Vindictus (2)

EDIT:
This is why it's not all hack n slash:

Wow, so far into my 3rd day of Beta, and I have to say, the game turned out to be MUCH different than what I first expected it to be.

First of all, I really have to change my view on the graphics – I was completely wrong. I had forgotten I turned my settings on the lowest to record without that much lag, and once I turned it on to moderately high, I was actually REALLY blown away. It turned out to be much more impressive than I thought.

Here are comparisons:

compare that to:

And the second one isn't even the highest setting – it's actually the average setting. On highest, it's very cool – provided your graphics card can handle it.

There are a few kinks here and there in the game – I experienced some lag, and the West server constantly crashes (lulz). Overall, the playing experience has been really smooth and fun.

The first day of Beta I played solo, and I have to say, that's SUPER lame. Vindictus is almost 10x as fun when you are in party play. Basically, up to 4 people can go on a Expedition. Like in the previous blog, an expedition usually has several stages, with some stages being large ones, other stages being small ones. In LARGE expeditions (tough boss), there's usually a mini-boss in the level as well that's usually part of the bonus objectives.

Oh, right, objectives. Er, basically a expedition has certain objectives that you can fulfill for battle-points. These battle-points serve as reference to how many Ability Points you get, as well as the ability to proceed to higher ranking expeditions in quests, etc. After you pass rookie stage, the higher ranking expeditions will require you to pay tokens to go in, while the token amount will get higher the more you play. This is to prevent excessive botting/playing essentially.

Anyway, there are a few kinks here and there, especially after you kill a boss and the game freezes to take screenshots from four angles. The shots often come out weird:
often in an attempt to take a screenshot at you, it takes the area of someone else's crotch, etc.

Seriously – if you think Vindictus is JUST a hack and slash, you're wrong. I thought it was at first, but it turned out to be a LOT harder than I thought, especially after level 5. The bosses get exponentially difficult, and you really need a team to take down a large boss. Right now, there are two major types of throwing weapons: spears, and grappling hooks. Spears have the unique ability to stun bosses if struck anywhere and if the boss is resting, while grappling hooks, if launched at the feet, is able to stumble the monster and ties it to the ground for a few seconds, allowing other teammates to beat the crap out of it. If you're playing solo, often you won't have time to use these attacks before the Boss charges towards you and kill you in literally 2-hits. If you get hit, chances are, you're screwed until you can run and get to safety.

That particular boss took me about 25 minutes to kill by myself, after taking advantage of the free revive thing about a dozen times.

With a party, it took us only about 8 minutes:

Vindictus also takes in account of where you get hit, and where monsters get hit. For example, if you get shot or smashed by something on your head, your helmet eventually breaks off, and you have to either repair it, or go on without it being available for defense. If you get hit on the shoes while ducking, you lose your shoes. On your tunique, you lose your tunique, or it gets scratched off, depending on the severity of the attack.

Fight now, skills are still limited – you can buy skillbooks to learn them, and use the AP you earn to train them up levels. Every skill starts at rank F and goes up, you can master it by keep pumping in AP until it becomes an A. There's also these "execution" moves a character can perform. Basically, you grab a monster and if you are near other monsters, or near walls, or other heavy objects, your character will smash the monster in, and perform moves that will ensure a 1-hit KO, provided you have enough stamina and your strength is high enough. It's very cool. For the wall execution, you basically grab the monster by the neck, and slide it down the wall, basically scraping off its entire back and killing it, blood splattering the walls. 😀

I'm level 8 currently, almost level 9. This is what the main looks like (I prefer tanking, it's easier):

More updates soon!