Albion Online Overview

Comparison of the Q Ability and W Ability in Albion Online

I want to love the quarterstaff, but the Iron-Clad outclasses it in every way. Unlike most other .1 weapons, the Quarterstaff does not get the offhand slot to help compensate for the lesser damage of like skills among its tree. I will list the comparison of the two weapons. All of these will be of the T4 type.

Q Ability: Concussive Blow
The Quarterstaff (QS) does 178 damage whereas the Iron-Clad (IC) does 198 damage. The Iron-Clad is a straight up upgrade here.
W Ability: Stun Run

The Quarterstaff and iron-clad both boost movement speed for the same amount and duration, but the iron-clad has over a half second longer stun(QS 4.85sec vs IC 5.37sec). As a weapon whose primary reason in PvP is CC, the IC wins here.

W Ability: Empowered Slam

The QS does 322 damage whereas the IC does 357 damage. This is a small difference, however as stated before, the primary reason for the QS line is stunning. Most people will take Stun Run over Empowered Slam when it comes to PvP.

W Ability: Heavy Cleave (Iron-Clad only and double-bladed staff only)

This attack does 761 damage, same 15 sec cool down as Empowered Slam, but has a 1 second casting time. Both this and Empowering slam are nice if you already have a pure stunner, but again is mostly ignored due to Stun Run.

E Ability: Forceful Swing (Quarterstaff only)

This is an instant cast push back attack that pushes back enemies in 360 degrees around the caster. It also does a fair 134 damage. It has a great 10 second cool down timer, but also costs 37 mana to use.

E Ability: Hurricane (Iron-Clad)

This is just like Forceful Swing as a push back ability. The difference that makes this ability so much more powerful is it spins, pushes back, and damages all targets for 4 solid seconds (and the duration scales). The ability not only does 62 damages every time it hits a target (which will tick every second for 4 seconds), but you can also move while this ability is being used for its duration. To top it off, it only cost 1 mana more than Forceful Swing. The one and only downfall is it’s a 20 second cool down but is lessened by the fact that the cool down starts upon activation.

Other than the fact that the Q and W abilities does straight up more damage on the iron-clad, the E ability is where it steps far ahead. It does more damage over time (especially if you can keep pushing them into a wall), has more chances to interrupt the enemy (which is the main reason to use any weapon in the quarterstaff line), and won’t drain your mana nearly as much as the quarterstaff. I suggest improving the quarterstaff by:

Double Forceful Swing’s damage. This gives the QS a more damage role than the IC. It doesn’t make it as strong of CC as the IC, but it will give the QS the ability to do damage
as well.
Reduce Forceful Swing’s mana. The QS runs out of mana really quickly if you’re trying to interrupt. The IC doesn’t as quickly because of Hurricane’s cool down, but Hurricane
also will interrupt 4 or more times as much as Forceful Swing.
Make Forceful Swing stun or slow as well. This may make QS OP by interrupting and stun/slow, but there’s also a reason it’s never used over the iron-clad.

Albion Online: Content Update Cador

Sandbox Interactive has unleashed the Cador update to Albion Online that brings a number of big changes to the game including a overhauled UI, new bosses and dungeons. Content is available for both single players and groups.

PvP and PvE players will also be challenged to more strategic game play with the addition of the new death mechanic that brings the “knock down” system on board that gives players the opportunity to revive themselves by slowly regenerating health. Successfully reviving sees a return to battle on the spot, though it is still possible for enemies to slay the player prior to gaining enough hit points to rise.

New Death Mechanic
Cador sees a new Death Mechanic that will have a player knocked down first, when their hit points run out first. An opposing player or mob then needs to move in for an execution, resulting in an additional strategic component in battles.

Mobile Repair Kits
A new furniture item, Repair Kits, get introduced. They are furniture items that you can place practically anywhere in the world that will then serve as a convenient repair station. Their functionality is more limited than that of a full-fledged stationary one, the repair costs are higher and they only have a limited lifetime – but the convenience they offer more than make up for it.

Armor Rework
The armor system has been simplified to improve the readability so our players more easily know what’s what. Cloth Armor will always be light, Leather Armor will always be medium and Plate Armor will always be heavy.

New Dungeons
Two new types of dungeons have been introduced to the game. The Mines and the Shanties are Heretic-themed and offer the gateway dungeon experience to low-tier solo players and small groups. Naturally, they come with new bosses and news mobs.

Albion Online: Guild Alliances

Alliances will serve to strengthen the bonds of trust and loyalty between guilds. Be they firm friends or just on the cusp of a truce following a fierce rivalry, all guilds entering into an alliance can rest assured they will be in peace.

How do I create an alliance?
Creating an alliance is similar in many ways to creating an individual guild. The leader of an alliance is the leader of the alliance’s founding guild, and they have the power to invite guilds, cancel invitations and dismiss guilds from their alliance. They can also choose to completely disband the alliance.

Alliances will be managed, by guild members who have the necessary rights, via a new tab under the Guild menu. Choosing to create an alliance will bring up a menu asking for the name of the alliance. Alliance founders can also choose a tag, which can be up to five letters, to set their members apart from the rest and reinforce the sense of unity across the alliance.

For each alliance, there will be an alliance founding fee. The founder chooses how to pay this fee, and then the alliance is official! Now the founder can begin inviting guilds to their alliance…

Inviting guilds to an alliance
Inviting a guild to an alliance works through Albion Online’s ingame messaging service. Alliance leaders (or other alliance members with sufficient rights) can send an alliance invitation to any guild simply by entering their name into the correct field, after which their guild leader, and his or her right hand, will receive the invitation in their guild inbox.

What does an alliance mean for me?
Members of allied guilds cannot attack each other, and all scheduled territory or player city battles will be cancelled as soon as the guilds enter the alliance. This means that an alliance can be used as a treaty or truce of sorts between two guilds on the verge of war.

Players in allied guilds will be immediately noticeable, with their nameplates and health bars coloured differently so that you can tell players apart within the alliance. This means you’ll know from afar who’s in your alliance but not in your guild.

Alliance members will get their own special alliance chat channel, so that they can chat amongst themselves if they want to get a message out to even the furthest reaches of the alliance’s empire.

We want guild alliances to pull guilds together and give a feeling of strength and unity, but we also want guilds to still keep their bonds special. Distinguishing alliance members from guild members allows this.

Alliances will be subject to an alliance tax – this is paid in a similar way to territory or player plot upkeep, and is taken from the guild leader’s guild account. The members of the alliance can agree amongst themselves how much of this tax is paid by each guild, so smaller guilds won’t have to generate as much money as larger guilds to remain in the alliance.

Alliances will be indicated in a player’s profile in-game, with the alliance tag also appearing before their guild name.

So there’s a short introduction to alliances! What do you think of our plans so far?

Albion Online Closed Beta Overview

Albion Online is something I have kept on eye on for sometime now, and since I’ve been playing it during the closed beta period here are my initial thoughts on it. This is not a full review, as I will do that once it’s completely out.

We have a real empty spot when it comes to MMORPG games on Linux, and I used to love chilling out in WoW when I was a Windows minion, so finally having one comparable on Linux is great, but is it any good?

Initial thoughts
I have to say, that so far I am reasonably impressed with it. There seems to be no issues with performance, and the game actually looks reasonably nice. I do hope they beef up the graphics a little bit for PC players like us in future, but I understand why it’s missing a lot of options right now being cross-platform with mobile gamers too.

The game is more than a little daunting at the start, I found my head spinning a bit with no real welcome, and nothing really telling me what to do or where to go. It really is a sandbox style MMORPG, as you are free to do whatever you want. I really do suggest reading the beginner’s guide if you plan to pick it up and play it during the closed beta. Although even after reading that, I still wasn’t prepared.

The game is a grind, and certain things will take quite a bit of time. That’s true for most MMORPG games, but Albion even more so. The good thing about Albion Online is you can switch up what you’re focusing on whenever the hell you feel like it. This is thanks to the Fame system that allows you to earn Fame doing tons of different things like farming, crafting, getting resources, fighting etc. The grind is mainly annoying due to so much manual clicking needed. If, for example, a tree you’re cutting happens to have a ton of wood on it, you may end up clicking on it 6-7-8 times, and each time you click and wait. They need to tweak this behaviour if it is to keep PC players interest I think.

The fighting is a simple mechanic of click the enemy, and fight. You do have manual interaction with skills (so combat is a little MOBA like). The Player vs AI combat is perfectly fine, and seems to work okay. I’ve died from a skeleton once, as I didn’t really realise it was that much more powerful than my tier-2 gear.

It does bug me that there’s really no information on hovering your mouse over things, that’s something I would very much like to see expanded, as it reeks of mobile gaming having to click everything.

The chat box is also annoying me right now, luckily you can very easily disable the global chat tab, so you don’t have to put up with all the idiotic spam that goes on in it. I would really like to see some more anti-spam tools on it to prevent the same people spamming “JOIN MY GUILD” sort of stuff. Another annoying thing about the chat box, is that it’s covered up too often. Every time you go to craft something, you have to wait, and the UI covers up the chat box.

I’ve spent at least five hours in the game, so I’m still very early on and there’s a lot left for me to do and explore.

Just be warned, if you do plan to pick it up, all progress is reset when the closed beta finishes.

Final thoughts

It’s a big time sink, a fair amount of it is a grind, but it’s interesting to play. I’ve already made a few new buddies playing it after joining a guild named “Legends”, and I will probably continue playing it. I also purchased my very own island with in-game money, so that’s pretty cool.

It’s good to have a proper MMO like this on Linux. If you don’t hear from me for days, it’s probably because I’m hooked. Is it a game I can see myself still playing in a few months? I’m not entirely sure, it depends how good the later game content is like the proper PvE and guild territory wars are, but they sound fun.

Overall, I think it’s a pretty great start for an indie MMO.

Check out Albion Online here. You can still buy into it right now if you so wish.