megaten closed beta

Perisie

how are you finding it?

ive just started...

 

+ mabinogi gameplay except you dont die in 1 hit

+ great graphics so far (newbie stage still)

+ click to move (well i prefer it)

+ very nicely presented so far (storyline, dialogues)

 

- click to target (no autotarget or scroll)

- no antialiasing, terrible resolution

- no pk

- crap and pointless with ZERO lategame content and cashshop gives INSANE benefits (all according to japanese review)

- insane lag (which makes the mabinogi combat impossible)

 

o/c you can ignore some of these since its just been released

Tecknic

Well it is beta.  If this was the full release then these issues would be more of a problem, but being in beta means that they still have time to patch up things.  At least, you'ld hope so.

micona

I rather play persona3 than this tbh , i know it's in beta but it lacks the great story P3 and P4 has .

I have my doubt on this one and where it might be going as an mmo .

Printscreen

I have to agree with the op...me and a friend both got in closed beta because i'm always interested in trying any game in beta (for the most part), and everything you listed is practically dead on.

There is NO content or motivation for endgame, while we were playing we found a quest where you can repeat over and over that pays alot, and we managed to get Endgame weapons & armor totalling more than 500,000 in a few hours of work at lvl 8-9. We manage to solo endgame mobs and dungeons while others needed to party...

what's the fun in being able to 2-3 hit endgame mobs at level 8 and 9? when the cap is like 60 or something.

Perisie

there IS no direction for this game, its a pure money maker

doesnt mean it cant be fun o/c (i had a field day with mabinogi ...well field 4-5 days before i got bored. that was purely for the combat system and customisation. once i realised it was just a dungeon grind i quit. especially since it was right after id spent GOD knows how many hours in 2M's nunvice solo dungeon)

what these games do right:

+ great interactive combat theory

+ nice suitable graphics

+ customisation (clothing)

what they do wrong:

- everything else

 

i play them the same reason as you do: "exploration" which more often than not is "software exploration" rather than actually exploring the vastness of the game =/

 

let me paste this:

http://www.mymmogames.net/forum/megaten-general-chat/31578-sad-facts-about-smt.html

Currently Imagine has 5 towns, 5 fields and 6 dungeons:

Towns:

3rd Home

Shinjuku Babel

Arcadia

Souhonzan

Protopia

Fields:

Suginami

Nakano

Shibuya

Ichigaya

Shinagawa

Dungeons:

Suginami Mine

Ichigaya Garrison

Shibuya Quartz

Cell Tower

Suzaku Caverns

Shinagawa Catacombs

In terms of towns, other than repairs/supplies, there isn’t a point to head of to Arcadia/Souhonzan/Protopia so people tend to gather around 3rd home or Shinjuku, depending on which dungeon they are hunting in.

In terms of fields, no one hunts there, less Shinagawa during new moons, since the xp field mobs gives are much lower than those in the dungeons, and the fields hardly have any mobs above level 30.

In terms of dungeons, Imagine has this concept of bronze/silver/gold version of a dungeon. The map is the same for all 3 version, just that the mobs that populate it are different, and there may be a slight mechanic difference.

Other than Suginami Mines and Ichigaya Garrison, the other dungeons suffer from long empty hallways and/or low mob density issues. You end up spending more time walking around, rather than fighting if you try to xp in a dungeon other than Ichigaya or Suginami.

Also, they are currently only 2 gold level dungeons, which are once again Ichigaya and Suginami.

Questing for xp is a nonexistent concept since there are close to 0 quests in the game, other than the main storyline quest they call acts.

In terms of items, practically nothing is better than CP items, or items gotten from their item malls. A lot of things are tied to their item mall as well, including things like weapon manufacturing and items enchanting.

Due to rampart RMTing on the JP servers, it’s possible to get some common CP items using makka, the in-game currency. But until fairly recently, makka has very little worth as you make way more makka than you spend them, resulting in everyone easily having millions stocked up.

In addition to the above, Cave, Imagine’s developer has an “interesting” twist to your usual item malls: fortune cards.

It’s basically a form of lottery. There is a list of possible rewards, and you get a random reward from the list each time you attempt it. They usually last for a month before they change the rewards.

Out of this list, some are rare rewards, some are common rewards and some are super common rewards etc…

1 CP is the equivalent of 10 yen or US$0.10.

There are currently 6 different fortune cards line up, and the cheapest one cost 15CP or US$1.50 a try and the most expensive one cost 60CP or US$6.00 a try.

They also held “special” fortune cards sometimes, e.g. currently, there’s a fortune card that cost 300cp, or US$30 a try.

The top reward usually have a 2-4% chance of it happening, which means that on average, you have to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get them, and you have a limited time to “play” the lottery before they are gone.

The gold level dungeons are tuned to a certain gear level and in order to reach that, items from lotteries are needed as there are no non-cp alternatives. e.g. things like material sequencers which prevent your weapon from exploding on a failed modification etc…

Armor/weapon from lotteries are also significantly stronger than their non-cp counterparts.

A normal melee ring adds +3 str. A cp lottery ring adds +15% melee damage and 5% xp.

Normal armor has 0 effects, cp armor can have something like +10% melee damage, +20% more damage against certain mobs.

There are 3 main character archetype in the game, melee, gunners and mages.

At the beginning till around August 2007, melee are fairly weak as they don’t have easy access to elemental weapons. Once they have them however, they start to elapse past gunners/mages in terms of DPS and survivability.

Melee are now capable of doing single/AE version of nearly every damage type. Gunner are limited to single target and mages are limited to only single/AE version of 4 damage type; fire/ice/lightning/wind.

This imbalance was pretty obvious when people ran suginami gold but is sort of resolved itself when it comes to ichigaya gold as fire damage is about the only thing needed in there, and AE damage isn’t that important.

Still, melee continue to complain that they are underpowered in both the English and Japanese community and as a result, lotteries are tuned more towards them, widening the gap between melee and the rest.

Thankfully there isn’t any pvp, or melee will probably dominate everyone.

The level grind past 85 is pretty horrid as well:

85 97,400,000

86 110,050,000

87 162,000,000

88 264,000,000

89 354,000,000

90 696,409,989

91 1,392,819,977

92 2,089,229,966

You need around 2b xp to level from 92 to 93, the current cap. 2b xp is enough to get you from 1->89. 1 round of ichigaya gold bring around 500k-600k xp. You will need about 4178 rounds to clear 92->93. 1 round take about 5-10mins to clear at max efficiency.

This 5-10mins efficiency can only be reach if everyone in the party uses CP run speed/damage increasing items.

4178 * 5 => 20890 minutes or 348 hrs. Even if you spam 5x xp up for 30mins fragrance from the lotteries, it’s still 69hrs.

Without CP consumables, a full group will clear the place in around 10-15mins, effectively doubling the time required to a hefty 696hrs.

Can’t field a full party all the time? Increase that to 15-20mins a round, resulting in 1044hrs.

If you play for 4hrs a day, it’ll take you 261 days to clear 92 to 93.

Even at max efficiency, unless you play way more than 4hrs a day, it’ll take you a good 87 days to clear 92 to 93.

There isn’t that much of a point to hit max level either. You tend to max out your main combat stat around mid 60s and you only get a fairly minimal damage boast every 10 levels. There are currently no devils above 85 either and devils as a whole are useless, except to attract mob attention.

A lot of people intending to play the English version think that they can rear up a particular devil they like and use it forever. Unfortunately that isn’t true.

If you run sugi gold, you will use a devil capable of using fog breath and/or void/resist piercing attacks.

If you run ichigaya gold, you will use a devil that void magical/psyche attacks and/or one that voids ice.

Use anything else and your devil will be dead most of the time, unless you intend to leech xp off other people.

There are of course bugs that exist since the JP closed beta that has yet to be fixed.

Offhand, pathing issue around the door in Ichigaya’s boss room is one.

Characters/devils being unable to move after using a skill with charge time is another.

Not zoning correctly as well.

To summarize: Cave is just out to maximize profits with their lotteries.

There are hardly any content and they aren’t making much of an effort to improve them.

There isn’t any PvP and the difference between a level 65 char and a level 93 one is minimal.

Literally the ONLY thing to do in here is to grind to max level, wait for cap to be raise, then grind again.

Play Imagine only if you can stand the above.

Currently, on the JP server, the 80+ population has significantly reduced, but what do I know about high level gameplay? I’m “only” level 88 and my alt is level 85…

I wonder how many fanbois will look at this post with rose-tinted glasses and bash me for this post.

 

micona

Originally posted by Perisie


there IS no direction for this game, its a pure money maker
doesnt mean it cant be fun o/c (i had a field day with mabinogi ...well field 4-5 days before i got bored. that was purely for the combat system and customisation. once i realised it was just a dungeon grind i quit. especially since it was right after id spent GOD knows how many hours in 2M's nunvice solo dungeon)
what these games do right:
+ great interactive combat theory
+ nice suitable graphics
+ customisation (clothing)
what they do wrong:
- everything else
 
i play them the same reason as you do: "exploration" which more often than not is "software exploration" rather than actually exploring the vastness of the game =/
 
let me paste this:
http://www.mymmogames.net/forum/megaten-general-chat/31578-sad-facts-about-smt.html
Currently Imagine has 5 towns, 5 fields and 6 dungeons:
Towns:

3rd Home

Shinjuku Babel

Arcadia

Souhonzan

Protopia
Fields:

Suginami

Nakano

Shibuya

Ichigaya

Shinagawa
Dungeons:

Suginami Mine

Ichigaya Garrison

Shibuya Quartz

Cell Tower

Suzaku Caverns

Shinagawa Catacombs
In terms of towns, other than repairs/supplies, there isn’t a point to head of to Arcadia/Souhonzan/Protopia so people tend to gather around 3rd home or Shinjuku, depending on which dungeon they are hunting in.
In terms of fields, no one hunts there, less Shinagawa during new moons, since the xp field mobs gives are much lower than those in the dungeons, and the fields hardly have any mobs above level 30.
In terms of dungeons, Imagine has this concept of bronze/silver/gold version of a dungeon. The map is the same for all 3 version, just that the mobs that populate it are different, and there may be a slight mechanic difference.
Other than Suginami Mines and Ichigaya Garrison, the other dungeons suffer from long empty hallways and/or low mob density issues. You end up spending more time walking around, rather than fighting if you try to xp in a dungeon other than Ichigaya or Suginami.
Also, they are currently only 2 gold level dungeons, which are once again Ichigaya and Suginami.
Questing for xp is a nonexistent concept since there are close to 0 quests in the game, other than the main storyline quest they call acts.
In terms of items, practically nothing is better than CP items, or items gotten from their item malls. A lot of things are tied to their item mall as well, including things like weapon manufacturing and items enchanting.
Due to rampart RMTing on the JP servers, it’s possible to get some common CP items using makka, the in-game currency. But until fairly recently, makka has very little worth as you make way more makka than you spend them, resulting in everyone easily having millions stocked up.
In addition to the above, Cave, Imagine’s developer has an “interesting” twist to your usual item malls: fortune cards.
It’s basically a form of lottery. There is a list of possible rewards, and you get a random reward from the list each time you attempt it. They usually last for a month before they change the rewards.
Out of this list, some are rare rewards, some are common rewards and some are super common rewards etc…
1 CP is the equivalent of 10 yen or US$0.10.
There are currently 6 different fortune cards line up, and the cheapest one cost 15CP or US$1.50 a try and the most expensive one cost 60CP or US$6.00 a try.
They also held “special” fortune cards sometimes, e.g. currently, there’s a fortune card that cost 300cp, or US$30 a try.
The top reward usually have a 2-4% chance of it happening, which means that on average, you have to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get them, and you have a limited time to “play” the lottery before they are gone.
The gold level dungeons are tuned to a certain gear level and in order to reach that, items from lotteries are needed as there are no non-cp alternatives. e.g. things like material sequencers which prevent your weapon from exploding on a failed modification etc…
Armor/weapon from lotteries are also significantly stronger than their non-cp counterparts.

A normal melee ring adds +3 str. A cp lottery ring adds +15% melee damage and 5% xp.

Normal armor has 0 effects, cp armor can have something like +10% melee damage, +20% more damage against certain mobs.
There are 3 main character archetype in the game, melee, gunners and mages.
At the beginning till around August 2007, melee are fairly weak as they don’t have easy access to elemental weapons. Once they have them however, they start to elapse past gunners/mages in terms of DPS and survivability.
Melee are now capable of doing single/AE version of nearly every damage type. Gunner are limited to single target and mages are limited to only single/AE version of 4 damage type; fire/ice/lightning/wind.
This imbalance was pretty obvious when people ran suginami gold but is sort of resolved itself when it comes to ichigaya gold as fire damage is about the only thing needed in there, and AE damage isn’t that important.
Still, melee continue to complain that they are underpowered in both the English and Japanese community and as a result, lotteries are tuned more towards them, widening the gap between melee and the rest.
Thankfully there isn’t any pvp, or melee will probably dominate everyone.
The level grind past 85 is pretty horrid as well:


85 97,400,000

86 110,050,000

87 162,000,000

88 264,000,000

89 354,000,000

90 696,409,989

91 1,392,819,977

92 2,089,229,966
You need around 2b xp to level from 92 to 93, the current cap. 2b xp is enough to get you from 1->89. 1 round of ichigaya gold bring around 500k-600k xp. You will need about 4178 rounds to clear 92->93. 1 round take about 5-10mins to clear at max efficiency.
This 5-10mins efficiency can only be reach if everyone in the party uses CP run speed/damage increasing items.
4178 * 5 => 20890 minutes or 348 hrs. Even if you spam 5x xp up for 30mins fragrance from the lotteries, it’s still 69hrs.
Without CP consumables, a full group will clear the place in around 10-15mins, effectively doubling the time required to a hefty 696hrs.
Can’t field a full party all the time? Increase that to 15-20mins a round, resulting in 1044hrs.
If you play for 4hrs a day, it’ll take you 261 days to clear 92 to 93.
Even at max efficiency, unless you play way more than 4hrs a day, it’ll take you a good 87 days to clear 92 to 93.
There isn’t that much of a point to hit max level either. You tend to max out your main combat stat around mid 60s and you only get a fairly minimal damage boast every 10 levels. There are currently no devils above 85 either and devils as a whole are useless, except to attract mob attention.
A lot of people intending to play the English version think that they can rear up a particular devil they like and use it forever. Unfortunately that isn’t true.
If you run sugi gold, you will use a devil capable of using fog breath and/or void/resist piercing attacks.

If you run ichigaya gold, you will use a devil that void magical/psyche attacks and/or one that voids ice.
Use anything else and your devil will be dead most of the time, unless you intend to leech xp off other people.
There are of course bugs that exist since the JP closed beta that has yet to be fixed.

Offhand, pathing issue around the door in Ichigaya’s boss room is one.

Characters/devils being unable to move after using a skill with charge time is another.

Not zoning correctly as well.
To summarize: Cave is just out to maximize profits with their lotteries.
There are hardly any content and they aren’t making much of an effort to improve them.
There isn’t any PvP and the difference between a level 65 char and a level 93 one is minimal.
Literally the ONLY thing to do in here is to grind to max level, wait for cap to be raise, then grind again.
Play Imagine only if you can stand the above.
Currently, on the JP server, the 80+ population has significantly reduced, but what do I know about high level gameplay? I’m “only” level 88 and my alt is level 85…
I wonder how many fanbois will look at this post with rose-tinted glasses and bash me for this post.
 

 

Solid review about the game and good overview basically tell you what i was thinking while i tried it.

if you like SMT , i recommend highly playing the P3 or P4 on the PS2 those are solid games , as for the mmorpg like the OP explained so well not worth right now .