Yep, another Allods post. I thought I'd take time to write a little about the pros and cons as I have had more time to dwell within the game and get a better feel for it. I have been wanting this to be my little game I play on the side when I am not playing Everquest with Dire. This lazy weekend I have spent an afternoon playing a bit and thinking on some things that really should be noted.
Zones...
The game is lovely, that is a sure thing. However all the pretty graphics in the world don't make a game great. I am not saying the game isn't great, it is for the most part. I am wanting to make new characters to try out, and have been- but I have not enjoyed it very much. A good friend of mine wanted to start a character with me but I am afraid he may be turned away by the horrible starting area. Yes it is H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E. You filter every jerk in the game into one spot, it's not going to be pretty. People killing the one named quest mob that spawns out of spite.. It starts to get irritating.
What should have been done to prevent this would be channels, if you are not interested in making separate starting zones for the races well for heavens sake at least make channels to switch to!!!! These would be similar to Guild Wars and Aion. Those help multitudes. It is so bad I don't even feel like playing up my new little Scout- which I absolutely love.
Which leads me to my next point, if the game is so congested now in the starting areas, I dread to see how the Holy Lands will be. PvP.. it is going to be one messy nasty place where nobody wants to go. Well, maybe the griefers.
Leveling
If you are not going to space out the leveling areas then speed up the XP to get people out of there faster. It is too slow to get anyone to really want to stick with it, if they are trying out multiple characters. The rate of killing mobs with each class varies, some are pathetically slow while others do a fair amount of damage. You are not going to reel people in by slowly leveling in a zone infested with other players.
Pets, at a low level I think they should tank better. The Summoner pet to be specific. Basically I am tanking, he is sitting there doing whatever with that shovel. Maybe it gets easier as you level, for now it is annoying if I do too much aggro, not like he has a ton of hit points. Not a big deal, but something that is different from closed beta, I remember pets tanking much better.
Warden pets, what exactly are these? Are they a part of the character, an extension, or a pet? There is no pet bar, I am not sure where I stand on this class. It is very different, sort of a dumb pet. Remember Everquest Enchanter pets? Yeah sort of like that, attack when you are attacked. I like being able to command a pet. And are they casters or melee? They appear to be a melee caster hybrid but they start in robes, mostly casting. This is one I will have to play more to understand it better.
-Edit- I did get a chance to dawdle around on the Warder. They are a bit better than I thought at first. They are different for sure, not as dumb as I thought they were at first! I am growing rather fond of this class.
Scout arrows, these are really nifty. You can add fire and such to your arrows. You have to prepare them- they load into a 'quiver'. If you want to alternate shots you have to cancel one and start the other, this is a pain- all this before even entering combat. I have to refresh my quiver after every kill, this makes it take even longer. Not a big deal once again, but it seems the only class that has to prepare between kills, while everyone else is wailing away on mob after mob. No consumables on arrows- this is pure awesome. That is one thing I love. I can deal with the little annoyances just because of this.
Cash Shop
This is what will fund the game. More power to it. I don't mind it one bit. Some of the items are actually more than a monthly subscription for a pay to play game. People just won't buy them. Don't shoot yourself in the foot with high prices. Nothing really of interest to me currently, so I can't comment further.
Questing
Some of the drop rates are very, very... very bad. The zones are already over populated. No channels and only two servers. What bad drop rates do is keep these areas over populated, these mobs over camped. It's not a good thing, it should be looked into in my honest opinion. Filter people up and out of these areas with only two servers, we have tight quarters here in Allods!
Named mobs. This is just asking for grief upon players. Over camping, waiting in line and kill stealing. Yucky stuff is involved with this. Some of them I tend to skip or wait until the wee hours of the morning to get it. Not cool.
Things I like
Class armor set packages from trainers, uber! My kicka$$ pony tail- my Scout's rather. I love the built in quest helper and map system, they make things simple and light. The animations are beautiful. There's more but I have touched on those in other posts and I won't linger over those today.
Overall I really like the game. However, I am getting annoyed while trying out other classes I didn't get a chance to in CB. If you can get past these with out any annoyances, well you are a better player than I in that aspect! I have a low threshold for annoying players, and I am meeting quite a lot of them.
-kaozz
Interesting to hear your impressions of the starter zones. I have been uncertain as to whether I should give it a shot. However, after reading Keen and Graev's blog about the current state of the game I think I'll wait and see.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=3575
Good points. Visually, I was enjoying the experience. Performance issues, from what I could tell were just a result of the massive population of people being concentrated in a single starting area. The only way I could even my quests done in a reasonable amount of time was by tab-tagging. I makes me feel as though they may have underestimated the interest in this game. Add to that the juvenile chat going on and character like "Jesus" and "Motherfcker". Usually I'll be done from that alone, but I'm trying to be more tolerant and understand we're just in a different gaming world now.
ReplyDeleteI don't get the fatigue system at all. I get how it functions, but it feels unnecessary. I got the feeling my exp was being taxed and I get a tax return only by way of an Innkeeper. Mobs also seem not to scale properly. I was killing spiders of equal level without breaking a sweat, then move to whatever that skeleton area is called and my pet was flat out destroyed. While I didn't really have an issue staying alive, I was forced to summon after every fight. So it just seems like there's too big a gap in difficulty between certain mobs of the same level.
The cash shop will most likely not be something I participate in, but it's not off to a great start from what I'm reading. Especially, as you've stated, if there are items up there for obscene amounts of money you can also acquire as a drop or through a quest.
Questing concerns me. This seems to be a completely quest driven game. I expected at least a viable option of grinding. Sometimes I just want to plop down and kill the same stuff over and over again while I concentrate on things outside of the game, or just chat. I don't want to have to keep up with my quest log and actually pay attention to anything other and killing and looting.
All in all, I think the game does have great potential, but I need more time to sit back and watch how it progresses. I'm just want to know how they are going to address the issues everyone playing seems to have.
@ Grimfire- Interesting, I didn't see that post. I'm going to give them time to sort things out. If not, well it's only a game I play on the side. So no big loss.
ReplyDeleteThere is still time to fix things before people run the other way. I suppose we shall see what happens.
@Skhurd- Yeah my tab key is one I use way too much in this game lol. If you play a class with no insta cast spells, it's tougher to tag the mobs.
Yeah fatigue is odd, I don't understand why it is there. I can only assume it is something trying to be unique while still copying the rest mechanic- WoW. It is better than being logged out to get it I guess..
I did notice some mobs were harder than others of the same level, tweaking needed here for sure. And the summoner I find, at this level, doesn't kill as fast as other classes I have tried. Add the pet tanking like crap and it's not as fun as I thought it would be. Killing fast isn't the issue but when other dps classes blow me away.. well what is the point?
And lastly questing- Yes it is a big part. I don't see any- set up camp here and xp awhile- groups being in this game. That is why i still play Everquest. I like doing that as well.
Hopefully things pan out and they get it together, or else people won't stick around. I am going to wait and see, still playing it on the side. I have a priest in the works I am seeing how I like.
I had no issues with the leveling speed.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't so much the leveling I suppose as it was the massive amount of people slowing questing down.
ReplyDelete