Friday, September 08, 2006

CABAL Online: A Post Look

Hey everyone,

Got some time between classes, so here we go.

As always, incase you havent noticed a pattern, I try to start every review with some info on the game for thos who arent yet aware. CABAL Online (English site) can be located at www.cabalonline.com, and has just recently debuted in North America. It is already released in Europe and has been in Korea for quite some time.

The basic premise is your standard MMO, with a gaining levels, and "owning" up PVP being your goals. Unlike many common MMO's however, Cabal has a max level of 300+ (may be 400 now), and thus it takes a LONG time to beat the games PvE content (Player vs Environment).

An immediate plus you'll notice is the questing system, uncommon in many Korean games, Cabal offers quests at every level, and if you arent super lucky and speed through them(IE, find the super rare you need in the first kill), they generally fill up your entire level. These quests are a little deeper than standard MMOs though, because they follow a VERY WELL planned storyline, give the obvious gold and exp, but also give honor. Honor is gained from quests and killing people in the "war" server(open PVP, with no names on players), and honor is lost when crafting something difficult and failing, or killing random people in a non-war server.

The main focus on the quests of course is to progress through the story and get honor, as you can only start crafting at honor level 1 (about level 50 after doing the quests). The crafting system is quite nice, as EVERY weapon/equipment that drops (there is no shortage of these), can be turned back into the material used to create new weapons. Each of these crafting techniques have multiple levels of excellence, and give multiple bonuses. Such as creating a new helm that gives +3 exp per hit, or 1% life steal, and so on. So I'd have to give it an A+ in crafting, as its truly an addicting and rewarding part of the game.

Not only does every player craft, but there is also NPC alchemists, which add "force cores" to items with slots in them. These force cores give some random effects (some not so random also), and can greatly increase the use of a weapon/armor. Another exciting aspect of the game.

However, its time to get down to the not-so-nice aspects. First and foremost, the game has adjustable stat points(something VERY important to me in an MMO), so as to differentiate your character from the others. Yet, in what seems to be a contradiction, the game also has required stat points to "advance" a rank. (Every 10 ranks for the first 50 levels give you a special bonus, I'll talk about those later) These required stat points are so strict, that essentially everyone of the same class type has the same stats, making the stat point feature quite useless IMO. I did notice that it started to ease up a little at lvl 50+, (50 was the max level of the beta I participated in), but the first 50 levels easily ruined it for me.

A unique feature of this game is the fighting styles. Every class type has hte ability to combo (you recieve it at level 11), and provided you have enough skills, you can combo forever, unless all of your skills are currently delayed. The useful part about combos is that when using skills in combo mode, they have no after cast delay, and thus you can kill things very quickly. Each time you combo, its uses some of your combo points, and thus if you reach 0, you must gain more back. This can be done by hitting enemies normally or with skills. I mentioned before about every 10 levels granting you a new ability, well everytime you fill up your combo bar (up to 5 full bars at one time), you can activate these abilities, and they turn you into a killing machine. The archer for example gets to wield 2 guns and shoot 2 targets at once (quite neat). These modes keep the grinding fnu as you can always switch into "aura" mode and deal out some quick damage when in need.

This is an excellent feature for PvE, and one would consider it brilliant strategy for PVP. But..then comes the potting(using healing items). Not only do healing items heal instantly, they heal for a retarded amount of HP, and thus in PVP, as long as both parties are potting, the battle could go on for hours...until someone runs out of pots. Its not strictly pot's fault, the level of defence towards attacks is quite severe. Critical Hitting a monster may have done around 800 damage for my force archer, but deals a measly 76 on a human in PVP. And with pots healing for 400+ you hardly have to mash them to stay alive. So I'd giving CABAL's PVP rating a 2/10, as its absolutley pointless.

Last but not least comes skill points. These are attained ONLY through using the skills, which take MP, and they can be gained from hitting anything. One of my biggest complaints was the skill training, which is basically jamming your skill key in the keyboard down and hitting a training dummy all night(training dummies take 1 damage and days to kill). Thus when you wake up in the morning you have lots of new skill points to use. And there is no level requirement for using these skills. So you could have a level 30 character with "Grand Master" skills, something I assume was reserved for at least level 100+. To make matters worse, even WITH these grand master skills you still cant kill anyone in PVP.

Overall I'd give CABAL a rating of 5/10, from the brilliant PvE and new combat techniques, paired with a wonderful crafting system. It suffers dramatically from forced stat points, horrid PVP, and skill point abuse.

Rating:
5/10

Advice:
AVOID

43 comments:

Berex said...

All i have to say about this review is that ALL YOUR FACTS ARE WRONG the cap level is 150 and you get your combo at level 10 not 11. Second i highly doubt you hit 50 in CLOSED BETA and that the Growth Stats are only for the first level 70 and you can usally hit the Growth stats within the first 7 levels of what level it says. I think its pretty obvious that you didnt get past level 20 and went off of what you read from a different source. The pvp in cabal is basically not button mashing like in the other games you probaly played and missed but it requires skill and knowing when to use what skill.

Anonymous said...

This review is absolutely horrible. The cap level is 150. Its in ALOT more places than Europe and Korea. "and thus it takes a LONG time to beat the games PvE content " LOL you can never "beat" all the content or any content in PvE for that matter. "Cabal offers quests at every level, and if you arent super lucky and speed through them(IE, find the super rare you need in the first kill)" The onyl quests like that are Dungeons, and 80% of all the quests are NOT dungeons. "Not only does every player craft, but there is also NPC alchemists, which add "force cores" to items with slots in them" Theres various other types of cores. "essentially everyone of the same class type has the same stats, making the stat point feature quite useless IMO" Dude, after level 50 you dont have to follow the growth anymore for the rest of the 100 levels you can play! HOW THE HELL does that make that feature useless? Oh and forget the quote this time I dotn wanna go near that review anymore, in there are 3 different versions of PvP, PK, Duel, and War. And in Duel you CANNOT use pots. Most of the PvP that happens outside of wars are duels(PKing has penatlies so people prefer dueling). Im done, get your facts straight before you say ANYTHING about ANY game ever again.

Xaren said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

xaren licks balls and needs to take the cock out of his ass. You're so uptight if someone shoved coal up your ass, they'd have a diamond in 5 minutes. Get a life and quit defending a bunch of pixels, nerd.

Anonymous said...

I have read this review and berex and xaren u are absolutely right. This reviewer has ABSOLUTELY no clue about this game. I have just started and find the game very addictive. As for someonewhohasalife..... really yo... if you have problems... personal/mental or otherwise... here is not the place for it. IMHO I would give cabal an 8/10.

Anonymous said...

Interesting review, I kind of enjoyed this game

Anonymous said...

your review is WAY OFF. In a NW you can break combos and use very unique types of skills in PvP. A common use to break combos is fade - your fingers have to be quick. Cabal has a very strong pvp unlike Wow's or other games garbage. Another thing is nw itself is strong strategy - generally its center first or capture the center in nw. wonderful game. strong graphics, excellent sound, very well planned story line - and the developers are always developing this game every month - new dungeons or features.

RedFlame said...

To all the previous posters: Read the date the review was posted. The game has changed a lot, I agree. But sadly I don't have time to follow every single game that I dislike, mark the changes, and update each review.

So please, get YOUR facts straight before you comment on a game that you most likely didn't play in 2006.

Psychotron said...

I have to disagree with this article. You're observation are are completely premature and doesn't really describe the game at all. I bet you never reached level 100 or dual Transcender. Cabal PVP is the best there is compared to other MMOs. This is the probably the only game that has alot more to offer when it comes to PVP strategies. Let's say WOW is the best online MMO but Cabal has the best PVP gameplay.

Unknown said...

i have played many many online mmos and cabal is one of the best.

my problem with them is very rude customer service. i had the misfortune of having to deal with them after my character was suddenly name changed by the games nazi like censors.

my in game name wasnt offensive at all and i have used it on many many games that are open to children under 18 w no problem.

in my exp you usually are not allowed to make a name that the games censor system finds offensive as it wont allow you to type it in.

finding out by suddenly dcing and relogging w a new and awful name at lvl 52 wasnt cool either.those issues should be handled way better especially for paying customers. its just good business.

I have a business myself and would never reply to an inquiry by a customer in the rude and nasty manner that I was treated with by the ogplanet staff.so on customer support and service they get a big fat F+

another recent problem i have is that last month the game has suddenly issued very high fees on their game cards ($5 per $20 card) so i probably wont be playing it past my paid membership as I prepaid 90 days before my name change.

now i was name changed at lvl 52 and im 96 now and lvling is very fast and non grindy with alot of interesting and varied quests .

theres a very nice crafting system for armors and buff potions hp pots mana etc.

cabal has an excellent war system for lvl 52-94 and then an hour long war for higher lvls every 6 hrs.special group dungeon event every 4 hrs also for every lvl group and just lots to do.

pvp is almost an art form and if youre into it certain servers have hardcore pvp crowds that gather to duel.you cannot pot during pvp as the game wont let you and you can gamble your honor points.

there are alot of different things that you have to lvl you lvl craft exp, war exp,skill exp and honor points but youre not forced into it.

you dont have to craft if you dont want to the game has planty of private shops and a nice AH with plenty of gear from those who do craft or nice drops...

eventually youll get your new skills but if you work at it go out and work on your skill exp then youll have your improved skill set before lazier players and therefore will have a better skill set hp and def (as your char gets stats when your skills "rank up")and thats all useful for war and pvp ..

anyway I agree that this is a horribly negative review of an excellent game and tho it has its faults (poor customer service,unduly high fees for using its game card) the game itself is just excellent and I had to defend it and let people know the game itself is an A++..


i really am loving this game and were it not for the nazi like and then rude behavior of their customer service I would probably have played for a long long time,but between the steep fee to use the game cards(which pays for the membership) and their piss poor attitude towards their paying customers I have already purchased aion and plan to try that or another online game when my membership expires.

it has a free version tho and most cash shop items can be bought with in game alz which is very easy to come by if you craft or sell drops so for those of you looking for an all around well done game thats free to play I would still highly recommend it.

i just wouldnt recommond paying for it though after how nasty and rude their customer service was...

RedFlame said...

PLEASE look at the review date (2006) before you make a comment. This game has probably changed drastically since 2006 and thus most of my review is probably out of date.

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Anonymous said...

Why don't you give up with the shit you're writing? All you do is making people angry with writing shits about the MMO's they're playing..

You are saying Cabal has 500 levels.. WTF.. You are giving to PVP 2/10? Have you ever fucking been in TG? WTF twice... nice pve and nice craft

YEA I bet you crafted A LOTS of ADEPT HELMS

Get a life or at leasts instead trying to ''review'' a game with just 1 hour of shitty playing try to learn it by giving it time like week or two

Hooker

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