Arche Age

[Miasma]

Okay, I installed this when I went to bed last night and played it about an hour this morning. It was okay, combat was decent fun. However: I mined two iron nodes in the tutorial area which completely drained my labor points. It regenerated up to 5, but not any farther. I spent the rest of the hour waiting to regen labor points to open shitty level one loot bags 5 at a time. Since I could kill 10-15 things in the time it took to get back 5 labor points I have a billion unopened loot bags. I don't see this mechanic getting any better. Labor Points are the cancer that will kill this game.

What you were supposed to do was leave your computer running overnight burning electricity so that your character could stand there afk for the eight or whatever hours you slept and built up more labor points.  No, I'm not kidding, it's pretty dumb.  No, you don't need a macro to stay online as there is currently no auto logout after being afk for ten minutes.

Yes, you can slowly push people who are afk into enemies so that they get killed.

[Rendakor]

Do you still earn labor while dead?

[Falconeer]

Farmville with PvP, or PvP with Farmville, is why I care about this game. Fuck PvE, but that's where the problem lies: for a PvP-oriented game, there's too much forced PvE.

[Pennilenko]

I will play this super casually. Eventually I will figure out what I need to focus on and how to do things. Then I will find a medium to largish guild of special little snowflakes. I will be the extreme one in the guild for a little while (comparatively speaking). Then the guild will fall apart due to special snowflake drama-itis. Then I will find a much larger guild where I will be an obscure nobody for a month or two until I log in one day and decide that the game is no longer for me. Then a few months after I will completely regret the time and money I wasted on another MMO that failed to hook me, all while being in denial of the fact that it wasn't the MMO's fault, but mine for being a bitter jaded old burnout.

[Nightblade]

Okay, I installed this when I went to bed last night and played it about an hour this morning. It was okay, combat was decent fun. However: I mined two iron nodes in the tutorial area which completely drained my labor points. It regenerated up to 5, but not any farther. I spent the rest of the hour waiting to regen labor points to open shitty level one loot bags 5 at a time. Since I could kill 10-15 things in the time it took to get back 5 labor points I have a billion unopened loot bags. I don't see this mechanic getting any better. Labor Points are the cancer that will kill this game.

That's weird because as far as I know f2p players get 1000 labour points.  Theres no way 2 iron nodes cost 500 LP each unless they've changed it since closed beta/alpha.

You start with 0 points and earn them as you stay logged on.

[Pennilenko]

I don't know if patron status has anything to do with it, but the first time I logged in I had 1000 labor points.

[Mrbloodworth]

Ok I gotta be completely honest, and normally I don't do direct shoutouts. But NrBloodworth has probably saved me a lot of time. I don't recall ever seeing you so pissed off about a game. About other people sure, but never about a game. That alone is enough to save me the download.

Back to Divinity then  

There are some really compelling things in this game.

The good:
Multi-user mounts, right off the bat. Complete with combat from the back of them.
Trade good logistic game play ( Trade goods are not real, but bundles of "things" you ship around ), ships have cargo room, you can form caravans ETC... ( Not a mechanic, but its safer in numbers )  
Player ships and salvage, the housing is mostly cosmetic but there is a crafting focus, its akin to SWG in that respect.
Crafting is complicated, and unlike Questing, tell you nearly nothing about sub-steps to craft, and there are a shit ton of items, the list is truncated at 999 items shown at a time.
It's a very well executed game in terms of technical stability and feel. Combat is tight for what it is.


The bad:
Most everything above, is gated by the Questing or cash shop.
The combat is TAB target sameness. PvP is completely gear based, witch is also tied to the cash shop ( See labor points, and crate drops, dust ) Paid users will always have the advantage here.
The PVE quests are the worst I have ever seen, and I have seen some shit. Its refined skinner box and mindless. I Can not express how vapid it is. Characterless NPC right next to the objective, or, all objectives in your current direction of travel. And I do not Mean you have to go up a hill a little down the road, I mean he/she/it is literately IN YOUR WAY. Can't miss'em. The opening story for the Cat people reads like a story outline that they forgot to fill in in the interesting parts of.
I'm now level 20 and have not seen ANY group content in questing.
Literately nothing has come close to killing me, there is ZERO challenge in MOBS. Its as if they are suicidal. Wildlife bully simulator.
For being on CryENGINE 3, they sure did to make sure to remove all the rendering features that make CryENGINE impressive. The Draw distance in this title is laughable.


I'm not sure how I feel about this revelation though, on one had, its cool, on the other, its not.

Paying users are called patrons for a reason, there is an expectation it seems that free to play users are surfs to their noble. The game, at a few occasions, suggests you make friends with a patron to use their land and such as a sharecropper ETC.. Its a built in E-peen, right in the mechanics for money. 2 class system right off the start, that's surprisingly appropriate for the setting, but sad as part of the sate of gaming.

[Mrbloodworth]

I don't know if patron status has anything to do with it, but the first time I logged in I had 1000 labor points.

Extremely likely. As when you hover Labor points, it informs you that you will get X points while online, and X points while not. I Assume patron get offline accumulation. And yes, while I understand to a degree. Non paying users run out of points in nearly two actions. I know this because I decided to take WayAbvPars "suggestion", and just go crafting. I Ran out of points in less than 2 minutes. Mining a node takes labor, refneing takes labor. It was likely the shortest crafting spree I have ever done. Never finished an item due to labor, and what I image, even for a dagger, is a cash shop item requirement (archeum dust?).

[Merusk]

Paying users are called patrons for a reason, there is an expectation it seems that free to play users are surfs to their noble. The game, at a few occasions, suggests you make friends with a patron to use their land and such as a sharecropper ETC.. Its a built in E-peen, right in the mechanics for money. 2 class system right off the start, that's surprisingly appropriate for the setting, but sad as part of the sate of gaming.

I didn't know the Koch brothers backed this game.

[HaemishM]

So do your Open Beta characters carry over to release? In case I do actually want to dickpunch myself at some point and play this game?

[Threash]

Has that ever happened anywhere other than games that just call their actual releases "beta" so you can't bitch about how broken they are?

[Ginaz]

Unless you're using an alt account, have a lot of friends that play or in a large guild, I really wouldn't bother playing as f2p.  It is not f2p,or solo friendly, at all. 

[Falconeer]

No, nothing carries over from beta. And for good reasons: the beta has been going for a while and available land is scarce in the starter areas.

One thing I can say after hating myself enough to keep playing and try to find the fun over the dull PvE beginnings, is that there seem to be many layers of complexity in every aspect that aren't immediately obvious, and that would be a good thing. As stated multiple times, the first 20 or 30 levels are just a boriing WoW clone. But you get glimpses of "more" that make you wonder if it's worth to keep going.

And I don't have an answer for that. I can say that once I got my scarecrow and planted my first crop, got my first harvest, grew my first goslings and earned my trade pack and doneky, I was amused and getting little tiny bits of that old SWG vibe. And honestly, I wouldn't mind paying a monthly fee if I decided the game is entertaining enough. With no box price, three months of subscription would still be cheaper than 4 months on a "client purchase only" game. The real problem is finding out -without wasting too much time- if it is worth it to keep going and try to find a community of players or not. Because, no matter what the PvE looks like, I think it's important to stress something out: THIS IS NOT A GAME FOR SOLO PLAYERS. While leveling up your toon is something you can do by yourself, the actual gameplay and endgame, be it PvP, Crafting, Conquering, or even simply looting stuff, seems to be dependent on your ability to find the right friends to play with.

Anyway, aside from the "labor" fiasco that we discussed many times, after putting more time into it I still can't decide if it's worth to keep playing or not. The focus on PvP would be my main reason, but there's no way to tell if it's good or not until you get there and comments about it on the net are very discordant.

[Mrbloodworth]

And I don't have an answer for that. I can say that once I got my scarecrow and planted my first crop

So, you paid. I Cant place a farm, so i have to plant flowers in out of the way locations, and shooo plebs away. Also, I have to sit AFK to even craft.

The real game is at the endgame

Said about every MMO ever to get that sub money, and while it was not true then. This game made it a real feature.

If the body of your work is not fun, you have failed.

[Falconeer]

I do not disagree with you.

I think the problem with "free to play" games is that they don't have the guts to find better wording for what they offer. I think this would be a good game and probably "worth" (depending on your idea of 12€ worth of stuff) a monthly sub. But they can't afford to risk another TESO and miracles like FF14 don't happen every day. So, this gets out as "free to playe" but it is actually instead just confusing, teasing, and ultimately rage inducing. If they simply said "you can play the demo of the game indefinitely, or pay some monthly bucks to unlock to full version" it wouldn't get all this heat.

[Nightblade]

If the body of your work is not fun, you have failed.

Someone needs to staple this on the foreheads of every MMO developer. Sadly, I get the feeling it'll take a long while before both developers and players realizes the truth in this statement.

[palmer_eldritch]

And I don't have an answer for that. I can say that once I got my scarecrow and planted my first crop

So, you paid. I Cant place a farm, so i have to plant flowers in out of the way locations, and shooo plebs away. Also, I have to sit AFK to even craft.

The real game is at the endgame

Said about every MMO ever to get that sub money, and while it was not true then. This game made it a real feature.

If the body of your work is not fun, you have failed.

The body of the game is loads of fun. The body of the game is not doing quests. The questing is more like a tutorial, and you can stop once you reach level 30 or so and just concentrate on growing flowers or whatever.

Also, it's just wrong to say that PvP is gear based. It's largely *build* based but that's a different thing. You'll also find that some builds are better than others in different situations, eg a tank with a lot of crowd control is really useful in group v group pvp but much less so in 1 v 1, a melee DPS is likely to be good in 1 v 1 , etc . . . but any class can be useless if the player has chosen bad skills or hasn't thought about how to use the skills they chose (characters can learn every class in the game eventually, although you can only have three loaded at once, so there's plenty of scope to test out different builds).

[Threash]

I do not disagree with you.

I think the problem with "free to play" games is that they don't have the guts to find better wording for what they offer. I think this would be a good game and probably "worth" (depending on your idea of 12€ worth of stuff) a monthly sub. But they can't afford to risk another TESO and miracles like FF14 don't happen every day. So, this gets out as "free to playe" but it is actually instead just confusing, teasing, and ultimately rage inducing. If they simply said "you can play the demo of the game indefinitely, or pay some monthly bucks to unlock to full version" it wouldn't get all this heat.

The problem with this is looking at f2p games as "games not good enough for a sub".  It's more like "games that realized the sub model is dead".  F2p can be just as profitable as sub games if your model is right, games like LoL or Marvel Heroes are making tons of money and you don't have to spend a cent if you don't want too.  Make a good game, let people play the whole thing for free, more than enough people will be happy to spend money on your game if it is fun to play.  You can't even call this a demo because players will run head first into the labor point system and never want to spend a cent.  "This game is fun, I'm going to spend money on it" is a viable model, "this game would be fun if i spent money on it" is never ever going to work.

[Miasma]

Paying users are called patrons for a reason, there is an expectation it seems that free to play users are surfs to their noble. The game, at a few occasions, suggests you make friends with a patron to use their land and such as a sharecropper ETC.. Its a built in E-peen, right in the mechanics for money. 2 class system right off the start, that's surprisingly appropriate for the setting, but sad as part of the sate of gaming.

I didn't know the Koch brothers backed this game.

I have been told there is a mechanic where you can literally sell your labor points to more powerful people who will use them to run their crafting empire.  The blood of the f2p people oil the cogs of industry.

[palmer_eldritch]

They probably would have been better off just selling this as a game that needs a sub. You could even perhaps have the same payment model but market the "free" version as a demo or something.

[Threash]

You can't have a demo that makes people not want to play your game, what they should have done is realized that the labor system is fucking idiotic and ripped it out by the roots because it will kill their game.

[Mrbloodworth]

And I don't have an answer for that. I can say that once I got my scarecrow and planted my first crop

So, you paid. I Cant place a farm, so i have to plant flowers in out of the way locations, and shooo plebs away. Also, I have to sit AFK to even craft.

The real game is at the endgame

Said about every MMO ever to get that sub money, and while it was not true then. This game made it a real feature.

If the body of your work is not fun, you have failed.

The body of the game is loads of fun. The body of the game is not doing quests. The questing is more like a tutorial, and you can stop once you reach level 30 or so and just concentrate on growing flowers or whatever.

Also, it's just wrong to say that PvP is gear based. It's largely *build* based but that's a different thing. You'll also find that some builds are better than others in different situations, eg a tank with a lot of crowd control is really useful in group v group pvp but much less so in 1 v 1, a melee DPS is likely to be good in 1 v 1 , etc . . . but any class can be useless if the player has chosen bad skills or hasn't thought about how to use the skills they chose (characters can learn every class in the game eventually, although you can only have three loaded at once, so there's plenty of scope to test out different builds).

It's Gear VS Gear, or else this would have a horizontal progression, instead of a vertical power progression. Movement does not matter, you can not dodge things. That's all up to the RNG. Same as it ever was. The Whales will win.

[palmer_eldritch]

It's Gear VS Gear, or else this would have a horizontal progression, instead of a vertical power progression. Movement does not matter, you can not dodge things. That's all up to the RNG. Same as it ever was. The Whales will win.

That's just not correct. Gear can make a difference but a player who knows what they are doing can defeat someone who doesn't regardless of gear. It's not about running around (although that sometimes matters - some classes can kite, some abilities do more damage from behind), it's more about knowledge of the game mechanics. You can get some idea who you are facing by mousing over their health bar, which shows you which classes they have loaded, and to an extent by what they are wearing and what weapons or weapon/shield they use. The tactics for defeating them will depend on their classes and your classes. Sometimes you might decide your best bet is not to fight them at all, eg plate tanks are weak against mages but strong against archers.

[Falconeer]

I heard that, contrary to many MMORPGs, lower level characters can actually hurt higher level ones. As a result, a bunch of lowbies can defeat a solo level 50. Is that true? *IF* that is true, then while gear will always matter a lot, it is possible that they made it so group play and tactics, as opposed to gear, account for a higher % of success than usual in these games. Palmer?

EDIT: Are you also saying that they nailed down the "custom class" system that Rift fumbled on? The systems are very very similar (it actually looks like a Ripoff of the Rift one). Does this actually allow for creativity as opposed to the Rift one were the options were only theoretical, but anything that wasn't the cookie cutter OP build was useless?

[WayAbvPar]

I am not sure about high level PCs, but a swarm of lowbies can take down L50+ mobs in a fat hurry.

[palmer_eldritch]

I heard that, contrary to many MMORPGs, lower level characters can actually hurt higher level ones. As a result, a bunch of lowbies can defeat a solo level 50. Is that true? *IF* that is true, then while gear will always matter a lot, it is possible that they made it so group play and tactics, as opposed to gear, account for a higher % of success than usual in these games. Palmer?

EDIT: Are you also saying that they nailed down the "custom class" system that Rift fumbled on? The systems are very very similar (it actually looks like a Ripoff of the Rift one). Does this actually allow for creativity as opposed to the Rift one were the options were only theoretical, but anything that wasn't the cookie cutter OP build was useless?

Yeah they don't have the artificial thing where high level characters automatically gain massive resistance to low level characters. Obviously, higher level characters have a lot more hit points and do more damage etc. I don't know that a bunch of level 10s can beat a level 50 but they could hurt them unlike in most DIKU games. I can kill level 50s with a level 45 character and hardly notice the level difference. In 1v1 fights a big factor is often simply who attacks first.

I should say that gear does make a difference. As well as your armour and weapons you have various enhancements you can add to your gear (called lunagems), food which adds to your stats, potions which can enhance resistance and even titles you can get for questing can give you titles which add stats. Having a good mount can also help in PvP in the sense that the ability to jump on it and run like hell when you are losing is actually a big thing.

So gear does matter but skill also matters - skill in a "playing RPGs" sense, making the right decisions and understanding the game, not necessarily in a twitchy sense.

Bear in mind that the most meaningful PvP in the game is not done solo, so often having a good leader or organised group is a factor. If you are trying safely to deliver trade goods across the ocean then there may be PvP involved but your chances of success depend to a great extent on organisation (and the same is true for a pirating expedition).

Classes: First of all, a difference with Rift is that you can choose any three classes, and then choose the skills you want from those classes. Unlike Rift where you first have to choose one of four "callings", which limits your class choices. Also, in Archeage you can change your classes any time.

What you get is not a system where literally anything works. You get people endlessly theorycraftng and arguing about which builds are best. It's a bit like Eve and ship loadouts.

But if for example you want to be a bard, you can indeed be a bard who is also an archer, or who throws fireballs, or who tanks, or who heals, or who sneaks around and stabs people with a dagger or whatever.

[Lantyssa]

Any noble Patrons need a serf?

Pretty sure I'll be playing casually on the eastern continent.

[Falconeer]

I would! But.... European server 

[Falconeer]

"Tips" for free players: do not bother with labor, gathering or anything else. You really start with zero labor points and the first iron mine you gather drains you out preventing you to open loot bags.  

As someone else pointed out, all you can do as a free player is fight. All the crafting, gathering and trading layers are simply not for you. From plain inabilities (can't build or own land) to scarcity of resources (labour points or inventory space) you just shouldn't bother or you'll get frustrated.
Again, it would have ben OK if they stated this on the box/front page and said: "This game has a monthly fee! But we give you the combat parts of the game for free if you want to get an idea of what it's like."

The whole "labor point" mechanic doesn't seem so insanely stupid once you are a patron (meaning you pay the monthly fee), and the "cap" mechanic isn't that terrible from a design standpoint (when you are a patron) as a way to keep the economy healhy and prevent inflaction, and most importantly to hinder botting/goldfarming activities. I think a lot boils down to how badly they marketed the game as  "free to play" and how punishing things are for those who don't pay after being teased into believing they could have much more.

[tmp]

The whole "labor point" mechanic doesn't seem so insanely stupid once you are a patron (meaning you pay the monthly fee), and the "cap" mechanic isn't that terrible from a design standpoint (when you are a patron) as a way to keep the economy healhy and prevent inflaction, and most importantly to hinder botting/goldfarming activities.

As long as there's potions to regen the labour in cash shop as it's pretty standard in Korean MMOs at this point that has nothing to do with 'keeping economy healthy' and other stuff that's laughable in context of these games, and everything to do with double-dipping.

[Mrbloodworth]

It's Gear VS Gear, or else this would have a horizontal progression, instead of a vertical power progression. Movement does not matter, you can not dodge things. That's all up to the RNG. Same as it ever was. The Whales will win.

That's just not correct. Gear can make a difference but a player who knows what they are doing can defeat someone who doesn't regardless of gear. It's not about running around (although that sometimes matters - some classes can kite, some abilities do more damage from behind), it's more about knowledge of the game mechanics. You can get some idea who you are facing by mousing over their health bar, which shows you which classes they have loaded, and to an extent by what they are wearing and what weapons or weapon/shield they use. The tactics for defeating them will depend on their classes and your classes. Sometimes you might decide your best bet is not to fight them at all, eg plate tanks are weak against mages but strong against archers.

Good luck with that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dya_C3GQgaE

[palmer_eldritch]

Video has no connection to discussion.

[Nightblade]

That's just not correct. Gear can make a difference but a player

So it makes a difference, thus it's Gear vs Gear.

[Scold]

That's just not correct. Gear can make a difference but a player

So it makes a difference, thus it's Gear vs Gear.

...you do realize the difference between "X is a factor" and "X is the sole or primary factor," right?

[angry.bob]

The problem with this is looking at f2p games as "games not good enough for a sub".  It's more like "games that realized the sub model is dead".  F2p can be just as profitable as sub games if your model is right, games like LoL or Marvel Heroes are making tons of money and you don't have to spend a cent if you don't want too.  Make a good game, let people play the whole thing for free, more than enough people will be happy to spend money on your game if it is fun to play.  You can't even call this a demo because players will run head first into the labor point system and never want to spend a cent.  "This game is fun, I'm going to spend money on it" is a viable model, "this game would be fun if i spent money on it" is never ever going to work.

All of what you said. I spend way more than $15 a month each on War thunder and World of Tanks, or at least I did. If I wanted to do a casual period I could cruise for free without any of the Sub benefits and it didn't effect the actual game play. When I wanted the bonuses I subbed and I also bought premium vehicles and camo schemes. If WoT had sold extra bags, improvised armor, etc to add to the tank models I'd have bought those too.

But this... I played it and ran into a severe labor point shortage in less than a half an hour with ominous feelings that it would only get worse. It was the biggest soft-on I've had for a game since Anarchy online launched. And it doesn't sound like the labor thing gets a whole lot better for subscribers anyway.

I can see what they're trying to do and it's a novel approach to one of my pet peeves: People "mastering" tradeskills with a backpack full of ingredients in a day. The labor points is a good simulation of the limited resource of time to concentrate on making things. But it should have stayed in the crafting/specialty areas. Linking it to opening monster loot is a huge mistake.