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.

[Evil Morty]

Origineel geplaatst door Litva:

Origineel geplaatst door 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...

You cant compare this to lineage2 Imagine if they was to take lineage 2 and port in to engine like this that would be a top game, lineage 2 had it all, class that make sense, hard to lvl, grinding for mounts and so on, the pvp system best in world, drops and karma was fun.
Buffs for sell and soulshots that made sense. This game is just trash compared to L2 so dont even bother comparing, even devs decided NO

L2 Grind was better then this cos u could do:
a) HUUUGE trains with out any stupid mob collision system (here im talking about mobs ignoring collision with other mobs)
b) U could spam click to do farm with ingame macro (or in case later updates have full afk mod)
c) They didnt had this stupid bs system where every mob has some bs heavy Attack that will CC/Fear/Push u. So stupid....
d) Every mob had quite a lot of items to drop and every drop felt like something fun. Here is like: Oh, i got purple i dont need and it cost nothing. Nice....
e) Boss gear, even though strong, was NOT so important to be top in game.
d) Game Knowldge mattered for pvp on top of items. Here is just gear check.

[Clonan]

You could've just said P2W and moved on tbh. As soon as I saw the auction house and noticed my BiS gear on there for real money, I drew a big sigh an uninstalled it.

At least Lost Ark was so damn good that it made even me spend real money before I woke up. In no way will I exist in a game as mediocre as ToL that also has the worst P2W mechanics.

[LGBTQ+ Enjoyer]

I have similar opinion. This game will gradually die, mainly due to the system it’s based on:

1. Lack of player interaction. You can't trade items, send items, or sell items—there’s practically nothing you can do with other players. The only thing you can do together is grind.

2. Pay-to-win PvP. You can join a server, reach level 50, buy full gear from the auction, and become the best. Others have to grind for months. I’ve played many games where real money helped, but it’s the first time I see one where, on day one, you can be better than someone who's been playing for half a year, just because you bought gear with real money.

3. Boring endgame. I know some people like grinding, but what else is there? You have a few daily activities, the same every day, and once a week a bit more of the same. Due to point 2, many players will lose motivation when they realize that what they’ve been doing for a month doesn’t matter. I've been playing for two weeks, reached level 50, got my gear, completed almost all the quests, log in daily to do dailies, and I'm already getting bored. The world is beautiful, the game looks nice, but soon the novelty boost will wear off.

Game is already out of top 50 in Korea. It's slowly dying there, and will die here too.

[GermanBarbarian]

Mommy i was here. To Avoid Game death they need to patch in all korean content right now. Dont wait 1 month, 2 monthjs or even longer.

Sadly nobody listens to players and the devs that nevever play any sort of mmorpgs are clueless what about to happen to the game

[Eido]

Origineel geplaatst door Litva:

Origineel geplaatst door 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...

You cant compare this to lineage2 Imagine if they was to take lineage 2 and port in to engine like this that would be a top game, lineage 2 had it all, class that make sense, hard to lvl, grinding for mounts and so on, the pvp system best in world, drops and karma was fun.
Buffs for sell and soulshots that made sense. This game is just trash compared to L2 so dont even bother comparing, even devs decided NO

You're writing this to someone who spent years in l2. I meant that somewhere along the way they were making a game that was supposed to be Lineage 3. They figured out themselves that on the one hand they couldn't make a game with a PvP system like in l2 because of PvE crybabies, and on the other hand fans of previous series would eat them for what they created. That's why they didn't call it l3, but throne and liberty, because someone from the accounting department calculated that it would be good to make a game that would attract PvE fanboys and real MMO players who could be attracted from private Lineage 2 servers, and there are quite a few of them. The only way out was to make a game with an open PvP system based on a subscription or b2p. True, there might not be those PvE crybabies at the start, but PvP players would have kept this title for years, and now it will end up like NW where after half a year no one will remember it

[LordVincent]

220 hours. Every word is true! Only I get poisoned even by PVP players.

[sylversTV]

Dang, there's a lot of fanboys in here (tell me you spent money without telling me you spent money). There's some valid points, and I'll add on this wall-of-text with my own:

1. Having multiple currencies is a way to obscure deceptive monetization or psychological addiction mechanics (i.e., min-max FOMO). We all know this now. Stop pretending or defending bcuz Korean. The systems in this game are ass, and they're also poorly explained. It is not intuitive design at all, including the UI menus. There's fluff for the sake of fluff. For example, amitois are completely unnecessary additions, even if you like them. I'd prefer grinding cards and camping MVPs in Ragnarok Online (I love that game - pre-renewal) compared to this system.
2. The "energy" refresh system currencies actually limit you from meaningful and targeted grinding -- saying this for all the idiots saying OP is complaining about grind. It's also weird that you need to do certain content to earn currency for other content. It limits player freedom. Imagine if you had to earn currency to queue PvP. It's dumb, and you all know it. And only masochists would grind open-world mobs. By intentional design, this all does make you more reliant on RNG gods or, of course, the auction house, which only takes Lucent. Currencies can up the drop rates, but you shouldn't limit players from doing content. It is actually counter-intuitive to MMORPGs.
3. Daily limits or caps force you to login daily, which is again the same issue of #1. There's actually no real reason aside from what I stated that you couldn't really just make honey or eggs, as a simple example, be a weekly buyout limit for the dads that only game on the weekend. Why even have the limit in the first place? Obviously stupid time-gating for a really inconsequential thing, tbh.
4. Battle pass... need I say more? Honestly, if this was the only way they monetized the game, I'd be fine with this since it needs to make money. It'd be just like an MMO sub or "premium" account status.
5. This game was at some point developed with mobile devices in mind, and it definitely shows and feels like it based on how targeting. movement, and combat functions. It is nowhere remotely close to the polish of WoW, and I'm not a WoW fanboy by any means. GW2 and other games do it all better too. Like ♥♥♥♥, you guys try moving around while auto-attacking? Holy, it's so clunky. Ranged might not feel it as much as melee.
6. If he didn't put 200 hours into the game, you'd all say his opinion is uninformed and he didn't give the game a chance, hit end-game, etc. Stupid ass argument. Same for when the fanboys jumped on Act Man for not liking Diablo IV. If you guys followed the game's dev cycle and roadmap, this game was a travesty, but they did come somewhat a long way.
7. To add on to repetitiveness or simplistic gameplay, builds are pretty cookie-cutter by (poor) design. The game is essentially solved by KR release. There's not much build diversity or room to experiment. This is further exacerbated by the grind in not only gear (for different situations) but also skill books, weapon mastery, and whatnot. Each weapon needs more skills with different purposes, and the progression shouldn't be so harshly grindy. It's done to sell skill conversion books, especially when meta and balance changes. Might as well have just stuck to a typical select-your-class (and subclass) system, which probably would have potential to expand the skills and talents more. This weapon and skill system is pretty much Walmart Guild Wars.
Side note: They ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up dagger fantasy so bad that it's basically a support/utility weapon. What's there is cool, but it needs more. Add active and passive skills to make it viable main-hand DPS. Spice it up with all of the weapons. You know it's whack when it feels like I get more DPS from Wand than Dagger. Wand's badass though and can only grow more badass.
8. Changing certain aspects of the world via weather or time of day is interesting in concept, but the execution is actually pretty ass. Once you experience it, it's underwhelming, but hearing it in pre-release teasers made it sound cool. Just another artificial barrier to accessing content.
9. Locking bosses or events to certain times is obvious bad design. Anybody defending this is mad coping.
10. Even open-world PvP is time-gated to events and times. What is this care bear ♥♥♥♥? Crazy that a game like WoW actually has a better PvP system than a Korean MMO, and I used to ♥♥♥♥ on WoW's PvP as an L2 player. L2 flag and karma system please. PvP and PvE servers should be created and exist separately.
11. This game is literally "Checklist: The Game" instead of an MMORPG. The RPG is lacking, and it's probably why this game feels so lacking in charm or character. This game is extremely forgettable, except for the player-made experiences in guild drama or whatever. Oh, look, collectibles. How engaging and fun. This game's world lacks wonder or the incentive to explore for the sake of it being an immersive fantasy world. ♥♥♥♥'s ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ half desert anyway -- the most boring biome you could do. Worse than snow.

Some points of disagreement:
1. The gameplay can be repetitive, especially if you are only a PvE player, but I don't see this as a huge issue. That's all games over time once you learn them. PvP is what makes it dynamic and fun; hence, why I can play competitive games for hours. The progression is also what makes the grind feel worth it. Without big raids, parsing, or mythics, PvE is a dead-end.
2. P2W is negated by huge zergs unless all P2W ally together. It's not as much of a problem as I think some people make it out unless you're solely focused on arena. And with time, you technically can get there eventually, but it's up to the individual if it's worth that time investment or the cash money Lucent.
3. The story was ass. Quests are ass. Typical cheesy Asian MMO with random ass puzzle mechanics or inspecting items at weird times. Like, it was added in for some quest variety, but it was so bad. I applaud the effort, but should've spent that dev time on making the core game better and ironing out the kinks.

This game has potential, but I think it needs a lot of work. It might need A Realm Reborn treatment, in my opinion. You all really need to chill. He ain't gonna kill your game. AGS and the devs might do that already.

[SeiFeR]

Yup, Korean f2p. Nothing new.

[Kadaji]

The Gameplay alone is whats fine, pretty much everything else is just bad.
Its so grindy that you have to use the Pay2Win Crap, of course you can get your slow progress but its still Pay2win, but on the other hand they put currencies in that doesnt allow you to farm the Dungeons for too long, where you can farm the upgrade materials. So as a Free2Play Player you have to farm these currencies first, which takes a very long time and do some dungeons that you dont always find a group very quickly thanks to the typical mmo community that only take overgeared people along and cant even explain why they want to run through the dungeons so fast, thats one of the most mental trends in mmo since some years now.

Then if you want to do the world bosses, then only if you already have good gear, since the drop chances raise when you give "more effort", meaning if you have better gear and do more damage than the others, which doesnt make any sense whatsoever and youre giving newer players a disadvantage which is not a smart thing to do at all.

And there will always be such kids crying around like in the replies who cant accept it when their beloved games get critisized.

[Lightning]

Yeah they really need to up the loot or atleast change how its dropped for everyone, always seems like the top guilds getting every single piece of loot there is on World bosses and Arch bosses as well which only spawn once a week.

[Strange Item]

Origineel geplaatst door 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.

You think that YouTubers dictate whether I (or gamers) play a game or not? If I see game play that is something to evaluate. If a game looks interesting then I try it. Free to play games are easy to try out because they are free. I just don't like them usually because they die over time because people are too cheap to support the games. :) Some are popular and stay afloat I know which is nice.

[KillJoy]

If the game is only fun for a few hours, why did you play 198 hours without having fun? Just to get 100% completion of Steam achievements?

If that is the case you cannot complain, as you are boringly farming for Steam achievements and then uninstalling the game. I cannot think of anything more boring than that to be honest.

So how money did you spend on the game?

[Buddha]

Origineel geplaatst door KillJoy:

If the game is only fun for a few hours, why did you play 198 hours without having fun? Just to get 100% completion of Steam achievements?

If that is the case you cannot complain, as you are boringly farming for Steam achievements and then uninstalling the game. I cannot think of anything more boring than that to be honest.

So how money did you spend on the game?

Dude please ready my whole Posting. I didnt say i didnt have fun, but you cant know because you didnt even read the second Paragraph.

[KillJoy]

Origineel geplaatst door Buddha:

Origineel geplaatst door KillJoy:

If the game is only fun for a few hours, why did you play 198 hours without having fun? Just to get 100% completion of Steam achievements?

If that is the case you cannot complain, as you are boringly farming for Steam achievements and then uninstalling the game. I cannot think of anything more boring than that to be honest.

So how money did you spend on the game?

Dude please ready my whole Posting. I didnt say i didnt have fun, but you cant know because you didnt even read the second Paragraph.

You are correct, I did not read it because it's way too long of a posting.
Next time try to condense it a bit.

But it's obvious you will be uninstalling the "trash game" as soon as you have 100% completion of Steam achievements. Not sure why you could not get right to the point.

[Buddha]

Origineel geplaatst door KillJoy:

Origineel geplaatst door Buddha:

Dude please ready my whole Posting. I didnt say i didnt have fun, but you cant know because you didnt even read the second Paragraph.

You are correct, I did not read it because it's way too long of a posting.
Next time try to condense it a bit.

But it's obvious you will be uninstalling the "trash game" as soon as you have 100% completion of Steam achievements. Not sure why you could not get right to the point.

What’s the point of summarizing if you can’t even read up to a second paragraph? Sorry, bro, the fault lies with you, not with me. If you think that the little information you have is enough to join the discussion, you shouldn't be surprised if you get criticized. Your contribution completely missed the topic, and that certainly wasn’t because I wrote too much, but because you didn’t feel like reading a few sentences and still thought you could give your opinion.