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State of Survival aka SoS is a RTS game with a zombie apocalypse theme. Despite it’s appearance SoS is not an isometric TPS, the mini game included is a short action game but this game is not a FPS where you aim and shoot zombies in an open world. Check my review to understand a bit more about SoS.
It’s been six months since the zombie apocalypse began. A virus has infected the city. While trying to survive this horror by yourself, you meet a young girl named Maddy and a military soldier known as Sarge. In order to survive, you are invited to a settlement by the leader of the survivor Becca. Help those people to build a settlement that survives the constant waves of zombies. This is where your adventure starts in the State of Survival.
At the start Becca and the other survivor will guide you through the tutorial where you will need to train troops, attack zombies, craft gear, upgrade buildings, micromanage you resources, defend your settlement and attack other settlement later on. As all RTS, the game is a race against time. The faster your settlement grow means the faster you will get access to better feature, units and buffs. The mini game is just part of the game to let you have some fun beside managing your settlement.
Playing a RTS game without the city builder part is simply impossible, buildings are the core of your game. They can be build anywhere inside your settlement and you can upgrade them to get additional benefits from them. Each of those buildings have an important role, here’s a list of them.
Second important thing in an RTS is your troops, those guys/girls who fight for you everyday. They have 11 Tiers for each unit and those are 3 type of units,
Troops will help defend your settlement or attack other settlement, troops and building. You need to set a formation, select the number of each unit, then send them to do their job. But you can do even better by adding specific hero for each type of units.
Adding heroes will give your troops a bonus buff depending the rank and skill of the hero. Hero can be obtain in Hero Search or by collecting 10 fragment to summon that unit. Hero have different rarity;
You will need to upgrade them to be able to use them effectively and for that you will need more fragment of that unit. Fortunately you will be able to collect them via events or converting hero fragments later on.
Another way to boost even more your troops is crafting gears. There is 2 type of gear
Both of them will give a good boost, you can upgrade your gear to a better grade later on. But the materials are hard to obtain so this make take a bit of time for F2P but you will get there eventually. Gear grade starts Green > Blue > Purple > Gold > Red, for now only chief gear can be upgraded to red but red hero gear is coming soon.
Let’s not forget about Badge, they can be equip in specific slots in the chief gear. They have the same grade system as the gear, so you need to craft it first then upgrade it later on. They also give a good boost to your troops stats. Someone with good gear and badge can be much stronger than someone with the same settlement level but with poorly equipped.
SoS does have a talent tree which let you obtain skills and buffs for either economical or war purpose. You will obtain points each time your chief levels up, currently max level for chief is 60. You can mix both of the talent to your choosing and can easily reset talents if needed.
In order to kill zombies, save people and join rallies, you will use stamina. Each activity consume a certain amount of stamina, you can lower stamina cost by using a hero call “Travis“. You have normally 200 stamina at max, however you can stack more stamina over that number but it’s not recommended. As stamina regenerate after time and you would be wasting precious stamina not letting it regenerate.
Note that the explore inside your settlement does not consume stamina as it uses another bread instead. Bread also regenerate and have a maximum of 100, you can also stack bread. But after your done with the explore, you won’t comeback to play this mode anymore later in the game.
Although this is only a small part of the game but we see sit in so many in trailers of SoS. Exploration is a isometric action game where you explore an area with 3 of your heroes. The area is divided into 2 phase, first one is where they can move and collect resources and second one is the fighting take place. When fighting phase starts, your hero will take their respective position. Rider and Hunter will always be at the back and the infantry hero will be in front.
Normally you get 2 waves of zombies rushing towards your heroes and the last waves is always the boss. You have different type of boss which have different attack pattern, this is where different type of hero shines. Events also does have exploration mode but only the fighting part and only the boss fight.
In the end, exploration is fun when your still have weak heroes but gets boring to watch everyday and is one of the activity that takes more time in Intel. As you can see it’s not a TPS as you don’t really commanding these units to fight. They will just auto shoot on their own and use their skills when you have enough energy in the charge bar.
Farming is part of the game but you will send some units on a resources tile for gathering. Be careful as the risks of tiles attack!! Hoarding will make you a target for sure even you can defend yourself on 1 vs 1 but you won’t be able to defend against a Rally of multiple player.So to avoid all of these, farm only when you need too or when there’s an event and don’t hoard resources unnecessarily.
The game is a 3D graphic as a PS3 game, although in exploration mode the graphic is a downgraded 3D version. Buildings are animated, you can see people or zombie walking which you can interact with. Outside you will see zombies, infected fiend(a mini boss), settlements and march units, all of them are also animated.
The heroes received a lot of love and attention in details. They are unique and different from each other, it would have been nice that the zombie received the same treatment. The zombie look ugly, look they only drop a skin on a rigid 3D model. For a zombie apocalypse game thy could at least give them more details.
A zoom in or zoom out option, a lite mode when outside the settlement for faster loading. You can visit other people settlement which not many RTS have this feature. The UI is clean enough to not interfere when your playing, red dots can be annoying to see for some people.
State of Survival controls are limited. This game uses a queue system, meaning you can do 1 action at a time. Same goes for your army, 1 army at a time. You cannot select multiple buildings or army which make things more tedious and old school. Expect a lot of tapping to do simple tasks and to play a RTS game after all.
In the exploration, only the front unit can move to different spot. The skills of the each unit can be trigger if your not using auto, some unit can deploy a turret or traps and require you to place them in a different spot. Note that these spot are limited to 6, let’s say you have not full control over them.
The main background theme a guitar soundtrack mixed with some relaxing country music. They do change the music to different version of the main theme depending on season or event. The exploration has it’s own zombie rhythmic music that match the zombie apocalypse theme. Each hero has a voice actor even they say only 1 line all the time.
The sound effects are very well done, you can clearly hear the sound of different weapon shooting, hitting and exploding. Different zombies have different sound effect like grunts and screams when you fight them in exploration.
As a RTS game, SoS requires a lot of your time for early on. Once you reach mid game, let’s say settlement level 25, things will slow down considerably. So early require you a full attention of 1 to 12 hours of active game play everyday. Around mid game 1 or 3 hours per day and finally you reach the end game is only 1 hour per day to complete your daily quests.
Now if your going to participate in event such as Trap, Reservoir and Capital. Prepare yourself to add several hours together with your daily 1 hour. Unfortunately you can’t play passively by doing only dailies and log off. As you will set back your account progression and you will end as an easy target to bigger player.
Remember that your not playing this game alone, if your in an Alliance, please do your part as a player and be active for at least some hours of the day. Playing passively will slow down your Alliance progression and you will end up being a burden for everyone.
State of Survival is a very F2P friendly game, only limiting factor are the resources and time. So you can say you won’t meet any paywall, nearly all the resources you need can be obtain by playing the game everyday and participate in events. Biocaps are fairly easy to get, your second builder can be bought with Biocaps for a limited amount of time. One of the only game where you can upgrade and buy VIP status with in game currency.
However the game is also heavily P2W as the cash shop gives those who is ready to spend, an overwhelming advantage compare to F2P. Recent updates making the gap becoming valley between cash player and F2P. Skins, frames, march and some heroes or fragment can only be obtain via cash shop. Skins and frames are exchangeable with tickets but the amount of ticket you will need make it a Cash feature.
Now some of you may say it’s P2W but if you think of it. State of Survival is a RTS where you can’t solo to win. You will need an Alliance help to progress and you will need to help your Alliance to grow stronger to compete with other player. That include both F2P and P2W together which make a sort of balance in the game.
Of course not all state have that balance, some have real power balance issue where an alliance consisted of only Cash player. Apply Tyranny on the whole state until they get bored or eventually kill the state. So in the end it will depends on what type of people you will be playing in a state that will make this game hell or heaven.
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As expected from a mobile game, State of Survival has a cash shop. You will find monthly subscription, daily package, resource package, VIP package, hero package, time limited package, biocaps package, top up package and let’s not forget season pass. Price varies between $0.99 to $100 which is the typical value of micro transaction in a mobile game. Player should be careful as you can easily spend $300+ with buying small packages.
The advantage of RTS games, they tends to stay for a very long time as long as they keep updating the game and keep the player happy with new events. Even that State of Survival is starting to show some aging in terms of old mechanics, they have enough player base to continue for a good amount of years. Merging dead states and having state vs state will always keep a competition between player and help extend it’s life span for quite a long time.
Become a fine strategist when competing against stronger player or alliance, learn the art of war with your alliance, share knowledge between each other. Micromanage your resources and try to challenge yourself everyday how to run your settlement. Meet with other people around the world, create new links and also new friends or even more. Take responsibility as an alliance leader or even as a single member, this game is a fine to learn strategy, management, communication skills.
Regular maintenance, bug fixes, they are at least very active in maintaining the game, they also do add some new stuff to the game even things has been a bit boring lately.Recurring events weekly and new ones at once every 2 month.
They notify you in advance with patch notes, so that you can download patch in advance to avoid server overload on updates. So you can prepare yourself to keep resources for incoming events. New heroes are added every 2 or 3 month and they do have some interesting collaboration recently like Daryl of the walking dead series. The current one is the joker collaboration which is still going on.
Yes, you should try it. If your a fan of zombie apocalypse and you like RTS game, this game is for you. Don’t let the P2W part bother you too much unless you want to be number 1 in your state. Compare to other game that require you to purchase a specific item to upgrade your HQ. SoS is surprisingly free of those and don’t have paywall.
While it’s true the game has both P2W and F2P business model, they are both legal way for a company to obtain revenue. Luckily you can play the whole game for free and unluckily some cash player may enjoy bullying you till you quit. Remember this is a war game and not a farming simulator game where you can only play the PVE part of the game.
Having a hard time in a state, does not mean that the game is bad and that other people should avoid playing it. If your state environment is terrible, you can always move to another state to start over. As you acquire experience from playing, you will learn how to really survive as both F2P and P2W in a state. So be smart, learn from your mistakes and rise up with a Winner mentality, try to be positive and not Toxic to others.
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MIR4 is a typical MMORPG on both mobile and PC, with good cinematic, graphic and game play. MIR4 doesn’t bring anything new than the other popular giant of MMORPG game however it’s the first one to have a real play to earn aspect in this genre.
In ancient time where gun didn’t existed yet, you are a disciple of the great magus Sarmati. Your master is guarding a princess while proceeding with your training. Unfortunately the princess is kidnapped and this is where your journey going to start.
After you finish choosing your class, you will start with a little cinematic. Then the tutorial will pick up and show you the basic. Note the tutorial will pop up during the story if some new or key information that need to be learn or to be understand.
The tutorial is neat, you will barely notice your in a tutorial as it’s well mixed with the story itself. After learning how to move, attack, use a skill, use a potion, jump, meditate, mine, etc, you will start doing some small task known as quest beside the main story.
Before we start going into the world of any MMO, creating the character is the most important part of it. In MIR4, you will have the choice between five class:
Did you know you can switch between those classes? Really that would be awesome!! Instead of creating a new character in a different class, you can simply switch class when you reach level 50. You will have to pay some copper to unlock it, choose wisely as it will cost you Gold if you want to unlock other classes.
It’s important to know that you will have no equipment and you skills will be as a new character. The only thing that you will keep are the accessories, level and Codex achievements. This mean by changing class you will have to save some resources to be able to craft some gear.
You are free to explore the world but i strongly suggest to stick to the story to unlock every features and area of the game and this will avoid you any unwanted death early on. Dying multiple time will give you a negative buff(debuff), it will make you lose around 5% experience per death and you may drop some copper and potions too.
So to avoid dying against monster and player in PVP, the game has put a power level indicator so that you can evaluate your own strength before going for any quest. Power can be obtained in multiple way:
Crafting is the very important part of MIR4, as most of the end game gear needs to craft. The crafting is rather simple, find the ingredient listed in the recipe then pay some Darksteel and Copper “et voila!”. Thankfully those materials location or method of procuring them is given by the game, all materials drops in this game, it just take some times to collect them.
Crafting has also a grade system such as your Gear, Spirit and Magic Stone. Uncommon, Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary are the only type that can be obtained currently. Of course to craft common material you will need Uncommon material, it’s a pyramid system that let you use even the most basic resources.
You can also combine 4 copy of a same rarity materials, for example 4 common spirit has a chance to become a rare spirit. Seems great until you realize that there’s a % of success and failure for every rarity. Most of the time you will fail and lost 3 material in this process, however the game has a low pity counter to help you get a 100% success change.
For fighting those monster, MIR4 has a semi automatic combat. One tap and your character will start hitting a 3 hit combination attack, if your you didn’t tap any skill after during the combo, it will automatically use a skill after the combo.
Of course you have a dodge which make you invulnerable like in dark souls but with a cool down of 10 second. The dodge need to be tapped by you as the auto won’t dodge for you, that why i said semi auto combat. Dodge is very helpful in boss battle, as boss has skill attacks that’s normally telegraph giving you some second to dodge it. Failing to dodge may result in death as boss can 1 shot you with his skill.
Normal monster don’t have any aggro, so it’s safe enough to run through them. But be careful of mini boss as those guys will aggro and will make some monster around them go wild too. Note that mini boss have skills too and some of them are dangerous enough to show you the Red warning zone.
Killing monsters grant you experience, copper and sometime a random loot. Some loot can be traded in the market for gold. Gold represent the cash bought in game but can be dropped very rarely by a giant gold goblin.
You have 13 skill in total, 1 ultimate skill which doesn’t have a cool down but need to get charge up when you hit enemies and the 12 other skill are your bread and butter with cool down. Each skill can be awakened up to Tier 10 for additional effect later on.
The game does offer you other instances to play. Here are some of them
Quick notes:
The graphic is a good 3D from unreal engine, everything look gorgeous from the environment to the characters. A very clean UI where you can hide info you don’t need to see a clean screen with no red dots everywhere. They do have a nice character creation with enough detail for you to create your fantasy character although class are gender locked.
Even is the low power mode screen is a cool dragon head with glowing eyes, it’s cool compare to many screen savers in game which is a dull blade screen only.
Cosmetics does have stats but are cheap enough for you to grab it with Gold that you can obtain via trading. They have skins for weapon, head, body and cap, let’s not forget about mounts too. All of those skins are customizable by changing it’s color. Good enough so that you do not look like a clone army playing together.
A very good control of the character, easy to use skills, dodge button is at a good spot. I only hate how the jump work in MIR4, it’s like you are on the moon with no gravity which mess up your timing when jumping to some area. The air walk is like the one in blade and souls but you can air jump anything.
Good music, good sound effects, good voice actors, i can only say good thing about them. No real complaint here, don’t let the volume on when your mining they make weird grunt which sound a bit like moans, you have been warned.
Around 1 or 2 hours of active game play to complete the daily quest and i would say 8 to 24 hours of passive game play. Yes, 24 hours if your going to leave your character farming afk or mine all day if you want to keep up in the server rankings.
Yes, MIR4 is a very F2P friendly game, nearly all basic resources that are needed for your progression can be farm. They give you a good amount of freebies and you can obtain Gold quite easily in the market.
However, they do give you a hefty amount of buffs and goodies to boost your progression if you decide to spend in this game. Recently they have been adding more battle pass which have increases the gap between F2P and P2W.
The typical cash shop with package varying from $0.99 to $99.99, different package depending on your budget, beginners package, summon package, etc. The daily reward package are sadly not monthly, they are only for 14 days and the monthly pass is only worth it if your going to complete all the quests. Summons are a bit expensive but they do give you daily summons that you can buy with copper to compensate.
After you finish the tutorial island, you can start mining Dark Steel in the Valley, Secret peak, Magic square or by completing some daily quests. However you can only exchange your Dark Steel when you reach level 40, you will need to create a Wemix Wallet to be able to exchange your Dark Steel for DRACO. DRACO is the crypto currency that you can exchange for real money. Check the update for the new exchange known as Hydra.
Selling your character as an NFT is now possible, so if you decide to stop playing MIR4 and if your character is withing the power score. Convert your character into an NFT and sell it for some crypto. Price may vary depending on your gear, pets and also the market price.
Ads has been added, you can now choose to watch some adds for a currency that you can exchange for summoning tickets.
MMOPRG game can last for years, in case of MIR4 with the achievements, codex to fill, missions and requests, boss raids ,resources farming and clan raids. With the current pace the game gonna last for years if they continue updating the game with new area, boss and story.
For a casual player MIR4 is borderline an addictive game, the more hour you put in the game the more rewarding it is. Now that you have that in mind, remember that nearly all the MMORPG game does the same but you don’t have to play this much to enjoy the beautiful world that the game is offering you. For those who never play an MMO, MIR4 offer you all of it’s content from raising your character from zero to hero, managing transaction to earn money, dealing with good and bad people, meet other people from around the world and creating new relation while having fun.
New maps, events, new raid boss and soon a new class too.
Yes, if you like MMO and have at least some time on your hands, definitely try this game. With mobile flooded with autoplay MMO with no reward system, MIR4 manage to make you earn ingame money and also real money by being mostly afk and letting the character auto farm for you when your working or doing other stuff. Of course you can turn off the autoplay option and enjoy the game as a classic MMO.
