (battlegrounds and other places), so making this available again
is not a new addition, just a bugfix which took them a loooong time
:)
Negative changes
Sylph arena and normal arena hot icons
removed
Game time increased, now you have to
run in the city to these NPCs, an unnecessary, bad change.
Eudaemon skill books removed from guild
shop
This is a massive nerf, you can no
longer buy eudaemon skills for gold. I will never understand their
love for nerfing, taking away from players.
Bounty targets reward nerf
Rewards have been decreased in the
eudaemon arena. Since they removed rewards for making lvl 3 and lvl 4
gems, the amount you earned in eudaemon arena was no longer enough to
claim all rewards during gem synthesis event. The situation will even
get worse. A completely unnecessary and senseless nerf to those who can't beat the top opponents.
Resist crystal replacement
Previously, you could replace resist
crystals with one click, now you have to remove first then add a new
one. Extends game time, this is probably just a bug, not intentional
nerf.
Sylph expedition reward adjustment
I see no extra reward here, if there
was a change here, something got removed or amount decreased.
Guild blessing
Apart from the new graphics, I see new
change whatsoever, the items are the same crap, xp books, seeds, the
only useful item is still the bound balen.
New eudaemon: Panther lord
I'm not sure if the game developers
noticed, but a player needs, and can use only ONE eudaemon. The only
places where you have a minor use for 3 more is eudaemon arena and
bounty targets. So adding a SEVENTH eudaemon to the game is no use to
any, unless it has some unbalanced powers (to be nerfed later) like
wind ranger. More eudaemon would mean just more skill books needed to
max out skills, fortunately they changed the system and this is no
more problem.
Texas Hold'em
Although we haven't seen this mini-game
added, the forum patch message gives a good description, so we have a
clear vision what this is going to be. First of all, I put this into
the negative category, because:
1.) poker has NOTHING to do with this
game. Period.
2.) if it gives any reasonable reward,
then this is yet another thing which can increase game time.
3.) this is just another „buy stuff
for balens” mini-shop, camouflaged so no one can really see how
much they are paying for specific good (which, as such, will be
certainly overpriced).
4.) making a complete poker game takes a lot of time. This amount of time could have been enough to resolve ALL problems we have right now.
5.) this is truly an online poker,
where you pay money, win money, lose money. The only real difference
to real poker is that you are not allowed to withdraw your winnings,
you must spend it on virtual goods. I don't have to be a lawyer to
know that this kind of activity would require a strict government
licence, special taxes, and strict control to ensure no cheating
happens from the side of the owner. And as such, by adding such an
event without a licence, they risk shutting down the entire game,
which would hurt all of us the worst way.
About the game system itself, you play
poker, and from each pot, they take 20% rake (insanely high, compared
to any poker site!) For all rakes you paid, you get points, which you
can exchange for items in a point shop. We yet have to see the prices
of items, but all I can say in advance, unless you have good
experience in online poker, don't even try this.
Summary: my overall feeling of this patch is positive. I'm very happy about the treasure inventory. Of course, like with every patch, it would be even better if they don't do any unnecessary nerf, but we are used to those, sadly.
