If Thora from JOTUN had to 100% an MMORPG instead of the trials to reach valhalla....she wouldnt have gone too far. If thats a good enough review for you, then you can stop reading. If you want to take mental damage, continue.
We got 4 problems we gotta address:
MMORPGs aspects
Feats/unlocking system
Weapon Upgrades
server instabilities
As it is the game is functional, its not as good as Sundered because the attacks are not complicated nor fast enough to be abusing 4+ invincibility frames dashes, as this game is slightly less about reflex and more of target priority + DPS racing specially around bosses (but still more reflex play than your average MMORPG where there is none and your STAT NUMBERS are what matters)
But no matter how good you are at dodging, bosses have unblockable attacks UNLESS you complete the DPS race against x targets for that specific phase, then the attack cover less areas of the arena and you run around to get there. Sure, later bosses after Lucifer mix the formula where its a puzzle AND a dps race, but still a race, so a solo player cannot complete this unless it has maxed its stats in and out of combat.
So, lets talk about the Feats (quests/achievements) that allow you to unlock the rest of the features and permanent stat bonuses to be able to do this without being a burden to your team.
The way the system works means that, no matter if you killed the final boss 50 times or whatever, if the Major Feats related to it werent active then the game DOES NOT COUNT THESE FOR ANY FORM OF PROGRESSION, which is funny cause the way DOES track your progress of previous runs in the form of the Loadout Archive (which is also an unlock via Feats) listing your victories or losses from previous runs, which perks, ordeals, relics, whatever you had equip.
Lets see how long it takes to grind to fully obtain all the goodies for a weapon.
Major feat is actually 3-5 mini feats, revolving around doing damage with light, heavy, dash and ability, then using co op powers and completing chambers, and the numbers vary between 10.000 damage, 200 kills, 5-15 completions. Thats what 90% of Feats require, with the occasional boss or ascendancy battle requirement and ordeals (much later), so keep that in mind as i describe each feat and reward.
1st Major Feat Unlock: Co Op Power of the Weapon now charges up over time on top of charging it normally by hitting enemies
2 Major Feat Unlock: Permanent Weapon Upgrades for that weapon now can drop. You can only equip 1 out of 6.
3 MFU: Bright Star (which allows to invest in permanent stats for your Rebel Soul, so its not really related to your weapon)
4 MFU: Weapon Upgrade SLOT N2. Now you can use 2 out of 6.
5 MFU (needs 3 Ordeals active to count): Your Co Op Power is already at 100% as soon as you start your session.
6 MFU (needs 6 ordeals): a Bright Star.
I dont know if there is more after that, as the wiki is incomplete. Keep in mind that even if you are doing the major feat after Number 2, where weapon unlocks SHOULD start dropping cause the Feat is active, those wont drop UNLESS you got the weapon relevant to that Feat, so its not like you can try another weapon to grind its feats AND get upgrades for another to try later, you gotta stick to the other weapon no matter what.
So already quite a pain, right? and 2 of those do not directly affect the weapon itself (unless you invest the stars into more damage stats). You also need to "max" your weapon upgrade for a small % damage increase for mastering each, but that doesnt require a feat, just that you use em.
But there is a promise of further power in the form of Ordeals. These are debuffs (that you ALSO need to unlock) that you apply to yourself and make your life miserable (take more damage, cant resurrect after 1 death in case of 12 ordeals) in exchange for more crystal to buy stuff AND Blessed quality relics. exclusive legendary skins from bosses and Weapon Upgrades again but this time you can have more than 2 installed IF you have at least 9 Ordeals.
So..more grind...1 boss kill extends the Ordeal limit by +1, and next one unlocks If you got 2 ordeals on and so on.
After ALL that, what you get? a TEMPORAL Weapon Upgrade. Thats right, its not 4 more permanent slots so you can have all 6 at the same time, instead its a "find it on the wild and to the mercy of RNG" and you gotta get em ALL OVER AGAIN every instance. You still need to rely on your 2 upgrades that you have been using all along, and you BARELY can do damage at this point with 9 different flavors of debuffs making you near useless compared to normal players,
I hear some players might not like my proposition to just let me have all 6 at the time AS LONG i have the ordeals on me, cause there wouldnt be any "builds" anymore since everyone will eventually get ALL upgrades combined at the same time and make the game braindead. To that i say:
1) The 2 upgrade builds will not go anywhere, cause you still needed those 2 to REACH this 9 ordeals....ordeal.
2) We already got people who are VIRTUALLY IMMORTAL by having Inner Justice on the Sword equipped, so they can permanent block and parry enemies FOREVER, and the only reason that aint getting nerfed its because you can block unblockable attacks from bosses AND sitting there and waiting to get hit doesnt help when DPS checks are the flavor of this game.
3) The Server instability. Its time to talk about it and i hope you like Apples, cause "Error: Apple" is gonna pop up over and over as your game slowly becomes more rubberbandy and you get booted out of the session back to the main menu. The game WANTS YOU to take your time so you can have all the bones for your relics, upgrades, whatever, and 9 ordeal exclusive weapon upgrades, but taking too long its an invitation to get your hour long session NUKED cause the server could die at any moment, so why extend the play session even MORE hopping for RNG to drop ALL 6 upgrades on that run? Just let me have the 6 upgrades equip as soon as i have 9 ordeals and problem solved. You already paid the price with your time and debuffs.
Hell, i grinded as much as a i could and honestly i dont know if 6 upgrades on a single run its possible, cause they never last that long. Either everyone is afraid of the server crash and just rush the chambers to get to the boss asap, or they are simply careless. We might never know. I would rather fight TWO unique elite enemies AT THE SAME TIME on a special chamber that exist to reward people who want maximum risk for more rewards, instead of doing the whole Feat System, to reward players with weapon slots for more upgrades. I would take even a Boss Rush or Mini boss as a method to unlock stuff over "do this a million times"
Speaking of Unique Elites, those are more fun than the bosses, cause it can actually get quite hectic and you cant dash mindlessly cause you might dash INTO a new attack they are performing. They are in the open world, so they arent as tense as they should be on a closed space, so you can just run away.
I am almost tempted to suggest something like a New Game Mode where you can have 2 dashes instead of one, and all bosses dont have MAP WIDE unblockable attacks and instead have new attacks that are faster and come from different directions. You can mix and match blockable and unblockable, but they cant be the whole arena as punishment for not having DPS, that way solo player can enjoy the game even when the servers go down or there are no players.
Hell, maybe a subclass that lets you use up to 3 weapons that you can switch on the fly in exchange for being unable to go past 6 weapon upgrades, so you trade power for versatility.
But i cant suggest that, cause there is going to be 10-20 Feat/quests required just to enjoy any of that.
Major Feat 1: You unlock the class but you still cant use a second weapon (you get a change in the skin of your sprite, isnt that neat?)
Skip the game until it improves or get friends to suffer together.
