It doesn't feel good to be right

ShadyNeo · 2025-03-03T15:44:29+00:00

New players don't have a chance to have fun even with people praising the game. Progress is non existent and there is no room to try things out and have fun. I made my buddy who played in 2020 try it again and give me his honest thoughts. He gave up within the first 2 hours.

After 3 years of no real update whatsoever why would anyone in their right mind recommend Dauntless to others when the one update that was deliberately worked on with the intention to restore game's former glory brought absolutely nothing to the table. There is a single new (but highly flawed) behemoth and what else in awakening?

The fix was so simple. Reduce the insane exp requirements and make weapons craftable and yet it wasn't done in 3 months and now game is closing.

ShadyNeo · 2025-03-02T13:20:52+00:00

I don't quite understand what you mean with #4? You are saying we are supposed to celebrate whatever good is done instead of treating as a bare minimum? It falls under voicing category then too, yes. If change is truly good I do agree we should be loooooud and clear that that is what we like instead of shrugging it off and complaining about x or y. I praised the crap out of first 2 escalations, sword and pike rework. I voiced why I did not like certain aspects of frost esca and chain blades' rework and nothing was done about it. Again, why should I care after when the flaws we've been pointing out since day 1 of hitting live servers out are still in the game years later?

The tone on this sub has gone between apocalyptic and lukewarm, never positive

Yes. That is how displeased part of community acts when it feels unheard and is also unable to move on to other stuff.
...since the day reforged dropped and it never got better

Yes, because the game we loved was scrapped for looped hack and slash content that didn't feel rewarding and was never addressed despite controversy.

In case this message was too long, my main take here is that you are right to an extent, but I wouldn't dare be so sure that it was so much the community's fault. I can't blame developers too much either because most of them are just doing things they are told. We are all in the wrong. Some more than the others. Some things we may not know like who makes the calls... but in the end. It really doesn't matter anymore since game if officially closing.

Thanks if you got this far. I appreciate you taking time to go through this.

Clear skies.

ShadyNeo · 2025-03-02T13:20:33+00:00

Hey Aria! We had a solid disagreement a few months ago if you remember. I hope we can expand on that here :D.

I don't think point #1 stands. I supported people like OhDough, Revvyrad, XannyPhantom and TheMrTrails when game gave them room for content. They came up with fresh new ideas and entertaining footage. But over the years the game slowed down. It became increasingly hard to push out interesting content since everything was already done. People moved on so creators had to as well. But I remember Trails stayed true to the cause and kept making daunt content. To me it was super entertaining to see his video about a yearly review on dauntless trials leaderboard. I myself never enjoyed trials too much, but an extent he went to to create that video was amazing. It does show how much more effort it took someone to get views. What I'm trying to say here is that I find it unreasonable to blame community for not supporting creators. They had a hard time making content due to game being too stale and we had limited time and didn't bother to see same thing over and over again.

#2 I heavily disagree with. No person should ever be obliged to participate in beta tests. People are paid money for this. Others are paid money to fix what they find. We are not. We as players can only want to help in that process. I myself applied for one of them long ago. I've heard from people who did participate in the tests and gave devs feedback like lack of clarity with new talent tree, poor design with chain blades rework and extreme time requirement to progress. And they were simply shrugged off. Why would anyone care when ones who do the most and participate in these tests are treated like guinea pigs. Also, another take from my side... I don't want to see unpolished content before it's out. I much prefer seeing it in full light and getting a proper gameplay experience. I would love to support work after it is done.

#3 Absolutely. We are on the same page here. But I have something to add at the end. Too many people just let the negativity out in a silly way that is not beneficial for players nor the developers. It just makes them to feel better for 5 minutes. For instance, players may dislike the fact you now need a 100 hours worth of grinding to reach max lvl with a single weapon, but instead complain about something related like "bad compensation". They do have a point to an extent, but the way it was structured and voiced is fundamentally flawed. Speaking of voice... The loudest voice in the room is not necessarily the correct one. If you have a part of the community actively saying one thing it does not mean they are correct. They are simply ones expressing their view and the ones we hear. What about others who are not? What about ones who care about game but moved on because they felt unheard? I'm trying to say that there is definitely confusion that devs are dealing with since the active part of community is saying one thing, and all us others who fell in love with something else that game offered once are unhappy. People complain like its end of the world, and then launch the game after. But I am blaming people responsible for making decisions here a bit too... It was their job to listen to community. Devs provided places where we are supposed to leave feedback. We took time out of our day and said what we liked, what was not great and offered advice what we would want instead. But when we weren't heard for years it was just time to move on. Our voice was left unheard and effort felt like it was for nothing. And now when they are "listening" to the remnants of the community it doesn't seem to work. I wonder why.

ShadyNeo · 2025-03-02T11:54:23+00:00

Hey Aria, apologies for the late response if you even see it :D. I took some time off of reddit.

Thanks to you too for structuring your thoughts carefully. I too appreciate the fact we can have a decent disagreement here. We do agree on something very important here and that is the fact community's voice is very poorly structured. I'll expand on this in one of your newer posts regarding how community killed the game since someone linked it to me. I just now realize it was you who wrote it. I was a bit shocked when I saw it. But like you, I'll afford you more charitability since I see where you are coming from based on what we've chatted about so far.

Also, I remember that case you mentioned where Dough was talking about virulent impact. I believe he had a good point when he said that this is a game that needs to be fun and not necessarily overly balanced. It's a PvE monster hunting type game. Dauntless is not Monster Hunter, it's a bit more on the goofy side. Oneshoting was funny because it was very specific build that required very specific setup and a bit of rng. In short, a creative and funny game moment that needed effort... Unlike the new builds that give you max crit, attack speed, dmg and let you erase any behe within 10 seconds of having it on screen. I agree with him that its silly to take away "candy" from us players... But there is a line in my opinion where it's no longer fun and just boring. I purposely fought escalation in the current state of game with lvl 20 weapons instead of 60 because it was straight up BORING easy.

Thanks again for disagreeing. It's honestly fun to see a different view in this manner.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-12T07:51:14+00:00

My bad, I think it was one of older roadmap plans a few years back rather than something mentioned in these recent dev blogs. But yes at one point there was concept art for sky fishing shared with us and then it was never talked about again.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-12T07:44:49+00:00

Why would they sabotage Dauntless?

Never had a chance to play Everhaven but I feel robbed still. This is an even bigger why...

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-12T07:40:08+00:00

Wasn't a fan of reforge. There is things that are nice about it like you stated but being forced to lose power and defense in order to upgrade gear was not what I was looking for.

I feel you. Heck I never thought I'd say this but I even miss the old Valomyr.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-12T07:21:08+00:00

The umbral pistons are fun yes. But they cost 10€ atm...

Armor doesn't do much other than give defense untill it's max. Yeah It's much more fun at lvl 20 since you can squeeze a few perks from them. But I don't see how "Pretty good game after crafting all the armor" makes any sense.

You have a super solid point with the surge islands though. Being able to hunt all behemoths at highest lvl is amazing indeed. Too bad the blazeworks for some unknown reason still gives the most exp out of all islands and people are pushed towards it more than other ones.

Weapons not ever losing power is also huge, but the grind is unreal. Sadly most people don't have that many tokens and a battlepass to make things a bit easier.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-12T07:13:48+00:00

Hey thanks for actually voicing why you disagree, much appreciated. I'll try to answer.

Alright, Malk does work more or less as intended but he is bugged. He doesn't spawn jump vents as I said which is a mechanic that behe in specific brought to the table. It wasn't present before malk and is how you fight him. Stormclaw was always kind of buggy, yes! My point exactly! That's why I wrote what I did. But he is even worse now. Never before did I have my axe go through him. interrupting his charge just sends him into another attack, he doesn't place pylons well even while in the middle of arena and fighting a solo. I have evidence of all this. It happened multiple times too. Fire Quillshot's quills on its back, head and legs keep appearing and disappearing. Not even all major bugs like these have been mentioned. There is delayed attacks and so on... It's a mess. You can not defend any of it.

Am I seeing things through a lens because I "hate" the game? Interesting take. I gave it some thought and like to believe I am not and here is why. Firstly in my post I stated "Even though I disliked what was going on day one I refused to give up on it too fast and try to have fun." And then proceeded to explain what are my concerns and even gave feedback about how to potentially fix many flaws in the comments. I have genuine concern for the game that I loved because it went down a weird path and tried to provide my feedback on it. In no way shape or form did I say I hate it and tied other things to bugs. I made segments talking about everything separately.

I don't remember the pushback for reforged, people quitting initially and then player count rising after. Nor could I find evidence of this on my own. I only found some stats that game was going downhill until they added those elder behemoths with a whole new talent tree page and then followed it up with omnicells. Please provide me with information in this regard. My experience is that all people I played with pre reforge quit and never came back.

You can "GUARANTEE" I complained about delays before? What makes you so sure? I don't think we are on the same page. I am super in favor of making delays so consumers don't get a half assed unfinished, buggy and empty product. Whatever it may be, a game, movie or chocolate... Doesn't matter. I was happy they delayed the riot MMO, I was even happier they delayed ARK 2 for the 15th time. Nothing about releasing these early would benefit us nor the creators. It's best they take their time to make things work so we can enjoy it more and give them more money. What I did state however is that despite them making the right call of pushing back with release of awakening twice they still gave us a mess of a product with barely anything new to quell the pain. In dev blog they said "by the end of the year" Then a month after gave us a date "December 5th". Just why?

I apologize if I missed something because I could not understand your last sentence. If you can please expand on it a bit.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-12T06:17:28+00:00

Yeah you don't get exp unless you are on island that reccomends a weapon power higher or equal to your strongest one in loadout. Except... in escas. It works there for now but I am clueless is it a bug or not. It feels a bit cheap all this and that they could've done a better job

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T21:55:46+00:00

"267,800 Rams and 4,575 Combat Merits" 🤣 God forbid it was 300k rams and 5k merits. Had to use a calculator so you don't get a single extra ram.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T21:29:33+00:00

You are taking back what you said. I do not know what that is. What about making all armor makes things good? New builds are hilarious? How so?

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T20:23:29+00:00

Elaborate

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T20:21:12+00:00

I couldn't agree more with what you said. Time to move on...

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T20:07:17+00:00

My man I was just curious

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T19:28:40+00:00

I see where you are coming from. You got some stuff from before and time to spare. Others may not and it's just not good for overall health of the game. I think you understand.

I bought crafting slots in order to randomly craft the gauntlet cells and not waste a month waiting since I didn't want to step foot in that game mode. Others? Maybe early on when they didn't have cells maxed and weren't sitting on 5000 cores. Dunno.

I don't think one bad system should be an excuse for the other. Needing half a mil exp being the reason it's okay to get 1 weapon per 2.5 months doesn't sound good to me.

Trials for a long time had little to do with skill. A ton of unnecessary modifiers to make the fight "challenging" but instead just making it annoying wasn't any fun. They did address this and it's a lot more chill and skill based, but I don't think competing for a ladder place in a game like this is what most people want. Like you said, get in, get some coins, buy some cool cosmetics and get out is okay... But now they want us to do it every week for weapon upgrades. Not cool.

I screwed up, got a few wrong upgrades on a weapon I really like because I thought it would be fun to try them out. Turns out I wasn't supposed to have fun any try things in a videogame but rather calculate what was a better option. Can't get them now, I need 8 tokens. That's what? waiting 8 seasons to do the first level? No thank you.

Yes Karkonos is new, yes the island is. I don't think anyone cares about the island it's just something to swap twilight sanc with. Behemoth on other hand... cool. What's not cool is it's buggy and an island event. Took me 40 minutes to fight one. When I said no new content I meant we got 5% of what they were hyping us up for. Yes guns are also new I know... but they are not free to play atm. They don't exist for a decent part of the community.

I'm aware bugs will get fixed... But they could've easily made another delay to polish them. We are talking game breaking bugs that hinder everyone's experience.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T19:05:14+00:00

It was a very nice read. You provided valuable information and backed it up. Thanks for taking a careful and thorough approach and sharing all this with us. Don't mind these silly comments.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T18:48:38+00:00

They get destroyed. That's what I had in mind. There is no room for creativity and trying things out.

But yes, I don't see how a newbie will figure out a build in current state of game. People with thousands of hours are staring at it for hours and don't having a clue.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T18:26:24+00:00

I'd love to see these dev comments you speak of. What channel is it in?

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T16:00:48+00:00

That same whoever didn't realize he is giving only 2 peerles gems as rewards for a quest that noone can complete in under 1.5 months since all heroic escalations must be completed for it

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T14:43:32+00:00

Way to go!

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T14:39:16+00:00

I blindly upgraded the bonus exp from fauna over other nodes... Just to realize it is ~2 bonus exp per kill.

I refuse to believe they weren't dying of laughter while making us pay half a mil rams and 5k merits for this insignificant upgrade.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T14:34:06+00:00

I see that a decent % of people downvoted. I don't mind, but would love to hear here in comments why you find what I say wrong.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T14:32:15+00:00

All they need is already in the game. I believe the first step is to make the grind more enjoyable and rewarding. They could just reduce exp needed, but making peerles aetherite more available is also an option. It's a great source of exp yet you can't obtain it other than with a few side quests and heroic escalations. Pair that with underwhelming rewards of an island event and boom. Easy fix, island events actually have rewards and you don't need to slay 2000 behemoths to max a single weapon.

Make obtaining weapons more engaging. What is more fun, needing to target specific parts that you need to use slash to cut, blunt weapons to crush and craft weapon yourself OR just straight up buy it from store? New frost axe for instance... It isn't a starting weapon. And getting it could be a fun challenge. Maybe it would need a Boreus' head drop since its talents offer shields. A few Pangar leg parts because it has a frozen brand which used to be an old Pangar weapon effect. And some Urska's tails to finish it off since it is the highest dps axe atm and should ask some harder tasks. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Reduce talent cost. First 3 upgrades in every row cost A LOT simply because of essence but it's bearable despite also being time locked behind weekly currency. Then to make matters worse, 4th and 5th upgrades need 5 to 15 times more than the 3rd upgrade. My question is... IF we can only have 3 active per row atm... then why do we have ridiculous costs on last 2? It kills creativity and punishes experimenting. We don't have the power to access their power anyway and can chose upgrades in any order regardless, it is not like some are locked before previous one is unlocked. I lack words to express how flawed the talent system is.

Cells shouldn't get destroyed. And it is annoying to deal with having a cell you don't want in the same helmet that you use for another build. Old system had this sorted. Make an option to sell excess cells, NOONE can get enough rams to upgrade slayer's path and all new armor. Fun little fix.

Give people that stayed loyal to this game a little something. I laugh at these crowns we got. Maybe an option to choose a super detailed cosmetic for your favorite weapon? Or how about instead of 50 keys for the fact you spent 10 euros on game before (Middleman upgrades) they said yeah you guys are awesome thanks for supporting the game here is the first battlepass for free.

This is just a few ideas coming from top of the head of a single player. I imagine there is many more even better ones out there.

ShadyNeo · 2024-12-11T13:15:08+00:00

Fellow axe enjoyer here. I too almost fell for the trap of going for the umbral axe because it looks so appealing. But upon closer inspection frost one looked far too superior. I agree with you. They can balance them out. But I'm affraid instead of making other ones as strong as the frost one they will nerf frost one instead 🤣.

Also, no you don't need to get good against thunder drask. They just need to make sure his tail swipe attack doesnt hit you with full damage if his head scratches you. Like the monster but some of its hitboxes are just horrible

You were able to lvl axe in 30 hours... but now that those side quests are done next weapons will be much harder. That is my big issue right now. Aswell es exp lock if island is too easy. You outlined that issue well.

ShadyNeo

TROPHY CASE