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Yeah this is just a beta, the full release is still a ways out.
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Nov 8, 2021 05:42
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I like the way the game looks and plays. The skills all feel pretty impactful and responsive and I like the graphics. The world is snappy and beautiful. ......but I don't want a 300 different types of currency laden cash shop bullshit fest. I'd much rather play this like PoE (minus currency) where there are a billion enemies on screen at a time exploding in piles of gibs as I plow through them. Ah well.
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Nov 8, 2021 05:54
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Givin posted:I like the way the game looks and plays. The skills all feel pretty impactful and responsive and I like the graphics. The world is snappy and beautiful. But it's not the same type of game as PoE? PoE is an action RPG. This is an MMORPG. Fundamentally they are different. Apparently you can more or less play the game and only worry about gold since gold can be used to get everything.
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Nov 8, 2021 06:44
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Something we noticed over the weekend: If you are planning on leveling together with someone, there are times you are going to get split up to do parts of the quests, like a separate instance from each other. Also, there are really weird phasing issues with party members that sometimes requires you to zone in-out again or just carry forward with quests alone until it fixes itself. The quest instancing seems to be by design, which to me is a poor choice for an MMO. Overall, from 10-30ish went very quick with a leveling buddy. Many of the quests are shared loot, however a few of them are pickup quests that required us to get our own. It is very random to how it calculates credit for quests when partied while leveling, but it didn't seem too annoying. As for the story, I have been trying to skip a lot of cutscenes and such to just level quickly. Doesn't seem too bad, but then again, I am used to WoW storylines which are garbage. 
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Nov 8, 2021 18:33
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I have spent a lot of time this weekend playing the end game, and understanding character progression and it's surrounding systems. The end game encounters are pretty drat fun, and I was totally surprised at how much love and detail goes into the animation work. I think my standout example is the iLevel 500 Scorpion Guardian. The animation work conveys so much personality and is super fun to watch. This is pretty consistent with a lot of these big bosses -- The art team is bringing their A-game. HOWEVER, this game is unbelievably P2W - It's way worse than my initial read was. Every time I start to understand another way to progress your character, I find out that some lynchpin material or reagent is tradeable. To be super clear here: Tradability in and of itself is not a problem - the problem only exists when you can convert USD into the currency that you trade with (which you can), and then use that currency to buy substantial player power. To be extra clear: I'm really OK with monthly 'subscription'-like services that convey some advantage, even if that advantage is player power. The problem is when the money pit is bottomless. The primary ingredients for upgrading your gear are Leap Stones and Guardian/Destruction Stones. Both of these come in a tradable form. Facet stones are hugely RNG, and also tradable. Jewelry is tradable. Every slot can be purchased with USD, and you will have to re-purchase all of it every time another 'tier' of content comes out as iLevel goes up. This is a huge shame. The end-game leaves a great impression and excites me for what could be here, but the P2W nature of all the gearing systems make this game DOA. I'll probably play out the beta, but I very much doubt I'll play retail unless you cannot convert USD into ever-increasing amounts of iLevel. Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 19:52
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I really don't think it's accurate to call this game P2W. You can definitely whale and Pay2Progress, but dumping money on its own isn't going to really win you anything. Gear doesn't matter in PvP at all (it's completely normalized), and if you can't do mechanics in raids no one will want to group with you as you'll constantly be wiping your party regardless of how sick your gear score is. The only place where you can potentially P2W in Lost Ark are the guild wars, which is a side content where gear score matters.
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Nov 8, 2021 20:03
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I want idiots to spend a ton of money to leap to high end gear in a PVE focused game with normalized PVP so their gear gets outdated in like 2 months because chances are they are going to go through breakneck speeds to try and catch up to korean releases. You know why? Because someone is furnishing those mats to them and someone is selling their gold for the whales gems so they can bling themselves up with cash shop items. Everyone wins except a subsect of grognards that spends way too much time in reddit.
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Nov 8, 2021 20:05
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yeah, this game is pretty far from "real" pay 2 win structures. just look at elyon for a comparison of a recent mmo release with a true pay 2 win issue. i can see the argument, but it really doesn't hold up when you look at how the items actually affect the market, pvp, and pve endgame. in addition, the developer (or amazon?) have also mentioned the cash shop is likely to change to suit the NA audience and expectations. so, its kinda moot when we really don't know how it will change before release. either way, the game is free to play with no subscription. looking at the options and calculating out what i might spend on shop items, it seems to be even cheaper than most other game purchases (40-60 per base game and expansion) and 15/month for sub. i rather play a game that is more respectful of my cash and allows me to buy something if i am one short or whatever. there are good reasons those type of shop items exist outside of a pay 2 win structure that a small majority of people might spend a stupid amount of money on. in the end, like all mmos, suprise... lost ark has a cash shop that can be manipulated in a way that makes it look more pay 2 win than it actually is. that is the issue with cash shop options and how they can be gamed. i wouldn't say it should detract from the game overall because you absolutely can put the time in to completely play for free. sometimes time is worth more than that, and having an option is nice than the opposite... forcing your playerbase to grind endlessly.
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Nov 8, 2021 20:15
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Western audiences view any cash shop that has more than cosmetics as “pay to win”, I think it’s mostly a semantics issue and they mean “pay to progress”. This is my experience reading many Reddit threads of different MMOs over the last few years. I’m not really against cash shops with some progression things in there if the game is fun enough and it doesn’t feel predatory. I’ve spent a good amount of cash on Dungeons and Dragons online to get xp faster, get stat bonuses, etc. Easily $200 plus a monthly sub and not a single cosmetic in there. The shop doesn’t feel predatory for the most part, while some other MMOs kind of build their game with cash-shop related progression in mind. The latter is what most people dislike, IMO.
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Nov 8, 2021 20:33
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I think it depends on what you have a problem with. If you dislike P2W because it allows someone to gain a tremendous direct competitive advantage against you in pvp, then no this game does not have that. If you dislike the pay to progress stuff because it feels really skeezy, brings down the game design by slowing everything down to accomadate for a faster lane, and also exploits people's poor spending decisions, then there's a lot to not like here. It's not as bad as gachas draining people of all of their money, and I doubt it'll go that direction with any changes, but there's still a lot of very dark greys going on here. I'm not sure how it's hard to understand why people would consider this particular cash shop not good. Even just being told it will take you probably a year of solid play to kit out *one* character, in a game that is designed around you funneling from alts, is gonna turn a lot of people off. The lack of being able to keep up unless you play consistently with no breaks was one of the big problems people kept bringing up with how wow's catchups work now. Lost Ark requires a lot of time to play at a sort of turning point where people are just tuning out of games that don't respect their time. It'd be simple to fix in a new cash shop, but whether they do that is another story. LITERALLY MY FETISH fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 20:50
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with the absolute disaster amazon put out with new world, i am interested to see if they apply anything they learned towards this game. the developers overall seem very excited to listen to western feedback, and i am sure how we view pay 2 win/progress options will be a part of that discussion. they do have a published recent business model, which is interesting if you are wanting to know more about plans for the store with the new release since the current in-game shop is not what we will see: https://www.playlostark.com/en-us/news/articles/lost-ark-business-model
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Nov 8, 2021 21:08
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Pragmatica posted:yeah, this game is pretty far from "real" pay 2 win structures.... I don't want to pick this apart, but it touches on so many fundamental problems that it's useful as a starting point. P2W does not have as clean of a definition as I'd like, but for the purpose of discussion, it seem that it's worth talking about. I define P2W as such: Being able to convert USD into 'substantial and meaningful' player power via upgrades or 'relevant time'. "Substantial and Meaningful" is checking if the upgrades are relevant to primary challanges of the game - progression content, pvp, etc. It doesn't really matter if you can convert USD to gold to buy leveling gear that stops mattering the second you hit max level. It does matter if you can buy gear that does have an effect on those challanges. In this case, PvP is normalized, so if you view the game through the lens of PvP exclusively, this doesn't even check that box, but if you are more interested in the PvE side, then there are problems. "Relevant Time" usually means being able to subvert a time-gated activity or lockout. An example of this NOT applying is buying a boost in FFXIV or WoW. You are boosting a character to max level minus 10, which doesn't actually ever put you in an advantageous position on the leveling stack that you couldn't reasonably get to without said boost. Hypothetically, if a new expansion in WoW comes out and you can immediately pay USD to boost to max level, then there is a problem since you can potentially get in an extra lockout worth of max level loot. You could in theory just grind out the 10 levels and still get the first lockout, but that's a substantial time commitment in a small window and your loot is lost if you don't get that first lockout -- That's now 'relevant time'. With that out of the way... -- First, not all MMOs are P2W and classifying them as such as disingenuous. FFXIV is squeaky clean and WoW varies from 'borderline' to 'relatively clean', with 8.3 being the worst state of P2W the game has even been in. This idea that a cash shop can influence player power in a substantial way is not universal, and that is demonstrably so - representing it otherwise is disingenuous. Second, the argument that 'you can just put in the time' is the same common argument provided by bad phone games. The phrase, 'you can earn all our rewards in game!' is plastered on such games at every opportunity, but the reality of doing so is another thing entirely. Frequently, you simply cannot. Other times, the time commitment is so intense that it is not practical to do so. Very rarely is it actually reasonable to earn the quantity of relevant purchasable goods by just playing the game. When WoW is at it's best, it's probably closest to this any game has been, but again 8.3 is a patch that ought not be forgotten. Lost Ark's biggest sin though is not buying convenience, but buying time-gated materials. Finally, I really want to talk about this: quote:sometimes time is worth more than that, and having an option is nice than the opposite... forcing your playerbase to grind endlessly. The idea of, 'pay for convenience or grind endlessly' is not a binary that has to exist. This is a classic trick where a developer creates a problem just to sell a solution. The actual solution here is to not to grind (or buy) your way out of the problem, but to not introduce the problem in the first place. The problem only exists to get people to spend money. These are really common trappings I see over and over again, and it doesn't need to be this way. It seems to be the default that people either apologize for them, dismiss them as some flavor of 'unimportant', or reshape them into something that *needs* to exist (despite a slew of very successful games existing that don't have them). These things damage the integrity of the game, and as you chip away at that, problems emerge. -- Something with way more nuance I want to talk about here: quote:if you can't do mechanics in raids no one will want to group with you as you'll constantly be wiping your party regardless of how sick your gear score is. Execution is a piece of the puzzle, but having the gear to actually complete the fight reasonably is also important, and arguably more so. There are a ton of problems with opening the door to P2W stuff when it comes to encounters. Your tuning targets are going to always be wrong for some subset of players since you can't tune for players that are paying for gear and players who aren't at the same time, and the delta is substantial. Being able to pay for throughput also frames the various damage checks in a pretty hosed up way. If you can make checks in less time, that has a huge impact in actual difficulty of execution. This is something that any serious WoW raider will echo: If you can just make damage checks to skip mechanics, that's a massive boon. Lost Ark is full of these kinds of checks, so playing with an extra 60 iLevel, and superior jewelry / stones translates to a fight that ends up being not only faster, but easier to execute as a consequence, which makes that tuning target so confusing. Compare this to FFXIV, which has tight systems (for better or worse) against bosses that are 100% scheduled. The consequence is that they get to identify ultra clear tuning targets and can then provide a consistent experience for any players experiencing that content in a given window of time. There are different consequences to this that you may like or not, but the point here is that the content ends up being tuned, fair and consistent which are desirable traits for this kind of content. The real wild card here is going to be normalized PvE. Hell mode and such exist and depending if you have to do a bunch of crap to get to those, that's a bummer, but if I can just push a character to max and do nothing but normalized PvE, then everything else doesn't really matter. -- All this is to say that at the end of the day, you do you. I have a buddy who insists that there is no such thing as P2W in any game as long as you can eventually earn the rewards by just playing (even if the time scale can be measured in literal decades). That's obviously a lost cause, but I really encourage folks to think about the game systems and how they affect game content, presentation, and integrity. Also think very hard about what you are being asked to buy and why. If PvP is your jam, then go nuts because it seems like the worst offenders here don't apply, but Lost Ark is definitely P2W if you are engaging primarily with PvE content. Here's hoping Hell Modes aren't scuffed. Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 21:16
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:All this is to say that at the end of the day, you do you. Canine Blues Arooo - i see you are very serious about this pay 2 win thing, and i am very much not interested in an extreme in-depth analysis as my background in pay 2 win MMOs is very limited as well as my time. i don't want to derail this thread anymore with comparisons because i literally had to warn the Shadowlands thread a couple weeks ago that this is really something people are always going to disagree on because it is very difficult to define as shown in a few replies so far... some models are very predatory, and some are trying to give players more options to require less time in game, and its weird gray area. a very "lets just agree to disagree" sort of thing i don't have time to get into when i could be playing the beta!!! so, anyway, good chat and i will just say "game is fun. i hope to see some of you during release." 
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Nov 8, 2021 21:22
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since i like these guide things, and i know others do too, here are a few useful ones I have bookmarked now. classes: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1arfAtnxpp4JIizXpcRYxgvd22vEE7OhJhDsGyJv40Ok/edit#gid=1878505552 a main guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oci4R6IkwiQoVhGH8IHwFIS33dVS7hQv2Z-sljRrmcE/edit#heading=h.qhp616gvk39d big FAQ thing: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rhQ3LbtfAdpaEyjXm8rqVUF2yBTrTi25n1u-iVcw3eE/edit more guides: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/105vo_EVxb6KpaHB30j7t3ZeSC8U4nM4Gj2j5uRac1U4/edit#gid=91046303 also, the main discord (not the amazon one) is full of really helpful people and the pinned messages have a lot of information. however, remember a lot of it only applies to the released game and may be changing for the new release.
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Nov 8, 2021 21:40
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I'm not that bothered by some hyper-whale paying me a fistful of premium gemeralds to get my upgrade materials, so that he can ram into the ilvl cap a few weeks faster than everyone else. I'd be bothered if the game were meticulously calculated to be painful unless you're dumping your wallet into this system, or if there were any context in which I am somehow losing out by not being able to compete with the whales, but there seems to be pretty robust testimony from KR players that it just isn't the case. If I ever get to difficult endgame content it will either be with chill goons, or with strangers in a game that has no DPS meters. Scoss fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 22:10
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Scoss posted:If I ever get to difficult endgame content it will either be with chill goons, or with strangers in a game that has no DPS meters. Great news, there is no DPS meter outside of the training area, and the devs have specifically stated there will never be a DPS meter implemented because they feel people would get stupid toxic over it (they're correct) Also to add to the guides, this website has a ton of useful information about the game on a variety of subjects, including a game map that shows you the location of collectables https://papunika.com/ Elroy Jetson fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 22:34
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Elroy Jetson posted:Great news, there is no DPS meter outside of the training area, and the devs have specifically stated there will never be a DPS meter implemented because they feel people would get stupid toxic over it (they're correct) Holy moley that site is great. Really explains the end game in terms that aren't so complicated.
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Nov 8, 2021 23:18
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Scoss posted:I'm not that bothered by some hyper-whale paying me a fistful of premium gemeralds to get my upgrade materials, so that he can ram into the ilvl cap a few weeks faster than everyone else. Yeah a ton of actual korean players tell you that you dont even need to have alts, it helps if you want to stay F2P AND be on the absolute bleeding edge of progression during new raids Which isnt even uncommon in western MMOs. The absolute elite of WoW and FFXIV raiders all run alts to feed resources and drops for their main and in the case of WoW the same sort of mechanic already exists to pay for gold that they can then turn around for expensive consumables that your raid will be burning through with each attempt. And even if the mechanic didnt exist, unless they completely lock down trading like they do in BDO, they'll just find a third party vendor to buy those resources from.
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Nov 8, 2021 23:58
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Cao Ni Ma posted:Yeah a ton of actual korean players tell you that you dont even need to have alts, it helps if you want to stay F2P AND be on the absolute bleeding edge of progression during new raids Korean players have a much higher threshold of being willing to grind stuff, though. It's a case of waiting and seeing, I think. As is, it's definitely got a flavor of "Creating a problem to sell the solution" that people may or may not find distasteful, and they might change that for the western launch.
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Nov 9, 2021 00:04
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:First, not all MMOs are P2W and classifying them as such as disingenuous. FFXIV is squeaky clean and WoW varies from 'borderline' to 'relatively clean', with 8.3 being the worst state of P2W the game has even been in. This idea that a cash shop can influence player power in a substantial way is not universal, and that is demonstrably so - representing it otherwise is disingenuous. Actually, every MMO is technically P2W. The reason is that I do not know of an MMO that stops RMT account selling. Even MMOs with a subscription model don't even check to see if the payee's details change.
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Nov 9, 2021 00:32
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:Korean players have a much higher threshold of being willing to grind stuff, though. They are saying that you dont need to grind on multiple characters, this has nothing to do with them being more resilient to that type of gameplay. If they were saying "ah well grinding on 3 characters for progression isnt really bad" then you'd have a point, but this is people straight up saying "No, you dont have to unless you want to be on the bleeding edge of progression groups" And I dont see them changing the shop, them changing more things to use blue gems is an indication they want more F2Pers to have access to stuff that was exclusive to paying customers, and SOMEONE has to pay for it.
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Nov 9, 2021 00:42
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I'm trying to decide what to boost. How long does the boost process take? Got my Shadowhunter to 50 and I'm contemplating a pally or bard to boost. I then want to get 2 other characters to 20 before it ends of Thursday.
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Nov 9, 2021 01:54
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Zotix posted:I'm trying to decide what to boost. How long does the boost process take? Got my Shadowhunter to 50 and I'm contemplating a pally or bard to boost. I then want to get 2 other characters to 20 before it ends of Thursday. Boost is basically instant. There's little scenarios you can do but you can just skip them all.
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Nov 9, 2021 06:00
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What's the point of Kindness stat as well as the others? Do they do anything? Also some of the cards you can equip have bonuses that just say 8%. 8% to what?
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Nov 9, 2021 20:56
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poemdexter posted:What's the point of Kindness stat as well as the others? Do they do anything? Also some of the cards you can equip have bonuses that just say 8%. 8% to what? i don't know what Kindness does, but the cards aren't all localized yet.
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Nov 9, 2021 21:36
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So I just saw the ranked pvp is solo queue only? Is that right?
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Nov 9, 2021 22:48
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... this game seems aggressively overrated. Hilariously crappy quests, low-quality cutscenes with bad animations, bad voice acting, and an in-game shop that sells upgrade materials. Combat is ok but that's about it? People say this is not P2W because PVP is normalized but I think this is going to be another Blade and Soul situation where if you are not seriously geared up for PVE you are going to get constantly kicked out of lobbies and whined about by whales.
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Nov 10, 2021 00:14
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Det_no posted:... this game seems aggressively overrated. Hilariously crappy quests, low-quality cutscenes with bad animations, bad voice acting, and an in-game shop that sells upgrade materials. Combat is ok but that's about it? People say this is not P2W because PVP is normalized but I think this is going to be another Blade and Soul situation where if you are not seriously geared up for PVE you are going to get constantly kicked out of lobbies and whined about by whales. So WoW?
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Nov 10, 2021 00:17
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Det_no posted:... this game seems aggressively overrated. Hilariously crappy quests, low-quality cutscenes with bad animations, bad voice acting, and an in-game shop that sells upgrade materials. Combat is ok but that's about it? People say this is not P2W because PVP is normalized but I think this is going to be another Blade and Soul situation where if you are not seriously geared up for PVE you are going to get constantly kicked out of lobbies and whined about by whales. I've said my piece about P2W, but while basically everything is the leveling experience is total trash, the end game bosses have outstanding animation work - best in class work has been done here. Credit where credit is due here.
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Nov 10, 2021 00:49
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:I've said my piece about P2W, but while basically everything is the leveling experience is total trash, the end game bosses have outstanding animation work - best in class work has been done here. Credit where credit is due here. The story gets better and better. If someone only played to 22-25 I can see their point. It's constantly Armin running in to save you. But the story opens up quite a bit after that.
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Nov 10, 2021 01:05
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The world is so generic which is a huge problem in my opinion. Granted I'm still below 20, so maybe that does change but nothing I've seen so far entices me to ever not skip cutscenes. I've said it before but I wish the game was more Diablo like and just about fighting monsters.
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Nov 10, 2021 19:11
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NPC: "I'm half demon, and I must be careful not to use this power, even for good, or else it may ultimately destroy me!" My dumb Shadow Hunter rear end: ...
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Nov 10, 2021 19:38
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Uh... my summoner's "pants" aren't really pants. I only noticed this because my new chest armor is a dress that purposefully splits at the bottom so you can see that you aren't wearing pants. Can I get some pants for my summoner? My "pants" provide good physical armor but only if you try to hit me square in the butthole.
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Nov 10, 2021 19:44
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Cease to Hope posted:NPC: "I'm half demon, and I must be careful not to use this power, even for good, or else it may ultimately destroy me!" My dumb Summoner rear end: *runs around in underwear shooting birds at everything*
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Nov 10, 2021 19:45
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poemdexter posted:Uh... my summoner's "pants" aren't really pants. I only noticed this because my new chest armor is a dress that purposefully splits at the bottom so you can see that you aren't wearing pants. Can I get some pants for my summoner? This is good for pvp because everything will be trying to get entirely inside your rear end in a top hat nonstop
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Nov 10, 2021 19:59
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Eimi posted:The world is so generic which is a huge problem in my opinion. Granted I'm still below 20, so maybe that does change but nothing I've seen so far entices me to ever not skip cutscenes. I've said it before but I wish the game was more Diablo like and just about fighting monsters. You're level 20. Through the rest of the game that I played you get honey I shrunk the kids, Enter the Dragon, and Steampunk.
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Nov 10, 2021 22:12
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Eimi posted:The world is so generic which is a huge problem in my opinion. Granted I'm still below 20, so maybe that does change but nothing I've seen so far entices me to ever not skip cutscenes. I've said it before but I wish the game was more Diablo like and just about fighting monsters. It definitely gets better, and leans very heavy i to dark fantasy stuff, especially, and surprisingly, Berserk. Big ebbs and flows though, everything before Moria is forgettable and awful.
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Nov 10, 2021 22:58
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Zotix posted:You're level 20. Through the rest of the game that I played you get honey I shrunk the kids, Enter the Dragon, and Steampunk. and Gathering of the Juggalos
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Nov 10, 2021 22:59
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Zotix posted:You're level 20. Through the rest of the game that I played you get honey I shrunk the kids, Enter the Dragon, and Steampunk. Well those are quite a bit of tonal shifts that at the least, don't sound boring.
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Nov 10, 2021 23:45
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Eimi posted:Well those are quite a bit of tonal shifts that at the least, don't sound boring. Yeah, the set changes in this game are loving wild.
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Nov 10, 2021 23:47
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