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All you need to know about Archeage
I see many people around get wrong impression about the game. I even saw someone saying it will be good for roleplayers. Let me bring you some light on this MMO. Im what you can call MMO vet who played more then 100 titles, all the major ones. Archeage I tried 1.5 years ago in korean beta, but learned more about it after leveling to 40 on russian server (Im russian myself). My post might look too negative, but everything I'll say is true.
Quests
There is huge amount of them and almost enough to level to 40. Every race starts with its own storyline which is told through main story quests and cheap cutscenes (basically only a moving picture with voiceovers). I played human, and story started decently, but then became boring very fast. Something about mark on yourself and searching the ring which always gets away from you when you nearly found it. Very generic stuff. I must say I love to read quests, and do it in almost all theme park MMOs. In Archeage I began to skip every one of them at level 15. They just arent interesting - they dont reveal lore, they dont have interesting mechanics like WoW. They just... there to make grinding more focused.
To be honest, questing and leveling in this game is completly out of place. Instead of thinking "do we even need levels and quests in a game that is not about quests at all?" (something Age of Wuling authors did) they just threw it in. So be prepared to long grind to 50, and its indeed long. You'll have to search every location for quest NPCs, because if you skip any and move to other location, quests there will give you item rewards 2-4 levels higher then you actually are.
Dungeons
You get only 2 dungeons up to level 40. No LFG system, no summoning, you have to go on feet there. Both are very small, about 3 bosses each. Both feel like 3 generic rooms connected with narrow corridors. First dungeon (everyone call it "Copies") can be zerged with 3 dps classes at level 20. Second ("Arsenal") is 30 lvl dungeon and very hard for PUGs since bosses have oneshot abilities and healing is a pain at this level.
Crafting
Crafting is major focus of the game. Best gear is obtained from crafting. You can craft set items for your character at level 20, then upgrade it at 24, 30, 34 and 40 tiers. So you basically wear same gear you had at 20, but upgraded and higher quality. Its better then quest rewards, but worse then set items dropped in Arsenal. Resources from crafting you can collect in the world, but they are totally random and its not efficient. Best way is to craft scarecrow, find good place, put it in the ground and grow everything in its range (if you grow out of your scarecrow range, everyone can gather your stuff). You can grow anything: vegetables, trees, animals. Things grow from 4 hours up to 1.5 days. It takes alot of time to plant seeds and then gather crop, since every seed should be put in manually.
Top crafted gear takes HUGE amount of resources. Actually so much, that it takes efforts of big clans to gear their members. There are whole forests grown to build a single ship.
The world and lore
Archeage is beautiful game at times, at times it surprises how terrible it can look. With scarecrow system they found a solution how to prevent crop stealing, but this solution makes the world a treshcan with rows of cows standing still and white snow trees on green grass.
Habited places are usually copypasted with same NPCs and houses. Big cities are very similar to Lineage 2. Looking grand from outside, rows of empty boxes inside. I didnt remember a name of single village of city, nor do I care. There is nothing to do in cities except get few quests anyways.
Lore is generic fantasy. And other then through quests, which believe me, you wont read later on, there arent any ways to deliver the lore.
Class system
I really like the idea of choosing 3 different trees from a pool and combining them to a class (there are 120 classes you can get this way). I also like that skills from different trees affect each other for combos and varied effects. This was briliant idea... went to waste, because they put idiots in charge to design abilities and skill trees. I'll give you just a few examples:
Archers in this game rely on one ability russians call "Chaingun". It allows to shoot several arrows per SECOND. With good gear archer doesnt need anything else except opening stunshot. So most archers in this game are basically one button spamming class.
Bards. This is how bard looks here. You choose a song that will buff group. You press a button, song starts. Then you just run around doing nothing else. If you try to do something, song is interrupted, and your only role is to play this damn song to buff group.
Healers. You main healing ability has on higher levels 3 seconds cast time (it actually starts will fast cast time but the higher you get, the longer it becomes. /facepalm) and 5 seconds cooldown. You also get a weak HoT and group heal which also has cast time and cd, but eats your mana alive. In Arsenal if you used heal on tank and your other mate took dmg, you cant help him since your heal is on cd. Use your group heal, and youre out of mana in no time. So basically all healers got is direct heal and few hots.
Melee classes. Almost useless in mass PvP which is the most frequest type in AA.
Mages. Same as archers. Pretty much one button spam class.
There are 120 classes in game and its very, very hard to find one with decent skill cap AND good skills synergy. Its like they threw skills randomly in different trees, without even trying to balance them. There are TONS of abilities that are absolutely useless and never taken by anyone. And after a year since release they didnt do anything about them. Instead they introduced future skills for 55 level that are just laugable. Like mage whose tree is full of casted nukes needs another Lightning with cast time.
Combat system
Its actually not bad and I like visual effects of abilities. Nothing like sprays of rainbows from GW2 or Wildstar. More realistic and some effects are among the best Ive seen in MMO (like icecles from mage iceball). But you need to find right class for combat to become fun. And its usually not the most popular class. Fight/Will/Dev worked out the best for me.
But anyways, combat mechanics is much more simple then in WoW. After playing WoW's hunter, I find all classes in Archeage primitive.
PvP
This meant to be a PvP game, but there is 0 meaning for PvP here. Its not even fully open PvP. Every zone past 30 has degrees of war state. Usually its peace and noone can attack anyone. Then after 3 hours of piece it changes to "War is coming", people can attack now enemies from other faction. Then when enough kills were made "War time". Nothing really changes from "War is coming". During war its basically one big group riding through zone killing everyone, and their victims after respawn waiting in safe place for piece time. You get nothing for killing other players. Well, you get honor, but shitty gear you can buy for it is nowhere as good as crafted.
There are also sea battles that look really cool. Everything about sea in this game is good, sea looks gergeous. But most sea battles are centred around Freedom Island - a place, where people transport trading goods. There is NPC trading mechanics, that allows you to transport valuable stuff to distant locations, and the further they are, the better is payment. Freedom Island gives most valuable rewards. And its massacre there all days long with just zergs killing each other non stop.
Kraken - raid boss that supposed to terrify sailors and be PvP objective is just farmed with clock by top clan.
Pirate faction that supposed to be for hardcore PvPers gives nothing except pain. You cant easily grow things on pirate island - too little room, you get in jail for more then a hour if killed and you're KoS for any guards on 2 continents. You need to work hard to become a pirate. Benefits? None.
Small group PvP is rarity in AA. Its mostly about zergs and whose zerg bigger wins.
High end content
For solo and small group of players there is nothing to do here at all. Well, you can farm like 5 dungeons on 50. And you can grow crops. Thats it. Top clans wont let you even get close to raid bosses. They wont let you do trading routs by sea - your trading goods will be taken away almost always. And northern continent is also only for big clan wars. No other end game activities, sorry.
Archeage is the game for PvP clans to decide whose D is bigger. And you as casual player is not welcome in this competition.
There are also many stupid design decisions that made me want to bang my head at the wall. Few examples:
When you die, you respawn at nearest Goddess statue. Using any abilities near it not allowed. This brings situations, where big zerg corners victims to statue and camp them, sometimes for 30 minutes. One side cant get away, other cant kill them.
If you leveled 3 trees to 50 and decided to change one, you have to level new tree from level 10. This means you get access only to few abilities from this tree and they do minimum damage. You have to grind for days to get this third tree to 50, all this time being gimped.
Because all classes lack efficient mana regen mechanics, you have to stop after almost every pack of mobs in dungeon and use "play fluit" abilitiy that very slowly regens mana. Can you imagine this? You pulled a pack of mobs in dungeon, killed it, and have to waste a minute to regen mana. And this after almost every pack. On bosses sometimes you're out of mana and since it is the only resource for all classes including warriors, you cant even do anything when OOM. Only spam basic attack.
From what I saw, developers have no clue how to fix the game and where's the right direction for Archeage. Instead of balancing trees, improving PvP and adding sandbox mechanics, they introduce new level cap and dungeons.
Jake Song had great vision when he imagined Archeage. But his team lacked talent and understanding how to implement working mechanics in MMORPGs. Hence the game and its potential are buried by stupid design decisions. In Russia many players like the game and think there is no alternative for them. Try it, maybe you will be one of them. But if you're solo player or looking for meaningful PvP, avoid Archeage, its wont cut it for you.
Comments
By playing it on Korean servers or RU
Is there no IP ban or whatever to keep people from NA from playing?
Is there a way to sign up an account without having some Korean or Russian numbers and such?
Interesting write up. While some of the stuff you pointed out seems as a negative to you, they are plusses to me.
I love grindy games. I know its just time = rewards. Instead of skill to get the rewards. I just have more free time than skill. lol :P
Thanks for the write-up. This looks like the type of MMO im looking for!
The RU have said they are not blocking foreigners from playing. Koreans did block IP's had to have a korean SS number to do it.
Also to demonstrate combat, just a small example of my healer leveling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3vqC9jZ4B8
Combat is a little slow, and repetitive. Been playing FF14 for the last few months, so Im kind of used to slow combat.
This review is great, everybody should see and read this!
Just remember the Russian CBT version is a very old version of Archeage, and you even have a lvl 40 cap. That's like playing Rift with a lvl 40 cap. There won't be much to do.
Your missing a whoop ton of content here. From castle building, Sieges, making your own faction, lore writer, music entertainer, composer, lvl 50 10 man instanced raids for small parties, lvl 50 50 man open raids, lvl 50 5 man instance dungeons. Dynamic events like in GW2. There is just so much missing in this Russian CBT version.
You are even missing the random dungeon finder tool.
Even by negative reviews this game sounds the most intresting and fearure rich title on the MMORPG market.
If thats the negative side of the game, AA will be amazing.
How can sameone join the russian release, i heard they don't accept creditcards..
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$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
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I feel pretty much the same
I hope they would release this game in EU already.
I didn't liked it.
1) He spoiled the story - with out warning.
2) He looks to be like a solo player - Archeage is really about Guild wars .
3) Pirating - You only get send to jail if you are killed on 2 Southeren Islands.
4) He looks like a WoW fan - hence he is looking for a PvE game, with out realising that ArcheAge is RP-PvP game.
5) Crafting is not always about gettting top gear.
Try to be more neutral in the future. Your feelings are reflecting in your post.
I prefer to be honest. But thanks for reading
A review without feelings is basically a lie being fed to feed others. Whether I do or do not favor his post, I respect his honesty...
I was surprised my self when i realised i read all of it. Thanks for making it easy to read.
Neutrality - would bring objectivity to a review.
Feelings - would disrupt balance and split readers opinions hence making it false for many readers.
The OP is somewhat right, but the WoW fanboyism is strong in him.
1. Quest-Lore: never cared about them when playing MMO's, tho AA has a very detailed and rich lore, Koreans were telling that it has a very good story, can't confirm nor deny any of these since i don't understand KR and not much RU either. If you wanna learn more about AA world lore: Archeage Lore
2. Dungeons: it was said that AA is going to be centered around open world, so the dungeons are just here as a placeholder, the endgame level 50 dungeons are more serious then the "questing" level 20-40 ones tho.
3. Crafting and Trading: AA is going to be the heaven for crafters, there is no doubt about this.
4. World: it's freaking huge and dynamic, true that some of the towns and areas being similar with L2, after all the "same" people made the games. I have no idea where you saw caws in the RU version, i haven't seen a single on of them, everyone is busy with their tree farms right now, the cow invasion should be coming 2+ months after the release, atm there is no point to raise cows, because you can make much more money selling various other resources, for example timber.
5. Class System: really hope that the new KR 1.0 patch brings more balance to this game, as the OP said mages and archers with their 1 button machinegun spam are OP, but not everyone can play this class, only those will benefit from it who have low ping (<20ms). Other than that the class system gives you much freedom, and to be able to level all trees with a single char is good for those who hate making an army of alts.
6. Combat System: i don't understand how come it be "more simpler" then in WoW, probably this is where his WoW fanboyism kicks in.
7. PvP: agree what the OP said.
8. High end Content: yep, this game is not for soloers! Or those who got used to get endgame gear fast.
Its not fanboism, its common sense. WoW classes have up to 60+ active abilities all of which are very unique. There are tons of combat mechanics and details that you have to know and use to get advantage. Its very hard to master a class in WoW to play it competitive at 2500+ arenas.
In Archeage I felt I fully mastered my class (and its not the simpliest one either) before I reached cap. There are just not many things you can do, even if you're very skilled.
Are you saying you binded 60 abilities to your keyboard with out macros?
Yes. Every good PvPer does. And constantly uses all 60 in PvP. I had only 1 macros that allowed to use instantly racial+trinket+ability for burst damage
Sounds like a boring gameplay to me, because what you basicly saying is: " Number of buttons to push = skill " .
What I want to know which isn't listed here.
1.) Crafting, is it sand-box based, Can I learn and Max all crafts on a single character.
2.) Classes, Can I freely switch between classes on a single character like final Fantasy/Dark Fall?
. If Classes are based on Souls, or Talents, Can I have more one than tree and activate them as I wish to change them.
3.) Can you freely customize your character/ re-customize any time you wish.
4.) Is there housing can I customize it.
In General what I am looking for is Sand-Box based MMO's which offer the freedom to play how the player chooses like Dark-Fall, EVE, Final Fantasy XIV, and so on I am tired of the games with two craft skill limits, no character re-customization, and no player housing with customization games that lack innovation I am not looking forward to playing in 2014 if they are not well developed.
As to answer the question about IP Bans that is why there are proxies, VPN/VPS servers, and server box rentals on the internet its really not possible to fully block another country from accessing a specific server unless its running on a local intranet no outside network allowed to play the game.
Housing video introduction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=529in9ycPg4
The fun thing about it, is you place your House in the game world ( It's not in your personal instance or anything like that ) - so players can stop by to visit you, while they are questing or crafting around.
1. In theory you can max out them all, in reality it's unlikely going to happen since it will take too much time, every profession (21 of them in the KR version) has 5 stages, getting one to max is about 1+ month of hard work. When you start the game you can take 2 professions to stage5, 1 to stage4, 1 to stage3, 1 to stage2, the rest must stay at stage1. But later you can spend so called "Lifetime Points" to unlock another profession to be able to get to stage5, later spend even more "Lifetime Points" to unlock your 4th profession, and so on.
2. Yea, you can freely switch any tree with another one.
3. In the RU version you can put a custom image on your cape, in the KR version you can add any skin of an item onto another one (not in the RU yet).
4. The house is static, you buy the blueprint of it (same house types have different color setup for roof-walls), you place it on the open world, and it's fully up to you how to decorate the inside of it, which everyone will be able to see since it's on the open world.