After working through a couple of zones and several quest chains last night I was looking for something different to do in Tree of Savior. There’s a UI menu called the Adventure Journal (default, F4) that is a list of achievements for the game however this list includes a ranking system. Players are ranked based off of the number of points they’ve accumulated in the journal and you can see what the average rank is, your current rank, and the top ranking player in the game. In the same tab you can also see everything that is factored in to your Adventure Journal score—monsters killed, map completion, crafting—it’s a little bit of everything and it all adds up.
On the left is a list of my rank and progress in each of the categories. The yellow to blue meter shows where I fall compared to the average.
I’ve not tried crafting yet (finding the recipes and materials are difficult from what I can tell) and I try to kill at least one of every monster type while I’m questing so I decided to try and work on my map completion to improve my rank, working my way through earlier zones to get 100% in each one. It’s not as easy as it sounds because unfortunately it can be difficult to see which areas you have left to discover. Big areas are obvious; they’re either completely black or a smoky grey. However it’s not all that uncommon to have 95-98% completion and see no visibly missed areas on the map. The only solution is to run around the outside edges until you figure out what area you missed.
Doing this allowed me to pick up a few quests along the way that I missed which also adds to my achievement points and gave me a little extra XP from the cards I earned as a reward. However it proved to be tedious scouring the map for those hidden spots so while I plan on continuing this endeavor from time to time, last night after six or seven I grew tired of the activity and went back to questing. One useful discovery I made though while exploring was a statue of a goddess that gave me an additional stat point. I only came across the one but it makes me wonder how many of these there are peppered across the world map.
The goddess Saule was captured and had to be rescued though by whom and from what from I do not know. I need to write things down as I play.
Once more working my way through the main story, I learned a little more about what’s going on in the game. To be honest it’s a little confusing and while some of that may have to with translation most of it has to do with my faulty memory. This is true for me in all MMOs, but I just can’t remember things very well from one quest to the next and it makes it difficult for me to keep up with the story. From what I have gathered though, there is a growing presence of monsters in the land and this is related to the absence of several goddesses. The only one left present is a demon goddess so that’s a bit of a downer. Recently I rescued one of the missing goddesses and it turns out that they’ve lost their powers, but either the game hasn’t explained why, I don’t remember, or I wasn’t paying attention. Reader’s choice.
There’s also a lot of talk about my character as the revelator and revelations which seem to be stone tablets that one of the goddesses infused with her own being or some such; again, not really sure what’s going on exactly but I think I’ve collected two of them. Or the same one twice. Arrgh. Despite my shortcomings the pacing of the story is still good and I’ve liked the quest design and boss fights that are just all over the place as you play through the story and pick up side quests. I’ll never be a lore expert on this or any other game but I get the general idea and I do take the time to read all the dialogue and quest text, even if I never will remember it.
The models for each of the bosses are really whimsical. I could probably do an entire post on mob and boss character design. It’s a big part of why I enjoy Tree of Savior.
And here’s another one. There were at least three in this zone, not an uncommon amount for each and every map.
I’m level 72 now and things are really starting to slow down again with gaining new levels. From what I hear it will be 85 or 86 before I hit the next XP curve. It’s not a big deal though as I have lots of zones to work through now and plenty of story and quests. Once I do hit that second XP curve though, one hundred shouldn’t be too far behind. In the meantime I have a few things I want to check out in addition to questing. First off, I want to take a look at the crafting and see if there’s anything I can make with what all the materials collected. Then secondly, I keep collecting these empty boxes from treasure chests in several of the zones but I’ve never figured out what they were for. So I think I’m going to do a little google search so I can see what that’s all about. There’s still lots to do and discover in Tree of Savior.
I love the bridges in this game, they’re all so beautifully illustrated. Time to go and explore what’s on the other side!
Waiting For Rez 