For those not familiar, it's a Korean MMO that's been imported to USA/EU due to its popularity. The combat system is super super fun and the graphics are gorgeous, though the loading screens need a bit of work.

Also my computer's old as fuck so it crashes once in a while, but it's good enough so that I'm willing to endure that.

Anyone else playing it?

Am a Yun Blademaster on Gunma server. My handle's Monochrome Shipper. xD

 

I gave it a shot but in my case I don't think I have the patience for minute + load screens on my old computer.

 

So is it any better than the 4-5 KMMOs of a similar vein? Archeage, Tera, Echo of Souls, etc.

They've all basically gone down the "everything's a ridiculous grind, all graphics no depth" style.

 

Idk man, the combat is really, really, really good. It was balanced around pvp apparently. (and there's 1v1, 3v3 ladder systems for pvp).

So far I'm still fairly low level, but within maybe 10 hours of play I've gotten to level 19 out of 45?

There's ridiculous guides on youtube that are like "level to 45 in 15 hours" or something, so it really doesn't seem anything close to a shitfest grind. (I used to be a runescape player, so I might have a skewed perspective)

 

I've been waiting for this game for what, 5 years now? When I first saw gameplay footage. It's a little bit outdated now, but it's still a great game. It uses the Unreal Engine 3, so it has these party instanced zones and a lobby for cross-server pvp arena and dungeon finder. The lobbies are annoying, but I've never had faster queues, so eh.

The world is beautiful. Every zone looks and feels great. There's clear atmosphere and sounds. The art style is very distinctive and extremely sexy. This game literally tries to sell with boobs. And it works. Like seriously, watch some gameplay footage, the female models are like stylized anime fetishes.

The game is PvP focused. A lot. There's endgame PvE content, but mostly in later updates. But the arena should be the main draw. The combat feels like a mix of action rpg and fighter sim. By far the most involving and combo-focused combat I've ever played. It's understandably highly praised. It's fair and skill based. Counters and mind tricks. Very complex. Pvp is balanced - your stats and gear don't matter in the arena. Just your skill.

It IS a Korean grinder, just very fast to level one. The grinding comes from getting upgrade materials for your gear. Crafting is slow, and you often have to farm dungeons. But the leveling itself is fast. The level cap is 45, and I'm level 36 atm, having taken it slow and enjoying my first playthrough, but playing most of the day.

Note that the game has been out for years in Asia. The NA/EU release is looking to have fast releases of content to catch up to the Asian versions in a year or two. This is great.

The game is freemium. Not p2w, but the cash shop and premium memberships offer massive benefits. Mostly, skipping the 2-4k queue in prime time, lol. Inventory space is limited, the usual works. You can play it without paying, but you'll be tempted to drop some money from time to time. At least only the login screen advertises the cash shop, it's not literally everywhere in the game like in SWtOR.

The story sucks, though. Painful at times. Generic Asian martial artist story. Cliche. But it does have cinematics/cutscenes and voiced main storyline, so that's something. It's better than your average f2p MMORPG story, but it's not a good story by any means.

I can highly recommend this game. Just for the combat alone. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed the combat so much in an MMORPG. Maybe never? My fingers hurt, though. It's really popular now though, they've already opened a handful of new servers for NA and EU both, and still everything has a queue.

Edit: Oh yeah. IGN: Vallarfax, Blade Master on Greenhollow.

Second edit: The game abandons the traditional tank/healer/dps trinity. Instead, every class is a dps, with various degrees of self-healing and tanking ability. It works surprisingly well, the queues are fast, and it makes high level pve content also skill-based, since messing up twice means you're dead. The classes (and races) are also really distinctive.

 

Thanks for the summary and review! This game and Black Desert Online looked almost too amazing for the developers to not sacrifice mechanics as some compensation (though the story got sacrificed instead). So I'm really glad to know the combat is as top-notch as shown in the trailers.

 

I played this a long time ago back on the chinese servers. Even now they have instant max level characters for old players if they come back I think? Graphics are pretty good, but nothing really special compared to other KMMOs.

In any case, my computer was crashing consistently because the graphic card kept tearing or something during pvp so I dropped it... However, last I remembered the combat uses tab targeting quite a lot and I wasn't really used to it from my days of Dragon Nest. Outside of that, pvp and combat are pretty great, probably the highlights in this game.

The storyline is much better compared to other KMMOs in my opinion, even though it is a little cliche at times....

 

Does it have the regular Korean MMO problem of being EXTRA SUPER grindy?

Because that gets really, really tiring.

 

I don't think the game uses targeting. I've never had to change my target, which is automatically the closest enemy you're facing. Tab is used for a skill.

I didn't really think about this, but I've never tried to change my target via a button. There's clear single and aoe skills, and the way the combat flows, there's just never been a need.

Nah. Grind-wise, I'd compare it to... World of Warcraft, actually. Like I already said, leveling is fast. Aoe grinding people hit max level in days. Arena pvp needs zero grind. For the best possible world pvp and pve gear, you need to grind, but it's more like those epic drops in raids level of difficulty, not literally months of doing the same thing over and over. There's dailies and a handful of dungeons that are good to run daily, and grinding the current highest PvE dungeon/raid/whatever it happens to be for slightly more stats on your Soul Shield (the game's armor system), but it's not really a grind fest.

But the gear drops required to upgrade your gear are "rng-gated" behind treasure boxes, so it's possible that you need to grind something a moderate amount.

Edit: to be more specific, you basically get one main weapon , amulet, ring and earring, and keep feeding them all the green/blue/purple weapon/accessory drops you get to level them up, since they're way better than random drops. They need specific weapons/accessories and crafting materials to break through to a higher form every so often. These "breakthrough items" are found in treasure boxes you get from beating a dungeon and from killing world bosses. Dungeons are really, really short, btw. Accessories should be easy, but weapon breakthroughs need your class-specific weapon. The weapon chests give you a random weapon. Currently, that means a 1/8 chance to get the weapon you need. Most breakthrough weapons you can buy from the marketplace (auction house) or trade with other players, but some you need to get yourself. I've heard "horror stories" of someone having to grind a dungeon 50 times, but I've personally gotten every single breakthrough item I have to grind myself easily. That's the only grind before max level.

Also, regarding loading times. On my year old, decent computer on an SSD drive, the load times are 5-6 seconds long. That's when logging in and entering a completely new zone. The instance changes are about one second.

 

The targeting is just based on who you're looking at, and lots of the skills are aoe, so that doesn't even matter.

The RNG grind to upgrade your weapons/get soul shields/etc is pretty ridiculous if you're not willing to shell out for the frankly way overpriced brilliant keys.

Also, the spam is ridiculously bad. NCSoft needs to get working on at least increasing the block list limit, with people hitting in in minutes just blocking gold sellers.

I've made it to 43 so far, and am still enjoying it despite those problems. The combat and environment is just that enjoyable.

 

Other than the combat system, which is in a tier of its own in a way, the environments are definitely the main draw for me. Every single region I've been to is distinctive and beautiful.

 

It's there? I'll have to test it out after exams are over. I waited years for this motherfucker to arrive.

 

Context: Level 26(Cap is 45 iirc)

So far the combat isnt too bad. The game could defenitly use a better explanation of what combat abilities do though.

Right now its got a bad habit of having me level up. Get a bunch of new abilities followed by me going "Okay... What the fuck were those abilities and how do I use them?" Since they roll by so fast I dont even know what key or what they were even called.

mmoGrinder has a review coming out soon I think.

At the moment? No. Just doing quests will move you along at a pretty quick clip. It'll slow down a bit once you hit the mid 20s but looking at what others are saying there's no point where you need to just start farming mobs for xp. That and combat xp is pretty shitty. Quests completion is where the bulk of your xp will come from.

I have a GT 760 and I havent really noticed any slowdown or really bad fps.

Combat uses a strange mix of tab targeting/mouse targetting.

Ie, its like guild wars in that you just hit whats in front of you BUT you also highlight an enemy to attack. It's a bit strange to get used to, I'd admit.

Storyline is pretty standard. The Voice acting...

Well I cant say its the worse. But you definitely get a mixed bag.

Edit: On Yunwa, currently using a Blade Master but I'm still not really satisfied with the playstyle. I'll keep going and seeing if switching to Assassin or even Destroyer would be more my style.

That said, New accounts only have two slots. You'll have to buy more slots.

BnS also has an "interesting aesthetic" though if you've played or seen Tera, I dont think you would be surprised.

 

The only good voice actor was the white haired chick who wakes you up in the very beginning that. After that, it's just down hill. Or off a cliff, considering the story? :^)

My computer has some problems after an hour or two of play and usually crashes, and my loading screens are terrible but surprisingly I don't drop frames in combat even with bosses.

Sitting just under level 30 now. Still having a ton ton ton of fun.

 

Made a Summoner named Rojoda on the Yunwa server a few hours ago and leveled to ~13 or so, then my game crashed loading into ... I forget the name of the town. It's right after you complete your class training.

 

Downloading it now, did anyone else have a slow download rate? Like seriously, switching between 100KB/s and if I get lucky up to 600KB/s.

 

Can't remember the exact download amount, but it took me like 3 hours for everything. I think I had a little over 1 MB/s at the highest and 500 KB/s around my lowest.

 

Is this worth breaking my 2 year MMO free stretch? Beyond having good combat, is it actually fun?

 

I'm enjoying it at the moment, but no, it's probably not. It's not going to revolutionize anything. Unless you have a strong desire to do some MMORPG style 1 v 1 PvP, then Blade and Soul isn't anything special.

That's basically what it excels at ATM.

 

And boobies.