Detailed Review Of The 1.20 Update

- INTRODUCTION -​

Here’s a link to the Google Doc of my review, it might be easier to read through on there, plus using the sidebar should make it easier to skip between sections. As always, feel free to skip sections you’re not interested in and let me know what you think. If you’re only reading to see what my overall opinion is, I would recommend reading the Conclusion and if you want my more in depth thoughts into the game as a whole I would read The Future of the Game as well. I also want to add that this is going to be long, very very long. I’ve been working on writing this for the past two months while the beta was up so keep that in mind before you ask how long I spent writing this.

First, there will be some things I don’t talk about here. I will not be discussing the guild changes or new items/class balances/boss alters/LI as I think they either need time to work themselves out before I can form an opinion (guilds), I need to see what the new meta looks like before commenting (item/class balances) or I don’t think they’re important enough to talk about (Boss alter/LI changes). If you want to talk about them, that’s fine, but I won’t be discussing them in the main post.

Second things second, if you’re reading this then that means 1.20 is finally out! Since I imagine at least a few people are going to read this, I want to start by reminding everyone the server tends to get a little laggy when new updates drop, so even though I know we all want to nolife the new content on day 0, patience is a virtue and if you’re willing to wait a week for some of the early fixes then you’re going to be in for a better experience. Additionally, the Content team worked especially hard over the past few months so if you run into any issues, please be patient. If you see a bug, make sure you check the forums to see if it’s been reported a dozen times already, if there’s an issue, don’t expect an immediate response and if you do need to talk with a mod, please be patient with them.

With all that out of the way, before you start reading my 14 page (yes it is that long) review, I want to be clear about what my intentions with this review are, especially if you’ve read a lot of my previous comments on 1.20 in general. Throughout the entire update cycle, I’ve been fairly negative about a lot of the content in this update because that was the time to do so. When there was a possibility to see things changed, I wanted to voice a dissenting opinion since I wanted to see the game improve, but that time is over and we’re in the stage where the update is out and it’s a time to celebrate. Does that mean I have nothing negative to say about any of the content in this update? No, I have quite a few issues with it but I’m going to try my best to stay positive and productive and when I mention those issues, I’ll be sure to talk about what improvements I think can be made in order to fix them so this won’t turn this into a never ending rant.

- QUESTS - ​

Quests have been a really strong point of the last few updates and 1.20 is no different, in fact I would say they’re the best they’ve ever been as the new quests are great. These quests really are amazing and I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say Jbip’s work on The Feathers Fly reminded me of why Corkus is my favourite area of the map, the man really is a master of his craft. Rblotskys work on The Hero of Gavel is amazing too, really impressed by the story behind this one. When I make new classes, I won’t be running these quests for the XP, I’ll be doing it because they’re fun, so really great work there and again, congratulations to Jbip and Rblotsky for really taking quests to a new level this time around!

Spoiler: Read More - Quests

One issue Wynn has had for a long time now is the disconnect between old and new Wynn. For some time now, really ever since Corkus, there have been builds and quests which just don’t really fit in with the new standard which was set all those years ago. Each update since then has had some improvements and I’m happy to say that another big step in bridging that gap was taken in this update with all the changes to bring some of the older quests up to the new standard. All the new quests are great, but to point out a few standouts, DrBracewell’s new Lazarus pit and the new, better and not even remotely Eye of the Storm like (thank god) Lexdale Witch Trials by Nicktree are must plays for everyone, even if you’ve played the old versions a billion times, these quests really are fantastic. Of course, I would recommend trying every new and updated quest eventually, though maybe wait a week for the launch lag to die down so the quests run more reliably since I know that was a big problem with 1.19’s launch.

Finally, the big quest line update, the Realm of Light parts 1-5. Do they have their problems? Yes, I’m not going to call them masterpieces like I did with the other quests but are they bad? Not at all, not even remotely close. With long quest chains I think the standards I judge the quests by are a little more complex, so it’s not really fair to compare my take on this 5 part quest with my take on the short and relatively simple quests above, so please keep that in mind. Short quests tend to have less time to make an impression so my opinions on them tend to be more polar compared to long quests, so my take on RoL 1-5 is going to be much less polar and more far more nuanced.

First off, I think this is a huge improvement over what we had before, the old RoL quest line isn’t even close in terms of build quality, enjoyment and story. Sure, some of the ideas from the original are still there if you look hard enough, but overall this rework is basically a complete rewrite of the lore we had before which is without doubt a good thing. Another thing I really did love about the quest line is the integration of other quests into it. Worm Holes was always kind of a weird and out of place quest but it now serves as a good introduction to Lari’s character and gives access to the most basic raid which is a good introduction into raids if nothing more. The reward of a bunch of AZ runes is also really welcome since it gives you plenty of chances to try out the raid without needing to worry too much about failing.

As for the story, again without spoiling anything, I think Lari is going to be a controversial character, which is probably a good thing because at least she’s interesting for better or worse and I don’t love the connection to A Iron Heart II as I think it takes away from the latter quest line. Beyond those comments, I think the writing is fine, not the greatest writing in the world, but good enough for sure, I know at the time of writing this there still might be some dialogue changes to tighten up the story a little more but otherwise I think it’s in a good place.

I feel like I’ve been overly negative talking about RoL and that isn’t really what I wanted my conclusion to be. I really do like the quest(s), I just feel like it’s kind of long and a little anticlimactic since it doesn’t actually end with the important fight, you need to assemble a team and take it on later (It’ll be here in 1.20.1 probably but that’s not what I mean by later). One of my favorite parts of the D&D quest line is that it actually finishes properly so I guess I wish RoL got the same treatment. This might be asking a lot, but I think if there was a solo version of the raid made specifically for the quest where you get to take on the final boss as part of the quest would go a long way in increasing my opinion of the quest. Interestingly, I think Worm Holes actually did a great job of this, I just wish it was done where it really counted. I also want to say that I’m a little jaded, the quests are still better then almost every other quest in the game, I just think there’s room for improvement (which very well may come in the future). All that said, I do think congratulations is in order for Imaxe and everyone else who helped for creating the definitive realm of light experience, you took one of the weakest stories in Wynn and used your magical powers to turn it into one of the strongest, really well done.

- HOUSING -​

Housing is without question the most suggested feature and for good reason. A lot of big MMO’s have housing and Minecraft is a game all about building so it only makes sense that Wynncraft should add the ability to build your own house, it really is a match made in heaven. There’s been a lot of back and forth on how to properly implement housing in the game, everyone had their own opinion on how it should or shouldn’t work, but I think the system they went with is a good compromise on the more common suggestions.

Spoiler: Read More - Housing

Starting with the good, I’m actually a fan of the floating island. I think it could have been cool if you had plots in towns, but I prefer the space you get access to and that really wouldn’t have been possible in towns. With the available space, I wouldn’t even call it housing anymore, I would call it city-ing since you can literally build a city with a bank, item identifier and more if you want to. The possibilities really are endless if you’re willing to put in the work. Another thing I love is that professions at a lower level have value now since you buy the building blocks with resources. Back when Novalescent made his housing thread a while ago, I remember suggesting this (not taking credit for it being in the update, just saying I was a fan of this before we knew housing was a thing) so I’m really happy to see that it’s how the system works. In general I think professions are a bad use of time, but I think this will make the early grind a lot more fun.

As for the build options, I think they did a great job, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.. First, the regular block selection is basically perfect. I can’t imagine wanting anything which isn’t there, so well done!. I also love all the extra things you can put in your house, it’s great that you have access to a bank, buildstand (champion only :/ ), blacksmith, item identifier, crafting stations and even a trade market, but I wish there were a few more things.

First, I wish there was a banker NPC, both liquid and regular. I think that’s probably the most important omission and so I wouldn’t be surprised if it got patched in later. I also really want to see NPC’s you could place to walk around like in towns, maybe even having the option to give them custom dialogue. I think giving players their guild banner as a building block would also be a really great addition, even if it just comes in the form of a single placeable banner with the base, though I think being able to buy banners would be really great too. The last “NPC” blocks I wish we could see would be improved versions of the crafting stations which use less resources to craft at, either by reducing the base cost or having a random return chance. I’ll get into this a little more later, but for now I just think it would be a good addition to make crafting better at the later stages of the game, plus it would give people a little more reason to use their houses.

Next, I think the functionality is good, but there are quite a few QoL features I wanted to see. I really like how easy it is to get a house, super simple, really cheap (but not too cheap) and straight forward. Using the NPC and block bank is also simple, overall the experience was really good, though there are some things I think need to be changed. I really think there should be an options NPC who would let you change your housing location without needing to go to the location, plus they could let you change the size of your island between one of maybe 3 sizes in 3-5 different biomes (Plains, Desert, Snow, Jungle and maybe something like an eldritch where the grass is gray). I think adding variety like that would go a long way in making housing even more interesting.

Finally, I really think you should be able to have multiple houses, even if it does come as a rank perk (1 housing slot every other rank, total of 3 at champion) and if you’re a guild owner I think you should be able to create a guild house which all your guild members are able to hang out. Housing is a great way for players to get together to chat but I think adding a guild housing plot could add some fun engagement to guilds by allowing them to have their war plans laid out on signs or to gather around a table in game to discuss their plans to take over the world. It could also be fun for roleplay since you could give the owner a throne made of gold or whatever, I’m not that creative but my point is that I think it would add a lot to the game, especially since guilds are now revamped. If they’re planning on improving guilds further in the future, expanding guilds features by implementing housing could be a nice addition.

Overall, I think they did a good job with housing, but I think the biggest problem is that there isn’t really a point. There isn’t anything you get from housing now that you don’t get from almost every town so why bother going up to your house. Earlier I suggested having improved crafting stations, I think these could be great since they would give crafting a boost, they could give you something new to grind for and they also give you a reason to visit people's houses who have them so you can be a leach, but there are other good ideas I’ve seen too. JaydonTheWarrior posted a suggestion a while ago about adding trophies to housing and I think that’s a great idea which addresses the same issue. There isn’t really only one solution to the problem, but I do think that the problem should be addressed in the future. A huge congratulations is in order for the team who worked on this as I think they managed to create a miracle by uniting the community who were divided on housing. They managed to strike a good middle ground on the areas of conflict so I hope people can appreciate all the hard work they did to make housing as good as it is.

- BUILDS -​

Figured I should keep up with the topic of building by talking about the new builds next, though this section is unfortunately going to be one of the more negative sections. I don’t want to hurt anyone's feelings but I think there are some things that need to be said. Please keep in mind that this is all coming from a place of love and admiration and that in general, I think the builds are amazing, but a lot of the changes feel like they don’t really add anything to the overall experience and that effort could have been better used on other parts of the game which need the attention or new areas for future updates.

Spoiler: Read More - Builds

First, the new environment builds are fantastic as always. Levigar plains, Olux swamp, the Realm of Light and so many more places have never looked better. It’s really amazing to me that they can keep improving on areas that already looked so good, which is kind of where the issues start for me. Taking the RoL out of the discussion for a moment since it actually did need a rework, why did these areas actually need to be reworked? They were fine before, I don’t really get why all that effort was wasted making perfectly fine areas slightly better. For some reason, people tend to forget that basically every area of the game got rebuilt in 1.18 for the addition of professions and when that happened basically the entire world was reworked to some extent. If we were going straight from 1.17 Gavel to 1.20 Gavel I’m sure I would be much more amazed by the new areas, but we’re not and I honestly think that while the new areas are the best they’ve ever looked, all that effort was almost entirely wasted. This game could really use new areas, so it’s a little frustrating to see all this effort being put into remaking the same areas over and over again. Somehow though, Gavel wasn’t even the worst offender of this, as for some reason, newbie road (Emerald Trail) also got remade for the billionth time, for some reason. This is like the fourth iteration of the main path out of Ragni in the past 3 updates and I think this one is actually a huge downgrade as to me, it feels cluttered and overworked. I was a huge fan of the feeling I got stepping out of Ragni only to be greeted by a huge open plains with a light path telling me to keep moving forward and I really feel like that whole feeling has been completely lost. There’s so much random garbage all over the place now; there’s a giant ugly arch which blocks the view of the forest, there’s a bunch of piles of rubble which look like barricades outside the city, there’s giant stairs (yes I know the meme)? And the path is just way too wide and brown. For a path called the emerald trail there’s a severe lack of green. I think this is the first rework in Wynn that I entirely dislike which I think is a real shame, especially since I was quite fond of the trail before. No offence to the builder, but I think it went a little too far. For a place like Fruma which is at war this might be okay but for the first city it really needs to be more relaxed.

That said, I do want to give a special shout out to the canyon colossus build, as it’s one of the best environmental builds I’ve ever seen, while I wish there was a nicer path to get there (could be a work in progress), I think the area looks appropriately epic. I would recommend you check it out if you’re a high enough level, you won’t regret it.

Speaking of the raids, I have some really mixed opinions on the builds as I really love the CC raid builds but I really dislike the Grootslang builds. Getting the negativity out of the way, I think the Grootslang raid looks lazy, it’s just a brown tunnel, they didn’t really try to do anything more with it. I get that it fits the theme, but all the brown is just boring to look at and all the flat textures used just don’t look right. I really wanted to see some flowing rivers or waterfalls and a ton of lushness to add some more organic color into the mix, I think if they added a little blue and a lot of green it would go a long way in making the raid feel more alive, literally and emotionally. On the other hand, I actually really love how the Canyon Colossus raid looks. I think the CC struck a really nice balance between the outside feeling of canyons and the cave feeling of, well caves. It might be a bit plain, but I think the contrast between the green grass floors and the stone gray mountains really makes for an interesting and calming appearance, plus the Colossus itself is also one of the most amazing builds on the server. From what we’ve seen of the RoL raid, I think it looks good so far, definitely better then Grootslang, though I’ll need to run it to form a solid opinion.

Finally, the last builds I think I need to talk about are the cities, which I’m glad to report are really good with one notable exception being Cinfras, which is where I’ll start. I was originally really hopeful for Cinfras, I thought it had potential and when Salted said it was designed to be seen from the ground I thought it was going to be great, but unfortunately it really isn’t. Cinfras is the capital of Gavel, it should be a big, warm, open, light and lively city but it is none of those things. Walking into Cinfras, you’re greeted with a claustrophobic, cold and dark city which both looks and feels dead. Somehow, Lutho, the city where the people are literally dead, feels more lively than new Cinfras and that’s for a lot of reasons, but I think it really hinges on a few key issues, those being the thin roads, the flat gray walls and the excess of overhangs. Starting with the thin roads, the main roads in new cinfras are 7-9 blocks wide depending on how you count. That sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t, especially when there’s a cart on the road or something else in the way, which there is plenty of. Having these small roads with huge buildings next to them really makes me feel boxed in like there’s only one way to go, which might be a good feeling for a maze, but is a terrible feeling to be getting from the biggest city in the game. This issue is further compounded by all the entrances to important places like the bank, item id’er and blacksmith are all extremely small which makes the city feel unwelcoming, almost as if they don’t want you entering into the buildings. Next, almost every wall at ground level is gray and looks very flat which makes the entire city feel really dark, even during the day when it should be extremely light. Finally, there’s also just a lot of overhangs which block light to the road and make it feel even smaller. A lot of these issues were addressed in the beta buy opening up the paths and the sky a little, but I don’t think they did enough where it counts to make the city a nice place to be. Detlas managed to be a perfect remake a couple updates ago and Cinfras had so much potential to get the same treatment so it’s a real shame they couldn’t stick the landing with this one. Instead of starting from scratch, they should have taken what made Cinfras great before (the shape and scale) and just spruced it up by changing out the repetitive wood and bricks with some more colors to put it more in line with Detlas. I don’t dislike Cinfras as much as I do the Emerald trail, but I also care a lot more about Cinfras so I’m a lot more upset about this change then I am about the former.

Okay, with all the negativity out of the way, I think Thanos got the best possible remake it could have had. They blew the whole city wide open and centralized the important stuff, plus they removed the fire which are all really good changes. Thanos went from being one of the worst cities in the game to one of the best overnight and I can’t even begin to say how much I love what they did with the place. Likewise, the new Bucie is also really good, I never had any issues with it before but it’s still good now so that’s nice.

For all the new city changes, one that didn’t really get changed is Llevigar which I think is a shame. I was never a huge fan of Llevigar as it felt empty and overly large and I think compared to the rest of the reworked Gavel, Llevigar stands out as being a weak link which is especially bad considering it’s the first thing you see when you enter the Province. They really should have left Cinfras alone and put the effort into making an even better first impression for Gavel by upgrading Llevigar, though there’s always time for that in the future I suppose.

To end on a positive note, the builds in Wynn have always been a highlight. The build team clearly knows what they’re doing, I just think they made a few missteps along the path to the ultimate goal of making the best possible Gavel. I think it’s a bit of a shame they fell short of perfection, but I also understand it’s asking too much of them. Overall, the builds are beyond beautiful and they’re not just pushing Wynncraft, but the whole of Minecrafts builds forward. As somebody who enjoys building myself, I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am to the build team for consistently inspiring me, especially with some of the stuff in this update and I hope they keep giving the game their 110% into the future.

- RAIDS -​

Since I already spoke about raids a little bit when talking about builds, now feels like a good time to dive into them more. First, both the raids have some really similar mechanics so I’ll look at raids as a whole before diving into each separately. In general, I’m fairly mixed on raids, I think there’s something here but it needs to go through its own metamorphosis in order to become the beautiful butterfly that it has the potential to be.

Spoiler: Read More - Raids

First big raid thing is the raid buffs. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of these as I don’t think they make a difference to the experience. If you make the player twice as strong but the only thing they fight is also twice as strong, the buffs cancel out and it just feels like a regular fight where your numbers are twice as big. If you’re going to give the player buffs like this, you also need to make them feel powerful by throwing relatively weak monsters at them to build up a frame of reference. If you can one shot mobs that take 10 hits without buffs and you’re still having a hard time with the boss, you know it’s strong.

The raid rooms all have a fairly common format where there are resource rooms, defence rooms and combat rooms, you get some mix of the three each run. In general, the defence rooms are the least interesting to me since you just stand on some platforms and fight mobs. I’m fine with the resource rooms since they have some puzzles and challenges, there’s a nice variety, especially in the CC raid. Finally, the straight combat rooms generally have a twist on them (defending targets, building a bridge, finding the exit) and they tend to be my favourites. I really love the wing room in the CC raid in particular, it’s a nice test of communication and teamwork which is unique to raids. The rooms overall are fine, I just wish there were more puzzles that didn’t involve so much fighting, especially when the bosses are already insanely long fights as is.

Finally, raids all share the same rewards, tomes, charms plus some other minor stuff. I’ll get into tomes in more detail later, but the rewards are really weak and as it is now, grinding raids feels like a huge waste of time unless you have a good team ready to go. Charms are a cool idea, but I think the implementation of them is a little questionable, having them as soulbound is good (unlike tomes), however I also think they should have completely fixed stats and be guaranteed drops, maybe with some sort of upgrading system so getting multiple actually does something for you. Charms and tomes aren’t really the issue though, the real issue is the quantity of rewards. You’re not guaranteed any drops at all, so you can open a chest and get quite literally nothing out of it. Dungeons are great because with every run you’re getting closer to a drop you want, whereas with raids there’s no measurable progress, if you want a drop you had better start praying to RNGesus because there is no path you can progress along to eventually get what you want.

I’m not really a fan of the raid chests either, they just feel really anticlimactic. When you beat a dungeon there’s a huge explosion of items and particles, it feels like you accomplished something but with raids, you just kind of beat the boss and it’s over. I wish there were some particles when you close the chest and maybe some fireworks to really make it feel special.

Alright, with all that out of the way, I’ll start with the first raid, The Nest Of The Grootslang. Overall, I didn’t really love this one. The specific challenges didn’t really stand out to me, it didn’t really feel challenging at level and the boss isn’t fun to me, it just felt like a dungeon but less communication on how to beat the boss. Coming out of Worm Holes, I was expecting a much more epic, eye styled, fight, but instead you fight this tiny green worm 5 times and it’s over. Fighting the boss, I wasn’t actually sure if we were winning or not since there was constant blindness and it looked like the arena kept resetting. I honestly thought we kept making a mistake which reset the boss but no, we did eventually beat him. I feel like this raid is a really poor example of what a raid should be so I don’t think it’s great that it’s the first raid you can do. I also didn’t really care for any of the raid buffs in this raid, they were okay, but not amazing.

The Canyon Colossus is a bit of a different story. The challenges were a lot better this time around, not perfect but better then Grootslang for sure, though I think the better appearance helps a lot. I also really liked the buffs here, they felt a lot more in line with the theming and also did a better, though still not great job, of making me feel stronger. The Colossus itself is also a much more fun boss fight and the communication on what to do was much more clear. Overall, this was a good raid and I can see myself doing it at least a few times to get some decent tomes. I wish there was a more clear path to this raid, and I wish it had a quest to go along with it, but those are just a couple minor nitpicks.

My biggest problem with raids is that they don’t really have a good reason to exist. I thought raids were supposed to have block built bosses like the eye, but half the raids aren’t like that and the RoL raid doesn’t look to be either so that’s clearly not true. I guess their rewards are different, but their only rewards are tomes which were created for the sole purpose of giving raids a reward so I’m not sure that really counts. I really think raids should have been called party dungeons, they should have had tokens for a token store and keys like dungeons, and they shouldn’t have had a level cap. They added in support for parties of four to enter dungeons with 1 key which is the party size raids require, it would have been a perfect fit.

That said, we’re way past the point of no return and need to work with what we have which means the rewards need to be improved, I’ll talk about when I talk about tomes. Overall, I think raids are a fine addition, not good, not bad, they’re just kind of there, chilling out, adding nothing of value to the game which I guess is fine but it’s a little disappointing. I also think there should have been more raids at launch, at least one more endgame raid for the molten heights D&D quest line against the magma deathlord thing you fight at the end. I also want to see a giant clockwork dragon raid raid for Corkus but that might be pushing it a little.

- TOMES -​

I honestly don’t even know where to start with tomes. I know I said I was going to be positive, but this is the one exception as tomes are the laziest, least creative, most poorly thought out addition Wynncraft has ever seen. They add nothing to the game, they’re uninspired, they’re supposed to act as a progression system (Salted’s words, not mine) yet they totally fail to meet even the most basic criteria for being one. They’re basically just extra accessory slots, but without any of the interesting parts. At least with accessory slots there’s a small number of slots which have a ton of interesting choices for each which come from a variety of sources, unlike tomes only have a single best in slot item each that you can only get by doing a single activity which means as you collect tomes, you’re not considering what build to use them with, you’re either equipping it immediately because it’s better then what you have on or considering which towns garbage you should throw it in because it’s completely useless. I don’t know what happened when developing tomes, but something clearly went very wrong because the tomes we have now have already been changed a ton from what they initially were in Beta 1 and they’re still awful. I’ve gotten into enough arguments about how to unlock the slots already so I won’t talk about that beyond the fact that I think the unlocking requirements are also dumb, but they are what they are so I guess we’ll just have to live with them.

Spoiler: Read More - Tomes

Alright, I think I got my ranting out of the way so I can actually get to solving these issues. First, when I say they’re uninspired I mean their design doesn’t remotely resemble anything relating to their source of what they’re used for. Dungeon items all relate to the dungeon they come from, just look at EO where all the items have some sort of thematic relationship with the darkness and chaos of the eye in their effects and names. Almost every dungeon item is like that and it really goes a long way in giving the items some lore which is completely absent from tomes. Why does the Canyon Colossus drop a tome which gives me more XP when I kill mobs? Who knows! It’s especially stupid since they have the themes already lined up with the raid buffs, if they had just made the tomes mini raid buffs you could take out into the world with you it would have been so much more interesting to use them. Plus, each raid has 5 different buffs, so each raid would have 5 options for each slot for a total of 10 choices for any slot at launch which would be amazing and really change the way builds are made.

The next problem is that there are way, way too many slots. There really should have only been a small handful of tome slots, maybe 3 and a restriction that you can only use 1 of each type, that way you need to consider the tomes you use rather then just stacking on every tome you can get. Given the suggestion I made above, 3 would actually be the perfect number as you would be able to use 1 of each tier/rarity to replicate the system where you get 3 raid buffs, one of each level. That would give raids the nice thematic matching dungeon items have, but in their own unique way.

Moving on from that, tomes are supposed to be a progression system, yet they lack any features that would make them one. For a progression system to exist, there needs to be a measure of progress (a way to see you’re progressing) and a way to reliably progress (something you can do to collect the former) and a goal to progress towards. Dungeons nailed this by giving us tokens (a measure of progress) which can be spent at a shop where the prices are all clearly visible letting you mark your goal. You can reliably progress by beating the dungeon and the more you do it, the closer you get to your goal. Flawless, beautiful progression system, unlike with raids and tomes. Tomes have no measure of progress since collecting them is random and they have no value if they’re not what you need and there’s no reliable way to progress since there’s nothing you can do to influence your odds. Progression for tomes is literally just a lottery system which isn’t exactly great, especially when you can only play the lottery after assembling a team of 4 people and playing a raid for 20 minutes. How do we fix this major oversight? I think having tomes act like powders would be a good fix, combine 4 of one rarity and you get one of a higher rarity, that way bad/duplicate tomes still have some use, it gives tomes a measure of progression by making themselves into one and you can set the end goal as getting mythic tomes by running raids and combining the legendary tomes. In the system I described earlier, this would also work as combining Tier 1 (Legendary) buffs would make a Tier 2 (Fabled) and those would eventually become Tier 3 (Mythic) buffs.

Finally, I think the last (though most minor) issue with tomes is that there’s only one source for them (I’ll talk about guild tomes later). Every other gear slot can be filled with items from doing quests, killing mobs/chests or running dungeons so it’s a little restricting that you need to run raids to fill the slots. I think it would be a nice addition if dungeons got some quirky tomes and if some quests also gave you tomes, just so there are more options available. It would also open up and introduce a lot more tomes for each slot which is really desperately needed.

Throughout all that, one thing I didn’t talk about are guild tomes. They’re kind of their own can of worms and have their own issues, but they have a lot of the same issues as regular tomes in that they’re creatively bankrupt and they have no progression while also introducing the new issue of the acquisition method actually being not partially but completely brain dead. Because they take so many resources for guilds to will them into existence and the owners can choose who gets them, it basically guarantees that only owners of powerful guilds and their friends will ever get them since it’s a waste of resources and disadvantages the guild to give them to lower ranking players. I have no idea how multiple people saw this idea and agreed that it was good without anyone thinking to mention how broken of a system they were making but here we are I guess.

Since the issue with guild tomes is so apparent, I have two ideas on how to fix them. First, what they do really should change to an active buff in wars, like when warring +17% damage or something. The fact that it’s flat SP is way too useful and gives a massive advantage to players who have access to them. By making the buff active in wars, guild owners would actually have incentive to give them to players who participate in wars since they have something to gain from it. Next, I think these tomes should be temporary, maybe 10-30 days so you need to constantly be producing them. As of now, guild owners only really need to make the tomes once then they have them forever which gives them a big advantage since they have both the tomes and the resources which would have been required to maintain them, this way, if you want tomes, you need pay for them constantly making them a tradeoff rather than a one time purchase. These would add an interesting dynamic to guild tomes while also allowing lower ranking players who are active with warring to get them.

- PETS -​

I guess this update also had pet stuff, it’s a real shame it’s all locked behind the new $160 paywall instead of being actual content for the game and a nice shiny new progression system but I guess it is what it is. Pet tasks are kind of broken right now, they’re probably the closest thing we have to P2W beyond bombs and totems so I’m not too happy about that. In terms of their damage output, pets are fine, nobody was expecting them to be a new subclass or anything, it was always about the cool factor anyways which I think is there. I do wish they had some combat targeting options to choose between so they can actually be useful when gathering since pets won’t attack unless you do first. Having an owner defence option where they attack the last mob that hit you would be a really nice QoL change for gathering as well as for dungeons and stuff.

- GATHERING -​

Speaking of gathering, there were some balance changes made to it, but the biggest change is the gathering ingredients and the new gathering xp tomes. Overall, I think the changes are for the better, especially the ingredients, but I think the tomes may have been a step too far too soon. I do want gathering to be faster to level, but when 1.18 dropped the ingredients were held back for throwing off balance so it’s kind of concerning to me that they’re adding those in along with gathering xp tomes. If it were up to me, I would have just done the items first and saved the tomes for another update down the line so they can be more easily fine tuned to the balance. All that said, I do like the new ingredients and well, I don’t like tomes in general so you probably know my stance on the tomes, though I will say I think they’re the least offensive. I did the profession grind when it was hard, mostly without DXP until the last 15 levels and I don’t think any human should be subjected to that ever again so I’m all for opening up the doors to the exclusive 100+ in everything club, especially since housing gives you a nice reason to do gathering even if you have no intention of crafting anything useful.

- DUNGEONS -​

Finally at the end, it’s been a long run but I think I’ve saved something good for last so we can end on a high note. Initially, I wasn’t a huge fan of the forgery chest but I’ve come around to it and can see its value. Unless they make keys easier to get (which won’t happen), I don’t think I’ll be using this since it isn’t worth the time or price to run the forgery chest alone with the prices keys are at now, but if you can assemble a party of four and split the key cost you can power through the dungeons insanely fast and get a whole bunch of XP and bonus loot while you’re at, including 4 chances at a 1% mythic which I think I calculated that it would take like 20 runs to have like a 90% chance of getting 1 mythic. It might sound bad, but with all the people doing this to farm and with how little time it takes with four people I really think a lot of mythics are going to be introduced into the market and the price of keys is going to rise, paired with the amplifiers I think mythic prices are probably going to fall which I tend to think is for the better.

Dungeons also got a bit of a buff in the form of level scaling which I think is a good start, but without higher level rewards in lower level dungeons there still isn’t really a reason to run them except for the temporary gathering xp boost you get after clearing dungeons, which is another great addition since it encourages you to break up gathering sessions with dungeon runs. Not sure if it’s actually practical to do that, but if it is then that’s great. I don’t think dungeons are exactly fixed yet, but these changes are at least progress towards having better dungeons.

- THE FUTURE OF THE GAME -​

This might be a bit of an odd inclusion in a review of an update since it has almost nothing to do with it, but I feel this along with the past couple updates are paving the path the game is going down and I think there are some things I want to say regarding that and how I think it’s affecting the community.

If you’re not working on the game, active on the forums or haven’t been around for at least a few years, this section isn’t really for you, please disregard it. Nothing against you, but I don’t think you’ll understand where I’m coming from and I’m not interested in discussing these topics with people who started playing the game in the last 6 months, even if they agree.

Spoiler: Read More - The Future of the Game

Going back in time a little to before 1.17 (3-4 years ago), it was common knowledge that the road to Dern was the long term plan. We had a teaser of the start to the lost city years before we had any idea what it was, the map said coming soon in the area and we were constantly told that the endgame was the realm of darkness, Dern and that everything was building to it. When 1.18 came out, we were told that it was the last update before the road to Dern update which was eventually released as 1.19, the Silent Expanse. Why am I saying this? 1.19 was the last time the community knew the long term direction of the game and 1.20 marks the first update of us not knowing what we can be expecting. I know why the content team doesn't want to tell us what they’re working on so we don’t build expectations, but at the same time I think it’s unfair for them to expect us to stay invested when we don’t have any idea or input into what could come next for the game, especially when 3 of the last 5 major updates have been a few new features and a ton of reworks which don’t really change the game all that much. All I’m asking for is some sort of roadmap (not timeline) of what the team wants their game to be in 3 years, if they fall short or can’t do something it’s fine but just give us a reason to believe that we’re going somewhere at some point in the future.

Next, I want to quote Salted from a few years ago;

“You guys gave us a lot of feedback since the Gavel Expansion, and even though it sometimes stings to hear complaints about your game, we listened and fixed some of the issues we've been told about.”​

Those are some fighting words that I really hope the team still believes because I think it’s about time to start reflecting on the problems with their game again. Wynncraft’s gameplay has been stagnating for the past few years and 1.20 has done nothing to help improve it. It’s been almost 5 years since we’ve seen any major change to how the core systems and mechanics work and I think we’re at the point where the content of updates are being strained, just look at tomes for an example of that.

You might not see the problem I see (agreeing or disagreeing is a different story), especially if you’re good at making builds (looking at you Atlas inc) but a lot of players are overwhelmed by all the stats items have and end up using really weak builds in the endgame leading to a massive power divide. How are you supposed to balance a game when some players in the know can deal 30K dps while other players are having trouble hitting 3K with their weak builds? The answer is you shouldn’t, you should look to solve the underlying issue instead. During 1.14 it wasn’t an issue since the power gap was a lot smaller than it is now, partly because there were less items, partly because there were less active builders and partly because we didn’t have fancy calculators to test builds without needing the items, but I think we’ve hit the point where something needs to be done about it beyond just recommending morph set.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a whole list of issues which I think need addressing; there are too many dungeon keys which all look the same, there’s no repeat use for dungeon fragments or tokens, professions are stale and don’t have any trade offs, the store is the laziest webstore ever made, There are way too many early quests to the point of it being overwhelming, there are so, so many bugs in literally everything, some things just don’t work like they should, every endgame challenge is purely combat based and is unevolving, there’s no good reason to log in every day, there’s no good repeatable content for rewards, there’s no good rewards outside of gear which means most gear introduced into the game is pointless. I could go on and on for hours but I think I’ve made my point, there are a lot of problems with the game and I think it’s about time to take a look at them.

Finally, I want to point out that this update took about a year and 2 months from the release of 1.19, 8 months of which we didn’t get any updates on the state of the game or even any indication that something was being worked on. I shouldn’t need to explain why that’s bad for the community. I’m not asking for a weekly update, but every couple months it would be nice to hear from somebody working on the game, preferably the people calling the shots, what they think of their own game, what they think the issues are with it and what they want to work to improve. If we could get more content that would be great, but what we need the most as a community is communication. Likewise, it would be great if they started more actively participating in the community they built, simple things like polls on small extra features for updates goes a long way in building up the community and doesn’t take any effort to run.

Here’s an example of what I mean. In any other MMORPG if the trade market had to be shut down for any amount of time, a forum post would be made explaining what went wrong and how they plan on addressing the issue. They would make sure every player was completely in the know on the fact that there was a problem because it’s the best thing to do. What did Wynncraft do? They waited hours after the first report was made to shut down the market (not a great start), then they reopened it (...), then they closed it again with a message saying it would be back shortly and that’s it, that’s where we were until yesterday. The one comment we got from anyone was from Salted 5 days later saying that there would not be a rollback, followed by him locking the thread for some unknown reason. The community was filled with panic and confusion over those days and people still keep asking why the market is down a month later. All this could have been avoided if a single post was made within a couple days of the issue. I don’t know why the team acted the way they did, but I realized that if they’re not going to make a news update about that then we’re never going to be told about anything important.

I’ve been patient with this game's issues for almost 8 years and it’s only gotten worse over time. The team have expressed interest in trying to be more open about their plans so I’m willing to have some faith in them, but if this update cycle is what the future of the games updates are going to look like, I’m done, I’ve been holding onto this game for so many years because I think they have something special on their hands and I want to see it do well, but I don’t want to be a part of the abusive relationship this game has with its community anymore. Bye Felicia me all you want, I don’t care, I honestly think that needed to be said.

- CONCLUSION -​

Okay, so that was a little longer than I expected, if you read it all, congratulations, that’s actually quite the achievement! Overall, my opinion on this update is fairly positive, though I have some concerns and problems with the direction Wynn is going. I think the biggest highlights in this update without question are the amazing new quests and the housing especially since I think it has a ton of room for future improvement. My only real issues with 1.20 are tomes as a whole and to a much lesser extent, raids though I do think raids have some merits. I think the reworked areas are fairly hit or miss, some rebuilds are amazing while others aren’t exactly the best. In general the builds are nice, though not really needed. I think 1.20 tried a lot of new things and is probably better than 1.19 was, but I think for the time it took to release it isn’t bringing enough new to the table which is why I think this was a generally good though underwhelming update. I know that’s going to be an unpopular opinion, especially since a lot of people are going to be blinded by all the new shiny things so all I ask is that if you’re going to disagree with one of my views, at least read the related section so you can understand why I feel the way I do. Thanks for reading!

 

The google doc I need to request access for btw.

 

Oh, I guess I didn't put the right share link, let me fix that now. Thanks for pointing that out!

 

Honestly, I'm just pissed they are doing the "Orphion is coming in a later patch!" thing again
They said that 5 years and we got NOTHING about it for 5 years, and now they are doing the SAME thing (watch that "patch at a later date" be 2023)

I've enjoyed the contents I tried through the beta but god I'm actually starting to get a bit pissed off by this, Orphion's raid/dungeon just looks like it is never going to come out at this point, literally

 

The crazy part is that we've gotten the Realm of light quest line twice and haven't had the ending for it a single time. If the whole point of redoing RoL was to give it a proper ending, they shouldn't have released until that point. When the end stinger of your trailer isn't in the game, something must have gone really wrong.

I respect their dedication to the bit of releasing on 1/20, but the update really wasn't ready for release and I have a feeling we're going to be feeling the impacts of this for a long time.

 

"Becuase otherwise his post could be list in the discussion" - one of the mods, Wynn discord.

But I completely agree, communicaction is a problem

EDIT: Mods, not most

________________________________

"Or discussion continues and then Salted's msg is lost within 10 pages of discussion" - Pepo

(exact quote)

 

mfw they're already releasing reviews on content just released ,m ,, , m , m ,

 

I largely agree with this post. Although, on the subject of buildmaking, I'll point out that the whole point of AIn and the build plaza is to spread good builds more widely.

 

For the people who are hardlocked in a journey further and a journey beyond, the bug hasn't been fixed. There is visual proof of the content team saying it was fixed and will be dropped in the next major update. This is false. For people who don't know what this is, there's a bug in wynn that randomly happens that will hardlock your character in a quest and it's impossible to get out unless you delete your class. It's a bug that players have been suffering for almost over a year now. Super dissapointed that such a devestating bug for the players that have dealt with it has not been fixed.

Besides that: GREAT UPDATE!

 

Lol, so instead of losing his comment in a sea of related comments it's better to lose into a sea of posts from which it can never be recovered. Very cool Wynncraft!

________________________________

Sure would be nice if they finally address a hardlock in one of the most important quests in the game...*Cough, cough*

 

I don't mean to be a negative dude here but hardlock happened back in february for me right after I saved up money for a mythic. I was testing it out while doing the quest and now I can't use it anymore. I can't put hate on the team, that doesn't solve anything but ever since this bug came out it's just depresses me seeing that class everytime I do /class and not being able to play it.

 

Pretty sure the AJF hardlock got fixed, (there is an option to reset the quest in Lutho near Aledar). As for the AJB bug, if it isn't fixed yet then it will be soon (although don't quote me on that because bugs are bugs and are hard to deal with sometimes).

 

AJF isn't fixed for me. Im at the part with the spider just not spawning and Aledar keep saying "Don't leave me behind" or something like that if I try to walk away. /kill just tps me back.

 

Aight, I'll look into it. I will see if I can get it done for next patch but I can't make any promises

 

All I am happy is for the fact that it's getting more attention. Will patches be frequent and soon since the update just dropped? Or do you mean as in like next major patch. Honestly if you just reset the quest for me I would give a hundred thanks. Anything for me to just continue forward.

 

I really can't say on patches, not because I am not allowed to but because I don't really know. As for the bug, I can't reset the quest sadly. Also I want to apologize for not being aware of this bug before the update. When I see a bug about an AJF hardlock I just assume they are talking about the hardlock in Lutho (which is seemingly more common) that and combined with the fact that I have been pretty busy lately is why I haven't fixed the bug yet.

 

Well before the update what would happen is I would be in lutho and not allowed to leave, but if I got too close to where the quest broke which was the spider part, it tps me to the location and keeps me trapped there. Now since towns have been reset and I have not discovered lutho yet, it doesn't start me at Lutho anymore.

 

Well that is weird, what does your questbook say? (also sorry if it seems I am hijacking this thread...)

 

Happy to have the exposure from the thread being bumped. One of my major complaints was the lack of communication so I'm loving this, nice work <3

 

"Defend Aledar from the Radiated Spiders."