Overview
I had a lot of fun and figured I would give my feedback on the game. There’s a lot I liked and a lot I didn’t like. I also have some worries for the game’s future. Please keep in mind this is the perspective of someone who hit only the third class circle. My class was Archer > Quarrel > Sapper (which Sapper was immensely fun and quite good).
I’d also like to say I reported very many bugs and I hope my fellow beta testers reported the ones they found as well. This helps make it the best game it can be.
Best bug: one map had everyone just as floating hair killing everything.
Experience Curve
This is, obviously, the hot topic of discussion. Personally, I feel that if the developers want to make a game with a solid grind, that’s just fine. However, if that’s the game they want to make they need to double-down on it. As it stands the game feels as though it’s of two minds: one is that of a typical theme park MMO revolving around the quests, the other is of a grinding game where you enjoy the grind and the leveling experience.
By splitting the game across these two ideas it hasn’t been accomplishing either as well as it could: the quests are minimal and not overly interesting (a few were awesome though) while the grinding areas are too few and with too little variety.
To become a good grinding game I think that some more variety in grinding spots and monsters/monster types should be introduced, this would definitely liven up the game a good deal. Further, I feel the XP curve should be evened out some, not necessarily made harder or softer, but made steady. Currently the XP has grind walls where hitting some levels takes a very long time while the level immediately following comes very quick; though perhaps they have their reasons for this.
Gameplay
I greatly enjoyed this aspect of the game. The skills were interesting and fun, the classes varied and creative, and the (too few) maps were neat to explore. The only gripe I have here is one of balance, but I cannot really comment on that as later levels is when balance usually comes to its true light. It did appear some classes needed some tweaking, but it appears from the kCBT notes that they knew that already.
I love the interactions some skills have that aren’t explicitly stated (Ice wall + Psychic Pressure). This really makes player communication key and makes for exciting skill discoveries.
Translations
Please hire a full time translator. The game badly needs it. The github users did an okay job, and I’m thankful for the work they did, but the game needs consistency and quality. Without this the game suffers greatly. Every time I had to re-read a skill and realized it was pure gibberish it just made the game a little bit worse.
Worries of Monetization
My main worry for the future is one of monetization. F2P games with cash shop (aesthetic only or otherwise) suffer one major issue: limited shelf life and a lack of development focus. The games do well at first but slowly the devs run out of non-jarring aesthetic items the games start going down hill. To keep funding they have to resort to P2W and completely insane cosmetics. The devs also cannot focus on innovative features and new content as they continue to have to rake in money with new cash shop items. The game loses content and it dies. For examples: look at literally every F2P MMO right now.
P2P obviously eliminates this, allowing devs to focus and work towards goals without the worry of pandering for cash (see: Eve and WoW, two of the most successful MMOs ever, it’s why they both are able to make huge additions without worry of monetizing those additions), and B2P to an extent with a buy-in and cosmetic cash shop (e.g. GW2), but the devs have said it will be F2P. Sadly I worry about how this will affect the games future, but only time will tell. In a few years I hope I can look back and see my worries were unfounded, but looking at other Korean MMO’s track records I can see that my worries are laid in a solid foundation at this moment. Try to think of one very success F2P cash shop MMO that’s considered a great game, not just some bullshit you pass the time with.
Controversial Addition
I feel like a good method of solving some of the “grind issues” might be to add a PK channel or world PvP or even Guild PvP, maybe perhaps even something like a WoE system. Anyone of these. And make them have goals and reasons for existing, not just slapped on (looking at you Tera). This gives players something different and some interesting content aside from grinding.
Of course, like Eve online or UO, world PvP/PKing does lead to N+1 tactics, but that’s mitigated somewhat by party sizes and at least is a social aspect of the game.
But mainly allowing PKing channels with rewards and goals, making guild houses a guild could have and the only way to decorate it is by doing things on the PvP server or by accomplishing big goals, and/or doing things like ONLY player shops (get rid of the AH) lead to interesting content. Players work together, they build guilds, they build identities and they accomplish goals. WoE was a great system in RO for this reason: players had to work together to accomplish goals.
Right now I don’t see this game having much of that, and this also worries me. Players need grandiose goals and experiences. One and done 5v5 arenas don’t do this (just play LoL if you want that) and certainly solo-able bosses don’t. The game needs GRANDIOSE THINGS and maybe PvP would allow that, maybe not, but it needs something. And to be clear any feature (like WoE or PKs) added would need to be well thought out and applied correctly not half-assed.
Conclusion
My general feedback. It’s early so it’s mostly a commentary on the direction the game may be heading from this very early CBT with some minor thoughts on the XP system. Feel free to argue about grinding, PKs, and P2P is bad because you say so.
