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[Column] Vindictus: The Tourist Visits Vindictus
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Each week, The Tourist visits a different MMO to offer a quality preview of what players can expect to find. In this week's installment, the travellers have visited Vindictus and offer their thoughts about the game. See what you think before adding your travelogue to the comments.
Vindictus is an MMO you need to know about. When it launched in October 2010, Nexon released into the wild a game which would redefine our expectations of free-to-play and change how we looked at combat. It would also fade into obscurity rarely to be mentioned for the industry-altering trends it helped to begin. Vindictus is an action-MMO in the truest sense. It features jump-in and jump-out gameplay more akin to God of War than World of Warcraft and does so with a sense of style all its own. Even now, with games like TERA and Guild Wars 2 dominating the action sub-genre, it holds up. It's sad to say that the lack of game world and ties to the cash shop bleed the game like a parasite.
Read more of Chris Coke's Vindictus: The Tourist Visits Vindictus.
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Comments
The whole "Box showing up on my screen" is an event currently taking place. It will only last for another 1-2 weeks before the new Episode content.
For anyone that thought that was a turn off do not be alarmed. It is only an event.
I really wanted to try Vindictus last year when it made a bit of a splash... except it wasn't available in Europe. And even worse, there was NO information about this, except hidden deep in the F.A.Q. somewhere, and of course, countless forum threads.
So I saw a game that looked fun to play, registered, downloaded and installed... only to run into issues logging in. No "You are not in NA, so you can't play" but something that pointed towards a bad password.
Naturally, rage ensued, and I refuse to play any Nexon game.
Cash shop is fine, because most of the stuff they sell there are also buyable in marketplace with in game currency. Also nothing is really pay-to-win in the end, why? Vindictus is heavily focused on PvE. There's only a few PvP modes in the game and PvP is not the endgame in Vindictus, because it doesn't offer more than a few accessories and that's it. Vindictus endgame is all about GRINDING hero modes and raids, which totally sucks. I mean, I can hardly find any other game where your gear progress depends purely on your luck. If you want to make money, you simply can't, if you have a bad luck. Or wait, you can! If you are a nolifer and you want to spend 12 hours a day farming the same dungeon for weeks or a month. The combat can keep you playing pretty long, but when you realize nothing valuable drops in dungeons/raids, you will get bored. Oh boy, this wasn't all. The most frustrating part comes to crafting / enhancement. Crafting is slow as fuck, I mean SLOW. Even low level items takes 2 minutes to craft and you get 1 level up, oh sweet! and the materials are really pain in the ass to get, but not if you are a rich person. Enhancementing is the WORST thing in Vindictus. This made me quit the game many times. So basically enhancing your weapon requires materials and gold, first +1 to +3 are safe to enhance. +3 to +5 your weapon's upgrade can decrease if the enhancement fails. +5 to +8 your weapon's upgrade resets back to +0 if it fails. AND after +9 your WEAPON will break if the enhancement fails. Now, you can get to +10 safely with Enhancement Runes, which you can buy with real money or marketplace (they are expensive tho.) and they become useless after +10, so +10 to +15 IS THE HORRIFYING PART, WHY YOU ASK? BECAUSE +10 ISN'T ENOUGH POWERFUL, YOU NEED ATLEAST +11 WEAPON TO BE ABLE TO DO ENDGAME STUFF WITH PEOPLE OTHERWISE THEY WILL KICK U. FROM +10 to +15 THE ENHANCEMENT PART REQUIRES ALMOST A JACKPOT LUCK. I MEAN I HAVE BROKE LIKE 5 GOOD WEAPONS BECAUSE OF IT, AND THE HARD WORK I PUT INTO THE GAME TO GET THOSE WEAPONS IS GONE ONLY BECAUSE YOUR LUCK SUCKED. Sorry my rant, but the game does need a new enhancing system. It's the worst thing in the game, and it drove me away from the game so many times and I'm pretty sure many people left the game because of it. Now, I finally quited Vindictus for period.
My point of this post of course, is to warn people. The game is fun when you actually have a decent gear and friends/guild to play with.
There is an EU version now. It has more content than the NA version at the moment too.
Welcome to every game.
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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
It should be noted that the link you posted to "Teabags" rage/rant thread is not entirely correct.
Nexon as a whole is the largest and probably the most dominant force in the gaming industry today, especially when considering how many different cookie jars they have their greedy little fingers in.
To give you an example, no expected that back in early May to hear the announcement for Guild Wars 2's release date, yet it happened. Unfinished dungeons, unfinished crafting systems, unfinished event mechanics, hell there wasn't even a sense of difficulty standard or progression for the DE system. As a result everything was rushed, many things became abandoned projects, and when anyone asked why the release was in two months, the answer was always something along the lines of "We feel that the game is polished enough." We all knew this was the furthest thing from the truth, and the worst part was we all knew the answer to question anyways.
Nexon is the only reason why NCsoft is afloat right now, the worst part is because of NCsoft's dire situation, B&S America is technically a canceled project at this point, and there are no plans to continue with the project till next year.
It's scary to think of such a massive uncontested power in the east, ever eager to control the west.
As for Vindictus, it's praise should mainly stem from being the First Source Engine MMORPG, quite successful I might add, granted NexonNA's complete incompetence gave it a rocky first five months, and still continues provide poor quality service, the game as a whole is a success, and should not be weighed down by the poor distribution, distribution which is thankfully being purged as we speak.
GW2 doesn't have action combat.
Think that was his point, with action combat being in quotations and all.
this.
I can't speak about the NA version, things are a bit different there, ranging from the actual combat to economy and overall content availabilty.
First of all, Vindictus was available in Europe last year. It was released almost 2 years ago by now. Yes, they did take their time, and they didn't really update the website, but they did release it.
Second, you don't need the cash shop at all in EU. It comes in handy, but you don't need it. Got a lot of money, but not much time? Sell NX, get gold. And no it doesn't destroy the economy, as the gold is already in game, players already have it, none is created for this. Most other stuff is the usual thing anyways, like additional char slots, more inventory tabs etc.
Lots of buff stuff etc. available, too, but it's not needed. Doesn't help all that much anyways. If you don't mind spending money, using lots of Goddes Grace sure does make things easier, but if you need it, you're doing it wrong anyways, a somewhat capable group does not need it anywhere.
The combat is really nice, especially because of the fast paced nature. Also, while equipment is important, personal skill is more important. I'm not a particular good player (i can not really solo *any* raid for example, while people with worse equip already did it ), but i easily outdamage many better equip players because they don 't use their characters potential.
Still, Vindictus is far from perfect. Battles are user-hosted, except the 24-man royal army raids. You should be glad about it though, given the servers Nexon uses to host those. They are lagging real bad, whereas people know which battles they can host. Still, if you want to host so you do not need to rely on other people as much, you need a good connection.
Also, Nexon/devCat is really bad at fixing bugs. And with every bug they fix, they introduce several new ones. And they tend to be noticeable. Also, even though it is Source, the game isn't really performing well. The overall FPS isn't that high, and some areas are simply broken FPS wise. Also, with lots of people at once like in Colhen channel 1, it does lag, it takes long to load everyone, etc. Better move to another channel unless you want to sell something directly, without using the marketplace.
And then somehow the game sometimes misses your clicks/button presses due to bad perfomance, meaning, you don't attack, you don't dodge, you don't use that skill you wanted to use. Or you get hit while you *should* be in an invulnerability frame.
Many bosses also have animations that render them immune to skills like Evies reverse gravitiy or Vellas tempest/cyclone. I say animations, because it's not a skill they use, but just that: Animations. Like, if the dragons turn around, or if they prepare to take off like 2 seconds later, you will use your skill so you got the cool down, and the SP will be lost. Also, you will see the skill animation, but you will not hit the boss. Or they start randomly moving around while supposedly locked by your skill.
Another thing is the RNG. Some people already mentioned it, and yes, it is that bad. Some people get a good drop every week or more often, others play for months and haven't seen a single rare drop. It does not balance itself out, or if, it takes years. Still, you can make money from less RNG prone stuff. Usually worth less, but it adds up.
RNG is highly used with enhancing and enchanting your weapon, so you can lose a lot of money there if you are not lucky, but you do not need to do it yourself. You can buy the finished equipment from the marketplace, ask around in the channel (Colhen, ch1 is where everyone is in EU) or use the forum.
Also, you don't need anything higher then +10. There are people that want 16k+ attack for bosses that have only 4k def, and att cap is def +10000. At least in EU Season 1, you can always find boats that do not require you to hit a cap. You should also be able to hit (depending on class) 14 or 15k, with Explosive enchant scroll (not recommend for most weapons) even 16k+ att. Or simply host your own boat if you can, people will join.
And remember, stats mean nothing without player skill. I've seen people where each armor piece costs more then my whole equipment fail so badly at even the simpliest task, and horrible underequipped players basically solo a boss because everyone else died. Basically, equipment allows you to accomplish the same with less skill, but as your equipment will hit a ceiling somewhere, you can not entirely remove skill. And if your skill decreases more then your equipment can compensate, you're toast.
As Vindictus is F2P, and as you do not need the cash shop at all, i recommend everyone to check it out, despite all the flaws.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
Vindictus is pretty fun, but because it's so repetitive, you get quickly bored if soloing all the time. Get a friend/guildie/someone to play with you and the game will entertain you for months.
Cheers.
Another beautiful game crapped on by Nexon.
You can't participate in end game content unless you get extremely lucky with raid drops (we're talking a 1 in thousands chance of a good drop) or spend hundreds to thousands of dollars enhancing and enchanting your equips. Meso farmers bot endlessly with no consequences. Gold buying has become acceptable among most of the community.
Such a shame. I love the game but will not play it.
This is a mixed bag but, once you've enhanced/enchanted/infused your gear, it'll last you as long as you want it to. I've been using the same gear for about a year because I've upgraded it so much that anything short of lvl 80 gear isn't worth the trouble IMHO. On one hand, I can experience all the new stuff and on the other, I look the same. I have gotten strongerbthough just by leveling and spending AP on skills.
Certainly luck plays a part in every game, but that does sound over the top.