Recent reviews by NameInvalid

Let just say the foundation of the game is good, it copies some good stuff from other APRGs & yet to release ARPGs in a smooth playing package & good visual. You have the complexity of skill gem linking, item stat/mod rolls and the heavy RNG that surrounds them. Melee feels decent to play. All sounds fine until...
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- the UI could use some serious improvement for PC player. It's serviceable but clearly is still a mobile UI with lots of unneccessary sub-pages, scrolling and all that.
- lots of unnecessary mobile centric game design such as giving "reward" for every little random things you do, danging carrots on sticks to keep player addicted to do the next "achievement". Hah. Of course there's your usual MMO daily login and stuff. Seriously, I don't think a truly good game needs these carrots. They are just nuisance as far as I concern.
- your typical Korean monetization scheme, do I even need to explain this? I do wonder why can't they just keep to strictly cosmetic only, that will please international player more & make the game have better reputation. Maybe the dev team understand it, but the marketing team don't...
- they copy the real money auction house from Diablo 3. Hahahaha oh dear. That is like the worst thing you can copy from that game. Hell it's not even a good copy, the UI is horrendous because it is a mobile UI.
- the feels of looting isn't great. At least so far in story act, there's nothing interesting to loot. It just gold, gold, gold, gold, and bits & pieces of crafting materials. Did I mention crafting actually takes time and they sell you item to skip it, just like typical mobile game? Damn.
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Seriously if they don't pull all these Korean stuff & mobile stuff, this game likely can be a serious contender to other popular ARPG. Maybe if other international company can take this game and tweak it for the better... But for now, I don't feel like playing this anymore. This is certainly not a game I would play for 10 years straight like other ARPG did.

The short review: GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE, NOW.

The long review:

Don't mind the playtime, it is obvious many of us easily spent thousands if not >10k hours on the old NA/EU servers. This is a unique game, no doubt about it. But of course you might already aware that the management companies aren't any good already.

There are way too much 3rd person action/tab-target MMO out there and barely any MMO like Atlantica - turn based with team of mercenaries with different attack pattern and abilities - almost like Pokemon you gotta catch (grind / buy) them all. Of course, some are more useless than the others.


Server full? Open a new one. Without any option to transfer character to the new server to enjoy smoother experience. Keep opening new server isn't gonna fix the problem you dumbass Valofe. No one likes to loose items and progress to start a new, especially nowadays we got so many no-trade items that we grind so hard to get!

Crash, disconnect, literally "FULL" you can't even login... Server become laggy and unstable? Valofe just reboot the server and call it a day, then problem repeat again the next day... For all the $$$$$$$$$$$ they milked, the server perform like crap. As if they spent all those money on more hookers, mansions and sportscars. No joke you can easily find 10 guys in your guild spent upward $1000 in the pass 2 weeks.


I thank ye for keeping the game alive.

But credit card is simply too damn powerful in this game, no doubt about it. As a free player, it is simply too daunting to acquire a lot of things. Playing normally you would need a MONTH of hard work to afford enough gold to buy a single cash shop mercenary, good luck upgrading and level up their skill afterward...

The progress of a free-player is simply too darn slow to be viable. I not even talking about "catching up" with paying player - but just in term of BASIC NEEDS of gearing up decently, recruiting mercenaries you like and upgrade them decently to be useful... You literally had to sell your soul to play 24/7 across multiple accounts if you don't want to swipe your cards.

Hell, they even sell dungeon pass on cash shop nowadays.


Valofe literally just copied what left from Nexon and did nothing else to the game. Everything still setup as if it was 10 years ago. No improvements whatsoever. Worst they even slam a heavy Staff class nerf 3 seconds before the server open!

Their reluctant to provide proper update & event information prior to maintenance is also causing player outrage. Did the event extend or not? Should we consume the event items now or keep it for the possibly extension??? GM just says "it's secret". The fark with this kind of management?


Reading through what other people can do / configure in private servers, it is clear that there are way more controls we can do to make the game far more playable in 2020. There are controls to spawn custom npcs with custom reward exchanges, adjusting item prices, fixed price for any items, adjustments to ingame activities, permanent licenses... and hella lot more things to make the game less money hungry. If only I know my way around server technologies I would loves to make an AO WITHOUT ITEM MALL AND NOT GRINDY so everyone can enjoy the items & contents, rather than grinding miserably or getting into credit card debt, just to reach that "fun" part.

Yes, I'd love to see some passionate people came out with a far more "playable" version of AO. The server client info are available on "elitePv...". That word is censored on Steam but you know how to Google do you? If you're a tech Jesus and passionate about AO, please... save this game.

There are indeed some private servers out there, but unfortunately population is an obvious problem. If only the community can get around together and agree upon ONE single private server service with the mindset of making the game less P2W... I hate to use the word "P2W" but... I can't find any other word to describe the current situation with Valofe AO. Decade ago you can play as a free player and still manage pretty well. But nowadays? Hell no.

Back then there were no cash shop gears, very few cash shop mercs, mount don't provide broken ass abilities, none of those "new" enhancing mechanism needing special cash shop ores, no cash shop dungeon pass.... Nowadays? Everything is permitted on cash shop. Hell they might even sell you air to breathe next...

I really really want to recommend this game to many people, it's fun with diversity, many heroes and factions. Fans of Might & Magic series will be very delighted. But ultimately there are certain problems that keeps casual player away.
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1, there is so little things you can do with gold. You can only purchase 2 card packs, they don't have any wildcards, and keep on giving me repetititive cards. It's annoying, waste of gold, and hard to build a decent deck without commitment in either time or real money.
2, no real trading, turn out this game is more to collective card game.
3, you don't win card from matches, not even duplicates.
4, reward from playing PvP matches is so little and they are based on total time of play, not per win. Eg: 5 minutes game yield just around 500 gold. While the cheapest card pack costs 15000 gold. of course the latest campaign reward changes to 5000 gold per mission is nice, but they are after all, finite and can't be repeated.
5, not on Android platform