Do you ever surprise what occurred to Tower of Fantasy? The free-to-play shared-world anime sport that I absolutely anticipated to make it onto our checklist of the most effective MMOs? The one which bought some good buzz on Twitch again in 2022 as a possible Genshin Affect killer? Then you definitely could be shocked, elated even, to listen to that it is getting one more huge rework in just some days to convey it nearer to the unique expectation of it being a shared-world anime journey MMORPG, whereas maintaining it separate from the common model that I can solely assume nonetheless has some staunch defenders.
Launched worldwide within the second half of 2022, it did not take Tower of Fantasy very lengthy in any respect to, as the youngsters may say, “fall off,” as gamers both rapidly exhausted all there was to do or struggled to attach with what finally felt like a useless MMO due to how the motion sport filtered gamers throughout its open world.
Replace 2.0 got here just some months later, rapidly catching the worldwide servers as much as the Chinese language model of the sport launched the yr prior. That fastened issues for some, however it felt as if the harm had already been achieved. What adopted was a reasonably normal cycle of updates as seen within the different huge gacha hits of the time, however the hype died down as an increasing number of options hit the market. The truth is, the Steam web page remains to be highlighting a patch that launched over a yr in the past.
Now, Tower of Fantasy appears poised for an additional huge rework of its main methods. The ‘Warp Server,’ dropping in just some days alongside model 5.5, is a department of the principle sport that sheds normal gacha mechanics to convey the sport nearer in step with that unique MMORPG imaginative and prescient.
It contains issues like a ‘Crew Base’ used to work together and commerce with different gamers, ‘GvE Crew occasions’ that enable skilled gamers to spice up newcomers, methods for groups to set off Combo Assault animations (likened to these in Granblue Fantasy Relink by somebody we’ll get to shortly), in addition to “six new life courses” together with the Explorer, Cooker, and Forger.
It is billed as a “main leap in direction of the way forward for the sport,” and whereas the intricate particulars are nonetheless somewhat scarce exterior of the Q and A video above, a participant testing the Chinese language model of the sport posted a reasonably in-depth have a look at the adjustments to Reddit just some weeks in the past, revealing the opposite three life courses to be (roughly translated) Alchemy, Fishing, and Taming. You possibly can apparently solely study two at a time, so making an attempt your hand at a 3rd means resetting certainly one of your different courses, making it extra World of Warcraft than, say, Ultimate Fantasy 14.
The largest change right here is, for a lot of, the shedding of the gacha system. Weapons and characters can now be earned and upgraded by means of common each day play, mirroring how latest gacha launch Duet Night time Abyss eliminated its loot field mechanics between beta and launch, incomes it some strong consideration that helped it get away of the pack when it launched alongside extra hotly anticipated rivals like Stella Sora and Chaos Zero Nightmare.
Stat rolls on gear appear to have been reworked to be a tad much less tedious, too, with stage necessities and different-colored tier rarities bringing character development extra in step with conventional RPGs. And with stamina necessities taken out of the equation, you are free to grind as a lot as you want. Except you overpower a co-op expertise with uncooked energy, you “completely want not less than a tank and healers,” remarks our Reddit tester, bringing the sport vastly extra in step with a conventional MMORPG.
Does that alone repair the latest points with accounts supposedly being wiped after a poorly communicated migration? No, completely not. However if you happen to bounced off Tower of Fantasy at launch and did not purchase into its monetization practices, a contemporary begin with a completely new system could be simply the ticket.
Our aforementioned Reddit poster galavanting across the Chinese language server claims it “lastly seems like a correct anime MMO with loads of group actions” that “encourage correct teamwork and interplay between gamers.” And after falling off this one exhausting in 2022, again after we nonetheless believed Bandai Namco’s unique Blue Protocol imaginative and prescient would make it out of Japan, all I can say is, “lastly.” And with it launching on November 25, we’re solely a few days away.
