Broken Ranks cross platform mmrpg with turn based combat

That is too bad, it seemed like it might be a decent free time waster if nothing special. I plan to give it a go at some point but I was wondering how or why it was forced multiplayer. Games like these from small shops should always have a single player side with modding imho. Thanks for the review mkopec

Looks neat and worth a shot. I wouldn’t think combat would be the draw here.

So it released and I'm playing it. Only a couple of hours in, but it's decent so far. It's gonna be a long long grind.

The combat is a bit of a "gimmic" and group/party play kind of sucks right now, but otherwise this is actually a pretty solid little time waster. It's a really great game when you only have an hour or two. A lot of people are calling it "pay to win", which really just translates to "I'm a poor piece of shit and shouldn't have to pay a monthly fee!". It cracks me up that every MMO in existence used to require a monthly fee, then MTX comes around and suddenly monthly fees are "pay to win"?

There is a big difference between “pay entry fee and play” and “pay to do anything on an itemized basis because our gameplay encourages players to do this”

The later tends to be more predatory in a lot of situations

Cybsled said:

There is a big difference between “pay entry fee and play” and “pay to do anything on an itemized basis because our gameplay encourages players to do this”

The later tends to be more predatory in a lot of situations

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How is it predatory? You were paying the fee regardless. Now, if the fee is 2x, 3x, etc. "standard", sure, that's predatory. Otherwise, you were going to have to pay that fee anyway.

People just want free shit is what it boils down to.

Hateyou said:

Depends what you’re paying for to qualify as p2w for me. Am I buying cosmetic shit and bank slots? Ok great, here’s some money for your game. Am I paying for better gear and to unlock content faster than other people? Get fucked.

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Well, in this particular instance, people are bitching that it's "p2w" because people who pay for premium get 25% more exp and gold than those that don't. Premium basically costs what a "subscription" used to cost back in the day, $13.50ish(varies based on exchange rate - since the company is Polish, I think?) - lasts for 30 days. People can call that "predatory", but what MMOs have done in many cases, is sort of offer you a "demo" and you have to subscribe to get the "full game". Before, you just didn't play at all, because MMOs all required subscriptions.

I just find the bitching about that particular model to essentially be people who are pissed they can't have free shit. Would people rather you just not get to play at all? Because that's how MMOs used to work.

With a standard subscription, you pay a monthly sub and get to access all the content outside of full expansion packs. The only additional RMT is usually just cosmetics or stuff like server xfers, level boosts, race changes, etc.

With F2P or Buy-to-Play, you usually see a couple approaches outside xpacs: You either see the predatory "mobile game" model, or you see the Barbie Dress-Up model in terms of RMT.

I think people mostly have an issue with the mobile game model, because usually that means they are intentionally designing mechanics or features of the game to be as frustrating as possible to encourage people to pony up cash to get "convenience". Like a lot of Korean MMOs - they make it so you need good gear to PVP or PVE, but then design bullshit crafting mechanics that have a chance to blow up your gear unless you buy some resource off the cash shop (and even then it might still explode). Or they limit your ability to participate in content unless you buy something that lets you bypass a long timer.

Archeage was the fucking worst - not only did you have to pay a sub to get base features like home ownership or labor regeneration, but then you STILL had to buy labor pots to do anything in a realistic amount of time, or tax certs to keep your house, or crafting charms and scrolls from lootboxes to -maybe- prevent your gear from exploding when trying to upgrade it. Or they would nerf boats or vehicles in the game - then they release an unnerfed version in the cash shop you could buy for a ton of money.

Hateyou said:

Hmm if I could have played EQ for free with an exp penalty I definitely would have. We were fucking broke back then and honestly playing that 10+ hours a day saved us money from not doing other more expensive shit. I can see how people would cry p2w but it wouldn’t bother me, there’s no content block or anything.

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Always thought it was wild how many people I know in the '99 period or earlier that were poor. My parents were poor in that period too, and now people look at my parents like they have money. Its just weird to me that that seems to be like a common thing among a lot of people and how younger generations think theyre poor now and how well people had it in the 80's and 90's.

I installed this game last night and I'm playing around with it but never looked at the cash shop. My inventory however has 120 days of premium, race / appearance / sex change tokens and more. I'd be amazed if someone thought this was P2W already.

Cybsled said:

With a standard subscription, you pay a monthly sub and get to access all the content outside of full expansion packs. The only additional RMT is usually just cosmetics or stuff like server xfers, level boosts, race changes, etc.

With F2P or Buy-to-Play, you usually see a couple approaches outside xpacs: You either see the predatory "mobile game" model, or you see the Barbie Dress-Up model in terms of RMT.

I think people mostly have an issue with the mobile game model, because usually that means they are intentionally designing mechanics or features of the game to be as frustrating as possible to encourage people to pony up cash to get "convenience". Like a lot of Korean MMOs - they make it so you need good gear to PVP or PVE, but then design bullshit crafting mechanics that have a chance to blow up your gear unless you buy some resource off the cash shop (and even then it might still explode). Or they limit your ability to participate in content unless you buy something that lets you bypass a long timer.

Archeage was the fucking worst - not only did you have to pay a sub to get base features like home ownership or labor regeneration, but then you STILL had to buy labor pots to do anything in a realistic amount of time, or tax certs to keep your house, or crafting charms and scrolls from lootboxes to -maybe- prevent your gear from exploding when trying to upgrade it. Or they would nerf boats or vehicles in the game - then they release an unnerfed version in the cash shop you could buy for a ton of money.

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In this, you have access to ALL content (the story is actually pretty fucking good for a foreign company, honestly. Translations are really well done). The "questing" systems plays every bit as much like a classic CRPG with backstabbing, politics, "player choice", etc. Like I said, it's surprisingly good. Sure, it's no Baulder's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment, but it's every bit as good as something like Divinity 1 and 2 - storywise.

Then of course throw in your standard MMO shit - there's a "task" system where you can get a repeatable quest to kill things, turn it in for a big chunk of exp/gold, and then you can't get another one for 15-30m depending. It's basically there to supplement your grind/questing. There aren't really traditional "hubs", per se. You basically have the "main quest", then as you level you'll unlock "side" quests which have their own storylines - some of which are silly, some suck, and some are actually really good.

The combat is mostly a gimmic, but it does have its charm. Missing 3x in a row on an 81% chance to hit sure is fucking fun though and is enough to make you rage when the mob kills you on the next round - very XComish.

The big issue right now is party play kind of sucks. You can join a group, turns are simultaneous and you have 10s to make your combat "choices" each round, but ONLY the party leader controls where the group moves, mobs it fights, etc. You also can't see any quest dialog of the party leader/do your own. Essentially, it's mostly just there for grinding and/or killing tough mobs. It's GREAT if you're playing with friends you trust, but if it's just randoms, they can be pretty potato.

But yeah, like Hateyou said, not paying for premium would be like playing EQ for "free" but you have an exp/plat penalty. You also apparently rest(most fights require you to rest 10-30sec after) faster with premium, but I haven't noticed much of a difference between premium and non, tbh.

Hateyou said:

The combat is the same as Eternal Sonata. Same thing where you had ten seconds to queue up your shit.

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When you're playing solo, I do wish the timer would go the fuck away.

Daidraco said:

When you're playing solo, I do wish the timer would go the fuck away.

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100%. This was the one thing I was bummed to see. I figured the timer made sense for party play, but it'd be removed for solo play. It'd make grinding shit while doing other things a lot more feasible.