date: 2015-12-09
author of translation: 1curryman2 // https://forum.treeofsavior.com/users/1curryman2

**[Interview] "Battle focused? RPG is for Role-play" says Tree of Savior VP Kim Seyong**
by Yang Yungsuk(Lavii@inven.co.kr)

'Tree of Savior' announced Open Beta at the G-Star event. There was a preview version and there were some news announced as well. The thought that there's really not that much time left before December occurred to me when I was at the venue.

However, I was also worried. Word from test servers weren't always filled with good news. However, I was somewhat relieved after getting to play the preview version at the event. While I was chaotically jumping from one feature to another at the event, I fortuitously ran into IMC Games VP Kim Seyong near the B2C booth.

I asked him if he had some spare time in hopes of getting an interview and his face showed some reservations, but ultimately he said he had a little time before he had to attend to the next thing in his schedule. It was an interview that was conducted in a short amount of time but it was enough to see a glimpse as to what the developer has envisioned for Tree of Savior.
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Part 1. Open Beta Test
Q. Firstly, I'd like an introduction to the open beta test build.
Kim Seyong
= I believe the Open beta build will be test server build with a few patches. The game got a lot of adjustments after 3rd CBT, and ultimately we hope to go into Open Beta with a more stable build. There's rather quite a bit of the game that we're tweaking so it's hard to pinpoint one specific part of the game to talk about here.  Our greatest concern at the moment is server stability.

On the international servers, we were able to confirm many problems that we weren't able to observe on multiple small-scale tests in Korea. It was the kind of problems that could only occur from tens of thousands logging in at once. A single region would have enough people to create 60 channels and with so many people, market registered items increased and there were issues where the items would be invisible on the auction house. There was also a problem where registering more than 100 friends on the friends list would cause an issue. We're looking into overall connection stability.

We're still trying to find the right class balance and as the open beta goes live, there may be new bugs that arise from the new class additions. There will also be a period where we adjust that as well. We're constantly improving the game (T/N: he mentions "frame" in this sentence and I'm not 100% sure if it's FPS or ' frame of the game' as a generic phrase. I do believe it's the latter but to avoid potentially botching it completely, I took some liberty to end the sentence on this note.)

Recently, we've been focusing on character synchronizations. We don't want situations where you are actually moving but the screen shows the character standing still or being marked as offline. We're also looking into characters' skill effects as a whole.   (T/N: if this paragraph confused you a bit, I believe he's talking about input lag.)

Related Article: http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=147977   (T/N: looks like the same stuff we have on reddit/forums about the kobt announcement and the prominent features at first glance)

Q. I've also heard that it's possible to advance to a hidden class not listed on the class list?

Kim Seyong
= "Hidden class.. I think this expression is somewhat inept, but I don't have a good alternative to it either. I mean, when the information gets out into the public eventually, there wouldn't be such a thing as a hidden class anymore, right? I think it's better to see it as a class with a bit more demanding requirements for advancement. To be honest, I don't think we really have to hide it either. In a way it's trial and error. (T/N: I think I kinda missed out on the last sentence's nuance but not sure how to fit it in so here's the stand-in for now.)

You can see it as a new class that presents itself upon meeting a peculiar set of requirements for advancement.  You get to see a new option in the normal class selection screen when you hit the right rank.  But there's some concerns here too because there's no hidden classes that are clearly better than the normal classes.
 (T/N: The last sentence is him thinking from the perspective of the player not as a developer.)

We have some intentions of tracking how much users will be able to find these hidden classes without any information as well. If people find less than what we expect, we probably have to give some hints. However, hidden classes are just a 'rarity' concept, and actual performance or roles will be comparable to those of other classes at the same rank.


Q. I'm wondering how many ranks Open beta will have?
Kim Seyong
= For now, we're thinking up to Rank 7. We're expecting that you'll be able to reach Rank 6 by level 186. As such, we've adjusted the experience tables, and we'll open a new region with the update as well. In turn, it'll probably take some time to master Rank 6. (T/N:  Reading between the lines - More levels to reach Rank 6, grab xp from the new region as well, and not sure if he's saying it'll take longer to get Rank6 than before or that it will take a while to grind through Rank6 to reach Rank7.)


picture caption: Newly added Swordsmen Rank 7 classes, Dragoon and Templar

Q. As the test was progressing, I've heard that you've added instance dungeons, but I've been wondering just how much has been added.

Kim Seyong
=  In the test server, and as part of its namesake of tests, we had many Lv200 instances. Now, we've prepared many low level instance dungeons in Lv40-70 range, Level 120 sections, etc. Also, we're probably going to add Lv217 instance dungeon for open beta.

If you're just farming in the fields, there's definitely parts where leveling up slows down. We're planning on adding instance dungeons that you can go to in such situations. We're probably going to keep adding them anyways since the feedback was fairly positive but we don't want to put in too many either.

Q. There's concerns that finding recipes for crafting oriented classes such as alchemists are too difficult.
Kim Seyong
= It was part of the test to see the answer to 'How much will the users be able to find out in a situation where there's no information given?'. However, since information is limited, they haven't found more than a few things. The Japanese community is saying that finding these recipes are the real end game content of Tree of Savior.

So we're planning on giving some hints in the next version. Whether it's shape of an item or through NPC dialogue, we're planning on giving some hints about recipes. Specific details probably require further discussion. It could come from some mural or a picture as well. An item name may come up in passing. To be honest, this was intended to be an in-game gimmick, but after thinking about it some more, I think there's no meaning to just hiding this information.

Q. Even during testing there's currency bought with real money, NXP. How much have you prepared in terms of the paid items?
Kim Seyong
= There's nothing set in stone yet, we've only somewhat settled on a direction. NXP itself was also a bit of a test as to see "how about making paid items available through this?".  We could probably just use NXP for Real money currency, but we're still discussing it so it's difficult to confirm that NXP will be it. We'll probably be able to present real money items on something based on NXP.

I can tell you one thing, which is that we're planning on making real money items without balance items that users are concerned about. (T/N: He's claiming no P2W items.) We're thinking of paid items as something that gets supplied on a daily basis. You can probably lodge rooms too?  (T/N: I forget the exact word that closed beta used for international version of the game for main menu of character selection. Was it lodge? I'm just going to stick with it.)

Ah, also we want to use the current characters' room as the transition while indoor maps are loading. (T/N: I could have really botched this sentence. And for the matter, rest of this paragraph. I'm kinda scratching my head a bit as to what was exactly said but I think I got the gist. hopefully) We're planning on developing couple indoor maps so there's a likelihood there will be more skins.

Pic captions: IMC VP Kim Seyong. He is TOS's main director.

Q. The game's 2D but the requirements are rather high so there's lot of users that are calling for optimization.
Kim Seyong
= We're continuing to optimize so recommended specs are probably lower than before. When we started, we thought to make it runnable on netbooks but turns out ultrabooks are lot more popular. One of the reasons why we matched interfaces to that was in anticipation of 'windows tablet'...

Afterwards, looking at PCs, we saw less changes than we had expected. We thought we'd be looking at an age where windows tablet or netbooks would dominate but that wasn't the case. So, I think that's why the specs were a lot higher. it became a game that demanded more than it appeared. If this was full 3D, we probably could have further lowered the requirements. Technically, combining both 2D and 3D elements have a lot of gaps too.

If you do the 2D in full sprites, the memory won't hold, and combining 3D complicates the algorithm. There were a lot of issues here and there but we're solving them steadily. In the open beta version, recommended specifications will probably be a CPU that is i3 or better, Graphics card GTS250, RAM of 8 Gigs. Grinding with a party will be tolerable but guild wars or towns might stress your system a bit.

We've also thought of going back to built-in graphics and it seems to be somewhat viable. There shouldn't be a huge effect on playing even in town as long as there isn't high amount of actions. I suspect there's someone who'd be playing on a window tablet.

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Part 2. Autos of Savior and about characters
One of the criticisms by Tree of Savior users was the auto attack. Personally I think of the 'Autos of Savior' as a stigma. When there's so many classes, if everyone's doing the same auto attacks, there's a problem there. There's opinions that there's way too much reliance on auto attacks as well. If we're all auto attacking, a lot of the classes' and characters' individuality dies too.  It's probably not what the developers have in mind too.

In reality the G-star build, classes like Fletcher's reliance on auto attacks were very low. There were auto-based classes in Swordsmen classes too but there were those that weren't as well. If autos were fun, that's fine. However, cleric classes' auto attacks are boring and lack synergies, and I also could not understand why wizards were autoattacking as well. Then, what is the developer team thinking?

It's not very different from what I thought. They recognize that there are a lot of autoattacks but they expressed that auto attacks themselves aren't the problem. **The point is that there are characters that are based on autos and other that are not.** I was also able to listen to the viewpoint that if there is a lot of fun to be had with just autos it might even be a point of praise instead of stigmatization.

"Personally I don't think of 'Autos of Savior' as a stigma. I think of it instead as praise. Honestly, if the variations of autos have depth then you could say that the game itself has depth too, can't you? That expression is a good thing... for a while games have been based on skills (TN: do not confuse for player-skill) for battles so some users may feel uncomfortable.

It's difficult to satisfy all the users. Tree of Savior is quite a slow tempo game. It probably suits the tastes of many but for those that it doesn't it can be a very boring game. We want it to appeal to said slow tempo-wanting users.

'Autos of Savior' is a fine expression, but rather I find it regrettable that Tree of Savior's autos haven't quite delivered on that depth and I'd like to apologize. I don't mind Autos of Savior. We have no plans of changing the game to a skill-based system. If you actually play the game, there are classes that farm based on autos and others who don't.

Users are all probably wanting the 'strong character'. There's lot of people who express that they want such standards. However, 'Tree of Savior' really has a lot of classes. There's battle-centric classes and the dissimilar Support classes. The battle-centric classes can be strong but I think it's difficult to make support classes strong too.

I'd like for people to think that each class isn't the character's identity. Probably just a part of the character? I do admit that characters are considerably static based on order. Though classes are diverse, the concept of class is a part of the process of customizing your character from level 1.

Let's take an example. The upcoming Templar class will have many routes to get there. There may be battle Templars who took the barbarian route, there may be squires who are strengthening their support role by taking templar as well. You can see your character as something that is born from the proportions of many choices before you. Even if we look at one class, there can be many different forms of characters that exist.

Production, or Support classes have aspects where they are weak in battle. There's some sentiment of rejecting such classes in party matching, so we've been fixing it a bit. At the very least, we've increased their survivability and their ability to perform job-appropriate roles. If it's a swordsmen class, they have adequate hp; for wizards and archers their firepower, and clerics their ability to support.

pic caption: Wizards Rank 7 classes, Warlock and Featherfoot

There's opinions that stats aren't very intuitive. It's a system built with the hopes that users will utilize stats more independently in mind. In an early version it wasn't 'strength' but 'attack'. If you increased attack, magic attack would increase too.

However, we thought this would be a bit confusing with Intelligence, so we separated Int, and agility portion affects evasion or crits so we separated into two forms. Even now, Dex is still so good. However, I wanted agility and attack to go together. So, we even included in the tooltip that even archers should raise strength to increase attack. There's lot of people who expects the rules of Ragnarok but it will be quite different from that.

We're still adjusting stat balance based on the constant feedback. Swordsmen classes got a higher hp pool and with Str and Int getting bonuses on ranking up, effectiveness has increased considerably. The stat most people overlook is 'Spirit', hm... so if you have a character that has more than one skill with no cooldowns, it will be good to invest a little into spirit too.

T/N: on some instances where it says "swordsmen" it may be for other classes that are fighter-type-ish as well. I couldn't tell based on context since it seems to be used somewhat interchangeably unless I'm not aware of some common lingo of Korean ToS.

*****

Part 3. The Tree of Savior that the developer team dreams of and concerns about roles.

This thought kept coming up in my head as I conducted the interview. "Just what game is this Tree of Savior that the developer team is drawing up?" They say that they are changing the game according to the feedback they receive from their users, but they didn't seem to have any thoughts on changing the big picture. From the start the game was giving rise to diverging opinions, but it seemed to me that it had little thought on drawing in as many users as possible.

I was constantly getting the impression that this game really doesn't match itself to the market. Being unique in this way could be an advantage but the opposite could happen where as a result of polarizing opinions, it may be a critical disadvantage by not being able to draw many users .

Listening to what they thought of what Tree of Savior should be, it seemed that the development team dreamed of a game where the user becomes a resident of the world. To an extent the users themselves conduct some actions normally relegated to NPCs and they sit side by side to chat in town. As the users complete their characters, they are finding their own roles. Literally a game where you play a role, hence Role Playing Game is what the devs dreamed of. (TN: this last sentence worked a lot better with mixtures of Korean and English side by side, lol.)

However, if you want to stick to the essences of RPG, you must draw in a lot of users. Don't you have to find other users with the abilities you need since roles are divided? However, if there aren't enough people to take up these necessary roles, you can not create the ecosystem for the game. This is the same as not being able to present a play because you don't have enough actors to play the roles. The developer team says that they worry a lot about this.

Tree of Savior was a game made with considerable amount of rebellion in mind from the start. Everyone makes full 3D graphics, so let's make a 2D. For going low-end on graphics, let's make the server have some high specs. Well, a concept like that. We think of this game as one that might be liked by users who don't find it suitable to get a bunch of levels and going from instance dungeon to instance dungeon to farm.

Personally, I think of Tree of Savior as an MMORPG that focuses on the 'R' of the acronym. I also think I am drawn to that aspect too.

RPG is a Role Playing Game, couldn't you say it's a bit of a theatre? If everyone's only fighting that just doesn't seem right. We worried a lot about 'If I had a role in the game what would it be?'. (TN: Developer thinking from player's perspective) There was a video that was uploaded which showed a pyromancer who casted a fireball on the ground and a cryomancer would play soccer with him using the fireball and some goal posts.(TN: little unclear to me but maybe the cryo was making ice walls as goal posts? or they just used the environment? or some other pyro skills? No idea since I haven't watched that video and I have little experience with both classes.)

Most videos show just farming normally, but isn't it refreshing to see someone playing around like that? At that moment I really felt that we were seeing what we intended. You can't really find this kind of fun in other games, you know? Since nobody makes games like this, we had no choice but to make our own. Of course we're not claiming that we'll replace the current MMORPG market.

The users gradually find their own roles. If you go into town, you can find squires sharpening swords, alchemists brewing potions and roasting gems for other users. If we can see things like that one could say that players have settled on roles as we intended. If we released some boss on the test server saying that we need to test a boss, we were able to see base camps and free refreshment tables form in the backline to support the users. The MMORPG that I've been thinking of is like this.

One could say that it's replacing NPCs. Shall we look at an example? In the cleric tree, the Oracle class skills recently got changed. Its 3rd Circle skill can change gender of the user. To use the skill it takes quite a bit of materials. We wanted to leave roles like this in the hands of the users. But since it's the only skill they gain at Circle 3.. that seems to be how the class will be identified. Surely, it won't be a popular class?

If you want to be given this role, there's a number of tests you have to pass. Among the classes getting patched in, there is a class called the 'Kabalist'. This class can increase a user's max HP by a huge amount. It's just the max HP value that is increased and it's up to you to fill up the HP bar. There's another class called the 'Plague Doctor' which can use 'Healing Factor'. This is a regeneration skill. If you lose HP, this regenerates the lost HP so quickly that it's scary. (TN: The expression is lot a bit upon translation.)

If these two use their skills together, wouldn't it be easy for them to survive no matter how many attacks they receive? But you could die too. We'll observe how users will utilize characters that can fulfill such roles. We won't force roles. There's a lot of cases where that was attempted and failed.

Since there's so many skills there's some rare sights that you can come across as a result of these skills working together. If it's too strong, we'll adjust. We think that we can make very fun scenarios or phenomenons as a result of skills coming together like puzzle pieces. I have high expectations in that regard.

We expect users to find and make their own roles. Certainly, Tree of Savior is a game that is polarizing. We aim to be 'distasteful'. (TN: I think they're saying that they're deliberately not conforming to popular opinion at large. Not that they want to alienate their current user base)

We really are worrying a lot about roles. Specific classes won't be popular. We know that already. If you complete a class and worked on settling on that identity, it's a situation where you've given up on opportunity cost? This character is the best possible in this area. Even though the usage may be limited, aforementioned point would be certain.

Second point is that of the definition of what a player is. We want a player to be not just a single character but multiple characters defining a single player. That's why we've implemented a lodge. Perhaps we could say that the lodge defines the player? You can look at social interactions as something you do as a team. We want that one character in the player's lodge to signify one aspect of the player's abilities.

The third point is depending on 'skill' the value can shift. Remember the Oracle example I mentioned earlier? It must be quite the arduous task to even reach 3rd Circle Oracle. However, to change a character's gender, someone has to get to that point to make it possible. It takes that much effort. That's what it says effectively. It could be a role that nobody will select. However, just having that as an option is meaningful in itself.

It may be wasteful and luxurious. Sometimes the effort put in inherently gives the endeavor its value, you know? (TN: It may sound bit weird to force the rhetorical question, but otherwise I couldn't see how to make one as in the original) Even though it's a non mainstream class and non-battle class, the person that reaches the peak of that class is that rare and that much impressive. There are roles that will give the feeling that 'oh this is possible too' instead of being useful all around. Such things will probably have a warning issued in game. If you can, please don't? (TN: umm.... Kim Seyong, you lost me sir.)

Picture caption: As a similar example, TOS has Templar class as the only one that can form a guild.

However I had the feeling it was excessive. So, we could say that we've compensated for it quite a bit? I think our early plans were too focused on the roles. Let's say that as a wizard, one invested fully into Pyromancer and then selected alchemist. There's plenty of meaning in process of progressing to alchemist but once you've advanced to alchemists nothing really works. (TN: Uh can any alchemists verify?)

Even if you are a crafting profession, you need to have basic farming capability or survivability. If your combat capabilities dies as a result of drastic class changes that in itself can be a problem. The amount of fatigue caused by that can't be ignored either. Through the CBTs, we've made changes to things like this.

Classes introduced at the 7th Rank have fire power to address such situations. We've removed restrictions since there's a lot of skills from previous classes that just don't work well together. There's lot of new skills too. We've refined classes a bit so that they can take on supportive roles while simultaneously be able to make progress. (TN: aka level up) We'd like to hear opinions from those who played in the CBT after they've experienced the OBT.

The fact that we can't give all the roles to the player is a point of concern. It feels as if uniqueness of classes like Krivis die through sale of scrolls. (TN: I'm guessing Daino Scrolls sold by a Pardoner.) Tree of Savior prefers to promote party play. If Krivis is around there's more buffs to be had. If priest is the class that gives variety of buffs, Krivis has the role of changing that environment. (TN: aka increase max buff limit and allow all of them buffs)

But if you buy a scroll, it becomes possible even without a Krivis... Krivis's skill is something that will be used frequently even in the late game. However, if you leave that solely to the Krivis, there may be problems in supply and demand. When you look for a compromise, it can't be helped that some character's uniqueness will die a bit.

We've implemented the scrolls, but it looks like we still have to observe the test in order to see which side is better and examine the transition.