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My review on tabula rasa. Bad though.
reggie
Member Posts: 138
Ok im not the best writer so ill try keep things short and to the point.
Here's how an exiting game went to utterly boring in no time;
FIrst off i played beta for a few days till the last char wipe. Up to the char wipe the game seemed kick ass though it did have alot of annoying bugs like being stuck everywhere and shoot through walls bug.
I liked it alot at first because it was very intense action and alot going on around you. Drop ships landing and dropping of mobs, explosions around you. Hide and cover and get on 1 knee to aim and shoot with the rifle. Shotgun groups of mobs.
The graphics also looked great with everything set to ultry. Very crisp and clear. Though i did annoy myself a bit to the constant noise around you from npc's yelling and monsters fighting and dropships landing and explosions etc.
I played a ranger till lvl 17 before char wipe which made it till deep into the Divide zone which is the 2nd zone.
Then char wipe occured. I started a new char which would be a specialist. There's only 2 real class choices in this game that lead to subclasses. One is the soldier, the other is the specialist. Those branch out to ranger, engineer etc.
This time around since i already played one char till 17 the game felt very different to me. Nothing was new anymore. I already did explore the entire first zone once before the wipe. Also because i knew the game it became extremely easy, easier then before since the last patch, and therefor extremely boring really fast. I could blast through everything without any problem, 10 mobs in 1 go. The challenge was gone totally.
The newness had faded and now i couldnt wait to leave the first zone, the wilderness, and move on to divide and continue where i left off before char wipe.
The logos that at first seemed really nice, since you have to find them and so force you to explore, now seemed like total annoyance. I had to remember where they were or had to look for them. Even worse i had to clear instances in which some of the logo's are. I was pretty much forced to find all logo's in the zone, about 20 or so of m, before i could even continue to divide.
So thats one big flaw in the logo system. Being forced to have to get them all even if you dont even want to be in the zone you still have to spend hours getting the logo's.
You might eventually need logo's to open doors to other logo's or even finish certain quests. Also the most important part is that you need logo's for skills. You generally have to collect 2 or more logo's to be able to use a new ability.
So after i got the logo's and skipped like 50% of the quests i went to divide at around lvl 10ish. Most people go to divide, after finishing all quests in the first zone , at lvl 15-17. Most players also have the soldier tree which is alot stronger then the specialist tree so for them its even way easier then for my specialist.
In divide i came across the same problem. Everything being way to easy thus boring. So i rushed through getting the logo's and while at it did some quests. The quests are all over the place and very easy to do so you are bound to finish a bunch while exploring for the logo's.
This time i couldnt wait again to leave this zone, the easyness of mobs and overpoweredness of me made me want to tear my hair out and get the hell out of there, since i saw most of the zone already anyway.
So i repeated what i did in zone 1, ended up in zone 3 at lvl 15. The pallisades this zone is called.
In the pallisades im having some sort of fun. Mostly the fun of exploration. The rest is just the same old again and now at lvl 18 im less inclined to play again. The only reason ill log on again is because i got nothing better to play.
The monsters in the Pallisades, zone 3, are just as easy as the first 2 zones and most mobs are the same as the first 2 zones. There's really not much variety except there's different instances again and different scenery.
By now i went from the tier1 job everyone starts with which is a recruit, i progessed to specialist which is the tier 2 job at lvl 5, and am now a sapper in pallisades which is the job you pick at lvl 15.
Im still pretty much using the same skills i did as a recruit, the job you have till lvl 5, the new abilities/skills you get from lvl 5 to 15 arent all that great.
Also the only weapons you really use are, pistol, rifle, shotgun, and the tier weapon which in my case is a polarity gun from being a sapper.Thats it. thats the weapons youll be using your entire carreer. The same weapons from lvl 1 to lvl 50, the only differenes they will have is that they for insance do energy damage, fire damage, ice damage etc etc. Every single class in the game uses those basic weapons non stop, rifle, pistol, shotgun, plus their tier weapons (tier being the jobs you choose at lvl 5,15,30,50). Some tier weapons are useless from what i understand or just not that good to invest points in. Points you get every single lvl and can put into skills and max 'm at 5 levels into the skill.
Most people just put points in firearms which means 5 levels into shotguns, pistols, rifles, and put 1 point in the other weapons till they reach the last tier weapons and abilities to invest in. All the abilities before that do not matter that much. LIke my group shield ability which absorbs about 30% damage and makes my armour count 2.5x. I dont even use it. The game is so easy with 10 mobs shooting me i have no need for the extra absorb etc. I wasted 3 points in it bah.
So now im lvl 17 i think and the only thing keeping me playing is that its a free beta and i have nothing better to do and there's new zones to explore.There's simply no other reasons. The monsters are the same since lvl 1 to lvl 30 from what i understand. The weapons are the same. The abilities arent all that to be exited about either.Things simply will not change for a long time to come. Itll be the same stuff you saw as lvl 1.
Even worse. Im a specialist. Specialist is the support class tree which branches out into several sub specialist classes, like my sapper. However the problem is..... this game doesnt need any support class whatsoever. I can heal, i can rezz, i can shield others however noone needs me lol. The game is so extremely easy solo that if you would want to duo you will take a soldier tree class, one with more fire power etc. You hardly need any heals, you actually dont even need a teammate. Teaming up cuts your xp in half and cuts your loot in half. You can really solo everything with extreme ease.
Ok thats my story on how you go from woah this game rocks to bah this game blows in a matter of a week.
Now the other dissapointments in the game listed;
* Lots of bugs, lots and lots of m, you get stuck everywhere (there is a /stuck command to unstuck however). Then there's a lot of bugs that missions wont comlete, on logon your gear will be gone and you are wearing lvl 1 armor, huge sudden memory leaks where i have to use my windows key to go to desktop and back to the game to get rid of the crazy sudden frame slowdown, taking out mortars in close combat always gets you stuck, npc's getting stuck, etc etc the list goes on.
* Huge imbalance in the game. I mean hugeeeee imbalance. From mobs to abilities to weapons to armors to classes to mission rewards. There's not a single balanced thing in this game.
- Class imbalance; support classes not needed since the game is so rediculously easy you dont need any support , you dont even need to group up, you can solo everything including instances. Everyone also looks the same. Yeah close up they can look different coz the armours can actually look pretty good and there's some good diversity in it. But you only really notice that once you zoom in. From a small distance everyone looks alike. Also everyone pretty much plays the same classes. At lvl 15 you see only 4 classes running around (because there simply isnt more choice), soldiers, rangers, sappers and biotechnicians
- Weapon imbalance; you can just shotgun your way through groups of mobs like they are flies. Weapons do way to much damage while mobs hardly scratch you. You also have to carry about 2 or 3 different damage types of every single weapon since many mobs are immune to certain types of damage. Meaning if you love using shotgun or rifle, you best be prepared to have several damage types with you and swap them around when needed. Then there' s the tier weapons which can be pretty useless for some and way to overpowered for others.
- XP imbalance; you lvl so damn fast you outlvl the zone in no time if you do to many missions. In return because of the fast lvling you also outlvl the quest rewards from most missions. Also about 50% of the missions still have useless placeholder rewards (for instance in the 3rd zone most missions so far give the same tier 3 gun rewards though with different stats). Then ofcourse you also outlvl mobs in the zone way to easy. Though outlvling mobs is almost impossible since they are always way to easy right from the start.
- Craft; lol. There's no craft. All craft recipies that drop are 1 time use and have lvl and stats restrictions on them plus are expensive t make. Meaning if i get a recipie drop itll tell me itll give + life steal and can be applied to up to lvl 10 rifles only. To even apply the craft result i must have a rifle with +life steal already on it, otherwise it wont apply, plus it must be no higher then a lvl 10 weapon. With the speed you xp in this game the craft wont be useful for a long time to gun. I must say though the craft is a placeholder but well i cant see a much better craft system being implemented and tested before the game goes life but that could just be me. The armor paint system was actually nice i thought.
- Monster imbalance; You see the same mobs all over again every single lvl, they just change graphics a bit and color a bit but from far they all look exactly the same. Ofcourse you have some kickass looking huge mobs that you've seen in video's that can be a bitch to kill, depending on your class, however the downside is you see those mobs already in zone 1 and 2 lol. Its not like they keep those tough mobs for way higher lvl, like having something to look forward too after seeing the video's. Also like said before, mobs hit like pussies, you can slaughter them 10 in 1 go while they all shoot you and come out hardly scratched. Oh and also they always attack you from what i can tell, always except if you use ranger armour which stealthes you. There's monsters everywhere so the exitement you had the first time you played because of that feeling of 'war going on' gets an annoyance fast enough with the zillion of mobs everywhere you go and all attacking you always.
-Ability imbalance; Most abilities you use are the ones you get right from the get go, as a recruit. From lvl 1 on till lvl 10 or higher you can pretty much almost insta kill everything with a few lightning blasts which you got at lvl 1. The abilities you get at tier 2 and tier 3 are great for some classes and are useless for other classes. Then still only a few of your tier you really invest points in.For instance soldiers get rage and shrapnel which are really good and overpower the class even more. Run into a group, use the shrapnel ability 2 times and everything pretty much drops dead at your feet, you dont even have to fire a shot. While specialist gets abilities like some homing mine that you summon and runs towards some random monster closeby and explodes for pathetic damage. By the time the mine arrives you could have killed the mob with your gun already. Those are just some examples of how imbalanced the abilities are.Also each tier you get armor abilites, from tier 1 to tier 3 i think and they really arent worth investing points in till you get the last tiered armour. So they are just a 1 point placeholder. All in all all the earlier tiers are really not that exiting to look forward to and you get a minimal amount of abilities (about 2 useful ones ?) to start with and have to rely on the shotgun, rifle, pistol.
- Mission imbalance; Missions become available as you lvl up, some need prequest to be done. The imbalance here is the level requirement before the quests become available. Since the game is so damn boringly easy if you want to escape the zone to a tougher higher lvl zone you wont have alot of missions available to you since you are to low lvl for all missions to be available. Also because of fast leveling you outgrow most quest rewards before you can even grab or finish the mission. That or you can do missions in tougher zones while being lower lvl and you cant even use the rewards till you lvl up 2 or 3 times.
* community; There's no such things as places to hang out in this game. The only places you hang out are hospitals after you revive (you end up at a hospital of your choice after you die or get rezzed by a group member) and the armor and weapon shops to repair, sell loot. After that you simply move on and go kill again and do your missions. Taverns look way to boring to hang out to. There's no roleplaying aspects in the game whatsoever. There' s no mailboxes, there's no auctionhouse to draw people to a town, there's no nothing at all where people hang out. There's no reason to trade either even though there is a trade chat channel that doesnt really get used. There's so many drops all over the place that your bags fill up in no time and you go sell. Though this is beta so this will be different in retail but still, there's nothing really that encourages communities to exist.
* Interface; ok there's the General chat channel, The local chat channel, the LFG chat channel the Trade chat channel. Thats it. This all in 3 tabs that you can apply filters too, color text etc. Then there's 5 weapon slots of which 2 at least are used by a heal disc and a repair too if you are a specialist, soldiers dont have those. Now with all the immunities and high resists on mobs it means that you need several damage types of every weapon to be really effective at all times. 5 weapon slots is simply not enough. The only other option is during combat pick up a weapon from your bags and drag it to a weapon slot and start firing (can i say lol !) And this with pistol, shotgun, rifle and the few tier weapons you get along the way. Now a specialist only can use 3 of those slots for weapons because of healing disk and repair tool, DOH ! Then there's the ability slots which are 5 of m and you can change pages to put more abilities in. The rest is all alright, sticking aiming etc, small interface that isnt all that useful so far, etc.
* Communication; Ok here's the thing. There's always a zillion npc's running around solo and in groups in every zone.Then ofcourse there's the players doing their thing running around between those npc's. However the only way you will be able to tell someone is actually a player instead of npc is by mousing over them so you can see their name etc. Thats right, this game has no static nameplates. The only way you can tell someone's name or even see if they are a real player is by pointing your mouse on them. This also means that if someone in local chat says something and you have about 4 players around you and are curious where this person is saying it you gotta mouse over all 4 of m to tell their names. The same applies to someone offering you a trade you will have to mouse over m to see where this person is. Can i say lol ? Then there's the other ways of communication; there's no Looking For Group interface, there's no mail system, there's pretty much nothing besides the chat channels you have.
* Economy; what economy lol ? There's no economy in beta so far, only a few weeks away from retail. There's no auction house to start with, craft is a placeholder and so far pointless to even waste money on since you get so many drops all the time. People dont trade items at all in trade channel either or gather for trades in towns etc, none of that. You at times see someone giving away some armor or weapons and thats about it. At first when you just start out it seems money is short, however this quickly changes big time and you have way to much money then you need to spend. The only real money you spend is on repairs and ammo. Though some tier weapons use insane ammounts of ammo for a very moderate, if any, damage increase over shotgun, rifle, pistol, and so can cost alot of money.
* Ai raid Assaults; well ive seen a few ai raids going on at towns and although it looks cool its pretty dull at the same time. You see a zillion npc's running around shooting eachother. You cant really tell if there's any other players besides you, since there's no static nameplates and from a small distance every player looks like an npc, so the whole event might sound cool but you really feel very uninvolved not being able to tell if there's other players even bothering to assist taking the town back or defending it. You can probably take out a mortar cannon, who usually do pathetic damage but are a bitch to take out, to help the ai and thats about it. The ai will take care of the rest. Its not like you need to alarm the zone and gather 20 people to take back the town. Its fun to watch but dull to participate.
* Logo's; at first i thought ahh way cool, the logo's make me want to go out and explore and the need of logo's to enable abilities is a real cool idea. Unfortunately later on you notice logo's are nothing more then a pain in the ass forcing you to check every corner of the zone to get all logo's before you can move on. There's nothing cool about logo's whatsoever. Specially not once you already did the zone once. Once you did the zone you want to get the hell out of there asap but are force to find all 10+ logo's again before you can even move on. THe thing is... you need logo's not only for abilities, but also for missions later on PLUS to open doors for other logo's later on in the game, some of those doors require like 6 logo's to open.
* Instances; meh. same as outside. a whole bunch of mobs shooting at you, the same as you see outside, nothing special going on there and you can solo most if not all of them , at least so far till what i read is lvl 30 +. What they show in video's like choosing several sub missions etc if you want for extra rewards, having to figure out puzzles... lol. Its not like they are hard to figure out. It simply comes down to shooting your way through a zillion mobs like you do outside the instance and thats about it.
* Target of Opertunity; when i saw the video i thought woah cool, you fight mobs and you can trigger some new mission and go do something cool. Its not like that at all. ToO's from what i can see is just get a mission pop up and telling you to kill 200 of this, 40 of that, get all logo's in the zone, visit all instances in the zone, etc etc. Boring grind. You can earn a new credit if you finish the whole list of 'have to kill's' and get a title. Ohhh exiting, not.
* Cloning; You only get a clone at every tier, thats it. Unless ofcourse you finish a huge grind Target of Opertunity for an extra clone point. So this means if you are lvl 5 you can clone before choosing a tier class. THen the next clone will be lvl 15, the next lvl 30, the one after that lvl 50. So well..... have fun trying out new abilities in a new class for 10 lvls then decide you made wrong descisions and use your clone instead and having to play 10 lvls all over again. They hyped clones big time saying you never have to worry about making mistakes in putting points in abilties. WRONG ! That was the initial idea i believe, cloning whenever you want. However as it is now cloning is pretty useless. Because you'll have to play those lvls you still worry just as much about investing points into the right skills etc.
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In short. nothing really is well done in this game. Its like they spent 5 years or whatever on just getting the graphics done and the invasion AI done and stil have to complete all the rest. For a first person shooter, without first person view, type of MMORPG the tactical shooting isnt even all that exiting and even if it exites you at first itll get boring really fast.
Dont feel sorry for the company or the publishers or even Richard. Dont feel sorry for people who hype the game so much in order to have a big initial sale of the game. They know they have a failed game and are only trying to make the most out of it by trying to cash in preorders etc asap before the game falls flat on its back within months after retail.
Thats all ncsoft is doing right now. Lying by hyping the game as the next big thing showing all the cool video's and so called innovations so people will by the game before the news gets out how bad it is. Funny thing is that the cool stuff you see on the video's is what you experience before you hit lvl 10, after that you saw all the video's had to offer.
This game offers nothing but a very cool first impression but gets boring really fast. At least to most people it will just offer that. There's ofcourse always exceptions.
Dont think i want this game to fail. Well actualy i do now coz i feel like the publishers and designers are trying to rip people off with overhyping the game and false advertisement on how revolutionairy this game is and supposed to be "the next generation of online gaming" in Richard's his own words.
However dont be fooled, this game would need at least another year to make it interresting beyond the first 15 lvls after playing it for the first time. Its a greatly imbalanced grind game, while the new scenery which look pretty will keep you going for a while, there's simply nothing else to do besides just that, shooting your way through a zillion mobs to check out knew sceneries.
I didnt want this game to fail, im bored. Im an mmorpg addict and i have nothing to play right now and i was really exited about tabula rasa but got dissapointed pretty fast also. Ill just wait for spellborn or whtever i guess 
.
I had this game on preorder while i still played my ranger till lvl 17, so my first run through the game, now after char wipe with my 2nd run i cancelled my preorder.
Comments
Someone's certainly been busy
good effort.
I was excited about this game back before the beta started, it seemed very immersive and fun to play. I participated in the beta a month or so ago, and it was a little bit of a letdown once I got deeper into the game. Hopefully things will have cleared up by the time it releases - I have a preorder on.
"If all you can say is... "It's awful, it's not innovative, it's ugly, it's blah.." Then you're an unimaginative and unpolished excuse for human life" -eburn
Informative review. Nicely done overall. I still want to try out this game, I haven't had the chance at all though.
Thanx, well i know i always have trouble making short posts and i dont want to bore anyone
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Just its more as a warning . Specifically coz they are overhyping a game knowing its not that great and trying to get as much money as possible out of it before they start loosing money. I dont think this is fair so i want people to know what they can expect.
Btw why not do the cheaper way of trying the game. Buy a preorder kit like i did. That way you can just play beta for 5 euro, im dutch.
I know also its a beta but right now the best they can do is fix bugs like mad. The way the game is now is how it will be at retail, simple as that, except maybe another craft system and some very minor changes. Anything else is to drastic a change to fix things and will take months to patch.
Heh, thanks for the suggestion, but I don't believe in paying for a beta. I'll just wait it out.
I read part of it before I fell asleep. But I must agree with you. I had high hopes for this one
Played almost everything...
Currently playing nothing...
Waiting for: Darkfall, WAR, Guild Wars 2.
Read the topic with the "nda-lift"on it but mostly was just short replies that it was bad...some called it decent but realy good reviews i didn't see.Anyway i found your post verry clarifying and i found it nice the way you explained the flaws while going through the whole process you went through yourself.
ah yeah though its not explained all that clear but like i said im not such a good story teller. Plus all the spelling errors and putting the wrong words instead of the right ones lol. But i hope you get what i wanted to explain.
agree with everything you've written, been playing the beta this weekend.. there's nothing in this game to keep people interested
Regarding having to replay the game *in beta* with new characters after a wipe -- that's for beta though. Wasn't the whole point of the cloning system so that you *don't have* to replay the entire game from zero? In beta, I'd fully expect to have to do that every time they make changes to the system.
In any other game when you roll an alt, does that game still feel new? Don't you already know where to get the best quests, where to grind the best mobs and where to harvest the best resources?
Informative and detailed. Although very long, I think that many people will gain a lot of insight into the game and how it works by reading through the whole posting - I skimmed through the details primarily because I've been through the beta for months myself.
All-in-all I totally agree with a majority, if not all, of what you wrote. In the end, I still cannot believe that this game has been in production for six years and this is what we end up with as a final product - Very disappointing, especially when I very much wanted to see this title succeed.
Well ok first off the cloning system isnt all that great. Think about it..
You start off as a recruit, then at lvl 5 you make a choice. You either go the specialist way or the soldier way. After that soldier and specialist split up in new tiers. Say you clone at lvl 5, thats where you get your first clone credit point, then chooise specialist like i did. Lvl up the specialist till lvl 15 where you get to choose a subclass of the specialist tree and for safety you clone again using your 2nd clone point. Say you really dislike the specialist class and decide to use a clone.
Now either you can use the clone you made at lvl 15 to try another sub class in the specialist tree... this isnt to big of a deal and you will have to play only a few lvls again. However if you really wished you would have gone the soldier route it means you have to use the lvl 5 clone which means you gotta restart at lvl 5. So yeah there will be plenty of redoing whole zones again.
About diversity in other games when playing alts... The diversity that lacks in this game is first off all chars play alike because you constantly use rifle, shotgun, pistol while here and there using abilities. Then there's in reality plenty missions to skip the first time coz you lvl fast enough anyway so you could do the remaining missions the next time you play the zone. However coz of the same type of combat you'll have to go through and the ease of killing multiple monsters at the same time with the same sort of weapons you'll be using till lvl 50 and then the few abilities you will use it gets extremely boring very fast. Specially coz the game is fast paced with a zillion of mobs everywhere you go that agro on you no matter what once you come in range. That plus having to find all logo's again in the same zone. This all makes it very repetative and boring fast.
Other games usualy have more classes right from the start. All classes are way more diverse coz they use all kings of skills and magic and weapons (i mean in other mmorpgs per class its not uncommon to have 2 bars full of skills you can use by the time you are lvl 20 which gives alot of diversity) and do not demand you to find such things as logo's. Coz if you skip the logo's in tabula rasa this means you cant do quests further up or open doors that have new logo's inside or be able to use abilities later on. That plus most other mmorpgs are a challenge right from the start. Tabula rasa is maybe a challenge the first time for the first 10 lvls max but after that it becomes way to easy. Dont forget in this game there's no diversity in weapons except the few tier weapons you get, the rest its all shotgun, rifle, pistol. Its not like other games where you choose a new class you get to use new weapons like 2 hand hammers, swords, daggers, staffs etc.
In Tabula Rasa the challenge at first is that you dont know the capability of your skills and dont know what to expect etc, this adds a certain difficulty. However once you know it kill mobs like they mean nothing and this is what gives the game the feel of a grind. Having this feel of grinding since lvl 1 is not exiting at all. Specially coz there's not much to look forward to ability wise.
Also the abilities in tabula rasa are so unbalanced and many abilities are useless, the higher lvl ones arent even tested, that its easy to invest points the wrong way unless you read the forums etc alot and take advice of other players. Meaning yer screwed and have to eitehr keep going or go back 15 lvls using a clone and start over.
One thing that really cuts into replay ability for me is that there is only one zone for your level range. So 1-50 no matter what class you pick, you will always be doing the same quests and seeing the exact same thing.
Ive leveled 1-40, 3 times so far and I totaly agree with the OP that all the characters play the same. They have small diferences but its really not enough to set them apart, Also most every T4 skill is broken and or the logos for the abilitys are not in the game...so no one has even gotent to test them. They might add a little be more diversity to the mix of things but seeing as we have been getting along just fine with out them...they are pretty much just fluff.
Great write up OP.
This is a poorly thought out review filled with numerous factual inaccuracies, poorly thought out arguments and for some reason doesn't take into account that the game is still in beta.
And just for the record.. the cloning system is amazing. I would love to see it become MMO standard. Despite what the OP states.. it means you do NOT have to go through the content you've already finished to try another class.
But despite the problems with this "review" the overall message is somewhat on target.. the game lacks the depth needed to play long term.
Game is still in closed beta - finding the bugs so they can be fixed is part of the beta testing process.
You have your traditional type of classes - stealth (Ranger), Tank (Commando), Healer (Biotech), Support (Sapper).
The game uses an inverse class system. Rather than picking your final class at the start of the game when you know nothing about the game or the class - everyone starts as a recruit. At level 5 you choose to go into the soldier profession, or the support profession. At level 15 you make another class choice, and at level 30 your final class choice.
You werent forced to - you chose to. You can totally blow off the missions and logos you dont want by just abandoning the quests. The only logos you need are the ones that unlock skills for your class.
There are like 3 or 4 quests where you use logos to unlock something - the rest of the time it just lore. Lots of pretty pillars and trees and statues with writing in logos. Personally I havent bothered trying to translate them.
again thats your choice. Yes the weapons and abilities you get as a recruit are effective throughout the game. They dont become superseded and useless when you get higher level abilities. Level 1 lightning even scales its damage as you level so it remains effective throughout the game.
Every class has access to the basic firearms ability that covers pistol, rifle and shotgun. Firearms is one of the best skills in the game and well worth putting points into. Increased skill improves damage with weapons and sometimes other effects as well such as knockback with shotgun, and improved critical chance with rifle.
Not exactly - you only see 1 linker in the wilderness area (in an instance), there arent any striders or juggernaughts. Once you have seen these - then yes you know the entire arsenal the bane have.
The game is designed to be solo friendly. People arent forced to group - so they often dont. Everyone doing a mission gets the same reward and XP for the mission. The only time your loot is halved is when you are talking random loot generated from killing stuff.
However being in a group - the instances scale a bit - there are more foes generated. Teammates abilites do have an effect - eg if a soldier fires rage, everyone nearby gets that as well.
Ummm - its closed beta - hopefully you reported all those bugs so they could be fixed. I have noticed the occasional bug being introduced with new patches - being blown into the ground is really annoying, but overall they are being removed.
The game is designed for casual players and to be solo friendly. I group because I want to - not because I am forced to. I noticed in Guild Wars with the faction expansion there was a lot less grouping as people didnt need to because they had heros to help. Same thing here.
Yes people are forced to think.
Yes its a war not some totally unrealistic fantasy game with a gazillion different looking foes that are basically identical. So you know what forces are arrayed against you.
Unless they are immune. The game is designed so the things you learn early on dont become useless a few levels later and are effective throughout the game. You can find a nice high location and take out your opponents with rifles, or rush in close with pistols and shotguns.
actually missions become available as you complete missions. There are no level restrictions on maps. So if you want to take you lvl 4 recruit off to the next map - there will be missions available, but you wont be able to complete them as you wont be able to damage anything. The pain of a Level based system.
Yes the rewards dont scale to your level.
There are many bases, and some taverns where you could hang out if you wanted to.
The game seems more action based than role-play. But like any game you can role-play if you want to. So there you are in a war for survival against the Bane. The AFS is the standard military and we seem to fit in as mercenaries. We buy ammo, weapons, armor and supplies and get credits for doing jobs and killing stuff.
Never played in a game with mailboxes or auctionhouses so I dont see the need for them. There is a footlocker so you can store stuff for other clones.
And since there is plenty of loot and cash isnt a real issue you arent forced to sell your stuff to other players to get by.
If you want to trade with someone - meet them and trade.
What would be nice is some more clan features - maybe an instanced barracks where you can group up, a common armory for storage / sharing of old stuff you dont need.
OK skipping a bit -
Instances - totally different to the outside. Instances are where the story telling of the game happens. They look different, have different missions and objective.
Yes a way to get titles. Blame the people who asked for it on the beta boards
The starting areas are well polished and improving with every patch. They need to apply the same polish to the other areas.
Opinions are like arseholes - everyone has one.
Not everyone will like the game. Not everyone will hate it. Try it for yourself to make an informed decision.
The game plays far more like an action game. You can get to level 30 just doing missions. All the maps/instances are in the game but have not been completed and fleshed out yet.
Smart move - always try before you buy so you dont waste your money on something you dont like.
Having been in beta for 6 months I am going to buy the game.
oh i reported all bugs i came across.
In a way you are forced to get all logo's since later if you will want to use a clone credit you might need different logo's then you used firtst. That plus the fact that certain logo doors need others to open, do you know upfront which those are ? Then ofcourse for your future abilities and missions that require you to read logo text etc. Ofcourse yo ucan skip m now but itll mean you'll have to return later so there's not much difference.
Im not a fan of the so called class trees that branch out later on. i believe this is a mistake in mmorpg design and made for so called 'making the choices more natural for players'. This typically is not the case and the choices arent that natural at all, unless you get to play with the skills upfront. That plus the fact that this means at first everyone runs around with the same classes making grouping way less diverse for starters. Then later the devs cant branch out to much since that will make the choices less clear upfront before making them. So this system i dont think works very well and they should just stick to different classes right from the start. Its funny how they came up with this system a few years back to lessen the mistakes of people choosing the wrong class and investing in the wrong skills. All this trouble for just that lol. They could save themselves alot of hassle and simply allow respects but no mmorpg to my knowledge has done that yet. Except Dark age of camlot i believe that let mobs drop respec stones so you could respec, this never gave any problem to the game whatsoever and works very well.
About grouping, i love grouping and being able to solo at the same time. I think lotro the first 30 lvls or so did that very well. Also old games like the very well done dark age of camelot for instance got it done just right. However there's no fun in blasting your way through whole groups of mobs with such ease till you are what, lvl 35+ ? There needs to be a sence of community, this game plays to much like a solo game and solo games generally have way more challenge.
Carrying different ypes of damage weapons doesnt make you think. Only learn. You'll learn that certain mobs are immune etc. Its really less exiting then it sounds when you read about it or see video's about it. It gives diversity yes but the only diversity is it taking alot of space in your bag and having to switch guns, thats all it does. Its definately not hard to overcome the obstacle and doesnt provide any challenge at all. Maybe fun at first but more an annoyance later. Not to mention all the different types of guns... you need a way better ui then the 5 slot max weapon ui they have.
Well about mail and auction etc. I dont nescesarily need auctionhouses in game. They make it so everyone can get the best of the best dropped/crafted items so everyone pretty much runs around in the same gear.This is a major downside of auction houses in my eyes, it makes aquiring items way to easy in the current mmorpgs. I prefer good old fashioned trading through channels where you actually feel like you got yourself something special, plus trading 1 on 1 is fun and you feel like a business man. So no im not always ofr auction houses but they do let people gather so they are good for filling towns, give a sense of community. Mail... well i think no game can live wthout mail anymore, its all way to standard and way to practical and handy. The thing with tabula rasa is that for a next generation MMORPG game set in the future, having no mail and auction house etc it kinda seems very illogical. Im quite sure they simply didnt have the time to spend time on an auction house and mail system and thats the only reason its not in yet. You can bet ya it will be in months after release with patches.
About instances, Yeah they look different but what i meant was you'll meet the same mobs you see all the time outside the instance, plus the fighting will be exactly the same also. As far as i could see anyway. So the only difference is the missions and the scenery.
I myself still log on to tabula rasa to discover new sceneries, and at times its alright. Just i don tthink this game justifies all the hype thats been generated as the next big thing. Its total bullshit. The only things they show in video's is exactly the only good parts of the game and in video's they look way cool but doing them first hand its in reality simply not as cool and gets uninteresting fast.
Yes its a war not some totally unrealistic fantasy game with a gazillion different looking foes that are basically identical. So you know what forces are arrayed against you.
-Ability imbalance; Most abilities you use are the ones you get right from the get go, as a recruit. From lvl 1 on till lvl 10 or higher you can pretty much almost insta kill everything with a few lightning blasts which you got at lvl 1.
Unless they are immune. The game is designed so the things you learn early on dont become useless a few levels later and are effective throughout the game. You can find a nice high location and take out your opponents with rifles, or rush in close with pistols and shotguns.
- Mission imbalance; Missions become available as you lvl up, some need prequest to be done. The imbalance here is the level requirement before the quests become available. Since the game is so damn boringly easy if you want to escape the zone to a tougher higher lvl zone you wont have alot of missions available to you since you are to low lvl for all missions to be available.
actually missions become available as you complete missions. There are no level restrictions on maps. So if you want to take you lvl 4 recruit off to the next map - there will be missions available, but you wont be able to complete them as you wont be able to damage anything. The pain of a Level based system.
Also because of fast leveling you outgrow most quest rewards before you can even grab or finish the mission. That or you can do missions in tougher zones while being lower lvl and you cant even use the rewards till you lvl up 2 or 3 times.
Yes the rewards dont scale to your level.
* community; There's no such things as places to hang out in this game. The only places you hang out are hospitals after you revive (you end up at a hospital of your choice after you die or get rezzed by a group member) and the armor and weapon shops to repair, sell loot.
There are many bases, and some taverns where you could hang out if you wanted to.
There's no roleplaying aspects in the game whatsoever.
The game seems more action based than role-play. But like any game you can role-play if you want to. So there you are in a war for survival against the Bane. The AFS is the standard military and we seem to fit in as mercenaries. We buy ammo, weapons, armor and supplies and get credits for doing jobs and killing stuff.
There' s no mailboxes, there's no auctionhouse to draw people to a town, there's no nothing at all where people hang out. There's no reason to trade either even though there is a trade chat channel that doesnt really get used. There's so many drops all over the place that your bags fill up in no time and you go sell. Though this is beta so this will be different in retail but still, there's nothing really that encourages communities to exist.
Never played in a game with mailboxes or auctionhouses so I dont see the need for them. There is a footlocker so you can store stuff for other clones.
And since there is plenty of loot and cash isnt a real issue you arent forced to sell your stuff to other players to get by.
If you want to trade with someone - meet them and trade.
What would be nice is some more clan features - maybe an instanced barracks where you can group up, a common armory for storage / sharing of old stuff you dont need.
OK skipping a bit -
* Instances; meh. same as outside. a whole bunch of mobs shooting at you, the same as you see outside, nothing special going on there and you can solo most if not all of them , at least so far till what i read is lvl 30 +. What they show in video's like choosing several sub missions etc if you want for extra rewards, having to figure out puzzles... lol. Its not like they are hard to figure out. It simply comes down to shooting your way through a zillion mobs like you do outside the instance and thats about it.
Instances - totally different to the outside. Instances are where the story telling of the game happens. They look different, have different missions and objective.
* Target of Opertunity; when i saw the video i thought woah cool, you fight mobs and you can trigger some new mission and go do something cool. Its not like that at all. ToO's from what i can see is just get a mission pop up and telling you to kill 200 of this, 40 of that, get all logo's in the zone, visit all instances in the zone, etc etc. Boring grind. You can earn a new credit if you finish the whole list of 'have to kill's' and get a title. Ohhh exiting, not.
Yes a way to get titles. Blame the people who asked for it on the beta boards
In short. nothing really is well done in this game. Its like they spent 5 years or whatever on just getting the graphics done and the invasion AI done and stil have to complete all the rest. For a first person shooter, without first person view, type of MMORPG the tactical shooting isnt even all that exiting and even if it exites you at first itll get boring really fast.
The starting areas are well polished and improving with every patch. They need to apply the same polish to the other areas.
Dont feel sorry for the company or the publishers or even Richard. Dont feel sorry for people who hype the game so much in order to have a big initial sale of the game. They know they have a failed game and are only trying to make the most out of it by trying to cash in preorders etc asap before the game falls flat on its back within months after retail.
Opinions are like arseholes - everyone has one.
Not everyone will like the game. Not everyone will hate it. Try it for yourself to make an informed decision.
The game plays far more like an action game. You can get to level 30 just doing missions. All the maps/instances are in the game but have not been completed and fleshed out yet.
I had this game on preorder while i still played my ranger till lvl 17, so my first run through the game, now after char wipe with my 2nd run i cancelled my preorder.
Smart move - always try before you buy so you dont waste your money on something you dont like.
Having been in beta for 6 months I am going to buy the game.
whats really sad is you can sit and counter EVERY single part of his honest and open review...but the fact is that with an early release in 2 months it wont be any different or any better. the truth is i can see another Auto Assault happening all over again...
There is one door in Wilderness where you need to have obtained 3 other logos before you can open it.
There is one translation mission in Palisades.
There is also some big Eloh mission on Valverde Plateau that requires logos - thats all I have come across.
Cloning took a big nerf by introducing the clone credit system. This was done to get around the various ways you could use cloning to abuse the game.
The Ethical parable missions I think have been way over-hyped. They were supposed to make up 20% of the missions. I don't think its anywhere near that much, although a few have been added in recent patches. Also it doesn't really seem to matter which option you choose. So far I haven't noticed any effects in game based on choice outcomes. Other than a few additional missions opening up. They need some sort of faction system where you can piss-off your allies, have the AFS not give you certain jobs etc because of your actions.
The cover I find works well in combat to reduce damage, so I am finding myself maneuvering for cover rather than just standing there shooting all the time.
Devils Den is a tough mission to solo - so thats a fun one to group on. There are two missions in WIlderness - Xanx for the memories, and the Three Devils that are really tough and best if you group.
I did Caves of Donn last night with a group of 6, there were so many people in the way in the caves I couldnt target the critters.
I only had a very limited experience in the beta, only make it to 5 before gettind bored. I appreciated your reviews, it was very detailed and informative. I really tought after seeing the main site movies that this game was going to be a blast to play. After all these videos are awesome, i was really excited to play. However like you said in your review, the excitement doesnt last very long. It's too bad, seems all the recent games being released can't live up to the hipe. Devs always comes up promising players the moon and we endup with shallow games. Too bad, i'm so tired of fantasy mmo's, i have been looking for a new sci-fi mmo to play since i left AO over a year ago, never found anything as good.
Great review, very thorough and informative, and based on some other posts here, it seems like that's the majority opinion on Tabula Rasa at this point in time. It's really a shame; I really wanted this one to succeed.
It seems that every game that tries to break the mold in the MMO genre fails miserably. Not sure if that's a failure on the part of the developers, resistance to change in the MMO community at large, a combination of those factors, or some other factor I haven't considered.
Dude you only lvl'ed to 18 and then say its too easy?
nuff said
Personally I'm not waiting for this game in particular but this review didn't give
me any opinion about the game either. I think if there's an open beta or a trial
I will give this game a shot. And since it's quite different from a lot of mmorpg
there just might be a future. (although I know nothing of this game)
good review, i'll put this one on the back burner, running about having to find stuff to get skills sounds like a major pain
Sigh...I thought we were finally past the days of people actually quote by quote debating someones PERSONAL REVIEW of a video game...
Don't like what the guy had to say, write up your own.
I was in TR beta forever , and before had high hopes. I played the game for liek 3 days then was like .. .. this game is totally shallow, so i didn't play it for a long long while came back for the character clear and it was .... about the same. I was very disapointed, if anything it was worse, they made armor and guns way strong (still had my old ones to compare) and they gave you tons of them off the bat... like before it was a while before you got access to the shotty now you get it right away ... thats disappointing to me.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
It s just my personal opinion but I think you should play more than to lvl 18 before writing a review.
However it's a decent enough perspective I guess and some of the things I whole heartedly agree with, especially the ease of the game and weakness of the mobs. I've died once, afk and even then watched them try to kill me for what had to be about 5 minutes. Instances are a little harder if you're in a group and will require the aid of specialists to some degree. To me this is somewhat of a game breaker, without risk there's no real game.
I'm not sure if this will be such a bad thing overall for the game though. From reading several of the high profile devs future plan for games I see many of them making mmo's so solo freindly than they will all be a cake walk and get many 'part-time' game subs as a result. At least that seems to be their plan.
Rather paradoxically I will be buying the full retail as there is bugger all else out that is even playable and I have a few freinds playing so hopefully it will tide me over until PotBS.
On a plus though, the engine is imo awsome, deffinatly one of the best I've used recently, some of the graphics are superbly done and most zones are a pleaseure to behold. I've heard and seen a lot about the hero engine but I reckon this could give it a run for its money.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I was in beta for a long long time. Im a scifi fan and had very high hopes this game would be UO enhanced and without orcs and elves. Well those hopes were laid to rest after months of boring same ole same ole gameplay. Its not a bad game by any means at all, just very boring for me. There isnt anything about this game that requires any thought or skill at all. The combat is pretty shallow with ammo tracking and damage resist about the only thing you have to track. Overall the game is pretty and isnt a fantasy game is about all i can say is good about it.
I would recommend everyone trying it out for themselves and see if its for them. There isnt enough to TR that will keep you interested for long. After months of testing i can say i wont be there for live unless a huge revamp comes first