Starter feedback (10~ hours gameplay)
So I started a cleric in the mind of going monk as this is my favorite class in most MMO and in RO/RO2. At first glance the combat is very different and actually refreshing (it’s a good thing), especially for a healer since heal/cure actually kills stuff. I love the graphic and sound and the game is playing just fine on my machine and was almost always at 60fps.
Combat: I like the combat, I think it works great either in mouse mode or keyboard. I’ll probably try gamepad this week at some point too. I love the animations for skills/monsters death so far. One thing I would change is the balance between monster kill / experience. I would make monster a little harder to kill, but make them give more experience (quality over quantity). Right now it seems just too easy to go around mob and one shot stuff. Mobbing should be only viable with party (Tank/Healer/DPS style) and more of a late game thing. Early people solo and should be doing more one on one combat which is more fun when things don’t die in one hit.
Stats/skill system: The stats system got me confused and lack transparency. Str/Int didn’t seem to affect much in term of physical/magic damage improvment and usually don’t have much of an effect on skills either. Con/Spr do look well adjusted for what they need to do and dex seemed useless to me as I never missed hitting any monster (I haven’t played archer, so I guess that might be their main stat). I think a clearer explanation of each stats needs to be done in game and how they affect what skill as well, hell I would add the damage calculation in the description of each skills (Diablo 3 does it by hovering with CTRL and there’s no confusion with builds). This is needed because stat/skill reset will not be as easily available to everyone when the game goes retail and having to restart a character because of a bad build can make someone leave the game.
Open world vs linear: I enjoyed the open world that was RO1, however the caveat was that a lot of map were just dead or too full depedending on what you wanted to gring on or what was better mob wise (payon cave anyone). RO2 was fully linear and felt a little boring because eventually starting maps were never used anymore and new players are often alone and have a hard time finding party or help. I think a balance can be done in this reguard by having a more central city that spread in different direction level-wise. Or by having a high level dungeon/cave in a low level area. So in short, keep the linear leveling, but mix the level cap area more to keep players together reguardless of level.
Exp: I’m only level 40 at the moment and so far I think the experience scalling seems to be working. I wouldn’t mind if quest gave a little less to make people stay on map a little longuer to grind a little bit though. Right now you breeze through map pretty fast without really looking back, exploring or getting better gears. But it is still early for me to tell if this is working right or not.
Bug/Enhancement found
- When clicking a button in a dialog and using mouse control mode, the character will move there after the dialog closes.
- I’ve experience some lag, specifically when reporting in on quest. Sometimes you’ll click and it will take a while before the NPC respond.
More to come later as I progress in game!