Ok, I get why people invest so much time and maybe money into games like this. It's kind of an old problem but presented in a new sort of way. It's been a month, but when it first came out, not many cared and the ones who did were frowned upon for playing a high-cost MMO looter shooter.
And then, somehow, it even managed to convince some detractors to try it out. It is still not a good game, but I was curious. Things that have crossed my mind is what people are obsessing over, just so happens, probably a number of different things. Note I said not a good game as a whole, it is mechanically sound, momentum carries over providing so much verticality, fun abilities, and so on.
The gunplay feels and sounds like something from Warframe, you would think it's a Destiny clone, but it's inspired that much by this as well. Now, what are the real reasons why people tap into this for so many freaking hours. Including Paul Tassi of Forbes himself, who didn't like it at first.
Ok, small story exhibition, a hot girl called Bunny shows up. And here, picking between 3 different characters to start with. I chose the hot women. Which, ah, made me reconsider since her kit wasn't exactly what I'd call basic as a frost type offensive abilities.
I guess playing it, the point is killing waves of enemies that come out of the blue, similar waves, same enemy types, no one that interesting as they look like generically inspired WF designed types, they even sound and have backstory super similar to them. People of younger generation have missed one of the best MMO looter games out there, and playing this instead.
But credit where's it due, it looks beautiful visually, cutscenes are gorgeous, all seems high production for a F2P title. Then again, what games can't pull that off in a quarter trillion-dollar industry? Published and developed by a Koreon developer named NEXON. Who goes way back to the early hay days, honestly, I expected much better. But doesn't seem like these guys care at all about quality, and only does when anything that can get engagement for it.
Why I'm saying that, is due to the fact that anything else outside the playable character design, visual aesthetics, shiny loot, and fancy looking graphics, is a game that is so empty feeling, it makes me want to uninstall it. Thanks to uninspired open-world level designs, and mission structures.
If you want to waste time, and then flex that you got a kick-a** character by grinding like crazy and getting lucky from the terrible drop rate chances, sure. Have at it. But these guys have been caught making egregious gambling simulators from their games, and creating exploitive microtransaction bloated titles like this. It sucks, too, since they could have actually tried. Game can be fun at times.
Also, apologies in advance if the footage seems gray and colorless, AMD software doesn't capture color gamut when in HDR well sometimes. I'll try using Xbox record, now with my new 7700 XT. But yeah, performance and technical problems are few in-between, runs pretty smooth.
I will do my best to explain in length where in specifics, it differs, how the grind works, what items you need, what kind of weapons loot do I get, and of course, the characters. The ridiculous beauty standard CGI characters, which hey, if you fancy them, all for it. The people who designed them should get a raise, because thems the BIG reason why it's getting any traction.
I never explained how the game's tutorial section was, well, it was boring, didn't provide significant challenge to entice engagement and soon as I got to the giant quadrupedal boss, I was instructed about using the whip to sling towards it after exploiting its weakness.
This point I was like, "hell yeah" a good fight finally. I played Wild Hearts, I think I grasped the whole shedding enemies armor to put more damage in. This is an interesting mechanic, but soon I got to do it, the damn thing just died. I don't know, maybe Bunny's fast movement really put the hurt in the thing while I was constantly shooting at it. The disappointment I felt, and then there's the rest.
The player hub is this giant mission base somewhere around a dam, where you can gawk at the visual prowess this game is shoving at you. Plus my PC chugs terribly with so many players on the screen. Missions are available in other areas, you access terminals, and then a loading screen happens. Also, mine is installed in an M.2 SSD, over 3GB/s read speed. Least load the game in a few seconds instead of, I don't know, half a minute of time?
There are activities, quest missions, and raids. Most of them are simple, I clear out areas, interact with things as per objectives, and continue to clear waves of enemies. Activities, the same thing? Levelling up, gathering low rarity gears, gain access to abilities before level 10.
Fun part of the gunplay are the various selection of weapons, I can hold upto 3 of them and switch in-between. The other two though, needs ammo, which I don't get when I restart the game. The whip is the best part of traveling, I can go almost anywhere on constant momentum. Even have melee moves, combine that with the abilities I have, it becomes a good mix of fun.
Actually wait, you played MMOs like this before, why am I wasting my time? I should be getting to the real crux of the issue, how the progression system works. The whip is the only original design I can think of. Now get this, you want different characters, and add more to the game?
You need materials, a lot of items have different drop rates. These are the ultimates, and ah, funny enough, they have 3% drop rates. From the strongest enemy types. Enemy variety exists, sure, but if the loot's too much, god help you. I heard it takes hours to no end getting at least unlocking one. Then there's the waiting time, this is a mobile game level of atrocious grinding.
With all the plethora of online F2P games coming out, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for some to create a future sunk-cost fallacy for a terribly designed game, for you, of course, I'm not judging. I spent 3hrs, and I never felt like touching this again. This is a terrible product.
