Wynncraft's Boring.

Disclaimer: I enjoy the game, but this post exists to point out basic flaws in the game's design choices. I will not be discussing Mythics (nor their roles in the 'meta' at this or other times) or builds, and will mostly cover the choices made with the core gameplay.

It sucks that I have to say that Wynncraft's boring. It really sucks.

But I have a few points which need to be brought to light, concerning the game. Granted, most of us (if not all of us) can always agree that Hypixel Skyblock is the worst dumpster fire of bad game design we've ever seen in Minecraft, because at least P2W is redeemable (to an extent) if you actually have the cash to get through paywalls.
This post isn't about that hot trash can, though - this post is about the core gameplay of Wynncraft...And it's problems.

The Problem With the Complexity
The problem is the complexity of combat...Or, should I say, lack thereof. You realistically have 5 attacks at all times - your main attack, and your four Spells. That's it, unless you put your savings into a single Powder Special.
Meanwhile, the builds in this game...well, they're crazy complex. Looking at a piece of armor almost always has my head spinning as I read through the dang thing! I'm often planning for an hour before I hop into combat, likely to retreat soon after and return to the drawing table.
I think the problem with the complexity is that the Spells aren't complex enough. I get bored way too often of just casting Totem to Aura over and over and over. And it doesn't get better for the other Classes, either - look at the Mages, and then Meteor. The Assassins, and then Multi-Hit. And, oh Salted, the Archers. And. Then. Arrow Storm.
Ultimately, most of the complexity comes from preparing and making builds. The combat in this game could very well be dismissed as an afterthought, in my eyes.

And that's the bad part of this game - without complex enough Spells, you become sick of clicking the same-old four Spells, and almost nothing else. If you put most of the budget into storylines and lore, good for you - you've got a more complete world. If you don't make it interesting enough to keep players attracted, then you've made the lore obsolete, especially since a lot of the story is told through fetch quests. And I really, really hate fetch quests.
I've tried to dismiss it, mostly because this game is fun, but having only 4 Spells and too much complexity in build making is too boring to keep my attention.

Well, I've finished saying my piece, and am interested to hear anybody else's on this matter.

Meanwhile...
Me: I feel like I'm forgetting something...
Winter Break: If you forgot it, it wasn't important.
Me: Yeah, you're right.
My Four WIP Classes:

The bottom line is that Winter Break makes doing nothing too comfy for me too make those Custom Classes, aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh-

 

I feel like the build complexity is fine, but I do agree that combat needs to become more interesting. Some people complain that combat is too monotonous and is just you going in circles. However, if you look at Terraria (very good game go check it out), Combat is mostly just you going in circles. However, even though you only have 1 attack, boss phases change constantly and weapons are all different. In Wynncraft there's really only 2 types of bosses: Will shoot projectiles are you, or will charge you, so it's understandably hard to have variety when those two are basically all that minecraft gives you.

 

You have five forms of combat, with each class forcing you to play differently when in contact with another boss or creature or what have you. I think any implementations of spells/abilities would be pretty well-received, but what would end up occurring is people will stick to using the same few spells they've grown accustomed to as they believe it's the best way to go about it. Look at any MMORPG like World of Warcraft; the diversity exists through picking different classes and building specific items to those core designs.

The builds as you've mentioned can be complex, but they can win you the different battles if you learn how to utilize them. "I'm often planning for an hour before I hop into combat, likely to retreat soon after and return to the drawing table" - that's a good thing because that means the choices you have actually matter upon application, and you can't just throw yourself into a boss fight expecting it to be beaten with your spells alone.

While the classes might not have too much variety, the bosses as you go up in level certainly start to; CoW scares the ever-living hell out of people when they encounter a boss like that for the first time for example. There are charges, pulls, blinds, or take ToA where Death starts to bring bosses from other levels. At some point you're going to run out of mana or the boss hasn't been damaged for too long, so it's going to regain the health you just applied. Simple tools that have consequences if you use them wrong.

 

That's kind of the point of Wynncraft, if you're not going to actually try and get good at it - builds, spells, combat - then you're gonna stay shit at it and hate what you don't understand

 

I don't really see how this is a "Suggestions" thread, seems more like a Wynncraft kinda thing. Either way, I feel like the only complexities in combat come from the design of levels and bosses, rather than any sort of elaborate spell casting or movement - and that's okay. Wynncraft, and spells especially, should be easy to understand; The game should be accessible. Overcomplicating the spell-casting system won't really do anything to make it feel more exciting imo. Class-Building can be difficult to understand, but as long as you put on stuff around your level that goes together well, there shouldn't really be any bosses that you have to do lots and lots of times to defeat - so there's not really any need to class build much unless you wanna do endgame stuff, at which point you can ask for help.
Spell-spamming also isn't the only way to play game, you could try playing FAT hybrid which is pretty good for shaman, or one of the several types of melee builds.

 

I do think that spells may need to be changed, although adding more is well... interesting. Its alr hard to use the 4 spells in tandem until you actually get to learn your class, so I think adding more complexity to spells could be an idea. Also, it may be interesting to add more complexity with multiple classes, maybe multiple classes could work in tandem. It would be cool to have a "special" attack tho and maybe attack scrolls (I don't wanna say crafted cause profs are such a grind, but maybe their craftable and obtainable through identifying or smth)

 

now i wouldnt know if you have an alt or anything, but i do think it's a bit difficult to judge combat when your highest levelled class is level 43. dont get me wrong, i dont mean this in a rude way or anything, just moreso that some of the actual complex combat comes at higher levels in the form of the qira hive, 1.20 legendary island, the eye, etc (there's also boss altars, which are often challenging at any level--if you haven't tried any, i'd highly suggest giving them a shot)

my belief is that it's fine if classes themselves are simple, as long as you can make the enemies you fight with that class somewhat unique. sure, you might just cast the same spells over and over again, but if you need to think about how to avoid the enemy while doing so, or choosing a good time to attack vs retreat, it makes things a lot more interesting

 

Disagree.

I think there is beauty in simplicity. The spells each class has right now do their job sufficiently and cover most of everything the class needs to do. Adding more spells would just be less user friendly and be largely redundant. If anything, I think having a limited set of moves is arguably what makes Wynncraft (and many other games) great. I would argue that having a simple set of moves allows the game to demand more complex tasks of the player. The question is not "What tools do I use to overcome this challenge?", but rather "How do I use the limited tools at my disposal to overcome this challenge". A simple set of rules allows the player greater control over their character while also allowing for a greater amount of challenges.

Your point about the actual complexity of the spells is just plainly wrong as well. Sure, I'll agree that Shaman is braindead, but as for the other classes, spamming the same spell is simply suboptimal. Assassin benefits greatly from using each of its four spells: smoke bomb for a constant stream of damage, vanish is a must-use because of the 80% damage boost, multihit just deals the most damage and spin attack can be used while multihit is active and is generally useful for control. When ignoring Nighthawk, the archer's bomb is often a better long-range tool for dps than arrow storm and maintaining a constant arrow shield can be vital when you're using a glassy build (trust me, I know). Just because the game is easy enough to beat by spamming one spell, doesn't mean there is no depth to the combat whatsoever.

Therein lies the problem. The game very rarely poses a complex challenge due to the limited mob system. The mob AI in Wynncraft is largely horrible and allows for little customisation in behaviour. Most variety in normal mobs comes down to having different spells and being either ranged or melee. In essence, each mob encounter can be approached the same way, because the player's tools are already more than sufficient to deal with the situation. There is no reason not to spam arrow storm because most mobs can be defeated by spamming arrow storm. The problem isn't the spell itself, but the fact that most mobs don't do anything to force the player to play differently. In my opinion, the mob system needs quite a big overhaul, in order to allow GMs more control over a mob's behaviour.

There have been attempts lately to provide unique and interesting combat challenges to the player, such as The Eye, raids and some other current bosses as well. I think these are great efforts, but a constant throughout them is that they try to solve the monotony of normal combat through external means, like attacks that alter the arena, having traps that spawn minions or changing the arena altogether. This is, however, not a solution that can be applied to every boss or mob. Thus I would say that the bottleneck preventing Wynncraft's combat from being truly great is the entire mob system and not the player's spells.

Some mechanics I would personally like to see the developers make to combat are:

• Status ailments (granted that they are not too intrusive). It would be interesting if certain mobs could increase the player's mana cost or disable a one of their spells. This would add an extra dimension the mage's heal spell as well. This is of course an example I thought up on a whim but the possibilities are endless really.
• Customisable melee attacks. Right now each mob's melee attack is just running into the player and dealing x amount of damage y times a second. What if mobs could have their own attacks, like thrusting forward or swiping their sword in front of them. Allowing the GMs to customise when a mob will use a certain attack, the attack's hitbox, the movement of the mob, its knockback and maybe even a stagger if the mob misses would force a different approach to melee mobs than just not touching them.
• Customisable ranged attacks. Wouldn't it be cool if the GMs could make mobs shoot homing projectiles, or projectiles that orbit around them? What if projectiles had different gravity values, making them either fall to the ground immediately or not fall altogether? Customisable projectile trajectories and patterns would make for a much more varied combat experience.
• Mob scripts. A huge step towards more complex combat would be allowing full control over a mob's behaviour. Imagine if a boss were to only cast charge if the player is far away and meteor if the player is close. Imagine if it could cast explosion when it's taking too much damage per second. Imagine a boss whose AI becomes more aggressive when the player is at a low health. All just mad ideas, but allowing different behaviour based on different criteria would be pretty crazy for the mob system.
• Spell customisation. While the pool of mob spells is mostly great, it would be quite cool if one could change the particles a spell uses for a certain mob. A water mob making a big splash instead of a fiery explosion after casting charge would be a nice change and make mobs feel more unique.

These "suggestions" are obviously not as in-depth as I'd like and overhauling the mob system is a gargantuan task (as in, probably like more than a year of full commitment to only the mob system from the devs and literally nothing else), but I think a reform in the way mobs work is worth considering and would help combat feel more complex and interactive. Besides, the longer we're stuck with the current system, the harder it's going to be to change it, so I think an overhaul is due.

EDIT: TL;DR for you lazy people: Wynncraft's spells are fine. Using a simple ruleset allows more freedom for the player as well as the game's designers. The problem is that mobs just suck and largely feel the same with some exceptions.

 

This would be amazing feature

Although this would be nice, I fear it would require extraordinary amount of coding. First you would have to create the system itself (which would be propably quite hard) and then create a language for it so normal humans can use it too (which might be even harder)

 

Its been suggested multiple times before, that spell slots should be added with the addition of tomes. Then at the end of the game you can use different spells to make your class more rare/ fun to play. Another thing ppl are saying is that "The different playthroughs are what make the game more fun for different classes." This is bad thinking. You should not have to replay a game 2-3 times just to have fun with it. Each play through should be fun and different from the last without interventions from other classes. In my opinion late game is fun, however the spells and fighting is stale. The only difference is your dmg output and health are increased. I like the suggestion of special abilities. Possibly spells that have a cooldown/high mana cost that can do really cool and interesting effects. These spells can possibly be obtained by an endgame quest or boss fight?

 

My biggest problem with the current boss battles is that they really don't use that many different spells, even though there's a lot more available. I don't feel like uppercut, warscream, bash, ice snake, totem, uproot and aura, bomb spell, arrow shield, escape spell ... The list goes on. There's no shortage of spells that could be used, and they could easily make more.

I'm pretty sure they have a scripting language of some sort that acts as a simpler way to code spigot (which I find kind of funny as spigot is a simpler way to code using NMS), and even if they didn't it shouldn't be too hard, I think at least. These aren't exactly complicated decisions for the AI to make. Honestly, this is just if statements and a bit of math.

 

mhm... Most RPGs like wynn only get 4 spells or less for each characters. However designing an item is wayyyyyy more easier than a spell system overhaul, maybe except for coming up with gimmicks.
And this game is minecraft, there are limitations because they have to obey the rules of minecraft. "Adding more spells" is suggested by s lot of people, but it seems like no one bothered to give some more details for it.

 

It's literally not told through fetch quest.
You've done like 12 quests in total and most of the ones you've so happen to have done so far have been fetch quest.

Do more quest, they are the best part of the game by far, and no, they aren't fetch quest normally, you just did like 7 of the starting ones, and toke some shitty ones every now and then, with the expectation of like Tunnel Trouble and Deja Vu.

 

I honestly don't find a problem with the complexity

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Oh and this? Plz judge the game when you finish it, or at least are past midgame. You can't just judge a game after 12 quests that are in the level 1-20 range, all the good stuff are midgame and over.

And midgame I think is level 40 plz correct me if I'm wrong

 

Hopefully raid bosses will change this, and I hope better boss design will be a standard for future dungeons and quests

 

While Ice Bear does agree that the combat has a lot to be desired Wynncraft as a whole is really fun, Ice Bear says exploration alone is something Wynncraft excels at compared to other games. Ice Bear says every area seems full of secrets. That being said your point about how armor builds are complex and fun while combat is not, Ice Bear agrees with. Ice Bear says builds grew way more than combat did.

 

I guess that the bottom line here is that the game suffers from the same things another game I know suffers from. Said game is called Guardian Tales - great humor, great story, great writing, but all of one attacks, one special attack per character.
The game's not bad - just a bit repetitive, especially with the enemies, which are usually either 'fire projectiles, stand still and reload, repeat' or 'charge straight towards the player.'
Wynncraft probably suffers from the same problems - it'd be so much better, if only it weren't for the lacking enemy variety and somewhat simplistic Spells. Using the Spells in different orders doesn't do anything but use them in...well, different orders. It's not like you're really forced to do anything different.
I definitely think that we should have different early-game quests for every Class. For instance, Lvl 30 Assassins are redirected to Rymek and Almuj for their quests, Lvl 40 Warriors have most of their quests related to Llevjar (whatever it's called), and so on. The leveling early-on makes the Classes only have to do a handful of these to properly level up past the Lvl 30 Quests. The bottom line is: If you're an Archer, you should be going on quests which would face you against enemies which excel against/are weak to Archers overall. If you're a Mage, you should be exploring more of the realm of Alchemy and Magic related quests, and so on!
I mean, the sole reason Maplestory doesn't get old for a loooooooonnnnnng time is that every single Class gets a different story line - different quests, for the most part, related to them and their general themes, AKA not just the same quests recycled again and again. I mean, a single game about mowing through floor after floor of monsters for hours is much more fun, just because everything's a bit different, from the music down to the monsters you plow through!
Wynncraft's not a bad game, and I doubt it ever will be. Maybe we'd just be less bored with it if we had better Mobs, overall.

 

why would they do that lmao?

 

Wynncraft is made solely of plugins and command blocks, how much more can you possibly expect.