What is it with hate for this game that didn't even release yet nor charge anyone money? Why are so many of you actively bashing it even on Steam?
Just curious here. In fact I will buy it and try it for myself. If it sucks there is always a refund.
The game released around the end of last September. As a launched game, they do charge money for it. You have a choice of $30 buy to play or a $10/month subscription. And yes, that's "or", not "and". Think of $30 as being a lifetime subscription. They also offer a two-week refund policy.
As for the hate, you'd have to ask the people constantly denouncing the game. My best guess it that people see it was made in South Korea and assume that it has everything that they've ever hated about other Korean-made games. There actually isn't much in the game itself that will make you think it was made in Korea.
Except that it has all the trappings of other generic korean games.
It's uninspired, and it's not just western audiences that can't get past these games. The Korean servers for Astellia have already shut down...
No, it's not a bad game, but again, it isn't a good one, at best it's a generic one with 1 trope that is supposed to be its main draw, and it's done poorly. Very poorly.
What exactly is your idea of a "generic Korean" game? I've played quite a few Korean-made MMOs, and Astellia doesn't have much in common with most of them.
Literally the only thing I've seen in the game that made me think "Korean" was that you get a grade upon finishing a dungeon, and S is a higher grade than A for some inexplicable reason. But Dauntless does that, too, and that's not a Korean game.
The only other thing that I've seen that made me think it was a foreign game is that the voiceovers commonly don't match the text, as they're independent translations of the original. If not for that, it could plausibly pass for an American-made game.
So what is my idea of a "generic Korean MMO" that many other Korean games I've played would have and Astellia doesn't?
-"free to play" with a heavy reliance on an item mall -loot boxes -pay for extra inventory space in order to have enough -heavily pay to win at the top end -open world, non-consensual PVP where other people can gank you -Korean text in various places that isn't translated into English -English language text accompanied by Korean voiceovers -lobby as the shared area with most of the real content in instanced dungeons -over the top, flashy skill animations -play as a particular character, not a class, with virtually no character creation options
Now, not all Korean imports have most or all of those, but they seem to be common among Korean-made MMOs that get imported to the West. Astellia has none of them. Astellia's mechanics have more in common with World of Warcraft than with Atlantica, Elsword, Kritika, Aura Kingdom, Vindictus, Dragon Nest, Riders of Icarus, Closers, SoulWorker, TERA, Aion, Black Desert, or Maple Story 2.
Astellia WAS free to play, in the korean version, and just like Bless, the chances it will go F2P before it shuts down in the west is high, it's pretty much standard operations.
Localization definitely had issues, and I played all the way through to max level.
NPCs weren't voiced completely.
Dungeon lockouts were still consistent with how korean games generally do them.
The combat was simplistic and grindy. Many multiples of skills had to be used to kill even a simple enemy.
Character tropes were all there, including the subservient little girl and the comic relief.
The world was largely sterile, with areas populated with uninteresting mobs. In fact, most of the mobs were the SAME MOBS whether you fought them at the beginning or at max level, it's just the same enemies with different levels.
When I played classes were still gender locked. Common in korean games.
This could have been Bless with pets.
And the pets weren't done well at all. They are essentially necessary supplements to gameplay, but are generally way too simplistic to be useful. You mentioned before that you might have to pull out 3 - 5 astels (which, if you had 5.... it's highly unlikely you'd be able to keep them out for long unless you're using whatever that consumable crystal is) but the fact of the matter is... you HAVE to pull out as many as you can because they are unintelligent, generally useless, meat shields and DPS supplements.
Even Guild Wars 2 and the Ranger has better pets. You have over 20 pets, easy, each with their own skills and uses, each with a reactionary skill set and synergistic capabilities. You then have actual abilities that coincide with your pet, and basic builds to enhance them, their abilities or more. Astellias pet system is awful. Yeah you can slot them and level them... but in the end you're still stuck with having to do this for multiple pets so you can do anything, and even then, controlling them is pretty much impossible.
What is it with hate for this game that didn't even release yet nor charge anyone money? Why are so many of you actively bashing it even on Steam?
Just curious here. In fact I will buy it and try it for myself. If it sucks there is always a refund.
The game released around the end of last September. As a launched game, they do charge money for it. You have a choice of $30 buy to play or a $10/month subscription. And yes, that's "or", not "and". Think of $30 as being a lifetime subscription. They also offer a two-week refund policy.
As for the hate, you'd have to ask the people constantly denouncing the game. My best guess it that people see it was made in South Korea and assume that it has everything that they've ever hated about other Korean-made games. There actually isn't much in the game itself that will make you think it was made in Korea.
Except that it has all the trappings of other generic korean games.
It's uninspired, and it's not just western audiences that can't get past these games. The Korean servers for Astellia have already shut down...
No, it's not a bad game, but again, it isn't a good one, at best it's a generic one with 1 trope that is supposed to be its main draw, and it's done poorly. Very poorly.
What exactly is your idea of a "generic Korean" game? I've played quite a few Korean-made MMOs, and Astellia doesn't have much in common with most of them.
Literally the only thing I've seen in the game that made me think "Korean" was that you get a grade upon finishing a dungeon, and S is a higher grade than A for some inexplicable reason. But Dauntless does that, too, and that's not a Korean game.
The only other thing that I've seen that made me think it was a foreign game is that the voiceovers commonly don't match the text, as they're independent translations of the original. If not for that, it could plausibly pass for an American-made game.
So what is my idea of a "generic Korean MMO" that many other Korean games I've played would have and Astellia doesn't?
-"free to play" with a heavy reliance on an item mall -loot boxes -pay for extra inventory space in order to have enough -heavily pay to win at the top end -open world, non-consensual PVP where other people can gank you -Korean text in various places that isn't translated into English -English language text accompanied by Korean voiceovers -lobby as the shared area with most of the real content in instanced dungeons -over the top, flashy skill animations -play as a particular character, not a class, with virtually no character creation options
Now, not all Korean imports have most or all of those, but they seem to be common among Korean-made MMOs that get imported to the West. Astellia has none of them. Astellia's mechanics have more in common with World of Warcraft than with Atlantica, Elsword, Kritika, Aura Kingdom, Vindictus, Dragon Nest, Riders of Icarus, Closers, SoulWorker, TERA, Aion, Black Desert, or Maple Story 2.
Astellia WAS free to play, in the korean version, and just like Bless, the chances it will go F2P before it shuts down in the west is high, it's pretty much standard operations.
Localization definitely had issues, and I played all the way through to max level.
NPCs weren't voiced completely.
Dungeon lockouts were still consistent with how korean games generally do them.
The combat was simplistic and grindy. Many multiples of skills had to be used to kill even a simple enemy.
Character tropes were all there, including the subservient little girl and the comic relief.
The world was largely sterile, with areas populated with uninteresting mobs. In fact, most of the mobs were the SAME MOBS whether you fought them at the beginning or at max level, it's just the same enemies with different levels.
When I played classes were still gender locked. Common in korean games.
This could have been Bless with pets.
And the pets weren't done well at all. They are essentially necessary supplements to gameplay, but are generally way too simplistic to be useful. You mentioned before that you might have to pull out 3 - 5 astels (which, if you had 5.... it's highly unlikely you'd be able to keep them out for long unless you're using whatever that consumable crystal is) but the fact of the matter is... you HAVE to pull out as many as you can because they are unintelligent, generally useless, meat shields and DPS supplements.
Even Guild Wars 2 and the Ranger has better pets. You have over 20 pets, easy, each with their own skills and uses, each with a reactionary skill set and synergistic capabilities. You then have actual abilities that coincide with your pet, and basic builds to enhance them, their abilities or more. Astellias pet system is awful. Yeah you can slot them and level them... but in the end you're still stuck with having to do this for multiple pets so you can do anything, and even then, controlling them is pretty much impossible.
The localization was a mess at launch. It's fixed now. If all classes were gender locked when you played, then you played before launch.
As for the rest of your comments, that's your idea of a stereotypical Korean game? Because only Koreans do comic relief? Or only Korean games have some things voiced and not others? If you don't like the game, that's fine. My objection was to your calling it a "generic Korean MMO", when it doesn't do much that is characteristic of Korean MMOs but not of non-Korean MMOs. Had you called it a WoW-clone, I wouldn't have objected.
Pulling out several astels over the course of a boss battle doesn't mean I keep them all out for the whole battle. It means that at some point one dies or I need to unsummon one or something, and then I pull out a different one.
Furthermore, astels are hardly useless. There have been quite a few battles where I died, then stopped and thought about what the boss did and how I ought to use astels differently, changed which astels were used when (but not otherwise changed my strategy much), and then won because of the changes in astel usage. Or in some cases, won on the third try.
In Guild Wars 2, for comparison, I played a ranger all the way to the cap and did a lot of further content after reaching level 80. I don't think I ever encountered a situation where I failed at something and the solution was to use a different pet. Perhaps you have more direct control of a pet via some pet skills, but using one pet versus another just isn't a very big difference. In Astellia, it can easily be the difference between a healer, a tank, a melee damage dealer, or a ranged damage dealer. Or a "savior" astel that is very powerful for 45 seconds before leaving. The nearest Guild Wars comparison to that is bringing different henchmen or heroes in Guild Wars 1--which isn't something that can be adjusted in the middle of a mission.
Astellia WAS free to play, in the korean version, and just like Bless, the chances it will go F2P before it shuts down in the west is high, it's pretty much standard operations.
Localization definitely had issues, and I played all the way through to max level.
NPCs weren't voiced completely.
Dungeon lockouts were still consistent with how korean games generally do them.
The combat was simplistic and grindy. Many multiples of skills had to be used to kill even a simple enemy.
Character tropes were all there, including the subservient little girl and the comic relief.
The world was largely sterile, with areas populated with uninteresting mobs. In fact, most of the mobs were the SAME MOBS whether you fought them at the beginning or at max level, it's just the same enemies with different levels.
When I played classes were still gender locked. Common in korean games.
This could have been Bless with pets.
And the pets weren't done well at all. They are essentially necessary supplements to gameplay, but are generally way too simplistic to be useful. You mentioned before that you might have to pull out 3 - 5 astels (which, if you had 5.... it's highly unlikely you'd be able to keep them out for long unless you're using whatever that consumable crystal is) but the fact of the matter is... you HAVE to pull out as many as you can because they are unintelligent, generally useless, meat shields and DPS supplements.
Even Guild Wars 2 and the Ranger has better pets. You have over 20 pets, easy, each with their own skills and uses, each with a reactionary skill set and synergistic capabilities. You then have actual abilities that coincide with your pet, and basic builds to enhance them, their abilities or more. Astellias pet system is awful. Yeah you can slot them and level them... but in the end you're still stuck with having to do this for multiple pets so you can do anything, and even then, controlling them is pretty much impossible.
The localization was a mess at launch. It's fixed now. If all classes were gender locked when you played, then you played before launch.
As for the rest of your comments, that's your idea of a stereotypical Korean game? Because only Koreans do comic relief? Or only Korean games have some things voiced and not others? If you don't like the game, that's fine. My objection was to your calling it a "generic Korean MMO", when it doesn't do much that is characteristic of Korean MMOs but not of non-Korean MMOs. Had you called it a WoW-clone, I wouldn't have objected.
Pulling out several astels over the course of a boss battle doesn't mean I keep them all out for the whole battle. It means that at some point one dies or I need to unsummon one or something, and then I pull out a different one.
Furthermore, astels are hardly useless. There have been quite a few battles where I died, then stopped and thought about what the boss did and how I ought to use astels differently, changed which astels were used when (but not otherwise changed my strategy much), and then won because of the changes in astel usage. Or in some cases, won on the third try.
In Guild Wars 2, for comparison, I played a ranger all the way to the cap and did a lot of further content after reaching level 80. I don't think I ever encountered a situation where I failed at something and the solution was to use a different pet. Perhaps you have more direct control of a pet via some pet skills, but using one pet versus another just isn't a very big difference. In Astellia, it can easily be the difference between a healer, a tank, a melee damage dealer, or a ranged damage dealer. Or a "savior" astel that is very powerful for 45 seconds before leaving. The nearest Guild Wars comparison to that is bringing different henchmen or heroes in Guild Wars 1--which isn't something that can be adjusted in the middle of a mission.
I think there's some confusion. Firstly, being generic and korean are two different things, but when describing something as both generic and korean, it's important to know the specific distinction.
For example, a generic MMO, may be considered the ever present, WOW clone. But generally it's rehashed .... everything... that we've all seen before. It's a generic MMO, rebranded over and over again.
For Astellia, it's generic and korean, which has all the tropes of generic games, and games that are similar to other korean titles. Gender locking is one of them, and no it was after beta, and a quick search returned that, yes, there were still gender locked classes after launch, even so far as October. Maybe even now. Not every class was gender locked, but gender locking isn't something we see often in western games when you create your own character.
Same with bad localization.
Same with the little girl tropes.
This isn't stuff we see in western games, but this is common for korean games. Pretty much everything I mentioned already are seen in not just generic games, but specifically korean games that are generic.
That's not to say that there aren't generic western games too, but many of the issues presented are specific to korean games.
Lastly, it shows how different our experiences were. I never found myself in a situations where I had to change any of my astels according to my situation. Rota was my tank, scorpio for DPS and Ram was my healer. If they died during a battle I swapped in my B team which was corvus.. some little duck that I used as an off tank.
I never had a situation where I had to change my team around all the way through to max level, and I was able to do some group content on my own.
In GW2 though, you're right that simply changing your pet isn't going to make or break any of the leveling content, but they all have very strategic purposes in challenging content such as PvP, large scale bosses, and group content that utilizes the defiance bar. You have much more control over what your pet can do, but the main point is the skills you use.
A good example is, you can offload your damage onto your pet, or conditions onto your pet as they come in, depending on what you do, cure conditions on yourself, heal yourself with your pet, combine with your pet for new abilities and damage potential... you have so many more options on what you can do that actually matters in GW2. Having a team of astels might mean something at some point, but they aren't very intelligent at all. It just isn't fun having an "army of astels" that can only focus on one thing consistently.
For what it's worth, I think the game is reasonably good, but it's hardly a great game. The storyline is actually pretty good, but it won't seem that way until you get to Tulie and it explains a bunch of things that you've already seen. And even then, it will only make sense if you've been paying attention up to that point.
It's tab-target combat, though somewhat more active than your average tab-target MMORPG. E.g., the combat is more active than WoW or FFXIV. It's very quest-based. The translation was pretty bad at launch but has since been fixed.
Astels are a huge part of the game, so if you don't like pet systems, you won't like the game. If you do like pet systems, though, it probably has the best pet system of any MMORPG, ever. In some boss fights, I've had to pull out 4 or 5 different astels over the course of a two-minute fight.
The game also makes exploration into a major game mechanic via Star's Tale, and with substantial rewards. You can ignore it if you don't like it, or you can look up exactly where everything is. But it does at minimum encourage you to pay attention as you move around in the game world.
it still have a problem, a f2p game, who become a B2p only here to NA, sorry for a game who is just meh, asking to pay for it is already too much
And this is the Locust mentality killing the MMO/Game Industry. Take Take Take, but never willing to support.
Comments
So What Now?
Localization definitely had issues, and I played all the way through to max level.
NPCs weren't voiced completely.
Dungeon lockouts were still consistent with how korean games generally do them.
The combat was simplistic and grindy. Many multiples of skills had to be used to kill even a simple enemy.
Character tropes were all there, including the subservient little girl and the comic relief.
The world was largely sterile, with areas populated with uninteresting mobs. In fact, most of the mobs were the SAME MOBS whether you fought them at the beginning or at max level, it's just the same enemies with different levels.
When I played classes were still gender locked. Common in korean games.
This could have been Bless with pets.
And the pets weren't done well at all. They are essentially necessary supplements to gameplay, but are generally way too simplistic to be useful. You mentioned before that you might have to pull out 3 - 5 astels (which, if you had 5.... it's highly unlikely you'd be able to keep them out for long unless you're using whatever that consumable crystal is) but the fact of the matter is... you HAVE to pull out as many as you can because they are unintelligent, generally useless, meat shields and DPS supplements.
Even Guild Wars 2 and the Ranger has better pets. You have over 20 pets, easy, each with their own skills and uses, each with a reactionary skill set and synergistic capabilities. You then have actual abilities that coincide with your pet, and basic builds to enhance them, their abilities or more. Astellias pet system is awful. Yeah you can slot them and level them... but in the end you're still stuck with having to do this for multiple pets so you can do anything, and even then, controlling them is pretty much impossible.
As for the rest of your comments, that's your idea of a stereotypical Korean game? Because only Koreans do comic relief? Or only Korean games have some things voiced and not others? If you don't like the game, that's fine. My objection was to your calling it a "generic Korean MMO", when it doesn't do much that is characteristic of Korean MMOs but not of non-Korean MMOs. Had you called it a WoW-clone, I wouldn't have objected.
Pulling out several astels over the course of a boss battle doesn't mean I keep them all out for the whole battle. It means that at some point one dies or I need to unsummon one or something, and then I pull out a different one.
Furthermore, astels are hardly useless. There have been quite a few battles where I died, then stopped and thought about what the boss did and how I ought to use astels differently, changed which astels were used when (but not otherwise changed my strategy much), and then won because of the changes in astel usage. Or in some cases, won on the third try.
In Guild Wars 2, for comparison, I played a ranger all the way to the cap and did a lot of further content after reaching level 80. I don't think I ever encountered a situation where I failed at something and the solution was to use a different pet. Perhaps you have more direct control of a pet via some pet skills, but using one pet versus another just isn't a very big difference. In Astellia, it can easily be the difference between a healer, a tank, a melee damage dealer, or a ranged damage dealer. Or a "savior" astel that is very powerful for 45 seconds before leaving. The nearest Guild Wars comparison to that is bringing different henchmen or heroes in Guild Wars 1--which isn't something that can be adjusted in the middle of a mission.
For example, a generic MMO, may be considered the ever present, WOW clone. But generally it's rehashed .... everything... that we've all seen before. It's a generic MMO, rebranded over and over again.
For Astellia, it's generic and korean, which has all the tropes of generic games, and games that are similar to other korean titles. Gender locking is one of them, and no it was after beta, and a quick search returned that, yes, there were still gender locked classes after launch, even so far as October. Maybe even now. Not every class was gender locked, but gender locking isn't something we see often in western games when you create your own character.
Same with bad localization.
Same with the little girl tropes.
This isn't stuff we see in western games, but this is common for korean games. Pretty much everything I mentioned already are seen in not just generic games, but specifically korean games that are generic.
That's not to say that there aren't generic western games too, but many of the issues presented are specific to korean games.
Lastly, it shows how different our experiences were. I never found myself in a situations where I had to change any of my astels according to my situation. Rota was my tank, scorpio for DPS and Ram was my healer. If they died during a battle I swapped in my B team which was corvus.. some little duck that I used as an off tank.
I never had a situation where I had to change my team around all the way through to max level, and I was able to do some group content on my own.
In GW2 though, you're right that simply changing your pet isn't going to make or break any of the leveling content, but they all have very strategic purposes in challenging content such as PvP, large scale bosses, and group content that utilizes the defiance bar. You have much more control over what your pet can do, but the main point is the skills you use.
A good example is, you can offload your damage onto your pet, or conditions onto your pet as they come in, depending on what you do, cure conditions on yourself, heal yourself with your pet, combine with your pet for new abilities and damage potential... you have so many more options on what you can do that actually matters in GW2. Having a team of astels might mean something at some point, but they aren't very intelligent at all. It just isn't fun having an "army of astels" that can only focus on one thing consistently.
And this is the Locust mentality killing the MMO/Game Industry. Take Take Take, but never willing to support.
Sigh.....
Eggo