I've decided to write-up an overview type thing on Vindictus/Mabi Heroes. Basically it's a leech off existing reviews/overviews, so give credit where credit is due. Thanks to Steparu, a bit of Mabinogi World, and Climbatiz for the pictures. Plus I'll be linking to some of AnnabelleMarie's stuff as I finish this pseudo-guide up so thanks to her for spamming all the links for me.
Ok, here we go...
System Requirements
Quote:
Minimum Requirements
CPU: Single Core 2.4 GHZ
RAM: 512 MB
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 5xxx series or equivalent
Operating System: Windows XP
Hard Drive: 5 Gigabytes
Network: Broadband Recommended
Recommended Requirements
CPU: Duo Core or higher
RAM: 1 GB
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 7xxx series or equivalent
Operating System: Windows XP or higher
Hard Drive: 6 Gigabytes or more
Network: Broadband Recommended
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Basics
The game functions similarly to most of the real-time action MMOs that have been popping up lately. Classes are genderlocked, you have to create a specific character for each class. Don't worry about clones, character customization is pretty intense in heroes.
Currently the characters known are Lann (the guy that dual wields), Fiona (a sword and shield tank type) and Evie (a mage, but she probably won't be in the CBT). There are job advancements and stuff, plus more characters will be released as content patches come out. Kind of like Grand Chase/Elsword/Lunia if anyone has played it.
Once again, like most action type MMOs out, the game follows a instance-based dungeon system with a boss at the end and a stamina system. Basically you can do 4 person parties or go on raids with 8 people. I believe the instances are P2P (player to player), which is a cause for concern if anyone has played DFO, Lunia, GC, Elsword, Dragon's Nest, etc before. Basically if anyone lags, especially the host, you're screwed cause the server isn't actually hosting the instance, the host is hosting it.
Thanks for making my job easier, Climbatiz.
Stamina system is a bit weird. Apparently dungeons are separated into "boats". Each boat will take you to a group of dungeons. Every week you'll get like 50 tokens, and it costs two tokens to take a ship to a dungeon. There's a ship that doesn't cost tokens, but this has drawbacks that I'll talk about later. Anyway, after you use up tokens to do dungeons a few times, the amount of tokens needed to do a dungeon rises up to 3, then 4. Resurrecting players 5 levels under you in parties will give you medals that you can turn in for 10 extra tokens.
Gameplay
From what I can see, bashing monsters is pretty easy. The normal mob AI is dumb as rocks, so it's pretty simple until you get to the boss. Have an annoying mob ninja'ing behind ya? Pressing the spacebar allows you target the nearest monster so you don't have to rotate that damn camera. If there aren't any monsters close-by it'll switch you back to normal view. Still the game can be pretty unforgiving and you might be downing a few pots if you get hit by a stray trap or two. Graphics and sound are pretty amazing, not the best but they're more than enough to keep a guy satisfied. The Source Engine works pretty well and it's fun to pick up literally anything and chuck it at stuff. The dungeons are still really easy at the start and all that you're really waiting for is to get to the boss. Boss fights are really, really EPIC. That's all I can say, you'll only understand once you start playing yourself. One problem during battles is that you have limited quickslots so characters like Evie with lots of skills won't be usable to their full potential. You get an auto-repot once a dungeon is finished, which is nice. There are a lot of little nice things, like using chain hooks, but sometimes it's not better than just slashing away at the boss until it dies. Stuff such as potions not giving full HP if you're moving make Vindictus one of the nicer games.
Vindictus supports external game controllers and has some pretty nice presets for them. Controls are pretty nice and easy to use anyway, so you might not need it, plus you can customize it however you want. Also you have ingame mic support so you can fight and rage at the same time. Thanks to Climbatiz for the controls translations:
Quests
To start, there's only one central town so far in Vindictus. So it's similar to a Lunia type thing where you accept all your quests, buy items, craft, etc in that one town. It's convenient, but some people like variety.
Quests and Missions are pretty easy to understand. An interesting thing is how to progress through missions once you complete them. You get a certain % from completing a mission and you have to run through it again with different objectives to raise the percentage. Once you've got it at a certain percent, you can talk to an NPC in town and unlock the next mission. Alternative objectives will include time limits, solo, no smashing (right clicks) no potions or whatever things the devs can think of. 100% isn't always needed to unlock the next missions.
Quests don't really deviate from the basic kill x, get x, do x, talk to x formula.
Another translation by Climbatiz:
One nice thing is that titles stack, so all you need to do is finish quests and you get a nice perma bonus. In essence, people that just grind will actually be somewhat weaker than a person that grinded less and did his quests.
Crafting
I'm sure everyone has compared MH (Monster Hunter) to MH (Mabinogi Heroes) so this won't come as a surprise. You
have to make your armor and weapons. I'm not sure if it's possible to actually buy new armor, but I'm pretty sure you have to farm dungeons over and over for new armor. And it
will break if you're not playing well in dungeons.
Skills
It's similar to the original mabi skill system, so many of you should be familiar with it. Skills earned start at F rank, and go up to A rank. Levelling it up more will bump it up to rank 9, then it goes up to rank 1. Rank 1 skills are the strongest you can go. You get AP from running dungeons, and you get around 30-50 from what Steparu says. But the thing is, each time you repeat a dungeon, the amount of AP rewarded goes down, and at the end you may earn only 0-20 AP. Keep in mind that most of the high AP dungeons are on the boats that require tokens, so AP farming is rageworthy. The boat that doesn't cost tokens usually goes right down to 0 AP per dungeon. Still, you can get as much AP as you need which makes skill builds useless and you can still earn AP even though you hit the level cap. The amount of AP you can have at once is capped at 50, so you can't save AP.
Other Fun Stuff
There's one "raid" dungeon, which is fishing. Go in with a bunch of friends and start fishing it up. There's an auto-fish function too, and fishing may help you raise money.
Dragon Nest Wiki
Eden Eternal Wiki
Rusty Hearts Wiki
Trickster Online Wiki
Vindictus: What we can expect
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