Introduction to ECO

This guide is an introduction to Emil Chronicle Online for new players or a refresher course for old former ECO players who wish to give JP ECO a try.


Races:

There are 4 different races to choose from in ECO. The Emil (humans), Titania (angels), Dominion (demons), and the DEM (a humanoid machine race).

Character Customization:

When creating a new character, your customization options are rather limited. However, you'll eventually be able to gain access to an incredibly wide variety of different hairstyles, hair colors, facial options, and outfits to give your character a truly unique look.

Combat:

The combat is your standard point and click battle system. People who have played Ragnarok Online before will surely find a familiar feel with ECO's combat. This is because it uses the same sort of top down grid-based gameplay as Ragnarok. However, ECO’s grid based nature is less apparent, as the grid is only seen when using targeting skills.

Jobs:

In the world of ECO you start off as a jobless Novice. However, not long after starting the game, you can change to one of the 12 different basic jobs (DEM characters excluded). Each job falls into one of 3 categories: Warriors, Mages, and Backpackers.

Warrior jobs focus on doing high physical based damage, without much in terms of support. However, the Fencer line is an exception; it has the lowest damage of the 4 Warrior jobs, but has better survivability due to the various defensive buffs it possesses.

Mage jobs focus on doing high magic based damage and various support skills. However, the Vates line is an exception; it has the lowest damage of the 4 Mage jobs, and progresses into a specialist healer/support role.

Backpacker jobs are the odd bunch amongst the job lines. They have relatively weak damage when compared to the Warrior and Mage line jobs (not including the two exceptions listed above), but have great survivability. They also excel in item collection, crafting, and their ability to carry more items than the Warrior or Mage jobs. Additionally, it’s worth noting is that the Ranger line job heavily specializes in treasure hunting.


Dual Jobs:

In ECO, you can do a quest to obtain a dual job after you've hit base level 110 and job level 50 in your 3rd job. Getting a dual job will grant you access a majority of the skills of the job line you have chosen for your dual. However, leveling it can be slow without the use of party play.


 Questing:

Questing is rather unique in ECO. Unlike many other MMOs, it doesn’t force you along a linear quest line. ECO doesn’t have quest hubs, so you won't see things like NPCs that have ! or ? questing indicators floating over their heads.

Instead, quests are obtained from the Quest Cafe NPCs. They can be found in every city in game, and in the 4 fields surrounding the first city. However, you can only have one active quest at a time. Many quests have a set time limit to be completed successfully. Failure to complete a quest within the time limit will result in no reward.

Fortunately, Cafe Quests come in 3 different types, and there's generally several different quests offered for each type in your level range. The names of the 3 different Cafe Quest types are Hunting, Collection, and Delivery.

Hunting quests require you to defeat a certain amount of a target monster. The gold reward for hunting quests are universally low, but depending on the quest chosen, they are either:

• high in base EXP but low in job EXP

• low in base EXP but high in job EXP

Collection quests require you to collect a certain amount of a target item. This type of quest will always give out an even amount of base EXP and job EXP. However, the gold reward is also typically low.

Delivery quests are ones that require you to pick up an item from one NPC and deliver it to a specified target NPC in another location. This type of quest will also always give out an even amount of base EXP and job EXP. However, unlike the other two quest types this type of quest gives a significantly higher gold reward.

Quest Cafe NPCs can be found in every city inside buildings featuring this sign.

The maids you see standing behind counters out in the 4
fields surrounding the first city are also Quest Cafe NPCs.

Party Play:

Partying with others isn’t necessary for most of ECO’s content, but it can certainly speed up the process. End-game content, such as high level bosses and end-game tier dungeons, however, definitely require a party.


Partner System:

The partner system is one of the most important and defining features of ECO. At its core, it's essentially like the "pet" system seen in other games. However, ECO isn’t like other games where pets are lackluster and not much help in combat. Rather than simply a pet, your partner is a capable companion.

ECO’s partner system has full AI customization. This makes Partners in ECO much more helpful and unique than pets in other MMOs. You can set your partner’s behavior, what skills it will use, the designated target of the skill, how often it reuses the skill, and even the order of priority the skills are used in.

There's a whole variety of different partners, all capable of different things. Some partners are support orientated, with a high focus on helpful buffs. Others are offense orientated, with a high focus on attacking the enemy alongside you. There are even partners geared towards tanking enemies for you.

You're given your very first partner for free early in the tutorial. She starts off looking like a toy bear, but once you fully complete the tutorial, she'll change into her true form. Despite being a free partner, she actually possesses a wide array of extremely useful support skills.

Partner Protect Mini-game:

Partner Protect is a unique "tower defense" mini-game. The objective of the game is to defend a large crystal in the center of the map from waves of enemies. If the crystal’s HP is reduced to 0, the game is lost. Rewards are based on the crystal’s HP at the end of the match. The higher the crystal’s HP, the better your rewards will be.

This mini-game is unique in that your character doesn't fight at all, and just stands inside of the crystal. Instead, the fighting is entirely left up to your partner. You move your partner around the field manually and it automatically engages any enemies nearby (provided its AI is set to be aggressive).

However, your character isn’t totally useless. As your partner kills enemies, you'll get points. You can use your accumulated points to set up various traps or defenses to help keep the enemies away from the crystal that you're trying to protect. You can also spend points to give your partner helpful buffs.


Airships:

In ECO, everyone gets their very own free airship! You can decorate your airship, and even put a house on it. The inside of your house can be decorated with various different furniture, floors, walls, and even custom sized rooms. Of course, being an airship, it can be used to fly between various different points around the world. However, you need to complete a certain quest first before you can use it to fly.