Fellowship

Fellowship is marketed as a WoW Mythic Plus alternative. I would encourage you to view it more like a dungeon simulator. The gameplay is exactly as advertised, tab target combat. Select a hero that you like the look of, take them out on an adventure to get a grasp of how they play and queue with 3 other players to take on a dungeon instance. Complete dungeons to earn gear and materials to make said gear more powerful. Take your rightfully earned (gear)power and challenge the Capstone to progress to harder dungeons. This is the Gameplay loop of Fellowship, and the game does an excellent job of scratching that Dungeon Queue itch. The heroes provided each play differently enough that no matter who you pick, you will have a well established playstyle. Spells you unlock as you progress are static and you will have enough buttons on your bar to allocate them freely. I have tried every Hero and I can say that there is enough variety to satisfy those interested. Talents are expected to help support the playstyle you like. I think some talents are damn near mandatory for some heroes to feel good and some are not as impactful as I would want. The next level of customization is gear. Yes, there is 'Best in Slot' gear pieces that may compliment the core of the Hero more-so than other pieces of gear, within each piece of gear is room for modifiers. Blessings, Traits and Gem Power is where you find more Player Expression with your Hero. There is of course 'meta' builds for each hero, there is enough wiggle room in most builds that encourage more player preference. After completing Paragon Capstone, you will be encouraged to push through Eternal Ranks. Eternal is meant for End Game progression to show how far you can go with a Hero. I would say Eternal is challenging and engaging enough to be fun. After you have progressed enough through Eternal you will have the option to queue* for Pinnacle (yeah no you will not find anyone queueing for Pinnacle, that requires Discord for both LFG and Coordination via Voice Chat). Pinnacle was definitely worth the grind and the wait, hard enough to justify overcoming social anxiety to get strangers together to beat it. I was encouraged to pick this game up after watching my friends play it on stream. Of course, after I bought it I was left to queue with others through the Matchmaking system (I might of gotten like 2 nights of gaming w/ them ((yeah they're ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for that))). This is where the Negative reviews of the game stem from, and rightly so. Matchmaking is not a pleasant experience, as people are too quick to leave and be pissy after simple mistakes. Example given: We start a dungeon and the tank begins going thru packs, trying to get as many as they can take before it gets too much. During this initial pull, both the Tank and the Healer need to be on the same page on how many groups they can take. Most of the time, the Tank overpulls and the Healer cannot keep the tank from dying. This will end in a wipe and typically means someone will rage quit and go back into the queue. You don't get any gear and have to take your sorry ass back to the Dungeon Queue. The players responsible for the crash out? They get to go right back into the queue with zero consequences. At one point, I was sympathetic to this. I understand people make mistakes and might need time to re evaluate their gear or their talents. All of my sympathy disappeared when this exact example plays out so many times a day. I cannot believe this game is so close to releasing that there hasn't been any Leave or Rage Quit punishment implemented. I am certain I would have a 1/3rd of my playtime 'recovered' had it not been from people making simple mistakes then just leaving. This is the community you have to interact with if you wish to push into harder content. The developers seem to be aware of this issue and are working on improving Matchmaking and Leaver punishments. I will have to wait and see how it plays out before I change my view on Matchmaking. The Dungeon Queue timers are getting longer, and it seems not everyone is finding groups to play with. The developers have created an Official Discord server that tries to help with this issue. I don't know why it was so hard to find this server, I had to 'discover it' through Discord (like who the f**k does that? just put a link on the website or put something in the game to take you to it). The Discord server is an absolute wealth of information and a semi active LFG chat that you can reasonably try to get people together to play (this is how I found some nice people to play with and do Pinnacle). As Season 3 concludes, the player population is in a very poor state. Most people have gotten what they wanted and logged off. This means the game looks more dead than it really is. As of writing this review, it is not a good time to come into this game and expect to experience the game in full UNLESS you bring your friends with you. If you have friends willing to play with you til the end, this game is absolutely fun. Bar none, I love it. As it stands, I can't recommend it. This game desperately needs a Dungeon Codex, I don't fully understand how its close to releasing into 1.0 and players aren't fully taught what to expect in the dungeon. Matchmaking isn't always bad, when someone decides to have a fit its an absolute waste of time. The dungeon variety is smaller than what I would want, which is why my friends ditched me here. It pains me greatly to leave a negative review on something I really enjoy. I have faith that the developers will address the Matchmaking issues and will add more content variety for people to enjoy. Currently the game has too many issues to recommend it with good intentions.