Ryzom

I don't know that much about this game. I have put in maybe 20 hours of gametime, and am wondering now if it is the game for me. I was hoping that I could get some honest feedback here without people going nuts like they tend to do on message boards, and also with as little "fanboi" spin as possible.

For starters, I am also playing City of Heroes right now, and love the game. I play with my girlfriend and another friend, and it is not something that I will be leaving anytime soon. My brother picked up Ryzom a day before me and I was hoping it would be a game that I could play with him.

I guess a few questions would be the way to go:

There is a distinct lack of information about any given power, and the game in general. Are there any plans to change this? In the same line, will it ever be possible to unlearn skills?

The learning curve is quite steep. Is there any plan to institute a tutorial?

Is the game solo/duo friendly, and can it be casually played and still see advancement? Also, my brother will advance much faster than me since this is the only game he plays, will we still function together, and if so, what would be a good compliment to his Rifle/Melee?

I have tried out several different skill trees. I like crafting, but is the system finished? It seems to follow in line with a lot of other crafting systems where making a pair of boots/a knife/ring etc. over and over is essentially the system. Do I have the wrong impression here?

Combat, whether melee or ranged, seems to be highly dependant on your equipment. Am I mistaken?

I have tried to use magic, but find it very akward. Specifically cast times and animations seem too long. Does this get better with level?

Combat in general seems to be sluggish. How does it improve later on in the game?

In my 20 hours of play i am left with a distinct feeling that this game is not done cooking. Would I be better served to come back in 6 months?


Well thats All for now. I know I have a ton more questions, but those are good for starters.

Any help is sincerely appreciated.

There is a distinct lack of information about any given power, and the game in general. Are there any plans to change this? In the same line, will it ever be possible to unlearn skills?[/quote]

I expect there will be more descriptions and they have been adding descriptions as time goes by. Nothing announced about unlearning skills. Personally I don't think it is necessary to unlearn, just to level up higher and learn more.

The learning curve is quite steep. Is there any plan to institute a tutorial?

There are beginner quests for Fyros and Matis. For some reason Zorai and Tryker are lacking these. Beyond that there is the book which comes with the game and nothing announced about a further tutorial.

Is the game solo/duo friendly, and can it be casually played and still see advancement? Also, my brother will advance much faster than me since this is the only game he plays, will we still function together, and if so, what would be a good compliment to his Rifle/Melee?

The game is very solo/duo friendly IMO. It is all I do most of the time. It is important in teaming that you play skills close to each other in level. With the skill branches though it is often easy to do this. I have a friendy I only level melee fight with for instance. At higher levels with skill splits it gets even easier.

I have tried out several different skill trees. I like crafting, but is the system finished? It seems to follow in line with a lot of other crafting systems where making a pair of boots/a knife/ring etc. over and over is essentially the system. Do I have the wrong impression here?

What you make depends on what plans you learn. Versatility has to be learned. Crafting is also definately very unfinished, even if relatively bug free. Hopefully we can expect more additions to all skill trees in the future.

Combat, whether melee or ranged, seems to be highly dependant on your equipment. Am I mistaken?

Well, you can box for melee. But if you're tanking you're heavily dependent on armor. All fighting groups are dependent on magic.

I have tried to use magic, but find it very akward. Specifically cast times and animations seem too long. Does this get better with level?

No, it gets better with a better staff at any level. Look at your magic staff and you'll notice a % speed boost for each type of spell. Also, the quality of your magic staff limits how powerful a spell you can get a boost for. q10 staff will only handle acid 1 for instance with a boost. Using acid 2 with a q10 staff gives you no speed or damage boost. A really good mage staff makes all the difference in the world.

Combat in general seems to be sluggish. How does it improve later on in the game?

Combat for me has always been fast paced. I suspect you're doing something wrong.

In my 20 hours of play i am left with a distinct feeling that this game is not done cooking. Would I be better served to come back in 6 months?

Most all MMOs are a work in progress. So that is up to you. The game should be much better in 6 months. Like the premise of Ryzom but can't handle the bugs or current content? in that case you should probably come back in 6 months. Some people want Ryzom to be some one of the other games like EQ, or DaoC. Make sure you know what it is you're really looking for in a game.

jturner wrote:There is a distinct lack of information about any given power, and the game in general. Are there any plans to change this? In the same line, will it ever be possible to unlearn skills?

Unknown. Doubtful you'll be able to unlearn skills. Best to ask on boards and do research before training an unknown.

The learning curve is quite steep. Is there any plan to institute a tutorial?

The "out of box experience" for newbies is a bit old school. Part of the fun seems to be learning how things work. The community is generally very friendly. Do board research and ask intelligent questions and you'll get the answers you need.

Is the game solo/duo friendly, and can it be casually played and still see advancement?

Under level 50 in your top skill = casual play. Over level 50 = problems mostly because of too-fast gear decay rate. Hopefully they'll tweak this soon.

Also, my brother will advance much faster than me since this is the only game he plays, will we still function together, and if so, what would be a good compliment to his Rifle/Melee?

You will have big problems. The way the exp curve works, two team members do NOT converge on the same level. If your brother is using a skill that is higher level than the skill you are using, you will get exp at a rate corresponding to his skill; not yours. For example say he's Fight 45 and kills a mob that yeilds 1500 exp total based on his level (because he's highest in the team). You're Defensive Magic 25 and all you did during the fight was heal him. You're both going to receive (1500 + teamBonus) / 2. In other words, equal exp. He advances at exactly the same rate that you do. You will never catch up. In other games, they might chose to give you exp that was based on your level versus the mob's level, with some penalty to prevent too-excessive powerleveling. So, in the same situation in another game, you might get the equivalent of 2000 for that same kill (versus your brother's 800-ish), which would allow you to close the gap. For your brother to stay even with you, he'll have to level *other* skill trees besides the primary trees you two play together with. For instance, he could work on foraging and crafting when you two aren't playing together. If he goes out and fights, he'll eventually leave you in the dust.

I have tried out several different skill trees. I like crafting, but is the system finished? It seems to follow in line with a lot of other crafting systems where making a pair of boots/a knife/ring etc. over and over is essentially the system. Do I have the wrong impression here?

Nope. Crafting itself levels pretty fast provided you have the money (or the forager friends) to give you lots of mats to grind up on. Harvesting, however is fairly time-intensive.

Combat, whether melee or ranged, seems to be highly dependant on your equipment. Am I mistaken?

Nope. Gear matters more in this game than most of the other MMOGs I've played.

I have tried to use magic, but find it very akward. Specifically cast times and animations seem too long. Does this get better with level?

Soloing with magic seems quite slow/difficult through at least level 35. I don't know if it gets better at higher levels. Once a mob is on you, offensive magic seems very inefficient. It seems that offensive magic is designed for use only by non-tanks. However, you can pull with offensive magic and finish up with melee skills, but the exp reward seems disproportionate. I've ground a mob to half health with magic before needing to turn to melee fighting to finish it off before it finished me off. Half damage by magic, half damage by melee, but my exp payout would be like 300 points to magic and 2700 points to fight. Don't ask me why--it makes no sense that I can see.

Combat in general seems to be sluggish. How does it improve later on in the game?

Melee combat is fun and interesting. It gets easier when you start building custom melee actions based on attacking for free after a dodge or parry or feint. (I suggest investigating the .... after dodge line because the good armor in the game all gives you high dodge bonuses, allowing you to use these free actions more often. At high levels players seem to like the ...after feint line but I have no personal experience with those yet.

In my 20 hours of play i am left with a distinct feeling that this game is not done cooking. Would I be better served to come back in 6 months?

Everyone has to make that decision for themselves. We all look for different things in an MMOG.

What I am looking for in a game:

As I mentioned, I play City of Heroes. If you are unfamiliar with the game it is very combat oriented. In fact, combat is the only thing to do. This is changing, with the already added badge system and the Skills system that was announced today, but I have combat covered.

I should say that one of my favorite games of the genre was AC1. In that game I really liked the quests that you could do. I liked very individualized armor and weapons. I really liked the community. I enjoyed the way you did not camp mobs (questionable with SIK chests), but still were able to collect parts for items and then do quests in order to augment the weapons/armor. I liked the monthly events. i liked Bea'lzeron (spelling?).

I did not like EQ at all. To be fair I didn't really give it a chance, I only played for a week.

I loved RvR in DAoC, even with all the nerfs it brings to the game. I didn't like buffbots too much, mainly cause I didn't run one I would guess.

i don't know if any of this helps, but thank you for the resonses so far.

I think there is no reason to ever unlearn a skill or be concerned that you have spent points on learning the "wrong" thing. There is no limiting factor other than time spent. You can always just learn more.

If magic seems sluggish it probably either means that you are wearing too much armor or that you are not using a magic amp or at least not a good enough one.

Let's say for instance that you try to support your brother with healing spells while he does the fighting. If his level is much higher, you will not be a great help at first but your level will increase quickly. It is to a great degree a self correcting situation.

Dalwin
humble forager of the Fyros

p.s. It is of course essential that you and your brother play the same race. Travelling between the 4 civilztions is very difficult at the moment.

daleknd wrote:p.s. It is of course essential that you and your brother play the same race. Travelling between the 4 civilztions is very difficult at the moment.

I found that out early. On the plus side I was going to be a tryker harvester/crafter.