MMOs are pretty heavy these days, and Astellia Online is no exception. Barunson E&A have announced that not only are they going to bring Astellia to the West, but they are also planning to change some features for Western audiences. Changes include the removal of P2W-enhancing items from the store and changes to gender-neutral classes.
At the time of this writing, this is only available for two classes, with the rest coming soon. On a personal level, the gender tie doesn’t bother me, but do they want those players who might find themselves in a quandary? It might be a good idea.
First steps
The last purchase for the MMO was Bless Online, and it really left a lot of players burned out and frustrated. Many promises were made, but none of them were kept. To the credit of Astellia Online, they have kept their word so far. In the nearest game store, you need to pay Beeswax Token to win. You can buy this token with Zender (Loyalty currency; acquired by logging in for a long period). This item is unbound from an item, so you can put it up for auction.
The only good thing is it’s a great way to make money, but it doesn’t make you better at the game, so that’s something I might be overlooking. They don’t have statistics lovers, so it’s not a problem. It is important to note that you can also get Zender through participation in Avalon and Arena (PVP).
So what is Astellia Online? Astellia Online is an MMO purchase with a one-time fee and an additional subscription. This is where you choose your gender and class combo, with some minor restrictions (at the time of this writing). Recently, the Class Evolution system has also been added, which adds three alternate classes that can be upgraded to at level 50.
This will further change how you play Astellia’s already robust skill system. Beginner experience is solid. The tutorial walks you through each new feature step by step as it becomes available. There will always be something to do, including Main, Side, Important and Blue Quests. These blue quests serve as Exploration Quests and are the only thing that hasn’t been explained in the game as far as I’ve seen.
The game gives you one of these Blue Quests early on and makes it pretty easy to find the book you need. These blue quests will make you search for items (books) in the world. The quest will not lead you to what you are looking for and you must research and find out on your own. Also, you can google it. This leads to the achievement, and, as I understand it, to the 5-star Astel. I heard that this can only be done within 10 levels of the quest level. It’s all confusing, difficult and frustrating. This is one of the few things in the game that I don’t understand.
Knowing me, knowing you
Combat is a standard action in MMOs. You use auto-attacks and a series of abilities that unlock as you level up, then special attacks drop and massive AOE abilities drop. They can be upgraded with skill points, and each skill has its own facets to which you can upgrade them. It’s easy enough to get into. Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses, but luckily you won’t have to fight alone.
You start with one Astel, a magical doll that helps you in combat. They have their own functions, strengths and weaknesses. As the counter progresses, as you unlock most of them, they will fill up a bar on your screen called ” Astel Deck “. Asteli is where the combat system shines. Players have three meters: Health, Mana and AP. Astels cost AP, although you can have one Astel without worry. You can summon up to three, and each of them will reset the counter faster. There is a potion you can pick up to regenerate this meter, which may allow you to have three of them for longer.
Astels are interesting, but their menu also has a lot of interesting things. Each Astel Card has a Style, Role, Physical/Magical classification, and damage type. The latter deals bonus damage to enemies weak to Passion, Testimony, Cold Blood, etc. – it doesn’t make any sense. As long as my Astels deal extra damage, I guess that’s fine. Most Astels are classified as Servants, which means they only need a lackey amount of AP to continue. They also have their own Auto Attack style which they use when they are in range. But that is not all. They also have special attacks.
Astels have a “Special Skill” that is activated by pressing the appropriate button on your Astel deck (F1-F8). It can be a stun, a heal, a taunt, or anything in between. You can see this skill by hovering over Astel in the lane. But here’s where it gets interesting; some Astels also have “Co-Op” skills. You will need certain ranks, but you will be able to see what you are missing in order to activate these skills. When you activate the right skill, your Astel will work in tandem with you.
The last part of this screen worth mentioning is the “Deck Effect” tab. Here you can see various passive skills, with a set of points for them. By equipping the appropriate Astel in one deck, you can pick up very useful passive fans. Each Astel will add points to the counter, and when you reach certain thresholds, you will start picking up those buffers. Chances are you won’t start seeing them until later in the game. It’s still a very cool system that encourages the tactical use of certain Astel builds. By keeping the right Astels together, you can wield great power.
What to do?
Since Astellia is a Korean MMO, it is loaded with game systems. You have a rune system to equip your character with small passive fans. You can equip your Astels with Star Jewels and also attach a different style of gems to your weapons and armor! It’s all confusing, but it’s a standard feature in most Korean MMOs. At least unlike some other games, you can sort them out and hold them in your hands.
Dungeons tend to yield tons of these various gems. It won’t be hard to come up with enough to combine these Runes and Star Jewels. It won’t be hard to come up with enough to combine these Runes and Star Jewels. The gear can be fused with items and enhanced with Upgrade Shards. It’s 10 cents a dozen; break the gear you don’t need. No doubt you will get tons. I usually have thousands of these shards, but the rarer and better the transmission, the more it costs.
If you’re a PVP fan, Duels and Avalon are waiting. Avalon is a week long battle. Players who join one of the three factions, and their contributions are significant, will be rewarded at the end. There is never a lack of content in Astellia Online.
Handicraft and gathering is also quite monstrous. This system is much more complicated than it should be, but I will say one thing: it is different. You can use any of the crafting skills whenever you want, but you can only learn one gathering skill at a time. When you exchange gathering skills, your skill is reset to the starting level, so only do it when necessary. To create weapons and armor in Astellia Online, you need to make each part of the weapon or armor.
This means that in order to make a bow (since I’m playing as an Archer), I first need to create a frame, shafts of arrows, a bowstring, and have some resin. Hayes is made from carpenter except bowstring. This requires me to go into the Tailoring Crafting Skill and have some laundry on hand and turn it into a Cotton Skein. The hardest part was finding underwear. It is not clear in the game where it can be found. For me it was on Orcs in any area. So I spent most of the day depopulating the Orc camps to prepare for further development of my crafting skills. With all this, I could make my new bow. You have a chance to craft a rarer item when you craft, which I appreciate.
As you progress through the Main Story, you will go through the instances alone and complete a series of fairly simple quests. This is your lead in the dungeon system. Each dungeon has level requirements and a recommended CP (Power Rating) system. You have the option to go solo, party, or the legendary version.
There are two options for selecting a suitable party: Matchmaking (finds people who are also suitable) and the “Adventure” tab. You can browse parties looking for attendees. This also includes field parties, Colosseum and Avalon parties. It seems to me that the match feels faster, but your mileage may vary. You get a bunch of rewards for defeating the last boss of the dungeon, from equipment to more.
This is the most valuable award. Each Astel starts with a certain star rating, and you can’t open lotto boxes (or anything similar) to get more. If you get an Astel card that you already have, then it gains experience, and when the bar is full, it will go up in the rating (star). This means that dungeon grinding is key. You only have 24 Dungeon Tickets per day, but you can spend some to increase your reward with the Dungeon Buff. These tickets reset daily and can be purchased from Zender.
You can recycle dungeons solo if that’s what you want. I like doing them with a group, but if there’s no one around or waiting too long, I’ll do a solo run or two. When you hover over a dungeon in the menu, you can see what the potential rewards are. You can then farm the appropriate dungeon to fire the cards you need. Drawback: I usually end up with a lot more gear that I can’t use. However, you can smash excess gear to upgrade other gear, or use Beeswax Tokens to sell rare or better gear.
Visual appeal with a reverse side
Astellia Online is great. She has a serious fantasy style, with music that fits into the atmosphere of each neighborhood. It’s all great. It can be said that attention to detail has been given to every monster, character and biome. The NPCs tend to be a bit standard, but the voice acting is pretty good in every way, even if the Pisces are a bit of an annoyance to me.
But I have a problem here. For one reason or another, this game refuses to work live. I’ve tried every possible setting, but from what I understand, the game runs through one core on your processor. Astellia Online slows down no matter what I do. For context, I have an NVidia 1080, i7, and 11-15mb. downloads. Streaming is not a problem for any other game. Something is wrong in graphical optimization or somewhere else along those lines. This is not an easy task, because a stream would help to spread the word about how fun this game is. This is one of the best ways to get to know the game these days. I am not the only person who had this problem and it needs to be addressed.
Outcome
Even with the negatives, I had a lot of fun with Astellia Online. The community has been very helpful and the “Cash Shop” is not loaded with P2W items. At best, there are a few minor convenience items and an additional subscription. Subscribing has a small (but useful) effect. It’s great, the character classes are fun, and I had no problem solving most of the content. It has variety in two PVP modes, an absolute plethora of dungeons, and a lot of content that I haven’t covered here. I wanted to highlight the most important parts of the game. I understand that people are wary of another B2P MMO, especially after Bless has gone.
In Bless Online, I loved the game until it came out. I went to Astellia with apprehension, but found myself enjoying my time in the game. It’s not the perfect MMO, but it’s fun. And her unique system with “Astels” and so far has not shown any way to spend real money to include them in the game. All of them have individuality and fit into this strange, but beautiful, fantastic world. I recommend this for those who want to play Korean style MMO without P2W features. There are Deluxe versions of the game that have more cosmetics and temporary effects, but this does not provide players with a pay-to-win advantage. Thirty dollars is not a bad price for what the game offers.
