Adventuring into Allods Online Content (Level 15)

My Gibberling Warden (Animist)
My Gibberling Warden (Animist)

I’ve been really getting into Allods Online over the past few days.  The entire experience thus far has been excellent and worthy of praise not because of how innovative or “something new” it is, but because it’s just simple fun.  People expect too much change and have no tolerance for something that doesn’t use what we already know and it’s those same people who are to blame for the MMO landscape today.

All the levels have been fun, but the game really started to take off for me at level 11.  Once I reached Siveria (the area for League after Lightwood) I really got hooked.  I wasn’t sure that I would be able to continue leveling because I’m one of those people who stops to not spoil the content.  To heck with it!  I played the same WoW content for two years and leveled up 6 characters to 50, saw both sides, and never really got tired of playing the same content.  After thinking about it, a good game should not be boring a second or third time through.  I enjoyed 1-11 and I was really liking what I saw in the quests at Molotovka (first quest hub in Siveria) that I decided to press on.  I also decided that it was worth getting to level 20 so that I could get into the Holylands and PvP in the next beta phase.  Seeing the PvP to make sure I like it, and so that I can share my experiences with those interested, is important to me after not taking advantage of the opportunity in games past.  I am so happy with my decision.

The quests in Siveria are great.  There is a story being told within this zone and some of it carries over from the previous zone via the World Mysteries.  The quests are mostly what you’d expect from a LOTRO or WoW style; the go here and kill some of these or collect a couple of those or use this amulet to capture this or that’s soul.  The atmosphere is nice though.  The mobs are fun to kill — they’re not all easy.  Tigers enrage and will rip you to shreds if you’re not careful.   Mobs vary greatly in ability and some will really shock you.   Specifically, the “group” quests which you’ll find one of in each quest hub in Siveria are awesome.  Kosmach is this Yeti beast that says you should bring friends to kill and it’s not lying… you need about 2 groups minimum if you’re even level with the quest and should have two healers and a competent tank (paladin).  It’s essentially a mini-raid boss and drops great loot but also is the reward for the quest which gives great rewards.  These mini-raids are frequent and are great milestones during the questing experience.

The zone itself is rather fun.  Doing quests for the Molotov traders gets you rep with them so that you can eventually buy very nice rep gear.  The story line leads you in a quest that has you ride a raft and defend two guards from Waterfolk assaults.  Eventually you’re up north fighting undead and orcs in a whiteout blizzard preparing to head north to the Frozen Frontier.  I haven’t gone yet, but I’m hoping you have to take an Astral Ship to get there.  Seeing the Astral plain on the edge of the northern coast has me excited for what is to come in the next area.  After Frozen Frontier I know that I head to a zone that changes drastically environmentally.  That’s a huge part of what I like in Allods:  the environments.

My Warden is really developing nicely.  I hit the occasional rough spots where my stats dip after leveling up and not upgrading gear.  It is important to watch that Perception/Expertise and not let your resist/hit rate get too bad.  I find that ~12% or lower is best and anything beyond that you start to see a lot of partial blocks, parries, resists, etc.  Finesse (or Wisdom for a Warden) on melee’s should be up there too in order to get through armor and give bonus dmg.  After that, you need to pump that damage modifier stat (Int/Str).  If you’re statted correctly you should have great success.  My Warden, at level 15 now, is finally at a place where I feel like I have control over his stats and he’s ripping stuff apart with his claws — and the pet is absolutely killer doing most of my damage.  Really fun class.

I’m having lots of success and fun leveling up, so much so that I’m going to make a leveling guide to help people out on League side.  I’ll also mark spots with daily treasure chest quests and places of interest.

Below is a video I couldn’t help but make.

  • Some game companies want to do something different from WoWE, some want to improve on WoW, here thay decided to remake WoW, but Make it free, sounds like a great idea to me…

  • …. You should be dragged out in to the street and be shot for that video…. but funny as hell 😛

  • Hahaha great video Keen!
    I think I’ll have to start a new char and this time around actually take the time to READ the quest descriptions (beyond kill x of y). I tend to rush just to get XP 😛

  • Hahaha! That video is both hilarious and actually quite insightful. You just hit upon something extremely important that I commented on before in another post. If you can create a character that you can really connect with and relate to, it makes the game so much more enjoyable. I think that’s why I was initially bored with the grind in Allods as well because I was just testing characters and hadn’t formed a connection with one yet. When I did find the classes I liked (i.e. Warrior and Healer), I become much more attached to my characters and the enjoyment of the game improved dramatically.

    It’s no different in reading a novel or book. For you to enjoy it, the author has to be able to make you relate and connect with the protagonist of the story. If he or she can’t, then it’s very difficult for you to get immersed within the story and go along on the journey.

    “After thinking about it, a good game should not be boring a second or third time through.”

    Totally agree but this has always been the weakest point of MMOs with character levels. This is what I was getting at the other day when I said that MMOs needs to make quests more than just individual experiences. If you did a quest that actually contributed towards an RvR war in some way (i.e. mining ore resources that helped to build ballista siege weapons for PvP players), then you’d feel like you were still doing something meaningful, even when leveling an alt.

    “Tigers enrage and will rip you to shreds if you’re not careful.”
    “Kosmach is this Yeti beast that says you should bring friends to kill and it’s not lying… It’s essentially a mini-raid boss…”

    Isn’t this the amazing part of the experience so far? The developer hasn’t dumb down the game and made it easy. They’ve actually made it more challenging. And in doing so, it makes the victories within the games all that more enjoyable and rewarding. Best of all, it promotes collaboration and interaction between people.

  • Just a bit of interesting info on the development of the game from an article on MMORPG.com.

    “Nival has publicly stated that Allods Online, which is live in the Russian-speaking countries and in closed beta in both North America and Western Europe, was budgeted at $12 million. There are others in the same ballpark, just without specific amounts stated for them. This doesn’t nearly measure up to the cost of a major subscription game, but it does indicate very clearly that large F2P projects are now substantially more expensive than their counterparts from only a few years ago.”

    If they can optimize their in-game store to work in the right way that is beneficial to everyone though, then I think they are going to make a killing. As Keen, myself, and a few others have already stated in-game, if we can stay hooked till launched (after seeing the PvP and Astral Ships), then we’ll most definitely be spending money within the Store (i.e. buying larger bags, etc).

  • has anyone else experienced severe lag this Closed Beta?

    Last beta I had no lag whatsoever but this Beta has been horrendous and I even reduced the groaphics to low and no help.

  • I hit 10th last night on my Animist. I was also planning to hold off going further because Mrs Bhagpuss and I are already agreed we will be playing Allods when it goes live (or whenever our characters become permanent, maybe Open Beta).

    On reflection, though, I agree with you. I’ve played up so many characters in other MMOs, why would I worry about going stale on this one? If its fun once…

    I also agree that one of the (many) reasons Allods seems to be working where other post-WoW MMOs have failed is that it’s actually quite tough. Fights take a while, it matters where you spend your points, you can’t do everything solo, you can;t predict the outcome of every fight before you begin and so on. Whether this “grown-up” approach will survive beta remains to be seen though.

  • “has anyone else experienced severe lag this Closed Beta?”

    I’m noticing some staggering when I teleport back to the city and start moving around in it. Once I’m out of the city though, this staggering is far and few between, rarely happening at all.

    On the plus side, I find the zone transitions amazing. Very little time at all (less than 2 or 3 seconds).

  • Just had a bad experience this morning, so much so that if the dev’s don’t address it quickly, it’s really going to reduce my enjoyment of the game big time. It appears that the zone chat channels are obviously not being moderated whatsoever (at least not this morning), as someone was being rude and crude, spewing derogatory remarks off and on for more than a half an hour. Looking around in the game features and even trying out some slash commands made it apparent there was no way whatsoever to “mute” or “ignore” this person. Therefore the only option is to turn off the entire zone chat channel which removes a lot of the enjoyment I get in helping others in need via the zone chat channel.

  • Just wondering how you’re finding the playstyle of the Warden in the teens. My first char was a humantype Warden and while I really wanted to like him, I found the style got extremely repetitive (I know all classes are repetitive, but I just felt like I was button mashing with the warden). Since he was also my first char, I probably messed up the stats as I killed horribly horribly slow.

    I really want to play a Gibbering come release (which might be as far away as next spring I heard!) and out of their available classes, the warden is the only one that remotely interests me, however I didn’t really “feel” it when I tried with my first char. Do you think that the warden has enough tricks up his sleeve to be interesting or is he mainly melee spam with a lightening blot thrown in whenever it’s on cooldown?

  • @Nollind

    If you hit “G” (if you still have the default mappings) it brings up a social window where there is an ignore list you. Long winded way of doing it (you have to type in the persons name as opposed to clicking on them and having the ignore option) but it works.

  • Cool thx Rasta. Still find it disturbing that they aren’t watching / moderating the zone channels for this kind of thing though. If someone is excessive with it, they should warn them and then kick them from beta if they don’t heed those warnings.

  • No prob Nollind. Agree about the moderation too. They don’t seem to be too involved in the beta at all tbh. You get a very rare post on the forums from then. I know this CB is more of a marketing thing than testing, but I’m used to proper CB’s where there is a lot of back and forth communication. I know it’s slightly different as it’s a Russian company and we’re dealing with the publishers, but I still feel there is next to no communication at all about known issues/future plans etc.

    Anyway, I won’t derail the discussion any longer. Time to fry some more mobs with my mage and hope I don’t hit the fatigue cap before I’m ready to stop playing (extremely silly system if there aren’t enough quests to support it).

  • Spoke to an Allods forum moderator who said that they don’t have zone chat moderators within the beta but will have them when the game launches. That said, she indicated that if you see someone going overboard on zone chat, take a screenshot and report it to them. I asked her how and she point to a page with a bunch of methods for contacting the Allod’s team.

    How to Contact the Allods Team

  • I’ve decided that I’m convinced there is a bug in damage/healing calculations. Too many times crits from mobs have been double/triple or more than what they normally are. Even my own crits on a rare occasion is double/triple what I normally crit for. The “complex” stat system Allods use doesn’t explain the variation. It couldn’t be by design, the current variation in damage (and healing) just isn’t right imo.

  • @Rasta: Oh man, totally different experience than what you’ve had. The Warden is definitely not a button masher and isn’t going to be as repetitive as some classes in PvP.

    Let me try and tackle your questions one by one.

    Playstyle – Depends how you spec. I’m going a melee/pet Warden route. I have talents from the talent grid such as Tiger Blow and it’s amazing. I hit for 50+ regularly and crit into the high 100’s. I have damage modifiers in this tree, as well as pet upgrades. My damage is fantastic and I find that I fit the role of a DPS class with utility quite well.

    Random damage – Crits are a weird thing. You have to factor your luck, the enemies luck, and the enemies endurance (I think it’s endurance anyway). You also have to factor the enemy mobs being different from each other. For example, a tiger will hit you waaaay harder and actually enrages which will increase its damage 2-3x. Some mobs buff themselves in various ways during a fight. Fights are often not the same.

    Healing – This is factored in by your faith, mercy, etc. If you have a high wound complexity your heals will be reduced. Overcoming that with faith is crucial. I think it’s Mercy that affects how much healing the target can receive. Check that stat next time.

    If you have any other questions I can answer them.

    @Nollind Whachell: Class beta crap. This beta test is hardly “closed” and you’ll find it is just like every other beta being used for marketing and not highly watched by devs — especially a game being made by a foreign company and published in your region by someone else. Ignore the dopes and expect it to be different at launch. Don’t let it ruin your fun. Disabling chat channels is much better than letting the words of another spoil your time.

  • @Keen I must load up my druid and check his stats. I most likely made a dogs dinner of the stat distribution as he was my first character so I had no idea what I was doing. I might try making a Gibbering and leveling up an Animist see if I enjoy it now that I know how the stats work.

    I’m still convinced that the damage/healing isn’t 100% working as intended. I do really enjoy the fact that different mobs of the same level are easier/tougher, but I’ve seen the same type of mob crit me in the range 250-930 (approx. They were the ones in the fortress instance at level 10). I really just don’t think anyone would design that intentionally. The range is just too great.

  • Keen, Just started a Cleric and its been a blast so far. Do you know if going with a Smite spec is viable? I know when it comes down to it my job is to heal, but i probably wont be in large instance groups and will be doing a lot of soloing til i hit the holy lands.

  • Keen: “Disabling chat channels is much better than letting the words of another spoil your time.” I understand where you’re coming from but this is an all or nothing approach that kills the enjoyable interaction that I do get from the community as well. For example, in Counter-Strike, voice communications make a huge difference to the game. Yet 95% of the CS servers out there have extremely negative and derogatory environments to them. Therefore, if I want to efficiently interact with others (and have fun doing so), voice chat needs to be on but at the same time I have to listen to the derogatory remarks. The way around this is simple. The owners of the community care about it and moderate it, so that everyone can enjoy themselves. That’s the problem with CS servers, most have little or no moderation to them (thus no consequences), thus people do whatever they want.

    Rasta: “I’m still convinced that the damage/healing isn’t 100% working as intended.” Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? For example, with my healer it’s impossible to get both awesome damage and awesome healing output at the same time. It’s one or the other. If you try to balance both, neither will be ineffective. That’s why for casting classes it’s beneficial to have two sets of gear (one for dmg, one for healing). As for absorbing dmg, it’s the same thing. When I play with my gear, one set can give me more health but not great dmg absorption, another set may have less health but be able to absorb a lot more dmg. Basically what I shoot for is one set that lets me heal and take dmg great and the other set lets me output incredible dmg but the tradeoff is that I’m very squishy.

  • @Nollind: What I was getting at is that I think the range of damage (and possibly healing going from what others are saying) on crits is just too great to make sense to me. For example, I’ve been crit by the same type of mob between @300 – @950 damage (at level 10). To me, that just doesn’t make any sort of sense coming from a design standpoint. When a mob (or the player) crits I would expect that the resulting damage is around twice maybe three times the value of normal damage. However, I’ve seen crits that are eight to nine times the value of non-crit hits. It doesn’t make for good gameplay. It’s as if the crits themselves can sometimes crit in a cascading fashion. (Hope that made sense, ran out of coffee so didn’t have my morning hit 😛 )

  • @Roman09: I have not heard much about caster priests. Most tend to go melee. I see the Priest as more of a stereotypical paladin. Heavy armor, holy spells focused on healing, and the ability to melee.

  • I really like Allods. The graphics are spectacular, compared to almost any mmorpg. I have had a problem with excessive dying. Customer service did not respond to my request for advice on that. Perhaps it is set up for purchases to prevent death? I found the quests to be a bit grindy, slow to level, and sometimes nonsensical. Did anyone have the same problem?

  • My (new) main is a level 11 warrior (aloisius) i also level very slow but i think that if u make it easier to level u will reach the top to fast.