Hello,
I haven't read everything in this thread yet, but here's my take on Grove. I'll try to keep it short.
The glitch theme is a cool idea in itself, but the implementation is awful. Flying objects, weird mobs, textures, and names are okay, but just slapping random textures all over everything with a randomizer seems EXTREMELY lazy.
My two favorite examples are the chessboard pattern on the path (also known as a “missing texture” in design, which makes it doubly funny) and the repeating textures of mobs, as seen here in the example, which looks like a texture for a skeleton warrior: https://gyazo.com/ef7fed0aef09c2dfd1a9fd34dd90f09d
That's pathetic work.
Furthermore, all these “ground spells” from the bosses are a joke. Just a red or blue shape? What's that supposed to be? It looks like I'm in elementary school: https://gyazo.com/d4212efcf63051e3efa132b4f6c73c83
Suggestion for improvement: If there isn't enough capacity to do more there, why not just use what's already available, such as the ground spell textures from the Warnoken Arena: https://gyazo.com/789c20f2664e8f6f8e64a9dcc4f763fc
The loot system isn't good as it is either. It's no fun always buffing yourself to the bosses for a chance at an extra echo. It would be better if you only had to do this when entering the instance, or if there were simply guaranteed drops overall. I don't care about this when it comes to cards, but when it comes to something as essential as echoes, I think the mechanic is rubbish.
But maybe the drop situation is different, who knows... certainly not the players 😄
But away from the design and onto the gameplay:
Inexplicable one-hits happen extremely often. I like difficult instances, but if there's no counterplay, then it's bad design. Any AoE one-hits for the entire group (INCLUDING TANKS) are just stupid. Often, you can't interrupt mobs' casts (for whatever reason), and they happily continue casting, guaranteeing one-hits that you can't survive unless you're immune.
A few examples:
[18:56:52] Gust of Wind from Driftgull hits Rumo and steals 13,534,049 health.
[21:00:35] Twilight Snake's Poisonous Sting critically hits Rumo and steals 31,128,874 health.
[19:02:11] Copper Crow's Metal Scream critically hits Rumo and steals 4,341,776 health.
The Metal Scream isn't even a cast, it just one-shots the group every now and then.
The highest hit I've ever gotten from a mob cast like that was 240kk. In my opinion, that shouldn't happen.
The crowning glory of it all, however, are the sudden one-hits on the tank, which CONSTANTLY just falls over without having anything in combatlog. To be honest, that just seems like a bug. The whole thing happens surprisingly often in the lower right area, but overall everywhere.
Further points:
The mechanic in Boss 1 with the fan-shaped AOE in front of him is cool, but it doesn't work at all because you keep dying no matter what is displayed, which makes the mechanic unnecessary.
It's extremely frustrating that the new equipment doesn't really make you any better than before; it doesn't feel like it's worth it.
The potency buff from the new weapons is nice, but you quickly reach the cap with everything except the bosses (I think), which makes the bonus irrelevant, doesn't it?
You get the buff “1505801” every time you teleport past Skaldrin's boss room, even if he is dead.
A notification when you have killed enough mobs for the barrier in front of the boss would be nice, like in Origin, for example.
Personally, this gives me the feeling that the instance was released somewhat carelessly and without much thought. And to top it all off, the whole thing isn't even really “worth it” because the equipment isn't even that much better, which is extremely frustrating and demotivating. The worst part is that previous items are being nerfed to make the new stuff look better, which is probably the worst thing you can do if you care at all about the player base.
I still love the game and there are many good things on the server. But the highest main instance of the server is the heart of the game, and it feels like it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.
Nevertheless: much love, Rumo
(no flame, and yes endgame players party have no life xD) 