Tomorrow, on July 9, the new MMORPG Swords of Legends Online (SOLO) will start. MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch has already played the beta extensively and introduces some things he wishes he had known before his first adventures in SOLO.
Who is speaking here? Alexander Leitsch is the MMORPG expert at MeinMMO and has already spent over 80 hours in Swords of Legends. He has summarized his main experiences with the new MMORPG for you and written some beginner tips.
1. Try all classes early and decide on one
Swords of Legends offers you 6 different classes at release, each with 2 specializations:
- Berserker – A classic melee fighter who can deal damage or tank
- Sword Mage – A DPS class that attacks with swords in melee or ranged combat
- Bard – A class with a string instrument that can deal damage or heal
- Summoner – A damage dealer in ranged combat who can also heal in the second path
- Spear Master – A melee fighter who can act as a damage dealer or tank
- Reaper – An assassin with scythes who can also be a healer in the second path
However, the leveling system is not very suitable for twinks. You will experience the same story and the same quests repeatedly, which can quickly become monotonous. However, you need to reach the max level for many in-game content.
The fourth, fifth, or even sixth class can become quite exhausting during leveling. Therefore, I recommend testing each class briefly up to level 5 or 10 and then deciding on one to level up to the max level.
Berserker 
Sword Mage 
Bard 
Summoner 
Spear Master 
Reaper
2. The real fun begins only at Max Level
If you want to dive into PvP arenas, group dungeons, or housing, you need one thing first: a character at max level. And yes, even twinks have to reach the student level 1 each time to experience this content.
But the fight through the sometimes quite tedious and monotonous quests at the beginning of the game is worth it:
- The action-packed combat system makes the many endgame content really fun
- Especially the PvP with the 3v3 arenas, Capture the Flag or the mass battles in a specific PvP area is well done
- For PvE fans, there are several dungeons that will be expanded shortly after release with another difficulty level and raids
3. The equipment system is extremely fair
If you first think of grind and pay-to-win regarding equipment when it comes to Asian MMORPGs, you are completely wrong with Swords of Legends.
You can obtain the best equipment quite easily through dungeons, crafting, or in PvP with arena currency. Additionally, equipment upgrades never fail and cannot be permanently destroyed.
For more information about the equipment system, you can find it here:
4. Cultivation is your best friend
Cultivation is a kind of tutorial through which you unlock almost all new game content such as bounty hunts, PvP, or housing. Additionally, you will find daily and weekly tasks there for which you receive good rewards in the form of gold or other currencies. All active events will also be displayed to you in a calendar.
By default, you open cultivation with the “J” key.
It’s worth checking cultivation regularly and completing the tasks there.
5. There is open-world PvP, but it’s not worth it at all
Upon reaching the maximum student level 1, every character gains the ability Bloodlust. Once activated, you can attack other players in the open world who also have the ability – meaning all players who have reached max level.
However, attacking a player who has not manually activated the Bloodlust ability will result in penalties:
- For kills of other players, you accumulate stacks of “Niedertracht”.
- If killed with many stacks of Niedertracht from other players, you end up in jail and must spend in-game time there
- In the beta, I had to spend nearly 5 hours in the in-game jail for two player kills
Moreover, there is absolutely no reward for killing other players, not even reputation, loot, or currency. Thus, the system exists but really serves no actual purpose. More about this can be found here: Players are confused about PvP in Swords of Legends – We clarify it.
6. Housing is cool, but offers no real advantages
When you reach student level 1, you unlock the new housing feature. Here you can acquire your own island where you can build and plant materials for house construction. In addition to building your house, you can also change the background music and determine the weather on the island.
Although housing is well implemented in SOLO, there is a small catch: the system is completely separated from the rest of the MMORPG.
Everything you grow on your island is only related to housing. Conversely, you can hardly do anything outside of your island to improve your housing, except for a few rare drops for music or gold that you need to gather for expansion. In my opinion, the developers could have done much more with housing, such as growing your own food for buff food.
7. Make use of the many side quests
Swords of Legends offers not only quests, dungeons, and PvP, but especially many small content pieces that you can complete in parallel, including:
- Bounty hunts, which you learn starting from level 20 and with which you can challenge bosses all over the game’s maps
- Treasure chests that you can find all over the world using the compass or special maps
- Mini-games like Bomberman or an in-game card game in which you can compete against NPCs
- A special origami world where you can complete jumping puzzles
- Classic MMORPG elements like fishing or cooking
These various elements particularly sweetened my playtime in the beta.
8. How to travel the fastest through the world
Fast travel in Swords of Legends works in several ways:
- First, there are small cloud symbols all over the map. These are activated when you approach them. Once activated, you can simply click on them and will automatically walk to them. This method is quite slow but perfect if you want to go AFK for a moment.
- In the capital Wolkenstieg and in your class area, there is a table with a map. You can use this to travel immediately to any area, but you will land there at a designated point. With the first visit to your class area, you also acquire a skill that allows you to teleport to the class area every 10 minutes. This way, travel becomes much faster.
- At a certain level (somewhere in the 20s), you unlock a skill that allows you to teleport anywhere. However, it has a long cooldown. You can find the skill in the spellbook under “K”.
With these tips, you should be able to travel through the game world much faster.
9. The really hard endgame is yet to come
The publisher Gameforge has already revealed in a roadmap how Swords of Legends will continue after release. Particularly fans of PvE content will get their money’s worth:
- In July, the first raid Xuanjiu Jade Palace will start
- In August, two more raids will follow: Waves in a Tempest and Horror of Huaixiu
- Later in August or September, two more raids will come: Ruins of Nuo and Ice World
- In addition, the first hard mode for the raid Xuanjiu Jade Palace is expected in September
Furthermore, new events and new dungeons have been announced for the end of the year. A new class is also expected, although it’s still unclear when exactly.
In China, the homeland of SOLO, there has already been a level increase, new PvP modes, and a total of 3 new classes. So content updates are ensured.
For more information about SOLO and the release on July 9, you can find it in this article: Everything you need to know about SOLO – the big new MMORPG in summer 2021.
