Review from my Perspective

I'd like to start out first by saying, this game has great potential. With a few major fixes to PvP and PvE it can be a very unique and fun gaming experience. I've quit this game until these major changes could take place because right now it's not fun what so ever. With that said, here are my problems with the game, outlined.

Army Level 26

PvP level 15

Race: Covenant

PvE=========================================

Stagnant: Moving from one area to another is based on training. And sometimes, training can take days even weeks depending on how you allocate workers. Grinding the same grid and mobs over and over again can get very boring after a day or two.

Repetitive: Most MMOs are all about the grind (expected to some extent) but are fluffed with quests, boss fights, instanced team play mixed in. All with a much better loot system then this.

Upgrades: Why value 10 armor and recipe items drop off of level 28-30 monsters makes no sense. Higher level areas are also plagued with massive useless item drops. I've cleared the same level 28 area 3 times in a row only to get value 25 and less items every time. At this time, i've been able to grind 17 pieces of gear for my army, most of which is well below my army's level. With the 6 units i'm able to field (excluding my DL) that leaves 13 empty gear slots. I have just under 2200 gnosis. That's A lot of map clears and yet i'm still unable to gear my army up to lvl.

Auto cast attacks/buffs: Auto cast freezes every two to three cycles. Sometimes after one cycle. Which makes healing during battle and after battle take much longer in an already slow paced game. And when a taunt freezes it could mean death for a ranged squad as it has many times. Adding to the already mounting frustration from the lack of reward to effort ratio.

Battles: Chosing what units to take into a PvE battle are extremely limited. Because, Healing units is a must, to attack higher level mobs you NEED higher dps. So what it boils down to is, Tank (usually DL), one or two healing units. And the rest DPS. As a covenant player, Knights and footmen are not an option in the higher levels. They just don't do enough damage to the mobs that we are required to kill to get good drops. Which as stated above isn't really a constant in PvE.

Preacher: Does fine at healing the lower level petrias. But become really inadequate when your army lvl starts to rise and the monsters start hitting much harder. With 3 priests it can take almost 5-8 minutes to heal my DL back to full. With 4-8 monster packs per map Which equals 20-40 minutes per map clear. So at most 40 minutes of play for 5-10 gnosis. which for my level is 1 or 2 workers. Add in the auto cast bug and we have longer down times and more unit deaths.

Knights: Big and clunky units that have no place in PVE. They have problems just encircling enemy units to bring their dps to bare.

Footmen: Useful until you get both scouts and preachers. Then they are obsolete.

PvP=========================================

Units: This is the only RTS or MMO that i've played where upgrading units to a higher tier weakens them in PVP. The added spawn time doesn't equal the added HP/DPS at all. Some skills that come with each tier do help a tiny bit. But the tiers that are accompanied by threat gaining skills hurt the units cost to worth ratio a lot. Because of this and other issues I've yet to discuss, people only use 1-2 units in pvp and spam them. Which brings me to..

Spawn Timers: Tier 3 Unit 53. Tier 2 unit 39. Tier 1 Unit 30. From tier 1 to tier 3 there is almost a 15 second advantage. Player 1 and Player 2 both have PvP level 15. Player 1 has tier 1 units. Player 2 has tier 3 units. Which then causes the spamming of units by Player 1. Add that to multitude precautions (that player 1 obviously has in order to be level 15 pvp) used on the tier 3 units and you have a really unbalanced match.

Lack of strategy: Tactics in PvP consists of getting to the victory point as fast as possible with more units then your enemy. Not very REAL TIME STRATEGY like.

Tribute: Needed to repair not only DL items, but Unit items as well. Holding 6 territories only gets you 70 tribute per week, 280 per month, 560 for two months. And thats "IF" the tribute even tics onto your account at all! If you pvp you need a lot of tribute to keep your units in repair. Last time i looked this game was free to play and tribute costs real money. This kills long term pvp for free subscribers. Add the buggy tribute drip and the loot table mentioned above and you have a really tough system to deal with.

Crafting:========================================

Its like a full time job but without the payoff. To get anything done in a reasonable amount of time you have to keep your crafting building full. Whichever one it is. Which gimps anything else you want to do in the Game. Good Luck pvping, pveing and crafting all at the same time within the first month of a new era. AND that's with keeping up with the stone, wood and metal demands of upgrading your buildings. And you need 35 workers in each of those to make 1 per hour. And getting up to those 35 workers in each is forced on a player very early in the era which slows things down even more.

Lastly:

Developers: I really don't know whats going on here. Many issues need fixing. And many of these issues are game breaking for the fun and fair aspects of the game. I was Able to play the last half of era 1 and the last week of it was spent waiting on skills to train. Now I'm waiting on skills to train while stuck in the same spot on the map. I don't know if its lack of time to work on the game or lack of dedication. But I'm not going to stick around to find out.

Free To Play: Well so far, from my point of view, It damn well better be. The issues I've had with this game are just from my point of view while playing the covenant. This is just what i felt like taking the time to write. And this isn't even ALL of the issues that the people i know or i have. Many people in my CV feel the same way and are also taking leave until Era 3 where hopefully the game will finally be enjoyable past 3 weeks.

In Closing: Playing this game at the moment would be a big waste of time. Apparently this game is no longer in the beta stages because they have actually put in a payment system for in game items. Which makes all these glaring flaws that much worse. Some people have paid for up to 6 months right at the beginning of the game and a month later are already sorry they did.