Dofus-Tactic

[Mr. Right]

I've been playing this open beta for over a month now.  It's like a multiplayer Final Fantasy Tactic (for the GBA).  They basically took the class and skills of the very boring vanilla Dofus (boring grind-mmorpg) and turned it into an interesting tactical game. 

You can play 1vs1 and 2vs2.  There's a couple of cheesy tactics running around and one item is really unbalanced but you can build an decent anti-cheese team after a couple of game trough trial and error.  The game is completely stable, you can play it in window mode.

I'm getting the same "deck" building min/maxing fun I had with Magic online when I chose the class, skills and items of my team and it's free ( as in magic online is not free...).  Of course, there's allot less option than magic but I've yet to see the exact same team - mostly because the player base is small and the game is still free of a web spoiler site with all the hidden stats and optimal team/deck from the "professional" player.

It's the best matching system I ever saw, it's better than the warcraft3 system, IMO.  You don't have a permanent win/loss stat, the game only keep track of your consecutive win.  It really help a stats whore like me, no more account deleting.  You still get xp over time when you win.  The xp is used to match you with similar lvl opponent. 

Your characters also lvl up over time.  It's also well done.  The character get a random bonus every time he lvl.  It can be annoying, especially when your Heller get a bonus to critical dmg, but it helps the overall balance and strategic variety.  Lets say your healer get 3 lvl of dmg boosting bonus : you can delete him or give him a good weapon to surprise your opponent when he close in the vulnerable healer.  The games balance the lvl of the character by giving one shot skills to the player who has lower lvl characters.  Character have 1/50 to be deleted every time they die.  I like the feature, it really reward the good player and punish the catass.

Anyway, give it a try - it's a 30 sec download : http://www.dofus-arena.com/

EDIT : I take back what I said about the lack of spoiler site.  I'm watching replays of the top players right now...

[Margalis]

Sounds neat. I've always wondered why there aren't more of this type of game. It's much smaller in scope to create than a MMORPG and seems like it could be very popular if done right.

Will give it a try and report back.

Edit: I've wondered so much I'm creating a game like this myself - at this rate will be done in 2010...

The website is amazingly slow. An hour to download 24 megs?

[schild]

Ah damn. Dofus arena game out. I didn't know. I'd been signed up on their mailing list. Maybe they forgot to mail me some engrish. TACTICS AWAY!

[Mr. Right]

I hope the servers won't overload.  Like I said, It took me 30 sec to get the game (1 month ago) and I rarely get any lag in game.  One thing tough, it takes a good 5-10 mins to auto-disconnect you if you get a power outage.

Would be nice to have a strategy discussion if some of you get into it.  The official forum contain very few good information diluted in an ocean of pain.  I could answer a few questions, just ask.

[Margalis]

I have a few questions. I've watched a few replays, haven't actually played myself yet.

How come NOBODY equips weapons? Is that because the spells are better? I have yet to see a single character actually equip a weapon.

Is there any real explanation anywhere of the various stats, skills, etc? Most of them are pretty hard to decipher.

All the matches I've seen consist of people running around using distance attacks on each other. Is there more to the game than this?

[Mr. Right]

The best info I could find was on the help menu in-game.

I'm able to win 80% of my match with one melee, one healer and one ranged character.

The reason why people aren't using items (in top lvl replays) is because you have more dmg per round and more total hp (hit point...) with 5-8 characters.  You also have more tactic opportunity.  They are balancing with every patch.  After all,  balance is one of the only thing that can actually change in a beta.  Right now, a character cost 400 points (you have a 5000 points limit for your team) and dmg skill cost 200 to 500 points.  Item also cost 100 to 400 point.  You do the math.  My main guy (fully equipped) is worth 2200 point, he has to kill 3 basic character all by himself to be worth the points.

If you want to use a non-ranged character : 

- Use movement skill.  My melee guy can teleport himself by switching place with any other of my character. He can also use a "scorpion move - get over here" type skill.  Once in melee, characters who try to flee have a 50% chance of losing their turn.

- Right now, dmg skill are better than the weapon.  A popular tactic is to use a high dmg skill who use 4 AP (action point - every character has a base of 6 AP) and get two more AP with a hat +1 AP and a cape +1 AP.

- Invisibility is well balanced because you can only use it once per game and the invisible character can still be hit if you figure out where he is.  It's still very effective with the proper tactic.  It lets you close in ranged character.

- Summons are also effective, especially in a big non-equipped group who can spam summons with 3-4 characters.


That being said, you have to expect to lose a couple of game once in a while to a beta unbalance abuser who runs around with 4 archer a kill one character every round.  The victory is only better when you can beat him anyway.

[Falconeer]

It's great.
It's almost a dream came true. Disgaea online!
Sadly, it's NOT Disgaea at all (that game's soul is god blessed).
It feels and plays different.

But still, a great game.

[Mr. Right]

My in game nick is Aez if anyone wants to practice.

[schild]

After I write up some stuff tonight and fix some stuff and work on some stuff I MIGHT get to log in. Though it'll probably have to wait til tomorrow. I still stand by my opinion that Dofus should have been a full fledged ripoff of the NIS stuff and made into an MMORPG instead of a Shockwave abortion.

[schild]

Fionally got to playing it. This game is fairly wretched. This is what is known as blowing a big fucking chance to make a disgaea ripoff (goddamn flash/shockwave games) and make it fairly popular. Too slow, character creation is too boring, the classes are too ridiculous and the fun is too little. I had more fun throwing slurs at my roommate across the room from me.. In game.

[Margalis]

I see some potential here but they are planning on going Gold soon and the game in not nearly ready for that.