Is it Worth Playing Elyon?
Another MMORPG by Kakao Games
We all remembered Kakao Games from Black Desert Online right? Kakao Games latest MMORPG from this South Korean giant is Elyon. It was known as Ascent: Infinite Realm A:IR years back and this generated so much interest in the MMORPG community. From the creators of TERA, Bluehole, Kakao Games is ready to release this bad boy on September 2021.
Elyon AKA Infinite Realm A:IR
Publisher
Elyon A:IR is developed by Blue Hole and published by Kakao Games. Kakao Games is a South South Korea publishing company servicing only 4 PC games and 7 Mobile Games. Kakao has a notorious reputation in the West for the publisher that “ Ruined” Black Desert Online. The accusations don’t go without merit, they are the ones who promised no Pay2Win elements in Black Desert Online just to go back on it’s word months later. This time around, Kakao Games hasn’t promised us the game changer they did back in BDO. They haven’t promised us no P2W, they haven’t promised us the moon. They marketed the game with Pay2Win elements and this time they embraced it. While it isn’t the what most of us wanted, honesty is still the best policy right?
Combat
Elyon A:IR is an action combat system, it feels quite impactful like Tera and Black Desert Online exceled in, in fact, it shared a lot of common similarity with Tera online. There is no mouse movement and it is pure action combat with soft target locks with the crosshair. Like most action combat games, the key is capable of bringing up the mouse which you can browse through your Inventory and skills UIs for example. Elyon focuses on each the combat very well to a point that the builds are highly customizable yet skills flows very nicely together with smooth combat, I wouldn’t put this up on Black Desert Online’s combat system level since at best it’s slightly above Tera’s combat, so do not expect a BDO combat system killer here because Elyon is no way close to that but the combat isn’t bad at all.
Gameplay
Features
Elyon A:IR is another Theme-Park MMORPG but focuses on Realm Vs Realm and PVP as opposed to Dungeons and Raids, here is a overview of all it’s features it boast to offer.
PVE Gameplay
Elyon follows a very traditional level path where it’s story quest after story quest. In fact, the first 20 levels are considered a prologue/tutorial. Which you can essentially skip once you have done it at least once per server. The tutorial does not take long and it does teach you basis of the game such as skill and rune attributes for example.
As Elyon A:IR is a heavily focused PVP game the PVE content is super limited, you have options such as Dimensional Portals, which is effectively your standard Dungeon.
An official AMA Developer response regarding PVE content
For PvE, we currently have 5-player dungeons in the game. Yet in the field or in the Dimensional Portal content, up to 50 players can play together.
We (Elyon) are looking into it in a positive light. However, when considering content with a high difficulty level, we are thinking of ways in which more players can enjoy themselves together rather than a small number of players
As for Fayiette, I was busy leveling up all the classes in Elyon, strangely enough, I usually prefer the assassin or warrior class in most MMORPGs but oddly enough, my favorite class so far was Elementalist by a huge margin. It felt super satisfying landing a combat, blinking around the map, crowd controlling both players in PVP or mobs when grinding levels. It felt like my type of class.
PVP Gameplay
Elyon is a PVP focused game with content involving up to 200 players, effectively the 100 vs 100 realm vs realm modes. Elyon will also have Open World PVP which opens at level 30. Or Within the Hall of Fame there are 3v3 or battlefield style modes, then there is the good old Arena that is either 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3. Do you know of BDO’s PVP where it’s pretty much a cat and mouse chase. With somewhat equal gears, first to crowd control will usually always wins. Elyon isn’t like this at all, while crowd control is an important aspect of PVP, it isn’t always the deciding factor, and neither is unlimited dash/blinks a game feature too. Which makes PVP already in a better spot than BDO can ever be. In fact, this was one of the main selling points that made me want to play Elyon.
Customization
Character Customization
Elyon has a very well designed customization system, it is up-to-date and has lots of options and sliders to choose from.
Build Customization
Elyon boast to have a very in depth and complex build customization system. You have over 30 skills but only 10 hotkey slots, making it a wealth of choices for build builders. Whether it is Skill Attributes that makes your chosen skill completely something else or Rune Attributes that adds bonus effects whether it’s DPS, Defense, support, healing, crowd control or even high risk/high rewards abilities. Lastly, there is a Sephirot System that is available at level 35 which gives you a further choice of resource/stat increases such as main stats, resources, and energy.
UI Customization
Unlike Eylon’s Build Customization, there is no UI Customization from what I could see so far. It was static which is very unlike Korean MMORPGs. At most, you can drag chat windows which is pretty sad. This was also a very requested feature in the Elyon Community Discord which we haven’t seen a official response from the Elyon team yet.
State of Game
Playerbase
Elyon has not officially launched yet and is set to launch on 29th September 2021. While there are two clients, Kakao Games game launcher and steam, judging on steam statistic only, it only attracted a peak of 1,600 players. Which I am lead to believe majority of the players are on Kakao Games own launcher.
Cash Shop
Is Elyon Free to Play Friendly
Majority of the Pay2Win elements were removed from the game, however, it does still exist. I would personally say as of this time of review, the game can be enjoyed and played on a competitively level without paying besides buying the game. The cash shop is currently very incomplete and does not show a full view of what might be to come in the future, but if it continues at this current pace. Free to Play players will have no issues staying at the top of the game.
Another change Elyon that was an added bonus with the removal of Gear Currency, Outfits could no longer be dismantled making outfits purely cosmetics purposes in game with no additional benefit.
While cash shop Mounts have a 4% increase to normal speed and a 6% dash speed increase compared to in-game obtainable mounts, this would be considered Pay2Win by all standards, however, at level 47, you will receive a mount with the same specs as the Cash Shop mount for free which effectively does make cash shop mounts “cosmetics”.
Is Elyon Pay 2 Win
Ruby is the premium currency of Ely A:IR. You will be able to purchase 1000 Rubies for 10 EUR/USD. Free bonus Rubies will be granted for higher purchases.
Kakao Games have made some drastic changes to the Cash Shop sine CBT1, most notably the removal of Gear Currency, however, some still argue the cash shop is Pay 2 Win.
Kakao Games is attempting to make the Ruby Shop provide more convenience items instead such as expansion-related items like the Storage/Inventory Slot Expansion or NPC Summon Scrolls for Storage or General Goods.
VIP Subscription
Unfortunately, just like nearly every MMORPG, there always has to be this VIP Subscription that provides “additional benefits” for the player. Here is what Elyon’s VIP Sub whichthey call the Star’s Blessing provides
- Hunting EXP Increase: 10%
- Item Drop Rate Increase: 10%
- AP Recovery Speed Increase: 3
- Inventory Space Expansion: 16 Spaces
- Storage Space Expansion: 14 Spaces
- Luminus Max Energy 100% Increase (8 hours total)
- Auto Charge Luminus Energy Daily
- Can participate in Luminus Battles immediately after charging
- Gives 15 Laurel Wreath Pieces daily
- A variety of other small-functionality items will be offered, such as Appearance Change Tickets, Mana Awakening Reset Scrolls, Death EXP Recovery Scrolls, and Resurrection Scrolls.
Pay 2 Win Elements
The biggest Pay2Win system Fayiette sees Elyon has to offer is the Pet System. Pets will be sold for 500 Rubies which is $5 each give or take and they are little creatures that will collect the loot of fallen monsters around you. They will also provide various life passive benefits. The Pet System is very similar, if not the same as Black Desert Online, meaning you can combine/fuse pets together for higher tier.
Further, Elyon online also conveniently sells Pet Skill Change Tickets at the rate of 200 rubies each with multi-buy providing discounts. These tickets allows you to re-roll a pet passive skill to another random one.
The other biggest Pay2Win system is the Luminus system. It is similar to pets but they provide combat benefits as opposed to life benefits. Unlike Pets, they are also able to be obtained through in-game activities. With a total 11 different types, each one can be used in a different playstyle which further elaborates on the customization on builds.
Another similarity they have to pets is that they can be upgraded from Tier 1 to Tier 5, and with the fusion option, they can be enhanced further to a “Blessed” status which provides a higher benefit multiplier compared to their non-Blessed counterparts.
Graphics
Weirdly, the game has the similar aesthetic feel as Bless Online however with a cyberpunk/mecha theme to it. It’s feels slightly dark, gloomy with weird shiny/plasticky graphics. While it isn’t terrible, it may not be the type of graphics people are looking for. The graphics option system itself is decently optimized, under the highest options, my GPU did not take a huge hit and the game was still running nicely at 60 fps even in semi-crowded zones.
Is Elyon A:IR Worth Playing
So… Is Elyon fun to play? I would say yes, in fact, yes, play it. After fumbling a few times, Kakao Games seems like they are taking this title seriously attempting to make it a success. While I been debating whether I should main New World or Elyon as my Main MMORPG, it has been a tough choice. I personally feel that New World may have a better lifespan but with Amazon Game Studio’s terrible track record, that may not be the case. On the other hand, Kakao Games has said to be the reason why Black Desert Online is ruined, yet it is still considered a top MMORPG in 2021. I personally think I have to wait a little longer to decide what will become my Main MMO however, Elyon A:IR is 100% worth playing in 2021 without any questions asked. It’s not expensive at all, $29,99 USD or $39.99 AUD, that’s like a couple of Happy Meals from MacDonald’s or a few movie tickets.
Originally published at https://fayiette.com on August 23, 2021.
