Progression: No Pay2Win Sins, but a Soft Gate
When you hear Asia MMORPG, several sins quickly come to mind that many genre colleagues get wrong. In Honor of Kings: World, there is currently no Pay2Win, no random modifiers for items, and gacha is available only for two of the many expensive skins.
But what about time gates? To keep players together at the beginning, there has been a trend in recent years towards time gates. The story continues next Monday
, which annoyed many players in Tarisland and its ilk. Fortunately, there is none of that in HoKW.
However, there is still a form of soft time-gating
. To continue with the story, you eventually need to reach a certain level, for example, level 31. To achieve that, you need to raise your world level – that is the level of the enemies in your instance.
However, you need to have your weapons, skills, and gear at the appropriate level for that. To do this, you may need to defeat bosses that drop upgrade materials. To loot these bosses, you have a kind of energy system that only fills up over time.
I can’t currently assess whether, despite this restriction, leveling up can be done in one go until the end. I myself am only in the mid-game after over 30 hours and therefore cannot say how this system develops in the long run. However, hardcore players shouldn’t be overly concerned.
Gameplay: Trapped in the Comfort Zone?
Since large parts of the game – such as quests, dungeons, and world bosses – are designed to be played solo, the gameplay experience changes too little at times.
While the PvP modes with the arena and an escort variant initially make a good impression, the PvE still lacks depth. The bosses, their mechanics, and the combat system are refreshing and fun. However, what is noticeably missing are challenges in the form of raids.
So far, there are none, which is a clear weakness of the game. The story and dungeon bosses I have played felt all comparable. I rarely had the feeling that I needed to learn mechanics and improve to master one of these challenges.
The gameplay is enjoyable due to its diverse events in single-player mode, but what I miss is the point at which you must leave the comfort zone and it gets really heated. Either you are too weak for the current world level or you defeat the enemies as easily as a hot knife through butter.
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