Should I Play Legacy or Evrima?

[! Murciee ♥]

I haven't played this game in about 2 years. Should I play legacy or evrima? Is the gameplay loop the same on both, or are there important differences that change how you play? Which is better for a solo, survival focused player like myself?

[Gloofin]

evrima. legacy is gonna be deleted eventually so might as well get a head start on learning how evrima works. there's more unique playstyles and abilitys per each playable, including ptera that can fly and deino that can swim! most of the current playables aren't 100% complete, and there's a pretty small selection compaired to legacy but that will change eventually. the legacy features that are missing (bone breaking, nesting, night vision) are not in the game yet but are being grealy expanded upon. a good example of this expanding would be bleed, which is now an entirely diffrent health pool that can be greatly slowed via wallowing (the animation takes awhile so doing it mid battle is not recommended) and once your blood has entirely run out you die, even if you're on full health.

the gameplay loop as far as i'm aware is identical on both, but there is an update that is coming soon™ to evrima that will hopefully change it for the better (diets, i recommend doing research to how it works). it's more viable for solo as it's closer to being skill based than legacy could have ever dreamed of (although there is some situations where skill won't get you far, but you can almost always just avoid those situations)

the mixpacking/megapacking and cannibal situation is out of hand on officials right now, but diets should (supposedly) assist with making these less viable. only a few species will not be punished for eating their own kind.

the evrima map is objectivly trash as of right now. it's an absolutely gigantic map, which ill give credit is kind of impressive, but you'll never be able to explore all of it unless you're a very determined ptera. there's very few landmarks that aren't nearby the water sources (that i'm aware of) but again there's a smaller version that they're working on that's coming soon™. just stick to the rivers and hotspots and you'll find plenty of people.

it's very early in development as this game has always been, but i think it's the most promising version so far.

[bigmoe808]

Play Legacy if you want more playable variety.

Play Evrima if you want more playstyle variety.

Legacy has more dinos which come with an assortment of stats to place them here and there. Granted, it isn't optimally balanced which will affect what you see in the ecosysyem (examples like the pachycephalosaurus being god awful and Parasorolophus being subpar-so not common-while Galli and Maia are downright broken-so not common unless you just feel like trolling). Not to mention that some playables are lost assets being imported by third party systems. But most players are used to it and are likely playing on it for comfort. You'll get along and have a taste of what The Isle is trying to be.

Evrima has more defined niches for its dinos, making them grandly different between each other. That does rely quite a bit on the Swimmer and Flyer niche-which only have one playable each-but that doesn't mean the land playables are lacking. Herbivores are, surprisingly, good in current game with Tenonto being the best fighter in the entire ecosystem and Stego being a tank that can get some respect. Only Dryo and Hypsi are a bit lack luster and that depends on what you're looking for in them, I know player who think Dryo is overpowered because it has just enough dmg to be worth trolling bigger playables with if you use it right. Meanwhile, the carnivores are mostly perfect with only Utah's Pounce being a Double Edge Sword. The issue here is that the few playables you see are all that's it. Which could lead the game to being a little stale and frustrating for a lot of people who are being cannibalize.

For what it's worth, there are more mechanics in the latter version than the former. The only mechanics I can think of that you'll find in Legacy but can't in Evrima is Night Vision, Bone Break, and Nesting. That's it. Anything else which is gone is through design like Global Chat. Meanwhile, there are several more mechanics that'y'll find in Evrima that simply don't exist in Legacy.

• Acid Spit.
  
• Pounce.
  
• Carno's Charge.
  
• Knock-Back and Knock-Down CC.
  
• Grabs.
  
• Carcass Carrying.
  
• Body Dragging.
  
• Gore Tearing.
  
• Fishing.
  
• Mix/Mega Group Scenting.
  
• Grazing.
  
• Locational Dmg.
  
• Drifting.
  
• Quick Turning-unless you want to fight me over Alt Turning, but I'll just say that this isn't something admins can turn off and also serves as alternative attacks which come with their own stats.
  
• Blood Pool.
  
• Mud Bathing.
  
• Sickness.
  
• Half Physical Bodies.
  
  Come next update, we'll have a new herbivore which will increase variety, a diet system that will affect player behavior in the ecosystem, and Fractures which scratches one missing mechanic off the list because this is Bone Break's replacement.
  
  Edit:
  
  The loop of Grow, Survive, Die, and Pick the next Dino is ultimately the same between either game version. For the moment at least until they bring out Diets, Perks, and The Elder System which are intended to have long lasting affects. As a Solo player, I don't mind and rather enjoy it. I take a slower approach to The Isle, one step at a time, and just let sun rise and set until I feel like doing something else.

[Sable]

Legacy if you want a game that actually runs and the mechanics that exist to actually function right.

Evrima does have more in terms of mechanics but that "more" is generally half-baked, barely functional, or just not good. The only things I can honestly say are mechanics that are both good and actually work:
- Meat tearing
- Grazing
- Quick Turning
- Crowd Control

Everything else as listed by Moe has a plethora of issues that would take me well over the character limit to describe.

Balance in both branches is pretty bad, with Evrima being worse simply because they have an entire team dedicated to ensuring that balance is fine... and they're not doing that.

That's not to say Evrima doesn't have its charm. I for one, do enjoy hunting Pteranodons and Utahraptors as Dryosaurus (yes, Dryosaurus. Moe is severely undermining how good the thing is), and I definitely have fun dragging animals into the water for drowning as a Deinosuchus.

However, that doesn't really make everything else wrong with the game go away.

Ultimately OP, the decision is up to you and since you already have the game, there is really no reason to not just play anyway. If you are looking for an overall new experience, you will not find it on Evrima. I am telling you this now. It's still rinse-and-repeat cycle of
- grow
- die
- grow

And this is not going to change for at least another year based on current rate of development. If you want something that might (really big ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ might) be different and don't want to go back to what we had before, then I suggest continue waiting.

[bigmoe808]

Originally posted by The Stoat:

Legacy if you want a game that actually runs and the mechanics that exist to actually function right.

Evrima does have more in terms of mechanics but that "more" is generally half-baked, barely functional, or just not good. The only things I can honestly say are mechanics that are both good and actually work:
- Meat tearing
- Grazing
- Quick Turning
- Crowd Control

Everything else as listed by Moe has a plethora of issues that would take me well over the character limit to describe.

What's wrong with body dragging?

[Sable]

Originally posted by bigmoe808:

Originally posted by The Stoat:

Legacy if you want a game that actually runs and the mechanics that exist to actually function right.

Evrima does have more in terms of mechanics but that "more" is generally half-baked, barely functional, or just not good. The only things I can honestly say are mechanics that are both good and actually work:
- Meat tearing
- Grazing
- Quick Turning
- Crowd Control

Everything else as listed by Moe has a plethora of issues that would take me well over the character limit to describe.

What's wrong with body dragging?

- body often glitch drops out of the mouth when sprinting
- bodies will stretch and allow other carnivores to eat from the point where it began stretching, even if it is still being carried inside the mouth
- bodies become stuck to your animal and cannot be dropped

[bigmoe808]

Originally posted by The Stoat:

Originally posted by bigmoe808:

What's wrong with body dragging?

- body often glitch drops out of the mouth when sprinting
- bodies will stretch and allow other carnivores to eat from the point where it began stretching, even if it is still being carried inside the mouth
- bodies become stuck to your animal and cannot be dropped

Fair enough. Still a ways to go.

[EdvonSchleck]

Evrima right now is not worth more than a brief dive to get an idea of the new playstyles. They're fairly innovative and show glimpses of excellence but it all crumbles at the most fundamental level with god awful game and server performance. There's no point getting invested just yet unless you have a beast computer and don't mind having your up to 5h dinosaurs straight up force wiped on a regular basis. It is not stable, incredibly buggy and the map is hot garbage.

Legacy has its share of technical problems but is still vastly more stable and reliable, it has a much lower entry level as far has hardware requirements and yet looks nearly as good as the newest iteration. Gameplay mechanics especially in terms of combat are much more simplistic but even considering the universal death of altturn and consequently the hitbox abuse meta, it is still far more predictable and reliable than gameplay and combat in evrima.

It would be a stretch to call either a fleshed out game, but legacy is at least functional and more reminiscent of a late alpha/early beta where as evrima is at the level of a tech demo

[! Murciee ♥]

Thanks for all the replies! I think I will wait a little longer to play until Evrima is more polished and fun. Hopefully it gets there eventually! I did try playing both, Evrima is too buggy and the map is awful and Legacy is alright but there isn't much to do still and I heard it is getting deleted pretty soon. I like a lot of the new mechanics in Evrima, but it just isn't quite polished up enough for me yet.

[Connor McJesus]

Originally posted by 123:

Neither. Keep not playing for probably the next 6 months or so until evrima has the perk system. It's all mega and mixed packs on evrima rn and the devs have said that's not going to change anytime soon.

Both version are laggy and buggy and both share a weird community of cry babies. Just wait until there's more to the game and the gamer's come back so the environment you're playing in isn't a bizarre one.

The people surrounding the game rn are just weird man. There's another scandal goin on rn about a private server yet agaaaaaaaaaaaain. Wait for the the gamer's to come and the weirdos to go back to their private servers.

Geez this is the most accurate post I've seen. Global chat in legacy is full of whining 12 year old's and 40 year old virgins. However, I will say play evrima for the graphics and smoother mechanics. Play legacy for a wider range of dinosaurs.

[Cloaker]

tune in from 2025 we now have way better stuff and more content play evrima and that's all you're going to need we don't have many playable like old legacy but there working on it in 2025 this year so we also got perks which are cool we go Deinosuchus, and we got most stuff but sadly not a lot of dinos as I said earlier

[Khanivore]

^ One Hell of a Necro post

For anyone new reading this thread, Legacy is the old version of the game and will be removed at some point

For the latest version of the game called (Evrima) do this below

If you just got the game, you need to do this for official servers and the most updated version of the game

Right click the Isle in Steam > Properties > Betas > Select Evrima public