Lineage 2: Revolution – A Return to Lineage

Despite having several installed on my phone, I don’t really play many mobile games. It’s less that I don’t enjoy them (I do) and more that I forget about them. However, with the recent PVP additions to Lineage 2: Revolution, I felt maybe it was time for me to come back and give it a whirl again. I did our early access review, and despite feeling like players can buy their way into good gear, at least at the start, I still very much enjoyed this game. The aesthetic is sharp, the character classes are fun, and there was an absolute wealth of content, even in the early days of the game. Now we have a new update, that brought a 200-player PVP mode, Castle Siege. In it, guilds team up to do battle against whoever happens to control the castle and brought with it a Castle Siege Festival. It offers EXP boosts for all characters, which makes it a terrific time to start playing. Though Castle Siege is presently in its pre-season (so rewards from it are not available until it’s in the main season). Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to play this new mode, because only 4 clans can participate at a time (1 defending, 3 attacking). I’m a part of a clan, but we’re not wealthy or powerful enough to enter this mode.

Clans bid on their spot, in much the same way as Fortress Siege. Your clan also must be at least level 5, with up to 50 members per clan. Bidding time is on Friday, with times based on your region, and the battle itself is on Saturday Night (again, depending on your region). For me, it would be 9:30-10pm (EDT). Even though I won’t get to participate, I do know a little about it, so we’ll talk about that a bit. I do advise if it’s something you want to do, keep an eye on the clans that are doing it the most, maybe try to join one of them, or work hard with your own clan to grow and become active daily. It will help – there is always content to do to grow your character and clan. However, players aren’t left out from witnessing it, as up to 100 players per castle can spectate when the action is going down (which I’m going to try and sneak into so I can watch, maybe record). The Attackers have 30 minutes to imprint the Holy Artifact within the enemy castle, only a clan leader can do the actual imprinting. The process of imprinting cannot be canceled and only one clan leader can do it at a time. You can create new alliances during this mode, as well as betray them! Also bear in mind that if an Attackers camp is destroyed, they are out of the running and lose the mode. If you are not allied with one of the attacking clans, you can attack them, making this mode incredibly fierce and exciting.

Do you have Siege Money?

Everyone wants to be the clan that wins it all and successfully sieges the castle, but what gives that defending player the edge is that there is serious in-fighting potential in Castle Siege. You could be at the end, time’s almost up, and the clan that’s riding with you decides that maybe, they don’t need you after all. They break the alliance, interrupt the imprinting, kill you and do it themselves! Or they would, but time ran out. Now neither of them win. The possibilities are endless. I am disappointed that there aren’t more sieges available per server for other clans to run, clans that don’t have tons of currency to bid their way in, but it is still a very promising mode. It does admittedly lead me to the fear that the clans that win will come out with amazing, powerful gear that non-participants cannot access (because their clans will always get outbid). That aside, there’s plenty to do for non-PVPers, and there’s always the Arena for 1v1 battles. When I did my original review, it was either 10k Powerlevel or 300k Powerlevel, making it very frustrating and slow to try and work in the Arena for Rank. This time around, there were far more people in my power range, and below, making it significantly easier, at least in the early Arena.

But there’s a vast wealth of land to explore, and with the level cap increasing from 180 to 260, you won’t run out of grinding and battling any time soon. A new territory was added, in the Oren Territory, and the final level of equipment rarity is now UR (Ultra Rare) instead of Super Rare. To go along with Oren are new Monster Codex, Achievements, Clan Quests, and more Rune Pages to fill out to increase your stats. At the end of the day, the most important stat is CP, which is basically your power level. As you gain levels, gear, improve your rune pages, skills, et cetera, this will grow, but there are more ways to grow in power. Sure, having awesome gear helps, but that takes a lot of time, and a lot of investment (unless you spend Red Diamonds on Chest Rolls). As this is a wonderful time for players to get invested, I’ll lend a hand with ways I think you could spend your in-game time as wisely as possible. One of the biggest things for me is Do. Your. Achievements. Seriously, Achievements give great rewards, increasing your Adventuring level that way also gives more CP. Make sure to log in every day, accept friend requests, look out for them, greet them (there’s even an accept all/greet all) button. Join a clan! Even if it’s not a powerful clan, that will give you access to more loot, as people in your clan do clan dungeons.

There are tons of events and ways to get caught up/powered up.

Fun fact, even if you lose in the Arena, you still gain CP.  You gain more for winning, and more still for increasing your rank, so try to pick on people just under your CP. If your CP is higher, you’ll basically win. The next tip is – adventure. As you complete quests, you’ll gain piles of C and B rank gear. You can forge that crap gear into your other gear and increase its level, and rarity. The main story mode will unlock lots of ways to power-up, and the tutorials will help a new player, so be aware of all of them. If you’re sort of busy, just auto-quest, there’s no great shame in it. I always auto-quest. You have to tap the phone again to skip through dialogue/accept quests, et cetera, so it’s not 100% automated. But you can join parties for dungeons, tackle the Tower of Insolence (a solo dungeon experience with 100 floors), and what I do, is I climb as absolutely high as I can until it’s a chore (the game will notify you when your CP is a bit low for your floor), then do the auto-complete to get the rewards again. You also gain rewards as you level from 1-100 at certain milestones. One of the things I really enjoy about mobile gaming, and Lineage 2 in particular, is how free they are with great amounts of Adena (money), Diamonds, and gear. It might take a while to get great R/SR/UR gear, but you can supplement your power level by leveling Rune Pages, increasing your skill levels, and simply playing the game. Take the time to explore all of your options. Lineage: Revolution 2 is a delight to play, and I’m kind of glad I went back to exploring it again. I had to start over, which is unfortunate, but it let me try a new class.

My account was boosted for purposes of the review.