CBT3 Players - Best/Worst of BLESS

    • CBT3 Players - Best/Worst of BLESS

      We have at least a dozen folks who have been participating in some way or another in BLESS. Some folks had a lot of installation issues, some had none. Some are leveling like crazy, some are making alts and enjoying figuring out what they want to play.

      Here are a few questions to help kick-start your feedback!
      1. What are a few of your favorite things about BLESS?
      2. What are a few of your least favorite things about BLESS?
      3. Are you more or less excited about a US launch now that you've had some time to play?
      4. What should all prospective players know about BLESS?
      Thanks for your feedback!

    • I'll get the ball rolling.

      Best
      1. Skill system. I really like how you choose the core, 8 actives, 4 passives, and 2 reactives. Plus, with the loadout system, you can swap to an entire different build/role in 5 seconds. I think that's going to allow for a lot of creative options, without the usual side effect of the majority of builds just not being viable.
      2. Taming system. This is so fun. You log in, start questing, and bam - some new mob you haven't fought before. Now you're curious: What will I get when I tame it?? It's addictive. I've NEVER had more than one mount on my skillbar in any MMO and I have F1-F7 all filled with just mounts!
      3. Graphics. The world is quite pretty! Every building has a ton of details and you can enter many of the buildings.
      4. Open world. You truly can run anywhere without loading screens.
      5. Water. It's so odd to me how many MMOs offer water (lakes, rivers, oceans) and yet you can't swim or you can't dive under the water. I hope they can add some reasons to swim/explore the waters.
      Worst
      1. Lots of unknowns still about the game! Also, most of the unknowns or currently missing features haven't ever been addressed by the devs for the Korean version, let alone how it may change for a Westernized one.
      2. I'm an alt-o-holic and a hardcore crafter. I feel like neither of those things that often keep me playing an MMO for a while will be satisfied in BLESS as the game currently is. Often, I make alts just so I have all the gathering and crafting skills covered by my own account. Not really sure what the devs envision for how crafting fits into the game.
      3. I'm always playing healers first and love running dungeons. Not understanding the dev vision for how dungeons will be part of the game.

    • well before I split up into pros and cons I want to say something general about Bless. The game itself isn't something fundamentally new nor it invents something extremely different. It's a normal korean mmo with the pros and cons from some games (Aion, Tera, Lineage).

      Pros
      • Environment: While CBT2 felt really cold and unnatural they really polished the world into a very beautiful place and I have to say I really get feeling like I want to play in there which not many mmos can produce
      • Skill System: The idea of building yourself a skill set and then swap them out depending on the situation is nice. It adds a lot of individual skill builds as the players can play as they want to and it also enables to promote more people going to classes they usually don't do like Healing or Tanking
      • Pets/Mounts/Minions: the amount of tamable mobs is incredible and it really makes me want to play the game even more. For me Bless is the spiritual successor to Rappelz which I played as my first mmo in the very early days and Bless really combines a more modern game with some nostalgica for me. Also curious about the flying mounts.
      • Open World: well I like the idea having a border-less world where I can run and maybe fly everywhere.

      Cons:
      • Fatigue: Being a ArcheAge player these system leave a bad taste in my mouth. I generally do not have anything against them but it can turn out like ArcheAge again depending on the publisher and I don't really want to have AA 2.0 in terms of Cash Shop. Also the fatigue cost for dungeon running & PvPing seems a bit high and I'm not really sure what goal they have in mind.
      • Crafting: I'm not really sure how crafting will fit in this game the way it is now. If you have to spend an incredible amount of effort to produce worthless equipment then crafting equipment seems to be really not worth it. Sure potions, food, etc. are fine to go as it makes sense to use potions and such. But for the equipment part - not sure.
        • Best in slot gear: We still have yet to know which gear is the best gear you can get. However you can purchase PvP related gear with the currency so Im not sure how crafted gear fits into the game after all.
      • Endgame content: Of course being a low level player and being in the CBT 3 may not really clear up the vision they have in mind for the endgame. However besides some daily pvping or dungeon running, taming rarer monsters or gather/craft things (as all cost fatigue) I don't really see a real goal behind all this.
        • This also relates to the general question: What is bless aiming to be? PvP focused, PvE focused? Both?
      • Balanced classes (PvP wise): Up to this point I don't know whether this is just difference in skill, equipment based and/or level based however some classes (Assassin, RangIer and Mage) seem to be very strong (i wouldn't say overpowered) in relation to guardian, paladin and the Zerker. Balancing both PvP and PvE is difficult. I just hope that they got enough info for Mage and Sin out of this test.
      • Unknown road: Up to this point we have to see how fatigue really impacts the game. With a possible subscription + cash shop hybrid model they could go the way AA did with increased fatigue regeneration for players with an active sub. Also the amount of Ruby Gems (possible Item Shop Currency) has yet to be set in relation to a real world currency. A lot of things are still missing like the other races, 2 entire classes and a lot of features (like Organic listed in the other thread).

      Lastly a general concern: The game has been in development for a long time and to be honest I don't really know whether if Bless would do well here or not. Not in terms of whether if players would play it or not. In terms of general success (like making the expected amount of money). After AA I know a lot of players being very skeptical about these game types.

      For me Bless makes an incredible amount of fun. However I'm not sure whether it can keep the fun up or if it turns out the same boring grind on a daily basis. Sadly I didn't have much time this time too. But I hope they will put up the OBT servers longer or maybe 24h of service so that we can experience the game on a better basis.

      So I just hope that they will keep their work up and complete the game as it is and hopefully we see it soon in the EU and the US.

      The post was edited 2 times, last by Nito ().

    • We basically had feedback from 2 people, but we had over a dozen playing the game (and probably a few more who weren't on that particular thread). So, I'm bumping this as I'd like a LOT more feedback.

    • Pros
      1. The world of Bless: The world of Bless is absolutely beatifull! I spent hours walking in the cities, looking the details, the architecture, and everything looks so well done. The palace in Spezia (Forza Palace according to the english patch) is stunning. The mountains in Shakara (pantera city) and the Sylvan Elf city (Shadow Meadow?) are also amazing,
      2. The identity of the races: The fact that you have the history and the culture of each race represented in the cities and the armor are awesome.
      3. The armor design: The armor design is awesome, the Best I've seen in a MMO so far. They reflect the culture and history of the civilization and this is a thing that really matters to me,
      4. The taming system: It's really nice to tame monsters, ride on Trolls, Golem's, etc. Gotta catch'em all! :D
      5. The music: The music is wonderfull. I think they're doing exactly what they had to do, I mean, the music really show us the culture of each race and city. Did you guys notice the Sylvan Elf music? super nice.
      6. The skill system: I didn't have much time to play and I chose to explore instead of lv up, but I think they made a good job with the skill system, it's clean and simple in terms of visualization.
      7. The UI: The UI need some work, like Organic said, some customizable options maybe, but I like the clean look. It's simple and we don't have that dozens of skills in our bar.
      8. The character creation system: Really nice, I enjoined a lot. ;)
      Cons:
      1. The fatigue System: I'm really worried about this system, I hope they don't screw the game when they launch on the west.
      2. The target system: To be honest, I don't care about action or tab-target, it doesn't make a difference to me, since I enjoined games with both systems, but the non-target system they added doesn't convinced me at all.
      3. End game content: It's still early to say something concrete about end-game content, since we don't know the lv cap in the OBT, but I hope they can make it fun like Lineage II, with lots of events and sieges. The RvR event and the Guild vs Guild System is really nice, but I dont know if it willl be enough.

      *Sorry about the English.

    • Just a little bit of context before i get going, I'm a huge pvp player. Played Archeage and went pirate, quit black desert after they removed the open world pvp, ect. Keep in mind that all of my pros and cons are from the point of view of a person that likes to PvP and PvP alone. During this CBT i got a Ranger to level 32 and an Assassin to 30.

      Pros.
      1. The skill system is awesome. It forces you to make tough choices with very solid skills, leading to very non-homogeneous builds and gives you a real feeling that you're different than other players on the same class.
      2. The PvP in the game is very satisfying to play. The time to kill and the amount of skill diversity benefits this a lot, as well as the way the skill system works.
      3. OPEN WORLD PVP. I think this should speak for itself, but it's in the game in a large way... and that's fantastic. There seems to be nowhere safe as well, as I've been ganked in major cities which is also fantastic.
      4. The environment. The world design is really well done, and it offers a lot in the way of tactical usage for open world PvP. There are tons of high ground locations. I guess it's pretty too, but again... PvP.
      5. Graphics. If that's you're thing, the game looks good. Not really my cup of tea, but figured i'd toss it in here.

      Cons.
      1. Frame rate. Frame rate chugged a lot in RvRs. That's kind of to be expected i guess, but it's still worth mentioning.
      2. no PvP before level 25 (RvRs) or 30 (Open world). Now, you can get ganked before 30. But the way the questing hubs are designed, you won't be running into reds questing until 30.
      Now, i want to address some of the things that everyone else has. keep in mind this was a very short test, and there's a lot we still don't know. Because of this, i don't feel it's really fair to toss these into pros/cons just yet.

      Unknowns.
      1. Fatigue system. This is every MMO gamer's boogeyman seemingly. Personally, i don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the system, but it is very easy to abuse. So far we don't know enough about how the gameplay and endgame will work on release, so we can't say if their Fatigue allowance is reasonable or not.
      2. End game content. Obviously this is a big one for every MMO ever. I don't know enough about this game's PvE to say if it will appeal to the PvE crowd, and the PvP was shown in very sparing spurts. At the end of the day, the game has a lot of potential here and we just can't say either way.
      3. Class balance. How anyone can claim they understand class balance in a week long test is a little bit beyond me. My group has raised a few questions internally and have had a few debates about this, but i still think we need more time with the classes to really see.
      4. Crafting. Personally, as a lazy PvP junkie, i liked the crafting in this game. it was fairly straight forward and always provided a stat boost over my current gear. We don't know enough about end game gear to say weather it's balanced correctly, but i liked its simplicity.
      5. The targeting system. It's an odd one. It comes down purely to preference honestly, i didn't mind it so much but others seemed to. At the end of the day, it's a case of try it and see what you think.

      "Are you more or less excited about a US launch now that you've had some time to play?"
      To be honest with you, I'm not all that bothered about playing a foreign game. I will make the switch when it comes out to NA, but i won't be biting my fingers in anticipation.

      "What should all prospective players know about BLESS?"
      The game seems to be pretty PvP focused. If you don't like being ganked or unfair fights, i wouldn't recommend playing BLESS. That being said though, I've had a lot of fun in BLESS. More than I've had in a while with MMOs.

      I guess i'll toss in some closing thoughts. This was a VERY short test, the facts can change and the feelings can be totally different come release. The only sure fire way to know if you'll like the game is to play it yourself or find someone streaming it.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by SomeDamnGuy ().

    • @Symeria - did you play races from both factions? Did you feel like the northern capitol was in shambles compared with the southern one? It was depressing to me the differences. It makes sense given the nationality each was based on, but I almost didn't want to roll northern faction because of it.

      Southern is so gorgeous. Northern feels like a run-down straw hut. /sigh

    • Organic wrote:

      @Symeria - did you play races from both factions? Did you feel like the northern capitol was in shambles compared with the southern one? It was depressing to me the differences. It makes sense given the nationality each was based on, but I almost didn't want to roll northern faction because of it.

      Southern is so gorgeous. Northern feels like a run-down straw hut. /sigh



      Well... now that you mentioned, I was looking at some screenshots and started to notice. The landscapes in the north are beatifull, but they need some polish. I didn't have time to lv up my northern character, but I took a tour through the map. Turtle lake and one of the forests that I visited (I forgot the name) are really beatifull, but I think they should put more NPC's on the towns, the northern side fells a little empty. Yep, the south is gorgeus!!​

    • One major thing that felt missing was a reason to be social and congregate in BLESS. In WOW or most other MMOs, you can go to the capitals and see many players standing around, running to and fro, etc. For an expansion, often that new expansion capital city becomes a hub in addition to the original capital.

      Social hubs occur for a variety of reasons. Here are 10 possibilities:
      1. Auction Houses and Trading
      2. Banks (personal and guild)
      3. Special Events (e.g. holidays, devs interacting with players, etc.).
      4. Vendors (PVP, raiding tokens, mounts, etc.)
      5. Crafting
      6. Quests (often just kicking off dailies or reputation quests)
      7. Portal Hubs (go to capital to teleport to other hubs)
      8. Player Created Events (weddings, duel tournaments, etc.)
      9. Find Other Players (guild recruiting, party finding, Q&A, etc.)
      10. Player and Guild Housing
      ​I think both of BLESS' capital cities could house all of that stuff. However, much of it simply doesn't exist (yet, ever?). Given the small guild sizes, I think players will be portioned off into very small social groups. Social content is one of the strongest components to continue an MMO's launch success.

      Most folks who continue playing WOW play it because they have friends there and it's always possible to find folks playing at almost all content levels. I hope BLESS will really focus on what makes games sticky and social and not just the faction conflict and PVP.

      I think the extras that keep folks coming back month after month are really important to keep the servers running and devs creating new content.
    Peria Chronicles