Elyon Review In Progress | MMORPG.com

For some, 2021 has been the year of MMOs. For others, it has been one more 12 months of disappointment. With every new MMO that’s launched, they grasp tighter onto the times of previous, refusing to imagine that something new could be pretty much as good as what has come earlier than. Elyon might very effectively be one other sufferer of that thought course of; solely time will inform.For the reason that new MMO launched, I’ve put about 20 hours into Elyon, and to this point it’s been a superb time. Nonetheless, time will inform whether or not or not it’s one that can stick round, or be one other passing world for the style.

A (Comparatively) Quiet Launch

There’s been some jockeying for place with MMO releases over the past couple of months. Elyon’s developer Krafton and writer Kakao Video games had already introduced a September 29 launch date when Amazon Video games pushed their launch of New World from August 25 to September 28. In what I contemplate an unsurprising transfer, Krafton shortly pushed the Elyon launch date again one other month to October 20. The fascinating piece of that transfer was the change from a buy-to-play monetization mannequin to free-to-play in an try to entice extra players to offer Elyon a attempt. 

In response to SteamCharts, on the time of writing Elyon is sitting at simply over 15,000 gamers, with a median of just about 10,000 since launch. That’s only a fraction of New World’s present participant depend (506,000). The Elyon participant depend is just for the Steam model, however even when double or triple that quantity downloaded Elyon straight from the Kakao web site, it’s nonetheless not wanting just like the launch delay and change to free to play had a big impression on participant counts. We’ll have to attend for official phrase from Kakao and Krafton earlier than we all know for positive.

Whatever the precise participant depend, the Headstart and official launch of Elyon have gone pretty easily, not less than for the North American servers. I haven’t encountered any queues to get into the Cassiopeia server, however a 3rd server was added to the EU area to assist alleviate queues. There have additionally been some lag points because the servers pressure to course of World Occasions and RvR battles, so that they have been temporarily disabled till the lag could be taken care of in the course of the scheduled upkeep on the twenty seventh.

First Steps

As I already talked about, I’ve solely had the prospect to play a little bit over 20 hours at this level, so I’m nonetheless a great distance from making a last choice on whether or not Elyon might grow to be my go-to MMO for the foreseeable future. That mentioned, to this point I’ve had a variety of enjoyable taking part in the early ranges. Development by means of the early ranges is extraordinarily fast. Even when you prefer to take heed to the voiceovers and browse the entire quest textual content, reaching stage 30 in a few hours remains to be an attainable purpose. I used to be capable of make it into the mid-30s by merely finishing the story and area quests; no mob grinding was essential. Even after I fell wanting expertise to go from stage 35 to stage 36, it solely took a couple of minutes to redo a number of quests to get the XP wanted to advance.

First steps after the tutorial and already stage 19. That’s quick leveling.

Reaching stage 30 took little or no effort, nevertheless it’s not due to unhealthy design choices on the a part of Krafton. The present mentality of most MMO gamers is rush, rush, rush. Creating extra quests than essential is perceived as an try by the developer to artificially lengthen playtime with none actual substance. Many long-running MMOs like Last Fantasy XIV and Neverwinter have felt the wrath of gamers over this actual subject, and have gone so far as eradicating the additional fluff from the early stage grind.

Taking heed of present participant preferences, the primary 30 or so ranges in Elyon serve extra like a tutorial and introduction to the story than anything. You aren’t even launched to different actions equivalent to gathering, crafting, working dungeons, PvP, and all the opposite MMO trimmings till you might be in your 30s. I personally discovered this to be a streamlined manner of conserving me centered on attending to the “good things” earlier than I received too distracted with duties apart from fight.

Line ‘em up and knock ‘em down.

Thus far, I’ve performed some Gunner and Slayer, however the Mystic class has caught my consideration for the second. All three of the lessons (and I’ll assume the remaining lessons as effectively) are able to crushing the entire solo content material that I’ve skilled to this point. Even with out the Mystic’s strongest spells, its mixture of mobility, stuns, and space of impact injury spells really feel a little bit overpowered. Until one thing drastic occurs, I don’t anticipate that to vary on the larger ranges. It isn’t concerning the monster’s hit factors, both. Turning enemies into injury sponges wouldn’t make fight any extra pleasant, it could simply lengthen the time of every encounter by a number of seconds.

Making fight more difficult would require extra variety in how monsters assault. Presently, virtually the entire creatures make a beeline straight for an attacker, making it extraordinarily simple to collect them into massive teams after which shortly kill them with a few AoE assaults. When there’s a ranged enemy, they do little or no to maintain their distance, permitting you to tug all the opposite creatures proper to them. Even the stronger enemies, recognized as leaders, are sluggish to assault with any particular strikes, making evasion fairly easy. Whereas I’m all for making the push by means of low-level content material shortly, I can see how this easy-mode fight may very well be a turn-off for some.

The Dangerous Bits

Simply because my total expertise to this point has been constructive doesn’t imply that the whole lot about Elyon is rainbows and unicorns. I’m usually an enormous fan of gathering and crafting in MMOs, however the considered doing a little severe crafting in Elyon is nothing wanting painful. In a choice that I contemplate a constructive, there isn’t any mini-game related to crafting. You go to a workbench, choose a recipe, set the amount you wish to make, and press begin. That’s advantageous.

Is crafting actually well worth the time?

The difficulty I’ve is the period of time it takes to make something. The primary weapon I could make requires 10  powerful plywood and 5 powerful steel rods. Every of those is the results of a serious success whereas crafting the bottom plywood and steel rods. At a ten% probability for a serious success, meaning I must craft 100 plywood and 50 steel rods to get the mandatory assets for my weapon. At 8 seconds per craft, meaning it’ll take about 20 minutes to craft the assets for a single merchandise! And that weapon isn’t even pretty much as good as what I’m already utilizing. I’ve barely scratched the floor of crafting, and I assume there shall be methods (apart from shopping for supplies) to hurry up the method, however this doesn’t sound enjoyable to me. Perhaps I’m lacking one thing?

Gathering is a little bit higher, nevertheless it comes with its personal quirks as effectively. Together with gathering from useful resource nodes out within the wild, when you acquire entry to housing, you possibly can add nodes in your private plot. These are a set it and overlook it sort of factor, so each hour or two you possibly can pop in, harvest and replant, and pop again out. Easy however efficient, yeah?

It’s not a lot but, however this home and workshop are a begin.

Throughout your adventures, you’ll even be rewarded Dimensional Seeds. When planted, these particular seeds will produce a portal to one in all two totally different mini-games. Neither sport is any enjoyable, and I didn’t wish to repeat them after the primary time. Nonetheless, they solely take a few minutes to finish they usually present a good quantity of assets for the period of time required, so they’re sadly an evil I must endure. It might be a lot less complicated if the Dimensional Seeds simply gave a better yield than regular seeds and we left it at that.

These are simply a few the problems I’ve come throughout to this point. Others, like being instructed to select a guild throughout one of many foremost quests, solely to search out out that leaving that guild after the hunt was accomplished has locked me out of selecting one other guild for 50 hours, are a nuisance however probably not a game-ending downside. I’m positive I’ll discover different issues that detract from my enjoyment, however hopefully, they received’t outweigh the enjoyable I’m having.

Mini-games by no means find yourself being a good suggestion in an MMO.

Last Ideas

I’d be mendacity if I mentioned my time with Elyon has been a ground-breaking expertise; I haven’t come throughout any sport mechanics that I haven’t seen in different MMOs. However my time leveling has been enjoyable, one thing I can’t say for a lot of MMOs within the final 5 or 6 years. With so many methods being a rehash of what’s come earlier than, I can’t actually put my finger on what it’s that has made Elyon so pleasant. If somebody pressed me for one particular motive they need to give Elyon a attempt, I must say that to this point the pacing has been on level. Will I be capable to say that after one other 20 hours? 50? 500? I don’t learn about that final quantity, however I’ll be again in every week or two to let whether or not Elyon lasts previous the honeymoon interval or not.