Usually systems like this rear their head during end game, but in Astellia, these are front and center to your character if you plan on being as efficient as possible during the leveling game. The number of menus and areas you have to pay attention to as you increase in level is astounding even to a veteran MMO player. Then, you have crystals that you need to enhance your character stats, armor, accessory and weapon enhancement stones that you need to upgrade your weapons, and additional skill points to upgrade certain abilities as you level up. These can be removed and reslotted at any time, but you also have to remember to remove them from used gear as your character earns new armor and weapons.
On top of that, you have Runes that you can equip to gear. Only certain Astels can equip certain Star Jewels, so you have to find the types you need if you want to upgrade a particular character. For example, if you want to enhance your favorite Astel, you have to earn and slot 5 different Star Jewels before you can complete the enhancement. There are so many minor systems to leveling up a character that it can easily become convoluted, and I felt inundated with the amount of micromanaging I had to do just to build my characters the way that I wanted.
The speed of my progress picked up substantially once I finally got in the full swing of my characters and their skill focus.Īnother painstaking issue that I encountered as I climbed through the ranks, was the appearance of gear, jewel stones, runes and enhancements that appeared in abundance as the game progressed. There were times that I really enjoyed the combat, dodging through enemy mobs, stopping dangerous creatures from harming other players, and strategizing my crowd control to ensure my victory. Eventually my Mage learned enough crowd control abilities, such as a sleep spell, a bind spell, and several freezing spells, that at least gave me a semblance of power, as I masterfully utilized them to control the battlefield before me. Needless to say, the combat isn’t all roses, but there are some merits to it. More times than not I found that I the most trouble with ranged opponents that all utilized homing projectiles that would hit me no matter if I dodged or used a special skill to stop it. Battles like that thus far are few and far between in the pre-thirty level range. Despite the fact that you can’t run multiple Astels for very long, combat monotonously limped along until around level 24 or so, when I entered a dungeon and confronted a boss that actually had real battle mechanics you had to pay attention to in order to beat him. Utilizing multiple Astels did help a little in this endeavor, but eventually mobs appear to focus more on the primary threat, which generally revolves around the opponent doing the most damage. This is exasperated later on, especially on my Mage, where my progress hinges on the success of my Astels ability to hold a mob’s attention. Your options on how they attack, who they attack, and when they attack are limited, and many times I had Astels bug out completely and choose not to attack due to strange pathing issues. Astellia really differentiates itself based around the usage of your Astel “pets” which is kind of a shame, when you realize that you can’t truly command them well enough for them to be exceptionally effective in most situations. The more Astels I utilized during combat, the faster I would bypass content, so I began throwing more of them into the mix, even when I was just battling normal mobs. No single ability or strategy was a true “haymaker” and the speed of combat was slow going with the amount only the amount of Astels I chose to use really changing the flow of combat. Prior to around level 23, both my Assassin and my Mage felt as though they had very little impact in combat as a whole.
With my mage more than halfway to max level, and my Assassin trailing by several levels, my enjoyment between the two characters differs greatly. From my last article to this weeks, the story of Astellia and my roster of Astels has increased, yet the game itself didn’t truly hit it’s stride until I reached my mid 20’s.
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