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Cabal online: thoughts
thedude42
Member Posts: 7
So, seems like people are really anticipating something new in Cabal online, or at least interested in trying something different. Many people are aware they are in their "closed" beta, where each player gets an invite pool to send out to people. I got mine and decided to give it a whirl while I had nothing better to do, the next MMORPG I'm waiting on won't be out for a while, and nothing currently interests me.
First Impressions
My first hour of the game consisted mostly of swearing at the interface. The movement interface for the character reminded me more of lego star wars than an MMO type interface. Since you can't re-bind any keys, there are truly your only options. Your only movement options are:
1) WSAD with multiple camera options
2) mouse click to location
For WSAD there's a big problem: in free look mode (probably the most intuitive camera option) any movement forward automatically re-centers the camera, so there is no option to move while watching your flanks, unless you fight the re-center with your mouse (some places it's easy to do, others it's futile)
Another big problem with WSAD and re-centering is that for some reason int heir infinite wisdom,t he devs did not make the textures dynamically transparent.... that is, if something like an elaborate doorway blocks your view of a room your character has already entered, the obstruction does not become instantly transparent. This is a big problem because the world in Cabal is fairly cramped in general.
For mouse-click movement, you have a separate issue: in a crowded village or crowded dungeon, you are hard pressed to be able to click on empty space. The actual active areas around characters, vendors and monsters to target them is not very apparent, and particularly with players and vendors the highlight doesn't seem to give you a great deal of contrast from their normal look. Therefore, you are often reverting from mouse movement back to WSAD out of necessity, so ultimately you need to use both.
It took be at least 3 hours of playing before I began feeling that I could effectively move through the environment without much hassle. Your milage may vary.
Quests and Leveling
The quest system and the teleport system is very convenient in the game. Coupled with the smaller world size, you are not spending hours on end traveling between quests and hunting grounds. The dungeons are all instanced as well, so no worries about other player interference when your's on the clock or hard pressed for a specific MOB or loot drop. The whole entertainment value of the game really comes from the elaborate, thought out quest series storyline, even with the "engrish" typos and lost idioms.
One thing that is very annoying, however, is there is no bar indicating the progress you have made toward the next level. No bar, no xxx/xxx value, no pie chart... nothing. So, on the one hand, every time you level up, it's like "oh! surprise! I leveled!". On the other hand, It can be very annoying when you're trying to figure out whether to grind out the next level then complete quests, or visa versa, in order to maximize your time in game.
My fiance and I are both currently playing, she as a Warrior class and I as a Force Shielder, and we have noticed that the disparity between the classes is such that she needs to gain a higher level for higher stats before entering dungeons that I can breeze through with my added defensive skills. This interesting observation says that even thought he different classes are following the same quest lines, they do have very different game experiences. This I consider to be a good thing.
One thing that has me scratching my head is the loot/combat system. I believe the combat/quest system only counts kills if you give the MOB the final death blow. However, the % of damage seems to indicate the loot drop and permission for a player to pick up the drop. As a result, if your quest requires you to kill a specific MOB, and you attack it after it spawns, getting it down to a thread of hit points left, and someone swoops in and takes the last hit, you don't get any credit for the kill. However, if it drops any loot, you do get the chance to pick it up (and i thing after some time anyone can pick it up if you haven't already). It is interesting to me that the loot system would be protected like that, but the quest system for counting combat kills would not be. In effect, if you had a higher level character helping you, they could bring every quest MOB down to a small amount of HP, and you could simply go in and 1 hit kill your marks, completing every quest with ease. On the other hand, griefers can camp other characters and kill their marks, preventing them from ever progressing in a quest as long as they do this. I sincerely hope the devs are aware of this and are working on some sort of way to prevent this kind of thing.
Community
I have yet to feel a sense of a community at all. Maybe it's just because I don't understand the chat system at all. Maybe it's because I have only been playing for a week. Either way, I have yet to find a need to interact with another player at all, and honestly most of the players seem to be... how should I put this... there are alot of people playing who don't seem to be aware that their actions might be affecting the other players around them. Yes, this happens in other MMO's as well, but my experience in the "closed" beta of Cabal has been that I can guarantee myself that if I go to a popular hunting ground, I will run in to people "kill stealing" and having general disregard for what other players are trying to accomplish.
1 Week Concluding Thoughts.
If you like guild wars, you'll love Cabal. Cabal has its charm, and its emersive qualities MMO's are good for. You can effectively solo this game until you hit the end game (I assume) without the need of anyone else's assistance.
There is a crafting system in the game, but I haven't bothered looking in to it. Also, there are vehicles in the game, but I have been spending my time progressing through the levels and quests too much to look in to how one obtains a vehicle (I assume they are crafted).
I hope anyone who has played the game and has taken the time to read this will comment/flame this post so I'm not the only one giving my thoughts.
First Impressions
My first hour of the game consisted mostly of swearing at the interface. The movement interface for the character reminded me more of lego star wars than an MMO type interface. Since you can't re-bind any keys, there are truly your only options. Your only movement options are:
1) WSAD with multiple camera options
2) mouse click to location
For WSAD there's a big problem: in free look mode (probably the most intuitive camera option) any movement forward automatically re-centers the camera, so there is no option to move while watching your flanks, unless you fight the re-center with your mouse (some places it's easy to do, others it's futile)
Another big problem with WSAD and re-centering is that for some reason int heir infinite wisdom,t he devs did not make the textures dynamically transparent.... that is, if something like an elaborate doorway blocks your view of a room your character has already entered, the obstruction does not become instantly transparent. This is a big problem because the world in Cabal is fairly cramped in general.
For mouse-click movement, you have a separate issue: in a crowded village or crowded dungeon, you are hard pressed to be able to click on empty space. The actual active areas around characters, vendors and monsters to target them is not very apparent, and particularly with players and vendors the highlight doesn't seem to give you a great deal of contrast from their normal look. Therefore, you are often reverting from mouse movement back to WSAD out of necessity, so ultimately you need to use both.
It took be at least 3 hours of playing before I began feeling that I could effectively move through the environment without much hassle. Your milage may vary.
Quests and Leveling
The quest system and the teleport system is very convenient in the game. Coupled with the smaller world size, you are not spending hours on end traveling between quests and hunting grounds. The dungeons are all instanced as well, so no worries about other player interference when your's on the clock or hard pressed for a specific MOB or loot drop. The whole entertainment value of the game really comes from the elaborate, thought out quest series storyline, even with the "engrish" typos and lost idioms.
One thing that is very annoying, however, is there is no bar indicating the progress you have made toward the next level. No bar, no xxx/xxx value, no pie chart... nothing. So, on the one hand, every time you level up, it's like "oh! surprise! I leveled!". On the other hand, It can be very annoying when you're trying to figure out whether to grind out the next level then complete quests, or visa versa, in order to maximize your time in game.
My fiance and I are both currently playing, she as a Warrior class and I as a Force Shielder, and we have noticed that the disparity between the classes is such that she needs to gain a higher level for higher stats before entering dungeons that I can breeze through with my added defensive skills. This interesting observation says that even thought he different classes are following the same quest lines, they do have very different game experiences. This I consider to be a good thing.
One thing that has me scratching my head is the loot/combat system. I believe the combat/quest system only counts kills if you give the MOB the final death blow. However, the % of damage seems to indicate the loot drop and permission for a player to pick up the drop. As a result, if your quest requires you to kill a specific MOB, and you attack it after it spawns, getting it down to a thread of hit points left, and someone swoops in and takes the last hit, you don't get any credit for the kill. However, if it drops any loot, you do get the chance to pick it up (and i thing after some time anyone can pick it up if you haven't already). It is interesting to me that the loot system would be protected like that, but the quest system for counting combat kills would not be. In effect, if you had a higher level character helping you, they could bring every quest MOB down to a small amount of HP, and you could simply go in and 1 hit kill your marks, completing every quest with ease. On the other hand, griefers can camp other characters and kill their marks, preventing them from ever progressing in a quest as long as they do this. I sincerely hope the devs are aware of this and are working on some sort of way to prevent this kind of thing.
Community
I have yet to feel a sense of a community at all. Maybe it's just because I don't understand the chat system at all. Maybe it's because I have only been playing for a week. Either way, I have yet to find a need to interact with another player at all, and honestly most of the players seem to be... how should I put this... there are alot of people playing who don't seem to be aware that their actions might be affecting the other players around them. Yes, this happens in other MMO's as well, but my experience in the "closed" beta of Cabal has been that I can guarantee myself that if I go to a popular hunting ground, I will run in to people "kill stealing" and having general disregard for what other players are trying to accomplish.
1 Week Concluding Thoughts.
If you like guild wars, you'll love Cabal. Cabal has its charm, and its emersive qualities MMO's are good for. You can effectively solo this game until you hit the end game (I assume) without the need of anyone else's assistance.
There is a crafting system in the game, but I haven't bothered looking in to it. Also, there are vehicles in the game, but I have been spending my time progressing through the levels and quests too much to look in to how one obtains a vehicle (I assume they are crafted).
I hope anyone who has played the game and has taken the time to read this will comment/flame this post so I'm not the only one giving my thoughts.
Comments
thanks!
Bugs that I am aware of:
Game diconnects you in the middle of instances.
This is the most annoyign thing i can think of happening in an RPG. You start ona dungeon or talk to an NPC, and the game dumps you.
I am positive this is a bug and not normal server load induced disconnecting because it ONLY happens (consistantly) in instances.
Cabal needs to stay in beta for a while.
thanks for the review, i guess everybody should do that, so people know if the game is crap or not before downloading and not after 2 secs of playing..
As for PvP.... I'm really not sure exactly how the PvP system works, because there is an in-game option to enable or disable PvP. However, this has not prevented certain players from outright attacking me in some cases. These players who can do this have their names in an orange font, rather than the standard white. Likewise, they seem to be able to attack me, and not visa versa, which is very annoying while grinding.
Reading the in game help seems to indicate that there is some kind of zoning that plays with the "honor rank" system (which has little information about it anywhere but is a very important system since it determines whether you can or can't buy some very, very useful items). However, the zones/channels the help refers to is not present as far as I can tell. The only channel/server options right now are "trade" and "novice" for the closed beta, and I have no honest idea if there is any real difference between the 2 other than to load balance the server.
In the times I have been attacked in PvP, my favorite story of the game so far, once I was attacked while grinding out some MOBs so I wasn't aware it was a player attacking me. Once I saw that it was, it was too late. I returned to the location to find that player grinding the same MOBs I had been. So, since the game has it's fun little system to exploit concerning PvE and stealing other players' kills, I began to grief this guy/gal because quite frankly, what he did annoyed me. I began attacking everything they were attacking, and they finally attacked me, and then it was on.
I could tell right away this person was higher level than me (there is nothing to indicate this aside from guessing based on the armor they wear) because they had a significant number of attacks that put me on my back. No matter, I was loaded up with my health and mana potions. After about 3 minutes it was obvious that this battle would take a very long time, and would rest on who had the most potion. Eventually they just warped out of the area, and I felt vindicated.
I don't think PvP kicks in until the higher levels. At about level 50 a new world opens up, and things start changing. The progression goes to at least level 100, so I'm sure there are more surprises in store. The bottom line is that the further you progress, the more your time is spend away from the n00b areas where it seems the larger number of jackasses hang out. From level 50-60 the n00b areas are still good grinding grounds, but the areas worth grinding are the areas where levels lower than 50 will encounter 1-3 hit kills from the MOBs, whereas level 50 and better can walk around with general impunity.
New Maps open at 50, 65, and 110 (if memory is correct)
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Talking with some other folks, it would seem that the open beta will include more of the content, and that there are, in fact, Cabal servers out there with the full implimentations of party instances and the various PvP zones.
As such, the wipe of the closed beta/invite only server should be accomplished (according to this information) in 2 days, and everyone can see more what the game is really supposed to be like.
Wow that WASD thing is so old school and ridiculous.I was looking forward to trying this game out ,but if they are that inept that they can't have key mapping or at least get MU online outa there system,then i can't expect much effort put into the game either.
Just on this premise alone i would stereotype the game as having NO content and play exactly like an asian grindfest with 500mph sword swining,endless healing pots equating into 24/7 botting and very little risk as long as you don't go over your head an run out of pots.It seems these devs with money over there are just buying up game engines then inserting players/meshes textures and a few static meshes to make a map.There games over there usually involve one main idea and they throw that in and sell a game.
With astronomical numbers in gamers over there ,they can keep churning out mindless grindfests ,offer up free to play and they got a large base to draw from.Why is mindless grindfest a problem?easy to answer.Mindless means that every single game is EXACTLY the same,just using different textures and different player customization.
open player creation screen/enter main city map/enter noob zone and hack n slash.After a few levels of noobness you can now think about building up cash flow then use it to buy healing pots ,then return to your mindless sword swinging.These games also use mobs with little or no AI,there just meat puppets with said amnt of hit points,waiting to respawn in a minute so you can rinse and repeat.
Instancing ..lmao,there is a place for this in every game but playing an online MMO to be by yourself in an instanced dungeon?RFLMAO why even bother, go play tiger woods golf.I really extremely doubt this game has a well thought out quest system,but the fact you are able to get into beta ,prolly means you are used to nothingness games from over there and any improvement would seem leaps and bounds over MU style games.Easy travel? yep no doubt to that,as there whole premise of gaming is all about easy,that why you get endless heal pots in all there games.All dungeons instanced?very bad idea,it may be good for the game but is a ridiculous idea for players to play an MMO then go play by themselves in a dungeon ..lmao.Solo this game??again no surprise to me there,this will be nothing more than the same ol i expect from over there.I did have alot of hope for this game,wth was i thinking,they are not ready to change there game style just yet,there still engulfed in MU and just can't let go.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
1. You do not like Asian MMORPGs.
2. You have never played this game.
I wish I had a 3. because that seems more complete, but you leave me with nothing more to state as everything you said is prejudged biases on your logical reasoning /sarcasm behind the motives of gaming companies.
Conclusion:
I don't know because I don't even know what your point is. it is like a rant on something you just though up without knowing what it is about. If some of your thoughts were influenced by the topic starter, then I can tell you now you have been fooled at parts. My personal view of the topic creator is he is slightly blunt. I have read his main posts and they leave me feeling he is new to Asian MMORPGs/ most MMORPGs. As some of the things he figured out/trying to figure out was very common and obvious in most Asian MMORPGS, but caught on a bit slowly (if it ever) with him. So your rant is purely spam of your opinion since it is not based off anything but pure assumptions.
1) you didn't read mine
2) you have an agenda to discredit my opinion in some way (which makes no sense because I am literally no one)
3) you're trolling
Is my post anything specifically about "Asian MMORPG's"? No, it;s about Cabal. I've played FFX!, and quite frankly the community there was much more of what I expected from an MMORPG. I didn't stick with the game, however, because it lacked what I wanted from an MMORPG, namely more emphasis on a player driven economy than a loot driven economy. I actually like that Cabal seems to be trying to include player crafted items as viable alternatives to lhe high end looted items, but the full implimentation of that system remains to be seen as the honor rank system doesn't seem to be in full force.
If you played the game and have something to say, please speak. Otherwise, realize that this game is in BETA, and as such there is room for improvement. The only reason I pointed out the flaws here as much as I did is because the game site has yet to impliment an easy link for a bug report, and there is no such interface in game. As a result of this I hoped other folks who have played Cabal might come in here and speak to these problems/issues I have run in to and not liked and share their experience and solutions.
As it turns out, no one else who has actually played the game have seem to have posted here, or any other thread I have seen. But a strange phenomenon I have seen is the few posts of people telling me to delete this post, how wrong I am without any substance behind it, or praising me for at least giving some opinion on the game since there is very little information out there about it.
I'm sorry you feel it is your duty to tell people their opinions are wrong, as you have a very long, arduous task ahead of you since most people's opinions concerning most MMO's is how much they suck. I do believe I pointed out some things I liked, and actually neglected the things that really upset me that had nothing to do with game play (namely that the installer uses virus-like techniques to hide the game's process from windows, in what seems like a very lame attempt to prevent cheating. This iseems akin to the sony root kit debachle from last year),
At any rate, after hitting level 60 and getting a bit bored, I decided I would wait for the wipe in the next 2 days and hopefully the formal announcement of the open beta will be on. I, however, won't be installing the game on my system again if it kicks off my antivirus like it did last time. The other people I know who (still) play have been telling me what has been happening to their system while playing the closed beta, and if that issue isn't resolved, I'm not interested. I'm sure that really doesn't matter though, as folks such as yourself, applepi, will surely be there to support every Asian MMO in any form anywhere.
Doesn't take a bright one to mess around with the options to find what is to your liking. You might want try that in the next game.
Another flaw in your report is that the pure fact every time you even slap a mob with your hand you get xp from it. Your xp bar is right above the bottom set of the interface. As far as anything having to do with picking up loot or resting go look into your specail set of skills which you go into the skill menu third button on the right. My girlfriend catched on to this right away. If you can't as a male semi mederate gamer than your a sad lot. Your review has several flaws. I hope you don't work for any type of magazine reporters, your job won't last long.
Take a deep drink of your demon Lad, tonight we tangle with the fire in the gut.
the downfall is the tremendous Grinding for lvls =.=