[BE88] The Strategist

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Updates stopped for this blog. Last post 20 August 2013.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Well, I've been playing Runes of Magic for almost 2 weeks now, and I have to say that the game has potential. Currently, its one of the best free to play MMORPGs I've ever played, but I feel that its still rather broken and the fun factor is killed because of that.

What they have done right is that the usual grinding you have in MMORPGs is almost eliminated. You have to level up by doing quests, just like in WoW. This makes it fun enough, and the occasional world bosses that you have to kill will kind of force you to find a group. The community is surprisingly decent, and there are no idiots you usually see in free MMOs. Leveling isn't too slow, skill progression is fine, and crafting is a little draggy, but still bearable. The size of the map is good enough so that travelling isn't a pain, and teleporters are found in cities so that you can navigate around the city is the shortest possible time.

This all sounds great, but what makes me feel that its so broken?

The classes. Currently now there are six classes to choose from, with two more new classes coming in sometime in the future. The classes are rather standard: warrior, rogue, scout, mage, priest, and knight. Usually in an MMORPG, the classes will be balanced some way or another, and they will have a unique twist to their class. Some classes will provide damage (DPS/RDPS), some will heal, some will tank, and some will provide several crowd control (CC) abilities. If one class has lower DPS than another, then that class will usually have something to make up for it. The problem is, classes here aren't balanced in terms of capabilities.

First, a breakdown on what each class is for:
Warrior: DPS
Rogue: DPS
Scout (ranger): DPS/CC
Mage: DPS
Priest: Heal/buff
Knight: Tank

So there is a relatively large amount of DPS classes in the game. The problem is, only two out of the four classes seem to be a good choice for DPS. The warrior and scout are practically useless. Apparently the scout can only shoot when the creep is not near him, and should melee once in range. About 80% of the warrior's skills only work when you use a one-handed weapon (and who the hell uses a one-handed weapon as DPS?). The knight is a pain in the butt to level. Sure, he isn't made to DPS, but why make their life annoyingly difficult? Why does the knight have to take 30 seconds to kill a creep when the mage takes at most 10 seconds? And the mage loses at most, 10% of their HP.

I'm sure you can see that I'm not very happy with the game right now, and I'm considering waiting a few weeks or maybe months before I go back again. I'm currently a mage+priest (you can take 2 classes in this game), but honestly, its not what I want to be. I'm rather sick of DPSing in MMORPGs now, and I'd like to be a tank. And the aggro system is screwed up as well. Gah.

Well, yeah, you can take two classes when you play. Shouldn't that even out unbalances? Unfortunately, to do that, you seem to be forced to take another certain class. Lets talk about that warrior. 80% of a warrior's skills need you to use a one-handed weapon for maximum effect. And a rogue as a secondary class allow you to dual-wield, hence you use a one-handed weapon. And so most warriors become warrior+rogue.

Sometimes, even taking a secondary class will not even out the unbalance. A secondary class for a knight sounds like either or warrior, priest, or rogue. A warrior will be good, if not for the screwed up rage generation system, and so, the knight's DPS remains low. A priest brings insane longevity to the knight, but that doesn't solve the knight's DPS problem. A rogue seems great, as it has the best melee DPS. The knight will even be able to dual-wield later on. Most of the damage doing skills are disabled as a rogue secondary, and so the knight's DPS improves only slightly. However, a knight+rogue's HP is far less than a knight+warrior. But a knight+warrior is definitely more of a pain to level up than a knight+rogue.

So, if I can't be what I want to be in an MMORPG, then the fun is lost. If I go ahead and play what I want, but get pissed off about how it works, then I don't get any fun as well. So, what do I do? Quit? Wait? Play in agony with a screwed up class? Play a good class but one that I don't want to play?

posted @ 10:44 pm
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