With Swords of Legends Online, a new MMORPG from China, was released in July 2021, which looked promising. It had an action-packed combat system, focused on dungeons and raids, and completely refrained from Pay2Convenience in the shop. However, the player numbers keep declining. MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch spoke with a player who has spent over 3,000 hours in SOLO.
What kind of game is this? Swords of Legends is a classic theme park MMORPG. You have the choice of 6 different classes, through which you experience a very linear story. Once you reach max level, you can choose from content such as:
- Dungeons and raids in three difficulty levels
- Housing
- Various life skills
- PvP in arenas or large battles on a special map
I myself played Swords of Legends for 80 hours in the beta and was very satisfied with the game. But the big breakthrough did not happen. Already one month after release, the player numbers on Steam dropped rapidly. Meanwhile, only 360 players log in daily on Steam, although there is also a separate client from Gameforge. The big success did not materialize.
Therefore, I talked to the player AdventureApe. He has already spent 3,000 hours in SOLO and has completed all the dungeons and raids. I wanted to know from him what fascinates him about the game, what the MMORPG has failed at, and what could save it.
In SOLO all classes can be played and there is much to grind
MeinMMO: What was the reason you started with SOLO and what do you find so good about the game?
AdventureApe: What fascinated me about SOLO was, on the one hand, the class selection. You don’t have the “one fixed group” to run dungeons and raids, as you do in Final Fantasy XIV or WoW. There is indeed a Holy Trinity, but in most cases, you can run with one tank and one healer. Many other games often require more healers or additional tanks.
This way, you can also gather a group more quickly in SOLO and play for the leaderboard with much faster records if you have many more DDs. The most popular DD classes include spear master, summoner, and bard, but all classes are playable. This is also part of what makes the class selection special for me.
Additionally, I like the Asian flair. I enjoy grinding MMOs, I love to grind, and that makes the game perfect for me. Especially in the endgame, there is a lot of grind, with the dailies and the weekly dungeons.
MeinMMO: Can you describe to us what a typical day or week in SOLO looks like for you?
AdventureApe: Sure. You start the day with a normal dungeon. You do that for the dungeon daily, as you can obtain text fragments and other items through it. After that, you should ideally do the weekly quests right at the reset.
On normal days, I then complete my other daily quests for bounties, the underworld, and PvP.
Once a week, you also complete your weekly raids. Currently, these are only Sparkwood Garden and Forbidden Court, the newest raid from November, in hard mode. Because everything else currently does not yield the equipment you want.
Most of the time I then use to farm gold because gold is super important in endgame to upgrade your equipment. You can then complete all the other dungeons, as each of them yields about 5 gold per boss.
Especially for the people who want to do housing, gold is particularly important. I have surely put 200,000 gold into my house. And there is a separate community that pretty much only plays housing and does little else in the MMORPG.
The remaining players are too hardcore, but new players are hardly coming
MeinMMO: How is the mood in the community and how is it with new players?
AdventureApe: Currently, the mood is rather bad. The endgame alone is simply not enough. Not because there is too little, there is enough to do for casual players, but the remaining players in SOLO are a hardcore community that grinds and farms way too much.
There are indeed always new players starting with SOLO, and there are also some casual players, but the majority of the community is primarily waiting for new content and new classes. Many have therefore quit in recent weeks and months but want to come back. We, on the other hand, grind to have more reserves than everyone else.
MeinMMO: What do you think SOLO has failed at and why are hardly any new players coming in now?
AdventureApe: One major problem, in my opinion, is advertising. When you look at other MMORPGs, even many smaller titles, they have more advertising than SOLO. In all my time since the preliminary reporting, I’ve maybe seen advertising once, and the biggest content creator who has tackled the game had an average of about 120 viewers on Twitch.
This may be due to them [Gameforge] having learned from the mistake with Kingdom Under Fire 2, where they paid huge streamers who then rage-quit the game mid-stream.
At launch, there was also criticism for the performance in PvP or translation issues, which were also addressed. Although new problems keep emerging, particularly a bug that makes PvP almost unplayable, work is always being done on that, and we expect a quick fix.
I found it funny that you regularly and also positively reported about SOLO, and were criticized for it. But the game is not bad, and aside from you, nobody had SOLO on their radar, which is really a shame.
MeinMMO: One major problem we identified was the very sluggish and boring leveling phase. Has anything changed in that regard?
AdventureApe: Sort of, with the first character you still have to struggle a bit. However, they want to introduce something with Update 2.0 that allows you to level up twinks much faster. However, this is not supposed to apply to the completely new classes.
However, there is already a mentor system through which you get bonus XP when playing with an experienced player. This way, you can already reach max level faster than at launch. And the mentor also receives useful rewards.
By the way, I don’t find the start that bad because the story is actually quite good if you invest yourself in it. It doesn’t reach the level of Final Fantasy XIV or SWTOR, but it can definitely keep up with Guild Wars.
A doubling of player numbers with Patch 2.0?
MeinMMO: What do you think needs to change for SOLO to get back on track? Can the game recover and attract new players again?
AdventureApe: The game will definitely recover and the player numbers will increase a bit. Alone in the German community, I know about 1,000 players who say they will return to SOLO once the Warrior and the Foxmage are introduced as new classes. And that’s just the German community.
I also think that the English-speaking community in Europe will also see some returnees. However, the NA servers are already a lot emptier, so I don’t know what the chances are of SOLO experiencing another hype. In EU, I expect at least a doubling of the current player numbers to Patch 2.0.
What Gameforge simply has to do is release the new content and new classes. The content is already available in China, and that is also one of the reasons why many remain loyal to the game, because they know what is still to come.
MeinMMO: Does anyone already know when Patch 2.0 will be released and what it will contain?
AdventureApe: It is currently said that the patch is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2022. It will then introduce the Warrior as a class and 7 new dungeons and raids. Additionally, the gear score will gradually be increased to 205. I’m not quite sure if the new max level will come with the update. However, there have already been two increases in China.
After Patch 2.0, it will depend on how quickly Gameforge brings new content. Initially, they did really well; there was an update every month, and the community was satisfied. However, the last content patch was from November, which the hardcore community cannot be kept busy enough with.
The toughest raids take a week or more to complete
MeinMMO: How exactly does the hardcore community play the content and how quickly do they get through it? Are there also world-first races like in WoW?
AdventureApe: New dungeons and raids initially come with a normal mode. This is usually completed on the first evening; for some bosses, you need a few attempts, but that’s generally not a problem.
In hard mode, most teams do not complete it on day 1. You need to have a very good raid group. The newest hard mode of Forbidden Court, which was released on Thursday, was completed by the first group of 10 players in about 7 hours.
The extreme modes can sometimes take a week or two to complete.
In the German community, there is also a desire to be the first to complete such dungeons or raids. However, there is no direct race for world-firsts internationally.
MeinMMO: And what about other endgame content, such as PvP?
AdventureApe: The PvP community is currently more active than the raiders but is overall even smaller. PvP is very skill-based, and the gear doesn’t matter much, which is why not all PvE players dare to venture there.
However, the animations of the abilities often lead to severe lags, especially in the large 300v300 contents in PvP. It can even happen that you suddenly take damage and die without seeing the opponent because the game has not loaded the model yet.
Mass PvP is currently hardly playable or if so, only in zergs, which greatly improves survival. However, that is usually only done for the dailies. Arena PvP works much better.
SOLO is actually a casual game that Europeans play completely differently
MeinMMO: You already mentioned that there is a lot of content available in China. How far along is the version there?
AdventureApe: SOLO is a casual MMORPG in China, designed so that you can always make progress, even if you play little. There, you pay for SOLO a subscription per hour of play, so the game is designed so that no matter how much time you invest, you can always get to the endgame somehow.
But we German players, and also the rest of the EU servers, play much more competitively. You can see this well in the damage numbers. The Chinese dealt about 17,000 to 20,000 damage with a gear score of 280. We achieved that with a gear score of 90.
Overall, the Chinese are currently at a gear score of over 500, making them still far ahead of us. While we wait for Patch 2.0, they already have Update 4.0, several increases in the max level, new areas, and 25 dungeons and raids that we will still receive. All dungeons and raids have three difficulties: normal, hard, and extreme.
There are now some EU players who have already installed the Chinese version and are “playing ahead” there to get a feel for future content.
MeinMMO: What do you think about the future of SOLO?
AdventureApe: It is important to know that there is a lot of content in China that can be brought to us. Gameforge just must not mess it up with long waiting times or false promises. In Kingdom Under Fire 2, for example, an update was promised that never came out, and the community has held this against them very badly. If something like this happens with SOLO, then all players will probably be gone.
Otherwise, Swords of Legends Online actually has all the chances and many good approaches. It will never be as big as Final Fantasy XIV, but it could easily reach a player base that makes the MMORPG financially viable for Gameforge and worth continuing development.
Anyone who is considering starting now should keep in mind that the game is currently at a low point. With Patch 2.0, a new class will come, and many players will return. That might be a good time to start with SOLO. It particularly appeals to players who enjoy Asia MMORPGs, have no problem with grinding, and like to run the same endgame dungeons and raids. And you have to cope with the dailies, as they really are the same every day.
A highlight that many are also waiting for is the update to Unreal Engine 4, which the Chinese version is expected to receive in the first half of 2022.
MeinMMO: Thank you AdventureApe for your time!
What do you think about Swords of Legends? What experiences have you made, and are you considering returning? Feel free to write it in the comments.
In 2022, several new MMORPGs will also be released. We have presented the most promising ones here:
