Post 1.20.4 thoughts on Wynncraft

I think this point is relevant to a lot more than just professions. I wrote a lot about this when in my 1.20 review post back at launch, but my general takeaway was that while there's a wide scope of content and features, there's very little depth and integration leading to a sad lack of complexity and variety where it counts. 1.19 had its issues with this (one look at the SE is all it takes to see the lack of depth) but 1.20 was honestly the worst patch in the history of the game for that. Almost everything added was half baked or not worth doing.

I'm conflicted on your solutions though since I don't think they really address the core issues with the game, they're not bad ideas but at least to me, they're more of bandaid fixes over solutions. Most of the issues now are caused by the fact that there aren't really any rewards that you can give to a player that are useful. There are a few reasons for this, but the big one is that the build system is too important in the endgame and there's no room built in for expansion. You will never swap out a single piece of gear once you get a good drop because almost every build requires every single part to function. There's also no way to substantially improve gear so the value of gear is entirely based on arbitrary roll values. There's also the issue of frontloading all the complexity, half the stats on armor and weapons are useless for most builds and it's extremely unintutive which armor and weapons work well together.

Basically, what I'm saying is the best solution is another Gavel style rework of how all items fundamentally work. The equipment 2.0 system was a big improvement from what it was before, but time hasn't been too kind to it and the issues are becoming more and more apparent as they keep adding new items to it. For content to be rewarding, a system needs to be built around the reward side of things, focusing more on simplicity on the front end and complexity hidden behind player choices.

 

Making better profession content takes way too much time for it to be worth it, since it isnt party of the core gameplay/playthrough like in other games such as runescape.

 

Have you considered the reason why they're not core gameplay is because they have a sever lack of content and by spending the time to develop the systems it could become more relevant?

 

Maybe they could be part of core gameplay if they were actually good.

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Fuck, sniped.

 

lol sorry about that, it's a good point though so I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking it :D

 

Wynncraft wasnt designed around professions, and to me its fine if it stays side content. But I think most of the playerbase would prefer new areas and quests over a new mining training method that they wont use.

It takes a LONG time to make a good profession and crafting system, and considering they struggle at making challenging boss mechanics, how would they make engaging mining content?

 

They can start by adding more diversity to the core resource pool at any given level range to give crafting added complexity. They could add the powder system to tools (I suggested this over two years ago iirc) or add more tool variants with different pros and cons. There should also be way more quests which reward profession XP and optional quest side objectives which involve professions. Craftable XP gear means getting multiple classes prof levels raised is a lot easier, they could further improve on that by introducing more options to speed up progress which you've already made on another class.

Crafted items should be made way more powerful in the early game and they also shouldn't have durability, in fact, scrap should be removed entirely and tools should be repaired with emeralds. Like I said with armor and weapons, crafted items could also do with a major overhaul, fully custom items are cool but they don't really solve any of the problems crafting was added to solve in the first place.

 

Yeah and all of this is great, and other games already have these things youre talking about, but theyve had 15 years and a way bigger development team to make it.
This is a 1000 player minecraft server with a small team and where most players would rather see that development time spent on something else such as dern, fruma or anything else really. But they could slowly improve profs overtime I guess...

Quests with profession xp rewards would mess up the progression, like u could go from level 1 mining to 31 and now u have to go back to mine copper for crafting when youre supposed to mine sandstone. But it does sound interesting!
Durability sucks but its supposed to balance out the crafted items vs normal items, and another emerald sink for repairing tools wont help the economy.

 

travis majority smart, leaderboards cool, challenge mode cool, id do thing if leaderboard, leaderboarc ool, wynncraft not cool, 20.4 not smart

 

Wynncraft clearly wants to integrate professions into other parts of the game, so fixing them might be worth it for the sake of damage control alone. As for “it’ll take a long time”, yes. And that’s why there’s no better time to start working on it than now, before the problem is beyond fixing. You do understand that the longer they put off solving large problems like professions, the harder they become to fix, right? Wynncraft has been too scared to commit to solving larger problems for some time now and it’s about time they started. As for boss mechanics, I think the mob system needs a revamp as well, but in the same vein, saying it’s too much effort to implement ultimately leaves us with more problems.

 

alrighty come back to me when you've done the main quests on 20+ classes

 

I think if they fix prof economy they can just leave profs as what they were supposed to be, side content.
Im saying that its pretty unlikely wynncraft developers could make engaging prof content, whether they wanted to or not.

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shift system is ass, its literally slower, buggier and u lose chat history. Just make it an option to go back to the proper old dialogue system or just make it so shift also works as a right click in the old system.

 

They clearly don't want it to be side content anymore since they keep adding professions into core aspects of the game. Stormarend's point about making it better for more integration isn't really about if they should be integrated or not because that's not really something that's up for debate, it's about making professions less painful so when they are eventually integrated it makes the game better and not worse. Improving professions at this point isn't really an option, it's just a question of what the best way to go about doing it is.

 

Some good thoughts and ideas guys but let's not get snippy and rude. I really encourage all ideas to be thought out, this is really great theres already so much :D

 

Show me an example of profs being added to core aspects of the game, and yes it is up for debate whether they should be integrated or not because they clearly seperated profs from a playthrough, all the prof miniquests they added are within profs themselves, there isnt even any normal story quests involved profs lol. They didnt even bother to make it properly work with the economy, explain to me how lower tier materials are lower price than high tier ones and why nobody buys crafted items on TM?
It seems like you just really want them to be integrated which is fine, but dont be delusional. Wynncraft's prof system is barebones and simple.

 

Why would the not be able to? Because profs are currently terrible? If that’s the case then that’s all the more reason for radical change. Whether you like it or not, professions are becoming a larger part of the general gameplay loop so there’s cause to fix them before they turn more of the game to shit. Having professions just be side content would require them to unmake content, which is hardly a very plausible thing for Wynncraft to do, and is contradictory to the way they seem to want to take prodessions. Frankly, I’d rather see them put considerable effort into trying to make them good and integrating them naturally into gameplay than leave them as bad side content. Bad side content with an immense impact on the economy and balance, that is.

 

They were added to a dozen quests since their introduction, the entire tutorial was remade to focus on gathering before even introducing combat. Dungeons give a prof XP boost, guilds give a prof XP boost, almost every area in the game has nodes for at least one resource, if not more. Housing is also entirely built on gathering. If that's not enough evidence or examples for you, then I really don't know what is.

You also need to define what a normal story quest is, because that's a really arbitrary category considering there aren't any required quests for exploration progression to any area except for the tutorial, AJB and AJF for Dern and I wouldn't say two extremely high level quests out of the three required quests not having gathering requirements is a sign that professions aren't being integrated. There have also been two full updates since professions were added in the first place and 1.18 didn't integrate them at all so any integration was made in the past two patches with most of them being made in 1.20.

And yes, I agree it's barebones and simple, that's the problem that I've been complaining about, I thought that was extremely clear. I also clearly said it wasn't up for debate, not because I like it (I have been extremely against it for a long time so not sure why you would suggest that), but because it's a clear trend and I don't want it affecting the game unless it's an improvement.

 

By a couple seconds Seriously unless that dialogue is long, (which only RoL is and you can't right click your way through that but you can hold shift through it, making it so much quicker than right clicking) then you will only be a couple seconds slower than if you right clicked through it.

Bugs only really happen due to wynntils for me (which I never understood)
and Chat history, being honest this complaint to me feels very... petty? I've never had chat history issues solely due to tapping shift. If I don't care about dialogue I don't care about the history.
If I actually wanna see the dialogue I take my time. Chat history so rarely comes up. Also i'd rather have chat history than complete spam.

They have stated multiple times they can't.

I have. It's completely fine. (other than a couple quests where it's a minor issue, looking at you hero of gavel)
Come back to me when you can actually stop making assumptions solely to dismiss an argument. (also if you even use stat pages as your evidence, THEY DON'T SHOW DELETED CLASSES)

 

Chat history is definitely a major factor. Pressing T to read back if you’ve maybe missed something or forgotten a small detail is far more convenient than using the book menu and reading from a smaller window. It’s also way better for repeat playthroughs where you can just quickly scan the text for the important points instead. It’s not petty when only thing that matters when it comes to the dialogue system is convenience. People say the shift system allows them to read at their own tempo, but having the dialogue only go forward and then having to use a menu to go back undermines that. As for spam, what’s so important in your chat that you’re bothered it gets spammed? The thing you’re the most likely to want to read is the quest dialogue, which is coincidentally the one thing that isn’t in your chat anymore.

 

Ehh.. Quest book normally tells you where you're actually meant to go/what you're meant to do. I think you can on 1 hand count the amount of times it actually doesn't do that (and there's probably a few times the game doesn't tell you because you have to find the hint yourself.) Also it's a book, it's not that small honestly. Could dialogue history be better? Yes. But is it necessary? Debatable

Refer to point above, and it depends how many playthroughs, since after a while it's less scanning and more just getting through it.

I mean shift makes a lot of quests more convenient than right clicking. (Seriously sometimes I actually hated the dialogue solely due to being unable to skip it back then)

I'll just use the point I said before Could dialogue history be better? Yes. But is it necessary, debatable. Make it store more dialogue and it'll mean anyone who misses a line doesn't get hit (also no idea if it's wynntils or wynncraft that just refuses to store dialogue once you look at it once)

Messages. Party chat. Guild chat. If i'm skipping through they got swallowed VERY quickly

First time around yes, but you're probably not actively skipping it at that point. Afterwards, you've probably seen the dialogue don't care too much about it and actively skipping it so you can get more exp