TLDR
- 26 hours to get from 1 to 90 on a clean slate.
- 1-70 (Season 1) sucked really badly. Made me not want to play the game
- Season 2 was very fun, I had such a blast it reinvigorated my love for this game
- Above average experience for a 26 hour rpg that was free
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I had the following buffs; clover, Tour of Duty, and VIP. The entire weekend 2x AP/Exp was occurring and some 2x EXP/AP on the weekdays as well. This let me skip side-missions from 1-60. After I got to Rocheste I wasn’t leveling fast enough to skip side missions before season 2 started. I had made this level 1 Delia when she first came out, because I wanted to save the name. I haven't logged in for a long long time so I had a level 1 Delia with a clover. This was on the same account as my Vella/Arisha/Hurk/Evie who are all Level 90 with 400+ titles.
I was really impressed with the changes they made to season 1 episode 1. The new ruins looks really good and the boss cut scenes are a bit less cheesy. I expected episode 1 through 3 to be a snore-fest and it was. Not much has changed here except that I didn't have to go back to town. Color me surprised when the game stayed super easy. In fact the entirety of season 1 was easy. And I don't think it was because I've played this game before. I was literally 1-shotting bosses WITH GEAR THE MAIN QUEST PROVIDED.
It took around 30 seconds to defeat Titan. I decided not to skip the trash mobs at the beginning thinking I’d need the SP. It took longer to kill them them than it did to kill Titan! And this wasn't something new. most bosses died in only a couple of attacks. For almost all of season 1 I never even got to experience the majority of Delia's mechanics. Plus, everything hit like wet paper. I was sorely disappointed to say the least. This wasn't an enjoyable experience at all.
It wasn't all bad though. The new loot system is awesome. I actually cared about picking stuff up because I knew it was going to be useful crafting material. The only problem was I found no reason to bother crafting gear because pre-enhanced gear dropped so often it felt like I was hacking. So while crafting would have been interesting, the entire system is unnecessary the way things are set up currently.
The same goes for enchants. I really like what they've done with the enchanting system, but again it's not even working my time to stop and enchant things. Not to mention your better off selling the elixirs on the market place rather than using them on low level gear.
The transition scene to the next season was well done. But because season 1 content was so easy and completed so quickly it won't be impactful to new players. I got to level 70 right as Season 1 ended. It was perfect timing, and I’m guessing players who did not have 2x AP/EXP, but did all the side quests would be level 70 at this point as well. I'd say I left Season 1 behind at around the 15 hour mark.
Season 2 was such a jump in difficulty I was surprised I actually had to play the game. This is when I started to enjoy playing Vindictus a lot. I still had level 60 armour with 6k defense which meant dodging felt rewarding. I'm so glad they got rid of the stupid map system. A lot of the battles feel like complete experiences and I really like maneuvering around boss mechanics. The only complaint I'd have is the raid bosses of very little HP. Most of them took less time to kill than the average season 2 battle.
Unfortunately, a lot of the quests from Season 2 Episode 3 were bugged. And I don’t mean the dialogue was messed up. It would kick you out of the game entirely with no warning if you did something a certain way. This was very frustrating as it takes a long time for the game to start up (even on an SSD!). What I do like is how the Season 2 Zones level up as you do. They're not all Level 70. As you progress through the episode the zone levels increased as well. They’ve seriously done such a good job with Season 2, it’s a shame with how much they’ve butchered season 1.
I reached Season 3 at Level 85. Keep in mind I still haven’t done any side quests because 2x AP/EXP event is carrying me. This was around 25 hours in that I reached this point. Also, fancy footwork on the first try, now that muir is easy to knock off the ledge.
I breezed through Ben Chenner until I hit a stopping point with Regina. I had to be level 90. No worries though, Autumn Bend took around 2 minutes to complete and gave 5m exp per run. Not to mention that it's also instant restart and no boat scene so it truly was "300 million exp per hour". Needless to say it took around 15 minutes to level to 90 from 87.
How did I keep track of exact timing? The revolution week 1 timer. I only AFK'd for around 2 hours collectively.
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