Hello!
First and foremost, I’d like to say that it was a great opportunity for me to play in this Beta. I have about 2 weeks til’ I go off for another grueling semester of college, and this was the best possible thing that could’ve happened on my break.
With that being said, I’d love to give a synopsis about how the game feels right now from the perspective of a 2nd Circle Quarrel Shooter that made it to LvL 62 / 8, so that maybe people have better insight into the class and game for the next Beta. And just how I feel in general about things.
General Likes
The thing I like most about the game is how fluid and it is. I remember when I used to watch videos of the game back in 2013-2014, I thought it would be insanely slow paced and clunky. That was not the case. The game is very fast paced when you know what you’re doing, and with the completely 3D environment you feel like you have full control of your character. It feels much better than moving cell to cell like in Ragnarok.
Mouse controls are great, especially if you have a mouse with a keypad, though this may only be from an Archer perspective. Pinpoint precision feels sooo good, combined with being able to move while you shoot.
The MUSIC is downright amazingggggggggggggg. I don’t think there’s one track in the game that I do not like. Never once did I have to turn BGM off. Mix that with the alluring environments and you really have something beautiful to look and listen to at all times.
The Gem system seems very nice. In fact, I much prefer building up gems rather than looking for cards with crazy low drop rates. That, and Gems are something that can easily be expanded on for more variety within the life span of the game. A very good element in my opinion.
Costumes! Such a great thing to keep separate from armor. Everyone loves to be an individual, and letting you use your old classes costumes with your new skills was a great idea. Hopefully there will be non-class costumes as well.
The automatic partying system works surprisingly well. I had bad thoughts about it, but it turns out it is very abuseable and you’d do well do abuse it. There’s honestly not too many reasons why you should stay alone in most parts of the game.
Quarrel Shooter
http://i.imgur.com/XuOVoC7.png
I’m fairly certain that I was one of the highest ranked Quarrels in CBT, if not the highest. Mostly because the class seemed highly, HIGHLY underplayed compared to Ranger / Sapper. Though I’m glad that I chose to take the Quarrel route, as the class has many many good qualities, that I think will shine in future beta tests.
The class is mostly a single target DPS class. As far as Archer skills go, most of them except your original DPS skill are complete garbage at the moment. “Fulldraw” lacks strength and only links 2 creatures together, the “Swift Step” buff barely increases your walk or attack speed, and kneeling shot is only good for 1-2 shotting certain monsters. But all in all, “Multi Shot” is literally your only useful skill from the Archer 1st Circle. And unfortunately, that’s the only Archer circle you’ll get if you plan on going Quarrel.
The best thing about Quarrel happens to also be the worst thing about the class, which would be the skill “Stone Shot”. Quite possibly one of the most amazing skills in the game. The skill has no cooldown save for the animation, pushes back, has a chance to stun for at least 5 seconds, and does a VERY good amount of damage that also bounces to one enemy for half the amount. The only things you need to use the skill are stones, which you have to acquire another skill to pick up from the ground, and an immense amount of SP. An amount that gets worse and worse as you level the skill, to the point where it cost me 77 SP per shot. You will find yourself easily running out if you keep spamming it, though it’s your bread and butter, so it’s for the most part impossible not to use constantly.
Deploy Pavise is a defensive skill that locks a shield into the ground to protect you. As far as I can tell, monsters LOVE to walk around the shield instead of try to attack you through it, even if they’re Archers/Magicians. The ones that aren’t smart enough to do that, usually have their attacks completely blocked. Boss monsters have their attacks blocks too, even AoE ones sometimes, but it’s a little finicky. Other times their attacks will blow you and your shield away completely. Useful, but only in certain situations.
The class lacks the AoE that other Archer classes have until you unlock the 2nd circle skill “Rapid Fire”. It’s a very powerful skill that shoots multiple shots, that all do AoE damage to EVERY individual monster around the hit target. Though the AoE range is not that wide, and also, the skill shoots in a very thin, completely linear straight line. Not to mention you can’t aim it with the mouse, but only the 8 cardinal directions using your keyboard. However, if you manage to group up a clunk of monsters just right, you can tear down the entire bunch with literally one charged shot. Hard to use, but very effective.
The other 2nd circle skill, “Teardown”, lets you kick objects into oblivion and do very mediocre damage to anything that was in front of what you kicked. Ice Walls, Boss Traps, your own pavise, but not monsters directly. You can use it 4 times before it goes on a 50 second cooldown. A tad useful, but without proper damage it’s nothing you should put levels into.
Though the class is slightly lacking in the damage department other than Stone Shot, the extra defense from having a shield, and the Pavise + Stone Shot stun makes you nigh unkillable in PvE. This is the more defensive archer class, after all, so it should only be proper. I would say that I feel like the class could use a bit of a damage buff, mostly for Teardown, but more so for the Archer skills. They honestly leave a very wide gap for the Quarrel Shooter skills to fill, and the jobs damage skills aren’t quite enough to keep up with some of the other classes damage. Though for what they lack, I feel the defensive skills will be very useful even in high level play, and definitely PvP. And that future ranks will make up for the lack in damage. Overall, the class is highly underrated.
Gripes
I’ll save the bugs for another thread, and focus purely on things that I believe were intentional on the developers part.
One of the most prominent things I noticed is that crossbow attacks on certain creatures do next to no damage. Even some with the Stab damage bonus, would still have me doing a ridiculously low amount compared to other monsters. The damage calculation in this game is very peculiar, but what makes it a bit aggravating is that there’s pretty much no way to find out exactly why you don’t do proper damage sometimes.
This spreads into things like skill descriptions, that barely make the differences between flat and percentage damage identifiable. Some attacks seem not to follow their descriptions at all, such as Fulldraw, and the attributes for most of the skills do little to make up for it.
Aggro in this game is also a weird thing. Though honestly you won’t worry about it much because of the sheer amount of monsters in some places, it gets annoying when you’re trying to bunch up monsters and someone walks past you and mysteriously steals aggro without doing a thing on their part.
Boss monsters are clunky and pretty annoying. Not only are they damage sponges, but they also have very wacky, and completely untelegraphed skills. I suppose that’s more incentive to not solo them, but overall I think the bosses could have been developed just a bit better. The fact that you CAN solo bosses in general while leveling, is weird in itself.
The difference between the effects of the SP Potions and their prices are atrocious. WAY worse than Ragnarok’s, though I honestly don’t want to make too many Ragnarok comparisons. But if I’m paying 4x more for a potion, why should it only have 2x the effect and a higher cooldown? Maybe making for of an incentive for potion making classes perhaps?
Attributes cost a LOT of cash. No one will want to touch them in the beginning of the game, even though you start to make money a lot easier in later phases. Still, I think the prices on them might have to be touched up a bit, considering how many times you have to buy them.
The graphics options for the game do little to nothing to actually reduce the games graphic intensity. I feel really bad for low end machine users, because most like they won’t get to have even a chance at making the game somewhat playable for them. Even on my high end setup, it’s still pretty laggy in most crowded areas.
Suggestions!
A small list of things I would recommend for the game, based on this betas experience.
- In my honest opinion, I’d rather blue monsters not exist. Just give normal monsters the appropriate exp. White and Gold monsters are awesome, though.
- More repeatable quests!
- Better 1st Circle skills, and better skill descriptions overall. ESPECIALLY for Archer.
- Skin and Costume dyes!
- Weapon Costumes as well?
- Housing would be GREAT.
- More detailed graphics options.
- Be able to check the amount of gem slots on an item in the market.
- Monster “Taming” items. Everyone loves pets.
- Harder field bosses.
- More diverse gems.
- Other uses for Stamina?
Closing
http://i.imgur.com/y0MlQLj.png
All in all, I believe that the game is off to a GREAT start. Outside the realm of the hundreds of bugs and glitches that need stomping, the overall experience left me completely satisfied, and eager to see exactly how good this game can be. The diverse class freedom, lush environments and that good old Ragnarok Online feeling have me wanting to play more and more. I’d definitely be back for the next test (hopefully), and maybe then I can do some delving into the Scout/Rogue classes.
If you guys have any questions and such, feel free to drop them below.
