So you want to play Blade & Soul, huh? Me too. So do my friends, but a few of them have run into a problem: it takes 7 days for a character above level 15 to be deleted and the paltry two character slots NA/EU players have available by default are not enough with such a long deletion timer in place.
I've played Blade & Soul in other regions and I have to admit I never noticed the 7-day lock on a character once you try to delete it, but this 'feature' is in every other region and now it's here in NA/EU. And you need to know about it.
If you played other versions of the game you may not have noticed the long timer because other regions provide more than two character slots per default account -- at least China and Taiwan do. But here in the English version each account holder has two character slots by default, and you're going to notice that deletion timer as soon as you get tired of one of your characters and try to toss it aside to make a new one.
In the name of fairness (and new players)
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I'm not the least biased person to be talking about Blade & Soul. I absolutely love the combat, threw money at the Taiwanese and Chinese versions for VIP during my months with them, and bought a Master's Pack for this version. It's my favorite MMO in recent years, but I definitely do not feel the two character slots and 7-day deletion timer is fair.
You can get the gist of the rest of this article from this image.
Blade & Soul is the type of game you want to try every class with. You want to find the one that fits your playstyle, the one you know you can roll noskills over in arena with and push through that endgame PvE with confidence. You can't have a good idea of how a class works or how good of a fit it is for you by level 15.
By 15 you've only done a few hours worth of gameplay and maybe soloed the two dungeons in Jadestone. You can't even put points in your Martial Tome unless you're just rushing story quests. How can you say you actually like a class if you've only been playing it for 2 ~ 4 hours, and before you even have a quarter of its potential unlocked? You really can't.
The two character slot issue is compounded by the deletion timer.
A good portion of people are going to hit 15 with a class they're just trying because they want to see what it's like and getting to that level is a simple task. If they hit 15 and decide they want to try another class, what do they do? If they haven't used their second character slot, they make a new character. If they have, well...
NCSoft's wants it to rain those Additional Slot Vouchers
This is exactly where this get sticky. If someone makes two characters of different classes to try and they get each one to level 15 or above, they are essentially locked from the game on that account because both of those two characters are sitting there waiting to be deleted. What are these new players supposed to do? Buy more character slots. Probably.
You could just cancel the deletion, too.
The whole thing feels like an attempt to squeeze money out of players who want to play on the totally free version but don't know about the restrictions.
Veteran players know the classes they want to play and as the game launched less than a week ago, many veterans have several character slots from their Disciple and Master Founder's Packs.
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A new player doesn't know what class they want to play. They don't know much about the game nor do they know how precious those two character slots are. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put 2 and 2 together and figure out NCSoft could rack up those Additional Slot Voucher sales just due to the combination of the two slots and the level 15+ 7-day deletion timer.
Blade & Soul is a fun game, don't get me wrong. I've spent a lot of money on it over the years from China to NA, but this is one aspect of it I can't stand behind.
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I hope NCSoft changes either the level 15 criteria for the 7-day timer or grants players an extra character slot to play with to at least be a little more fair to indecisive and new players. They've already lost a few customers among my group of friends. I fear the same for many more who run into this wall and don't want to invest in a game with such a petty character policy.