Let me tell you right away – the review is pure imho from a man who didn’t go neither this season nor last season beyond server #3 (which is now #4), but in played Allods 2 for a very long time and who in 2021 reached on this hat the Horror difficulty.
What was the problem before?
1) Falling out all the loot after death. Sure, it added some adrenaline to the battles, but it came down to endless non-stop farming rather than exciting gameplay. You necessarily had to create a warehouse, farm a warrior for a warehouse extra set of things in case you failed, and every time you lost a bag you had to spend a dozen hours again to farm the reserve again. This pushed you to play too carefully, demotivated you to explore the map, and caused tons of useless grind for nothing. Now the chance to drop and the risk is still there, but at the same time made so that you do not lose everything at once, respectively, and a dozen times less hours of stupid and boring grind.
2) About creating a bunch of extra characters. If you think about it, it didn’t really change much. I used to think it was a very strange decision that the first boosted stat on the Quest maps made it forbidden to go back to the Horror. On the quest maps there are no shops, respectively, and on the initial map has no scrolls, so you had to make a mule character to at least at this difficulty, so that when the warrior runs out of scrolls, there was somewhere to get them. Basically, the ability to go between quest maps and horror back and forth is a top solution. In any case, that before you had to make mule character by the time you passed the quest cards, that now – the essence has not changed. And then, in fact, and the second mule is not much needed – just as a safety measure for an unlucky failure, when you have half the stuff lost. In this respect, it became more convenient.
3) Bosses on the map began to have adequate accessibility. They are still difficult, they are still bosses and require special training, but before they were alone at the level of an impregnable fortress, only the most experienced player, having spent a ton of times the boss, all sweating could kill many of them (or the most fierce overkill on the map). Now it’s not even able to super hardcore, but the average average player. That’s a big plus.
4) Starting with a shop which shoot enemies. On the one hand, this may scare away newcomers, but on the other hand – those who are scared away, it is unlikely to have mastered the hat on. But for more solid beginners it’s a good opportunity to quickly learn the game controls, learn how to move, get used to the control mechanics and the game engine. And even if you don’t like such a start – it doesn’t weigh you down, because you get through 30 minutes at most, and then you’re already able to kill monsters without using shop missiles.
As a result: Hat is not become too easy, it is still quite complex, it requires patience, the need to think, tactically approach many packs of monsters. Leveling character is still a long, conceived spirit of the hat, preserved a great pleasure when you get a new rank of armor and really feel it, when you feel every unit of Attack stat, when progress is divided into hundreds of small steps, overcoming each of which brings great pleasure and thought “Yes, I made it!”. Killing each new monster that you haven’t tackled before is still enjoyable as well.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens next, but so far I like this season immeasurably more than the previous one.