My First Impressions Of Wynncraft.

Okay, I'm gonna harp on this development team right out of the gate. Where the hell have you been all my Minecraft years? I mean jeez, I can only imagine the hours I would've put into this when I was young and didn't have responsibilities. This is what I've always wanted out of Minecraft, and for the most part, it's delivered with a cute silver bow to wrap it up. It's not perfect, but it's the closest thing I've ever seen to a fully fleshed MMO inside of Minecraft.

The first few moments I was absolutely stunned. The beautiful premade environments, the custom resource pack adding to your own little aesthetic, and the NPCs that actually felt intuitive to interact with (for the most part). Resource nodes for gathering materials to build with akin to the likes of Gw2 (the mmo i arguably have the most experience with) felt natural, if a bit grindy. I do wish that there was a node map much like WoW or Gw2, making actually finding certain nodes easier to find. I spent about an hour looking for birch at the starting area of Ragni, not knowing it was actually across the river. I'm probably pretty dull, though.

The custom weapons and mobs were frankly stunning for a no-mod, no-fuss experience. It felt like I actually had a badass glaive for my warrior or a pinpoint accurate crossbow for my archer. Spells or combos work amazingly, and is by far the best implementation of such a system in anything that I've tried. Though it would be nice to have the standard spell system of traditional MMOs, I understand that this likely wasn't possible. I haven't been much farther than this starting area, so I can't say anything about armor or weapon crafting and customization except for one thing. I don't know if there is a crafting level, but for the life of my I cannot craft a lvl 10 wand for my mage. I was under the assumption that the level signified in the crafting stations were my combat level, though this does not appear to be the case. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Quests are also something to gush about. Having proper quests with dialogue and custom animations makes it feel alive, not just interacting with prescripted NPCs and questlines. Awesome job there, guys! I think you really hit the mark with this system, and I'm sure it wasn't easy.

A few things that I feel are legitimate shortcomings, whether by software limitations by being a no-mod system or just over-sighted, that are glaring at best. Mostly being inventory and money mitigation. Having bags to expand storage space is quintessential to staples of the genre like WoW or Gw2, and for good reason. If I'm on a grinding spree, there's going to be loot. Lots of it. And having only the inventory space that is standard in Minecraft feels like a huge oversight. It makes looting feel like a chore when that shouldn't necessarily be the case. I've read that people appose bags for concern of just being able to have infinite space, but I don't feel that this is true. We have 3 immovable slots for our character tree, quest logs and soul points. Having a finite amount of spaces dedicated to storage expansion could seriously improve the experience for me, I can't speak for other people.

And piggybacking off what I had said in the last paragraph, I think the fact that money is not overstackable past 64 and that it takes inventory space is nothing short of atrocious. Now this I do believe to be a software limitation of Minecraft, but I feel that it's really tough having to choose between getting new loot from mob drops and having money to even identify it in the first place to be a really, really troubling thing that does cause quite a bit of frustration.

And finally, spawnrates. Perhaps it's only the first zone, but the spawn rates are absolutely obnoxious. It feels like I'm playing pokemon but the entire game has nothing but tall grass and there's no repels. I know that enemies are absolutely necessary, but the absolute barrage of them I find going to simple settlements in the map to just be too harsh. I shouldn't have to fight 10+ zombies in order to clear the area enough for me to use refineries or crafting stations. It's hard to enjoy the world you've made when combat becomes something of a chore, quickly losing the magic it had when I first started playing. And it's also insanely abusable. There is a corruption spot to the northwest of Ragni that I was basically able to farm from level 3 to level 11 in no time. Damage that scales with level is important, in no other MMO would I even be able to dent the level 7 enemies that were there sitting at level 3. No chance in hell.

All that aside, I did find ways to make the experience more fun for myself, namely client-side mods. Mods like Shoulder Surfing and Xaero are simple ways to add a lot to the experience. Unfortunately, in some weird instance, the grass texture does NOT show unless I'm using Optifine, which negates those previously said client-side mods. This is likely a platform issue, since I am using Pop_OS, which is based on Ubuntu 18.10.

I harped a lot, but I really do love what the developers have done here. And frankly, the things I had mentioned I can, for the most part, kind of ignore without fail. But if those changes were made, I feel like it almost make this the perfect experience for me. I'm glad I found this, it's actually having me return to Minecraft frequently, which hasn't happened since maybe 1.4-1.5.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I plan to start being proactive in the community, since it seems it's so lively, and I'd love to hear what you have to say about the subjects I had mentioned. Thank you and have a good day!

Say, is there a discord?

 

obligatory profile post
also, yes, there is a discord- https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/how-to-use-discord.175854/

 

Howdy! It's great to see that someone has found something that they have been looking and waiting for, for a long time. I myself joined Wynncraft in 2015, four years ago so I am an absolute wynncraft gaming legend idiot. Nonetheless, nice to make your acquaintance.

 

Absolutely! I've always loved the adventure aspect to Minecraft, being heavily invested in modpacks like Hexxit. But Hexxit isn't something that has amazing server support and can't encapsulate and audience like this has just by simply not requiring mods. I think that's a huge advantage that this has over those types of modpacks.

 

Modpacks can't beat a constantly ongoing project. Modpacks are just compilations of pre-made works that are put together to make a larger work. Wynncraft isn't like that; Wynncraft was made from top-to-bottom from scratch, by the same group of people who continue to develop it now.

 

isn't it bottom to top?

 

I think it's "from top-to-bottom", in the sense that the server was developed completely, thoroughly and in full. I guess that "bottom to top" would also make sense in that context, though.

 

Money is very stackable, since 64 emeralds -> 1 emerald block and 64 emerald blocks -> 1 liquid emerald. If you're referring to not being able to do so on the go, that just comes back to your first point. Expansion of inventory space in some way is definitely a regular point of discussion around here.

 

As he said. Money can be compressed into blocks, which can still be used and traded with. Just go to your nearest bank.

 

That's great to know! It would be quite useful if it was just a quantitative value expressed in maybe a HUD element. But, like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a software limitation that's hard to avoid.

 

Glad to see you're enjoying the server so much!

 

I think he's referring to how money is based on inventory in the first place, rather than as a separate system (ex most money plugins on servers). This means that when grinding, your inventory stacks up with stacks of 64 emeralds which can be kind of annoying if you don't want to literally throw away money, having to run back to banks to compress and deposit. Personally I like how it is inventory-based but I could see the benefits of adding a portable wallet for emeralds or something.

Would also make it so that stacks of LE don't clog your bank for the rich folks out there. Higher-class capitalism should be encouraged, just as oppressing the Gert race should be. It just makes sense.

 

discount backpack suggestion


welcome to hell! Glad you like the server!

 

To answer why you can't craft a Lv 10 wand yet, there's two different levels for gathering; your Professions level and your Crafting level. Your Professions(whichever profession it may be) level needs to be Lv 10 to start gathering Birch(for woodcutting), Trout(for fishing), etc.

Your Crafting Level, however, needs to be Lv 10 in order to start using those materials in recipes, so you'll need to make some throwaway Oak stuff in order to make yourself a new Lv 10-19 wand.

 

There are banks which can be used to store all of your stuff. A backpack suggestion is commonly suggested but inventory management is a part of wynncraft too.

Money can be stacked into blocks and then blocks into liquid emeralds. However if you’re referring to automatically creating blocks of out of 64, that would be a very nice feature to have. For now just go to banks and back to fill up room.

Lower levels take much less time than higher levels, so 3-11 isn’t much xp at all. You’ll find that you’ll have to put in a lot more effort for each level. Especially when you hit the 50s. And the spawnrate isn’t that high for most places, there are aoe spells that can a clear a whole group of them, and many more ways to deal with them. For many players, reducing the spawnrate would hurt them, as they need mobs to grind levels. I don’t want to act all elitist and crap, but “get good” is the option here. Most players don’t struggle or are smart enough to run away if there are ton of normal mobs spawning. Combat I agree with you gets a bit old, however once you unlock more spells and access to a better variety of items, combat becomes fun.

Combat level is the normal xp, which don’t involve crafting, refining, or getting materials. To make a higher level wand, you’ll need to use higher level materials.

 

Now that I finally have a chance to read through this...

EB in lootchests, or E->EB on the go, would completely break the economy. That said, earlygame starter money has always seemed a little low to me. Past the first 15-20 levels you shouldn't have to worry much about not having enough money to identify gear, but it's really annoying if one of your first few drops is a mythic. That said, opening some high-tier lootchests is a great way to rapidly increase your money supply in the first few levels (spoilers T3/T4 lootchest locations map).

Emerald Trail does have rather high spawnrates. I've noticed in a lot of the new Youtube series on Wynncraft that people are having trouble using refineries and crafting stations because of mobs attacking, it's something I meant to bring up in the Feedback section on the forums. Mobs will ignore the player when gathering, but that's definitely not the case for crafting stations. Emerald Trail is basically the only spot where refineries and crafting stations are spread out like that, so it shouldn't be a problem after reaching Detlas (since once you do Tunnel Troul).

Damage scaling in Wynncraft is roughly exponential. so denting enemies of a higher level becomes harder toward the endgame (although in general players tend to have better relative gear in the endgame; few level 10 players have a bunch of synergized rares and legendaries). In general, mobs and bosses 10-15 levels above are beatable with extreme difficulty if you have good gear, and 20-25 levels up they basically become next to impossible. Depends heavily on the mob of course - Altar of Santification can be beaten at lower levels than most since the boss has a lot phases, therefore his health regen isn't much of a factor (provided you don't get oneshot by his attacks), but something like Aerie of the Recluse would be next to impossible to finish below level 85 because the boss has particular high health regen.

Note however that xp scales with level difference between the player and the mob killed. 10-15 levels difference makes a major dent, and 20 levels or so means you get a small fraction of the xp. Generally, grinding mobs within about 5-8 levels maximizes xp. In general (i.e. excluding the use of optimized grinding gear), grinding is very effective for the first 10-15 levels but drops off pretty quickly as quests become the main source of xp.

 

To see player combat levels in chat -> /toggle chatlevel

I agree. Especially with the introduction of professions, there just isn't enough space to go farming for even an hour because of the unrefined weight limits and lots of loot. Emeralds also contribute to the problem. You can store emeralds effectively, but most players probably never pick up emeralds once items start selling for more than 64 E (higher level content).

I disagree. I loved seeing a whole bunch of enemies swarming the gates of ragni and fighting through Nivla. The game starts out very quick, but enemies get consistently harder to kill later in the game. There are other portions of the map that have far fewer mobs, although being attacked at refineries is still a problem, I agree with that. I think there should be doors to the refineries so players can lock themselves in with them like the emerald trail item identifier. Just an opinion.

Make sure to disable radar on mini map mods or use a wynn specific mod like Wynntils which doesn't include the radar feature, as it is against the rules (gives players an unfair advantage). The wynncraft map online is intended to be the user's primary means of navigation before learning where everything is. You really don't need waypoints once you know the coordinate system and get a general layout of the map. The community makes maps of chest loot runs and nodes too.

I don't see how that would break the economy. Other games have that feature too. It just means less running back and forth to exchange for EB/LE.

 

1. Never actually happens, although I suspect many players probably don't realize this. Profits on gear go down at higher levels.

2. In the present state it would. Would require a major decrease in the amount of emeralds in lootchests if you can stack the emeralds you get onsite (although I think this would probably be a good thing, since there would finally be a reason to take gear while lootrunning).

 

You still get more emeralds from the blacksmith at higher levels, even if the profit is negated by the cost of identification. I did realize that, but it also means that picking up emeralds is necessary to pay for the identification, which would be nicer if emeralds were converted in inventory instead of in banks.

Exactly? You just rebutted yourself but I'll take it. People rarely take the emeralds in loot chests because legends and specific rares sell for more on the market. Make the emerald collection from chests automatic based on time unopened (longer unopened the more emeralds added) that way players can estimate how much loot they can expect in other loot chests on their loot run, allowing for exact control of emeralds from chests and adding convenient features for loot runners. Then players have all the emeralds to identify their stuff automatically and only need to organize their items like weapons, armor, and consumables. Suggestions are fun.

 

If done with no other changes, it would break the economy by making lootrunning ridiculously overpowered as a form of moneymaking unaffected by market prices. I already only take about 10-20% of the emeralds I find on lootruns, being able to take 100% and make around 1 LE per 15 minutes solely from emeralds would be massive.