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Aug 30 2017 12:47am
Hello, I recently started playing ladder slasher about a week ago and I wanted to share my thoughts on it from the perspective of a potential new player. Hopefully, it can lead to improvements and ergo, some more activity from new people.

1) without a doubt, the biggest issue is that it is impossible and pointless for new players. I was struggling through exploring the lab by myself and managed to get to lvl 25 before partyplanner, my guild leader, randomly msgs me and invites me to do the MQ with him. didn't believe how that was possible but then he bought me some basic gear (lvl 25-30 gear for 20 fg) and our party goes 1-71 in TWO HOURS. I was pretty much useless after lvl 30 but that didn't matter.

I spent 3 days just grinding out 1-25 and in two hours, we do the entire MQ. That's absurd. The game is extremely unbalanced for the gap to be that large. There is no point in trying to solo this game. I was on the brink of completely stopping before he had msg'd me. The fact that I need the charity of someone else to have any chance at all of playing this game past lvl 25, let alone lvl 50, is a big problem and I feel the great majority of new players that have tried and stopped this game see this monumental task and immediately realize it's pointless.


2) The marketplace is too inactive to find decent newbie gear. There's simply not enough of what you need to be able to effectively progress beyond lvl 30 in a timely manner. You will dying too much and your gear will become obsolete pretty soon. You then have to refresh most of your gear every 10 levels. I can only imagine how difficult it is to find decent gear after lvl 50. I'm sure most rpg games have this issue but, to me, it seems like this item "decay" is much more prominent here.


3) The "Master Quest" is a game of luck. This whole time, I thought it was this big bad monster you had to fight at the end as a challenge but it turns out to be putting a key in a slot and hoping that you guess correctly. That was extremely disappointing.


4) The proficiencies take too long. I have to do the effusing/transmuting one like 200-500 times before I lvl up once. That seems like way too much work for a moderate improvement. Same goes for fishing and cooking. It should be easier to lvl up at the beginning and much harder to level later on to make it seem like it's worth it. I honestly just got discouraged by how long it takes and stopped completely which seems like a consistent issue across the board.


5) There's only one gear stat that matters, ee. The rest is pointless. I feel that a lot of time and creativity was spent coming up with these stat properties on items (most of which are really interesting) and none of them make the slightest difference. Most of the time, it's unnoticeable. An item could have max stats on almost every other property like mana consumption, damage return, jubilance, power shot, etc, and it wouldn't be worth anything without ee.


Those were my biggest issues with this game. I tried it, and I'm not quite sure how much longer I am willing to play.

For most of the old school players here who have great gear, I can definitely understand how it may be a fun game, especially in a party, but for me, someone who's just starting out with a relatively modest budget, there are simply one too many hurdles to jump through and not enough payoff. Seems like there's just such a gear inbalance that at some point soon after starting, new players are going to stop completely because they keep questioning themselves if it's worth it.
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Aug 30 2017 01:05am
I tried playing, partied with someone and the monsters pretty much just 1 hit me :( I think I need to farm some ee gear and play solo maybe
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Aug 30 2017 02:06am
Your 5th complaint** is stupid

As for most of the other points; yes we know :baby:

This post was edited by Lpot on Aug 30 2017 02:07am
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Aug 30 2017 02:34am
1. Gear is important in most games. A solo walk through of diablo 2 or path of exile takes significantly longer than getting rushed. Party planner effectively gave you a rush.

2. Obviously with the number of players this is true. Use the trade forums for better success. Lots of games don't even have player market places and require you to join trade channels or forums (such as d2jsp)

3. A test of luck is one of the few ways to make it fair regardless of gear and skill. How would you if felt if you grinded to mq solo with self found gear (yes this is possible, lookup 'bufcore') only to get to the end and get stomped on?

4. We all know the prof levels, xp, and gains are disproportionate and suck. Most want a change, but at this point it's 'too late' there are already people at the top in most ladders from an exorbitant amount of dedicated time and would be unfair to take that away from them.

5. The other stats do matter, but yes significantly less. This is pretty true of most games I feel though. In diablo 2 why was pebotdz so valuable? It's +415 enhanced damage; would anyone use it if it had 0 ed? All games have a core set of stats that really matter, and then secondary stats. No biggy.

If you enjoy the grind, keep at it. Joel (partyplanner) climbs like 1-5 times a day and is more than happy to bring you along with him. Use that to your advantage, learn the game, acquire gear, get gud son.
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Aug 30 2017 04:02am
The game has boat loads of potential. Problem is it's made for big player base. The current player base is too small. Which makes it very hard for new players to come in unless they have lots of fg to buy gear.

Like the person above said. Party planner is allways looking for people to climb with and they are allways 3/5 when they climb so it makes I a lot faster for them to get groups together. Wo hour him a lot of people would never get to climb.
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Aug 30 2017 08:02am
The guy is completely right on all 5 points. Just adding for the record that the game reset should actually be a RESET. Everyone loses everything and starts fresh. That is the way you can't just spend 20k on gear and never have to worry about anything until the rest of your life. This way no new player can catch up with an old fart that has been playing for years. (gear wise, not skill wise)
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Aug 30 2017 08:15am
Quote (netwarrior @ 30 Aug 2017 16:02)
The guy is completely right on all 5 points. Just adding for the record that the game reset should actually be a RESET. Everyone loses everything and starts fresh. That is the way you can't just spend 20k on gear and never have to worry about anything until the rest of your life. This way no new player can catch up with an old fart that has been playing for years. (gear wise, not skill wise)


:rofl: no
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Aug 30 2017 08:38am
1) ladder slasher isnt an easy game.. you just need to put a lot effort and time into it to be good. you wont belong to the best just in 1 week. fast players can do a solo in 2,5 hours and a group climb in 35mins (with the right event).
2) market place could need a few upgrades indeed. there are several good ideas.. and i hope some of them get implemented anytime soon
3) mq is fine.. it would be bad if you could just pass every mq with your gear.
4) profs are fine.. this isnt meant to be done in 3 days.. i am playing since 8 years.. so do others. put in some more effort or just stay low on profs.
5) ee is the most important stat on weapons and attack/heal charms.. otherwise there are some other really important stats like dex/str/crit and other sidemods that can improve the quality of gear alot. some useless stats should be improved though.

Remember that we all started at one point.. so we all started with zero profs and gear.. if you think it is more fun to play with better gear (in my opinion it is ;) ) then just start upgrading and putting some effort into the game and you will slowly progress. got to struggle a bit if you want to be good at some things ;)
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Aug 30 2017 08:59am
Quote (netwarrior @ Aug 30 2017 11:02am)
The guy is completely right on all 5 points. Just adding for the record that the game reset should actually be a RESET. Everyone loses everything and starts fresh. That is the way you can't just spend 20k on gear and never have to worry about anything until the rest of your life. This way no new player can catch up with an old fart that has been playing for years. (gear wise, not skill wise)


No (Expletive deleted) way!
I, as well as many other long-playing slashers earned our gear the hard way
and I will forecast a total desertion by everyone from the game were this to come to pass
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Aug 30 2017 09:05am
Quote (Paparick @ Aug 30 2017 09:59am)
No (Expletive deleted) way!
I, as well as many other long-playing slashers earned our gear the hard way
and I will forecast a total desertion by everyone from the game were this to come to pass


WOOF!
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