This is by far anything but a casual game. This game scratches a couple itches:
1) New World PVP combat
2) Elden Ring-ish atmosphere
This game introduces something I usually tend to avoid:
3) Win/Lose-it-all extraction loop with a hefty cost on re-equipping things, at the price whim of what's available in the player auction house. Players have successfully tripled the base cost of gems and equipment currently.
4) Solos or Trios. No duos, one of the two maps HAS to be trios. Randos filling out your party are a crapshoot of great players, horrible players, or an occasional toxic open-mic bro.
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Regardless of the auction house price-fixing I've got a solid 200k or so. My build costs 2,600.
I think the game does things fairly well, like promoting good positioning, tension, risk vs reward scenarios, fight or flight scenarios. Though it needs some balancing patches for Sorcerer/Withered Knight both ends of the spectrum, it's off to a promising start. Choosing which abilities you'll use is nice, and talent points are very important choices. That said you get almost none of that at level 1 and you're basically fodder. It isn't until about level 8 or so that you'll start to see most of the kit's potential (level 12 is max).
I think the town in-between matches is largely boring, as you have to revisit the drink-buff lady every single time, you have to re-buy and re-equip EVERYTHING on every death, then go to the potion guy to get more potions, make sure your auctions are selling so you can empty out your limited base inventory and ready up.
There's some questionable stuff, like one of the mails being an ad for some "make your internet faster" partner garbage, and some sort of skin that costs around $2,000 which is the only skin players not on your team can see, but that doesn't affect my experience. They also have the crappiest Twitch Drops in history as they are a chance at something but so far all I've gotten is the worst chance for all.
At the end of the day the upsides outweigh the downs if you have 1 or 2 friends to play with. The solo community starts out easy enough but gets HARSH at the end rank. That's right, I'm at the end rank because I'm perfect in every way. Thank you.
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CLASS CHEATSHEET:
Do you like nuking, crowd control, and the fastest run-speed allowed? Sorcerer
Do you like kiting and shooting everyone? Blackarrow
Do you like melee oppression with a big hammer? Mercenary
Do you like being sneaky knife person? Shadowstrix
SUPPORTS:
Do you like being a healer OR weird warlock with 1 attack? Seer
Do you like being a knight that loses most engagements? Withered Knight
This is also my tier-list based on how intimidating the overall community plays them.
