Recent reviews by BeeRye

The only thing the game needs are more maps and more battle-groups, as well as balance updates.

The devs are slowly putting exactly that into the game, and it is now at the point it should have been at on release. I can't wait for the next few years of this game. I say that having many more hours on CoH2 and loving that multiplayer too.

"Abelard, introduce the rabble to one of the best WH40K games"

I made a race of high elf swamp people good at building things

Oh they were also ethereal and could phase through anything

Oh they also had literal gold skin and green veins (some random nature thing)

Oh and also they were giants (15ft+) infused with giant rock tumors

Oh and I got a spell that could duplicate my great-hammer wielding lord every spell cast

So giant wraith rock/gold skin green blood high elf hammer ladies

10/10

It's hard to find a good multiplayer RTS experience these days with a large enough community to keep matchmaking times reasonable.

It's also hard to find a developer of such an RTS that actively supports the game with balance updates and new content.

That is why, if you are at all interested in multiplayer RTS, you should absolutely give AOE4 a solid shot. And when I say a shot, several dozen hours to learn a build order and the basics of a few civs at least. You really won't start to have fun until you learn the mechanics of the game, of which there are a lot. Disclaimer: I have played nothing single player for this game besides the art of war challenges (very helpful) and skirmish vs AI to practice build orders. MP is what will constitute 99% of my playtime as that is where I get my value.

So what does this game have to get you interested in MP?

-It is still relatively new to the RTS scene, meaning the population is healthy between steam and game pass. Therefore you can't rely on just steamchart numbers to get an assessment of how big the player base is. I had never played an AOE game before AOE4 and still manage to hover in the middle of plat ranking for solo and team ladders. This spot on the ladder results in many of my games being quite evenly matched and therefore exciting.

-Since it is still newish, there are people playing of all skill levels. Notice I have 200 hours. That is quite frankly nothing in terms of RTS playtime. Even so, it is pretty easy to get into evenly matched solo/team games. There isn't really anything more engaging I've found in my years of games than an evenly matched RTS game. Both/all players using interesting or outside the box tactics, working together to see huge armies systematically dismantle a massive defensive position, armies on both sides winning and losing battles all in the time of a single match. It really can be for lack of a better word, epic. You almost get kind of a brain high after a long slugfest that you end up winning. Or maybe just mental exhaustion, either way I find it keeps me sharper for other games, and in real life for some tasks. I'd say RTS does more for multitasking and problem solving than something like crosswords or sudoku lol.

-As mentioned, relic (developer) seem to be quite committed to making this game a success. So far, in my opinion, it is working out. The new civs are very cool and shake up the meta in solo and team games quite a bit.

-The custom game and modding scene seems to be well alive, and you can find many things of that sort on the steam workshop. Personally I stick to official maps and ranked ladders, so the only addition I would like to see is the addition of well made community maps to the official pool for quick play and ranked.

AOE4 does have some problems not dissimilar to other RTS, sometimes the matchmaker fails and pits you against a 400 IQ god brain child prodigy, but it's almost worth playing it out to witness how someone else can absolutely destroy you with their thinking.

A toxic attitude straight from league of legends where always blaming your teammates is the go-to will bite you in the ass so hard in this genre, so if you are someone who tilts easily and rages at your teammates, you will not enjoy this game (unless you exclusively play 1v1 though). It is absolutely possible to carry even in team games, yet you will still see so many salty weirdos who cry from common things like cheese. This is a hilarious argument to me because if some simple cheese strat is enough to topple you then YOU are bad. Cheese is very easily dealt with after you advance to a certain point. Crying about it only delays your effort to counter it. For the first while you start playing this game, you are gathering knowledge (hopefully). You then learn to apply it in tactical situations. Part of that process is succumbing to something that may seem like cheese, so just get over it in advance. OR look it up on yt, there are plenty of content creators for this game with many tips for you.

This is a game worth playing if you are someone you is looking for a semi-hardcore/hardcore MP strategy experience. It's somewhere in between the micro requirements for a game like Company of Heroes and Starcraft II. It is faster than CoH, but slower than SC2. You probably won't need adderall to get to Conqueror III rank (highest rank).

You will notice a large amount of people posting negative reviews are the ones who complain the game is too unforgiving. They'll say it's unpleasant dying to groups larger than them, and how if they can't play solo, the game therefore sucks.

Let me be crystal clear in case the store page isn't clear enough: IT'S A FULL-LOOT PVP MMO.

Full loot: When you die, everything you're wearing and anything in your inventory is dropped or trashed. It's written on the doorway outside, if you don't like it don't play it. If I'm allergic to fish, I'm not gonna go to a seafood restaurant and order trout, then post a bad google review saying it almost killed me.

PvP: Everything in Albion is there to support PvP, which is the strongest aspect of the game. PvE leaves quite a bit to be desired, but in the end it's all used to get stronger for PvP. Groups can literally gank you inside a dungeon/raid and lay waste to you. It's called diving, and it's awesome. Totally possible to fight back and win as well, it happens all the time. If you are not someone who enjoys plentiful amounts of consensual / non- consensual PvP, this is not the game for you, keep looking elsewhere.

MMO: I won't patronize you by explaining this here, but this game as well as other MMOs are designed specifically to play with other people. Playing solo in this game is definitely possible, but it takes a great amount of patience and practice, as well as a deep understanding of gear interactions and game mechanics. These are things you'll learn if you just join a damn guild. Don't be scared to be social in an MMO, there are plenty of great guilds out there for beginners and veterans alike. Start in a guild at least, there are so many people willing to help newer players even in competitive high-stakes games like Albion. Some guy posted a review saying most guilds require you to pay them to get in????? I've never seen this in my almost 2k hours, but maybe I haven't looked at enough trash/scam guilds.

With all that being said, the game is great. For me, I could never get into theme-park MMOs. I played Rust since legacy, and dabbled a bit in EVE online. I also played a lot of league back in the day. I like to think I've grown since then, but I digress. If you really want to compare Albion to anything else, it should be those three games. Take the full loot adrenaline based gameplay from Rust, use the moment to moment gameplay from league (isometric, 6 ability action combat w/ 2 consumables), and then take the economy aspect from EVE. Everything is player crafted and bought and sold on separate auction houses across the game world. Why separate? Why not OSRS Grand exchange style? Some continents/zones give only certain resources, and the cities near them give refining bonuses to mats found far away. This creates incentives to move around and find arbitrage opportunities. You can purely play economic PvP in this game if you want. Transporting goods is a very lucrative activity, and therefore ganking those goods is just as lucrative. The game is also a sandbox, so players more or less make the content for themselves. If you log on every day expecting organized groups for ganking/roaming/gathering/PvE in your guild, it might not work out so well. Try being a leader and being the change you want to see if no one is running a group. It won't be easy, you might get your friends killed a couple times, but you gotta learn somehow. Everyone starts at the bottom, and the only thing separating the good players from the bad are the ones who stick through the rough stuff and keep working at it.

Let me address some common complaints:

"The weapons are unbalanced!": Well, if you're considering the same activity, then yes. But there is large scale PvP/PvE in Albion and there is small scale. There is catching/ganking, there is escaping those people. There is gathering, there is solo play. Most weapons and armor are only good at one or two of those things, so what you end up with is a different sort of meta based on your group size. There's enough variation and frequent balance passes to address absolutely useless items as well, which results in these metas shifting sometimes.

"I can't gather past "x" tier, people keep gang ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ me!": Join a guild, go ganking with them, see how it's done. Then you'll know how to avoid it. There are plenty of gatherers that go without being killed gathering for months at a time. Personally, I've never been ganked while gathering T8 hides. I don't do it too often to be fair, but when I do I make sure I'm wearing proper escape gear and that I'm farming near safe territories.

"The game is pay to win!": There are two types of currency in Albion. Silver and Gold. Silver is used for pretty much everything, and you can buy gold with it on the in-game gold market. Gold is used to buy premium (gives more fame/exp, passive crafting points, etc.) as well as cosmetics, of which you can disable in the PvP zones if you want. Personally I've always been able to pay my monthly premium with silver, and I've been playing since steam release. On the note of people paying for gear with IRL money, In reality, the people who swipe their credit cards for gucci gear are way too afraid to leave the safe zones (almost negligible fame, you will never progress here). When they do, people see that they're juiced and pile on like a bunch of ♥♥♥♥♥ out hyenas. It's an amazing system. If you try to P2W in this game, I can almost guarantee you'll end up making someone else rich. You need mechanical skill and experience to truly be successful in PvP, gear quality only helps up to a point.

Lastly a word on the devs. These guys are seriously committed, and they've shown it time and time again, with the icing on the cake being this most recent update. There's too much for me to put into this review, but know this: they aren't going to give up on this game anytime soon, and it's slowly becoming more populated. This is nothing short of a marvel for MMOs today. Most start strong and fade quickly, but not here. I have great faith in this game and the developers, and they have some great content coming down the pipe for the next update.

Obligatory shout out to one of the chillest big tent black zone guilds- Conflict! Join today, and I'll personally take some time and answer questions for you that you may have. Alternatively, if we're full, send me a whisper in game @BeeRye. I'd be happy to give you a hand.

Thanks for reading!

Imagine Borderlands, with more creative ability-based combat in a pseudo-moba (mostly) dedicated PvP setting. Yeah. Also there's a co-op story with 8 missions + prologue that can each last up to an hour on challenge mode. And there's loot you can bring into PvP with you.

You can tell Gearbox really dumped their hearts and souls into making this new IP, Borderlands humour and all, and I think they deserve to be appreciated for that. It's a shame this game will be dismissed by so many because of Overwatch, a game whose gameplay may be slightly more polished, but pales in comparison in terms of complexity and mechanical depth.

Solid game. Recommended.

Not yet. Not enough of the game is finished to warrant a purchase.

DO NOT PLAY WHEN YOU'RE HIGH

Battlefield, with 9992598437598 players and maps bigger than anything

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