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My First Hour of Vindictus CBT
PortiaBell2
Member Posts: 7
After my agonizingly slow download (I was a bit late to start) finished, a friend and I hopped on Vindictus for a little over an hour before maintenance, ready for our first experience of Vindictus CBT.
The prologue gives you a good feel for how the game plays, albeit very simplified as all tutorials go, and let's you in on the story. You're driven right into the action and there were several times where I had to stop and go, "Wait! Did my character just head bash that monster?!?" I kept finding different combinations and so far my favorite button is the grab/throw W. I completely enjoyed tossing around the bodies of the late foes to knock off the new baddies. I even spear chucked a broom to knock a big guy down. I kinda felt bad ass.
So far, the game appears to be very story driven, with plenty of dialog (that you actually read!) and a few cut-scenes. The town is set with shops being instanced and the town where players gather. The graphics are crisp and while not top notch for the industry, they are a huge gain for a F2P MMO. I enjoyed heading into a shop that held a quest and instead of clicking on a guy and skipping the dialog to accept the quest, I walked in on an argument between NPC's that eventually led to my first quest. I felt engaged and immersed.
Because we didn't get very far, we did not experience skills to a point I can really give much input. But as far as I can tell, you choose a skill to level up first as "active" and then as you gain AP you spend it on that particular skill. You can only hold so much AP, though, so there's no reason to save up!
Combat is just downright fun, so far. I can see why some people might complain that it's the same two buttons mashed over and over. Those people are the same ones that make ignorant statements about every game they play and quit shortly after. Thank gawd for that! The two main attacks are a short attack and a burst attack that you can combo up. However, you add in your throw/grab button and it opens up a whole new set up of kills. You can grab them and rap them in the head with your short attack or grab them and do a big slam into the ground or nearby wall with your burst attack. If that doesn't quite finish them, they will at least be dazed and you will be prompted to finish them off with your burst attack. This can be a swift kick in the head or an elbow to the stomach. I enjoy that part immensely.
Your secondary weapon, which in my case was a spear, leans you back and zooms in to allow you to aim manually or auto aim at a baddie and flings it forward to deal some great damage if you hit. I chucked one at a wall and it first person followed the spear. I definitely need to learn more about that move because it seemed like a good way to kill from afar without getting every other monster's attention.
So far, we've not been prompted once to go kill x amount of mobs or give these apples to Farmer Joe down the way because of some BS excuse the NPC gives on why he can't do it himself. We're given a mission and head to the docks to set sail to our destination. Even the wait for party members to be "Ready" to enter the Battle is fun. I enjoyed tossing a giant dice at my party member and smashing up some pumpkins while the battle loaded up.
Once in the battle, it was instanced and you can add additional requirements to the mission to gain more exp and AP for skills. This can be to kill a mob in a certain style or finish within a time limit. There's a boss at the end, predictable, but it felt like I should be doing something special to kill him. You can do your standard two attacks to kill the baddy, but be prepared to get knocked around in the process. Chucking dead friends of the boss was a great way to get my point across that I wanted him to die too.
Because there are only two characters available at this point, I cannot say how a magic user or ranged class will fit in with this action based combat system. I can only speculate that it will be just as engaging.
I'm surprisingly excited to play this again after maintenance ends tomorrow. Vindictus feels like a very fresh spin on our beloved MMO genre. It really brings a lot of elements from traditional RPG's like storytelling and teamwork, along with some fun, fast paced combat. I'm eager to see where the game will go. I have to admit, however, that knowing that TERA will be the same combat system gives me an inkling that this is going to feel very much like a F2P once TERA is released. In the meantime, I'm going to practice chucking dead monsters around and dealing finishing blows in excellent style, for free.
Comments
The first 30 minutes of Vindictus was probably the best gameplay I have encountered in any game in the last 4 years.
I only have a few gripes with the game right now. First is jumping, no jumping. Second is enemy AI, they aren't that smart. The only enemy who fights back seems to be the bosses and its an AI you would expect out of normal mobs.
I like grabbing enemies who are still alive and beating on them then throwing them into other enemies like the boss.
If this game had jumping, it would be vastly better. I always feel like there is more I'm just not knowing that would make things easier.
Biggest gripes so far:
Lack of jumping
Lloot tables. Some of the main things I've needed just plain don't drop for me.
So far, no storage feature.
Other than that, I've been having heaps of fun.
I personally haven't had any issue with Loot Tables. May take a little while to drop a specific item, but not terrible. I dropped them as I played/completed quests.
Seems like you can unlock an extra storage tab in your inventory at level 5-ish. Further tabs are likely Cash Shop storage tabs. Given the heavy focus on Crafting, my guess is that the game intends to "force" players to either craft items and sell on market, or simply sell the materials. (Market place is unavailable as of now).
Even the armor is sleek~~~~
Can't wait!!!
Throughout the day, while I'm busy with my personal life, I find myself longing to log back in and play. I think the MMO addiction that has been lost for the past 5 or more years has finally come back to bite me. Action MMO's? Who'd have thought that would be what reels me back in?
Yes, there are times the dungeons start feeling repetitive, however, that could be because of my completionist attitude. You can continue with the story line, and move further along through the different instanced dungeons, all of which are seated in the same dungeon setting. It is split up into 6 or so different "Battles," with the goals changing depending on the quest giver's needs. I try to get full points for every Battle, so it can take several runs through to get the elusive bonus reward item.
But ask any player how much fun they have just waiting for the dungeon to load? How about destroying the cargo on the ship, waiting to set sail, with mini bombs? Chuck fruit off over the side? Roll dice for money? I can't count how many times we've spent five or more minutes just playing around on the boat, completely forgetting that not everyone has chosen Ready to start the battle.
You can collect the vast amount of titles, all of which give permanent bonuses, and that in itself has been fun. Example, kill gnolls with objects in the Ruins. It is so incredibly fun to smash a crate into a baddy, have him launch back into a wall and slump down. Not dead? Run up and give him a swift kick, that'll keep him down!
There are plenty of instances where you can throw something through a wall, which shouldn't happen, and that gets annoying. I'm not a fan of the armor so far, even though we're all relatively lower leveled. But I can see where this won't be a problem in Open Beta and release, when a lot more features are unlocked. Personally, I like to coordinate my outfits, but that's just me haha!
If this game had a jumping mechanism, it'd be fantastic. But after playing it for so many hours, I've stopped missing it. There are so many other elements that come into play during battle that jumping might just be overkill. Who knows, until TERA comes out.
I have no idea if there will be a lasting appeal with this game. So far, I don't see the fun ending, especially since the ranged classes haven't even been accessible yet! All I can say is this, though, if you didn't get into CBT, mark that date for OBT. You will enjoy the heck out of it.
If I remember well, Evie (Mage) will be added during the OBT.
For those complaining about jumping, I believe the new version of the game Vindictus EX in Korea which is basically an updated version of the game on a new server also known as "hardcore mode" has jumping or atleast adds ariel attacks. So there are things to look forward to for this game. It's updated almost monthly in Korea, so if Nexon NA keeps up with it you shouldn't get bored too fast.
How do you unlock the extra storage feature at lv 5-ish?
Same here. I really enjoyed being drawn into a story. Add to that, I'm a sucker for destructible and usable environments, so smashing stuff to pieces and then using the pieces to smash enemies was great fun.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
it's a quest, you finish Decisive Battle and turn in the quest. You'll be lvl 5 only if you do story line quests only and don't rerun any Battles. If you rerun battles you'll be around lvl 7 by the time you finish that quest =P
Ahaha, funnily enough I was level 7 and I JUST got and finished the Decisive Battle quest after I'd asked that. I thought I'd missed something. Thank you!