Mir 4

1. Summary

MIR4 is a free-to-play martial-arts MMORPG for phones and PC, and its Steam score has barely moved since launch in August 2021: 67% positive overall, and between 65% and 69% in every period. Players who like it praise the looks (flashy skill effects, a pretty wuxia world, decent cutscenes), the number of systems to level, and the way the game farms for you while you work or sleep. About half of the longer negative reviews bring up bots, cheaters or player killing, and their accounts keep landing on the Darksteel mining spots, where teleporting bots, high-level players and controlling clans kill you or take your node, and where fighting back earns a PvP penalty. Bots and cheaters come up in 35% of the longer reviews, more than any other topic.

Players disagree about the game's two signature ideas. Auto-play divides those who call it a game that plays itself from those who want exactly that, and the DRACO crypto and NFT layer divides people who came to earn from people who found the earnings small and the economy built around them. The other frustrations are pay-to-win, a PC port that keeps its phone menus and lacks basic settings, and bans that support never explained.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Graphics, skill effects and the worldMedium

12% of the longer reviews talk about the visuals, and reviewers who dislike much else about the game still grant it this. Fans call it "stunningly beautiful" and single out the skill animations ("the skills have good visuals which is really awesome"). One player opens with "Graphics are brilliant i wont deny that" before calling the auto-combat a joke, and one negative review's long list of complaints starts with "The only good thing in this game are the graphics, map design and Cheonpa". Graphics come up most in early reviews: half of the reviews mentioning them were written under 12 hours in. A couple of reviews call the look dated or the assets generic.

Story and cutscenesMedium

8% mention the story, and more of them praise it than criticize it: "good main story", "Storyline is Great. (yeah im a nerd for this)", and praise for cinematic cutscenes and the wuxia setting. Critics call it forgettable, confusing or generic, and one finds the voice acting out of step with the characters' animations. A few say they skipped through it.

A lot to do and many ways to grow a characterLow

Players who enjoy the loop describe a game with no shortage of activities: hunting, mining, gathering, crafting, daily dungeons such as Magic Square and Secret Peak, bounties, raids and clan wars, all feeding character power. One early fan put it as "Awesome game..lots of things to do". The same breadth is what critics call a "thousand separate mini-economies" of upgrades.

Play on PC and phone with one characterLow

A small group values cross-play between PC and mobile, mainly to keep progressing away from the computer. One player summed up the setup as using the PC to keep the character growing while the phone is busy with something else.

Where players are split

Auto-play and AFK farmingHigh

18% of the longer reviews discuss auto-questing, auto-combat or AFK farming, and they are divided. Critics, many of them in their first hours, say the game takes over: "Far too much of this game is watching not doing." A few report that switching auto-attack off does not stick. Supporters say that is the point: "People are arguing like auto combat/afk/idle mechanics are a bad thing. But who actually wants to mindlessly press buttons to achieve something online?" Others call auto-play optional and useful while learning, and a few say raids and harder dungeons need manual control. Some add that AFK farming is unsafe, because a character left farming in a contested area gets attacked.

DRACO, NFTs and play-to-earnHigh

The crypto layer comes up in 24% of the longer reviews, more in launch months (29% from August to October 2021) than later (14% from 2023 on). Some players came for it and say it paid a little: "got 40 bucks from 6 draco", with others calling it the reason they tried an MMO at all. Others describe the earning as small, unstable or gated behind a long climb (one reviewer counted about 70 hours to reach level 40, where DRACO exchange unlocks), and say it shapes the whole game around money: "The end result is that the game plays like a second job." Some tie it to the bot problem, since bots farm the Darksteel that converts into DRACO. From late 2021 on, several Steam players found DRACO features missing from the Steam client ("Steam blocked Draco") and pointed others to the official launcher. A few advise ignoring the crypto side entirely: "Recommended to enjoy the game at lvl 50+ not to aim for profits in nft." One player summed up their own time with it: "I play this game because it makes money... And I don't play it anymore because it doesn't make money..."

The grindMedium

12% mention grinding or repetition. For one group it is the appeal: "this is for soley mmo lovers who wants to grind", and auto-farming makes it tolerable. For others it becomes a wall around levels 40 to 60, where progress slows to a crawl unless you pay, and one long-time player put the demand at "80 hours/week minimum to make any sort of progress." Grind complaints lean toward long-haul players: half of these reviews were written past about 90 hours.

Clans, raids and siegesMedium

11% talk about clans, raids, bosses or sieges. Clan players describe the politics and wars as the heart of the endgame. A long-time free player says "its all about diplomacy and joining the right clan", and another veteran advises "Find a nice guild and enjoy the grind." The other side describes servers owned by one top clan that reserves the best mining spots, kills outsiders on sight and kicks inactive members, leaving solo players nowhere to go.

Combat and classesMedium

10% discuss combat or classes. Fans like the distinct classes (warrior, sorcerer, taoist, lancer, arbalist), and one says fights get better with levels: "The combat feels really great and it is fun." Critics call it wonky, stat-checked and mostly automated, with an awkward jump and power rating deciding fights more than skill.

What frustrates players

Bots and cheaters at the mining spotsHigh

35% of the longer reviews mention bots, hackers or cheaters, and the share was higher in 2021 (41% in launch months, 43% in November and December 2021). Reviewers describe bots that teleport onto Darksteel veins the moment they spawn, hit players every few seconds to cancel their mining, turn invisible or sit inside walls, and return seconds after being killed. "Normally you could just play around the bots but these bots are actually taking up the most valuable resource in the game." Players say ban waves remove accounts that come straight back, and some ask for an anti-bot client and an in-game report option ("there's no anti-cheat, no report function"). The share of reviews raising bots fell to 14% from 2023 on, and a few say there are fewer than before, though the complaints never stopped.

Forced PvP, ganking and the PK penaltyHigh

17% describe being killed by other players, high-level ganking, or clans dominating a server. Low-level zones and mining spots are open season, and one player said that even with a pacifist status set "you get face crushed by any higher level player". Deaths cost experience and stack an injury debuff. A second layer makes it worse: killing a bot or an attacker can tank your propensity score and turn you into a target, so defending your node is punished ("When you kill them you lose pvp karma."). Some also report people using high-level alts to clear spots for their own low-level characters: "No spot you can mine or level in peace".

Pay-to-winHigh

15% call the game pay-to-win or complain about the cash shop. Complaints cover packs that buy whole gear sets, time-limited shop items, gacha pets that have to be combined many times to reach legendary, and an upgrade system where failed enhancements can destroy materials. Some reviewers put the cost of keeping up in the thousands of dollars. A minority pushes back: a long-time free player says rank is reachable through clans and patience ("even whales cant survive without allys"), and a few call the monetization milder than other mobile games.

A mobile game on PCMedium

8% call it a mobile port outright, and others complain about missing PC basics. The menus and UI come straight from the phone version. One early review noted "There is no aspect-ratio, no FPS settings, no V-sync, no nothing.", and others found no resolution or fullscreen option, awkward keyboard and mouse controls and no controller support. These complaints lean toward the first hours: more than half of the mobile-port reviews were written under 10 hours in.

Bans and unanswered supportMedium

7% describe support or bans, almost all negatively. Players report bans for multi-accounting while using one account, for running mouse software, for leaving the game's own auto-combat on, and two reviews describe a ban for buying gold from the in-game store ("Spent 99.99 US dollars to buy gold only to get banned a few seconds after the purchase was complete."). The common thread is the appeal: tickets answered by automated replies after weeks, or not at all, and one report that Steam accounts cannot reach the support team. These come mostly from invested players: nearly half had 200 hours or more.

Servers, maintenance and loginsMedium

7% raise technical problems: long maintenance windows, lag and ping spikes when servers filled, patches that had to be restarted many times ("every maintenance and patch it is a disaster"), Unreal crash reports on launch, captchas that failed, and Google or Facebook logins that would not connect. These complaints peaked in November and December 2021, when 13% of the longer reviews raised them.

A harsh communityLow

4% call the community toxic: bullying of weaker players, trash talk in chat, and a "dog-eat-dog" world where strength rules. A few tie this to the money involved.

Korean voices and language barriersLow

A few players wanted an English voice option (the cutscenes are Korean with English subtitles), and a few on North American servers found little English in chat or clan recruitment.

3. The player conversation

The conversation is split in two layers. The short reviews, three quarters of the total, are mostly friendly one-liners ("good", "very good game", "the best MMORPG"). The reviews that explain themselves are far more critical and keep returning to one location and one cast: Darksteel mines, bots, gankers and the clans that hold them. Bots or player killing appear in 43% of the longer reviews.

Who raises what depends on how far players got. The first-hour reviews talk about the shape of the game: the auto-play, the phone UI, the missing PC settings, and the good looks. The long-haul reviews, often written after hundreds of hours, talk about the world: bots, PvP penalties, clan control, pay-to-win walls, bans and support. Several veterans recommend the game and warn about it in the same breath. One called it "pretty broken" with a "toxic player base" and still voted yes because "I earned and enjoyed".

Over time the topics shifted while the score did not. In the first months after launch in August 2021, bots (41% to 43% of the longer reviews) and crypto earning (29%) led the longer reviews, and November and December 2021 brought the most reviews of any period (1,529) along with a spike in server complaints. From 2023 on the review flow was much smaller and the mix changed: bots dropped to 14%, crypto to 14%, and auto-play, the grind and the graphics came up most. One player who started for the money now says they play just for fun. Through all of it the positive share stayed between 65% and 69%.

4. What the developers could do

1. Clear bots off the Darksteel nodes and add an in-game report button. Bots and cheaters come up in 35% of the longer reviews, more than any other topic, and players describe teleporting, invisible bots camping every vein and say ban waves alone do not keep them away.
2. Protect non-PvP and low-level players at mining spots. Players set to peaceful still get killed by much higher-level characters and alts, and 17% of the longer reviews describe ganking or clan control of a server.
3. Stop punishing self-defence in the propensity system. Reviewers say killing a bot or an attacker that interrupts their mining wrecks their PvP standing and turns them into a target.
4. Give bans a human review and answer support tickets. Banned players, including two banned for buying gold from the in-game store, describe weeks of automated replies, and one says Steam accounts cannot reach support at all.
5. Ease the pay-to-win wall and material loss on failed upgrades. 15% of the longer reviews call the game pay-to-win, pointing to gear packs, low gacha rates and enhancements that destroy materials when they fail.
6. Make the PC version feel like a PC game. First-hour reviews ask for resolution, fullscreen, FPS and V-sync options, better keyboard, mouse and controller support, and a PC layout instead of the phone UI.
7. Let players turn auto-play off and keep it off. A few players who tried to play by hand report that auto-attack switches itself back on after being turned off.
8. Make patching and logins reliable. Players describe patches that need many restarts, long maintenance windows and Google or Facebook logins that fail to connect.