I received my key as part of the second wave of keys delivered to the community (Actually, it was given to me by my brother, who got it in the second wave.), and am grateful for the chance to really dig my claws into the game and feel around in its buggy, messy guts.
This is a text file I have kept while the iCBT was live and it holds my experiences in as clear a way as I can present them. Hopefully this can help inform some of you who weren’t as fortunate or didn’t get to experience the iCBT outside of streams/stories.
I’m not sure if anyone would care, but unlike my brother I’m not incredibly good at articulating points and breaking down game design, I just like video games. Hell, more feedback can’t hurt, right? I also apologize for any formatting errors I missed when copying over the text from another program.
==DAY 1==
On the first day I started a Cleric to experiment a bit and get used to the controls and combat. After reaching the Mining Village I retired the character and picked up a Swordsman. Gameplay is smooth and fairly responsive, even when frame drops and lag spikes occur. The classes really feel like they come into their own, with pliable playstyles in about the first 20 or so levels, when you start to feel the impact of your stats and skill choices. Even in busy group grinding you can manage yourself and act with ease.
My experience leveling was at first Solo, and it was a little dangerous and sluggish from what I’ve come to expect from generic brand MMOs these days, which was a pleasant surprise.That was, until I reached Crystal Mines.
I was in for a rather rude awakening after being given a colonoscopy by the Spectre Lord, and slowly it dawned on me that this wasn’t the run-of-the-mill single-man snoozefest grind that’d been regurgitated since Post-BC WoW.
For the first time in years, I had to play an MMORPG like a goddamned MMO.I picked out a few people, and went to work grinding. I socialized, I mingled, I played as part of a team to progress. Bosses suddenly went from ‘minutes long knock-down-drag-out brawls’ to what could possibly be called a group exercise; Boss Fights and Grinding weren’t just faster in a group, they were easier.
Classes actually felt like they melded together with purpose, and the basic classes themselves had distinctly different roles that all came into play once brought into a party setting, clerics and mages especially. This isn’t an easy feat to achieve in today’s market, and I’m glad there’s as much a push as their is in this game for party-oriented play rather than a solo slugfest.
The community was rather split in its interactions with me as a normal player. The /s(shout/global) chat was filled with bile, BR huehuehue, mudflinging, drama, and ADHD kidswhining about the bosses killing them while they were severely underleveled or the fact that they had to put some basic effort into leveling. The most bile-inducing of the childish behaviour was frustrated English players being taunted by Brazilians; which was only came to a climax when one of the BRs came out and boasted about how he got his key by falsely ‘helping’ the translation efforts with butchered Google Translate, which I dearly hope isn’t true but know better.
However, even when english wasn’t their strong suite, I found myself with amiable players whodid their best to cooperate, and once I had pushed through the Crystal Mines I found myselfamong people who were comfortable with the grind and were enjoying the game and their characters, and who generally had a basic grasp on how to progress. Whining about quests/EXP/bosses dropped off almost entirely at this point, at least in non-global chat.
Since EXP is such a hotly debated topic, I’ll also keep track of my leveling progress.
Today’s time played: 4~ HoursLevel Progress: 1->29
Once I pulled my head out of my ass and stopped trying to play this like some generic WoW-Slayer turdfest (cough)W*(cough), I hit a basic stride with leveling.
I stepped back, took a look at the content available, and spent about a half an hour doing quests, leveling, and filling out my gear in the Mining Village after getting wedgied by the Spectre while severely under leveled and equipped because I was blindly rushing from quest to quest.
With some basic, short bouts of grinding I found myself with a solid set of equipment and an appropriate level for the coming areas. As I progressed through the mines I found myself taking the time the not scream through the content like a small child pretending to be a racecar, and clear packs of mobs, rush down flashing/blue mobs; and thusly I found myself appropriately leveled for the content for the rest of my playtime for the day with a large excess of EXP cards just by completing the content I had placed in front of me at a non-ADHD pace.
(Honest Note: I did get a bit rush-y in Crystal Mines F3, but my stock of EXP cards easilybridged several levels worth of gap when I reached the next zone, and I was able tocomfortably grind without penalty until the servers went down.)
Despite being utterly blind to the game, with some basic party play, exploration, and not being desperate to burn through all the game’s content so I can get into a raid rotation and dailies like has been drilled into my head, I found the game and scale of progression to be appropriate for the time I was spending on it, and enjoyable while I played.
Current Major Complaint: Content is too linear. Alternate zones to level in, different quests to take, and more wonderful locales to grind it to suit different playstyles is a must, especially with a game as Alt-itis inducing as this. (Day 3 note: I’ve noticed that a large amount of pathways seem to lead to alternate zones, and with hidden dungeons like that in the mines, I can only believe that content will open up exponentially as players progress and content is completed. Feedback from other players, and the general map design gradually reducing the amount of Goddess statues as you progress and becoming more exploratory re-affirms my thoughts.)
Today’s Favorite Feature: The incredible party play is by far the best thing this game has to offer right now, and it clearly shows. Solo leveling/progression is outright discouraged with the existence of bosses, and party gameplay is very functional and rewarding when played together, even amongst variations of the same class
.=====END OF DAY 1=====
-=DAY 2=-
I didn’t get to play as much as I wanted to today, but I enjoyed my time.
I’ve really come to appreciate the emphasis on cooperative play the more time I put into the game. Swordsmen have solid single target DPS and tanking, Clerics have great sustain and buffs/heals, wizards have great crowd control and debuffs, and archers have a good ranged DPS and some crowd control; but each of the classes and their relative specializations always shine brighter when foiled by another class. A swordsman can hammer into a boss or huge mob in a Safety Zone or when being healed, and archer can easily lay into any number of monsters with a wizard’s crowd control, etc.It’s all really well done, and I’m not surprised players who are playing solo are having such trouble, the game is built from the ground up for you to find the first stranger you see and party up.
I’m also really interested in the Attribute system, I played a bit more with my cleric and saw interesting abilities like being able to toggle off the damage of my Heal, and with my Swordsman I could opt to give my Bash a knockdown or the ability to hit additional targets, or make Gung Ho even more extreme. I can’t wait to get deeper into it some other time where I’m not as restricted.
Gems (I also enjoy them dropping on death, it really makes farming them up something to be paid attention to), recipes, and the weapon upgrading system all seem very fun and accessible, and I can’t wait to see how they’re further developed by alternate classes.
Rare item drops like the recipes, hats, and rare pieces of equipment all make grinding (especially Elite Monster hunting) much more enticing, which is very reminiscent of Ragnarok Online and hunting for useful items and cards while leveling.
Today’s Time Played: 2 Hours (An additional hour or so spent in Chapel B1/F1 while very underleveled until I realized doing that was a really poor idea.)
Level Progress: 29-37
I’ve really hit stride with my grinding. You have no excuse not to be grinding in a group if at all possible, and with at least 3 channels always available you should really never have to compete with other groups.
With a solid group of 4~ people in a non-busy area, with monsters you can kill quickly without a solid expenditure of resources are really, really solid for quick leveling. Finding a zone appropriate for your character and weapon type is really important, but once you get it down you absolutely destroy the much-touted grind.
Today’s Major Complaint: People are pants-on-head retarded about leveling. Whether it’s playing Solo, rushing from quest to quest ignoring the zones, trying to grind monsters above their levels (Especially when said monsters are 6+ levels above them, where the powerleveling penalty kicks in), and getting nowhere with it. If people took the the time to pay attention and play the game properly I wouldn’t be partied with four people 8 levels below me when I’m of-level for a zone.
Today’s Favorite Feature: Attributes. They’re interesting, and make your character more versatile without requiring major investment. The fact that many have major changes to your abilities and are toggleable, or allow you to continue improving an ability long after you’ve maxed it out, is interesting and fun for both casual play and future theorycrafting/optimization.
=====END OF DAY 2=====
-=Day 3=-
This was the last day of the beta I played, I only played for a short while and retired when I’d had my fill. I broke the big, constantly forewarned Level 40 ‘bump’ that was constantly touted as being insurmountable and was satisfied enough with my bug testing and leveling.
I went from a C2 Swordsman to a Barbarian and played around with the class features for a bit before doing some content and getting off. I’m really a big fan of the class system, especially with being able to extend a class you like instead of opting for a new one when presented with your advancement.
I didn’t play very long at all today, but I did play around a good deal with the Marketplace and Gems making a nice 2H sword that swung for almost 800 a crit, which was neat. I’ve found learning to use knockdown/knockback with a party is pretty important to manage properly.
My time in the beta was brief, and things broke, I got stuck multiple times, and suffered several crashes and tried to document these via the in-game systems, but I’m pretty happy with how things went, and I’m looking forward to future tests and the eventual release.
Today’s Time Played: 2~ Hours, 7 Hours standing in town, chatting, spamming, dancing, and playing cards.
Level Progress: 37-42
I pretty much struck gold with a leveling strategy today. On a normal channel, with a full party we travelled around Tennet Gardens as a pack, clearing an area, then progressing down to the next until we repeated at the first area. This kept us from having too much dead time, and made for optimal Blue/Elite Monster hunting, as well as unique enemies that gave more experience than the usual monsters.
This cut through grinding time like butter, and before I knew it I had reached Rank 3 with a pathetic amount of ease. The grind really is nothing, especially this early in the game, so long as you play the game as something other than an anti-social ubercasual who surrounds themselves with their own clones.
Today’s Major Complaint:Loot. Recipes and hats are neat drops, but for the love of god stop drowning me in numerous materials I couldn’t use if I tried. Dropping useable items would be great, whether they gave minor buffs, were mediocre level-appropriate recovery items, or just had some direct use I’d be much happier having my inventory filled with junk.
Today’s Favorite ‘Feature’: Spamming chat with various messages, animating my character via poses, and realizing how utterly broken the block list was when I blocked someone else 5 times, only for them to disappear from the block list on my relog.
=====END OF DAY 3=====
Additional Notes:
-If you aren’t going to IP ban Brazil/SA, please for both sides sake give them a South American located server. You’d be doing a world of good, and stop a lot of grief.
-Zones really need to be fleshed out/made more numerous. The early game especially is cripplingly linear, but as I’ve said I have hope there are already plans to add meat to these bones.
-EXP is… Comfortable. It isn’t at some magical point that truly works wonders, but it certainly is very fun and cozy. From what I’ve heard this is the intended EXP rate, which is a good omen. So long as this doesn’t slide down the casual-pleasing trash chute like so many other MMOs have, I’ll be a very happy camper. If this was the official rate upon launch I would be very satisfied.
-The bosses are great fun and are always enjoyable to tackle with parties, but they can turn into meatsacks really fast. Higher damage and lower HP could make for more enjoyable, and less tedious brawls with bosses, but this is still in the early game so this might just be everyone being inexperienced/poorly built since it was a blind run for us all.
-UI is terribly inconsistent/buggy. Boss HP bars vanish for minutes at a time. Warp menus have to be opened multiple times and can cause crashes. Bonfires simply don’t work most of the time. Buttons for raising Stats/Skill Levels can be unresponsive. (I tried to use the in-game bug reporting function as much as possible.)
-Friends List outright didn’t work, which was sad, and the block list is a ‘maybe’ on a good day. Numerous times when I tried to block people it outright failed, or they appeared multiple times (without muting) in my block list. I liberally put this to use in the big end-of-iCBT party, much to everyone’s chagrin.
-Stat/Skill reset items should be implemented as soon as possible. My early game suffered immensely from poor allocation choices while exploring the mechanics, and I feel that future tests could benefit from players being more easily able to optimize short of completely new characters.
-Fairly minor, but maybe filter out the ability for people to Yellowtext as |GM|s? It caused a lot of genuine grief and confusion amongst people who didn’t know any better.
Thanks for reading, once again the iCBT was great and I was glad to be there. I hope the feedback and bug reporting pushes this game in the right direction, and I absolutely adore a decent, niche title I can look forward too. Shout outs to |GM|Apple for making me the second-ever kick of iToS.