Media Why The Soul Point System Isn't As Bad As You Think

Of course, with such a controversial change, comes a wave of anger and concern. The new soul point system clearly is getting a lot of hatred. Many, I've seen, are complaining and they haven't even tried the system for themselves. Here is what I think about the matter:

If you haven't heard, soul points are being changed in the way that if you are less than 5 soul points you have a chance to drop certain items, and as you get lower, your chance to drop goes higher. These are the reactions I've seen:
1. If I'm at 5 soul points or less, I can't use a scroll! Or if I'm stuck in a wall, I can't get out because I will lose my items!!
2. New players who die heaps will lose all their stuff and quit!
3. This will make me scared of adventuring because I might die and lose my items!
4. What if I lose my mythic item?
5. There's going to be a whole load more threads complaining they've lost their stuff!
6. People will AFK in towns 1000% more than before!

These are all very valid points. But I'd like to point out a few things.
1. Much of this controversy is due to the fact that people dislike change. In this case, this change is gonna make the game worse, at first interpretation. But I think that this change will actually many it better, as I'll explain below.
2. Dying in Wynncraft just doesn't punish the player enough. You have, at early game, 5 chances. That's MASSIVE. Compare that to the one chance you get in vanilla minecraft, you always drop everything on death. Sure, on wynncraft there are super rare items, but if you are high level you get 7 chances, even more! With this system the player is punished for dying - but not overwhelmingly so.
3. This system is so much less punishing if you lose all your soulpoints. Apparently (I might be wrong, I'm not in beta) you don't lose everything at 1-2 soul points on death. You only lose 16% of your items. That is so much more forgiving than it was before where you suddenly got punished for dying. The punishment got spread out instead of at one stage.
4. This change is for the better. Wynncraft will again, be challenging. You will maybe lose your items. You have to take risks. And if you die, it will actually be a meaningful death. It won't be the 'oh well crap I died who cares lol still got like 6 deaths till I lose my stuff'.

People will still hate the system. But please, it seems like people are jumping to conclusions. I haven't tried it myself, but I'm going to go into this update optimistic about the coming changes and see both ends of the spectrum.

Thanks for reading!
TL;DR It isn't as bad as you think, its a change, change is good, it'll make wynncraft less of a pushover, deaths mean something.

Also, if you check no in the poll, why?

 

Wait, do you lose stuff if you higher than 5 soul points? I thought the only reason the changelog had the 5 soul point thing was to give an example.

 

nope, only 5 and below.
EDIT: and at low levels it's even lower I think

 

Actually, no, Lotem just confirmed on the changelog thread that you can lose items. However, it's only emeralds and junk items until 5 soul points.
Now I actually know what you lose, it isn't actually that bad. I usually do something else to get soul points back if I go down to 5 anyway.
I agree, what is the problem of being in a wall? You just have to wait a few hours, while doing something else (MOST of us have something else to do other than Wynncraft). What about your perfect build? Don't get to 5 soul points. Also, if you afk in a town because you forget about the mobs, you might actually HAVE some of your items when you look at Wynncraft again.

 

But aren't swarms in towns?

 

Then don't play in a swarm. Switch servers. Or actually lose /class. Or even log off.

 

Scenario:
I'm afk trying to regenerate soul points so I don't lose my items. I afk in detlas on top of the bank so I don't die.

I'm afk, how would I know a swarm started?

But then I don't regenerate soul points.

But then it takes 3x longer for my soul points to regenerate.

 

I'm all for the SP change because I don't really die that often, sometimes when I get really really bored I jump off of tall things though...

 

So? Unless you play 24/7, you have 1 soul point per hour while you sleep. Unless you also happen to die every minute (or use /kill because you are lazy), then you're fine.
I haven't actually seen this much dislike for a new component this small since archer's bow mechanics changed in 1.12. But a month later, everyone accepted it.

 

While I do approve of the SP stuff, I do think there should probably be other ways of gaining soul points other than waiting for them to regen so that a person can keep playing even when they die often:

-Completing quests can give you like 1-2 SP or something. (not a permanent boost, it would just add SP to your current total if you're missing any)
-Completing dungeons can also give you maybe like 1-2 SP. (Again, not a permanent boost)
-Even missions could give you 1 SP if you beat them, because other than mob XP missions, I find them useless. (Yet again, not a permanent boost)

EDIT: They could also add some sort of special "soul currency" you get by uncommon drop from mid to high leveled dungeons/rare drop from any mob (same rate as legendary?) and when you right click on a "soul coin" it just adds SP to your current amount if you're missing any, if you're not missing any it just doesn't consume any.

They could use items like snowballs/ender pearls for these "soul coins" to balance it out since those items only can stack to 16, they could even retexture a tool like a golden shovel into a "soul coin" so that these coins only stack up to 1 to add some more challenge to it.

 

You should probably make this a suggestion. Even if it isn't added, it's just something which could be at least considered.

 

heh
eheh
ehh...

 

Oh yeah, I forgot that you even had to make an alt account because you have so many classes.

 

And I have insomnia, and I have no life. Really, I have all the time in the world to play this game and do nothing else.
If they add more classes I'm gonna get another account, I already have a skin made for it too :>

 

Actually while thinking about it, the new soul point system should make the game feel more 'organic'.

- You will now be forced to use more 'realistic' modes of transport such as horses, the new boat system and fast walk speed gear (as opposed to scrolls and /kill), which will not only boost the market for horse and walk speed items, but also create more player interactions as you have to travel across the map instead of just skipping huge sections with scrolls. However with the new system making scrolls more costly soul wise and being able to buy scrolls for other towns for a higher price, the scrolls are still viable and are catered for higher leveled players with more money, all 15 soul points and who have no intention of dying (ie. for trading and exploring).

- It will make players be more cautious when entering new areas (actually a lot of boss arenas are suited to this methodical style with large staircases/entrance coves where a player can use their cc spell to snipe out weaker enemies from the side to get a feel for health, damage, spells etc. A few good examples of this are the Twain boss, Evil Santa, Qira and Amadel's rooms), so as not to die, which will hopefully boost the use of fire/air builds (imo they seem fairly underused, along with a lack of items for those elements, which should be fixed in the update) and more hybrid styled builds. A harsher penalty should also make people more inclined to engage in jolly co-operation and work together with guild members and friends, their 'party bonus' being not losing their stuff to hard bosses/quests.

- It will force players to be more organised (ie. not running around with a full inventory of legendaries, not leaving un-identified items laying around for too long and always being stocked up on health shots)

And honestly, the penalty isn't really that harsh, ~5 deaths before being able to lose anything of value is pretty soft considering Wynn has never had a quest or boss of huge difficulty (that you are meant to tackle without a small group of other players).

However, truthfully we will just have to wait until the full update is released to understand how punishing it is and the full extent of the salt

 

They should add a better way of getting sp, especially with the sp reset for 2.

 

Here's my opinion, from the news thread:

 

Did walk speed items and horses need to cost more? they're already expensive for some people as is.
Also, simply having to move across the world instead of teleporting does not add many more player interactions. Having to help each other on a hard quest, trading in Detlas (ew), or doing a dungeon together will. As it is I'll just teleport past everyone.
Also as a poor person you're saying I won't be able to afford a walk speed item, horse, or scroll? I just have to walk everywhere now?
Forcing players to be more organized really just means 'you have to go to the bank more often', which really means im gonna lose lots of money to scrolls, and I don't have much money to start with.

 

Mainly, I was trying to explain that I think the update should make people adapt their playstyle to counter these changes, ie. using that gear, transport spells etc., and no, you aren't required to interact with every player you meet, however, some people (me included) enjoy talking to people they meet, and even someone just saying 'hi' improves my day.

Anyway, where did I say that poor people wouldn't be able to afford these things? I'm not denying that some items and horses are expensive, however with some crafty-ness you should be able to get at least a small edge; everyone gets a horse, you get one and so do all the rich people that grind classes super fast, leaving them with a useless horse they sell for low prices (I've bought browns for 10 EB before), meaning you can get a semi-decent horse for a few LE (if you pray to RNGesus). Now, for walkspeed armour I wasn't intending to people to make a full build around it, just a few trinkets etc. with maybe 10% on them. For example, you can easily get the cyclone amulet for free with Wynn Ex D. or from another player who has several of them - a quick and easy +10 speed bonus, alongside the fact many unique items may have a small speed boost with very little reqs. (for example Meep, or Ehwaz). I've used these techniques for quite some time to get what I want on a budget.

When I said the market would be boosted, I was actually referring to the demand, and I'm honestly pretty sure prices will go down due to the update causing an influx of old players returning, 400+ new items, an incentive to grind (3-4x xp from mobs) ultimately adding up to more emeralds and items oversaturating the market. Also, I wasn't saying scrolls would become more expensive, just buying other town's scrolls from the one you are in would be pretty expensive, and probably only viable for higher leveled players who want to save time.

Of course, most of this is speculation so we will only be able to see the actual truth when the full update is out.

 

I am really on the fence about this change. On the one hand, it makes the game harder/riskier, but on the other hand, it'll make new players quit, and as you said, it'll create more "lost my items" thread.