I’ve only played Lost Ark CBT2 for a few hours (3 of us sharing an account) so the following is just a rough comparison. Max level for this second closed beta was level 50.
Content wise: Lost Ark > MU Legend (based on the first two CBT’s) > Devilian
What’s amazing is that Lost Ark’s CBT2 end game content is still fairly limited and just its 1-30 questing content from CBT1 surpassed the entirety of Devilian’s content (and then its questing/exploration content up until 50 surpasses what existed in MU Legend’s CBT’s). There is also an exploration system in the game which goes towards increasing the power (exploration level) of your character. I personally just did not have enough time to delve into many of the core and ancillary systems (I’d really need my own CBT enabled account to do that).
Refinement: Lost Ark > MU Legend > Devilian
All of the small little quirks in Devilian really add up to what ends up being a poor playing experience by comparison.
Game Controls/Combat: Lost Ark > Devilian > MU Legend
Note that both Lost Ark and MU Legend are far more traditional ARPG like in terms of game controls than Devilian. This one is a personal preference thing (Devilian has some quirks that aren’t really a big issue once its “ultimate skill” in a tree can be unlocked; those who never did get to max level will have a skewed view of its combat like believing there are no skill cooldowns and/or casting animations which there clearly is on the most strongest ones). Some of the minor changes made in Lost Ark’s second closed beta has improved the overall feeling of its combat.
Gameplay: Lost Ark (with some caveats) > Devilian > MU Legend
This one is based on my personal preference which I wrote about before where I mentioned MU Legend not having that impactful/visceral feel with its combat/gameplay. Lost Ark is just miles above the two with the exception of some over the top crowd control where your character can be be chain stunned/knocked down/immobilized where loss of character control really takes the fun out of the game play.
There’s ways to mitigate it as you get better gear and/or unlock skills though.
Mounts/pets: Devilian > MU Legend > Lost Ark
Besides one quest in Lost Ark where you ride a mount, the majority of your movement (outside of sailing) requires running around. The game eschews mounts for the use of waypoint portals. While they did add more of these waypoints, there are times you are still running around within a zone or hub just to get to the next destination or waypoint.
MU Legend does have mounts but their animations aren’t really rigged to be granular (so they look really stiff when riding them). Devilian wins hands down in this area (courtesy of the fact that they were able to draw on prior work done in TERA) including the auto mount/auto run feature. MU Legend has an auto move/pathing system (bring up the map and right-click where you want to move to on the map) but you need to always summon your mount first (which can be annoying to do with the open world mob aggro or if your character hasn’t completely stopped its prior action). Auto pathing in the second CBT for Lost Ark seemed to be disabled.
Other observations: Lost Ark has a fair amount of loading screens (zones, in quest transitioning, switching to sailing and back, etc) besides the ones used to transition to actual instances like dungeons or arenas in order to load balance the sheer size of the game world. Devilian and MU Legend also have each zone segmented like this where it isn’t a seamless transition. The loading screens during questing happens occasionally when there is some type of animated sequence/cutscene.
ArcheAge is a great example of how its entire persistent open game world can be traversed seamlessly (when traveling via foot/mount/vehicle, gliding, or sailing) so long as you aren’t using a recall or worldgate to move around. It’s game world is also fully explorable, has day/night cycles, and has an incredible amount of verticality which not even TERA’s world design comes close to. All of that positive immersion is unfortunately dampened by some game developer and game publisher decisions (if it weren’t for those “things”, it’s a game I would be seriously playing).
With that said, the zones in Lost Ark are still large enough where it feels like this very large place to explore. The sailing design is one area where it feels weak though and has more of an RTS feel when navigating the ocean.
Lost Ark’s overall visuals are very nice even though I am not necessarily a fan of all its aesthetics. I’m still partial to Devilian’s overall look/theme while MU Legend still comes across as somewhat blah.
The bad point about even playing any of these Lost Ark closed betas is that it really does make MU Legend and Devilian feel inadequate by comparision. And there’s still refinements that Tripod Studio’s will need to make to the game once they go over all the feedback from this second CBT.
There are still many players giving feedback about a 3rd person view for this game for example. To be honest, the game’s full potential is really lost by having gone with this isometric fixed camera (I know the desire was to have ARPG style combat and view). The game tries to provide some verticality for example where a character has to slide down a ropeway or has to climb up some roots/vines (but most of those movements are automatic once executed).
Character customization is also something not a priority at this point (limited visuals from armor sets and lack of cosmetics) compared to MU Legend and Devilian. There’s a point prior to their OBT release though where they need to show off character differentiation and customization.
Playing the MU Legend stress test today and leveling up (since they wiped CBT characters) to level 25 (Ohrdor was not available since they wanted everyone to remain on Enova in the same starter areas; so I just stopped playing once I hit the last main quest), it served as a reminder again with just how generic and uninspiring it feels. Note: the overall stress test itself of a single server actually went well since it was hard capped and I experienced no lag/drops (early on, there were over 200+ channels that had spun up in the initial starting zone). I guess I am just not personally fond of the overall gameplay and aesthetics of MU Legend which is why I only see myself playing it on the side once it launches.
The oft asked question many ask is when this will be released. No one knows exactly when except Tripod Studio and Smilegate RPG. My opinion is that it is going to be awhile before it even launches in Korea (I would say latter half of 2018 as being optimistic). For the west, it really is going to be awhile given the sheer amount of text dialog when it comes to the quest/story since any proper localization (the game does have english text strings but what I am talking about is localization of dialog and story which is far more complex to perform) is going to take time before this title will even see any type of potential test date in North America and Europe (I’m not holding my breath for anytime sooner than 2020).
