Title: Skyforge
Developer: Allods Team & Obsidian Entertainment
Status: Open Beta
Official Site: http://bit.ly/1gcoBOK
Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a
look at the MMORPG, SkyForge, a joint development venture between the Allods
Team, the guys behind Allods Online, and Obsidian Entertainment, the guys
behind numerous RPG’s like Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity and South Park the
Stick of Truth. Skyforge has you playing as one of many immortals whose job it
is to protect the people of Aelion. You oversee all the events of the world
from the capital of Aelion and warp into to help out in situations where you’re
powers will be needed.
Skyforge isn’t what you would expect from
an ordinary MMO and honestly only just manages to make it into the category.
There is no large interconnected world like you see in other MMO’s like World
of Warcraft or Archeage were you can walk to almost anywhere in the world,
Skyforge instead opts for instanced dungeons called Squad missions that can be
completed solo or with up to 3 squad members with the dungeon scaling in
difficulty depending on the number of players. These squad missions are the
main content of the game with each dungeon being played multiple times at
higher difficulties for the quest line and also to gain more sparks to upgrade
your character. The dungeons consist of a couple of mini bosses before you take
on the final boss of the dungeon with the final boss usually providing for a
very intense a fun experience were the action orientated combat takes full effect
as you have to dodge attacks so as not to get one shot.
The region areas provide more of that open
world feel but only slightly as the maps are still fairly small but contains a
bunch of side quests for you to complete. This mode is honestly a little dull
and while playing in these regions the game starts to gain that feeling of an
MMO grind. Thankfully however you don’t have to complete the side quests and
can just focus on the main storyline, bypassing the kill so many of this thing
or collect so many of this drop. Even in these areas you won’t see a ton of
people around and for very good reason as the content isn’t as fun to play as
the dungeons and you only really have to go to region once and spend an hour or
so before you never have to go back.
Finally there is PvP that consists of a
free for all mode, 3v3 and finally 5v5. I wasn’t able to play the team based
modes but from the free for all mode there is some depth with chaining
character abilities that you don’t really use while PvE’ing. In many of the
maps the closer you are to the centre the more powerful you become so it
encourages players to the centre of the map other than that though the PvP
isn’t doing anything too special or different.
The combat in Skyforge is action based but
does have an odd targeting system included where most of your abilities won’t
be usable unless you have an enemy targeted. This kind of combat feels a little
odd at first but is actually a really solid way of doing it especially once you
get the hang of the locking onto enemies. Plus I imagine it’s a way to deal
with frustrating lag that you can experience in other Action based MMO’s.
As for the underlying mechanics and
features that we are used to from MMO’s Skyforge changes some of them up a bit
and eliminating some entirely. The gear that you can change out consists of 2
weapon slots and 4 rings, that’s all you will have access to early on, later
you will unlock 4 amulet slots and a trophy slot. Armour is absent from the
game and is a little disappointing as with many MMO players and even RPG
players getting a new piece of armour and actually having that change your look
is a big part of the game. Instead Skyforge implements a costume feature were
you can collect costumes and change them whenever you want with no stats tied
to them at all. The economy in Skyforge is non-existent with no player driven
markets instead the market only allows you to buy boosters, licences for mounts
and costumes. Basically Skyforge focuses purely on combat and not much else, no
resource gathering, no professions and no crafting
There is one side mechanic in the form of adepts,
dedicated followers that can be sent on missions that will end up giving you
small stat boosts. As an immortal you rely on followers to increase your power
and with adepts you can spread the word about your good deeds to gain more
followers and in turn more adepts. This is basically a small management task of
sending adepts to complete time based mission and building chapels so as to
gain the stat boosts.
Skyforge also does a couple things different
in terms of the class you play. We’ve seen this featured in a couple of MMO’s
here and there allowing you to play whatever class you want, whenever you want.
Unfortunately you only have access to 3 of the 13 total classes at the
beginning with cryomancer being your damage dealer, Paladin being your
defensive class and priest being your support. The other 10 classes unlock the
further you progress in the game via the ascension atlas, a large skill tree
that unlocks not only classes but abilities, passives and god mode. You’ll be
using 3 different coloured sparks to progress through the tree with the Spark
of Balance, the spark of creation and finally the spark of destruction. Each
node that is unlocked in the ascension tree will contribute those stats to any
class that you play, the lower level skill tree is where you can start
unlocking class specific abilities and passives using class specific sparks
that are gained from random drops.
Your characters level in the game isn’t
you’re standard fixed number with so much xp taking you to the next level.
Instead Skyforge calculates a prestige ranking from your currently equipped
equipment and how many skill tree nodes you have unlocked which is actually a
really good way to keep matchmaking balanced and to quickly find out which
player is statistically stronger than the other. With the usual level system 2
people can be the same level but 1 of them can have legendary items equipped
while the other has common and they will still be queued together whereas with
Skyforges prestige system there would be a significant gap.
Other features of the game include a guild
system or a pantheon as it’s called in Skyforge. Here you will be able to build
up your pantheon by gaining resources from the adept feature mentioned earlier.
There are buildings that give you bonus stats, gain access to extremely
difficult dungeons and probably most importantly a building that gives you
access to pantheon wars were your pantheon will take on another pantheon in PvP
and PvE trials with up to 100 players from each pantheon. Being successful in a
pantheon war will give you control over a territory that will generate income
for, unlock special costumes and mounts and you will gain enhancements to the
ascension atlas. Skyforges free to play model offers a premium subscription to
the game that gives you a couple of resource bonuses including 50% spark and
credit gains, 50% more building resources for the pantheon and free
teleportation. The other areas of the game that the premium currency is more
beneficial is buying new costumes, mounts and licences for those mounts. The
licences for mounts last 1 hour each and the timer is only running when you are
riding the mount. Once you have purchased numerous licences you will unlock the
mount permanently and never have to purchase a license for it again.
Altogether Skyforge is a MMO focused on
combat with all other elements taking a backseat or just not implemented at
all. The dungeon style to the game provides a nice polished experience with no
gap filling content and not much time wasting as is seen in other titles in the
genre. The dungeons don’t get old too quickly either as each time you complete
one, the next time you go to that dungeon it will be a harder difficulty. The
game doesn’t offer any real downtime activities like professions, crafting or
actual resource gathering so it’s not really an MMO you can spend a bunch of
time in doing different things, more of an MMO that you play for a couple of
hours a day unless you are really into the combat.
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