RaiderZ is a solid multiplayer action RPG. It has the familiar quest-style

system and incremental character and gear advancement, but the combat is more

reactive than a lot of current games, similar in style to the system in

TERA. Instead of locking onto a target and hammering a bunch of skill

buttons, the enemy needs to be kept in the crosshair or in a frontal arc.

Blocking and dodging are accomplished with mouse clicks and movement-key-taps,

and they become increasingly important as the player gets deeper into the

game.

Left-clicking initiates a default attack, and holding the left mouse button

can initiate a string of combo attacks, culminating in a powerful "finishing"

blow. Sometimes this works out fine, but combat is often very dynamic. Enemies

are not content to simply stand there taking a savage beating. They dodge

around, use charge attacks which interrupt combos and push their opponents

around the battlefield, block with shields or weapon hafts, and generally seek

to gain advantage in battle. This can be challenging for players used to

fighting dumb AI where the enemy mob's sole tactic seems to be charging into

melee combat. It makes even trash fights more exciting and dynamic.

It looks pretty epic, but this

is actually a fairly average low-level landscape boss fight.

Boss fights are a core element of what makes RaiderZ the game it is. Every

region has at least a couple of big baddies that require a group to take down.

Some of these epic monsters are sealed away in instances, but some are roaming

around in the open world - these are the ones that are typically farmed for

drops, and getting in on those drops may require some begging to join farming

groups. On the plus side, if you are only interested in the fight for

completing a quest, you can get kill credit by contributing to a fight even if

the monster is "tagged" by a different group. On the minus side, if you're

looking for drops to craft a full gear set and the drop rate is low, you may

end up fighting the same boss seven or eight times with an ever-shifting

farming group.

Additionally, some enemies have some surprising combat characteristics. For

example, if you hit some monsters hard enough and in the right spot, you break

off a piece of them that gives you a combat bonus when you pick it up. For

example, you fight some crabs and lobster-men early on. The crabs drop crab

meat, which you can pick up for a brief combat buff, and the lobster-men drop

spears which have powerful special attacks and can take out the other

lobster-men in two hits. Epic enemies are even more amusing - some will pick

characters up at random and fling them around like rag dolls, or smash them

into the ground like meaty fly-swatters, or even swallow them whole and chew

on them for a bit.

The key to winning fights is learning how to fight defensively as well as

offensively. Certain character classes do just fine going all-out offense, but

squishier characters will have a much easier time of things if they remember

to dodge and block once in a while. Characters can block attacks by holding

down the right mouse button - this brings up the shield, or holds the main

weapon defensively if no shield is equipped. Blocking attacks can have varied

results. Shields can completely negate most standard attacks with a satisfying

KA-CLANK! sound, or they can mitigate a large portion of the damage. Some

attacks cannot be blocked - special attacks from boss mobs, for example, like

the kind where one of them grabs you up and swallows you whole. In these cases, it's

better to attempt to dodge the attacks, because you can't really block

while being chewed on.

"When my batting coach told me,

'Be the ball,' I didn't think this was what he meant..."

All attacks are directional - swing your weapon in one direction and you hit

any mob in an arc within that range. Throw a magical bolt in a given direction

and it will crash into whatever monster is directly in its path. Monster

attacks follow the same rules as PC attacks, and most regular mobs require a

bit of setup time for each attack. Many of their attacks are quite

easy to dodge just by moving a few steps to the side after each swing.

Double-tapping a direction button performs a rolling-dodge move, getting the

character out of harm's way faster than just walking.

In a well-executed, one-on-one fight against an on-level normal mob, the

character can time his attacks, dodges and blocks just so, and avoid taking

any damage. This works just as well with early-game bosses, too. Watch for

tell-tale signs, be ready to move fast and you can easily take on powerful

enemies without undue risk. Sometimes, though, all it takes is one misstep to

throw off the timing and bring everything to a painful crashing halt. Players

with high network latency, be warned!

There are four basic character classes:

Defender is the melee defense class. Specializes in heavy armor and

sword-and-board attack skills.

sword-and-board attack skills. Berserker is the melee offense class. Specializes in heavy armor and

ridiculously massive two-hander weapon skills.

ridiculously massive two-hander weapon skills. Cleric is the healer. Can eventually wear chain armor, but cloth armor is

the better option in early levels.

the better option in early levels. Sorcerer is the magic offense class. Best paired with cloth armor and a good

staff.

The classes are basically jumping points rather than hard-wired, inflexible

career paths. For starters, any character can use any weapon, but certain

classes will make better use of some weapons than others. Clerics, for

example, can use all of their skills with maces and staves, but if the

character equips a sword, he can no longer use his healing skills. Berserkers

trying to outsmart the game by equipping a shield and one-hander for extra

defense will find that their big power-attack skills no longer function.

This can be offset, however, by the ability to select skills from other

classes during level-up, once certain criteria are reached. Essentially, the

player is locked into one class role for the first 10 levels, and can then

start branching out into other classes.

Again, though, care must be taken when selecting cross-class skills. With my

Cleric, I played most of the early game with a one-handed mace and shield.

Around level 12 or 13, I took a skill from one of the melee classes that gave

me a powerful charge attack that interrupts enemy attacks. For a while, it

felt awesome and invincible. Until I noticed that other Clerics were healing

for way more and doing way more damage while using a staff and wearing cloth

armor instead of leather like I was using. So I made myself a staff, and my

heals were about 50% better... but I lost the use of the awesome charge

attack that came from the Defender skill tree, because it required a

one-handed weapon and a shield, so the staff didn't cut it.

Speaking of crafting, it's very simple in RaiderZ. You don't need to grind

for mats to level up your Sewing skill and then find the right recipe to make

yourself some kickass new pants - you go out and get the stuff and take it to

the relevant craftsman in town, and he does all the actual crafting work. Each

craftsman has a list of recipes he can make for you, and each recipe has an

associated "quest." Click on the "get recipe" button in the barter window, and

a material-gathering quest is added to your quest journal. Once you have all

the stuff you need for the item you want, you get a notification and can then

return to town and get the thing made. And it's a good thing the crafting

system is simple, because it's essentially the only way to get gear.

Crafted gear comes in four varieties: common, uncommon, rare and legendary.

Common stuff has white names and typically requires only basic materials to

make; it's really only useful if you haven't upgraded your gear for several

levels and don't have the level requirements for the next step up. Uncommon

gear has green names and can be enchanted and slotted with non-removeable

upgrade gems, and typically requires more materials to make. Rare items have blue

names, usually have superior stats to uncommon gear of the same level range,

confer set bonuses when multiple pieces are worn, and require materials looted

from epic enemies. Building a full set of rare gear can involve "farming" the

same epic monster several times. Legendary gear has purple names, and players

won't encounter this powerful stuff until late in the game.

The only issue I had with crafting - and it is a fairly minor one, really -

is the sheer volume of materials involved. I'm a pack-rat, see, and I never

get rid of crafting materials or anything that I might find use under some

marginal set of circumstances in the hazy future. But there are so many

different crafting mats that my bag got loaded down fairly fast.

High-quality crafted gear is usually bound to the character who makes it,

but the materials required to make it are not. This means the (auction house)

won't be flooded with over-priced green and blue low- and mid-level gear, but instead,

with uncommon boss-drop crafting materials being sold by farmers and campers.