On Short fuse I (Shae) wound Elites for my teammates. Harec sees my struggle to properly kill them and helps me eliminating them with Headshots. We were a great team.

Hi, I just reached level 199 and wanted to share how I got there a bit.

First some stats:
It took me 338 hours and with the last match, I got all the raiders as well. I've got some nice forge 10 weapons (around 6) and I'm soon gonna buy better ones.

How it all started: I forgot how I found out about the game, I think I googled MMO-PVE or something. The Coop shooter aspect of the game intrigued me.
After installing, I immediately joined a match as I wanted to see if the game was to my liking. I got put into a Kuzzman map and the only Raider still available was Alicia. I felt like I picked someone useless, I can mainly remember the low range and that there was a lot happening. I really liked the visuals, that I took cover so flawlessly and since other people played it, I sticked with it for a more thorough review.
Afterwards I tried Konstantin and a bit of Harec. I mainly skipped Lycus because of his shotgun and my bad experience with Alicia. The game soon told me to buy Hans and I’m glad I did. I thought he was “better” since he needed a higher level, and he was a bit faster than Konstantin.
Since I watched a movie next to the game a lot of times, I didn’t get any audio cue of what to do. (my bad, dear game designers)
At first I wanted to level up for the new maps, but I had my difficulty understanding them. Dr Kuzman = no melee (took me a match), another one was lost because I didn’t even see the timer, then I picked up on the timer and people pulling the lever.
Breath of hope was easy but it took my many more levels to understand how to destroy the guardians. Same for finding the old man and realizing it was his health on top. Then I slowly understood that it’s about putting aleph into everything.
On the enemy within I was one of those shouting “out of ammo” in the second part, I had to idea what to do. Somewhere I bought the Tarrasque (didn’t get the hang of it) and bought the heavens bane for Hans, which I liked a lot.
At the point I watched Hihsasukes Youtube videos to see which Raider I wanted. The Barrier of Mikah was the most fascinating, because I didn’t understand when I healed, I think. Stress was still a difficult concept. After Mikah, I saw that Schneider was my thing, because he looked fun and Mikah lacked damage potential (with defensive barrier, yeah yeah)
On the map side: Short fused, I didn’t get the “carry bottles” until 5-6 matches in, I didn’t get the “shoot the thing to save time” until 40 matches in probably. But at least I got “collect aleph and put it in” part.
On no reservations, it took me a match or two to know what that timer was for and way more games to know when/how to grab to pesky sharpshooters that kept teleporting.
A weapon from the past felt okay to understand, I probably got killed by the bomb a bit when someone dropped it.
Marmaleda was tough but I got the hang of it. A bit later, I noticed thanks to Hihsasuke videos that the sidefaces were weak as well. Might have been at that point that I understood that bright yellow things are vulnerabilities.
Somewhere at that point I bought Schneider, his basic weapon felt super powerful and everything got easier. It was mostly because Hihsasuke recommended the “Cold Blood” card and it helped me heal. Still, I didn’t understand the link between healing and pressure.
To skip ahead, Aneskas map was easy, similar to Valerias. On white noise I thought it was a bug that made me levitate to my death for like 2-3 tries and I tried to avoid that map.
On the hanging by the ceiling map, I understood the basic principle. However I didn’t see that we could shoot the spider down before it grabs it’s head and it took my some “come to me”s to know why the head should be put on a podest far away from the spider.
Somewhere there I bought Shae, thought here beginner weapon was crappy, as the enemies hid before it was loaded. Still, I bought her other weapons, including the Aasi Dagan which I liked a lot.
After Schneider, Mikah and Shae, I felt I had all the raiders I really wanted to try. I wanted to level up for better passives until a friend from my guild told me that it was capped. So I got to that level. When I heard that there was a cap for forge level, I got told I shouldn’t waste money on lower forges. I think at that point I joined discord and got some good tips.
When I bought the other raiders, I had the following thoughts (in order of buying)
Ginebra, does VERY little damage except when lucky enough to push someone.
Hive, not good against bosses, not for range, not my cup of tea.
Rak, actually not bad, his pirachas take a bit long to load.
Valeria, looked fun at first but she’s slow and her healing is bad (compared to cold blood Schneider)
Aneska (not very powerful and her mech is blocking my view, low range)
Iune (fun, got mercy, but low health)
Loath (saw him tear down Schneiderbot, which impressed me, love his knockback effect weapon, but 100 hp in high MMR wasn’t enough)
Kuzman (low damage compared to Schneider and slow)
Ayana (ability was better than expected, weapon is so-so, not good against bosses)
Doldren (bought him last, took a bit of understanding to do damage with the weapon, but not active enough)

At the end I understood that most sucked a bit, because I compared them to forge lvl 10 weapons of Schneider and Shae. Now I’m eager to try some of them out.

Hope this helps good players to understand bad players, game devs to understand noobs and perhaps noobs to understand the game 😊
 Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, do ask.

I think you are quite right. A Hades with cold blood is way tankier than a Hades fighter. I think it heals quicker, and 140hp make a difference.

I would think -20% downtime would be a great addition.

On the other hand, they partially have really nice weapons to make up for their other flaws.

The game has way more flashy effects than I'd like, for example when you get healed by Valerias portal, it just flashes you every 2 seconds.
Similar when you have lots of explosions and similar things.

Does anybody have a similar impression?

Before you comment on my display, I have reduced the blue-light spectrum, toned done the brightness and toned down the brightness ingame. But it's still very subjective.

Any possibility to reduce the bright effects (explosions and thelike) would be welcome.

Hey, a few thoughts: in the new video, there is a new currency displayed (no idea what it's good for).

Second: My problem with the money system is, that there is not incentive to spend real money, as things are too expensive for my taste. Most beginner skins looks (very objectively) better than the alternatives. Plus buying gold with real money would take the fun out of the game.

I'm looking forward to the new currency. I'm kinda grateful that the game is not pay to win, however I'm sorry for the devs that they didn't convince me to put up real money. I hope others will.

I understand that some people feel like they have to "grind" in order to get all the characters, but I have to ask, once you got the, what is the end-game? Grinding is like a boring thing, for me the normal (fun) gameplay brings enough gold and faction points to keep me going. (+ I always return to a few heroes I like, and don't play the new ones much)

The devs replied in another thread, that they're working on a tutorial. But I (and many others) fully agree with what you are saying.

The way it is now, it's not something you easily learn on the go. Some (many) players without ranks (probably level 1) disconnect during a mentor match.

it's really hard to prove that something is wrong, but I have to admit, that on Schneider I've got plenty of yellow cards and pretty fast exactly what I wanted, even with good exp on them.
With Shae, it took me 6 draws to get a rare card and I'm far away from getting any cards I'd actually want.

So yeah, subjectively, it feels like something is wrong. Still hard to prove anything. We just have to trust the system I guess.

As a suggestion, perhaps pay 5000 to remove a card from circulation, thus in the long run, you can remove every card, except for the one you want.