Rakion: Chaos Force/Gameplay

Rakion is a free, three-dimensional, fantasy action online game developed by the South Korean company Softnyx. It was in a free "closed" beta testing from August 11 - 25 2005, in a limited group of countries (which included the United States, the UAE and at a later date, Europe).

It switched from development to open beta testing on October 13, 2005, which ended on December 1, 2005. At this point, the game began to follow a similar model to Softnyx's other MMOG, GunBound. Users may purchase "Softnyx Cash" with real-world currency and spend it on "Power User" status (which offers various benefits and unlocks further ingame purchases) or items that are often very powerful and not available to the non-paying public.

Story
Very little story has been released for Rakion, however what has been released indicates that the battles in the game are part of a wider series of conflicts over "cell" - a substance that can summon new life, focus energy and several other things. Rakion takes place after a large war - many of the ingame texts reference how things used to be in that war, or that an item is a remnant from that war. There is also Alcon (a place, person, or substance), which is believed to be a great evil which is mentioned as poisoning one map and distorting the properties of many creatures.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Rakion is similar to many third or first-person shooter games. One uses the WASD keys to move the character around, and the default camera is FPS style, though the player's character can be seen. A secondary console control camera is also available. Characters have a variety of combos and attacks, and all characters have both a ranged weapon and a melee weapon that can be switched between by pressing "Q". The camera is rotated by the mouse, and the attack buttons are the left mouse button (C1) and the right mouse button (C2, used most commonly for special attacks and special combos). There are six different game modes in Rakion (Stage, Team Deathmatch, Solo Deathmatch, Boss mode, and Golem). A level limit may be selected when making a game. Players also have a "basic mode" option that does not take into account statistics and creatures, making all players in the match equal.

Classes
In Rakion, a player is a member of any of the five classes. The choices are Swordsman (sometimes called Warrior), Archer, Blacksmith, Ninja, and Mage. Each class has a melee and a ranged attack, and, under certain conditions, can transform into "Chaos Disguise". Players who have the ability to transform into chaos disguise have a blue glow surrounding their body as a warning to others. While in chaos disguise, players have more vitality, cannot be knocked down, and do a lot more damage.

Swordsman
The Swordsman, a male knight in armor, uses a long sword for melee attacks and a throwing knife for ranged attacks. No natural ability is lacking for the Swordsman, but no particular skill stands out above the rest. Because of this technicality most players would agree that Swordsman are the most rounded class at the beginning of the game.

Swordsman's Fightning Technique/Builds
For the Swordsman, there are 3 common builds. A build its the way oro the order of which stats are added or powered, for instance: An attack speed Swordsman concentrates on their stat "Attack Speed" which allows them to make slashes and combos in a faster way, been this excellent for Holding enough on the Battlefields.

Speed Soldier
Focusing their stats, on attack speed and move speed and basic Damage properly, this kind of soldier has a better chance to connect combos, by having a higher slash speed than other soldiers and been able to move faster and getting the enemy with their "Low Guard" or getting their "Back". The move speed its necesary, since if the enemi starts defending, the attack will be block and the user will be open to a Flash Grip,(Flash Grips are Grips that are performed right after defending Any basic Attack)With the Move Speed the warrior simply Looks after performing a slash which reaches their opponent's Back leaving them with their guard off, and open to a combo

Range Soldier
Focusing their stats, on Range and attack speed properly, Soldiers that follows the Range Way focus their attack technique, on jumping slashes (Jump+Slash) and Lunge Slashes (Forward(2)+Slash).They also Tend to use Daggers, Secondary Soldier Weapon, With an stable Attack Speed dagger delay its decreased reducing the risk of focusing on this attack.

Combo Soldier
Common on most New made Soldiers, focusing everything on their Basic Attack, having a powerful slash combo but with some Speed sacrifice, not the best build to face off a war but good to start with.

Archer
Archers are female characters that use a bow as a ranged weapon and a small knife as the melee. The arrow is one of the most versatile projectiles, moving faster and flying farther than the others. When an enemy gets close, the Archer can either use her bow point blank or her knife, depending on the Archer's preference. Although Archers move the second slowest in the beginning of the game (faster than Mages but slower than the rest), with precise timing and a steady hand, Archers can pick off enemies from a safe distance.

Blacksmith
Blacksmiths are bigger and more heavily armored than the other classes. The weapons that they use are a hammer and throwing axes, melee and ranged respectively. Blacksmiths are known for dealing significant amounts of damage, while sacrificing the speed of their attacks. Mostly all of the Blacksmith's attacks either take several seconds to wind up or have considerable delay. For instance, Blacksmith's axes are one of the most powerful projectiles in the game, but when using axes, Blacksmiths first must wait for the axe to pull back, and then must wait nearly a second after the axe is thrown. Because of this and other attacks, most players regard Blacksmiths as the slowest class.

Ninja
The Ninja, a lightly armored female, is the fastest moving class in the game. They use a dagger type weapon for melee and throwing stars for range. Contrary to the Blacksmith, Ninjas sacrifice power for speed. Although the power of their grip and special attacks rival the other classes, their other attacks are weaker than almost all of the other classes. Ninjas also have the least beginning health of all the classes. To make up for this, Ninjas are the only characters in the game who can "slide" (also called gliding), which is a technique that is a small dash that grants invincibility to the Ninja during the dash.

Ninja's Fightning Technique/Builds
As for ninjas, knowing that their best attribute its their speed, increasing it would make it better for any battle, there are mainly 2 Builds to make a ninja, a Player Killing Build, and a Battle Support Build, even been the second used as Killing Build too, its focused more on "Juggling" With other Characters (Juggle its a term used when the attacks have certain order of impact that, when the enemy gets hit with it it knocks it down, so after another blow while "falling" the enemy Reiceives the damage caused by the Attack and Falls again , so juggling ots starting using consecutive Blows on a given character to make him/her be damaged with no chance of scaping)

Gripping Ninja Build
Focused Primarely on mere Attack Speed, according to other players they rather having 30 Attack Speed and 0 Grip on lvl 11 than having 15 Grip and 12 Attack Speed. Speed its all what it matters on this Build, any Ninja that has higher Attack Speed than The User it can result on a failed Grip. The grips are classified on all characters overall as the Followings:

Stun Grips
Grips that are performed after "stunning" the opponent First, this is possible in a ninja with some attack speed, with some ease, Slashing First once the opponent if it connects, making sure the hit registrered checking that on the screen the ad of "Hitx1" appears, and if it was done on the right distance,The enemy should Stop moving and be left considerably Near the User, right after the Slash was done, a grip must be performed immediatly (Both Clics at once) Never holding Forward. Formula : Clic1+Both Clics. This attack its hard to perform due the FPS Lag (Frame Per Second Lag) so the attack wont be effective if its not Registrered on the Screen, Any Person above the 250ms are hardly effective vs these attacks, any person below the 250ms can be gripped with ease or certain difficulty. The success of this attack depends also on the other characters Attack Speed and Move Speed, Knowing for advanced that this is a Risky Move, since if the stun grip misses, an invincible attack will be performed, the ninjas attack with the most delay.

Flash Grips
A Grip thats performed Right after blocking Any Basic Attack, any class Regardless their Attack Speed can ¨Perform¨this Attack, Ninjas have more ease to do it, Those pplayers who rely on this attack must be trated with Care, since they only wait until the opponent attacks, then blocking and gripping, the basic way to beat these players is using specials when they dont spect it and simply Ranging, they cant Flash Grip a Range attack, so they'll have to use their own inniciative to attack making them open for Flash Grip.

Delay Grips
The most common type of Grip, after any enemy Performs an attack with +2.0 Delay any player can stan near and grip him/her.

Mage
Mages are very short, masked individuals who are said to have no gender. They use a staff for melee and a small wand for range. Mages move the slowest of all the classes, and have around the same health points of a Ninja. Mages have several magic abilities that, though powerful, are slow to charge and have significant delay. For example, Mages can shoot fireballs from their wand, but they have to lock on for around a second and then are subject to attack for another second after firing. Mages are the only class that can use a technique to heal, creating up to four heal balls that recover some health points. Softnyx.net states that mages are merely support characters and are not able to fight alone because of their slow like qualities, but some players would disagree.

Creatures
There are several different creatures in Rakion. All of them appear in Stage Mode, and they can all be bought in the shop. Like other items, creatures have level requirements. Creatures gain experience and level too; a higher level creature costs more cell points to summon, but it has higher stats, and should one wish to re-sell it, it will fetch a higher price.

Game modes
Excluding Stage mode, which puts players on the same team, all of the game modes are PvP-based. A game can consist of anywhere from 1 to 21 rounds, and a round can last between five and twenty minutes. There are four types of PvP games in Rakion. The game will automatically balance the teams after a round by swapping the players with most experience to the other team. This switch will only occur if one team has less players than the other. In most types of deathmatch dead players respawn after a 7-second period and have four seconds of invincibilty when they respawn. The Deathmatch modes have healing capsules and books that provide cell points; the other modes do not.

Stage
A co-operative game mode for 1 to 4 players (depending on the stage) that lets you play a mission in your fastest way.

Golem Wars
The game mode is divided into two teams, wherein each team tries to destroy the other teams golem or eliminate all members of the other team.(you dont respawn in this game mode)

-In Order to deal damage to your opponents golem, you have to acquire the golden sword. -To get the golden sword, you have to defeat the gold golem. -You can still inflict 1% your normal damage to your opponents golem without the golden sword.

Solo Death Match
Kill as many players as you can before the time expires.

Team Death Match
Divided in two teams. The team with who get the kill limit first or the team with the most number of kills after the time expires wins the round.

Boss War
Divided into two teams. Each team have to kill the opponents boss to win.

The boss is determined by whoever has the highest level in each team.

Profanity filter
The in-game chat system automatically replaces most profanity with the word "LOVE", as in "You mother LOVEing LOVEer!" The filter isn't limited to whole words, so typing the word "class" will appear as "clLOVE". In the past, the filter could be bypassed by typing a ' in the middle of the word as an escape sequence. However, this bypass was patched.

You can now replace the ' by pressing ctrl+backspace to bypass the filter.

This is how you type it before: Cla'ss = to display it as Class instead of ClLOVE

But now you type it this way to bypass: Class

Criticism
Rakion uses a similar online structure to another Korean based game, GunZ. Both games are not run on dedicated servers and instead make the client act as their own server, i.e. a peer to peer network. Some critics have critcized Softnyx for this design decision because of distance latency that may cause an unfair advantage against other players. Other concerns have been noted, namely that it gives hackers more "tools" to cheat with. Softnyx's only response to this is that Rakion is meant to be run with a LAN configuration and not against far away players.