Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Beta Impressions @ Level 42
After hitting level 42 last friday and not having the chance to play the game again afterward, I've decided to drop it today after logging in again for a little bit. I'm sure a lot of players have hit a higher level by now, but I still wanted to write down some of my impressions here.
FYI, I hit level 42 after less than 4 days of play. I played a single Sun & Moon sect character during the beta, joined a guild to test out the guild features and participated in a fair few duels and arena fights. I also got PK'd and PK'd people back a number of times.
Inevitably, I will be comparing this game to Age of Wushu / Wulin, which is the other Wuxia MMO I played the most. Although from a certain perspective, it would be better to compare this game to Jade Dynasty, that other Perfect World martial arts game. As I don't have much experience in the latter however, I'm not the right guy to do so.
Graphics, customization and world
The graphics of Swordsman are fairly good in comparison to other Perfect World titles. They are less impressive than they appear to be at first glance however. You will quickly notice how many of the textures in the world are pretty muddy and bad looking. Overall, Swordsman looks very nice when looked at from a distance, but less and less so when you actually start looking closer.
Character customization in the game is very extensive, with several mysterious categories present that only the hardcore customizers will manage to take advantage of. Even in this regard, some criticism can be given though: although you can make many drastic choices to create freakish characters, most of the "normalish" faces tend to end up looking the same. Hairstyles are also lacking and don't matter much when headdress items in the game change them anyhow.
Gear customization in the game is pretty terrible. Similar to Age of Wushu, all dropped gear gravitates toward the same looks per tier, with schools getting a special outfit.
Other than Wushu however, there really is only one outfit that all newbie characters start with. There are also no different sect looks or special costumes outside of the cash shop. Furthermore, school outfits are on a timer. The only way to get more appears to be the cash shop.
The world of Swordsman is similarly unimpressive as it lacks the vast zones and impressive vistas that AoW presents.
Maps are generally tiny with a few exceptions. The sect maps especially are lacking, with areas like the Sun & Moon cult sect only existing out of one tiny corridor. A major difference with the sometimes annoyingly large school maps in Wushu.
Story
Unlike AoW, Swordsman online has a pretty big focus on storyline. Do not expect a fairly complex storyline like in TESO or TOR however.
SO's storyline serves more as an introduction sequence to the actual game. It will swiftly take you through the first 35 or so levels while you click the links to autopath toward the next quest.
That autopathing feature is the reason everything feels so hugely linear when first starting this game. As well as the reason why the first 35 levels of SO fail to actually introduce you to anything at all.
Swordsman goes further in autopathing than any game I've seen before it. It doesn't just drive your character to the location, it does literally everything for you: teleporting to a new zone, picking up quest objectives and even delivering the first strikes to enemies.
The storyline is actually fairly fun in itself, although mostly through the "lolwut" moments and the incredible cheesiness of it all, coupled with some okay boss fights. Albeit those never manage to challenge you.
After you hit level 35 however, everything grinds to a sudden halt as you are only presented with a few quests per level and are left to wander the world and grind your way forward as the clueless noob you actually are. Autopathing won't help you much anymore and you'll now be left alone to figure out where everything really is without the use of that function.
Luckily, SO also becomes a little less linear at this point, and many interesting features start to open up to you.
Combat & Progression
Swordsman's combat is more twitch based than Age of Wushu's, which ends up having both advantages and disadvantages. Players can also switch to more classic control setups, though I for one never managed to figure out which one would be the easiest in the end. "Action mode", where you freely launched your attacks, was by far the most fun however.
PvE
Fighting monsters and doing instances was pretty fun in Swordsman, even though the game never really rose above parking large groups of monotone mobs around the world, or basic type boss fights.
Even though Swordsman doesn't really innovate in any PvE category, the twitch combat made it fun to continuously slash through large swathes of enemies.
The game also offers a good deal of different PvE events to complete each day and a decent amount of grouping to look forward to.
Loot distribution is pretty good in the game: although drops from bosses in "hero mode" instances can be disappointing, you are assured a few tokens or crafting stuff to make it worth your while.
Be prepared for a big grind after you finish the game's storyline however. Post level 35 you'll be slogging along at a snail's pace, even more so after level 40. The fact that the game has an integrated bot function (called self cultivation) speaks volumes about the amount of grind involved.
It's really hard to defend a game that basically promotes players to not play it, while the bot does the work. That function again makes the game more linear and less social.
PvP
I played about 40 arena games in Swordsman, did a lot of duels and hunted down a fair share of PK'ers in an anti-PK effort.
PvP in the game is fun and I can see it being the biggest factor which will keep people playing. Especially because several social elements like guild base invasions and territory battles are present. The class balance also seemed pretty fair as far as I could see, with only a few mechanics that could truly be abused.
Still, I'm not an undivided fan of the twitch based combat SO presents. I personally find it overrated.
The biggest lacking element for me, compared to a game like AoW, was the fact that there was much less "contact" between the different avatars.
In every good matchup I fought, both opponents were sort of "poking" each other left and right until they managed to land a short lived streak of attacks when the receiving party could roll or jump away.
While many players would probably call the fast recovery from stuns and lockdowns a good thing, it also made the combat fairly uneventful and unsatisfying. There were no satisfying, massive combos where you smashed someone into the ground with Lotus style, kicked their face in with Leisure kick or pummeled them into submission with Eagle claw.
For a martial arts game, strikes didn't seem to connect nearly enough. There was little sense of being in an actual exhange of blows. A sect like the Shaolin might have fared better in that regard however.
Outside of the arena, gear also quickly becomes the deciding factor for fights. With certain attacks suddenly becoming near oneshots against inferiorly geared opponents.
Cash shop
Although I can not fully judge the effects of the cash shop. There were a few warning signs that did flare up for me.
For example: it appears as if you can simply buy your way out of crafting by purchasing "Increase your crafting level to X" tomes in the shop. Couple that with the fact that you can have simply all crafting professions on a single character and the fact that you need to go back to grind low level mats in earlier zones otherwise, and you can see why people would buy that.
Other than that, gems are available that allow you to socket and otherwise improve your gear. Considering the history of certain Perfect World titles with those setups and the importance of gear in open PvP, it's reason enough to be concerned.
Conclusion
Although the above might have been sounded a bit negative, Swordsman Online isn't a bad F2P MMO. For people who are looking for a Wuxia-themed game where they can have instant fun, SO is definitely a better choice than a game like AoW.
Unlike the latter however, Swordsman is very much lacking a world that thrives on player interaction. Although it does offer a number of different events to players, it also doesn't feel nearly as rich in content. Especially because its storyline is more of a short introduction to the actual game than anything else.
The game also shoots itself in the foot by often automating itself completely. Which makes it feel like you're watching some slow train chug along its rails, rather than sitting in an exciting rollercoaster yourself.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Comments
After level 35 do people group up and grind or are you still solo? Are there any open world dungeons and does the pvp have a purpose?
No, it is definitely not a sandbox at all. If you read my last paragraph you will notice how I mention it's fairly on rails.
I did not delve too much into crafting, the problem was that you needed to return to low level areas to grind out resources while the game rushed you past those levels in the story.
The crafting system itself is a fairly standard "combine XYZ to get result item" however. It didn't seem very special. You could potentially end up with a higher rarity item and could use "luck items" to improve the result. I reckon those are from the cash shop, although I didn't see them around yet.
In the beta you mostly relied on item drops from instances or gear purchased from the tokens that dropped from instances. Gear has both stats and bonuses toward certain skills. Sometimes you need to get the same item several times before you get a useful skill bonus on it.
In terms of instancing, the game isn't much more extreme than most games. However, as I mentioned above, the zones are generally tiny and you will be using a teleport function a lot to get from one place to the next. So expect to see a lot of loading screens.
There are also a lot of mini-events that take you to small instances.
The game does have traditional level progression. Other than that it also relies on you getting "kung-fu points" by slaying enemies and doing instances & quests. Those points can then be spend on "mastery" which is a talent-tree like system to further increase your stats.
Combat is fun in SO, but whether it is more fun than AoW is a fairly subjective thing. Some people will definitely like it better yes.
A combination of both I would say.
The couple of people who no-lifed and got to like level 49 in the same time it took me to get to level 42 probably ended up doing non-stop dungeon runs.
Personally I did mostly repeatable quests, solo'd the normal difficulty of dungeons and did the daily events that give you a pretty big boost in XP.
There are also still quests after the story ends, but only a few per level. You will be able to get like 20-30% of a level in quests, but then the next few quests will show the message "Level 36 required to complete" etc.
Finally, I also used the integrated bot function or self-cultivation. You can basically park your character in a field with mobs, determine how far your character will automatically run, give a set of skills as a repeatable input and determine what happens with loot pickups and potions when low on health. Then you just start botting for hours while you do work or play some other game.
There is a limit on how long you can bot every day (you need to regain a certain currency in time after botting, although there will likely be stuff in the cash shop for that), but it still amounts to many hours.
Although instance grinding might also be better to level up, I still expect you to need the botting later on. Because the bot can also be automatically assigned to upgrade your items with dropped gear (your items have experience in the game and you need to add levels to them by refining drops into them) and gathering the kung-fu points that I mentioned to the previous poster above.
On the subject of open world dungeons: I didn't see any. All dungeons so far were instanced. They were also all fairly small and quick to complete. However, I only got to level 42 (the maximum is 100 I believe), so I won't pretend to know what lies ahead in the game.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Solo botting is what you do when you aren't on quests or in a group. Magma Vent full party grinds are a fast active way of leveling - even up to level 50. Instances become more about gear.
I take some issue with the OP's leveling time. It should only take 3-5 hours to hit level 36. Getting level 40 might be a few more hours....
Otherwise the comments are fairly reasonable.
That is exactly how long it took me to level 35 (not 36).
This was at the time of the closed beta. As I'm European the beta started very late at night and I had only 2 hours to play before becoming too tired. In that time I hit level 20 - something.
The next day I swiftly ended the story and hit level 35.
Perhaps a person who enters this game with pre-emptive knowledge can get to level 40 a few hours later. Personally I spent some time figuring things out, as did most other players in the beta (most were far slower than me).
As I acknowledged in the above posts, instance grinding is probably the fastest way to level beyond that. I personally don't consider running the same small zone over and over fun however. Therefore I did not come back to the game in the second week of play.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Wait 3 - 5 hours to hit level 36? What is the point in leveling if it's that fast? What is the cap?
Those first 35-36 levels are more like an introduction than anything else. Thoughout those levels you have the storyline that guides you along, with a number of cutscenes etc.
After those levels the storyline more or less stops (you still have a few quests per level, but need to grind to get along).
I consider it a little bit like Age of Conan's first 20 levels, except it isn't instanced off completely in this game.
It's not exactly the same as in AoW. But you do seem to have territory wars yes.
I'm not too knowledgable about the guild features to be honest. But you did have guild bases that could be improved as your guild leveled up and guild quests that got you a fair bit of XP and contribution points.
To explain how territory battles work, you'll probably need to get someone who knows more about the game to explain it to you. I have no clue beyond that you could invade other guild's bases and such.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
all PWE mmos have the same autopathing that plays for you. If i remember correctly it is Jade Dynasty that has a botting mechanic so you could activate it and the character stays in a designated area killing everything within certain range, by itself.
Also, like all PWE mmos, Swordsman seems to already have the same cash shop issue. PWE love to sell items to enchant gear or give 100% success to avoid failing and losing items so if you want to try pvp you are doomed if you dont spend lots of cash on that stuff. Thats very common in all of their games. Thats wrong and sucks.
@OP, or anyone who knows, Did they polish the game for Open peta(early start)? Closed beta was very clunky. If they want me to spend money they better release a quality product.
The head start will also be a factor for a bit as well. Levels are fairly important in SMO as well. Big enough PK guild with that much of a head start could pretty much stop any and all people from leveling normally if they saw fit to. (Worse case scenario of course) So will be interesting to see how things go after the head start and OB rolls out.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
I'm not planning on playing more to be honest, so nope, no idea.
Hopefully they did improve it, performance was horrible for me too.
The botting system is similar to Jade Dynasty's one in this game, but it's less encouraged.
I share your fears about the cash shop, it definitely looks like it will become the standard PWE "pay to successfully enchant your gear" kind of deal.
There was already a PK guild in the closed beta whose members were generally way ahead of everyone else. Luckily though, those hardcore dudes don't usually have the numbers to totally cover large areas. The way it went was that they would come to annoy a number of newbies, but then they would be swept away by larger guilds who threw their numbers in to kill them.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Polish wise - very little more was done. However, the small issues that existed in CB (like the viewable loot issue) almost doesn't matter because your pet can be set to automatically pick up everything anyway. It's only a slight annoyance at low levels.
Gameplay wise the first 40 levels almost have no bearing on the game by level 41+. You go from linear storylines to open world grinding / events / instances. Schools matter a lot since you can unlock "Rumor Skills" as well as bonus quests. You can be invaded at any time and based on my experience there is a territory control on top of all that...but I didn't get to directly experience that.