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Edited by [email protected] at 2014-9-15 22:31
It seems like nearly any time I uninstall a piece of software or cancel an account I get asked why I am doing so. Well, that is what this is since there is no uninstall or any reason to "cancel" my account.
1. Competition - At this point I am okay with the gaming paradigm of free to play with microtransactions as the form of profit. Its less fun when it directly affects the player's effectiveness against other players especially to a large degree. However, the Bleach Online design is really strange. Basically, whoever gets the lead in the first few days can keep it as long as they want short of another player spending some wild amount of real money. I would guess this is what is causing the huge number of ghost servers and the need for merging servers. Everyone is constantly chasing the new server so they have at least a small chance of being competitive. Back to the problem, though. When a player takes the lead in Bleach Online they are basically inundated with overwhelming rewards in nearly every area of the game. Between the largest bonuses for winning daily events, being the top in Arena, and the other weekly events the #1 player will get more than enough silver, coupons, crafting items, spirit stones, souls, XP, and so on to easily maintain the lead even if other players decide at some point to spend a lot of real money. The current system is both unfair and actually encourages players NOT to spend money.
2. Roadblocks - The first of these for most players will be fighting Ishida in the first instance. Many will need to ask in world chat why this random guy is MUCH harder to beat than any opponent to that point. Most will probably wonder why there is an ability in a normal mode fight that has a 100% chance to keep your entire team (all rows) stunned for 100% of the fight after the first time its used. Of course, there is an ability that gets you past this encounter. However, what would be much better from a gameplay perspective is to have Trap give a chance to stun (maybe 50% per character). Also, as a native English speaker, the term "control" is confusing. "Stun" would make more sense. There's lots of places in this game where the dialogue is confusing because of an apparent lack of double-checking by a native English speaker. However, back to roadblocks. The final one I ran into was the 15th encounter of the 2nd instance...Ghost Claw Shadow Hollow. This one is even worse than Ishida. Obviously, there is no ability that prevents being instantly killed. Apparently, there are two options here. Wait until you are powerful enough to kill the second row before their fast-charging ray of death goes off OR buy Momo even if you weren't planning on prioritizing PVP. Again, this fight is surrounded by fights that are comparatively VERY easy. It feels like something that was missed in testing.
3. Minigame - Janken. Its a slot machine that's rigged. Its rock, paper, scissors in real life with an opponent that waits to see your hand first. Its the worst kind of RNG. And you are forced to play lots of it to get the party members and XP books you need. Now if only it was more like the Beauty Game which isn't especially amazing but still has winning revolve around your reflexes...
4. Slaves - Rarely have I seen a feature in any game so poorly designed from every angle. In most cases, its not the weak players that are enslaved. Its the strong...but not strongest (once again #1 rank player has his lead enforced by design) that get stuck in this state perpetually. And I can even see this having never been a slave, myself. The main thing that is wrong with this system is that it is tied to the Arena. So even if you are somehow not a slave (much more likely than being a master) you will probably find yourself on many days with no way to get slaves (you haven't beaten anyone on that calendar day and can't beat anyone above you in rank). Since a rather huge amount of XP is potentially gained from this system, its poor design for it to be handed out so arbitrarily. The next thing wrong with the Slave system is the rescue system. There is no reward or incentive of any kind to it. Honestly, the Slave system is probably too broken to fix, and the game as a whole would benefit from its removal.
5. Chat - Small, inflexible window. Very short maximum dialogues. Can't turn off the annoying scrolling text bars that plop down in the middle of the screen. Constant spam messages (Alliance War). And so on.
6. Events - Too important to ever miss. Having them be at very specific times (and only one opportunity each) makes it really hard to balance them with real life. Honestly, for about a week I chose this game. Then I got tired of missing out on non-Bleach Online stuff. Also, most of the events are quite tedious. Half an hour of clicking on a thing, waiting about a minute, and then clicking on that thing again. Guild War wasn't great, either, for anyone outside the top 3 or so. Everyone else gets mindlessly mowed down by the top guys.
Its a shame. I spent a week and a half at many times greatly enjoying this game. Starting on the second day of my server I got up to #23 rank. I love Bleach, and there is really no other game based on it for PC. The closest I got to a PC Bleach game before this was watching watchthroughs of Soul Resurrection on YouTube. I really wanted to like this game. This game has so much going for it even beyond being the only thing like it for Bleach fans on PC.
The trivia was fun. (When I could understand the questions)
Seeing my favorite characters was cool.
Putting together a party and gearing it was was great.
It was nice to have a game with this paradigm that actually gave me more than 15 minutes of gameplay before begging for money (close to 6 hours).
There's a lot of content so I'm not just done for the day in half an hour.
The visuals are excellent.
Maybe I'll even give this another shot at some point after there has been time to polish the rough spots.
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Post time 2014-9-15 23:29:01
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