The real mmo

I assume it's changed a ton since I played but the fact that there was such a huge power gap even after you hit level 50-55 was great. That's what made stealing fishing ships, raiding bosses, investing in property, finding out new trade routes, etc... worth while. Also people who haven't yet reached level cap in this game are by far the most competitive in a PvP game I've seen to date but I digress.

It was fun because if you kept playing you got stronger. That doesn't mean you couldn't catch up though (to other people putting a similar amount of money to you, in my case I just paid the monthly sub) I started playing in early December 2014 and I caught up (and surpassed a lot of regular players) even though I didn't start playing anywhere close to launch.

It also doesn't mean you couldn't screw over other people with much better gear than you. You can still outnumber them and abuse CC killing people with better gear was a fun pvp group activity.

The issue with Archeage for me and why I stopped playing is that it was P2W and not just regular P2W but P2W with gambling. Hell, weapon upgrades were luck based to such an extent that you could spend 10 more gold than someone else and have shit to show for it while someone else get's a lucky double upgrade and get a weapon that would take the average player 6 months of playtime to get.

It wasn't the fact that it took maybe a year of heavy playing to reach a "softcap" in strength. That's what made it fun for me, it was like the loot cycle I never enjoyed in other mmos because it was centered around PvE. It was the fact that after you hit that sort of softcap your progress was heavily luckbased afterwards, so it could take you 1 day to get the best weapon in the game or more likely anywhere from a year to never.

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