We took a closer look at Guardians of Ember. How does this hack and slay MMO play?
Guardians of Ember is a combination of MMORPG and hack and slay. It is currently in Early Access and is developed by Runewaker Entertainment, known for games like Runes of Magic and Dragon’s Prophet. The access for Early Access costs €18.99 at Steam for the cheapest option.
In this article, we share the impressions we gained during this testing phase.
Classes of Guardians of Ember: Great Choice in Character Creation
Before diving into the world of Guardians of Ember, you need to create a character. Guardians of Ember places a lot of importance on character creation. This is evident in the wide range of customization options available. First, you choose your race, class, and gender. The races available are Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Neia, who are described as forest spirits.
As classes, you have Warrior, Priest, Mage, Engineer, and Hunter at your disposal. Due to balancing issues, the sixth class Dark Knight is not currently in the game. In our test, we chose a Dwarf Hunter.
After deciding on race, class, and gender, it’s time for fine-tuning. This is especially fine in Guardians of Ember. In addition to the color of the eyes, hair, and lips, there are more detailed settings for body size, shoulders, torso, arms, back, and legs.
To give your character a personal touch, you can also adjust the head shape, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears down to the smallest detail. In the image below, you can see the many different customization options that you can use to design your character.
Compared to other hack and slay titles, such as Diablo, you have significantly more options and sliders for character customization. In Blizzard’s hack and slay, you can only change the appearance of characters through equipment.
If you are satisfied with your character’s appearance, you give it a name and then start in the world of Guardians of Ember.
The Start and First Skills
Right at the beginning of the adventure, the tidy interface of Guardians of Ember impresses. In the upper left corner are various shortcuts to guilds, skills, character overview, inventory, and general game options.
At the top right, the quest tracker is displayed, with which you can track current quests. The map, skills, as well as health and resource displays are located at the bottom of the game.
The interface appears manageable and not bulky – however, it could still be smaller and show more of the game.
In the image, you can see the orange circle on the minimap, which indicates the first quest target that you should move to. By now, it’s clear that this hack and slay is “different”.
Instead of just controlling with the mouse, you can also use W, A, S, D and can jump. Even if there seems to be no sense in jumping at first glance, it’s a significant advantage for most MMO fans. Just imagine games like World of Warcraft without a jump hotkey. Impossible!
The abilities are mapped to the left and right mouse button as well as the numbers 1-6. Potions for health points and resources are on Q and E. This layout is familiar from other games. If you prefer letters as hotkeys for abilities or don’t want to readjust from other games like Path of Exile, you can remap the skills to other keys.
After the basic explanations of control and interface, it starts with the well-known “Looting and leveling” principle.
Combat System Not Fully Developed
The quest system is familiar from other MMOs like World of Warcraft. You go to a quest giver, turn in the quest, and receive at least one new task. Through the various quests, you enter new areas and meet new quest givers who have missions for you.
For completed quests and killing monsters, experience points rain down, which increase your level.
After completing a few quests and leveling up, you can distribute skill points. Here, you have the option to enhance your skills by choosing different skill paths. At first glance, the system with its many possibilities and skill paths is confusing. You need to familiarize yourself a bit before you understand the various options. Until your character reaches level 25, you can reset these points for free and try out new paths and skills.
The implementation of these abilities is not well executed at this time. Guardians of Ember is described by developers as “a unique combination of hack and slash and MMORPG, focusing on action-oriented combat.” While the focus on fighting is understandable, the action is lacking.
Games like Path of Exile or Diablo III have fluid combat systems where speed is key. Using skills between or during movements is an important part of games in this genre. In Guardians of Ember, fighting does not feel as fluid. The attack speed is low and it takes a long time to kill some monsters.
Most of the monsters you encounter until level 20 only have normal attacks and no special effects. Foes with special attacks that you need to dodge or that you can counter with other attacks are rare.
During the early access phase, there were also delays in attacks. However, this may be related to server issues and doesn’t necessarily indicate a problem with the combat system. There were already problems with the game servers due to the high player influx at the very beginning of early access issues with the game servers.
Maps, Instances, and Public Events
While you walk through the various maps and areas that are green and vibrant in the early levels, you will encounter quest givers and wild mobs. The problematic waypoints sometimes lie at the other end of the area. To reach them, you first have to walk a long way, which can take several minutes. We didn’t find a permanent mount that could facilitate faster movement while playing. The horse you see in the picture was only available for a limited time.
When completing the first quests, you quickly come across instances. The glowing entrances are conspicuous and are highlighted by markers on the minimap. In these instances, many monsters await you, which you best defeat using hit and run tactics.
It felt like the monsters in these instances were stronger than enemies in the outside world and required a bit more strategy to defeat. At the beginning of an instance, you can also choose what difficulty you want to play it on. A higher difficulty promises better loot when you defeat the instance boss at the end. Here, you can unlock additional loot with keys available as daily login bonuses.
The login bonus can also be found at the small, inconspicuous gift icon to the right of the resources. Unfortunately, this small icon is easily overlooked, which can result in many rewards being lost.
In addition to instances, you also find public events while questing. All players in the active area can participate in these events. Generally, you will need to kill a specific number of mobs followed by a special enemy who has a reward for you. These events also provide additional experience and gold rewards.
Build Your Own House
There are also additional activities in Guardians of Ember outside the quest areas. For example, you can build houses and upgrade them with various furnishing items. You can use the house to store items.
Additionally, there are pets in Guardians of Ember that you can use to collect loot. Players can obtain crafting materials through fishing or when harvesting planted crops. In one of the first quests, you will be shown how fishing works in the game.
Conclusion
The combination of hack and slay and MMO works well in many areas in Guardians of Ember. Other players you encounter in quest areas and cities do not come across as intrusive. In search of better items, you automatically expand your adventures into diverse areas that create a gloomy yet peaceful atmosphere with their design.
The negatively noted aspects of the combat system can certainly be improved and made smoother, which could enhance the fun of the game. More variety in quests could also ensure that players remain more engaged with the game and have longer-lasting fun.
Guardians of Ember has a lot of potential, and we are excited to see how the game develops in the future. At the moment, it is still in Early Access.
What are your opinions on Guardians of Ember? Have you played it yourself, or are you waiting for the Early Access phase to end?
More info about Guardians of Ember:
Guardians of Ember: Player rush overloaded servers – problems now solved
