First of all, I like this game, and I think it has tremendous potential. But here are some things that all my friends and I have a problem with, and that we think are holding it back.
Many of the abilities are bland, and you end up using the same offensive abilities from early levels to VR12 with only one morph, with no change in the visual appearance of those abilities as you progress.
I tried playing sorc, but the spells just look very bland compared to other mmo's, or even compared with the higher level Skyrim destruction spells, and the spells never seemed to appear any "stronger". In Skyrim, the low level fireballs looked weak, but the later fireball destruction spells looked much more devastating. It made me really want to level up destruction to the highest level. Or you could go back to DAOC, where a wizard's level 5 fireball looked weaker than a level 50 fireball, or their PBAE at lvl 10 looked much weaker than the level 50 PBAE.
I tried watching my VR10 sorc buddy play at his house, and he uses mostly the same spells I got relatively early while leveling (mostly just spamming the "jazz hands" crystal shard), and those spells did not change in appearance as you leveled up the ability. Some abilties change visually when you morph them, but you can only morph them once. I want my character to feel like he is getting more powerful as I level, but after I get the set abilities I need and that most people use for their build, I feel like there is not much more ability progression. You end up using the same abilities over and over, until you reach max level, without anything about them changing at all.
SUGGESTION: Make the abilities, especially the offensive abilities for each class, look a little stronger as you level them up, and make them look much different when you morph the ability. For example, a level 50 spamming crystal shard shouldn't look the same as a level 5 spamming crystal shard. Also, make the auto attacks from staves look cooler on the higher level weapons, like the fireball that comes out of a level 50 staff should look more noticeable and maybe have a more visual exploding impact than a lvl 5 staff. The auto attack animation with staves looks really bad a choppy anyways, but one thing at a time I guess lol. Some of the other animations, like the puncture and low slash abilities from the one hand and shield just look so incredibly bland and weak. I almost want to take it off my bar simply for the fact that it looks less like an actual weapon style that I trained in, than my typical auto attack.
These are just a few examples of upgrading the visual effects on abilities as you level that would really make leveling seem more gratifying. I know the developers have a LOT on their plate right now, and I know this might seem like it's not relatively important. But from from my and many all my friends' perspectives, the visual effects on abilities, and the sense of ability progression, really does make leveling much more enjoyable and gratifying.
Edited by MrDenimChicken on 27 May 2014 05:52