
I’ll be honest: I do not enjoy the combat system.

Whether that player is any good at being a healer is something else entirely – it’s best to find out before you all begin respawning at the nearest Anima Well, the game’s equivalent of graveyards. Someone with Rank 4 Healing in Blood Magic, for example, would naturally be a suitable healer for your party. Skill ranks are used in General Chat as an indicator of how invested a player is in a particular style. What are skills, you ask? They’re passive bonuses tied to each ability discipline – such as Swords or Elementalism – and broken down into either offence or support. While there aren’t any player levels, your progression is still measured by a XP bar that nets you points for your abilities and skills. It’s entirely possible to do so, the only expense being time, since The Secret World doesn’t have a level cap. Either that or you can work your way to creating a multi-coloured Ability Wheel, fully investing in all disciplines. It would be best to keep this in mind as you’re planning your character’s development, considering how there is no option to reset your points.
#Skill wheel secret world free#
With that said, this does not free players from the aforementioned, established Holy Trinity of builds, especially when it comes to dungeon content. What this translates into is a great degree of versatility while playing – one moment you’re using AOEs and snares for mobs, and the next you’re dealing gleefully-high amounts of damage against a monstrous boss. In The Secret World, you can invest points into any fighting style you wish, unlocking both active and passive abilities there’s a hotbar with a limited number of slots for both, and you can freely swap your weapons and abilities around anytime you’re not in combat. Its introduction to MMORPG The Secret World offers players a more fluid, less restrictive form of gameplay compared to the rigid Tank, DPS, and Healer classes that they might be used to. Ability Wheels, or free talent trees, are more commonly found in Action-RPGs, and give players more leeway with their character’s build. One unexpected visit by your recruiter later, you start the game proper.įuncom’s approach to The Secret World’s absence of classes is the Ability Wheel.

After meddling with the basic character creator, you’re treated to a cutscene where said character inadvertently swallows a bee, endowing him with mystical powers. You start off by choosing the Dragon, Illuminati or Templars as your secret society of choice (sorry, no local triads like ‘369’ here). It’s this distortion of modern day settings that initially sets The Secret World apart from its peers, sweetened by the fact that pieces of history, mythology and urban legend all come together to form a rich backstory presented by a great cast of voice actors.Įpic monsters aren’t what you’ll be getting within your first few hours of play, of course.

No, we’re not talking about misbehaving poltergeists or old demons with a penchant for little girls – we’re talking full-blown portals to Hell and great tentacle-beasts, ripping these major cities into a new one. Now imagine what they’d look like torn and battered by wars against the supernatural. You probably have a good idea of what London, New York, and Seoul look like. Yet for all its strengths and courage, I couldn’t help but walk away from the piles of undead feeling disappointed. While the MMORPG is a genre I have little time for now, Funcom promised this would be special. With no classes, no levels and no high fantasy setting, The Secret World was something that looked set to stir things up in the MMORPG cauldron.

‘Excited’ is how I would describe my reception of The Secret World.
