Overall feedback on Drakensang

Hello guys, I thought I'd drop by and leave my feedback on Drakensang overall. After playing intensively for a year I have to say that all my frustrations and disappointments have been confirmed as being genuine after switching to another game. I just bought the game two weeks ago and frankly, I couldn't have been happier with the transition. This is a personal opinion and feedback, I don't expect it to be general and I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I am not promoting here other games, nor am I trying to "get people there", I have absolutely nothing to gain from it. At most I hope the feedback will help the whole Drakensang game grow and learn from my experience.
I am not going to give any game names either or companies, whoever figures the game is their problem. It's a point of comparison for me why I am enjoying another gaming experience much much better. So...

1. Drop rate is HORRIFIC - the drop rate is simply horrible, and no matter how many times we complain about it, the answer is "you need to be truly happy about getting a unique item". Yeah right... Last night I dropped multiple legendary and set items in the other game and I was overly excited over each and every one of them. I don't care if I already dropped that item, I didn't have to wait TWO WEEKS to get it and repeated drops can be simply "melted", so to speak. Seriously... Killing Sigrissmar 2500 times on Normal just to get a single unique item is horrible grindy drop rate. And it hurts the game experience, turns it into real burden.
2. Too few unique items - you need to broaden the array of unique items you offer. Seriously guys, it's not THAT difficult to come up with some diversity around here. People complain they are not getting a certain unique item, and that's because they have to rely on that unique to get their character better. Bringing in more diversity and offering unique effects to various unique items helps the game a lot. Of course if the drop rate is so low, what's the point, and rising the drop rate doesn't help when you have such a small pool of uniques. So diversify them, not all of them have to be sets, but even more sets that are not event related would help tremendously your game!
The new skill system is fine, but items are just as important for our characters and a great opportunity to introduce even MORE diversity.
3. When it comes to difficulty levels, Drakensang is all about black and white. There are no nuances. You either play normal mode, or you go pure parallel world. The drop rate in the parallel world is not even that much increased, in spite of the parallel world being MUCH more difficult. Literally if you are going to farm for a unique, it's normal you should have a much better chance there. You say you need multiple players to successfully play the parallel worlds... I disagree.
Introduce multiple difficulty levels and introduce better drop rates with increased difficulty. This gives the players a greater chance to grow progressively and progressively improve their drop rates. It's a win-win situation. Same goes for the campaign mode - sometimes it's simply too easy and the characters grow too slow with all the grindy situations.
4. Diversity - We need more diversity in the game. It gets incredibly boring after a while. If you rethought the parallel worlds a little or came up with a new random generated system that generates random types of monsters on a random map as you go parallel, it would be great fun. This way the players don't get bored!
5. Tying uniques to certain levels - If the uniques can scale better, you can start allowing them to drop at the highest level too (now level 50). Then if you have one you really enjoy, you will be able to take advantage of it even at a later point in the game. This helps with point (2) and allows combining with point (3). It's a win-win situation once again, keeping the game diverse while allowing you to reuse content. Of course they would need to scale better and probably you will need "upgraded" versions for the higher level version (since a level 55 Amulet of Insight is probably incredibly boring right now).
6. Repeated quests that give good rewards. At level 48 having a boost of 25000 XP and some gold just won't do it for me and I doubt many players bother to take those repeated quests. They are grindy, boring and give no real reward. It gets tiring after doing the same map over and over again with no real rewards.
7. Skill system updates are FANTASTIC and I hope you keep doing a great job here because it's a great step forward for Drakensang in improving diversity. But unless we get much more diversity item-based people will continue to leave towards more diverse and interactive environments.
8. PVP vs PVE - I think this is one of the biggest mistake trying to balance these two using the same techniques. Some people like PVE, others prefer PVP, and some like both. Sure thing, but when you try to please a group, expect to displease another. There is also the situation of players playing in group and others playing alone. Give everyone a choice - not everyone needs to be a group PVP player to have lots of fun in your game. Some of us take great pleasure in competitively making our own characters better - that's all I personally cared about, and I feel I was always somehow penalized by incredibly difficult bosses and horrible drop rate just because "we can't have everyone get powerful around here without farming for thousands of hours". I maxed my character's level in the other game in a week top, and now I am all about experimenting with it and having tons of fun.

Bottom line, I don't feel sorry for having played Drakensang for the while I have, but for now I will be taking a break until things end up less grindy and more fun, with better rewards and a greater play experience. Why? I don't want to end up feeling frustrated because of a game that is supposed to relax me and make me feel good. It just beats the purpose and makes me unhappy! For you it might be a business, but for many of us it's just a game that's meant to offer a good time - and yes, dropping a unique every other two weeks when other people get their rewards pronto is FRUSTRATING.

Thank you and good luck everyone.

 

A brief comment on your comments: I absolutely agree that the drop rate is disgusting, especially compared to other games. They are not proportional to a player's level, there is no respect for the player's level; drops are nearly as chintzy for a 45+ as for a beginner.

I still think this game has a lot more pluses than minuses, and I'm not about to just walk away from it. But the current game dynamics do not reinforce game-playing behavior (quite the opposite, actually). As such, I have been playing less (and spending less ); the game has become a casual time-filler: enjoyable with less investment.

The environment has changed; this organism is adapting.

 

honestly, be back in 3 months bro! Game culture is adjusting atm! Be patient!

 

did u used your credit card there to win?

 

Great analysis!
Wish I knew where you went.

 

Thanks to whoever moved this thread. Sorry for the wrong location.
Mindship - I know, but things are moving too slow and since I've found an alternative I thought I would give an informed opinion on the competition out there. I'm trying to help here, not just complain. This is not a permanent good bye, but things are just not moving at an fast enough pace around here. And yes, you are right, all games are cool time fillers
onelove - This is not about 155. This frustration I've been having for quite a few months here. Who knows, maybe in time it will change. I remember last year it was much easier to drop uniques for instance... and it was more pleasurable. A bit more difficult, but less grindy... Oh well, things change, who knows? I'll be watching the forums to see how things evolve and occasionally log in.
bloodyneo - I bought the game, so yes, I did use my credit card to purchase the game itself, but other than that everything is free. You're investing in nothing, there's no such thing as andermant or "pay to play" to obtain items, bonuses, premiums, mounts, glyphs, arcane knoweldge etc. I paid for a "bought once" experience rather than investing step by step in a free to play game. Again, this is my perspective. For people who don't want to spend $40 on a game they are enjoying on a daily basis it's their financial situation and/or choice. It's not better or worse, just a different perspective.
Darwarren - It's quite a popular game nowadays, where the team introduced some incredibly cool features lately. There were a lots of complaints there related to the drop rate, and it seems the team listened and improved it. Now people are happy to build the characters they want and enjoy playing with various classes and highly different playstyles (for each separate class). This is the kind of diversity I wish I saw in DSO. Who knows, at some point I may get bored with it and come back to Drakensang? Since I bought it and I don't have to pay anything for it extra, it's always available. On DSO if you pay for premium you are kind of bound to the premium period but that's just the different philosophy BigPoint chose. This way people who want to try the game can do so free of charge. But if I play a game on a daily basis, and I spend time in it, I have no problem paying for it, in spite of being a casual player Cheers!

 

Sorry to hear that you're going to be less active in-game... I hoped we'd play more, but I can't say your words aren't true. Yes, there a lot of flaws... but I, for one, keep playing because the game looks amazing and because my best friend plays it too. Otherwise, I'm all for complaining (when there's a reason to) because holy cow does this game have a lot of room for improvement. Personally, I don't have any other experience with MMORPGs, so maybe that's one other thing that doesn't make me reject DSO. I like it, that won't change... I'll just adapt; ditto on Mindship's post. Well, I hope I'll see you online sometime so you can tell more without breaking the rule of not giving names on the forum.