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The Secret World: Review In Progress Part 4 - Dungeons & PvP
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In the final installment of our Review in Progress for The Secret World, we take a look at both dungeons and PvP action. Keep reading to see what we think before adding your own thoughts in the comments.
In most MMO dungeons, if a player dies, he/she can be resurrected by others and play continues until the end boss is finally brought down. It’s a battle of attrition much more than a battle of skill. In The Secret World, players aren’t given that luxury. If you die, you stay dead (albeit in an anima well nearby) until either the entire team wipes or the boss is finally killed. It’s harsh but it’s something that players seem to really enjoy. I’ve always said that TSW is a “thinking man’s” MMO and dungeons like Polaris and all the rest certainly embody that notion.
Read more of Suzie Ford's The Secret World: Review In Progress Part 4: Dungeons & PvP.
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Comments
Thanks for the indept review of this fantastic game..Good read
PvP..Well..I have tried Fusang projects and Stonehenge
IMO Fusang project is in it's current state only a way for players to leech and get free xp..
Never are there any players left at the facilitys to defend them and likevise on the animawells, this means you just have to walk in there and get your 50.000 xp reward..FOR FREE
.Sure there are tons of players running around , but they are only there to leech the free xp..It makes the zone funny, I know how Funcom pictured this zone, but unfortunatly it isnt working as intended...
Best part of the dungeons in TSW is the fact that they seem to have gotten rid of the endless amount of trash mobs other MMOs engender. It makes the dungeons faster and more about the story and getting to the boss, which is the whole reason anyone runs dungeons anyway.
The PVP is ok and can be fun, but it feels a bit shallow and limited. More in why one PVPs and amount of content available to PVP in. In other words, the game needs to double the amount of PVP warzones and add a ranking/character progression system to the PVP side of the fence.
I really like the dungeons and even the starter dungeons have fun mechanics, so you don't have to wait until "endgame" to try it out. I found it moderatly hard to get a group. I do think it's easier to just creating one and doing som LFM in chat. The good part is that if you need a tank or a healer, you can just ask if somebody can do it.
A lot of players have more than one role for their character. Further into the game it should be even easier, as you are a bit starved when it comes to ability points and skill points in the beginning. I do like that I won't be bound to one role for my character and can switch to tank or dps if I want to do something different.
Seriously? Writing a "review" of something as important and deep as dungeons off the experiences in a media event? Sorry, but that's rather ridiculous.
TSW's dungeons are some of the best in the genre, with extremely varied mechanics that change a lot from dungeon to dungeon. To me it seems that the writer just played Polaris, judged it "plenty" to write about and called it a day. It's not "plenty", and in fact the part on dungeons is awfully generic.
By the way, I never had the slightest problem in finding a PUG to do *any* of the dungeons in the game up to Hell Fallen, so maybe the writer should have tried a tad harder before writing.
The PvP is horrible but kind of fun at the same time if you can manage to not got pissed at gettting one-shotted on a consistent basis or CC locked till dead. The good thing is you can do the same thing really easily.
The Dungeons are interesting and some of the funnest experiences I've had in a game and Suzie is correct, there are an awful lot of elitist arseholes who want people for thir groups with 3400 AA and Cleanse/Purge + ranged only if your a DPS and in full 10.1 gear. So I go out of my way and made a script to form my own groups. In my script I ask for good players without the elitist mentality, gear and skill optional. Ive been endgame ready for 4 days now and I have already completed my ql10 Blue DPS and Tank gear so am getting ready to start on nightmares.
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I find the dungeons to be enjoyable and quick, a nice break from questing or signet farming or whathaveyou.
Once you get to Nightmares, the game gets a little more challenging as it becomes more about optimizing your role's primary function AND throwing in some utility (cleanse, purge, interrupt, temp buffs, etc). Communicating with your team before starting the run is necessary to ensure your team has the toolset to handle the different demands of the bosses in the instance.
PvP I can take or leave... I don't enjoy it, but perhaps it's because like most other games, relative power comes down to gear. I play other genres of games when I want to compete head to head (Like FPSes)
The dungeons were very fun, some of the best and most innovative I've experienced while progressing through the story. Once the story is over all that's left is re-hashed dungeons and PvP. I opt'd out before running on the gear treadmill this time- been there, grinded that.
The dungeons are well made, visually awesome, and pretty fun to run up to a point. The game does follow the standard mmo bimodal system at the end though. Running the same dungeons over and over again at higher difficulties to achieve AP and gear. To me that takes a bit of gloss away from the dungeons.
As for pvp, I'm not a fan of it. Personally I think this should be one of the cornerstones of the game but they have a lot of work to do with it.
I love it PvP in Fusang projects much better and fun Templar dominate since it Lanuch :-) in Arcandia Server!~
With Stoneage Dragon and Templar are very competive, what the blast time PvP to farming nice XP, AP, and Black Venice coin.
With Dungeon I really enjoy doing Ankh because it's completely challenge to kick ass Flith!
Kupo,
Alito
It's kind of interesting to see a review done by someone who shares my views on end games. It's not just juggling the work, the kids, and the wife, I add in there other games I want to play as well. I'm thinking TSW would be a play for a couple months and move on.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Don't forget the perspective of the person writing the review. I think there should be another review from someone who does dungeons and end game pvp on a regular basis and actually likes it.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This is a good game. I hate this genre of games and the game still got my attention and held it for a month. I'd say that is impressive.
You could not get into Stonehenge? The average time for me is about 10 minutes, and it's not level based so you should have similar experience with the queue. I'm sure you know that if you queue up for Stonehenge or Dorado or enter Fusang, you automatically cancel your previous queues.
REALITY CHECK
Hands down best 5man dungeons in any game I've played. Funcom really managed to outshine the competition here! It's sad though that there only are 3 of them available in NM, since you grow tired of them rather quickly. But still, for me, the fact that the dungeons are spectacular really carries the game even more so than the great quests.
Stonehenge is done with a ranking system depending on how much XP you have earned. Like eldorado also. So maybe the reviewer was not in the region of xp where most players are currently at.
You've already shown that it's going to be a fluff "8/10" type review ignoring the problems with secret world, do you really care about comments?
Why do a PvP review if you dont like PvP, barely participated in PvP, and basically have nothing to say about PvP?
Why write proffesional mmo articles if your a casual player that skips the most important content. It's like having a guy who watches the one football game every other week solo commentating the finals.
"I will admit right here that neither [PvP and Dungeons] are aspects of any MMO in which I regularly participate"
here's a synopsis of the synopsis:
I played a media event so I pretty much know how this game works. Unlike every other mmorpg out there that just lets people ressurect friends during difficult boss encounters, this mmorpg does something radically different that not even WoW thought about when they patched a fix that prevented the paladin from using a bug to limitlessly rezz others mid boss fight... huh?
What's also pretty cool about this game, is while most mmorpgs pay no attention to their story, and would be better off making a randomized generator for each player's storyline, this game demands that upon completion of the outdoor & indoor story of the game, that it be played on a harder difficulty or even at the exact same level of difficulty to fill out an ever expanding experience bar. It's got all the grind of Diablo 3 with just a touch of undying progression (did I screw up that sentence? No).
Finally PvP is awesome, because I only had to play one pvp zone to understand all the details of class/weapon balance mechanics and then choose not to share any of this knowledge. Or I just don't know what I'm talking about. I'm not sure.
That said, this game is at minimum an awesome single player game. The story and the puzzles through the entire progression is alotta fun, and the fact that it's well written and very well voice-acted accounts for some great story. As an mmorpg, it needs alotta work on it's content, and Funcom has promised more pve content. The PvE design though requires constant updates to satiate its playerbase, the PvP content would not. The vast diversity in character customisation could, with much needed balance open doors to all sorts of character customisation. With a meaningful hook to PvP (i.e. more persistent territory control) this game could be a blast. Buy it just for the month of a great single player experience... come back when it's worked out the kinks and expanded it's PvP content.
Looking at this woman's previous posting history, I now understand why her few reviews are so poorly done.
Whoever she is, to this website she just writes 100 word blurbs and introduces other peoples reviews. Her own experience of computer gaming is indeed limited.
Didnt bother waiting to get into battlegrounds?
Didnt run dungeons with real players in the release game?
Im not saying the game needs to be endlessly praised, in fact I think that a critical review of these area's could be a good read and shine some light where it is required. This review here just stinks of cant be bothered - moving on to next game - meh attitude. The reviewer didnt even seem to try yet still felt qualified to submit this as part 4 of an ongoing review?
I think the biggest weak spot TSW has is the PVP, currently it's really not up to par. I like pretty much every aspect of the game except this.
If you wanna enjoy dungeons in any MMO its realy good to have guild (called cabal in TSW). It makes game expireince sooo much better. My cabal started Nigtmare Mode dungeons this week, we run elite modes every day, we have Fusang event on thursday. Cabal is the key.