MechQuest Critical Analysis III: Uber Battle System?

Hey, who said all of these critical analysis posts would be negative? Not this one.

Any RPG that wants to make it to the big time has to have certain elements of its gameplay that put it in elite status. One of them is having an exceptional battle system. Since RPGs are centered around battling, it would only make sense that one of the most important aspects of the game be the battle system and its features. While AdventureQuest, DragonFable, and AQWorlds have some major battle system drawbacks, it is MechQuest’s battle systen which outdoes the rest, putting it in the necessary elite status to excel to greatness.

Before we examine MechQuest’s battle system, let’s look at the battle systems AE has concocted for its other games, starting with AdventureQuest. I won’t lie, I am no AdventureQuest specialist. I don’t play the game anymore (my level 37 character has been collecting dust for ages), and don’t plan to any time soon. While I can’t accurately describe AdventureQuest’s battle system, I can describe its shortfalls, as they are some of the reasons I ultimately quit the game. AdventureQuest’s battle system, while advanced and multi-purposed, is a slow and painful trek to the end. The animations are chunky and dull, and the slowness put me to sleep. The consistent damages not appearing over the enemies’ heads never helped either, as it would have been nice to see what kind of damage I was doing more than half the time. Overall, for a new player to the game (someone who hasn’t been playing since the beginning), AdventureQuest’s battle system never did it for me, and I much prefer the faster and more up-to-date battle systems of newer games.

DragonFable has much different shortcomings from AdventureQuest, and there’s really only one glaring weakness: Not enough depth. Yes, DragonFable fights are fast, fluent, and fun (alliteration FTW!). However, choosing your strategy is nearly 100% based on damage and resistances, nothing else. There are no other strategic elements to choosing which attacks to use. If the first weapon does more damage than the second weapon, the first weapon is most definitely the better option. All the time. There are a wide range of elements and weapons in the game, but it is so damage-reliant that DragonFable’s battle strategy is incredibly limited. Furthermore, on the subject of strategy, enemies have that same lack of unique special strategies. Their battle strategies are also based off of only damage, and if you can do more damage than your enemy, you will always win (and vice versa).

AQWorlds, AE’s newest concoction, is in its own little realm of issues. Creating an MMORPG battle system is an incredibly hard task to take on and ultimately succeed in doing, and while AE gets an A for effort, its ultimate results thus far have been kind of awful (and it’s one of the main reasons I haven’t upgraded yet). There are really too many holes in AQWorld’s battle system to speak of in this post, and deserves its own book, but let’s leave it at this: There are TONS of areas AE needs to work on, and I mean TONS.

Now, let’s move on to MechQuest. Maybe I’m biased, and I probably am, but MechQuest’s battle system is, without a shadow of a cherry of a doubt, the best battle system AE has concocted thus far. Many have drawn similarities between MechQuest and DragonFable. Battles are not one of these similarities. The foundations for MechQuest’s battle system were fantastic and solid, and the way AE (a.k.a. Warlic) has built on those foundations is truly awe-inspiring. MechQuest combines the best of both AdventureQuest and DragonFable, while leaving out what didn’t work in those games. It combines the depth and strategy of AdventureQuest with the fluency and elegance of DragonFable to form the best battle system AE has ever created, and it really is a sight to see.

The foundation that was set was beautifully done. Cooldowns and energy were implemented from the start perfectly, and the core battle system, heavily reliant on simply damage, energy usage, and cooldown remains the foundation for all of the new high tech stuff. In fact, you could very easily compare MechQuest’s battle system’s beginnings (i.e. Gamma/early Soluna City) to what DragonFable looks like now: The foundations for something great. And it ended up being great, too.

If you look at the progression from MechQuest’s beginnings to the present, you will see an enormous evolution. Now, while damage, energy, and cooldown are still very important in weapon selection, there are so many more elements to consider, making each and every weapon its own unique experience. It started with simple DoTs, stuns, and chances of bonus damages. Now it has evolved into an ever-growing pool of special abilities and effects, spanning through every possible idea you could think of: Immobility resistance raising, enemy weapon cooldown increasing, energy DoT, house-specific effects, it’s nearly overwhelming. Even mechs themselves, with their seemingly set in stone health, energy, and energy regeneration being its only attributes, have received upgrades, with tons of mechs coming out with immobility resistances, bonuses, and some unique ideas (such as the one-of-a-kind energy regeneration technique of Mysterious Johnson’s latest concoction).

AE has even taken a step further, starting to enter new realms of strategy by exploring weapon combos to create devastating effects. They’ve also explored build-your-own-mechs, forcing us to create our own setup. Who truly knows where AE will take it next? The great thing is, while so much strategy has already been reached, the possibilities for future enhancements remain endless, and it’s one of the key reasons why MechQuest’s future ultimately looks bright, even considering the awful creation time and understaffed team (;)).

To conclude, while MechQuest may not have a lot going for them, one of the things it does have is a unique and incredible battle system, which Warlic and Co. have so beautifully crafted. AE has proven with MechQuest that they can indeed learn from past failures, and it’s great to see that in action with MechQuest.