Crusaders of Light Cannot Participate in Auctiom Again

Crusaders of Light (CoL) is a free-to-play, cross-platform MMORPG developed by NetEase. My review is based on two weeks of daily gameplay on both Android mobile (Galaxy S7 Edge) and PC platforms.

A Step In The Right Direction!

This is one of the few mobile MMORPGs I've played that actually feels like an MMORPG. Yous pick a class, complete quests with a primary storyline, knock out daily missions, group with others to defeat powerful bosses, throw down in PvP, and abound your character'due south strength through a fairly standard progression path (which has take hold of-up mechanics for new players that doesn't involve RMTs).

NetEase has pulled out all the stops with Crusaders of Light and I honestly think is the push in the direction we all want mobile MMORPGs to go. It's not perfect, simply it does and then much right that if information technology does nix else but inspire others to meet its quality, then information technology's nothing but a success. This game is one that has learned from others earlier it and whatever which come up afterward will admittedly learn from it. Let'southward dive into its central features of gameplay.

Key Features

• Car-Play – At commencement, I was skeptical. Just one time you've put some time into the game, you realize this feature is more of a convenience, as opposed to just flat automation. It's non viable to machine-play Team Raids, as yous'll exercise about half of the harm you'd do by really playing (and not following mechanics). This is convenient for doing things like rep grinding or some daily tasks, peculiarly to requite your easily a break (for mobile).
• Real Money Transactions – I'll cover this more in the p2w section, but CoL features some real money transactions which allow you to purchase gems, materials, currency and some cosmetic items such as banners, mounts, and titles.
• 3 Classes, ix Paths – Y'all'll have the ability to play a Ranger, Mystic, or Warrior. Each of these classes have iii of their own Paths, allowing you access to talent copse which you can tweak the style of gameplay y'all'd like your graphic symbol to have. Similar to other MMORPG'south, roles include Tank, Heals, and DPS.
• Character Progression – Whether it'southward increasing your character's experience and level, your talent experience, progressing your gems, or grinding some high particular level gear, Crusaders of Light offers a pretty traditional progression path for a MMORPG and should scale pretty well.
• Grouping System – A very large role of the game involves grouping with other players to conquer powerful enemies. With a pretty intuitive in-game vocalisation conversation feature and a fairly simple UI, it's piece of cake to find players to group up.
• Guilds – Guilds are a huge staple of Crusaders of Light. Since grouping is a cadre feature of the game, NetEase created a great Guild platform where you can participate in events, hands invite your guildmates, chat via order channel, and progress as a Guild.
• Daily Tasks – If I had to describe CoL in ane term, information technology would be daily tasks. This game is very much built around completing a plethora of tasks on a daily ground to proceeds experience, reputation, and currency. I think this is a smart move, by and large because it forces players to focus on the strongest points of the game – content and grouping.
• Reputation System  – Complemented by Daily Tasks, there are a lot of different factions in the game. You earn reputations with these factions by completing daily quests, killing mobs, and doing PvP. At certain thresholds of reputation, you'll unlock gear and items you can purchase to improve your character.
• Raids – Raids are what excite me nigh about CoL. These are group dungeons in which you lot kill mobs upwardly to a boss that has unique mechanics and drops powerful gear and items. While the earlier normal raids you tin consummate using Auto-Play, there are likewise more difficult weekly Heroic Raids and Team Raids which require coordination and transmission play to successfully complete.
• Hunts – Throughout the world, big, powerful monsters tin spawn. The goal is to collect your guildmates and friends to group up and work together to impale these monsters.
• PvP – Whether it'southward larger, objective-based battlegrounds or smaller, Arena skirmishes, PvP is really pretty fun in CoL. It's not something you lot'll spend a lot of time on each day, but it'south something you can jump into for a bit each day with friends (or solo) and stomp some enemies!
• Merchandise Economy – In addition to the RMT store, NetEase did a practiced job in balancing the ability to larn items by implementing an Auction Firm for both Earth and Guild. The game does a practiced job in rewarding items and currency by actually playing the game, then having an bodily Trade Economy seems to be doing a expert chore in handling that delicate balance of f2p vs p2w.
• Achievement System – I commend NetEase for taking the time to implement a robust Achievement Organization. For basically every slice of content in the game, at that place are corresponding curt and long term achievements. There'south as well an Achievement Leaderboard, title rewards, and more – very well done.

Pros

Alright, let's start off with what I truly enjoyed nearly this game. As a gamer who's passionate near MMOs and has played through cease game on nearly every large MMO to date, I experience like I have a proficient grasp of what makes a good game and what breaks ane. So let'south talk nigh the good things in Crusaders of Light!

Learning from mistakes.The best thing about Crusaders of Light is that you can genuinely tell the developers have learned from previous mobile MMORPGs and even taken some things from PC MMOs and adapted them.

Intuitive group .  Existence an MMO, the ease of grouping was really something that brought out the true intent of the game. Being so piece of cake to detect a group for the task at hand fabricated partying up fairly trivial – something and then important in a game like this. With the live in-game audio chat, combined with the intuitive group finder, this game does grouping better than some AAA MMO's on the market place.

Daily Content.  At first, when I saw the daily experience you could earn was capped – I was worried. Yet, later playing for a couple weeks – that'southward genuinely not anything someone should exist concerned about. With the amount of content available on a daily basis, some just being opened during certain hours, information technology's going to be pretty difficult to regularly get to a indicate where you accept zero to exercise in-game.

RAIDS! Sorry, piffling WildStar flashback there… So this game has Raids. Raids are dungeons, Team Raids are larger, more than difficult instances (similar to what almost MMO players know equally raids). These are really what set this game apart for me and have me about interested in its future. The true feeling of PvE progression, having to piece of work out strategies and coordinate with your guildmates really hit domicile for me equally to why I dear MMOs. Huge props to the NetEase squad on these and looking forrad to many, many more.

Machine-Play .  I've played a lot of mobile RPGs and a lot which "featured" auto-play. Upward until this game, it's been a "characteristic" which I absolutely despised. With that said, NetEase has found a fashion to brand machine-play a convenience and not a mindless thing you end up using 99% of the time. There are daily tasks, such as Trials, which are super ho-hum to complete manually. Then, join a group, pop information technology on follow and multitask. However, there are tasks such equally Heroic and Team Raids which really have mechanics and DPS checks which basically make it impossible to finish without playing manually. For me, NetEase finally found that balance of machine-play that we've been wanting on mobile devices – well washed.

Cons

And then, I'g not going to prevarication to you and tell y'all this is the perfect game – that's never going to exist. NetEase did a lot right in Crusaders of Lite, simply I call up it's also notquite in that location notwithstanding in regards to a true, sustainable MMO. I think part of this is because of the nature of what it takes to build a successful, profitable MMO, but also considering as gamers, we're nonetheless honestly learning what we want a mobile/cross-platform MMO to actually exist. So let'southward talk about what I idea could have been done improve.

Microtransactions . Alright, and so RMT, forth with p2w isalways a topic of conversation when it comes to f2p MMORPGs –always. For me, a perfect earth f2p MMO is a game in which what you lot tin can purchase via RMT is exclusively cosmetic. The big problem here is that if a RMT can boost your character'south power, more people will buy it – beingness more profitable for the company (hence why we meet so many p2w games out there). I recall this is where we're still learning to notice that remainder and figure out how to make an even level playing field. For me, you can currently purchase too much ability, and honestly non enough cosmetics.

Performance. I was a niggling torn on calculation this one, but I felt I had to. Most of my feel in the game was using a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge – a fairly new phone. For the most part, with the solo play, I didn't have any issues. You starting time to see a lilliputian choppiness during party play and and so once yous go into Team Raids and PvP with a lot of characters at one, you really start seeing the stuttering and lag come into result. I think this volition become meliorate over time, merely with Team Raids beingness so focused on mechanics, it'southward a tough situation to be in to meet choppy gameplay, so you might want to do those weekly tasks on a PC or high stop tablet instead.

Inactive groups. So one downside to the Auto-Play feature in which I ran into very often was inactive groups. For the majority of daily tasks, you'll want to join a party. However, a large percentage of parties in the group finder end upward being players who are idle. This was honestly just more of an badgerer than anything, but something I ran into very often and probable something that could be fixed with some tweaking to the grouping experience in the future.

Text communication. This was honestly just an issue with mobile, with a couple exceptions, just communicating via text chat was a pretty big annoyance in the game – to the indicate where I just didn't exercise it. In that location are as well some Trivia games that occur in various conversation channels that information technology took me a calendar week to sympathize how to really participate (and sometimes even then the latency made information technology impossible to answer in time). This is something NetEase can continue to improve equally feedback comes in, but also something that is just really not an intuitive way to communicate inside of a mobile game – but who knows, perhaps at that place's a better way (the vocalization chat is a great get-go).

Is It Pay To Win?

Let me preface this by stating that the term "p2w" is something that'southward interpreted differently past anybody. So allow me define what it ways to me – p2w means that a player tin can directly increase the power of their character via RMT (real money transactions). With that said, the only time p2w bothers me, personally, is when information technology directly impacts the competitive nature of cease game progression.

Alright, and then now we're on the same folio. Crusaders of Light, to me, yet qualifies as a p2w game – and I'll explain why. I will say, the developers have done a good job in moderating the threshold of p2w in the game via mechanics such every bit daily feel gating, server level experience diminishing returns, and restricting the amount ofsome items you tin can buy. I retrieve the best manner to explain this is to simply recap what aspects of the game are p2w and how free to play (f2p) players tin keep up.

• Gems . These are items used to insert into your gear that add together specific stats, increasing grapheme ability. In that location is a different tier of gems every 10 levels and each tier has various qualities. Players tin can upgrade gems to the next highest quality by combining a certain number of them. This means technically an f2p player tin can eventually get Best in Slot (BiS) gems, just a p2w histrion can get themmuch faster. Information technology'southward worth noting these gems provide considerable boosts in character ability.
• Materials . Crafting is a viable ways of acquiring powerful gear in the game. With that said, there are some rare crafting materials which p2w players can purchase via RMT, that are quite difficult for f2p players to acquire.
• Currency . This is probably one of the larger can of worms for me. You the in-game currencies, gold and silver, via RMT. These currencies are used to increase talent ability (gated past talent experience), but more of an issue is being able to use gold to buy items players put upward for Auction and for bidding on items that drop in Team Raids. What this means is that while a f2p actor can save up their gilded to bid on these items, a p2w player tin can easily vanquish their bid to win the items by dumping their wallet into gilt.

Final Thoughts

Equally a mobile game, Crusaders of Light does a lot right. With mobile app stores dominated by blatantly p2w games, information technology's refreshing to see NetEase's take on how to challenge that model with something that is absolutely a amend balance for the f2p players. While they didn't hit all of the right spots, they definitely hit enough for me to recommend playing. This is one of the few f2p games out there in which I don't mind tossing them and then cash via RMTs, if for nothing else simply to commend them for pushing boundaries, trying something new, and actually listening to the community of gamers.

It's too worth highlighting that NetEase seems to actively participate in the community. While the game is all the same new in Northward America, it volition exist interesting to run into how the team addresses customs feedback and continues to grow the game. They are hosting competitions for Heroic Squad Raid completion, creating update videos on social networks, and genuinely communicating with their players – this is a huge deal when information technology comes to any developer. While an initial review of the game can be useful to approximate involvement and provide feedback, the developer'south commitment to community and their game will exist the true exam.

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Source: https://accomp.me/review-crusaders-of-light/

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