Hi,
Let's start with positives because there are some and it would be unfair not to mention them.
This 'review' is not meant to bash anybody.
Let's start with positives because there are some and it would be unfair not to mention them.
The OG feel
The server is very close to the classic Metin experience. It's hard, it's enjoyable, and it encourages grind. Grind is not for everybody; on every server, there are people asking for events, boosts, improvements, etc. I am rarely one of those and found this server to fit my taste.
Little IS emphasis
There is almost no need to use it. No pay-to-win mechanic (although I read about exo/hermits being available in IS at the start??) to boost only a certain group of people who invest real money in the game.
Sadly, this isn't enough, because the server implodes because of many issues that, sadly, have been simply refused to be addressed and fixed.The server is very close to the classic Metin experience. It's hard, it's enjoyable, and it encourages grind. Grind is not for everybody; on every server, there are people asking for events, boosts, improvements, etc. I am rarely one of those and found this server to fit my taste.
Little IS emphasis
There is almost no need to use it. No pay-to-win mechanic (although I read about exo/hermits being available in IS at the start??) to boost only a certain group of people who invest real money in the game.
Skill issue
Ironically, not an issue with YOUR skill of playing the game. The skills are bugged from day 1 - notable examples being AoS and Fear. They can take up to 3 times to "catch on". This has been reported numerous time, the GMs are well aware of it. Why hasn't it been fixed? It looks like the server devs simply don't know how. Skill issue - they lack the ability to fix it, that is my conclusion. There have been plenty of maintenance breaks and fixes, but this remains unaffected. Skills and self-buffs are a crucial part of the game and are not working properly. With unannounced debuffs and generally difficult mobs this just adds to the frustration and really doesn't look good on the development team, because it stems from...
Poor quality control
The changes introduced during technical breaks have in the past required additional maintenance breaks because they broke other things or be implemented improperly. This makes people doubt the technical ability of server devs even more. Recently I've been approach by a GM asking for a proof of a bug - the team was unaware that one of their updates changed the entry level for SD2 from 45 to 50. The changes introduced with that update had nothing to do with SD2! They didn't work on that area of the game, but they broke it nonetheless - unknowingly! Look, the bug had its own dialogue box, showing it wasn't due to a mismatched line of code. Someone had to write this intentionally, then implement it into the game - while the team had no idea that took place!
Similar situation with the permabonuses for quests being bugged, with a certain pool of players having to pick their bonuses again. You want more examples? They are open for perusal in the patch notes - this is not a one-off occurrence. The dev team seems to have very little control over the changes they introduce to the game - they are almost guaranteed to mess up something else unintentionally and then require backtracking and patching. Almost as if the changes were done by someone who doesn't check them in game, like it was outsourced to somebody who is not responsible for the server and can replace files at any moment without the team being aware of it happening. Instead, it is up to the players to check and report whether the systems in place are even functional.
Drop(ped) rate
After hitting lvl 40-45 and leaving m2 farms, I hoped for a step up in my farming possibilities. This did not happen. Starting from Shadow Metin the players can drop bonus changers and adders as opposed from the lower lvl green ones. The drop rate of those items is atrocious. The drop rate of any items from these metins is atrocious. I am lvl 60, farming on Sohan has become pointless. My friend is similar level and we both drop maybe two changers per a couple of hours of farming. And this is the best drop from the metin. This lvl demands heavy investments into the biologist, equipment and getting your skills to P (talk about increasing prices of SS...). The farming potential I had on the metins of jealousy and darkness at lvl 35 is incomparable. Aside from occupying Spider Queen's respawns I have no real possibility of earning yang - I tried something different and went to the forest, but there is no difference in drop.
Even chaos metins on my level rarely now drop something of value. I expected more exos and hermits as my level increased - expected some rare cases where it drops from regular meetings. It rarely drops from chaos ones, and please keep in mind that it is simply not possible to break as many metins at lvl 60 compared to a nice farm in the second town. I literally don't count on the chaos metins at all when planing out my income, because they don't provide any. An odd changer or a useless adder (why not implement an exchange system to keep the adder's value tied to the changer?) with a very rare drop of bless/exorcism scroll simply changes nothing, even when it happens. Metins could have a guaranteed drop of some mystery chest that can give you a bless, an exo or hermit, and some less valuable things - but they should guarantee you something to put you on game. The cost of upgrading gear and skills is OUT OF PROPORTION compared to the loot offered by metins, bosses and regular grind, and it was not as challenging and demanding on lower levels. It genuinely feels like something just broke at some point and the team is unaware of how bad it really is. You can just dismiss it as "unlucky" or my personal experience, but how many days of bad lack will I have to endure? How many cases of "something is wrong" warrant a reaction from a responsible person instead of blaming the player and shutting any discussion?
Mind you, I own the premium package for playing from day 1 AND put on thief's glove from the expert chest. I get valuable drop maybe once in ten metins at Sohan/Forest level. The main source of income from these metins is picking up gear and selling it at the general store, which brings me to the next point...
Quality of life
I received quest from Uriel to drop some parchments from monsters in the Forest. The NPC does not accept them one by one like the biologist, and I need to drop 10 of them. They don't stack, meaning that as I farm in the Forest and drop them by the way, they take up valuable inventory slots that could otherwise serve me to gather trash that I later sell at general store. With the book day coming up, you can see how the inventory starts to fill up in a flash. Do the people running the server even play metin? Are they aware that this is a very impactful, yet easy to fix issue? It is understandable that the server is hard, but there is no reason for it to be TEDIOUS in aspects such as inventory management.
Same for the keys and treasure boxes - they could easily just stack and help me reduce the amount of times I have to make a run to the town to stash them in my storage or sell stuff off to the npc to free up space in my inventory. This takes up time as there is no smooth teleportation system in place (fair enough, but for higher levels with more areas to explore the scrolls start to take up a lot of space and all can be essential, there is no reason they couldn't be combined into one item like a teleportation ring or a hotkey with teleportation panel, this has been implemented in other HARD servers).
Cooldown bullshit
This is the first server I play where getting on a horse cancels logging out/switching channel and introduced a cooldown (yes, it happened, maybe I misinterpreted it but that just goes to show that the restrictions are so many and unintuitive, that you simply can't predict the rules). Many of the basic interactions/actions induce a cooldown that stops you from teleporting/switching ch. It's DEBILIATING. You can't play like this. I could write a book using only various cooldown notifications. It's insane. Picking up an item, dropping an item, using an item, buying an item, there is just too many of those. I know some thing like trading impacts this and it's always been like that, but there were not THAT MANY restrictions on other servers and the ones that implemented on this server just didn't need to exist. There is no reason for the gameplay to look like this.
Customer "service"
Communication with members of staff is scarce and unfruitful. The changes implemented are harsh, uncalled for, unannounced and way too impactful with no real debate allowed and with no opinion sourced from the player base. Things just happen, things don't work, people' voice has no impact nor response. For example - the chaos fragments bug after a maintenance. For about an hour or two chaos metin fragments stopped dropping. There was no response, no contact with the team during that time - even though the server just had some major changes implemented! The team was unavailable. It's always the same excuse (it's easter, we have families, we have jobs, we have education). I get it. That is fair and ambitious to introduce a well-prospering server while maintaining a demanding personal life and goals, but there really should be people "on shifts" here so that someone has some control over this server, especially when you introduce updates and changes in rush-hour traffic, often without announcement, often with some very drastic, unplanned consequences.
I've decided to quit the game because it is not enjoyable anymore due to mayhem in moderation and chokehold in char development. I am sharing my insights in hopes of sparking a constructive discussion with a member of staff preferably.
Feel free to prove my points wrong or share your own experiences with the server, even (or especially) if they vary from mine.
Ironically, not an issue with YOUR skill of playing the game. The skills are bugged from day 1 - notable examples being AoS and Fear. They can take up to 3 times to "catch on". This has been reported numerous time, the GMs are well aware of it. Why hasn't it been fixed? It looks like the server devs simply don't know how. Skill issue - they lack the ability to fix it, that is my conclusion. There have been plenty of maintenance breaks and fixes, but this remains unaffected. Skills and self-buffs are a crucial part of the game and are not working properly. With unannounced debuffs and generally difficult mobs this just adds to the frustration and really doesn't look good on the development team, because it stems from...
Poor quality control
The changes introduced during technical breaks have in the past required additional maintenance breaks because they broke other things or be implemented improperly. This makes people doubt the technical ability of server devs even more. Recently I've been approach by a GM asking for a proof of a bug - the team was unaware that one of their updates changed the entry level for SD2 from 45 to 50. The changes introduced with that update had nothing to do with SD2! They didn't work on that area of the game, but they broke it nonetheless - unknowingly! Look, the bug had its own dialogue box, showing it wasn't due to a mismatched line of code. Someone had to write this intentionally, then implement it into the game - while the team had no idea that took place!
Similar situation with the permabonuses for quests being bugged, with a certain pool of players having to pick their bonuses again. You want more examples? They are open for perusal in the patch notes - this is not a one-off occurrence. The dev team seems to have very little control over the changes they introduce to the game - they are almost guaranteed to mess up something else unintentionally and then require backtracking and patching. Almost as if the changes were done by someone who doesn't check them in game, like it was outsourced to somebody who is not responsible for the server and can replace files at any moment without the team being aware of it happening. Instead, it is up to the players to check and report whether the systems in place are even functional.
Drop(ped) rate
After hitting lvl 40-45 and leaving m2 farms, I hoped for a step up in my farming possibilities. This did not happen. Starting from Shadow Metin the players can drop bonus changers and adders as opposed from the lower lvl green ones. The drop rate of those items is atrocious. The drop rate of any items from these metins is atrocious. I am lvl 60, farming on Sohan has become pointless. My friend is similar level and we both drop maybe two changers per a couple of hours of farming. And this is the best drop from the metin. This lvl demands heavy investments into the biologist, equipment and getting your skills to P (talk about increasing prices of SS...). The farming potential I had on the metins of jealousy and darkness at lvl 35 is incomparable. Aside from occupying Spider Queen's respawns I have no real possibility of earning yang - I tried something different and went to the forest, but there is no difference in drop.
Even chaos metins on my level rarely now drop something of value. I expected more exos and hermits as my level increased - expected some rare cases where it drops from regular meetings. It rarely drops from chaos ones, and please keep in mind that it is simply not possible to break as many metins at lvl 60 compared to a nice farm in the second town. I literally don't count on the chaos metins at all when planing out my income, because they don't provide any. An odd changer or a useless adder (why not implement an exchange system to keep the adder's value tied to the changer?) with a very rare drop of bless/exorcism scroll simply changes nothing, even when it happens. Metins could have a guaranteed drop of some mystery chest that can give you a bless, an exo or hermit, and some less valuable things - but they should guarantee you something to put you on game. The cost of upgrading gear and skills is OUT OF PROPORTION compared to the loot offered by metins, bosses and regular grind, and it was not as challenging and demanding on lower levels. It genuinely feels like something just broke at some point and the team is unaware of how bad it really is. You can just dismiss it as "unlucky" or my personal experience, but how many days of bad lack will I have to endure? How many cases of "something is wrong" warrant a reaction from a responsible person instead of blaming the player and shutting any discussion?
Mind you, I own the premium package for playing from day 1 AND put on thief's glove from the expert chest. I get valuable drop maybe once in ten metins at Sohan/Forest level. The main source of income from these metins is picking up gear and selling it at the general store, which brings me to the next point...
Quality of life
I received quest from Uriel to drop some parchments from monsters in the Forest. The NPC does not accept them one by one like the biologist, and I need to drop 10 of them. They don't stack, meaning that as I farm in the Forest and drop them by the way, they take up valuable inventory slots that could otherwise serve me to gather trash that I later sell at general store. With the book day coming up, you can see how the inventory starts to fill up in a flash. Do the people running the server even play metin? Are they aware that this is a very impactful, yet easy to fix issue? It is understandable that the server is hard, but there is no reason for it to be TEDIOUS in aspects such as inventory management.
Same for the keys and treasure boxes - they could easily just stack and help me reduce the amount of times I have to make a run to the town to stash them in my storage or sell stuff off to the npc to free up space in my inventory. This takes up time as there is no smooth teleportation system in place (fair enough, but for higher levels with more areas to explore the scrolls start to take up a lot of space and all can be essential, there is no reason they couldn't be combined into one item like a teleportation ring or a hotkey with teleportation panel, this has been implemented in other HARD servers).
Cooldown bullshit
This is the first server I play where getting on a horse cancels logging out/switching channel and introduced a cooldown (yes, it happened, maybe I misinterpreted it but that just goes to show that the restrictions are so many and unintuitive, that you simply can't predict the rules). Many of the basic interactions/actions induce a cooldown that stops you from teleporting/switching ch. It's DEBILIATING. You can't play like this. I could write a book using only various cooldown notifications. It's insane. Picking up an item, dropping an item, using an item, buying an item, there is just too many of those. I know some thing like trading impacts this and it's always been like that, but there were not THAT MANY restrictions on other servers and the ones that implemented on this server just didn't need to exist. There is no reason for the gameplay to look like this.
Customer "service"
Communication with members of staff is scarce and unfruitful. The changes implemented are harsh, uncalled for, unannounced and way too impactful with no real debate allowed and with no opinion sourced from the player base. Things just happen, things don't work, people' voice has no impact nor response. For example - the chaos fragments bug after a maintenance. For about an hour or two chaos metin fragments stopped dropping. There was no response, no contact with the team during that time - even though the server just had some major changes implemented! The team was unavailable. It's always the same excuse (it's easter, we have families, we have jobs, we have education). I get it. That is fair and ambitious to introduce a well-prospering server while maintaining a demanding personal life and goals, but there really should be people "on shifts" here so that someone has some control over this server, especially when you introduce updates and changes in rush-hour traffic, often without announcement, often with some very drastic, unplanned consequences.
I've decided to quit the game because it is not enjoyable anymore due to mayhem in moderation and chokehold in char development. I am sharing my insights in hopes of sparking a constructive discussion with a member of staff preferably.
Feel free to prove my points wrong or share your own experiences with the server, even (or especially) if they vary from mine.
