[Green Volcano] March 25, 2014 update

[Pulp Fiction]

News: http://dinostorm.com/en/conquer-beautiful-but-deadly-green-volcano-new-map
Changelog: http://dinostorm.com/en/update-changelog-march-25th-2014

(1) Green Volcano is Mokon Woods 2.0
- Not a good nor bad critique because I like Mokon Woods but don't think a volcanic version is impressive

(2) Teleportation (of yourself or your items) has become [more] useful
- Trekking from GV through GF for no reason other than to enter DV, unless you own buildings in GF, is annoying. I can only imagine how annoying trekking from MW (particularly Aubrey and Lancaster, if you own them) to DV through GF to GV is.
- Atkins and Grant in GF are now the best claims to own for level 25+ players (until more players reach level 40), but there are only 4 in the America_1 server, whereas there are 6 Aubrey and Lancaster claims.

(3) GV's 50 quests aren't brand new... they're the same types of quests we've done in the other maps
- This annoys me because from level 3 to level 40, all of the quests are the same, and they're boring.
- Boring quests = boring game

(4) There is still no incentive to complete all achievements, unless you're a completionist.
-- I'll only mention three:
- Level 15 titles for A LOT of hard work and/or money spent buying gold coins...
- 500 fame for upgrading to level 25 should be 2500 fame (per achievement)
- 750 fame for upgrading to level 40 should be 4000 fame (per achievement)

(5) These "improvements" are either pointless or not improvements:

• *Adjusted the drop rate for gemstones. Lowered the drop rate to slow down our progress
  *Adjusted gemstone prices for equipment accordingly. Raised the prices to slow down our progress
  *Players will not be attacked on sight anymore if the aggressive enemy unit is ten or more levels below the player’s level. Pointless!
  *The pacing of progress at the beginning of the game has been adjusted to make it easier for new players to reach level 5. Pointless!

- The progress was already slow for hardcore players, so making it slower doesn't make it easier for casual players not to lag behind.

(6) This "improvement" is good, if it works the way I think it should:

• *Taking a hit now slows down your dinosaur for 2 seconds. If stability counters the 2 second slow down per hit, this makes stability slightly useful. If not... this improvement sucks.

- I could test this, but I'm in DV as I type this and don't feel like going back into MW or GF. I have a feeling stability doesn't counter this "improvement".

(7) Green Volcano has brought everyone, friends and foes, together.
- I didn't see anyone attacking anyone else nor was I attacked. Everyone is doing quests, of course, and getting along.

 

[Pulp Fiction]

(6) This "improvement" is good, if it works the way I think it should:

• *Taking a hit now slows down your dinosaur for 2 seconds. If stability counters the 2 second slow down per hit, this makes stability slightly useful. If not... this improvement sucks.

- I could test this, but I'm in DV as I type this and don't feel like going back into MW or GF. I have a feeling stability doesn't counter this "improvement".

Just tested w/ level 20 stability implant... doesn't block this 2 second slow down per hit from aggressive enemy units.

 

[Killghost]

Did a rundown on guns and concluded that peacemaker has become pretty much useless with the new update. Can't even defeat the rivals of same level with peacemaker whom i used to defeat earlier. I'm not sure if its happening for others as well but any diagnostics run on the gun will be helpful to validate my doubts.

 

[Pulp Fiction]

(7) Green Volcano has brought everyone, friends and foes, together.
- I didn't see anyone attacking anyone else nor was I attacked. Everyone is doing quests, of course, and getting along.

I got attacked ~2 hours ago by a frenemy while doing a quest. Guess he holds grudges

Did a rundown on guns and concluded that peacemaker has become pretty much useless with the new update. Can't even defeat the rivals of same level with peacemaker whom i used to defeat earlier. I'm not sure if its happening for others as well but any diagnostics run on the gun will be helpful to validate my doubts.

I don't pay attention to PvP numbers, so I can't help you bro.

 

[autobuns]

(1) Green Volcano is Mokon Woods 2.0
- Not a good nor bad critique because I like Mokon Woods but don't think a volcanic version is impressive

i agree with this 100%. there are few differences. green volcano is... a little greener but pretty much the same. it's a slightly different landscape as you get up to the level 40 areas but i haven't really seen any "volcano" which is disappointing.

(2) Teleportation (of yourself or your items) has become [more] useful
- Trekking from GV through GF for no reason other than to enter DV, unless you own buildings in GF, is annoying. I can only imagine how annoying trekking from MW (particularly Aubrey and Lancaster, if you own them) to DV through GF to GV is.
- Atkins and Grant in GF are now the best claims to own for level 25+ players (until more players reach level 40), but there are only 4 in the America_1 server, whereas there are 6 Aubrey and Lancaster claims.

yeah i'm not quite sure why that is. i wonder if it's because goldfields is a slightly more difficult map than mokon, even though the mobs are all the same levels. when i first joined, there was 1 goldfields ID and 3 mokon IDs so... still haven't figured that out. more people in a map = more IDs so i guess less people are generally in goldfields.

(3) GV's 50 quests aren't brand new... they're the same types of quests we've done in the other maps
- This annoys me because from level 3 to level 40, all of the quests are the same, and they're boring.
- Boring quests = boring game

oh god yes, this is a huge thing. i was level 26 for literally a week because the quests are just all the same and so darn boring. i hit 27 last night and it took hours of the same quests over and over. the only difference is that they're slightly harder than other quests. the most boring quest is a quest where you literally just shoot rocks.

(4) There is still no incentive to complete all achievements, unless you're a completionist.
-- I'll only mention three:
- Level 15 titles for A LOT of hard work and/or money spent buying gold coins...
- 500 fame for upgrading to level 25 should be 2500 fame (per achievement)
- 750 fame for upgrading to level 40 should be 4000 fame (per achievement)

back when i was a new member, you got skins and dinos for completing achievements. i think that should be implemented again, as well as animals dropping skins. maybe special skins for the achievements, like halloween's skeleton skins.

(5) These "improvements" are either pointless or not improvements:

• *Adjusted the drop rate for gemstones. Lowered the drop rate to slow down our progress
  *Adjusted gemstone prices for equipment accordingly. Raised the prices to slow down our progress
  *Players will not be attacked on sight anymore if the aggressive enemy unit is ten or more levels below the player’s level. Pointless!
  *The pacing of progress at the beginning of the game has been adjusted to make it easier for new players to reach level 5. Pointless!

- The progress was already slow for hardcore players, so making it slower doesn't make it easier for casual players not to lag behind.

the gemstone prices are stupidly high. the level 20 dinos bought with amethysts had 100 or so added onto their price... which is kinda ridiculous since i don't think most players will be purchasing level 20 dinos anymore when they can get 25+ dinos with gemstones. pyrit stones barely drop for me personally. they should've been somewhere from like... 175-200 maybe. thats way more reasonable.

my only guess for the "not being attacked on sight" thing is to go along with the stupid 2-second slowdown when hit by an enemy. it's still really obnoxious and it keeps resulting in me being killed by level 25s+.

pacing has always been messed up. they're never going to fix it properly.

(6) This "improvement" is good, if it works the way I think it should:

• *Taking a hit now slows down your dinosaur for 2 seconds. If stability counters the 2 second slow down per hit, this makes stability slightly useful. If not... this improvement sucks.

- I could test this, but I'm in DV as I type this and don't feel like going back into MW or GF. I have a feeling stability doesn't counter this "improvement".

i don't think anyone has ever used stability. it's the most pointless implant ever. i think they really should just get rid of it or change what it does exactly. even if stability did counter the slowdown, it's still horribly pointless. it just takes up an implant slot that could be for something more useful.

(7) Green Volcano has brought everyone, friends and foes, together.
- I didn't see anyone attacking anyone else nor was I attacked. Everyone is doing quests, of course, and getting along.

this is no longer the case it seems. as people level more, they get hostile again. it was nice while it lasted but... good things never last for long. give it a few more weeks and GV will just be another warzone.

 

[Pulp Fiction]

re: GF being the gateway to GV, GF may be more popular overall in all servers.
I'd ask how many GF, MW and GV instances each server has, but I know I will be ignored

re: quests... they used GF and MW quests for GV. I remember a level 5 GF rock shooting quest.

re: achievements... the only thing I don't like about skins as rewards is warehouse space usage.
if reward skins can't be used in the triforge and aren't worth a lot of dd, I'd prefer fame since fame doesn't take up space.

re: stability... remove it, I agree with that, but I know they're not going to remove it, so they could at least make it counter the 2-second slow down so if someone does want to use stability to travel from point A to point B quickly. agility isn't dodging aggressive mobs enough, so I'd replace agility with stability to travel faster.