My honest opinion after 200 hours

[Buddha]

So, I've now played the game for around 200 hours and can objectively say that it doesn’t work as an MMO and won’t sustain itself in the long term. The game is fun for a few hours, but you quickly reach a point where it devolves into pure grind, and the daily, repetitive, limited task rotation feels more like work than enjoyment.

But first things first. There is a main story and quests, which are fairly good, sometimes including puzzles, and they provide a good introduction to the game. You also get showered with all sorts of items and resources for crafting and upgrading, giving you a constant sense of progression. This phase of the game is quite enjoyable. However, as soon as you reach level 50 and enter the endgame, the game reveals its true face: monotonous mechanics and a repetitive task rotation, bound to various currencies that constantly limit and restrict you.

The open-world dungeons and PvE content differ at best only visually; content-wise, it’s the same mechanics—usually a series of arena fights against bosses. The group dungeons are also extremely small and simple, usually consisting of a few rooms with a final boss whose mechanics are easy to learn. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re fighting an open-world boss, doing a dungeon with a group, completing resistance contracts, or soloing bosses. Everything feels the same, is quickly done, offers little depth, and serves merely to add some visual flair to the gambling aspect, repeated as often as possible to keep dopamine levels high. Nothing has real depth; everything is highly repetitive because it doesn’t matter why or how you kill a boss or complete a mission. The only thing that matters is the anticipation at the end to see if you get the desired item or not. It’s pure gambling mechanics, like at a slot machine—nothing more, nothing less.

And of course, you never get what you want. When a boss is killed by 150 people but only drops 6 items, with 5 of them always being resources and the last one going not only to just 1 in 150 players but also with a 1 in 15 chance of being the wrong item, you can calculate how long you’ll be killing bosses. That the bosses only appear every few hours and all at the SAME time, so you can only do one boss, I’ll just mention briefly in the context of probability and time factors. For comparison, I’ve been playing for a month now, every day, for 200 hours. I’ve participated in every guild “raid,” done open-world bosses daily, and at least 3 dungeon runs a day, and I’ve never dropped anything relevant to my meta gear. Not a single usable item for me. You also can’t really play freely; you’re constantly restricted by this time system, the currencies, and limitations. If you can’t kill a world boss at exactly 8 PM to take advantage of your 0.0001% drop chance, you’re just out of luck and can try again the next day.

Every day, you grind through the same boring stuff and even feel pressured because if you don’t play for a few days, the currencies you need for dungeons only accumulate up to a certain point and then expire. This creates pressure that needs to be dealt with. Guild tasks, raids, and bosses are the exact same as solo tasks or open-world bosses. Nothing really stands out or provides a challenge. You only occasionally fail a group dungeon due to a lack of communication from teammates. Everything is tied to endless grinding: resources for crafting, items for the lithography book, and whenever you manage to gather something, you realize it’s just a fraction of what you need to, I don’t know, craft armor—only to have luck spoil it because the crafted item doesn’t have the trait you need. Sure, you can change that, but that, too, is tied to endless grinding. I can’t fully describe how deviously long-winded and boring this system is. I hate to say it, but you’d have to be an idiot not to see it—or to see it and still keep playing the game because I wonder where the gameplay or fun is supposed to be here if you aren’t addicted to gambling and can’t stop.

The game is heavily pay-to-win oriented. PvP fans might want to give it a try, but they should know that without spending real money, progress is minimal. In open PvP, like with conflict bosses, a solo player stands no chance, so joining a guild is almost mandatory. In arena PvP, it’s nearly impossible to get by without real money since gearing up is essential to remain competitive. While you can earn in-game currency (which can also be purchased with real money), it takes forever—and I mean forever—and still isn’t enough to make a significant impact. Don’t even try to play as a healer in the arena.

The PvE content feels like pure busywork, grinding PvP gear that you eventually end up buying or upgrading out of frustration because it takes way too long, is the same boring routine, or you just never get anything useful. In the end, everything boils down to repetitive grinding to slowly—very slowly—get stronger. This monotony makes the game unfortunately very boring and frustrating in the long run, especially since it’s the same thing over and over again. The world is small, the dungeons are irrelevant, there are no raids, boss mechanics aren’t really challenging, the PvE content feels like work, and you can tell that the whole game is just about keeping players hooked—to make them addicted and then get their money.

Speaking of raids. There are raids, but they look exactly like an open-world boss, except that you can exclusively fight this boss as a guild in an arena. But there’s no lead-up to the fight, no old castle, no ship, no enchanted forest—nothing. You just enter a portal and are immediately in front of the boss. Then you fight for 5 minutes, the gambling factor kicks in, because this time you’ll definitely get something, right? Nope, nothing again; quickly move to the next open-world boss. The same clicks as always, nothing dropped again; off to the open-world dungeon. The same mobs, killed the same way, and after 3 hours, still nothing. And that’s the whole day, until your currencies run out and you’re more inclined to buy what you need because you can’t handle the frustration anymore. I really can’t put into words how vile this game is.

I’m just aiming for 100% Steam achievements, as there’s not much left to do, and then I’m uninstalling this garbage. Absolutely no recommendation from me, and I’m not saying this out of frustration but from an objective realization that has matured over 200 hours.

[Eido]

You probably haven't played any NCsoft productions before like lineage1,2 etc. Each of them is based on grind, especially lineage 1 where in Korea it is one of the most popular MMO games despite its age. These are games made for the Korean market and they love grind. In contrast to the West where everyone wants to have everything the best after a day of playing. The game system was also created for autoplay, and the game with PvP was moved more towards PvE, the amount of exp per level was reduced dozens of times. All to please Western players means mainly PvE cryers. The game was generally created for a completely different gameplay system then quickly changed and what we have now came out. The whole game has been changed several times and it is visible to the naked eye, starting with the fact that it was supposed to be called Lineage 3, anyone who played l2 will tell you that, the locations and mobs are taken straight from Lineage 2...

[🌚]

That is the point of view

[Buddha]

Originally posted by Eido:

You probably haven't played any NCsoft productions before like lineage1,2 etc. Each of them is based on grind, especially lineage 1 where in Korea it is one of the most popular MMO games despite its age. These are games made for the Korean market and they love grind. In contrast to the West where everyone wants to have everything the best after a day of playing. The game system was also created for autoplay, and the game with PvP was moved more towards PvE, the amount of exp per level was reduced dozens of times. All to please Western players means mainly PvE cryers. The game was generally created for a completely different gameplay system then quickly changed and what we have now came out. The whole game has been changed several times and it is visible to the naked eye, starting with the fact that it was supposed to be called Lineage 3, anyone who played l2 will tell you that, the locations and mobs are taken straight from Lineage 2...

i don't even have a problem with grind, i have a problem with being fooled. i mean, why does all the content have to feel exactly the same? why can't you combine grind with gameplay? i feel constantly hindered and restricted just so i have to switch to another form of grind that basically feels the same. it just feels like they're trying to manipulate me and fool me and i just don't like that. when i play the game, all i see in my mind's eye is a slot machine in different colours. and i haven't actually played any other games from this company and i won't. i find this gameplay really awful.

you could just as well place a big red button in the centre of a white screen and than click on it with the mouse over and over again and with every click you have the chance to win an item. of course with a chance of 0.0000000001%
That's basically what you do in the game, except that the white screen is sometimes a forest and sometimes a steppe and the red button is the skills in the skill bar.

[GanksThor]

yea man , back to classic wow privat server

[Eido]

They made the game quickly by cutting and pasting elements that they already had, because the game concept changed several times. They invested money in the game, they didn't have it, so they created a Frankenstein. A lot of the blame for this lies with the players themselves, who look at their gurus like Asmangold on YouTube or whatever. Instead of checking and evaluating for themselves, people prefer to leave the thinking to others. That's why these few top YouTubers influence the system of games that are currently coming out, and then they wonder why it's not quite like the guru said on YouTube. Their films will have a greater impact on the creators than the feedback collected on this forum.

[Grimbor]

Koreans love grind, yet this game is already dead in that market. Time locking everything is the issue. It's fine for casuals but horrible for hardcore players with little real life.

[BigCheese]

That must be why OP played for 200 hours already. That's what I do with games that are "only fun for a few hours". I play them for 50 hours a week lol.

Steam forums are a total clown show.

[Buddha]

Originally posted by BigCheese:

That must be why OP played for 200 hours already. That's what I do with games that are "only fun for a few hours". I play them for 50 hours a week lol.

Steam forums are a total clown show.

Usually, I play MMOs for several thousand hours. Dropping an MMO after just 200 hours doesn’t speak well for the game. But maybe you’re not that familiar with the genre.

[BigCheese]

Originally posted by Buddha:

Originally posted by BigCheese:

That must be why OP played for 200 hours already. That's what I do with games that are "only fun for a few hours". I play them for 50 hours a week lol.

Steam forums are a total clown show.

Usually, I play MMOs for several thousand hours. Dropping an MMO after just 200 hours doesn’t speak well for the game. But maybe you’re not that familiar with the genre.

I think you need to address whatever causes you to lie to people online. You're clearly unhappy, but love the game and can't put it down. Maybe you lost and are having a meltdown who knows. It's just weird seeing people say things they obviously don't believe at all. This game has been your life for a month straight lol.

[Buddha]

Originally posted by BigCheese:

Originally posted by Buddha:

Usually, I play MMOs for several thousand hours. Dropping an MMO after just 200 hours doesn’t speak well for the game. But maybe you’re not that familiar with the genre.

I think you need to address whatever causes you to lie to people online. You're clearly unhappy, but love the game and can't put it down. Maybe you lost and are having a meltdown who knows.

As soon as you've explained in detail what makes you think I'm lying, we can continue this conversation. Until then, feel free to put your clown nose back on.
Whether I continue playing the game or not is easy to check, as my profile is publicly accessible, and you’re free to verify it.

[BigCheese]

Originally posted by Buddha:

Originally posted by BigCheese:

I think you need to address whatever causes you to lie to people online. You're clearly unhappy, but love the game and can't put it down. Maybe you lost and are having a meltdown who knows.

As soon as you've explained in detail what makes you think I'm lying

200 hours in a month. Have a good one (and keep pretending you aren't lol).

[Buddha]

Originally posted by BigCheese:

Originally posted by Buddha:

As soon as you've explained in detail what makes you think I'm lying

200 hours in a month. Have a good one (and keep pretending you aren't lol).

i think you're more of a frustrated fanboy who can't deal with the fact that people are now looking at the game with a clearer eye and calling it what it is, rubbish. i think you'll have to live with the fact that the game is dying and soon nobody will play it anymore.

[Grimbor]

Just about every MMO released with limited end game and people tend to compare what took years and decades of major updates and expansions to achieve to a newly released game. However, this is the problem with free to play. There's little incentive to add major expansions if they won't be getting $50 a pop plus more sales on the base game. There is every incentive to keep mass people going back to the auction house which can only be achieved by frustrating them and offering a paid solution.

This game can be saved if Amazon switches to a paid expansion model down the road and they publish something like WoWs early expansions.

[Buddha]

Originally posted by BigCheese:

Originally posted by Buddha:

You can think and say whatever you want; you're completely free to make assumptions about me and be personally insulting. It just doesn’t change my opinion.

I hope things get better for you. Change is key. Nobody plays a game THAT much who doesn't enjoy it. It is what it is.

I hope so for you, too.

I don’t know if you’re mentally limited or simply unwilling to understand that people can either form a final opinion late or change their opinion. In any case, it’s not very competent to form an opinion about an MMO after just 50 hours, as these games are usually played for several thousand hours, and they’re designed with significant differences between early, mid, and endgame that need to be evaluated differently.

As I mentioned, the first hours in the game are indeed fun. However, I’m talking about the early game and the endgame. As much as I enjoyed the early game, which can certainly last 200 hours, I absolutely despise the endgame. Maybe it would help you to take a step back for a few days and reflect, then you might understand what I’m talking about. If not, that’s okay too, as long as you feel comfortable in your own world of hate, right?

For someone who seems so convinced of themselves and their worldview, you really seem to have little understanding of the real world and appear incapable of thinking outside the box. It is what it is. ;)

[RealPain]

Originally posted by Buddha:

So, I've now played the game for around 200 hours and can objectively say that it doesn’t work as an MMO and won’t sustain itself in the long term. The game is fun for a few hours, but you quickly reach a point where it devolves into pure grind, and the daily, repetitive, limited task rotation feels more like work than enjoyment.

But first things first. There is a main story and quests, which are fairly good, sometimes including puzzles, and they provide a good introduction to the game. You also get showered with all sorts of items and resources for crafting and upgrading, giving you a constant sense of progression. This phase of the game is quite enjoyable. However, as soon as you reach level 50 and enter the endgame, the game reveals its true face: monotonous mechanics and a repetitive task rotation, bound to various currencies that constantly limit and restrict you.

The open-world dungeons and PvE content differ at best only visually; content-wise, it’s the same mechanics—usually a series of arena fights against bosses. The group dungeons are also extremely small and simple, usually consisting of a few rooms with a final boss whose mechanics are easy to learn. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re fighting an open-world boss, doing a dungeon with a group, completing resistance contracts, or soloing bosses. Everything feels the same, is quickly done, offers little depth, and serves merely to add some visual flair to the gambling aspect, repeated as often as possible to keep dopamine levels high. Nothing has real depth; everything is highly repetitive because it doesn’t matter why or how you kill a boss or complete a mission. The only thing that matters is the anticipation at the end to see if you get the desired item or not. It’s pure gambling mechanics, like at a slot machine—nothing more, nothing less.

And of course, you never get what you want. When a boss is killed by 150 people but only drops 6 items, with 5 of them always being resources and the last one going not only to just 1 in 150 players but also with a 1 in 15 chance of being the wrong item, you can calculate how long you’ll be killing bosses. That the bosses only appear every few hours and all at the SAME time, so you can only do one boss, I’ll just mention briefly in the context of probability and time factors. For comparison, I’ve been playing for a month now, every day, for 200 hours. I’ve participated in every guild “raid,” done open-world bosses daily, and at least 3 dungeon runs a day, and I’ve never dropped anything relevant to my meta gear. Not a single usable item for me. You also can’t really play freely; you’re constantly restricted by this time system, the currencies, and limitations. If you can’t kill a world boss at exactly 8 PM to take advantage of your 0.0001% drop chance, you’re just out of luck and can try again the next day.

Every day, you grind through the same boring stuff and even feel pressured because if you don’t play for a few days, the currencies you need for dungeons only accumulate up to a certain point and then expire. This creates pressure that needs to be dealt with. Guild tasks, raids, and bosses are the exact same as solo tasks or open-world bosses. Nothing really stands out or provides a challenge. You only occasionally fail a group dungeon due to a lack of communication from teammates. Everything is tied to endless grinding: resources for crafting, items for the lithography book, and whenever you manage to gather something, you realize it’s just a fraction of what you need to, I don’t know, craft armor—only to have luck spoil it because the crafted item doesn’t have the trait you need. Sure, you can change that, but that, too, is tied to endless grinding. I can’t fully describe how deviously long-winded and boring this system is. I hate to say it, but you’d have to be an idiot not to see it—or to see it and still keep playing the game because I wonder where the gameplay or fun is supposed to be here if you aren’t addicted to gambling and can’t stop.

The game is heavily pay-to-win oriented. PvP fans might want to give it a try, but they should know that without spending real money, progress is minimal. In open PvP, like with conflict bosses, a solo player stands no chance, so joining a guild is almost mandatory. In arena PvP, it’s nearly impossible to get by without real money since gearing up is essential to remain competitive. While you can earn in-game currency (which can also be purchased with real money), it takes forever—and I mean forever—and still isn’t enough to make a significant impact. Don’t even try to play as a healer in the arena.

The PvE content feels like pure busywork, grinding PvP gear that you eventually end up buying or upgrading out of frustration because it takes way too long, is the same boring routine, or you just never get anything useful. In the end, everything boils down to repetitive grinding to slowly—very slowly—get stronger. This monotony makes the game unfortunately very boring and frustrating in the long run, especially since it’s the same thing over and over again. The world is small, the dungeons are irrelevant, there are no raids, boss mechanics aren’t really challenging, the PvE content feels like work, and you can tell that the whole game is just about keeping players hooked—to make them addicted and then get their money.

Speaking of raids. There are raids, but they look exactly like an open-world boss, except that you can exclusively fight this boss as a guild in an arena. But there’s no lead-up to the fight, no old castle, no ship, no enchanted forest—nothing. You just enter a portal and are immediately in front of the boss. Then you fight for 5 minutes, the gambling factor kicks in, because this time you’ll definitely get something, right? Nope, nothing again; quickly move to the next open-world boss. The same clicks as always, nothing dropped again; off to the open-world dungeon. The same mobs, killed the same way, and after 3 hours, still nothing. And that’s the whole day, until your currencies run out and you’re more inclined to buy what you need because you can’t handle the frustration anymore. I really can’t put into words how vile this game is.

I’m just aiming for 100% Steam achievements, as there’s not much left to do, and then I’m uninstalling this garbage. Absolutely no recommendation from me, and I’m not saying this out of frustration but from an objective realization that has matured over 200 hours.

Grindfest? What else is it supposed to be lmao. You want to RP or some ♥♥♥♥? Go play GTA 5 or DayZ. This is a Korean mmo.

Not all world bosses spawn at the same time, they spawn in sets and can either be conflict or peace mode to cater to the PvPers and PvEers. 3 this hour, 3 that hour, 4 this hour, etc. Loot isn't terrible if you're in a guild. Using TLGM to manage the guild and have players earn DKP is a great way to divvy up the loot. Saying you have a 0.0001% chance to get loot from a boss is VERY misleading.

PvP can be p2w if you manage to come across that player. Most of my guildmates are nearly traited out because we share loot (see TLGM mentioned above) and only have 3 people that are p2w out of 70 people. I'm sitting at just above 3300 power rating, character power, gear score, whatever you wanna call it and I'm f2p. How you ask? Being in a guild that isn't full of "this loot mine, that's mine, this is mine." (see TLGM mentioned above) and selling the right things in the AH. People complain that I, a healer, is hard to kill in pvp because "YOU'RE A P2W WHALE!! 🤓" when I'm not, I just know how to play the game. So, saying it's heavily P2w is also very misleading. People just aren't in the right community. Of course someone had to buy the lucent to get the market flowing, but after that, it's all fair game to try to earn that lucent from someone else by selling stuff. Using your abyssal contract tokens, btw, is another great, great way to trait out your gear. If you haven't figured that one out.

The game isn't vile, people aren't using the systems right. Of course the bosses outside of the co-op dungeons are just gonna be the bosses. The devs know we have a lot to do, so they put us right at the boss. Why spend an extra 5 minutes per raid to go "Look! Isn't this hallway just so nice to ogle at!?" Screw that. Let me get done with my boss runs so I can go to an open world dungeon to spend my abyssal contract tokens.

I have like 350 hours into this game and I can confidently say this MMO is great. It's not for everyone. Just need a guild with a good community in it and the game is 300% better.