Reborn isn't for me

Suggestions
#1

I was hooked on original Orbus, but it’s clear that Reborn isn’t for me. Here’s a few things that would’ve kept the spark alive.

  1. Main story quest. Doing procedurally generated missions divorced from any storytelling just isn’t cutting it.

  2. A world with things to find, people to meet, and places to discover. Finding rune pillars, stumbling into NPCs, and discovering places like the green lady temple or the dungeon entrances in the first game was one of the best parts of the game for me. Unfortunately, the runes and dungeons are in Highsteppe, the only town is Highsteppe, there are no substantial NPCs to find outside of Highsteppe, and I haven’t found anything unusual yet from wandering around. Don’t get me wrong, the map looks awesome, but there’s not much worldbuilding to be found find out in the world.

  3. A game that’s more fantasy and less carnival. RPG systems that make me feel like I’m stepping into a carnival ride always kill my immersion. For example, NPCs always show you a menu when you talk to them, rather than starting off with dialogue once you’ve unlocked something new to talk to them about. They’re menu first, people second. Similarly, dungeons are accessed by just going to the entrance under Highsteppe. They don’t actually exist anywhere in the world. It’s a gallery of carnival rides first, and an adventure second.
    To be clear, I have no problem with the convenience aspect of having dungeons easy to access. My problem is the immersion. If you had put the dungeon entrances somewhere in the world that makes sense for them, and had a teleport stone right next to each of them, I’d have no problem with that.

Anyways, best wishes to everyone. Keep having fun.

21 Likes
#2

Those all made a lot of sense :thinking: Hopefully this will be tackled in the near future.

5 Likes
#3

This is what I keep saying from the first beta :neutral_face:

1 Like
#4

We were actually discussing a few of these topics recently internally.

On the Main Story Quest, have you done the lore quests? And those just weren’t enough story content? I think we made a mistake in how those were sort of “hidden away” and they should have been more of an obvious part of the NPCs. Kind of goes into your critique about them being “menus first, people second” as well.

The other major part of your critique, that essentially outside of Highsteppe the world feels like there’s nothing to discover, is partly lore-driven (i.e. all of the major things outside of Highsteppe were destroyed during the events between the end of the last game and the start of this one, so no one really lives out there anymore); but the plan has always been to “layer” additional stuff in the overworld such as hidden quests and things like that. Some of that is in and as far as I know just has not yet been discovered, and some of it is planned but just not in yet. But I do agree in general that the overworld needs to have a bit more “roleplay” to it and not just be the “killing fields” if that makes sense.

Thanks for the feedback and sorry that it hasn’t been your cup of tea.

10 Likes
#5

I am really disappointed in the reborn economy I am Pick in game and I loved making deals and running my stall. The fun of that has all been taken away. Everyone is rich and full of mats. You get reward chests for almost everything you do. People dont want to use tiles because we change gear so fast. The only thing left to sell are dragons and fish and some potions. It is also harder to find people when in highstep. Our size compared to the rest of the world is way to small. It is like we are all smurfs. Why couldnt we have just taken the time to fix old orbus? You spent time and money to make this whole new game and now you have to fix just as many bugs as the old one had if not more! I understand that reborn is new and it is closer to your vision of what you wanted orbus to be. I just feel like If I had to give up a game I loved then all these things should have been worked out and implemented before launch.

4 Likes
#6

I agree on this problem with Reborn. For me it feels like the only item that has any value in game is an Effervesent Shard. And that’s only for some people. Maybe the rare fish? I don’t think that will last long though with 10x potion recipes.

3 Likes
#7

On the economy, any ingredient that was present in OG Orbus is basically going to have a non-existent, flooded market until we get a lot of new players into the game. That’s something that was always going to happen regardless of reward chests, there were players who brought in thousands and thousands of those items after farming them for months. There was really nothing we could do about that.

I assume a market will develop for higher-level goods such as the new potions and the ingredients and fish required to make them as things like shard dungeons start filtering down out of the upper echelons of the playerbase, Raids come out, etc. We’ll also be introducing some new ingredients, potions, and tradable goods as the game matures to help fill out that part of the economy.

I’m not sure if anyone remembers but it’s not like OG Orbus had a thriving upper-level economy 2 weeks post-launch either…it takes time for that to develop as people level up their characters and enter end-game content and start considering what they want to achieve in the game.

8 Likes
#8

OG Orbus did a pretty good job of having rare items from each type of material. Blood caps, plains helm, and crowns foil were pretty rare. I could spend a day collecting them, get 20 and trade that for rare fish. Currently you can spend a couple hours and get a full stack of either new harvestable item. The rare lure ingredients seem to be in a good place though.

2 Likes
#9

But that’s not due to reward chests, right?

#10

It does take time to develop but it also takes a need. With everyone being handed so many mats every day the need isnt there as much.

1 Like
#11

Tack on to that most potions being made worthless. Why even craft normal boosting potions when enhanced exist?

1 Like
#12

Correct, I don’t necessarily think the rewards chests are a problem. My focus was that almost no tradeables in game feel valuable. That is due to ease of acquisition and lack of need for high amounts. (that last part is worded very strangely)

Addition: Basically the 10x recipes mean that you hardly need items to make a ton of potions. You do need to get the rare lure ingredients, then get the rare fish. However, I have spent an extremely minimal amount of time doing those things and I have enough to make ~100 enhanced potions.

2 Likes
#13

Well I mean we added those to add new stuff to craft with bigger boosts so people would have a reason not to just use the 10,000 existing potions they already made. That would actually help drive more demand right? Not less?

1 Like
#14

It’s design by accretion. You’re basically right, but now all the low level recipes won’t really factor into the economy at all (in the long run). They’ll be used or trashed, but never bought or crafted.

Rather than adding bigger potions, new ones with different, sometimes newly needed effects, would have been better. For example: “Stunning” potions that made all damage dealt cause an interrupt for a short time would be amazing for some bosses; “Grabbing” potions that increase grab distance would be great for shamans on the go or a couple events. Adding new effects to otherwise useless potions (e.g. chameleon/giant) and adding 5x/10x recipes could also have been interesting.

#15

On the economy, any ingredient that was present in OG Orbus is basically going to have a non-existent, flooded market until we get a lot of new players into the game. That’s something that was always going to happen regardless of reward chests, there were players who brought in thousands and thousands of those items after farming them for months. There was really nothing we could do about that.

Guild wars 2 had a similar problem with overabundant crafting resources. They solved it first by adjusting the drop rates and materials required for crafting, then by having special time-limited crafting recipe events that required copious amounts of the oversupplied resource, and gave exclusive items, such as a portable crafting station. That way the excess surplus of the resource was destroyed.

8 Likes
#16

A world with things to find, people to meet, and places to discover . Finding rune pillars, stumbling into NPCs, and discovering places like the green lady temple or the dungeon entrances in the first game was one of the best parts of the game for me. Unfortunately, the runes and dungeons are in Highsteppe, the only town is Highsteppe, there are no substantial NPCs to find outside of Highsteppe, and I haven’t found anything unusual yet from wandering around. Don’t get me wrong, the map looks awesome, but there’s not much worldbuilding to be found find out in the world.

As a first time Orbus player, but long time MMO player, this really resonated with me as well. Orbus feels like a daily mission grinder with highstep as the only real PoI.

I’ve only gotten to level 7 so far since launch because I’ve come to realize that this isn’t the MMO I thought it was. This more like Diablo 3’s non-story battlentet co-op mode. You get daily missions from your town hub to go kill things and come back to turn it in for better gear. Outside of that the world serves no purpose for exploration of points of interest.

Having all of the dungeons under highstep with a menu to access where you want was also really disappointing and cinched this feeling. I thought that this must just be a quicker way to get to dungeons if you didn’t want to talk to the entrances which I thought was maybe a cool LFG mechanic. When I learned that the dungeons just don’t exist in the world I was really taken aback and added to the feeling emptiness and as you said ‘a carnival ride’.

7 Likes
#17

While I like Reborn and want to be positive and supportive, if I’m really honest with myself, I would have wanted the original game re-created as closely as possible and new things added (dragon racing, critter capture, battlegrounds, new avatar options, etc) and tack on extra (Wastelands its own new zone) or within existing (wagon graveyard being between The Twins and Wenderwood). I could understand the towns being in ruins / shambles (kinda like that house in Lucian) and any NPCs present have also just recently ventured out like us to assess damage and want to scout the area for further threat and/or begin to rebuild. Also that swooshy jungle grass and nightmare flowers are more patchy or, idk, however that could remain / be lessened / still be graphics friendly.
I get new Highsteppe as a fortress, I like that it’s multilayered, and I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for a lookout point. Maybe we can climb and walk the perimeter of the fence at the top. One of the neat things about OG Highsteppe was seeing everything around / below.
I also understand everything being ruined with Defend the Realm and geography completely shifted / redone with the earthquakes and whatnot. It’s an awful situation that happened and we are mourning. Can’t say if that’s a good or bad thing, but probably good to say it’s had such an impact on us (like when a book has a heartwrenching moment).
I don’t disagree with any point of OP and agree with some other comments as well. I think there is significant want for that singular overarching storyline, but I also really like the nebulous lore quests. I like that those who don’t want a storyline can still level without. I was wondering if that singular main linear overarching storyline maybe won’t have issues like before with OG if new things are only ever tacked on at the end to keep it growing? Any new things could be tacked in with the nebulous lore quests to not disrupt the line.
As for things to find, I’ve never heard anyone mention anything about finding rune pillars out in the world. I haven’t searched thoroughly myself, but it’s weird to think they’re not out there. (Edit: they are now out there! :heart:) I get basic rune pillars being in fellowship courtyard (although a building in Highsteppe for runemage stuff with an NPC for tips would be neat, I miss the jars of random things and the atmosphere of Tinny’s cave) but frost 2 and fire 2 right there with the level 1 spells? Death Peninsula (Spider Island, Snake Battlefield) was a great place for Greater Affliction. So much darkness and death there xD
I do get the dungeons being easily and quickly accessible as they are, but I also would like them to exist somewhere “real” to be found. I remember stumbling across the desert dungeon with a friend (what’s that light??? What’s this hidden over here we found while exploring carefully as level 12ish? Opening that cool door and OMG, I THINK THIS IS THE DUNGEON!) was such a cool experience. Also considering issue of complete newbs (not just on a low level alt but know the class cause beta) queuing for a dungeon and having absolutely no idea about anything… I don’t want to gate keep, but there’s gotta be a way for people to be ready first. Could once the place is found out in the world (and considering where has some assumption of battle ability) and then that unlock downstairs? Oh, some runemage made this portal thing, so now you have two options to physically access - the actual location or downstairs once you’ve unlocked it - and only then can you also do the dungeon queue for it? Since they’re level scaled, none should be too difficult to get to (paths leading to each have unmatched mobs up to level 8 or 10, maybe some matched), but just somewhere. Even if the airship is at the actual airship, and the point of that dungeon is ermagerd mob pirates trying to hijack or sabotage our airship?
As for the economy, in OG I never had more than 6k dram. That isn’t a complaint, I was just poor. I liked gathering and always gave my mats to guild members (fellowship chest was such a welcome addition!!!) so “ways to get by” for me was give and take with fellowship dynamics. Then once I had enough dram saved up (I was not a farmer) I’d splurge on something, so I usually hovered between 2k and 6k, and I was okay with that. With Reborn, I’ve only played shaman, I’m only level 9, I’m intentionally dragging the game out (not picking up ALL quests I could, meandering about, doing pretty dragon races I don’t have quests for and ditto for critter capture and events or even dungeons, I’m just playing) and I have over 10k dram! Like, wow! I’ve never seen that amount, and I have it in like two weeks since launch?! Granted, not over 10k from 0 in two weeks, but still. I love the reward chests, but yea, inflation is a’coming since the dram is rolling in. I like feeling like I have more buying power (before things catch up), but seriously, I didn’t work for this amount of money - my time and effort have not merited this amount.

I do love many things about Reborn, but there are a number of areas where the magic and wonder and grit of OG are just gone. Not gone and replaced or substituted by new stuff, just gone. I hope our feedback helps recapture it so that Reborn can truly be better instead of just different with separate pros and cons.

10 Likes
A Piece Of Me Feels Cheated
#18

Thanks for the feedback, I definitely agree with many of your points.

7 Likes
#20

1 5 min run going for blood maces can easily net u 25 of them, and for wilting suns you get about 15, so high balling got and saying 10x pots take 3 of each that one 5 minute time can net you 50 potions, making them almost worthless in the economy.

Plus the fact that u get so many pots from doing daily shards u don’t even need to make pots, maybe just a like bit of aging. A full group can easily get over 30 pots all together after only a couple hours worth of shards

Fish are the on,y thing that can be argued that will be semi rare, yet everyone knows where everyone is and when they appear, so you can easily get months worth in a couple days

Overall progression is super fast, u know somethings off when multiple groups have already cleared all PvE content, and have the best possible gear in the game within 2 weeks after launch, and then can’t even be involved in the economy because it non existent

4 Likes
#21

Looking at the spawn rates, I think it’s possible we have the herb spawn rates up a little too high, we will look at reducing those.

The shard bonus chest was something we introduced back in the day because people complained it was too hard to get potions for Raids. Maybe we should change that so it’s only 1 chest per day with 2 potions and not up to 3 chests for the different tiers?