My Opinion on Dauntless Awakening

[Syntheticat24]

To be fully honest, without holding any bias for my previous love of this game, the update feels like a full and undeniable downgrade due to execution and lack of communication.

The removal of crafting, and change to a Pay to Win system is what made the weapons part fall short.

The removal of old pre-existing weapons was a slap in the face for those who had Legendary Weapons, especially power-surged.

The Roadmap unless I missed something, only said things about weapon switching and I think it may have had some stuff about the abilities all, so I don't really know where the removal of crafting and all of that originated from, but that piece really confused me to why.

The abilities on weapons for the lantern change would have been way better if you hadn't done too much to the system relating to removals, odd changes, and a bunch of random stuff.

I was looking forward to it when I only knew the side that was "weapon switching, and more combat abilities for each weapon to be unique and fun," in my mind, that is what I was expecting this to be.

Another thing that was like a kick to the knee: Removal of customization options.
You removed things like weapon mods and ability customization, even having no compensation for the people who used Lady Luck's trial marks on them, which isn't too crazy considering they only costed silver marks, but it's still weird.

Yes, it could've been refreshing to the game to overhaul a lot, but I feel like all of the executions this update were flawed.

This has happened plenty over-time as updates have come out.

There is a pattern of calling things "updates" when you all remove content to add new content in its place, rather than either making a new game, or just letting the modes co-exist.

That is why I feel like escalation did so well compared to things like reforged and awakening.

It's because it was actually new content, rather than a replacement changing the entire game.



But as I did say, the lantern change to weapons was a good idea, but the removing and overhauling randomly felt like way too much, and that is why people are saying the kitchen was burnt, because you all really did over-cook the food into a burnt state.

And the main thing I see as problematic is that the new weapon system is way too favoring to those who spend money, rather than cosmetics doing that job.

And I can get that money may be needed, but turning your F2P friendly game into the opposite, adding Loot-Crates to get cosmetics, removing free options, making old features require paying, or extensive playing.

This is what has become the reason this game will get hyped up before an update, and suddenly fall right as it goes to fly.

The wings of the game get severed right as people get to play the actual game, because they notice all of the content removals.

Even beyond the weapon system, I feel like there needs to be a point where it is realized that removing your loyal players' content they were here for, and placing in a whole new game while advertizing and acting like its the same one, is really just a cycle this game goes through.

I played pre-escalation, not beta sadly, so I'll say what I experienced.

Escalation: Players were given a new mode, without removing their beloved content of their game, a lot of them enjoyed it, and it from what I know brought in many more from what I saw in the community.

I personally enjoyed the mode a ton, and was trying my best to max it out.

I maxed out Shock, Fire, and Umbral before reforged.


Reforged: Players were given compensation, but had most content removed in place of a new set that felt like a whole new game, and as a player who did leave quite a lot except for escalation during that time due to it, I can comfortably say that it wasn't a good idea that time.

At that time, most content creators began slowly leaving Dauntless entirely, and not even coming back for more than a few days when a new update would release, if even at all.

The community seemed to be almost replaced by some new ones while the old players mostly left, some stayed, I wasn't entirely one of them, but I came back too every once and awhile with my friend, as the rest of them quit too eventually after reforged except for one.

We both did Terra escalation to level 20, Frost to level 15, Radiant to level 10.

Each time dwindled as the reforged system kept making us have to power-surge new gear, this meant we had to grind already completed escalations to have a better experience (Our Terra is 25 now as of awakening because we grinded it out while we were hyped for the update.) (Frost is 17 and Radiant is 15.)

But after I had about 20 reforges, my gear was fine by then pretty much.

Still stayed with shock escalation due to preferring the older mode still, as it still worked for XP, and was more fun in my opinion then the newer version of the game, even still have that opinion.

Heroic ESC: I never did it after the first few times due to not being skilled or strong enough, and ended up leaving again before I could.

Gauntlet: I don't remember this one removing content either, but I personally didn't like how the mode was played for my style, so I never really played it, as I still had a fun mode I liked.

Pre-Awakening: By this point, I accepted that my progress on leveling was getting removed, and that was all I thought was being removed, so carefree about that change, I messed around with my friend on the double XP weekend, it was insanely fun, we grinded more escalation, and this is when we finished Terra, and just kept chilling.

Tuesday came, the servers went down, and that is when I realized the devastation that could occur soon, as we remembered what usually happens when the game goes down for a long time before an update of this style that removes something.

We joked about how "what if they remove more content then they add, and that is exactly what they had done.

Awakening: After servers went up, we hadn't played yet Thurs, as he wasn't avaliable, but I checked steam, and had noticed that I was right, and watched the returning content creators playing, and noticed how much was changed, and that had made me realize that it was even worse than the incident with reforged's launch.

The next day, I informed my friend, and we were worried about how it truly was, and immediately, we had seen what had happened, which is pretty much the slap in the face the other old players are angry about.

We barely even had fun playing after that, as due to the lack of compensation, escalation was quest locked, meaning we were being forced to replay the game through the hunting grounds mode, and actually redo everything we already did in the past twice now.

And the worst part was the weapons stuff, as most of the F2P ones are just the lanterns, so they really just removed all content for us, while locking the new stuff behind P2W or having to do an insane amount, while the other content that used to exist, was all gone almost.

The only thing that really exists anymore from back then is our cosmetics, and escalation, which we are quest locked out of, without any choice but to replay the entire game.

And even worse, all of those hours in the game previously were entirely wasted, because the only compensation we were given that I know of is the weapon XP, Slayers Path nodes, Cosmetics, and 5 free weapons.

Yes.

Five.

I've been playing the same amount of years in contrast to how many weapons I was given as compensation for such, because I'm pretty sure it was the same for almost everyone.



Overall, this is quite ridiculous, and I am posting this both in the weapons thread as it is still somewhat relevant, and it will hopefully get the opinion out there, along with as its own post in-case it gets marked as irrelevant.

I do still hold out hope for the game as the devs are deciding to take feedback, and I'm quite optamistic overall, and I do still think the game easily could be fixed, even if it does take a while, it will just take the devs listening to us, as the community.

And I do still hold a liking to this game for the memories it has given me, but I don't know how long that will last if there isn't any changes.

Nostalgia will only last so long, as this would not be the first game I liked for its old self, and eventually left after it changed to be unrecognizable.

And sadly, it likely would not be the last.

And no, rather than more compensation, what I truly want is for the devs to listen, and not continue to repetedly make the same exact mistake time and time again, as eventually, there may not be coming back from such a thing.

As I don't even know if they will come back from this one yet, especially with the change in the community right before, and right after this update.

I'm not really trying to doompost the update too hard, but this really, really, is not going to work out.

Things need to change here, and if they don't start soon enough, then it may sadly be too late, if it wasn't already.

Thank you to anyone who genuinely read this through, and I do hope that this game changes for the better this time, rather than continuing on the downhill fall.

Even if you don't agree with my views here, I do hope that you can at least see why I would feel this way.

[BrigidKildare]

There isn't any PVP in the game it isn't pay to win. Matter of fact how do you even define that? Because there are some weapons you can buy from the store? Because you can buy a whole big 3 upgrade cores that amount to jack and spit, it's not like you can just plop down $1000 bucks on a credit card and poof level 60 weapon because you literally can not? Can we stop with the "its pay to win" hyperbole. If anything it's pay to progress and it's not even a tiny little dent in your progress for $18, what you do have is you can pay to get different stuff then you are getting for free, which you don't need and those weapons are most certainly not going to make a pay to win scenario no matter how you want to imagine they will. The rest of your 10K words TLDR, I just wanted to address this stupid "pay to win" lie y'all keep putting out there. SO please tell us precisely what makes it pay to win I would like to know.

[Xrusa]

Originally posted by BrigidKildare:

There isn't any PVP in the game it isn't pay to win. Matter of fact how do you even define that? Because there are some weapons you can buy from the store? Because you can buy a whole big 3 upgrade cores that amount to jack and spit, it's not like you can just plop down $1000 bucks on a credit card and poof level 60 weapon because you literally can not? Can we stop with the "its pay to win" hyperbole. If anything it's pay to progress and it's not even a tiny little dent in your progress for $18, what you do have is you can pay to get different stuff then you are getting for free, which you don't need and those weapons are most certainly not going to make a pay to win scenario no matter how you want to imagine they will. The rest of your 10K words TLDR, I just wanted to address this stupid "pay to win" lie y'all keep putting out there. SO please tell us precisely what makes it pay to win I would like to know.

"it's not like you can just plop down $1000 bucks on a credit card and poof level 60 weapon because you literally can not?"

You do know you literally can, right? Weapon xp is in the shop...its wildly overpriced but it's there. And the "pay to progress" line isn't technically wrong, but as a pure f2p you can never unlock every weapon in the game - by design. By the time you get enough to unlock one weapon, another has already released. That cycle is never ending and you will genuinely be locked out of weapons forever without spending money, and that by definition is a paywall. Pay to win is I think used too generically, but topping the trials charts is a form of "winning" i guess.

[DJBacon]

You also forgot to mention they removed the exotic helmets
I really hope they actually listen to feedback

[BrigidKildare]

Originally posted by Xrusa:

Originally posted by BrigidKildare:

There isn't any PVP in the game it isn't pay to win. Matter of fact how do you even define that? Because there are some weapons you can buy from the store? Because you can buy a whole big 3 upgrade cores that amount to jack and spit, it's not like you can just plop down $1000 bucks on a credit card and poof level 60 weapon because you literally can not? Can we stop with the "its pay to win" hyperbole. If anything it's pay to progress and it's not even a tiny little dent in your progress for $18, what you do have is you can pay to get different stuff then you are getting for free, which you don't need and those weapons are most certainly not going to make a pay to win scenario no matter how you want to imagine they will. The rest of your 10K words TLDR, I just wanted to address this stupid "pay to win" lie y'all keep putting out there. SO please tell us precisely what makes it pay to win I would like to know.

"it's not like you can just plop down $1000 bucks on a credit card and poof level 60 weapon because you literally can not?"

You do know you literally can, right? Weapon xp is in the shop...its wildly overpriced but it's there. And the "pay to progress" line isn't technically wrong, but as a pure f2p you can never unlock every weapon in the game - by design. By the time you get enough to unlock one weapon, another has already released. That cycle is never ending and you will genuinely be locked out of weapons forever without spending money, and that by definition is a paywall. Pay to win is I think used too generically, but topping the trials charts is a form of "winning" i guess.

It's in the shop as a ONE TIME PURCHASE probably weekly so no you literally can not. You can purchase 6100 exp for $18 ONCE from the shop. It takes 500,000 to get to level 60. So yeah you absolutely can buy 6100 exp once a week. Massive winning there. So basically at this point we have like 5-10 people who have a bone to pick who many have admitted haven't played since reforged released. At-any-rate you still haven't proven "pay to win" have a day.

[Syntheticat24]

Originally posted by BrigidKildare:

There isn't any PVP in the game it isn't pay to win. Matter of fact how do you even define that? Because there are some weapons you can buy from the store? Because you can buy a whole big 3 upgrade cores that amount to jack and spit, it's not like you can just plop down $1000 bucks on a credit card and poof level 60 weapon because you literally can not? Can we stop with the "its pay to win" hyperbole. If anything it's pay to progress and it's not even a tiny little dent in your progress for $18, what you do have is you can pay to get different stuff then you are getting for free, which you don't need and those weapons are most certainly not going to make a pay to win scenario no matter how you want to imagine they will. The rest of your 10K words TLDR, I just wanted to address this stupid "pay to win" lie y'all keep putting out there. SO please tell us precisely what makes it pay to win I would like to know.

Since when did a game have to be PVP to be P2W.
That is literally saying "You cannot win in a game that is not PVP."
Also, you literally can buy and weapon and the weapon XP infusing materials to do that.
And it is pay to win because you are quite literally paying real life money, even by progressing, you are winning.

I don't think you get that winning doesn't just mean seeing a "VICTORY" displayed on your screen.

[Syntheticat24]

Originally posted by BrigidKildare:

Originally posted by Xrusa:

"it's not like you can just plop down $1000 bucks on a credit card and poof level 60 weapon because you literally can not?"

You do know you literally can, right? Weapon xp is in the shop...its wildly overpriced but it's there. And the "pay to progress" line isn't technically wrong, but as a pure f2p you can never unlock every weapon in the game - by design. By the time you get enough to unlock one weapon, another has already released. That cycle is never ending and you will genuinely be locked out of weapons forever without spending money, and that by definition is a paywall. Pay to win is I think used too generically, but topping the trials charts is a form of "winning" i guess.

It's in the shop as a ONE TIME PURCHASE probably weekly so no you literally can not. You can purchase 6100 exp for $18 ONCE from the shop. It takes 500,000 to get to level 60. So yeah you absolutely can buy 6100 exp once a week. Massive winning there. So basically at this point we have like 5-10 people who have a bone to pick who many have admitted haven't played since reforged released. At-any-rate you still haven't proven "pay to win" have a day.

By buying weapons too, you are still getting stronger weapons that other players would have to play a lot to get, which is both paying to progress and win.

You are achieving victory by crossing the finish line of that goal they have, because that line of progression is a milestone, and you're doing it by paying with money rather then time.