Worst MMO Ever? - Trove

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Part Minecraft, Part Diablo, All Gamigo.

Trove is a melted mix of cubist block builder, hack and slash rogue like, social MMO and open world adventure, it takes elements from other better games and ends up being fun, but not as much as each of the individual elements.

Trove is a perfect example that adding in 'good ideas' doesn't always work if the 'good ideas' don't relate or work well together.

Thanks to the Patreon supporters and Twitch subs who keep the channel alive :)

[younger]

Man, is it just me or does it seem like almost every MMO can be summed up as "It used to be good, now its just a vehicle to push excessive monetization and/or loot boxes."

[Dthrd]

I remember this game from a long while ago. It got pushed out to fill the empty void that was left when Cube World went silent during its early periods. And to that extent, it was very good as a replacement to tide people over. It was also very much community driven. Each class outside of the few starting classes, was thought up of, and created by the community, voted on, and then out into the game. If I remember correctly as well, it was either the person who created the class and/or those who voted for it, got it for free or something. Community was immense for this game. Pretty much every zone, mob, class, Dungeon was made by the community outside of the starting one's. However, eventually people started seeing microtransactions layered on microtransactions and left, harming the community aspect they built up. When a game is built around community and you drive away the community, you are left with nothing.

[toaster]

This game feels like something you would see in a movie being played by the main character's son.

[scottbaileymsc]

You could tell he hadn’t played it much when he said there was no lag and it was smooth. The lag is quite possibly the worst part of the game when it really hits. Not to mention the countless crashes you experience whilst playing

[shmillsyshmillsy]

This game was absolutely amazing at its peak. I’ve never been a part of a more loving community. Greed killed the game

[OneTimeACraft]

The game WAS GOOD, it really was, and it wasn't a honey moon phase, it just didn't have paywalls back then. Paid things were mostly just skins and pinatas to hopefully get a mount from breaking them. I was a tester for the game, I still have good memories with it.

[werderlork]

"Trove feels like a game that's already been completed, and you're just exploring the slowly fading embers of a finishing world"

You've heard it, ladies and gentleman!
Trove is the Dark Souls of MMO's - Josh Strife Hayes, 2022

[coachboc]

I have 3000 hours on trove and used to be one of the larger Twitch Streamers back when the game was in it's prime.
A lot of the late-game came from min-maxing the RNG gear to speed run the bosses faster for leaderboard spots and a purple name. The clubs and communities held together the playerbase and added so much depth that wasnt in the actual gameplay. Shame that it didn't last.

[jonfalan]

"Trove feels like a game that's already been completed." You're right. Sadly, you're right. When it was still just the game creators running things, it was FUN. You would see devs in game, they would throw random parties, you could actually get general assistance and talk to them directly. After it was bought by that accursed German holding company, all the spirit was sucked out of it. Then half the studio got fired and everything that made Trove special disappeared overnight. All the fun that could have been had is long since gone. I held on so long that not even the good memories remain untainted. Yes, Trove is finished. It just needs to fade away and die.

[A_Prinny]

The one thing Trove does really good is something the tutorial didn't really explain: the Loot Collector. It breaks down gear you don't have equipped and if you dont have the appearance of the item in your collection it gets added. Basically allowing you to get a ton of skins for your gear that you can change whenever you want.

[notsae]

So what I've learned from this series is to never, ever, _ever_ sell my creative visions to any corporation because they _will_ ruin it. Kinda already knew that, but good to see it writ large over and over.

[DMaaaaath]

I’m shocked josh didn’t experience the infamous server lag and end up rubber-banding to hell and back or having to wait 30secs every 5secs for chunks to load

[Gerpar_]

I used to love Trove, it had a great progression scheme for gear where it went Shadow Lvl 1-5, then Radiant gear. They later added Stellar gear, which was mostly okay, only difference was if it was upgraded you couldn't trade it anymore. THEN they had the great idea to add Crystal lvl 1-3 gear, gear that is untradable at all, and easy to get the low levels of it, even crystal 1 was better than stellar gear, making it all useless now, especially considering you couldn't upgrade stellar gear to crystal like you could with all the previous ones by using souls from the same level.

Speaking of the souls, they used to be a good way for new players to make Flux, by farming lvl 1-3 shadow gear to loot collect them, since the souls actually had a decent demand back then; now they're practically worthles, even radiant gear / souls are pretty much worthless now. Typical issue of power creeping stuff out of existence. It's a shame really.

The old hub used to be so much better IMO, when you came in, you had a tower with all the world portals lined up in order of difficulty (Lowest difficulty at the bottom, highest at the top), and with some of the higher difficulty ones, you had to actually craft the portals to get there, which gave more value to collecting the ore in the world.

The big gameplay loop back when I used to play revolved around Shadow Towers, the endgame content at the time, basically a weekly large raid dungeon with 8 players, and then fighting a powerful boss at the end.

The community was worried when Trion Worlds (the original devs) got bought out by Gamigo, and well, looks like things haven't exactly improved at all since they did.

[fluger]

This game is a husk of what it used to be. There used to be Shadow Towers! Massive multi-floor dungeons that you could team up with 7 of your mates to clear, only to be greeted at the end by a massive raid boss! The spike walker, the eldrich weeping prophet, the piñata god, the shadow hydra, the nuke-launching dreadnaught, and the goddess of the moon herself! All amazing experiences, and some of my best memories, gone, replaced by just another tedious grind and cash grab in the form of delves.

And you didn’t even touch on how predatory the cash shop is. There’s another ranking system called mastery rank, you level it up by colllecting new gear and loot collecting it, crafting new mounts, costumes, pets, etc. every new collect is more mastery. And more mastery is more power. In order to reach top mastery, you NEED to buy EVERYTHING from the cash shop. All the potions, all the emblems, all the costumes, all the pet, all the mounts, all the classes. Not to mention that there’s mastery rank locked behind a “Patron points” you get one patron point for every $ spent, and you need 1000 points to max out the mastery for that system. You literally cannot hit max unless you spend AT LEAST $1000.

And on the classes that can be bought. They are not all balanced. There are definitively best classes. Chloromancer or Gunslinger are the highest DPS. Dino Tamer and Neon Ninja are the best at farming dungeons as they go the fastest in move speed, to the point where mounts become redundant.

All classes can be crafted, yes, but it’s heavily based on RNG weather you can get everything for all of them, while vanguardian and bard are grindy, that the only options are spend 100hrs for half of what’s needed to craft one of them, or spend $50 per class for those 2.

I love this game, it has a near and dear place in my heart alongside Wizard101 and RIFT. But it’s hollow. Gamigo is doing what they do best and just holding it on life support. This game is dying, and it’s sad watching what you used to love go so far downhill.

Sincerely -a long time player with a little over 20, 000 hours played

[cloudkao]

13:52 it was designed like that so people dont mine their way into boss rooms, however you can still break those blocks using a crap ton of bombs, or using a dragon

[busofselfdoubt]

the way you described the game as quite enjoyable for a bit, then forgetting about it for a long while only to maybe pick it up again months or years later for the same thing to happen again is EXACTLY my experience with the game. it’s quite enjoyable to hop on with a friend or two every few months, kill some stuff, build in our private club world, maybe play for a few days, then not pick it back up for another few months. all i can do is be grateful gamingo hasn’t run the game completely into the ground, it’s still actively updated, and isn’t completely p2w.

[thehaveninthehand]

I played this game every day for YEARS. I had so much fun with people I met in the game, made massive statues in clans, fought my way close to the top, and it felt amazing. I got tired of the cash-grab nature that started cropping up, though, and I quit around 5 years ago. I still miss it sometimes, but I think it's mostly my memories clouding my judgement.

[demithys]

Ooof I used to be addicted, I can see why it's here though. Can't wait

[mindfulselfindulgence]

16:30 this depresses me so hard, because I remember, as a kid, finding and attacking some massive dungeons for the first time. Attacking the fae temple and Q’bthulu and the huge pirate island and my first Shadow Tower while undergeared because I didn’t understand how the gear system worked (thought more green meant better so my stats were all over the place) are childhood memories I legit hold very closely. It sucks that that sense of adventure has been extracted out of it by bloat and needless ‘streamlining’.

[ParamoniaMan]

Trove for me was fun for the collecting of items, skins and mounts. I didn't really ever have to touch the store too much and there are loads of stuff you can't get from the store. Also i enjoyed building in a guild island, because you have the freedom to do whatever you want there. I've never seen the building really be useful/fun in the main world unless you're trying to cheese a boss with a ranged class.