Hows everyone enjoying the game?
Do NOT play this game. Absolutely DO NOT.
Let me preface this review by saying that I really want to like this game . It has a lot of potential and is an interesting blend of well established genres that seem to work together rather well. Rather than bore you with an essay that is miles long let me list my current gripes with the game and suggest some things that, if changed could change my opinion.
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Open World PVP - This in theory is a great idea, but in practice in all the games I have ever played is never what its cracked up to be. 95% of Open world encounters are heavily mismatched... LVL 70 vs a LVL 30... 4 v 1... 90% dead after a boss fight and someone walks past and hits you once and steals all your stuff. RARELY do I ever walk away from an OW PVP encounter win or lose thinking that it was a fun and fair experience... its mostly an annoyance because of the uncontrolled nature... Once you hit 75+ at least for me I felt an almost pointlessness to it all, there is no joy for me killing a lvl 50 player farming some iron ore... so I would always just walk past and part of me would feel like "why bother"
Castle Sieges - Another great idea that doesn't translate well. For myself and I will assume most others, I spent the majority of my energy levelling up so sieges really weren't part of the game until you hit into the 70's. Its not that you CANT do it prior, but some of the items that make sieges easier are behind unlocks that come later on. Once it becomes an option and especially when you have hit max level, the experience is not rewarding. The reasons behind this are peoples castles often fall into 2 categories super hard (think honeycombing.. which IMO really ruins the immersion of the game to know you need to build this way for defense) or Super easy (single walls) to get the more "end game item" that makes breaching a castle easier takes a fair amount of some of the more difficult end game materials (thats fine by me TBH). But more often than not the reward for a successful breach is just piles and piles of lower level materials that likely already are stacked high in your own base. And the process of performing a siege is again mixed due to my point above in the uneven matchups... and that is even IF!! the player is online to defend it, so it could just be an un-imposed burglary of 1000 pieces of grass and leather scraps. The times that I logged in to my castle having been looted while i was offline... didnt even care... probably did me a favour of tidying up my inventory for me cause I was too lazy myself to throw anything away.
Soul Shards - To avoid spoilers I will just say that there are a couple things end game that are unique items on PVP servers called soul shards. These items are in the game and designed for players to fight over and to be considered the "Dracula of the server" I think thats how the dev's put it? Anyway, I was in a clan that controlled EVERY one of these and I remember when we got the last one waiting for something special to happen... and then nothing... The reward for getting these is borderline meaningless. The reward you do get for having them is being a constant target and having your castle sieged. They do give some benefits but this I think was a bit overhyped to me. Again good idea translated poorly.
General End Game - Once you hit mid 70's and depending on how often you play this can happen in a week pretty easily (lvl is based on gear not XP so you dont have huge XP grinds) the "what's next" fell off a cliff HARD!!!! It was especially hard because of my first statement about how much fun I was having pre 70! Your end game loop will consist of just mindlessly farming those last few materials to craft the item to bump you those last 3-4 levels to officially hit MAX lvl. After that it will be spent doing constant loops over and over and over of areas killing super low mobs to find servants to gain 100% blood type servants to upgrade from probably 85ish % most people get through the normal course of playing. Those that like to base build and decorate might have some enjoyment doing this! but even this I can't imagine being too satisfying... All of the customisation you can have to your castle 98% of gets unlocked in those first 1-70 levels... so while you can create a really impressive castle (which is also a constant struggle of wanting to look cool VS i need to honeycomb for Def) It's not like you need to go fight a really hard boss... or farm reputation to get a really cool throne... 98% is unlocked already and majority of it uses materials from around lvl 30-50. So after a day or 2 of interior design I think the enjoyment will dry up fast! There are no instances... No reputation grinds... No PVP arena systems... On the server I ran we tried to coordinate PVP fights in the colluseum with some success, but we would only get like 6-8 people come and the levels would vary wildly so we had to resort to making it a no gear spells only situation to balance it a bit better, which was ok... but not ideal.
Base building - Some of the other downsides that did happen to me and I could see happening to others... Choosing a base location can make or break your gaming experience, and once you choose a location especially as the servers fill up makes it almost impossible to "fix". 2 of the 3 servers I was on at one point I couldn't even log into the game at peak times because it was just jam packed with people trying to play.. 2-3 weeks later I look and the server now has 5 players on at peak times... as you walk around the world it is littered EVERYWHERE with abandoned bases from players that a) are just over the game or b) don't like their location and just re-rolled into a new server... So these servers are effectively dead because a new player coming in can't even find a decent place to build because its only natural when you start out in the starter area to pick a building location in the starting area! so the first zone is just over saturated with castles. I learned my lesson fairly quickly... As soon as I hit a level where I could build, I quickly ran up into the higher level zones to stake my claim... But this also was a big negative for me as I was constantly dying or struggling just to get to and from my castle into more appropriate zones for my level... I probably also missed out on some early level PVP being so isolated. End game obviously I was happy because I was now nextdoor to all the super annoying materials I needed to farm for end gear stuff.
In the end I spent a week or 2 just logging in daily hoping that there would be some spark or some interesting thing to do... But I mostly just found myself standing around in my castle... maybe chatting to a few people on the server that I knew... Or doing the annoyingly painful loop of looking for slightly better servants...
I really hope the Dev's spend ALL their energy coming up with a DLC and soon that gives some longevity to the end game content... If they come out with just an expanded area with a handful more bosses... some new gear and building stations its just going to kick the can down the road and the same problems exist!
Is this related to Metap Gear Rising? Y'all play that?
my bros just coffined me in, this is going to be so cool!
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@You_lose_i_win
Apparently the tier 2 gear set is unlocked immediately after "Quincey The Bandit King"
Not sure how we missed this.
anyone interested in hosting an NAMafiA serever?