First, I want to say good job to the team for making the strides they’ve made over the last year. I put in 500 hours at launch, but stopped after I saw that there were too many issues that ruined my ability to enjoy the game. With the launch of Brimstone Sands and the reworked 1 to 25 experience, I am happy with how things are now.
Now, I actually created a new character so that I could rediscover the game from fresh eyes. I found the leveling my character to 60 no longer a chore or bore. I reached level cap by doing the main story quest and territory side quest just before entering Mourningdale. That means that I could continue doing side quests for five more territories before reaching Brimstone Sands. Here is where my feedback as a returning player comes in:
Questing Rewards
- Azoth — I don’t benefit from this when I am almost always constantly capped at 1,000 azoth. This resource is too abundant when it comes from harvesting and random drops from enemies. And now that I can never pay more than 20 per teleport (and I have been taking advantage of that) or resetting my house cooldown, I still never seem to have an issue with needing azoth. Is there another currency or reward that would make sense to offer as a quest reward?
- Gold — I won’t pretend to know the details of gold and the economy in game, and yet I pose the question to the dev team: “Will you revisit the amount of gold rewarded for side quest completion?” I’m sure this is a lengthy topic elsewhere in the forums, but again, I’m looking at this from the insentive-to-complete-quests angle.
- Territory Standing — This is similar to the last item, but this become more of a problem when it’s a missing reward from areas like Edengrove, Great Cleave, and Shattered Mountain. I think maybe the amount given is fine, but should the currency have a replacement in those areas without standing or influence?
Weapon Experience
I’m glad that all the weapons are now available on the beach. I actually felt compelled to try some of them out that I didn’t play a lot at launch. However, if I could change one thing about the game right now, it would be with how leveling weapons goes. I feel that the experience required to level a weapon is on a curve that is too steep, much the same as leveling a character was a year ago. And when more weapons will continue to be added, it will seem more and more like a daunting experience for a new player. I’d like to see the curve adjusted, more exp received from kills, or maybe add weapon exp to quest rewards.