From the Asian Games, Ti12 to S13, this year’s e-competition events have gradually come to an end. For professional players, it is also finally the day when they can moderately touch fish and rest.

If you have paid attention to the live broadcasts of some e-sports players in their spare time, especially those MOBA players, you will most likely find a phenomenon - in addition to their own professional games, they more often choose to play MMORPG.

The most typical example in China is PDD, after retiring as a professional LOL player, he almost transformed into an MMORPG anchor, and whenever there is a fresh online game on the market both at home and abroad, his active figure is inevitable, and a lot of program effects in the live broadcast are also the result.

Overseas, active players are also keen on MMO is not a new thing, DRX team’s Berly even once absent from the championship celebration, the result was found to be in the “fate of the ark” to open a new copy.

As one of Korea’s “national MMOs,” Ark of Fate is almost a standard pastime for many professional players.

In addition to LOL, there are also ex-professionals like PIS in the domestic DOTA community who say that they play Ark of Fate more diligently than they do at work.

After all, Ark of Destiny is largely the “MOBA of MMORPGs”.

https://www.mmorpg.com/

Ark of Destiny itself is a 2.5D top-down ARPG

It may sound strange to associate an MMORPG with a MOBA, but once you get your hands on the game, it’s easy to see the commonalities.

Ark of Destiny itself is a 2.5D top-down ARPG, which is often seen as a “retro” approach compared to today’s more mainstream 3D open worlds.

But just as first-person MOBAs like “God’s Havoc” have never been able to shake the status of Dota and LOL, the classic top-down perspective has its own irreplaceable advantages.

Compared to the immersion brought by 3D online games, the 2.5D screen contains more effective information, and ARPG operation is more controllable. Players can instantly and accurately instruct their characters on what to do next, so the game is usually faster-paced and more interactive.

Specifically in Ark of Destiny, almost all of the skills of each profession are non-directional, including those that require chanting, and the player has to use anticipation to release them effectively, which is almost unimaginable in a 3D online game.

At the same time, these skills are usually accompanied by displacement effects in different directions and distances, and the upper and lower limits are also determined by the player’s level of operation.

It’s easy to see why LOL pros are particularly keen on this online game - the game’s movement system is more or less the same as LOL’s, which also emphasizes anticipation and skills, and those who excel at it are not only familiar with the game, but are also more likely to produce eye-catching maneuvers and shows than they would be able to do in a normal online game! The game is a great way to get the most out of the game.

However, as we all know, the reason why MOBAs are fun is because “fighting with others is fun”, and the action system is no longer good, but only used to brush the monsters and mow the lawn is not much fun, which is also a major reason for the decline of the former 2.5D online games.

The core charm of “fate ark” is also being made in the complexity of the degree of change is comparable to the PVP PVE copy.

Legionnaire’s copy” represents the most difficult PVE content in “Ark of Destiny

“Legionnaire’s copy” represents the most difficult PVE content in “Ark of Destiny”, with the most magnificent performance, but also contains a variety of original mechanisms, playing for several years to play do not understand a large number of people.

The recently launched “Crazy Legionnaire” copy is one of the milestones, the whole copy can be called a party game that contains several mini-games, but it brings more than laughter, there are also repeated mass destruction when the fire attack.

PDD’s famous “pig brain overload” scene from the first time he saw the replica

From dancing with bosses to drawing ghost cards, from poker mazes to sideways jumps, it can take up to half an hour just to get a rough idea of the mechanics of the game, and it’s another thing entirely to be able to handle them during actual play.

A common scenario is that “you can’t even understand the online class”.

In fact, despite the fact that the copy has been online for two years, it is still challenging, and the strategies of players are still being optimized and updated. Just two months ago, players discovered a new trick - in addition to jumping to avoid incoming missiles in the horizontal levels, you can also use a quick turn to avoid them.

Apparently, it’s not uncommon to go to jail in order to clear these levels, and the pros are no exception. Underneath the content about Berly’s absence from the celebratory banquet for opening Destiny’s Ark, a player explained: “We play Destiny’s Ark in jail like this”.

Because the difficulty of these copies is based on variable mechanics rather than purely numerical values, players can get positive feedback for every small test they pass, so the emotional curve of the game is more like a roller coaster, rather than repeated “lost”, and even if they suffer a defeat, the sense of frustration is not so strong.

This is also similar to the fun of MOBAs. In addition to the final victory or defeat, the money, group battles, and beautiful maneuvers during the game can still bring positive feedback, and even if you lose, you will feel that you have grown, and you will still want to come back for the next game.

On the other hand, “Ark of Fate” is not the only copy to teach people to suffer, in addition to the “Legionnaire” such a difficult challenge, the game also includes the main grass-cutting Farm “Chaos Dungeon”, the gameplay is similar to the “Monster Hunter” of the “Star Guardian”. “Star Guard”, and “Tower of Fate”, a tower climbing mode that challenges you to your limits. ……

To put it bluntly, there has always been a slightly “alternative” group of MOBA players - those who like the simplicity of ARPG-like gameplay, but don’t want to bear the pressure of playing against people, and usually only play the human mode.

Ark of Destiny is, to some extent, the ultimate form of this “human mode”, in which players can seek challenges, but also pure relaxation and decompression.

Ark of Fate has also made a big difference from traditional MMORPGs in its update mode

In fact, from the operation point of view, Ark of Fate has also made a big difference from traditional MMORPGs in its update mode.

It is no longer the familiar type of story-led large-scale sourcebook that holds back a new chapter every few years; instead, it uses professions and copies as the main axis of content updates, basically maintaining an update frequency of three new professions a year.

The game now has more than 25 professions available

Again, this is more like the way MOBAs operate today.

As an MMORPG, the advantage of this update model is that players can more intuitively feel the development team’s “production capacity”, there is always fresh content to play; for the overall progress of the current lagging behind the national service, it also provides the space to preemptively synchronize the optimization of those who do not relate to the content, but affect the experience of the optimization of the space, such as the daily tasks of the burden, For those who are lagging behind in the overall progress of the national service, this also provides the space to synchronize those optimization patches that do not involve content but affect the experience, such as the reduction of the burden of daily tasks and the balancing of professional skills.

The original time-consuming and laborious daily quests have been optimized with the update of the “Crazy Legionnaire” version.

As for the drawbacks, some players often worry about “not being able to catch up with the progress”.

However, this kind of “progress” usually refers to “playing the highest difficulty copy at the first time” in order to maximize the benefits of material drops, etc. If we take this standard into consideration, the gap between different types of players will only be wider in a short period of time when other MMORPGs undergo a major version update. If we take this standard, when other MMORPGs have a big update, the gap between different types of players in a short period of time will only get bigger.

So on the whole, “Ark of Fate” is more focused on horizontal expansion than vertical expansion, and has a smoother update curve, even if the AFK for a period of time players back to the pit, usually do not face too much to catch up with the content, and soon be able to grasp what they have to do.

After all, as mentioned above, the core fun of the game is still to operate a variety of professions to challenge all kinds of copies.

This “fragmented” update mode also makes Ark of Fate more likely to become a “live game” than other MMOs, so that non-professional anchors can also experience the content update when they are interested in it, which is almost like a “grab-and-go” game. It’s more of a “take it or leave it” game, rather than a game where you have to stay on it for weeks or even months before you can finish it.

Likewise, it’s better suited for gamers who can’t commit to playing a game that isn’t their specialty for an extended period of time.

Conclusion

Back to the original topic: it’s certainly not the last few years that e-sports players have been getting into MMORPGs, and there’s a lot more to them than just Ark of Destiny.

After all, the enlightenment and growth of the e-sports industry cannot be separated from the culture of Internet cafes, and a decade or so earlier, MMORPGs were the protagonists in Internet cafes.

The so-called “gaming is work, MMO is life”, now comes with the attribute of old age MMORPG, originally is also the most suitable for the intense training career of e-sports players to continue to invest in one of the game types.

For those players who have achieved fame, they can choose to be a “big brother” in the MMO, experiencing the front and back support that is difficult to feel intuitively in the MOBA game; the same can also be an ordinary person who hides his achievements and fame, and rediscover the fun of being an ordinary online game player.

At the end of the day, since the birth of video games, MMORPGs are still the only type of game that allows players to play other social roles, and this charm is unique, and it’s true for everyone.