My honest review

mmcrimson

I have now played to 40ish in both heaven and hell, and I got to say this game gets a 2 out of 5 if its lucky from me.

Details-  Quad core 2.6mhx , 8 gigs ram,  dual 9800 gtx running SLI, dual HD system for speed.  I have zero!!!! LAG on any game I have played (maybe tiny bit with 50 people on screen) and running a high speed internet.  I turned on my router log and never went below 59ms ping to the servers during play time.  Lastly I have played approx 40 mmo's and currently pay for 8 games, and have 5 others loaded.

 

GOOD-

Graphics are cute , fun, and honestly not bad at all.  The gliding ability / jump and most of the physics are excellent.

Leveling up is very decent paces, and down time is at a minimum. 

PVP is open no lies on the rules here.

ALL in all it is decently done and I would of loved to play it for a while.   Im not all up in arms on the Good/Bad thing but its just a game and I look at it this way.

 

BUT-

PVP sucks!.  The server response and LAG issues are horrid.  Even if you did get 2 60 the PVP might last 2-3 seconds 5 if your lucky!

Team / player ethics are the lowest I have ever seen in my life!

Example-  A group of us tried to hold a point which needs to be held for 3 hours (way 2 long in my opp) and did so for a short time.  We had 6+ people from 58-20 in the point when the enemy came up.    We kept it.  It wasnt bad till 3 enemy came and 2 were mages and bang INSTA  death!  Then what do they do, they condone camping the spawn point.

THE GAME DONT GIVE THE OPTION!! to turn of spell display (effects) so soon as enemy casts a spell it is lag!!!   Response from the server is horrid at the least.

 

My problems with the game are 3 fold

1- design-  Only 2 sides so most people will go to winning side and never keep a balance of players.  This is the stupidest thing i have ever seen exp since you can play both sides without a delay at all.   Past few weeks I have seen lots of heaven players 1-12, but very few 40+ , and on hell lots of 30+   It is so one sided it is not worth playing.  I don't want to go to winning side all the time, but I also do not want to have odds stacked to impossible!  2 sided pvp games never work!

Lastly on design.  How can you say it is fair when one team has a 4-5 second run to get from spawn to hold point with no mobs to run through, and other team had many mobs to run through and at least 30 seconds to run.  PISS POOR PLANING!

2- PVP is insta death.  No matter the level once a mage gets tier 5 (best spells) and high rank, combat lasts 2 seconds at best.   Their is very little skill involved if you have super fast system, and are higher level you win..  One shots are vast..  No matter the level PVP does not last nearly long enough!

3- GANKING  I have no problem with a higher level coming up and killing me on a combat field but they do it all the time.  I played for 6 hours at my highest level trying to exp for higher level and every time I was killing a mob I would get 1 shot by a person 20+ levels higher.  In an open world this is expected but why does a level 50 want to kill a mob with no exp..  They do it for fun and grief on the other player.

Lastly on Gankers-  This game enables (and it is done regularly) spawn camping.  This was my last straw and it is condoned by the devs!

 

 

All in all it is a very decent try and mechanics/physics engine are all good to very good.  However my opinion is that the planning and actual engine (pvp response) programming are poor at least.   UN-installed and deleted for good.

rhinok

First - it's your "beta" review. Not a true review.  If you're being honest, start there.

Second - you're giving it a point rating without qualifying the point scale or how the rating is derived.  As such, it's arbitrary.

That being said, I agree with your pros and some of your cons, but not with others.  Regarding your points, I've commented below.

~Ripper

Originally posted by mmcrimson

I have now played to 40ish in both heaven and hell, and I got to say this game gets a 2 out of 5 if its lucky from me.

Details-  Quad core 2.6mhx , 8 gigs ram,  dual 9800 gtx running SLI, dual HD system for speed.  I have zero!!!! LAG on any game I have played (maybe tiny bit with 50 people on screen) and running a high speed internet.  I turned on my router log and never went below 59ms ping to the servers during play time.  Lastly I have played approx 40 mmo's and currently pay for 8 games, and have 5 others loaded.

 

GOOD-

Graphics are cute , fun, and honestly not bad at all.  The gliding ability / jump and most of the physics are excellent. Agree - I like the graphical style and love gliding (and especially divebombing enemies). Jump had a missing animation, but got some tweaking in yesterday's patch.  I do still have issues with jumping and obstacles, though, to be honest.

Leveling up is very decent paces, and down time is at a minimum.   Leveling up isn't only decent, it's crazy fast!  i can be 15 in 2 hours, 20 in another 2.  I got to 40  in less than 40 total hours.  That's far faster than most games I've played. It's almost too fast in that you can be level 20 before you'e even had time to rank up a single skill!

PVP is open no lies on the rules here. Yup - except for sancutary zones, it's all open PvP but with a lot of PvE content in the PvP zones for leveling.  There are a ton of PvP and PvE quests.

ALL in all it is decently done and I would of loved to play it for a while.   Im not all up in arms on the Good/Bad thing but its just a game and I look at it this way.

 

BUT-

PVP sucks!.  The server response and LAG issues are horrid.  Even if you did get 2 60 the PVP might last 2-3 seconds 5 if your lucky!

Team / player ethics are the lowest I have ever seen in my life!

Example-  A group of us tried to hold a point which needs to be held for 3 hours (way 2 long in my opp) and did so for a short time.  We had 6+ people from 58-20 in the point when the enemy came up.    We kept it.  It wasnt bad till 3 enemy came and 2 were mages and bang INSTA  death!  Then what do they do, they condone camping the spawn point.

THE GAME DONT GIVE THE OPTION!! to turn of spell display (effects) so soon as enemy casts a spell it is lag!!!   Response from the server is horrid at the least. 

Performance - it is definitely an issue for this game and the big cheese has stated it's a priority for them.  I hope they're able to nail down the performance isues.  That being said, I'm playing on a 4 year old laptop with 2 GB RAM and a 256MB GPU and the game generally plays fine for me at a reasonably high resolution and with 4x AA.  It plays great for some people, poorly for others.  If I were you - as a beta tester - I'd submit your DXDiag for analysis.  Also, I agree there need to be far more options for tuning graphical performance, including turning down particle effects.

 

My problems with the game are 3 fold

1- design-  Only 2 sides so most people will go to winning side and never keep a balance of players.  This is the stupidest thing i have ever seen exp since you can play both sides without a delay at all.   Past few weeks I have seen lots of heaven players 1-12, but very few 40+ , and on hell lots of 30+   It is so one sided it is not worth playing.  I don't want to go to winning side all the time, but I also do not want to have odds stacked to impossible!  2 sided pvp games never work! That was an issue early in beta, but not so much anymore (and since alpha, there have been numerous balance changes).  In fact, I just posted a thread this morning about what great fighting I've had in the last week.  Ultimately, the issue is that a handful of hell players PLed to 60 and got their skills and ranked them up.  They didn't have anybody to fight, got bored and started capping lowere level zones.  There are a ton of 60's on both sides now as well as a lot of lower level players, too. Things are evening out, which is great! 

Lastly on design.  How can you say it is fair when one team has a 4-5 second run to get from spawn to hold point with no mobs to run through, and other team had many mobs to run through and at least 30 seconds to run.  PISS POOR PLANING! In which zone specifically?  In a zone like FoH, there's a control point on both the Heaven and Hell sides.  So, for the Heaven side control point, yes, Heaven players can get back more quickly, but they'd have to run through the central control point and run to get to the Hell-side control point.  Same with Hell players for their own control point. It's balanced.  I really can't think of a zone that has this problem.  Even GoA, where the CPs are all far away from the Hell camp doesn't have this issue, since you can spawn in a crypt nearby.  Also, when you port in from the city, you spawn close by.  So which zone?

2- PVP is insta death.  No matter the level once a mage gets tier 5 (best spells) and high rank, combat lasts 2 seconds at best.   Their is very little skill involved if you have super fast system, and are higher level you win..  One shots are vast..  No matter the level PVP does not last nearly long enough! This is both true and false.  It's a matter of context.  Yes, high level players with maxed out builds can wipe the floor with lower level characters.  To state "PVP is insta death",however, is a gross exaggeration, because it's all encompassing.  I've had some fantastic battles this week. Just this morning, myself (43) and a level 29 sucecssfully fought off a level 50 for control of Shadow Delta.  There were a number of great back-and-forth battles and none were insta-death or even over in a few seconds.  Have I been one or two-shotted by a bored level 60 in a lower level zone?  Sure, but that's PvP.  Call out for help and see if your side has any high levels on who can assist. As for it being just mages, that's also not true.  There are excellent players of all classes who are able to compete. 

In regards to the "higher level" comment, it's also false, but only to a certain extent.  The real issue is with the complexity of Faxion's skill system.  Being higher in level doesn't guarantee victory by any means.  I've easily taken out players 10 levels higher than me, but that's because I had my skills ranked up, was using a good weapon and had applied my stat points well.  In Faxion, the effectiveness of yoru skills--for all classess--is based on a combination of your skill rank, your base weapon dps and your primary stat.  A player with a high dps weapon, rank 10 skills and good stat allocation will fare better than a higher level player with rank 1 skills, lower dps weapon and poor stat allocation.  Player level grants more skill and stat points to use and slightly higher hp and spirit, but does not guarantee success.  That being said, as mentioned before, there are a number of max level characters with max builds - it's definitely hard--if not impossible--to compete with them one-on-one if you're build isn't comparable.  As more players join and things balance out, that's becoming less of an issue.

3- GANKING  I have no problem with a higher level coming up and killing me on a combat field but they do it all the time.  I played for 6 hours at my highest level trying to exp for higher level and every time I was killing a mob I would get 1 shot by a person 20+ levels higher.  In an open world this is expected but why does a level 50 want to kill a mob with no exp..  They do it for fun and grief on the other player. You were out soloing in a PvP zone and somebody ganked you?  What makes you think you should have been able to do that without fear of consequences?  Why does it matter if the player was higher level?  It could eaasily have been just a pair of similar level players and they could have still taken you out, especially if they got the drop on you.  So does the level really matter?  Ultimately, it seems like you're saying "I should be able to just wander around and PvE quest as much as I want without fear of dying". Sorry, but that's not how it works.. If you're in a PvP zone, you need to accept the risks and consequences.

Regardless, there's almost no death penalty.  The only penalty is the minor inconvenience of having to respawn and losing a tiny bit of item durability.  That's it! It's not like you lose reputation or your gear!  This isn't Darkfall where you spawn with a leafblade and your skivvies, having lost everything you just spent the last hour collecting.  So what's the problem?  You got ganked, probably by somebody pasing through?  Even if they've decided to camp the spot you were farming, you have other places to go.  No big deal...

Lastly on Gankers-  This game enables (and it is done regularly) spawn camping.  This was my last straw and it is condoned by the devs! It's impossible to fully spawn camp.  Each crypt has three exits: 1) zone exit, 2) city exit and 3) faction camp exit.  If somebody is camping the zone exit then go out the camp exit and regroup. You literally can't be spawn camped unless you're dumb enough to keep going out the same exit multiple times without learning not to. Do the devs condone spawn camping? I think they view it as a legitimate tactic, but give you the ability to escape it otherwise it would be griefing.  Have your team go out the camp exit, regroup and then kill the spawn camper if you can. 

All in all it is a very decent try and mechanics/physics engine are all good to very good.  However my opinion is that the planning and actual engine (pvp response) programming are poor at least.   UN-installed and deleted for good.

RudedawgCDN

I wanted to like this game - I really did - but there's so much wrong with the game that it overshadows anything that the dev's have got "right".

I agree 2 out of 5 seems fair for such a poorly designed game.

The pve is horrible (mob AI is very bad) - but it's not a pve game. Which would seem ok at first glance - but the pvp/rvr is horrible as well - so you have nothing to "fall back on" to make it a decent game.

RVR Mechanics: Capturing control points is uninspired, repetitive and quite frankly boring.

As noted by the OP, pvp is "all" dps out - no real tactical or strategy involved in playing your character.

So pve sucks, rvr sucks, and pvp sucks.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

I'd write more about everything that is wrong with this "but it's free and doesn't cost you anything to play excuse for making a bad game" but, quite honestly I can't be bothered to waste my time.

hypnoster

AAAAAAAA.... Like image on advert... not wast time on this game

Shadanwolf

The RVR got my attention.The game ranks in the bottom 10% of the many many games I've played.

rhinok

FYI,  in regards to "insta-death PvP" from level 60 mages. Myself, level 43, and a partner (level 40) just took out a level 60.  She did insta-gank us once, so we regrouped, changed tactics and beat her.  It's definitely possible.

So far, I'm having a blast with this game!  I've seen a lot of great PvP fights this week.

~Ripper

strangerdang

wait jump physics was good?

you had an unnatural pause in mid air, and i would constatly try to jump over knee high obsticales, clearing them in the jum animation, but unable to jump over them.  Jump physics were terrible, felt unnatural, and was actually quit annoying to even have a jump option, given i couldnt jump over anything...

While the forest outside the starter city looks somewhat better, that starter city and character modles are right out of the 1990's, in fact, i cant remember a recent game that had such terrible character modles.  Anarchy online had/has better character modles....

The pve was terribly boring in the city, and outside it consists of the standard f2p "every mob has a grind quest for it" some are repeates, while people who "lol religion..." might get a kick out of the theme, it was largly a starter zone joke, and didnt really serve the game much...one day someone will get a favtion based demons vs angels games right....one day...

After the starter area you can instance into another map, looks diffrent, might be more pkers, same routine.

 

but yeah, the way the game looks, and plays..  2/10 is generous for a rating when comparing it to any game released int he last 5-10 years.

Warzod

I honestly don't believe I have ever seen a title with such a complete seperation between the fans and the haters. I swear this title could fire solid gold puppies out of a candy cannon and some people would still insist the title is the spawn of Satan. Which... is ironic to a fault. I have read countless 'honest' reviews of this game and most of the things people are condemning it for are items that 90% of popular titles out today suffer from. ZOMG RVR is repetative and boring. Try Warsong Gulch for a few hours or heck even the diety of modern RVR DAoC. There are only so many ways to siege Caer Benowyc.

As for graphics. How many low grade isometric MMOs are out there that legions of gamers swear by? Ask the average player if graphics are the make or break for a game and most will tell you that good content and play far outweigh the visuals. This has been true since the dawn of gaming. So why all the fist shaking and baying at the moon over Faxion? So the graphics are cutesy. Last a heard a few people play Freerealms... I mean, a few atleast. *roll*

PvP... so you got killed. I played on a PvP server in World of Warcraft for 7 years and I hate to break it to you but that is a REALITY OF A PVP SERVER. Roaming bands of Horde stomping through low level areas 1 shotting players for fun does not make the game bad. If you really want to be the spearhead of that crusade, please head on over the WoW forums and see how well your message is received.

MOB AI is unresponsive and dumb. Play EvE where whoever gets initial agro the enemy ship stays on until it is dead no matter what anyone else does to it. Last I checked EvE was a pretty popular game with a couple subs and NPC ratting/missions were a big part of the experience.

I seriously think the people that are bashing this game the hardest may need to take a step back and examine what it is about this game 'uniquely' that makes them so angry. It sure as heck isn't the few faults that it still has here in beta because there are a heck of a lot worse games out there getting rave reviews. I am certainly starting to wonder if this game hasn't condemned itself to living up to its premise as players flock to one side or the other of this battle with a ferver typically only researved for religious confrontations.

Golelorn

There are definitely some issues with the game:

- PvP is very unbalanced, and goes by way to quick

- Very, very low population makes PvP almost not worth it

- Leveling past 30 is running the same quest over and over once per day - repetitive is an understatement

- Real time skill ranking(takes 100 hours to level a skill to 10) OR instant ranking via cash

- most abilities are worthless or broken

- all classes look the same

- Their "contention" system really needs to be reworked (3 hours, 2 zones are in contention but there are maybe 10 people pvping)

- Load times are insane

 

However some good points:

- Developers that take feedback seriously

- Character development is unique to the f2p genre

- Levels 1-30 are pretty damn fun

- Great for casuals since real time skill ranking won't put them behind

- Death means just a short run back to the action

 

 

With time I think this game has a ton of potential. Heck, I already find it more fun than any f2p game out there(besides DDO but thats not really f2p), and more fun than a lot of p2p games.

rhinok

Originally posted by Golelorn

There are definitely some issues with the game:

- PvP is very unbalanced, and goes by way to quick PVP is desinged around larger skirmishes, not necessarily duels.  As the population grows (and it seems to be pretty quickly), this is changing. 

- Very, very low population makes PvP almost not worth it Low population definitely hurts, because the entire game is based on larger-scale combat.  That being said, see above.  I've had a ton of great fights in multiple level ranges in the last two weeks.

- Leveling past 30 is running the same quest over and over once per day - repetitive is an understatement I haven't found this to be true at all.  I've leveled to 44 now with almost no repetition.  In early alpha and beta builds, this was the case, but not so much now.

- Real time skill ranking(takes 100 hours to level a skill to 10) OR instant ranking via cash 90 hours, not 100 (since you already start at rank 1). Why is this an issue? It's extremely friendly to casual players.  You can skill up offline, while you're at work or school and you can rank up skills for multiple characters at once! I have a character with only about 6 hours played, but over 600 hours trained in various skills, making her very competitive for her level.  Power gamers who want to reach level 60 in a day or two are perfect candidates for RMT Ranking. That's the entire basis for the RMT system - time vs. money.

Regardless, rank alone does NOT =  win.  Skill effectiveness is determined by a combination of rank, weapon dps (even for mages - your weapon's dps is factored into your overall skill effectivness, even if you never swing it) and primary skill stat (NIT for mage skills, for example).  Increasing any one of those won't yield significant benefits.  Increasing at least two, will yield better results and all three will provide max results.  It's a complex, but balanced system that ensures players can't simply pay-to-win.  They've still got to level up to get stat points and the best weapons are in-game only, not from the shop.

- most abilities are worthless or broken You're gonig to have to be more specific.  The skills have been and continue to be a work in progress, however.  That's what beta is for.  Even at the tail-end of open beta, there are significant changes and fixes on a weekly basis.

- all classes look the same All primary classes have the same body model (large for warriors, medium for healers, thin for mages), but with multi-classing, you can't really say that. A thin mage might have beastly warrior skills and a beefy warrior may have tremendous magic abilities.

- Their "contention" system really needs to be reworked (3 hours, 2 zones are in contention but there are maybe 10 people pvping) Once again, you're judging it based on a low beta population.  The encounters are tailored for larger scale battles, however.  As the population grows--and it has been lately--this will not be an issue.

- Load times are insane Load times between zones are long, but even on my 4 year old laptop, not bad.  Regularly defragging helps, too.  Here's a recent comment from one of the devs on this issue:

We are loading not only the assets necessary for you to move around (physics etc), but also we preload many NPCs so that you do not 'hitch' when they come into range.

 

We did implement some new loading mechanisms that will show up in 1.55 that should speed up the time to load zones. I'm not saying it will be half or anything like that, but it will be faster.

Also as Ripper points out, since this is data from your hard drive being loaded, the faster your drive (solid state for the win!), and the better condition your drive is in (disk cleanup, then defrag) the better your performance will be.

 

However some good points:

- Developers that take feedback seriously

- Character development is unique to the f2p genre

- Levels 1-30 are pretty damn fun

- Great for casuals since real time skill ranking won't put them behind

- Death means just a short run back to the action

With time I think this game has a ton of potential. Heck, I already find it more fun than any f2p game out there(besides DDO but thats not really f2p), and more fun than a lot of p2p games.

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~Ripper