ArcheAge Beta 2 Impressions

ArcheAge Closed Beta 2 is officially over and here are my thoughts over the experience. The game lacks originality while leveling from 1-30. In fact, the game doesn't pick up until you reach level 30 were you are really able to start exploring the world and are not stuck to the questing grind that we see in every other MMO.

The game doesn't really feel like an MMORPG while leveling and I lost interest fairly quickly from the questing line. Even with the beauty of the world it fails to draw interest with poor story, lack of originality, and a linear progressions system while starting out. What's worse is the game has a couple of design flaws that need to be worked out within the next beta period.

Healing Is Broken
ArcheAge is having a major issue with healers. The problem lies in the mana to hp ratio. At level one your healing spell is about 1.2hp per mana. This means if you use 10 mana to cast a spell you are going to heal 12 damage. The amount of healing that is actually performed is quite minimal and the amount of mana that you have does not suffice. If you were to go through and heal yourself at level one from 0 to full you would be out of mana but your health would be full. Meaning at this stage your healing is worthless as the consumption of mana does not out way the amount of healing. This will lead to issues in instances where you are required to fight with little or no mana and this becomes quite a challenge for full magic based players.

Maybe we need to go back to the basic in mmorpgs?

Its Not A Sandbox Until After Level 30 ArcheAge has some of the most amazing features built into any MMORPG on the market today however, most of them are not quite accessible until after level 30. After level 30 you are able to do pretty much whatever you want but until that point the game feels like the same traditional ThemePark. While this isn't a bad thing I lost interest fairly quickly in the games combat it didn't feel unique in that aspect.  Bots Bots and More Bots While this is something you don't expect to see in a new MMORPG there are bots roaming around the world and are making it much harder to complete the quests especially as congested the game is. Players can report botting activity, but it doesn't mean action is taken immediately. There are more issues about the core game and they are being discussed about on the forums but as of now I am not pleased with the current beta and hoping the next beta even will be much better than this one.