Problem with cabal

[providen1990]

Cabal is getting harder and harder for new players, this game is going to die for sure if there are no new players so fix it. Here is some thought:
_Make it easier to leveling (weaken the monster or increase exp you get from leveling) as of now, it is to spend 3 months to just get to 190 (I know people get 190 in 1 months or even less but think as a new player you dont have the gear and experience or even alz 3 months is pretty fast already)
_For dungeon drop must be better 7amp gear should drop every time you run a dungeon (noone care about these gear anymore so why not drop more for new player), 14 amp gear must also drop more. The difficulty level of dungeon now is ridiculous compare to the player's gears 80% of the cabal population cant run anything stronger than MO and MO is like 10 updates ago. Please look at the price of item here and in Korea and adjust it.
_Event must be easier also (i dont know if it is only me but the events are getting harder everytime). Give new player a way to farm alz or upgrade their gear easier.
Unless you want cabal to die, else do something help the new players

[AllHopeIsLost]

Cabal is getting harder and harder for new players, this game is going to die for sure if there are no new players so fix it. Here is some thought:
_Make it easier to leveling (weaken the monster or increase exp you get from leveling) as of now, it is to spend 3 months to just get to 190 (I know people get 190 in 1 months or even less but think as a new player you dont have the gear and experience or even alz 3 months is pretty fast already)
_For dungeon drop must be better 7amp gear should drop every time you run a dungeon (noone care about these gear anymore so why not drop more for new player), 14 amp gear must also drop more. The difficulty level of dungeon now is ridiculous compare to the player's gears 80% of the cabal population cant run anything stronger than MO and MO is like 10 updates ago. Please look at the price of item here and in Korea and adjust it.
_Event must be easier also (i dont know if it is only me but the events are getting harder everytime). Give new player a way to farm alz or upgrade their gear easier.
Unless you want cabal to die, else do something help the new players


The game is broken and war is broken.

The gear still isn't to scale with levels and only one war decides the weekly winner for bonus when it should be all wars that count, I suggested fixes for these in a previous threads a long time ago about scaling gear to level and a point system with a base number of points going to each nation based off the winners of each NW tier...Sadly, They fell on deaf ears.

But if you think the game is dead/dying, Then do something about it.

You or EST or someone with more ambition could create a Cabal online sub-reddit on Reddit that can be used to post videos, screenshots, news, events and updates which members could cross-post into different sub-reddits like /r/pics, /r/games or /r/pcmasterrace.

And what ever happened to Steam Greenlight?...Did we get the publicity?...Did new players join?...Is there a campaign out there to advertise in local gaming stores or in gaming mags or e-magazines?....Do you tell people about this game?

You also have to look at the existing player base, A lot of the players are seasoned veterans who just do their daily program with a select few who really don't want to bother teaching or helping noobs out unless it's to scam them in the end.

But I'm done with Cabal 1 now, After mastering the combo system until fighting is just reflex;it's not challenging anymore, Now I'm just waiting for my Cabal 2 BETA key........

......Aaaaaany day now.

[Enso]

- Leveling is already easy. Way easier than other games. One month to 190 is not hard at all, anyone who knows anything about anything would tell anyone new to run ECA with a partner 130-190, and 0-130 is a one week endeavor tops.
- Dungeon drop rates are fine. This sounds like someone who doesn't run very many mad that they don't get good drops. MO is a money machine, having gear able to run that is enough to jump start any other gear one wants. You break even literally by the third chest every time. Run MO 100 times and even with a full party you'll be way ahead.
- They already do these kinds of events.

Making alz is not hard, it just takes playing the game (or paying for it). Unfortunately, dancing in town has been shown to be less effective than running dungeons or killing world bosses so going that route might be harder.

Cabal is not dying. Do you know what a whale is?

[providen1990]

_Imagine you are a new player getting to 130 ok no problem, but after that ECA right you need 2.5m/key and you need about 300 keys to get 190 where do you get that money from (dont expect anyone to give you anything if you are a nub 130 trying to leech off ECA). I feel like you are dont think it through, this thread is about new player not someone who want to reroll.
_For dungeon, I want the drop rate to increase for new player so they can get gear just running dungeon a few times as I say noone care about 7 amp gear why not make it drop more. There are no problem about MO just that the dungeon that is harder than MO, as I say MO is 10 updates ago and only 20% of the players can run something stronger, what does it say about this game ?
_Event is getting harder, if you recall the 1st event that allow you to make 32 amp gear it was easier to farm than the recently one. Also make event that help new player getting alz. Dont just say run dungeon 4297387 times and get gear think about how new player want it, noone like to grind like that.
Again this is about new player. And cabal is dying, look at the channel bars, they are getting lower and lower, that is fact. What proof do you have to say it is not dying ?

[Noona]

_Imagine you are a new player getting to 130 ok no problem, but after that ECA right you need 2.5m/key and you need about 300 keys to get 190 where do you get that money from (dont expect anyone to give you anything if you are a nub 130 trying to leech off ECA). I feel like you are dont think it through, this thread is about new player not someone who want to reroll.
Just cause Enso emphasized ECA as a way of leveling doesn't mean it's the only way of leveling. MF, PF, PI, and AT works well just as it always has.
_For dungeon, I want the drop rate to increase for new player so they can get gear just running dungeon a few times as I say noone care about 7 amp gear why not make it drop more. There are no problem about MO just that the dungeon that is harder than MO, as I say MO is 10 updates ago and only 20% of the players can run something stronger, what does it say about this game ?
The drop rates are perfectly fine. Its been too long but I'm pretty sure there was an update where they made outrageous/fatal gear drop quite frequently, think it was the update where they made (perfect craft) character binding items into bound when equipped. That update devalued all the amp gears so much, by like a factor of x10. Furthermore, craftman gear was released, which devalued amp gears even more. Now, a new player can literally get shadow titanium amp gears for <10m. What more do you want?
_Event is getting harder, if you recall the 1st event that allow you to make 32 amp gear it was easier to farm than the recently one. Also make event that help new player getting alz. Dont just say run dungeon 4297387 times and get gear think about how new player want it, noone like to grind like that.
Event was harder and catered to veteran players? What? The green socks prices were like x3 the red sock prices...why? Cause green socks dropped from LOW LEVEL dungeons.
Again this is about new player. And cabal is dying, look at the channel bars, they are getting lower and lower, that is fact. What proof do you have to say it is not dying ?
And what proof do you have to say that it is dying? I agree that the channel bars have been lowering but how does that indicate that cabal is D-Y-I-N-G? There are still enough players to keep this version going.
....

[Enso]

- Well if you never farm, sure that could be expensive. However there are places to farm well under level 130 that can make money to level no problem. It isn't hard to discover -- look at what drops from different places, look at market, kill monsters that drop expensive things. I saw someone go 0 - 170 in two weeks pre-ECA starting from exactly nothing just by running dungeons not even trying to level.
- If someone really wants 7 amp gear, they can just buy it. It isn't expensive. Because it drops a lot. Derp. And where did you get that 20% number? Did you poll all Cabal players across all servers and 20% of people can run dungeons "stronger" than MO? That's some impressive work I'd like to see your full results though.
- You're joking right? White boxes? You think that was easier than presents? Are you literally on crack?

If you don't want to grind, might want to reconsider the genre of game you're playing, sir.

That is absolutely not a fact. I don't think you understand who the burden of proof lies with here.

[providen1990]

_If i recall correctly the time it took me from 170-190 is 3x the time it took to get from 0-170, if that person doing 2week to get 170 then it would be about 8weeks to get 190 that is 2months (and I didn't count the gear they suppose to have to get to 190 in ECA or PI or AT...) Going from 0-170 is not hard but then how can you grind with shadow titanium +9 when you get to PI, AT or ECA ? also keep in mind when you dont have gear, EOD could take 25min, sod could take 10-15 min.
_You need to consider the + also 10m/ pieces +9 +10 could be 50mil and x4. The fact that noone care about a 7amp drop then why not make it from 10mil to free? So according to you how many player can do dungeon that is stronger than MO ? (in % plz). Assume that the players which are <170 could not run anything stronger than MO that is like 50% of the population (i know there are 169 people with OP gear but there are just too little) plus not everyone that is >170 can run anything stronger than MO. Also the fact that in T5 i usually feel like i am the top 20% of players and i have never run FT2 awaken (i did AFI though) so that roughly how i come up with 80%. Also keep in mind in that 80% of the people, not everyone can run MO
_White box event if i recall correctly, the price of the thing that you need to exchange for special shop item was at a point 400-500m. It never drop to that ever since, also, new player farm more from that event because they earn more, I remember in ornament event you easily get 100 ornament/AOS2 but look at the recent event, you get 60 max.
_Go advertise your game as a grinding extensive game and see how would it work out, the point I want to make is luring new players into this game to keep the player base up. If you think the cabal population is increasing then you are on crack.
_Extra question, how much alz can you earn from grinding in cabal/day? (on average) divide it by 5 and you get the alz that a new player get from grinding/day and let assume you need around 15bil to have a mediocre character then how much time would it take (if you get anything more than 6months then it is not acceptable noone would start a game knowing that they need 6+2months grinding just to get mediocre). Cabal is an old game the gap between old and new player is getting wider.
_To noona: dying mean it is going to die in sometime not immediately, if you agree that the bars is lowering that mean the game is dying. If there are not enough people to keep this game going then that is dead not dying.
_Another thing, Korean players were using at least 14amp gears when they have this update, compare that to our server. This is American not Korean

[Valdoroth]

Cabal is harder to lvl than WoW, ArcheAge, Firestar (or whatever its name is I can't remember right now), The Old Republic, or GW2. I can get max level in any of those in about a week or two at most. And you say cabal is faster than other games? I don't know what other games you've been playing.

I would agree that not saying anything by the community is one factor, the other is that there is far too much useless stuff in the game that goes to just distract new players and is one minor factor to why they don't stay.

Another factor is that the game is far too stat driven. Combo being able to press the same key over and over (unlike originally) requires little to no skill other than just simple timing. Sure you can still do quick actions in combo like dash or fade or debuffs, but ultimately they don't really impact that much of the game. And now there's so many different gear items that it's almost overwhelming, and to think that they're still adding more instead of simply expanding on what is already there (honestly the skill system needs revamping entirely, but that will never happen at this point). There are some game mechanics, but 90% of it involves timing your shorts and debuffs and tanking through it all. There's little to none that require much actual mechanical thinking and actions. Only a few bosses in the game require you to move from the same spot to defeat it. That is another factor as to why it's not that fun after short duration of playing.

Another major factor is that NA has far more games to choose from compared to most the world, so naturally the player base is split from that, especially when many of those other games are overall not as much of a painstaking grind as cabal with limited builds. If you look at any class in cabal, the builds for gears are virtually the same. Only a few modifications here and there for rate and cd balance.

What you may forget or not know, is that cabal originally came out in 2007. It's currently 2015, meaning it's 8 years old now.

However, one of the biggest critical things about this game is patience, and I would hazard a statement to say that very few people in our modern culture actually have enough to play this game as it was designed originally.

I think people forget that currently the world is driven by this thing called economics, and guess what video game companies are for? Entertainment? No. Money? Yes. Remember that. Yes they can have huge impacts on games and in some cases ruin the economies of the game forever *cough* vouchers *cough cough*. It may sound odd, but back during OGP times bots were a bigger problem than now, but guess what? The economy wasn't screwed up and in fact those botters were one of the primary parts the kept it running as smoothly as it did. There was no such thing as p2w back then, or at least on the legal side of things, and I don't recall that often where someone got away with it in the long run, and even if they did, the % that still play is negligible.


Long story short: Quit wanting everything immediately in a Korean type game. It's not designed to be top gears in half a year only. It should take 2 years at least to have good gears. I'm not talking all 14%+ amp good either.

[SupBro]

You guys obviously haven't play silkroad and try to get max level even in lower expansions of that game ....

[Tonberry]

dem days when gmaster was the skill cap and you had to punch mobs for 1 hit each after buying magic to sword skill/sowrd to magic skill upgrade to grind skill level knew when the struggle was real

[jamnotjelly]

Lol one of these threads for 2015. Games broken not gonna change. Just play something else if you can't handle the agony :>

[spittaz]

Lol one of these threads for 2015. Games broken not gonna change. Just play something else if you can't handle the agony :>


Game has gotten alot easier for new players, before it was alot harder to actually get geared and lvl.
I seen people do dungeon with stit 7amp with no problem, thats like what? 10m each piece?
Bracelets are about 10-40m now as well before they were 2b+
Epaulet is about 500m-1b, before it was 3b
Weapons could be a small issue but u can always just buy a normal 36cdi one, doesnt have to be 7/40 or 8/40 stuff.
Lvling is easy as well, just takes time.
As for events, its easy to make money off of them if your not planning to buy anything.
Example: Last event red and green socks, new players can farm aos2 for w/e socks it drops and sell them. Yes they are new and might be clueless at times but thats why you join a guild and make friends, ask question. Cabal players are here to help but dont take "helping" as an excuse to ask for alz or free sht.

[Lord Kronius]

....

......

[providen1990]

Well i just wanna make my point that if there is no new player coming, this game will be dead simple input/output problem unless they wanna change things around.

[AllHopeIsLost]

Cabal e-sports

...just saiyan

[Enso]

_If i recall correctly the time it took me from 170-190 is 3x the time it took to get from 0-170, if that person doing 2week to get 170 then it would be about 8weeks to get 190 that is 2months (and I didn't count the gear they suppose to have to get to 190 in ECA or PI or AT...) Going from 0-170 is not hard but then how can you grind with shadow titanium +9 when you get to PI, AT or ECA ? also keep in mind when you dont have gear, EOD could take 25min, sod could take 10-15 min.
_You need to consider the + also 10m/ pieces +9 +10 could be 50mil and x4. The fact that noone care about a 7amp drop then why not make it from 10mil to free? So according to you how many player can do dungeon that is stronger than MO ? (in % plz). Assume that the players which are <170 could not run anything stronger than MO that is like 50% of the population (i know there are 169 people with OP gear but there are just too little) plus not everyone that is >170 can run anything stronger than MO. Also the fact that in T5 i usually feel like i am the top 20% of players and i have never run FT2 awaken (i did AFI though) so that roughly how i come up with 80%. Also keep in mind in that 80% of the people, not everyone can run MO
_White box event if i recall correctly, the price of the thing that you need to exchange for special shop item was at a point 400-500m. It never drop to that ever since, also, new player farm more from that event because they earn more, I remember in ornament event you easily get 100 ornament/AOS2 but look at the recent event, you get 60 max.
_Go advertise your game as a grinding extensive game and see how would it work out, the point I want to make is luring new players into this game to keep the player base up. If you think the cabal population is increasing then you are on crack.
_Extra question, how much alz can you earn from grinding in cabal/day? (on average) divide it by 5 and you get the alz that a new player get from grinding/day and let assume you need around 15bil to have a mediocre character then how much time would it take (if you get anything more than 6months then it is not acceptable noone would start a game knowing that they need 6+2months grinding just to get mediocre). Cabal is an old game the gap between old and new player is getting wider.
_To noona: dying mean it is going to die in sometime not immediately, if you agree that the bars is lowering that mean the game is dying. If there are not enough people to keep this game going then that is dead not dying.
_Another thing, Korean players were using at least 14amp gears when they have this update, compare that to our server. This is American not Korean

I don't make assertions I can't back up, so no I won't take a wild guess at a percent of people who can or cannot do particular dungeons. That is riddled with ambiguity and is a pointless exercise.

You remember incorrectly. White boxes were 800m. Various items cost between eleven and 15 of them, plus additional alz. Somewhere on the order of 2-3b. Also between everyone I knew, no one got a single white box from the ones that could be farmed.

I never said the population was increasing. I said it isn't a "fact" that channel populations are decreasing, and I said the game isn't dying.

Where do you get your numbers? The things I do to get alz can be done at any level 100 or so and up. There is nothing stopping new players from getting alz. Also where do you get 15b is a mediocre character number? My character has about that much alz in gear value (probably a little less) and continuously scores 2nd highest in her class, and 7th-10th overall in the weekly ranking. Character build matters many times more than pure alz investment. (Also probably worth noting that I'm not a particularly good player in terms of technical ability, I make a lot of mistakes.)

As for your question about how much alz I get per day, it varies wildly. Yesterday I made about 600m, couple weeks before, I lost 2b. I'm not sure what your point is there. If I just tried to farm alz and did nothing else I could probably average 200-300m a day.

I do agree there is a gap in gear between old and new players, however new players have the advantage of not being burdened by old-style build thinking. I wouldn't underestimate that. Most people still build like it's 2010.

ETA: if you define "dying" as "won't be around forever", all games are dying. Will Cabal (or even computers capable of running it) be around in the year 3000? Unlikely.

[Tonberry]

he's right bro, i still build my char like it's 2006 :D

[Vikz]

dem days when gmaster was the skill cap and you had to punch mobs for 1 hit each after buying magic to sword skill/sowrd to magic skill upgrade to grind skill level knew when the struggle was real

Ah yes , OGP days , the struggle was real and prices back then were up in the sky lol

[providen1990]

_I think we have different view about how "good" NA players are well no point argue about this since noone can provide a good proof anyway.
_White box were 800m most of the time but drop to 400 500 at the end. Well let say 800m were the price, weren't the recently one more expensive than 800m ? I doesn't count it was easier to farm box in previous event. (I think they add box to item shop and decrease the drop rate)
_Well IDK what you talking about when you say the bars are not lowering. Dying at a fast rate I might add, dying mean the game population is decreasing (you said it is not increasing so my bet is it is decreasing, since staying the same seem impossible). There are lot of old game the population is increasing at pretty fast rate, DOTA, LOL.
_Since idk what you doing to make alz, I assume you run dungeon (all your previous post talking about running dungeon to get alz...). If it is running dungeon then you can divide by 5 (crap gear cant run any good dungeon, crap gear is 2, 3 times slower than you running any dungeon, crap gear waste more sp running dungeon). It is for calculate how long it would take a new player to get good gear. New games even Korean game doesn't grind as much any more, why not change the system now rather than keeping the old system?
_With 15 bil here is what you can get 2 FC weapons +15 (2.5bil each), full FC 15 2.5bil x3, 8/20 helm, ring amulet epaulet .... That is pretty mediocre to me.
_To be clear this is about getting more new players not about an old player who want to be lazy and ask the game to be easier so don't talk about me since I am old player.
_You didnt talk about the gears difference between Korea server and this server, as I said same content Korean player 14 amp gear at least, us 8amp is that correct ? (actually I think the difference in gear even more).
_Think about the game population 2 years ago now and imagine this game 2 years from now, I dont think it will stand.

[Enso]

_I think we have different view about how "good" NA players are well no point argue about this since noone can provide a good proof anyway.
_White box were 800m most of the time but drop to 400 500 at the end. Well let say 800m were the price, weren't the recently one more expensive than 800m ? I doesn't count it was easier to farm box in previous event. (I think they add box to item shop and decrease the drop rate)
_Well IDK what you talking about when you say the bars are not lowering. Dying at a fast rate I might add, dying mean the game population is decreasing (you said it is not increasing so my bet is it is decreasing, since staying the same seem impossible). There are lot of old game the population is increasing at pretty fast rate, DOTA, LOL.
_Since idk what you doing to make alz, I assume you run dungeon (all your previous post talking about running dungeon to get alz...). If it is running dungeon then you can divide by 5 (crap gear cant run any good dungeon, crap gear is 2, 3 times slower than you running any dungeon, crap gear waste more sp running dungeon). It is for calculate how long it would take a new player to get good gear. New games even Korean game doesn't grind as much any more, why not change the system now rather than keeping the old system?
_With 15 bil here is what you can get 2 FC weapons +15 (2.5bil each), full FC 15 2.5bil x3, 8/20 helm, ring amulet epaulet .... That is pretty mediocre to me.
_To be clear this is about getting more new players not about an old player who want to be lazy and ask the game to be easier so don't talk about me since I am old player.
_You didnt talk about the gears difference between Korea server and this server, as I said same content Korean player 14 amp gear at least, us 8amp is that correct ? (actually I think the difference in gear even more).
_Think about the game population 2 years ago now and imagine this game 2 years from now, I dont think it will stand.

You're probably building incorrectly if 15b isn't enough to get gear to compete.

You're probably lazy if you can't make alz in this game.

That is all.

[hanhnn13]

The problems is that Cabal NA does not have new server for newbie, when they join the games they only see the OP players, that discourage them to continue.
If new server is opened, the gap between newbie and oldbie is narrow, that will keep them for a longer time.
That's the same thing happen to Cabal VN, most players moved from NA to VN because they want to be the new OP players of their own, instead of being the 1000th top players in NA server.
=> NA lost lots of connection from VN, you know

The game system is pretty easy for new player now compare to the old time, when you need to buy Premium to use Dummy

[Tonberry]

if the aim is to prevent new users from being discouraged, i think there are other means to the end.

ie. limiting the number of low tier war attendance - a character can only go to t1/t2/t3 only 10x, 20x, and 30x respectively before they are locked out of that specific tier, which will prevent OP people from playing their twinks and murdering people in nation war. or if a player's attack ability/defense ability surpasses certain value, they are automatically kicked into a tier that is commensurate to their true strength.

[Noona]

...or just standardize gear in nation war like Corsairs' Stronghold in TERA. But we all know that's unlikely.

[Enso]

if the aim is to prevent new users from being discouraged, i think there are other means to the end.

ie. limiting the number of low tier war attendance - a character can only go to t1/t2/t3 only 10x, 20x, and 30x respectively before they are locked out of that specific tier, which will prevent OP people from playing their twinks and murdering people in nation war. or if a player's attack ability/defense ability surpasses certain value, they are automatically kicked into a tier that is commensurate to their true strength.

I think both of these ideas could potentially work if implemented correctly. It'd be hard though.

[jamnotjelly]

I think both of these ideas could potentially work if implemented correctly. It'd be hard though.

Eh they could add some auto detect feature where the game knows if you have characters in a higher tier and limits the amount of wars you can do un a lower tier each week. Wouldnt want it to limit for players who made new accounts.

[providen1990]

Well new player dont stay in t1/t2/t3 they need a character that is 190 to farm. Most seen new player are in the 15x-17x range then they quit...
They can just ban player from attending t1/t2/t3 (like banning bot or hacker) when they see a superior player in those tier. (let the people in that tier report or look at the score or just patrol the tier...)
Standardize gear is :D You do that and cabal is dead. Just think about how many would quit @@

[hanhnn13]

I think the easiest solution for this is increasing the amount of exp gain from killing other players and guardians.
If you fight enough war you'll level up automatically so you cant stay in low tier forever.

And should remove the dungeon fail penalty also, so people can not de-level.

[AllHopeIsLost]

Well new player dont stay in t1/t2/t3 they need a character that is 190 to farm. Most seen new player are in the 15x-17x range then they quit...
They can just ban player from attending t1/t2/t3 (like banning bot or hacker) when they see a superior player in those tier. (let the people in that tier report or look at the score or just patrol the tier...)
Standardize gear is :D You do that and cabal is dead. Just think about how many would quit @@

New players can do whatever they want, Putting them in a box and saying "You have to get 190 first to do stuff." is just unfair, Not everybody binge games.

The best way to attract new players and keep them is to make a safe channel specifically for new players with a cap for level 52, Then for EST to get rid of the STR/INT/DEX stat requirements for gear and to scale gear up respectively to level requirements only.

There should be no reason why a player with full +15 craftsman sig-metal and T4-5 accessories should be allowed in T2 to fight a new player who just got their first piece of osmium amp.

[Lulu]

If you want cabal to be somewhat alive again make a server that people can't transfer to. Fresh server LOL. The gap between a new player and an old one is one that is impossible to to bridge.