Latale 10 years later, then and now

Pineapplecakes · August 2017

How does the Latale of today compare to seasons one and two?

I heard that everyone used to have a lot less HP.

I saw that a bunch of maps changed after season 1 but I don't know many details.

Someone mentioned that it took weeks or months to reach level 80 at some point?

Cyrilic · August 2017

Old gen LT everything was a lot less about stats stacked and more about class capability since the power gap between mid-geared and well-geared wasn't as wide.

Back then leveling was slower for two reasons, one was of course, exp was much less. Reason two was that most classes could not hit as many mobs as they can now. With the majority of skills only hiting 2-5 targets, having a party was a lot more crucial to grinding. Otherwise all the damage from the mobs you couldn't hit would eat you alive. Solo grinding meant only mobbing up to 3-4 monsters at a time.

Also yeah, hp was a lot lower. People now give up cause they die twice in an area or something, back then, dying was simply accepted as something that happens, you pick yourself up and get right back to it. Hp back then meant you could still die to mobs much lower level than you if they were big enough.

Subclasses was probably the most brutal: The mobs were exceptionally dense for that generation. The subclasses were available at 140 but it was absolutely horrible to try this solo... like i did as a blader.

With my main, lv 193 Dragoon, i could still get very unlucky and die from being stunlocked by a bunch of lv 140 kobolds, as i had 9k hp and one shot from them hit for 1k, Even with the high miss rates.

Also leveling speed, yeah. It took 12 days of nonstop grinding to get a sorceror to lv 80, (no lifing at that) and some level ranges were unforgiving, such as lv 55-65 or so when the only option was crabs, which hurt a LOT. wizards often went dagger and shield just for that area. I think i grinded 7-8 hours to get through there (yes wizards could use daggers at one point, as well as knuckles).

tadomi · August 2017

then

now

Rhonder · August 2017

S1 is where the majority of my play time resided so I'll comment on that (April 09-somewhere in 2013). The pace was much much slower in S1 (even the step to S2 sped it up considerably), which was kind of cool because the different level ranges ended up being more unique and well defined. Essentially if you imagine the current pace from 170ish to 200, that's what 1-80 and then 1-140 felt like kind of. Leveling up was always an accomplishment because they were all hard earned. The main difference is that the game used to be almost entirely grind focused rather than quest focused as it is currently. Once you got up into the 50's, quests started getting you no where close to the next level, so you'd either resort to just purely grinding, or level up, do quests for your first 30 or less %, then grind the rest of the way.

Way back when I first started, this was both frustrating but also cool, since you'd have to find new level appropriate grind spots each time. @cryllic talked through the popular 50's one, Crabs, but then you'd go to Lilliput and then quest to 80 at Toad, etc. The process started speeding up as grinding dungeons such as Spooky Village and Coli started getting added. By the time TT came out the process was pretty streamlined, you'd start grinding at spooky 60, hit Toad Island Cave, go back to Spooky 90, do some inter coli, hit TT 120, Expert Coli, TT 150, etc.

The new pace is cool because it allows you to much more quickly try out new classes if you want (can get to 140 for subclass in like 2 days of casual play, or 170 for 4th job in like 3) But the issues of zipping through Jienda become apparent. As a veteran player, it's too bad that so many areas are skipped, that the early games have 0 relevance, and that leveling is meaningless until like 190 xD

Overall the experience is the same once you get to 200 now. Instead of farming hyu or sphinx for level appropriate gear and grinding in Coli, you farm all sorts of dungeons for gear, and grind sky coli xD so can't be too upset. Newer players don't know what they missed, so it's all good all around. It's also telling that over 4 years of playing S1/early S2 my highest char was only ever 182, so having the faster route to "end" game for slow players like myself has been fun this time around. I have the ability to actually party up with and do stuff with my guildmates, where as before if you were too low level it'd be a while before you caught up.

Bodaff · August 2017

Based on how our damage has progressed in ten years, our damage will be written in scientific notation by the time we hit 20 years.

But yeah, the game has progressed from a casual social grinder with some pvp and rare drop hunting thrown in, to a hardcore grinder with a sprinkle of socializing thrown in. They've (developers) figured out how to design around people's desires to min/max, and it's reflected in both gameplay and cash elements.

Not necessarily bad things. It just means a much more serious gameplay scene rather than social/fashion.

pikababy · August 2017

it anit worth playing anymore.

Pandablader · August 2017

Season 1 before coli update was mostly white chappel grinding. It made grinding a troublesome thing so more people turned to pvp from 150-193. It allowed people to spend more time with each other in a way, it felt way more social back then. Everyone knew everyone which was what I liked. Now its just farming alone for hours and grinding with random groups that have the some dungeon runs left. The pvp seems to be made to be more advanced and balanced when its not. The only class that was somewhat broken in season 1 for pvp was gunslinger. Even so, gunslinger is weak when it has no gear. So it make sense for it to be #1 in pvp of season 1. Treasure hunter and blader second were the most optimal choices for pve. Although now, all classes are pretty much viable for season 3 pve. Great job doing that, but I would like to see some pvp changes. We might need a feedback thread if that even does anything.

Pineapplecakes · August 2017

What about job changes? How were they in seasons one and two?

I have not looked a lot a pvp yet, does it (or did it) give Exp?

Rhonder · August 2017

In S1 Job Change 1 was at 80, and 2/Sub were both at 140. Especially early S1 pre-Spooky and Coli, getting to 80 for 2nd jobs was kind of a struggle. If you imagine currently going like 180-190 or 190-200 w/o quest reward bonus and /maybe/ sometimes 50% or 100% xp, the grind/pacing was similar. So it took a while to get to but was really satisfying. You'd get a bunch of new skills, as well as the "II" versions of your basic ones. The methodology was similar to now, you'd go to the class advance center (located in the abyss ruins back then) and have to jump your way up a rope past a large mecha goblin that would smack you off said rope. Once you got through that, you'd fall down a large hole with buzz saws and at the bottom you'd class advance similar to now.

3rd Job came out next, at 140. It used to be you'd go to Xenadia and follow a lengthy quest line similar to how 4ths are now to class advance. It was really cool though, because although every class' quest line starts the same, eventually they'd split off and have some different tasks to do, some even that took you to other bosses/areas of the map. This was honestly my favorite part of the game and I was really sad when they first got dumbed down in S2 and removed altogether in S3 :/ I found the quests/area itself to be much more entertaining than the 4th job quest area.

Subs came out kinda halfway between 3rd jobs and S2. Similar to 3rd and 4th jobs, you had to reach 140 (and 3rd job) in order to access a quest line to complete to get your subclass. These quests were super hard though (also the first-ish Freios content iirc) so like... while I love the concept of subs, I hated doing them xD not bad in a party but really hard alone. This was also (thankfully, in this case) dumbed down in S2 and removed in S3.

---

As for PvP, it doesn't give XP, no. I don't remember if they still exist but you did used to be able to trade in pvp points for instant xp potions (similar to dew drops of infinity), once for lols I started a char and only leveled them with pvp potions xD didn't make it very far before I deleted the char for something else (either soul breaker or card master)

Isamu1 · August 2017

I'm not gonna say what others have said, as they've covered the gist of it. My personal experience was...well....it was an adventure. The appeal of Latale back then, is actually not to far off from how it is now, except now, certain things simply take longer. (Ex: Ruined Palace, Manastone Lab, Sacred Hall, etc.)

You could find so much to do, and this was partially due to the fairly low drop rate of items back then. Most of the best gear and weapons you could get was via "soul urns" or straight drops from mobs.

Eventually, we would get the Hell Update, which would release new grinding areas, and SS5 (5th tier) skills. They were a big deal. They needed 5 SS5 coins, which were gotten from doing SS5 quests. These quests were gotten from scrolls, which you needed 5 of, and each one was a questline containing 10 quests. They were time consuming and expensive....

My noob 143 Blader solo grinding at Solar Farm

Eventually, we'd get Colosseum (barf) and later, 3rd job. I personally enjoyed 3rd job quests. They provided a true sense of accomplishment. You got them at 140, and they lasted a whopping 8 hours. Not to long after that, we'd get the UI update, changing from the older one shown in my video, to the one we know of today!

Despite this, Expert coli was a good measure of progress in pve at this time in my opinion.

My first attempt at an Expert Coli Solo looked like this

In september 2011, we'd receive sub jobs, presenting a new fun and entertaining way to enjoy Latale, as they used a "Mystery" skill or "ultimate" skill formula rather than the standard "5th tier" skill. Me testing out Sword Dancer not long after getting it

...Typical gameplay of Latale at 190+ looked like this. Every....single....day....for hours on end.

Degos would eventually come out too, and those parties were tons of fun.

Around this time, expert would begin to get even easier.

In 2013, we'd get the server relocation, and with it, a short burst in the amount of players playing. Granted, we lost lots of our west coast playerbase too. We'd also end up getting more invasion events around this time too!

Season 2 would roll around not too long, and would make Expert Coli the biggest joke in existence. What was once one of the hardest dungeons for non Maestro or Ruin Walker classes, would become a walk in the park. Even with the lowest level weapons.

Njord would come out a few months after this, soooooo people would do runs, and eventually figure out it was easier to solo than it was to party for the dungeon. Mostly as a result of the dodging aspect. Getting hit by the lasers spawned mobs, so, the more people you had in a party, the greater risks existed.

Later, we'd get 4th jobs, and eventually Monster Diner. These presented new challenges for everyone~

So...in terms or progress, after 4th's this is what the typical expert run looked like.

Eventually, we'd get Legend updates, but by this time, I wasn't playing very frequently any more.

corporatedoge · August 2017

back in s1 first job upgrade to 2nd class was at level 80 and that was all to it, then we had 3rd classes some time later at 140? i think it was, at 80 you had to go to this special place and get kicked by a goblin mech at 140 you had to grind quests to get 3rd class, now everything is free except 4th job

Latale 10 years later, then and now

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