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So far, it delivers.
Figured I'd made a "long" post about feedback on the game since it just entered CBT today (as of 6 PM) and is now down for schedule maintenance .
TL:DR - So far I had fun, few things bothered me, but nothing major that made the experience gamebreaking for me.
So far, I think it's been quite a while since I had that much fun in an MMO. The ability to pretty much just grab whatever I want and use it against my opponents (including my opponents themselves) is quite....awesome.
Good introduction. It starts with a cutscene and then you start in the action. A keyboard shows up with the commands and also a small animation to show the animation of the combat (helps to know if you are doing it right). You can't die during the prologue it seems.
Combat gameplay is pretty easy to learn. I played as Fiona (Sword/Hammer and Shield character) which is considered as a "medium" difficulty character. Lann (Dual Sword/Spears) is "Easy" difficulty character. So far, very easy to pick up and play, the learning curve is "decent", quest difficulty scales rather quickly once you reach level 5. Any quest below that are very easy to solo, but your first quest starting level 5 might require at least 2 players. (I'm currently level 6). (The game appears to gear towards group-play. The party-system seems decent enough so there should be no issue finding groups)
Classes are gender-locked. Customization is limited to Height, Facial Expression (5 different types), hair, hair colors, eyes colors, skin colors, eyebrows (8 different type) and Breast Size for female character. I'm not kidding on that last one, and while the sizes are not overeagerated, I wonder if such option was really "necessary". Additional customization can be gained through the various armors that are in the game. Cash Shop will also offer Avatar items it seems.
UI is a little confusing, you need to press Esc or Alt to go into that "menu" mode where you can hover your mouse around (instead of the camera). Ain't too hard to get used to. I used the Mouse+Keyboard control option. There's another option which involves only the keyboard. The inventory gets a little confusing once you get too many items and while you gain extra storage from a quest, I had to "tidy up" my inventory to keep everything clean.
Skill are learned through Books that you must buy. After which you must gain SP to level up these skills (SP is gained by completing a Dungeon). There's really not enough skills in my opinion, all the skills you will be buying are Passives that increase a Stats, allows you to use a specific armor, shield or weapon type, etc. There's no skill hot-bar or anything ( I believe there will be one once Mages are released).
The game is quest-based. You will get A LOT of quests, but since you will be running the same dungeon more than once to acquire crafting materials and such, it's really not an issue and you'll complete your quests as you play. Completing quest also seem to unlock higher "tier" weapon/armor/crafting recipes. The rewards are pretty good too.
Dungeons. One thing I really like about Dungeons that I felt was lacking in a game like DDO was randomly-generated dungeons. Vindictus dungeons are randomly generated maps, which does increase the replayability a little. Dungeons have 3 difficulty (Normal, Advance, Hard which is unlocked later on). I personally haven't given Advance a chance yet and played mostly on normal. You can only run a limited amount of dungeons per day, though since this is CBT, they removed the requirement but if I'm right, you can clear 25 dungeons per day (A dungeon can last from 10-30 minutes+ from what I've seen so far), but there seems to be a possibility to buy more "Tokens" through Cash Shop.
In dungeons you can only carry a set amount of items with you. 4 potions, 3 Feathers (Revives a Friendly), 4 Repair Kit (Your armor often break in dungeons, causing you to lose a lot of defense), 7 Spears/Explosives (both throwable) or Grappling Hook (often used against boss to somewhat keep them under control while friendlies attack him). You may drop items throughtout the dungeon that will recover a small amount of HP by breaking most items on the ground, there's also a large pot that appears once/twice per dungeon that will drop several of those items. (Do note that they only recover the health of the person who picks them up). As far as difficulty goes, the creeps are very easy to handle, the bosses are a different matter and often will require a party as teamwork is "key" in Vindictus.
Crafting. Pretty much every item in the game appears to be craftable. Monsters does not drop armor/weapons, only materials used in Crafting. Crafted items are more powerfull than the items you can buy from the NPCs. There is no "Craft" Skill, all crafting process are handled by specific NPCs at the Blacksmith, General Store and Magic Store.
Storyline. So far, it's decent. There is a storyline that does make sense, unlike certain games. Somewhat reminded me of Guild Wars, but I'm only level 6 so will it get better? will it get worse? I can't say for sure, but it seems to be heading in the right direction. The story has a few irish mythology elements such as the Fomorians (wiki) who attempts to destroy the human race and other mythological creatures (I've only seen Gnolls so far).
Bugs. There has been bugs, so far I've only encountered 1, which happened once. There has also been trouble with the installer using Pando Media Booster (Better to use Manual Download instead) but other than that, haven't seen anything special nor gamebreaking. My play-time has been limited due to Schedule Maintenance so it's likely that I will meet more bugs in the near future.
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That's all I can think of so far. Might edit later if I think of anything else that I forgot about. Or might turn this into a day-to-day experience, will see. This is still Closed-Beta so characters will be deleted once it's over and some changes will likely be brought to the game before it enters Open Beta. So take it for what it's worth.
Comments
Yes, it is.
That is all.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Lol. I love understatement. I sure am wondering how your large posts look like
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Guess I'll fix it, didn't realize my post was this long. Happen sometimes when I want to just write something quick and small but end up taking a long time and write a book.
EDIT: Oh, someone else had the same idea and beat me to it!
Thanks for the write up, I've been waiting for someone to do a write up on this game.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
PortiaBell beated me to it, here's her thread. My First Hour of Vindictus CBT
She has a more detailed post on features that I haven't said much about (such as how the skills works and such)
EDIT: For poster below, my bad. I corrected my mistake
Portiabell = She
And thanks for linking ^^
Sort of a Day 2 update.
I got to go a bit deeper into the crafting system. Currently the Market is unavailable so you pretty much have to farm all the materials by yourself but regardless, the fact that the best items are (for the most part of it) not sold by NPCs nor dropped by monster, is something that I personally like (I craft a lot in most MMOs I play). So far, the materials aren't "so bad" to get, takes a while for some rarer items, but not too bad either. Not all items can be crafted though.
One thing I noticed and that I found really interesting is that certain bosses will drop a specific item at 100% drop rate if you defeat him in a specific way or destroy a specific part of his armor.
Small "spoiler" so don't read if you don't want to: If you attack the Gnoll Chieftain's head 2-3 times by throwing items around you (throwable spears works too), you will destroy his helmet and gain Crimson Rage Helmet (Which is the only part of the set that cannot be crafted), but by destroying his helmet, you have a 100% drop rate on the helmet. It's something I found really interesting.
Spoiler is over.
Moving on, the difficulty of Vindictus is suprisingly hard, but it's really fun. It's fairly easy to find a group and team-work is near a "must" to overcome even the lower level bosses (starting at level 5). Having someone use his Grappling Hook at the Boss's feet to make him fall down while other players spam the boss with attacks. Throwing boulders to "stun" the boss, etc. There is no self-revive option with the exception of Cash Shop (Characters level 5 and below have infinite lives). But each players may carry up to 3 Feathers (think Pheonix Feathers) and 1 Party Feathers to revive your team mates. With a good party, you might not even use a single Feather.
Questing. Got a little deeper into the questing system. To realize that questing in Vindictus had more rewards than the traditional quest MMORPG. By completing various quests, you will gain not only gold, EXP and items, but also Permanent Bonus to certain stats, and also Titles that will give you bonuses to your stats when used. I think it's a really interesting incentive. The Quest tab is pretty easy to understand and use, so no problem here. As for leveling, as long as you do your quests, you'll have no issue leveling.
Also, in my first post, I mentionned that Dungeons would require Tokens to enter, but there was no Token Cost for the CBT. I was wrong. The first area has no Token cost AT ALL. Which means you can run it over and over again on various difficulties (Normal, Hard, Advance) and also complete Oath Quests for additional points (Oath quests are for exemple "Clear this dungeon in <5 minutes" or "Don't drink a potion", etc) . Any other area will cost 2 Tokens. Every week you receive 50 Silver Token, but it is possible to gain more in different ways. Revive a player with a Feather rewards you with an item that you can trade for Silver Token. That's all I know so far, haven't been able to check any further. Platinum seems to be the Cash Shop Token, it only cost 1 Platinum Token to enter a dungeon.
Pretty much it for now. Really enjoying the time spent in Vindictus, though since it's CBT there will be a wipe but oh well. Definitively an interesting game, but I have the feeling it might get boring quickly if played for "too long". Seems geared more toward Casual gameplay, with a party-system easy to use so that grouping isn't an issue.