MMORPG.com Atlantica Online Correspondent Matt Plourde writes this guide to surviving a boss fight in the new turn-based MMORPG from NDoors.

Unlike mainstream MMORPGs, Atlantica Online's combat system does not boil down to hot key and aggro management. Instead, you must plan for success with your party formation, and then you execute your attack strategy on the grid-based battle board. While not all battles are as dynamic and interesting as PvP and Shadow Dungeon (difficult group zone) fights, combat is easy to learn and fun to watch.

Before we dive into the nuts & bolts of Atlantica's combat, I want to spend a moment on geography and zones. As I mentioned in my preview article - Atlantica Online takes place on earth. In addition to typical terrain & architecture you'd expect to find in China, Europe, Southeast Asia, etc - Atlantica offers some fantastic locations such as an underwater palace! When your party is transported to your battle instance, the terrain there reflects the landscape of the outside world. So, if you were underwater, then your fight will happen on the ocean's floor. In a ruin? Expect typical dungeon floors and walls. A few games (like Final Fantasy Tactics and Civilization 4) have built-in systems for interacting with different terrain types, but Atlantica does not go that far. Adding another layer of tactical depth could have been interesting with the varying landscapes, but like most games - terrain serves as a colorful backdrop and nothing more

Read the article here.

Great intro to the game and spot-on advice for beating that hellish fairy. The otters with the blades on their backs crack me up every time I see 'em.

To the writer Matt:

Plz can u you specify how far you got in the game ?

I am lvl 83 now, and from what I´ve seen there are a lot of magic, ranged (bows, cannons, rifle types) and magic in PVE. I think like the 90% of the mobs in the game use a kind of magic and melee attacks.

For example, I choosed a random mob info in my Monsters info inside game...

Water Dragon (melee staff, if i remember well)

Lvl 29

Atk Power:  179-358

Experience: 259

Spirit type

Magic-skill: self destruct

To be honest, my hardest boss fight is still the Hellish Fairy! I died a lot of times when I on that quest. I'm level 30+ at the moment, about to embark on my journey to Angkor Wat and, still haven't had a harder fight compared to that red fairy. Maybe I got too cautious and levelled up too much before entering a boss battle... Anyway otters are definitely nasty.

The Hellish Fairy is the most memorable boss to me because she is the first one, and that time, it took a lot of times before I finally defeat her. It took me scrolls of vortex which is a very powerful tool and good strategy before I finally beat her. Well, my strategy was just focus on the middle column.

First im having difficulty at the combat controls but whe n you get used to it.. its very easy. . you can attack at the same time. .loot system was alright at first its difficult to loot if you are used to other mmorpg loot system. Pvp hahaha haven’t tried yet. . im busy leveling up my character and mercs.. . locating npc and place where to go to was not that hard. You can use the auto move function then you will never consume much time being lost and looking for your next quest.. its easy. . . item box was random you don’t know what you’ll be getting but its alright you can use it to your merc if you already have that item. .thats for I can say just starting playing this game this morning .. ^_^

@Matutino - thanks for reading! 

When every monster in the fight has the same melee *and* magic abilities (or ranged and magic), then the tactical options become flat -- ie: yer just gonna kill them all with no consideration to anything but their hitpoints.  (unless it's a mixed group, with some low MDef and some low PDef enemies)...

That's all I was really talking about... when you fight other players, the tactical decisions are pretty amazing and fun... not the case with most PvE, because the enemies in one fight are rarely varied.

Hope that helps!