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[Estiah], Or how to play a mmorpg at work
lezard
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
What is it ?
Estiah is a new and free browser MMORPG. This means that is has the features of a MMO, but that it's played exclusively through a classic web browser, with no install required.
The result is that in terms of graphic and animation, it is not in the same league than your average MMO, but it makes up with other advantages :
-> Nothing to download or install: You can start playing right away
-> It's not limited to playing at home: As long as you see the net on a computer, you can log in and play a bit (as long as your boss doesnt catch you). Heck, you could even play from your Wii or an Ipod touch...
Also note that it was not made by a profit-seekin company... I said the game is free but it's not all : there are no battens, no options that must be bought, or any of the sort. It's a game made by fans, and for fans. And the quality is high. What could you ask more ~~
Gameplay
Estiah is designed for quick play sessions. This means that the typical play pattern is ~10 min of game time daily. As you can see, this quite different from what you expect from MMO's... but that's a point of such a game. This is something you play at work, at school, between fort captures in DaoC or when your WoW server is down. It's a pleasant time-filler for when you have a few loose minutes. However be warned, it's a bit addictive...
When playing, you have a set amount of action points that allow you to do any kind of actions: train, fight, explore dungeons, go gather materials, craft items, and so on. This pool of action point is refilled regularly during the day, and stack for up to one week. Apart from that, you are allowed to take on a job and travel to a neighbor city once a day.
The basic game features are explained in detail in this page.
(The world map - new cities are unlocked as you level up)
Battle System
The battle system in Estiah is unique in many ways. One could compare it to a trading card game.
In this universe, every weapon, spell or piece of armor has the form of a charm : it's physical form is locked inside a tiny item (a gem, brooch, pin...), and people fight by releasing different weapons one after the other. For more info about the background story of Estiah, you can check the chronicles of Estiah.
Before fighting, you have to prepare a "gear" : a set of charms that you want to use. Then, the fight is a turn based resolution of the charm of each member of the battle. During each of your turn, one charm from your gear will be randomly used and will affect the battlefield.
The effect of the charms are extremely varied, which means the random factor of the order the charms are played is totally inhibited by the way you built your deck. You have to create a synergy between the charms you use, and more importantly adapt them to the situation.
At the end of a fight, you will gain skills that depend on the way you played, the kind of weapons you used, and more importantly the strategy that you used. These skills award you start, and unlock even more devastating charms.
There are four types of battles :
- Arena fights : You fight against NPC in a city to train and raise your battle skills.
- PvP Fights : This is quite straightforward : you battle against other player controlled characters to teach them who's the boss around. There is a pvp ranking, as well as many unique and powerful charms awarded for winning in PVP.
- Dungeons : This time again you play against NPC, but at an entire different levels. Monsters in dungeons are usually hard, and require well-thought strategies to beat. The most important point is that you often find yourself fighting multiple opponents at the same time, and in some occasions you may have a group of NPC fighting on your side. This is one feature that you won't find in other browser mmos, even though it is the essense of mmo's...
By doing dungeons, you fully understand how deep the battle system can be, and use the experience to come up with new ideas for your PvP gears. You also get loot, a lot of it (but isn't that obvious ?).
- Groups : Groups are dungeons that you play with other PC. It's like in every mmorpg : you have to team up with other people, set-up a strategy together and go pwn some fat mobs.
Leveling
In this game you don't raise your character start by leveling up, it's more like the other way around : You gain stats through various means, and once you reach a set number of it, your level increase. Stats can be gained through jobs, fights, and elixirs/foods at higher levels. Leveling up cause your HP to increase, but most of all it unlocks new dungeons and weapons/spells.
Economy
The economy in Estiah is quite advanced. There is a total of 13 different cities with their good specialties and unique market rates. The pricing of every item is subject to this rate, and they evolve in function of the player activity.
Also, there is a complex craft system where you can create your own charms by combining items from dungeons or bought in some cities.
Classes
There is a total of 24 classes in Estiah.
Unlike most games, you don't choose a class when you start playing and stick to it after that. Instead, each player start the adventure with a similar character and evolve to a class.
There are three different tiers:
At level 20, you can chose one class among 4 possible.
At level 30, you can evolve into one of the 8 tier 2 classes
At level 40 you determine your final class from the 12 available.
(Class icons for Summoner, Pyromaniac, Warlord and Assassin)
There are no surprises : you will not chose a class at random at the start and then realize that you don't like it. You will play the way you like and your most fitting class will show up by itself. You can still have a peek at the class list to have an idea of what's available, and at the class tree to view the different path you can take.
Of course, the game is in constant evolution. It just came out live today after a 4 months long beta, but there will still be many more additions to it. Mini games like the animal races that are currently held in one of the cities are part of the enjoyable details that make the whole game fun.
There are big things coming, and you have a chance to be part of it.
lezard on
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Since you didn't stealth-include it in your op, I'd be willing to use your referral link, if you have one.
--
Anyway, game sounds vaguely interesting and the site looks legit enough. How does the actual game look, though? Is there any sort of eye candy or *anything* to look at making you go "yeah, I'm doing well!" or is it all in the numbers?
There doesn't seem to be any eye candy except the artwork that represents the classes. There's no other graphics to speak of other than the UI, which is all basically stats. There's no animation besides a timer/clock.
I tried to gather some wood and got ambushed by a level 7 sprite, while I was level 2. Battle seems automatically determined with no input on my part.
I am currently "working" as an errand boy, which consisted of me hitting the "work" button and watching a timer count down. Gameplay reminds me of an old school java rpg (pre-runescape 1.0).
Not really sure what to make of this game yet, but the OP seems overhyped so far.
Yes, this is brand new. The site just came out two days ago (after 4 months of intensive closed beta, so the game is pretty stable by now).
I may be the top PvP'er, but it doesn't means much at this point of the game. After a couple of days, the real PvP sharks will start to show up (and probably bite one of my arms off)
Captaink, you are welcome to use my link, and that will allow you to ask me anytime for game tips
Now to answer Eri : I agree with most of what you said. There are no stunning graphics, no breathtaking animations, or anything of the sort. This game must be compared with its own category : Text-based browser games. You can already find a lot like these on the web (maybe you've heard about Marcoland, Everwars, Duels, ...)
When you start to see it for what it is, you will realize that it's very fluid and pleasant to play, not to mention it's features are hardly matched.
Estiah is designed to be played in very short sessions - that's why you just have to "click" to make actions like perform your job. However, the strategy required to play well in dungeons and pvp is not that simple. Hopefully you will clear the first dungeon (Inachis Sewers) on your first visit, but as you go through the levels, the challenges raise accordingly. You'll just have to give it a shot to understand it !
How fast do AP refill? I know the timer says in an hour or so for me, but how many will I get then?
And true, the interactivity is much greater as you rise through levels. The first levels have to be quite simple in the way the fights are handled, you know why-
However, there are random fights in gathering as you said, and the level of the monsters there might be a little too random (fighting a lv7 at the start doesnt look too good) but hopefully the rate of encounters is low, and you lose nothing. One funny thing is that you might encounter other players during gathering, and not always for 1v1 fights. Still, dungeons and arena seem to be more interesting at start, gathering should probably come a bit later when you need some materials to craft some charms.
edit: nvm, figured out how to move...
Job -
You can get a job in each city (I assume), so pick one up first thing and click the "work" button. The job will refresh in about 12 hours and the job choices reward different stats and gold.
Charms -
I guess they modeled charms after various card games. Each charm (card) can represent a weap, spell, armor, item, etc. One important facet is that if you run out of charms, you've played all your cards and you lose any battle you got into. One of the tips is to have a smaller deck to increase your chances of picking good charms, but I ran into fights where I didn't have enough charms and ended up losing (exhausted). I've also won against another player who was kicking my butt due to him running out of charms.
You equip/ unequip charms in your "Gears" page and it'll show you the number of charms currently usable in combat and the max number. Basically the size of your card deck / max number of cards you can hold.
You can buy charms or find them in dungeons, but they have requirements for use and you can only hold 5 of the same type of charm. You can't sell extra or outdated charms, but you can archive them and I think they can be used to create new charms.
Action Points -
Refreshes every 2 hours (or so) and gives you 20 points to play with. You can gather, dungeon, pvp, or arena using action points, each with different AP costs.
Combat -
Turn based. Charms. You can set the cards played to automatic, manual, or skip the "playing" animation. You have hitpoints, armor, ward (magic armor).
Win by making all the opponent's hitpoints go away or exhausting their cards, I mean charms... You can get into combat with multiple mobs, which is kinda interesting.
Gathering -
Yea, you can get into combat when gathering. Gathering will also reward you some stats in addition to the materials gathered, which can be sold for gold.
Dungeon -
Lots of text based descriptions, but it seems scripted. 5 fights or so and I met a boss. You get loot, stats, etc. I'm not sure if dungeons reset.
PvP -
Seems like some pvp ladder is in place, but there doesn't seem to be much reward for it yet. You do get rewarded stats/soul dust from wins though.
Arena -
Basically PvE against 1 mob. Rewarded stats and gold. Potentially better rewards as you fight harder arena combatants.
Items -
When you loot items, they go into storage, which is temporary. Items have to be moved into your "Inventory" to sell, equip, use, etc. Not sure why it's like this, but that's how it's implemented.
That's about the basics of what I've gathered so far.
That about right, Lezard?
When I set it to manual....the game does it for me anyway....
What is the difference between manual and automatic????
Cause there's a million of those out there and I'm not sure I want those floodgates opening.
I think I picked up a flea in the sewers, but sold it. /sadfayse
I think some of the more polished browser-based games could be considered MMOs. There's quite a bit of depth and community to a lot of them - I'm still surprised there's nothing about Urban Dead or Nexus War on here.
I just sold mine for about 90g.
Anyhow, I didn't know the last boss in the sewers had so much HP and didn't use magic or whatnot, so I ended up exhausting myself with the mo'fucker at 1 HP left. Annoying. Now I have to wait for like 70something AP to go through the entire dungeon again.
Oh well, I'll get some more skill exp. and decent loot out of it.
On a sidenote, I'm beginning to think a highly defensive deck may be great vs. most classes in PvP. I know that daggers have a very high chance of penetrating armor, so that would be a potential counter, but it still seems that on the whole the values for blocking damage are greater than those for dealing it.
I don't think you have to go through the entire dungeon again, do you? Unless the dungeon reset or something.
Did one of you guys get the blue (rare) items recently?
You're drawn to my eccentric Brawl Code: 4596 9143 4529
And yeah it seems like there are definitely counters to a high defense strategy. Daggers and ice spells penetrate pretty well. Shadow and I think Axes or something destroy armor/ward and do damage.
I just wish to answer some of your questions as the ingame tutorials didn't cover them all.
about "manual mode" in arena or pvp, it only means fight animation is controlled by players, as someone may want to forewind/backwind turns manually, to take a closer look at each charm played. we planned to make fights interactive one day, you may see it if you stick with us long enough
about dungeons, there are two resets a day. they'll become more and more dagnerous (thus costy in action points), you don't have to clear both resets, just be sure to reach the boss and get fat loots, since trash mobs don't drop blue items.
about wins by exhausting. beside melee/magic, estiah has a thrid type of attack that's "spirit dmg", one spirit dmg makes your opponent discard one charm, like in typical trading card game. it can be countered by "will power". you'll discover all this soon enough. and your opponent can also be exhausted if you use lots of armor/ward since he won't able to kill you before using up all his charms. anyway, estiah's fight system is quite complexe, first dungeons are kind of tutorial dungeons, things will get more harsh later
please feel free to ask any questions, and you may get answers more quickly if it's on our forum. since other players can reply as well.
You've got six different kinds of attacks, at least to start.
Fire is straight damage, no penetration.
Lightning is a little less, but has some penetration.
Frost is even less, but more penetrating.
Holy does damage while adding Ward to you.
Earth does both magic and melee damage.
Shadow does damage and also destroys wards.
I imagine melee weapons have a similar setup.
It's interesting and I think will make for a lot more strategy than we at this pathetic level range can see. Will also make for a lot of counter-play in the game. Decks that focus on exhausting a player via armor and wards can be beaten by decks that focus on penetrating such things. Decks that go for pure spell damage could be outclassed by a deck that has a lot of holy spells, but may destroy a well balanced deck easily. Entire classes later on will be good at some things and not-as-good at others, and it seems like pretty much every class has a unique style, strength, and weakness. I'm certain this was all in mind when they implemented the ability to use all your gears in any of your four deck configurations - I'm already have a use for each and every one of my slots for different PvE situations alone.
there will be extra actions, damage over time, aura, summons and lots more. you may be interested in
them to plan out your character leveling.
and don't underestimate defensive deck, if you look over "warden" class, you'll see this class has ability
to convert his armor/ward to damage. his damage output can be really devastating if he manages to
have a balanced deck. anyway, you will find them out slowly
Also, would adding the dungeon reset timer be feasible game clock?
Is the unique avatar a reward of being a beta tester?
In the account page, anyone can upload an unique avatar (the link is on the top right corner of your screen)
And finally, you can raise your stats our of jobs with skills : each skill mastered give you base stats (you can view which in the skill page), but it might be tough getting +6 dex so quickly
I was coming here to ask this myself. The level 30 classes all require at least one of three skills to be level 3 before you can advance to the new class, so there must be some intended way (even if it is potentially not implemented yet).
Also I've been playing this for the last couple days, as Sakiro and I'm up to level 7. The combat system is kinda neat, though I do wish it worked more like a traditional card game, ie instead of playing a random card every turn, you have a hand of cards with more being drawn every turn, and each turn lets you choose one card from your hand to play. This would let the combat be more involved and you could avoid situations like playing two non-cumulative defensive cards in a row.
For the battle system question, the idea of an active way to decide which charm to play is something that will come one day, but probably after a long time. In fact, it poses many problems in term of PVP, or grouped dungeons, since it will require multiple players to be online at the same time, it will force people to wait untill each other player made his play, etc. We lose one key attribute of the game: the ability to play it for only a few minutes a day.
However, you'll find out that as the time pass, you'll gain more and more control over your battles. Some higher level charms have conditions when they resolve, like a different effect depending on what was played before, or on the status of your opponents.
don't worry, you can play through level 1-40+ and get tier 3 class without problem. we spent four months
to test and tweak every aspect of the game during beta, now the game is live, it may not be perfect but
it means you can fully enjoy it (and suggest everything you want).
My character is Ctuchik, hes aiming for a Hierarch or Paladin type class, which should be really useful in a party.