When comparing Realm of the Mad God vs Tom Clancy's The Division, the Slant community recommends Realm of the Mad God for most people. In the question“What are the best MMORPGs on Steam?” Realm of the Mad God is ranked 2nd while Tom Clancy's The Division is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Realm of the Mad God is:
With a spell and a weapon equipped you aim and shoot at enemies and dodge their incoming projectiles. Sounds simple, but it is not when you have over 100 different missiles coming at you. This is the essence of Realm of the Mad God (RotMG). You are supposed to evade enemy attacks and strike back yourself to countless numbers of enemies. Just as when you feel that you have beaten the last enemy, another one starts firing at you. All of this comes varied as different enemies, have different attack patterns, projectile speeds and intricacies to them.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Fast-paced combat
With a spell and a weapon equipped you aim and shoot at enemies and dodge their incoming projectiles. Sounds simple, but it is not when you have over 100 different missiles coming at you.
This is the essence of Realm of the Mad God (RotMG). You are supposed to evade enemy attacks and strike back yourself to countless numbers of enemies. Just as when you feel that you have beaten the last enemy, another one starts firing at you. All of this comes varied as different enemies, have different attack patterns, projectile speeds and intricacies to them.
Pro Easy to learn, hard to master
The game is built with 8-bit retro style in mind. Such design choices made the game feel and look simplistic, and not overwhelming right from the start.
The game is simple to pick up with a helpful tutorial aiding you at the beginning of the game. A few minutes in you will find yourself accustomed to controls, interface and the abilities of your character.
If you play for a while, you will encounter more dangerous enemies that will force you to flee and to face them once again until you are able to fight against them properly.
Pro Huge fights
Realm of the Mad God features massive fights that occur between players and Oryx's minions. Some of the most exciting and terrifying enemies are not beatable alone and it requires co-operation between the players. As a result, you will see yourself teaming up with other 85+ strangers and trying to beat the boss.
Pro Permadeath
Permadeath is what adds spice to this game that makes it what it is. If you die, you lose your beloved character and all the items you had with you. You start over again.
This is what draws you in to play more as you want to get back where you were.
Pro Variety
The game offers multiple settings, hundreds of different items and monsters. Over a dozen of different classes with different powers, abilities, perks and playstyles are available to try out.
Pro Pleasing graphics
While not up to par of the promotional material Ubisoft showed off a few years ago (not much of a surprise, this is Ubisoft after-all), the graphics are quite good and can easily be set on max setting with a smooth 60fps for those with good components in their computers. Even when using a mid range rig the graphics can easily be on high while getting above 30fps.
In general what is present in the game is a winter city that is in a pre-apocalyptic crisis. The snow is randomized and can sweep in and out of the city at any time making for a beautiful representation of snow storms in a city. The city itself is pretty sparsely populated, which allows for less tax on the graphics, but of course the excuse is that it is basically an abandoned city other than the bad guys. There will be a few civilians in the streets but mainly you are alone out there until you run into trouble.
Pro Open world freedom
Once the introduction to the game is played through, all missions for the game can be unlocked by just walking around the map. The player is free to choose any mission they would like to try, though some may be too tough depending on the player and mission skill level.
The game is set in a living breathing world, in addition to the primary missions you will randomly encounter a variety of side missions you can do for additional experience and rewards.
Pro Fun team shooter gameplay with RPG elements
The core gameplay for the division is a cover based third person team shooter, however over the course of the game you can customize your solider in a lot of different ways to keep things interesting.
You can unlock various active skills to use during combat, passive perks that buff up your solider and talents that activate when you perform a certain action like getting a headshot. Although it starts simple, as you progress through the game you can then modify and upgrade a lot of the abilities to keep things interesting.
On top of all this the loot and gear systems make it really fun to continually upgrade your solider. You have over 10 slots for various bits of gear that have a primary attribute that will improve either your DPS, health or how powerful your active ability are.
Weapons also have multiple mod slots, so you can add on different scopes, silencers, grips etc that make meaningful changes to gameplay.
Pro Great matchmaking
This game has made it very easy to group up with friends, nearby players, or random players looking for the same content. Grouping from the player menu is always available, and when you enter a mission you can choose to look for players to join you as well as set the difficulty. Also looking at the ISAC map lets you see friends' locations and invite them to group.
Pro Lots of fun to play with friends
The missions get hard fast, so the game forces you to co-ordinate with your team and ensure you have the right team composition to beat the more difficult missions. You'll have to keep track of the locations of all your team to make sure you're not getting flanked, be in position to rescue downed friends and let people know when you spot a sniper or a boss.
Pro Great use of a cover system
The cover system in the game is quite intuitive. The player can easily crouch behind an object for cover (being that it is highlighted, so the player knows where they can cover) with one button press. Once in cover, any other area within a certain distance will highlight letting the player know they can run to the next spot for cover.
This is done through a singular button press while being held down. This makes for an easy way to run from cover to cover with little effort. Which allows for flanking enemies and just an overly easy way to move around without taking too many bullets while in a fire fight.
Pro Rich crafting environment
Every piece of gear and every weapon can be customized with different Mods. But the game does not stop there, as a player can actually alter attributes of individual pieces, deconstruct old gear for parts, and find and build gear from blueprints.
Pro Class can be changed at any time
The class system for this game allows for the player to change class and perks at any time, meaning anyone can take on the role of their choosing at the drop of a hat. While this may cut down or replayability due to not having to play through multiple times to experience each class it does make for a great way to test out each one and their perks to land on one of the player's liking.
Cons
Con Pay-2-Win
The game uses "Coins" as a currency to purchase both cosmetic and fundamental items to the gameplay. Coins cannot be earned and are only obtained through real-world money. Although you can grind your way to all of the items without paying, it will be harder and will take longer than paying a few bucks for one of the best items in the game.
This can be felt when you have to pay to not run out of vault space (permanent storage for your items) or have another character slot without sacrificing your initial character. Moreover, in the Nexus (game's town safe area) you can buy one of the strongest items in the game.
A prime example of this would be maximizing pet skills which help you in combat. It takes months taking skills to the maximum level, if you are not willing to spend any money. On the other hand, if you pay a significant amount of money, it will take you less than a day.
Con Sometimes lags
There are various issues that can cause lag within the game. For some tips in dealing with it you can read here.
Con Glitches back to the main screen
During massive brawls, where there are a lot of enemies and other players, the game starts lagging and glitching. Worst case scenario, the players are sent back to the login screens.
Con Repetitive
In order to take your character's skills to the highest levels or obtain strongest items in the game, it will require grinding. Grinding means doing the same thing over and over again to gain something of value. This is where repetition comes in.
Usually, this is felt when players are trying to make their characters strong enough to compete with end-game content (strongest bosses). This requires maximizing the skills and obtaining items which sometimes could take a while. For instance, the chances of getting one of the strongest bows in the game "Doom Bow" is 1%.
Con Boring repetitive side-quests
The side-quests in the game tend to consist of the same tasks over and over again, this is repetitive and can get boring due to not much changing up in side-quest gameplay.
Con Boring grinding system
After hitting level 14 - 15 most missions are either way to high or to low to go back to play. So you are stuck doing awfully boring side missions that become quite repetitive, most are Hostage Rescue or Zone Decontamination and require no effort. The next missions start around level 20, which seems to be a way to force players into the Dark Zone.
Con Poor enemy NPC chatter
The in game chatter of the enemy NPC is laughably bad. As you are shooting them one by one they constantly say the same things that are not really relevant to the situation such as calling you names or just simply stating that you should "get lost". This can be immersion breaking and asks the question what the devs were thinking when putting this type of chatter in the game in these situations.
Con Awful AI system
AI will run all over the place and then stand in front of your turret for no reason.
Con Constant server downtime
Servers are always dropping connection and causing users to lose around 15 to 20 minutes progress.
Con Low level graphics (in comparison to E3 & early screenshots)
Con Repetitive cover-based shooting
Literally the only mechanic in the game. There are no other true ways to avoid and attack enemies.
Con Crashes a lot on GTX 770
Con Cheaters running amok on PC
Many players complain about cheaters on PC as it is easy to game the system currently. The problem being that any user who modifies their local memory can then change what happens in the online game. An issue discovered by users in the public beta that Ubisoft promised to fix but never did. It fundamentally breaks the online component of the game as it is too easy for anyone to cheat.