|
|
|
date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:20:32 GMT,
group: microsoft.public.games.zone.asherons_call
back
Asheron's Call Throne of Destiny Review
Throne of Destiny by Crash and crew
After roughly one month of in-depth game play and review of
Asheron's Call Throne of Destiny, this group of persons is extremely
disappointed. The much touted face-lift and user interface to date has
been naught but a waste of time. The most important function of the
interface, i.e. the chat line is virtually unreadable and causes even
the most proficient typist to send garbage into the community chat
window. After multiple requests, and after the first patch, there is no
usable fix. A tremendous amount of Turbine PR has been expended bragging
of the video / graphics update. Umm HELLoooo there Turbine ... Who
really gives a damn about the trees! Give us a platform with MINIMAL
LAG!!! And USABLE CHAT line.
Less than acceptable issues -
The treasure system is simply horrible. No matter what level character
you fight, the normal reward is usually JUNK. Many of the "Rares" that
have been introduced into the game are pretty well worthless. One use
items, good for 15 minutes at best.
The prime function of this game has turned into trash collection. No
matter what level mobs you fight, we found roughly 90 percent of the
"Loot" is trash. The main thrust of the game, for the last few years has
been to turn characters into tinkers. Basically, collect trash, then
hope like hell you beat the odds of making imbued weapons and tinkered
armor. The game GUARANTIES a 67 percent failure rate for most people.
Even after purchasing the tinker's "upgrade" for 2 billion xp, the game
still guaranties a 62 percent failure rate. Adding insult to injury, the
game developers have decided to make trash collecting a frustrating
experience by limiting trash required to attempt weapon tinkering. Some
examples are red garnet, black garnet and Jet. In other words, Turbine
has created upgraded mobs, but has decided, frustration is the key
ingredient of the game. Don't allow the player base an equal chance of
killing the bigger mobs with more powerful weapons. Gee Turbine you
know, the consumer might have fun if this aspect of the game turned the
figures around. How about a 65 - 75 percent change of success guaranteed.
With a few exceptions, most of the monsters are rehashed from the
original game launched 5 years ago. Higher levels, some armor changes
but they fall in the SOS category (Same Ole Schtick).
Lag still kills many toons in battle. Even with the lower server
populations, this is and has been a major issue for over 5 years.
The population counters have been removed. This missing feature now
requires you log into every world to look for a populated game world.
So, you blow about 30 minutes running around checking out various towns
on worlds with the result being, hmm think I'll go play something else.
The decision to remove population counters is most likely due to the
hemorrhage of players to other games. Save Turbine the embarrassment of
a failing Flagship product as well as incompetent management.
The combat system pulls a vacuum to the extent few have seen before. In
the eyes of Turbine, this is called a "combat balanced". Once more
Turbine.. HELLoooo This is a World of Magic, yet in the infinite wisdom
of the developers, Magic Casting characters have been nerf'd to the
point of being useless. Short-term UCM is built into the game for melee
and missile characters, yet the Mages must cast each spell every time
they attack. Melee and Missile can auto-lock and auto-attack a target,
then start chatting or leave the pc for a few minutes while they wear
down a critter. This combat system has killed the life-caster as well as
fostered the growth of inferior magic casters. High level mobs cannot be
debuffed by a magic caster with max'd War, Life, Creature, Focus and
Self. A level 200+ mage is easily outdone by a level 160+ melee or
missile character. An archer can take 100 wrapped bundles of arrowheads
and shaft and hunt all day long, while melee characters only need their
swords. Depending on lag (accelerates comp burn), rate of comp burn,
the magic caster must return to a town store every few hours to replenish
burned components. Schlepping these tapers around creates burden for the
mage ultimately affecting his survivability. No such restrictions for
the melee while the missile user only makes a bundle of arrows at a time
and can drop these bundles if the burden starts affecting performance.
High level casting items are rare as hens teeth while there are plenty of
high level melee/missile weapons to be found throughout the game.
Turbine continues to push for more melee/missile characters. It has
become obvious, even to the most casual observers that Turbine created
this land of magic, yet felt it necessary to remove or curtail the
casters abilities in this game.
Apparently Turbine lacks the talent of a good few good code jocks. There
were many really good 3rd party applications available to be used with
this game before the expansion pack. During the build of the expansion
pack, Turbine stated they would not be changing the code to the extent
that the 3rd party apps would become inoperable. On launch, umm well
HELLOooooo, no 3rd party apps worked. Ya really gotta love the Turbine
talent pool. Instead of building the many great apps INTO the game or
dealing with the decal dev's. Turbine chose to trash the code to the
point it was not usable by 3rd party dev's.
The persons involved in this review had a hard time finding Good things
to say about this Asheron's Call - ToD expansion pack. It boiled down
to ... why did it take Turbine 18 months to come up with this crap?
So what's good about the game?
Yes there are new areas to explore and Yes there is a new ethnic group.
This expansion pack is a continuation of the AC-DM expansion. Overall,
the only real differences have been cosmetic User Interface changes, and
those are marginal at best.
In conclusion, Turbine will not allow this world of magic to be driven by
magic nor is Turbine interested in the consumer and protecting its
consumer base. It seems that Turbine's key driving element is to appease
a few whiners who have no serious gaming habits or abilities.
Message to Turbine; If this game is to continue, go hire some decent
code jocks and a PM with imagination.
Review created with input from crash-test dummies, each with over 4
years experience playing this game;
2 Melee - 2 Archers - 2 - Mages
date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:20:32 GMT
author: IlikeTechnoAndStuff
Re: Asheron's Call Throne of Destiny Review
> The most important function of the
> interface, i.e. the chat line is virtually unreadable and causes even
> the most proficient typist to send garbage into the community chat
> window. After multiple requests, and after the first patch, there is no
> usable fix.
I hear the tells are hard to read for some, I just hope they either add a
way to make it larger and/or give the option to change colors. I personally
will give up a resolution size to make it easier to read myself.
> ...the normal reward is usually JUNK.
That "junk" is normally a good work plenty of the time which can be salvaged
and used to make "the fair stuff" into exceptional stuff. My AL220 armor
(ws:4) is now all around AL400 because of "JUNK."
> Many of the "Rares" that
> have been introduced into the game are pretty well worthless. One use
> items, good for 15 minutes at best.
The tinkering things that last for 15minutes are exceptionally nice. I have
heard reports of level 10 work armor lasting through 8 tinks with a rare
used. That is unheard of awesome.
> The prime function of this game has turned into trash collection. No
> matter what level mobs you fight, we found roughly 90 percent of the
> "Loot" is trash.
Because of salvaging most things into useable goods, I find this remark
exceptionally uninformed to game mechanics.
> The main thrust of the game, for the last few years has
> been to turn characters into tinkers. Basically, collect trash, then
> hope like hell you beat the odds of making imbued weapons and tinkered
> armor. The game GUARANTIES a 67 percent failure rate for most people.
That is for imbues in order to keep "great" items low in number. However,
taken into account that AC 1 has zero item degredation over time, once you
make that "incredible" item or weapon or armor it will last as long as you
do not have it lost in death. Which is unheard of for most RPG's. The
market WILL become flooded some day in fact if it wasn't so hard to make a
good item. And since once made they never "break" or "wear out" there will
come a time when the items are very plentiful indeed.
> Lag still kills many toons in battle. Even with the lower server
> populations, this is and has been a major issue for over 5 years.
Lag is always an issue. As a dial-up customer I am kept from many quests
even though my character was high enough to go had I had broad band. That
is one main reason I took a break in fact. But these are problems that
exist in all online games, and lag is a part of it. If you are having
non-server lag then a computer upgrade might be in order. Adding RAM can
always help and the best supported video card also helps.
> This is a World of Magic, yet in the infinite wisdom
> of the developers, Magic Casting characters have been nerf'd to the
> point of being useless.
Life magic is the most useful skill in game, most character's take it (even
melee).
A mage does incredible Damage Over Time (DoT) and also is never without
buffs. A hardcore mage can take a robe and be powerful (as long as not
around hollows of course). Magics have always been very powerful in AC and
I doubt that they have decreased to the point of requiring what this says
above.
> Short-term UCM is built into the game for melee
> and missile characters, yet the Mages must cast each spell every time
> they attack.
So use Decal.
That is a really stupid complaint.
Turbine allows ACMing (sit and watch combat macro) but does not allow UCMing
(unattended combat macroing). Thus you could get ElTank or LifeTank or
another plug-in and just watch if you are that lazy. I personally use to
even buff myself because I wanted to get everything I was paying for. I
even made my own arrows. I have used plug-ins but much of it was
experimentation for a small while and/or search plug-ins like sixth sense.
But complaining that a melee can "UCM" is silly...because you have to hit a
key per creature (that is less than a minute or 2 away from keyboard?) and
in any high level fight you had better be there to heal for war attacks that
might come.
Again, if being a mage is too hard for you or you think it is not "fair"
then get a plug-in once Decal is back and STFU.
> High level mobs cannot be
> debuffed by a magic caster with max'd War, Life, Creature, Focus and
> Self. A level 200+ mage is easily outdone by a level 160+ melee or
> missile character.
If you take a level 160 non-magic melee to VoD he gets his butt handed to
him.
If you take a level 160 mage to a new critter that doesn't allow vulns or
debuffs (withered I think they are called) and expect to be "uber" then you
deserve to have your butt handed to you. These creatures were put into the
game so that life magic wouldn't rule the entire land. They were put in to
give different templates a place to hunt that was meaningful for them. To
complain that a creature INVENTED to kill a life mage and help the melee
template find value is doing what it is suppose to do is silly.
Either get in a group and heal'em, or fight as a war mage, or go fight in a
place your template is made for. No single template should rule all of
Dereth (even though some mage templates have tended to do that).
> the magic caster must return to a town store every few hours to replenish
> burned components.
If you are looting like you should be, then the burden you get (even if you
salvage) would have you doing this anyways. Even if you have a fairly high
strength you only have so much space, and with the full pack of death items,
Four foci(spellcaster packs), and comp's..you simply need to return to town
to salvage, buy, sell and/or restock. I can carry around 2,000 tapers and a
hundred plat's plus melee-type armor, which means that I do not ever worry
about running out for days. Heaven forbid if I had more space and/or
strength (which my strength is low comparitively). Given a level 126+ xp I
would think I could get my strength very reasonable even if I had started
with it lower (which I might do anyways at a higher level to give up some
burden and gain endurance).
I see nothing different from melee to mage. If either are looting both will
get full in equal time if killing relative creatures (faster if Olthoi
because they die quicker) however, if both are going for XP alone and NOT
looting then the mage can stay out for over 3.5 to 4 hours with current
burden limits with minimal investmant in strength. Just pack higher comps
if you are going out for XP only. Remember, sooner or later the melee will
use up his supply of healing kits and/or stamina potions and need to restock
as well.
Who on earth would want to stay out past 4 hours anyways? UGH.
> In conclusion, Turbine will not allow this world of magic to be driven by
> magic
Melees use magic in items.
It is driven by magic.
But remember, according to lore alchemy is perhaps the strongest of all
skills because that is what Asheron used to stop the Olthoi. He made arrows
which allowed for the revolt of the slaves. So if you stick to the lore,
the real power is alchemy. The funny thing is that currently in game the
most powerful is a melee with level 7 items (just introduced) running. That
or the new flavor of the month a melee D mage. Times change however...next
month it will be a new template type that is the "best."
I think that AC has done just well and I do hope that Decal returns soon
enough. I also hope that they continue to tweak the game and provide new
content. I also hope that the players which love this game invite new
people and friends to join up and try it out, because if not the playerbase
will continue to dwindle over time.
Especially if we allow whiners like this guy to have all the say in things.
----------
Epie
---------
date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:02:13 -0400
author: McGyver
|
|
