izigame.me

This review is for the people that left the game a few months after the launch hoping the mess will get patched in a year or two and finally be playable. (2 years have passed, its 4’th of October 2023 post “Rise of the Angry Earth” DLC launch)

You probably have many questions. I’ll at least try to answer some of them.

What has changed from launch (21 September 2021)?
In summary a lot (F ton of patches and added content). IF you have time, read the short version below or skip to the next question.
Pre DLC "Rise of the Angry Earth" the servers had no queues and a lot of them have been merged with each other in to 6 large pop’s. If I recall correctly there has been over 65+ servers at launch(EU), each with max pop(2500) and big queues(10k in line). Lots of people quit the game because of the waiting time and after they managed to join a server they often got DC… have fun re-queuing. Things dialled down after 6 months and people could join after work without fear of queues. Sorry but I’ll dodge the part with “fresh start servers” it still pains me.
Amazon managed to fix a lot of in game problems –Bugs, crashes or GPU melting (yes high-end GPUs like 3080/3090’s were dying like crazy) Gamers blamed amazon, amazon blamed Nvidia, Nvidia blamed their AIB partners & yada-yada – (heard only of EVGA stepping up and replacing burned 3090’s)
The game has received 2 free season DLC’s that added 1 Raid/dungeon each season, a season pass, new extended story line to experience and a new large desert themed territory “Brimstone Sands” that was received very well. (Free content? I’ll take it !)
They bumped the Gear score to 625, soft-cap 600 and after that you had to upgrade each piece of armour by one, all the way to 625. Named items were capped at 590GS and with the new umbral upgrade system you could change them in to legendary BIS items (625GS) that shook the PVE game economy (no comment)
To do that they implemented mutated dungeons/raids on a weekly rotation with a 10 tier difficulty system with a player finder/lobby! (21’th century!?) You had to get a good score to progress to the next tier and at the end of each dungeon you received “Umbral Shards”(time+deaths+wipes all counted towards the score and pay-out, not casual friendly). Tedious endgame activity but do-able IMHO.
They added a “bad luck” system for people like me that were hunting for dungeon specific items by allowing them to craft it using a dungeon specific materia, that you received as a reward after each mutated dungeon.
For PVP players they implemented a PVP track (items, gold, etc.), “fixed” wars and reduced the amount of players in it to 20vs20(instant based), OPR(small battles) with cross server players and Arenas(3vs3).
Proficiency’s were still capped to lvl 200 and implemented a paragon system for them. (After you hit lvl 200 the track reset back to lvl 1 giving loot-boxes with items / you should count it as lvl 200+1, 200+2 etc.) With the “Brimstone Sands” they added a music system that allowed you to play a song with people and receive 30-60min buffs to exp/yield/luck/territory standing that added some life to the towns.
Is the new paid DLC any good? Simple answer – Yes, its ok.
Is it worth 30 $/Euro? NO and it’s not even about the money I’ll get to that part later.
Now after the launch of the DLC, to hop in, you will need to wait in a queue of 1-2k people on average (on all 8-EU servers). So far the added story is for about 2-3h of exploration if you read the dialogues**(TBH who’s bothered to read them after playing Lost Ark - its skip, skip.. press “E” ffs. The game will mark the place you have to go)
The level was bumped to 65, GS to 700 (soft cap), all proficiency’s (+50) to lvl 250.
The DLC unlocks a new weapon – Flail+shield, hard to predict how broken it will be in wars/pve.
We got a new “refreshed” territory – First light which is now called “Elysian wilds” lvl 60+ and is a lawless Dryad territory like Edengrove. It is surrounded by a tall wall (that makes even Trump jealous) accessibly only for DLC owners. Edengrove on the other hand became a new claimable territory with a new town.
We got a mount after 2 years of asking for it, “better now than never I guess”. It should have been released with the base game, since the teleporters earlier on, were expensive to use and so far from each other, to the point that you could have thought that this game was a running simulator. (That has changed, just look at “Great Cleve” now it has 12 shrines, it had only 4! Now you can use the mount to admire the world you run through I guess..)
Time for the bad and ugly. Do i need to buy the new DLC "Rise of the Angry Earth" to play the base game and have fun? Unfortunately, YES and NO I’ll explain.
If you did not buy the DLC you are capped to pre-DLC stats. Lvl 60, 625GS, proficiency’s lvl 200 and no mount. Item gear score is now based off the lvl of monsters. No need for umbral shards. The gear that you farmed for 2000h is underscored and wrecked(lots of perks have been changed), all named items that weren’t upgraded to 625GS pre DLC are broken (you can’t make them legendary anymore, you have to re-farm them again).
You can’t refine new resources or gather them, craft new “Mythril” items and sell them/equip them. You are locked out from the majority of the activities that you could have done previously, since no one will buy or use 625GS items.
No company will take you to wars or in to Mutated dungeons (minimum GS is 650 now?TF).
Only PVP activity is OPR, since items there are artificially bumped for you to 675GS.
I forgot about the new shiny red artefact named items that are 700GS, cost an arm and a leg and slay anything you’ll look upon. So as a non-paid DLC player im terrified and depressed, there is no point to play w/o the DLC. So as you see it’s not about the cost of the 30$ DLC but how it affects non DLC players, the game shouldn’t force us to buy a DLC in my opinion.
Did i enjoy the time i spent playing the game, yes, do i regret spending nearly 2000h of my life in NW.. yes :D