Weekly Discussion Thread #2: Player Interaction And Difficulty

【Weekly Discussion Thread #2】​

Introduction
Hello everyone! I'm pleased to bring you all the second edition of the weekly discussion thread. Before I get to this weeks topic, I want to thank you all for participating in last weeks discussion. It went well, grabbing the attention from not only the community, but also from the staff team and GMs. Regardless of that, I feel like the thread has served it purpose and achieved its goal.

Now onto this weeks topic.

Player Interaction and Difficulty
I originally planned to make these 2 separate discussions, but as i was thinking and writing about these topics, I started to figure out how much they are linked together, thus i will be talking about both of them in this weeks thread.

Let's start with player interaction, which in my opinion Wynncraft lacks, a lot. Right now Detlas server 1 and CSST parties are the peak of player interaction, which is nice, but there needs to be way more. Just take a moment and think about your first Wynncraft playthrough, aside from being in Detlas, how much player interaction did you have? With the map being so big and the player slots limited (even tho the new 100 player cap will increase player interaction a small bit) interaction with other players is nearly non-existent.

Now let's talk difficulty. I'm almost certain that most players will agree with me on this, but the game is to easy. Early, mid, even end-game can be beaten in a breeze without anything posing a major threat. Sure there is quests like ToA and Hive, and Legendary Island is quite a challenge too right? Well, maybe, the thing is if you have trouble with ToA and Hive, you can just go level up, get some new equipment, and have an easy time beating both Death and Qira.

And then there is Legendary Island. At first glance, this may look difficult and you may actually have a hard time beating it. But then you realize this is (as of currently) the hardest challenge and biggest difficulty spike Wynncraft has to offer, and there is still so many players that can solo this. "But RemRin these people are just rich and can afford mythics so they have an easy time soloing anything". Correct, but if you take a look at any other MMORPG, you will quickly see that even if you have the most powerful gear in the game, there is still challenges where you need multiple people to beat it, and this is what i feel Wynncraft really lacks at the moment.

The Connection
Now why in the heavens would i combine these 2 topics in the same thread? It's quite simple, actually. If I were to make a graph with difficulty on the x-axis and player interaction on the y-axis, you would get a near linear result. If difficulty increases and the game gets harder, there will be more player interaction. The hardest challenges in the game will require more than one person to beat. Players would have to group together to beat a strong boss or dungeon, rather than to just solo it.

Thus, adding difficult challenges like dungeons and bosses wouldn't only make the game more interesting, it would also create more player interaction, something that at this very moment is lacking.

The Discussion
Now, what do you guys think? Is Wynncraft's difficulty where it needs to be? is it to easy or to hard? Do you think the game needs more player interaction or is it currently fine? Everyone's opinion matters, so don't be shy to post your thoughts on these 2 topics!

See you all next week.

RemRin signing out.

 

Player interaction is perfectly fine. There's lots of opportunities where I've run into people early, mid, and late game and done some quests with them. Guilds and events are also great for interaction and community, it all depends on how involved you are. That being said I don't think the game should force people to interact with people every second they play. Overall interaction is at a good place especially after the jump to 100 players.I just hate the negative interaction like toxic people in CSST or people who fight over loot runs.

 

I think there are some problems with simply upping the overall difficulty of an enemy. Like, if you increase the Damage peple will just randomly get hit and die (even when they are teamworking), wich isnt fun. Increasing the health means a person can still solo the boss, its just more tedious, and increasing the regen means that someone trying to solo could end up in an awkwart szenario where neither the boss can kill him nor he can kill the boss. Im not saying it cant work, but i think its not that easy to create a really hard boss that is still fun.

still, if the ct can manage to create difficult, fun challenges that encourage teamwork, and make it easy to find a group, that would obviously be great for the game.

 

i think the reason why things like you mentioned, bosses and dungeons and such that require multiple people just doesnt fly is because atm the combat system is very poorly designed for multiplayer. Pretty much the only reason people fight together is basically to do more damage faster. Ofc you get nice bonuses like speed and strength/defense and heal(well not rly since its trash now) but its not like most mmorpgs where you can have like defined tanks and dps and support cuz wynncraft just doesnt work that way. firstly, people cant even tank properly because of how aggro works and secondly even if they do tank, because of how drops work, they wouldnt be able to advance with tokens and such. however, i do think overall it would be a healthy development if the combat system gets an overhaul as well.

 

i'm not rich and have no mythics but i can solo LI

and i'm just proving your point further, i agree that the game is too easy

 

I personally think that the first 30-ish levels should be easy peasy, even for the most amateur of casual gamers - ensuring that the server is appealing to all audiences (the hardcore ones will already know it'll get harder at the higher levels from the start so they shouldn't get bored of the easy stuff at the start). From lvl30 and beyond, I think it should begin to gradually get harder as the levels get higher. Tbh this pretty much already is the case but I just felt like saying it.

I think Qira and Legendary Island are fine at the moment, but that's merely my perspective of those challenges and the difficulty of all of the individual parts of those, and the challenge overall is very subjective and can easily vary massively based on the user's build and party count / going solo. It would be nice if full tanks were more viable as a support class though, considering the boss drop system in LI isn't the greatest.

I don't think there's a problem with a player soloing the hardest challenge in the game but I do think there is an issue with a player being able to solo the hardest challenge in the game without a somewhat good build, without great game sense and without having a good skill level.
---------------------------------^^
As long as LI isn't the above ^^ I think it's all good

 

I'm gonna say something about player interactions: it's not terrible at the moment, as there's been quite a few times whether it is in early or end game that I met other people and spoke with them/said hello. It's not uncommon to run into someone while on a horse, look at each other for a few seconds, then go back to your journey. I think that's really cool! Although it is lacking and there should be more interactions, I do agree. It's also fairly common to see someone in Ragni, Nesaak or Troms. The improved player count will help I hope.

On the difficulty: yes, it's too easy. Only a few times I felt adrenaline fighting something in the game. There's some stuff I can't beat (Qira, LI), but it should be harder. Or not especially harder, but I'd love if it was easy with friends and hard solo

 

Don’t even get me started on ???
Also I want Wynn to be as hard as fucking dark souls tbh.

 

I totally agree with you.

Wynncraft definitly lacks player interaction and what i think could be helpfull would be adding the 3 Corrupted Dungeons we are still waiting for. They might bring a challenge with them. It could also help adding new quests for which you need multible people to complete since the only ones that require more than 1 person are Bob's Lost Soul, Reincarnation and ???. I hope the Content Team will add quests that allow more player Interaction in the Dern Update.

 

The problem with upping difficulty is that, due to wynn's crappy aggro and item drop system, you just end up killing anyone who doesn't play with meta items. for example, upping the damage a boss does just allows him to 1-hit more glassy players, even if they avoid aggro, through spells like flamethrower. this just constricts people and forces them to use meta items. But because of the way the item system works, more tanky builds, especially those without mythics, likely won't deal enough damage to get tokens anyway. now, if Wynn were to have a better aggro and item drop system, that would fix both problems with non-meta builds, and allow the game to be more difficult.

tl:dr if you want a more difficult game, fix the combat system.

 

Player interaction hasn’t been the highest priority for me, so I don’t have much of an opinion on it. Sure it’s a MMO, but if I wanted to play games that were multiplayer focused in Minecraft, I’d just play Hypixel.

The main problems with the difficulty are choppy/inconsistent quest difficulties, lag, and Minecraft’s mechanics. What well-designed, challenging games do is that they keep pushing their mechanics and let the player test them to their limit. Take Celeste for example. On the surface, it just seems like an average indie platformer, but as you progress thru each area, the game builds off its previous mechanics (like springs, crystals that give you an extra dash, traffic light blocks, etc.). And it’s this drive, this curiosity to see what you can do next that keeps it interesting, yet difficult. Same goes for other games like Super Mario Odyssey, Hollow Knight, and Rayman Legends.

In Wynncraft though, there is barely any logical sense of progression in terms of difficulty. Gameplay inside of quests is just so cookie-cutter. Quests never take advantage of your spells, and while there are spell upgrades, they only go up to lvl 66. The game doesn’t let you experiment with the spells or different combat styles. Because movement is limited (like no dodge rolling) and you can only use one type of weapon per class, they can only buff the health and damage of the mobs. Sure mobs do have spells, but it’s mostly bosses, and most mobs are just slow zombies with a different outfit. Because of this the game feels static.

 

ADD ??? PART II PLEASE.
I honestly loved it, it was a community event finding it, solving it, and still is whenever you gotta get that sweet cosmic armor.
Even though people hate it, I think that's because you gotta understand some things you can't do alone.

 

potatoes?

 

Difficulty... easy...


I've soloed LI without using pots on every class (Now except warrior)
I've earned legendary medallion.
I've beaten LI more than 100 times.


YET THIS GAME IS STILL HARD FOR ME.

Ah, yes.
This game is really easy with pot abusing..

 

Player interaction I'm fine being a rarity if not a decent chunk more common, since I prefer being able to not worry about others unless I specifically push myself to socialize. Also I find that there being only select areas having a high chance isn't a large deal, I like having enjoying myself playing the game and chatting whenever loot running or screenshot taking gets tiring. I find being the sole one hero inviting, being such a no one in the real world and cliché "I like to feel important and not a waste of other's time" speeches, but being able to join some dudes for grinding or joining/starting a conversation makes the game feel less deserted.

More players wouldn't hurt, but unless we introduce something to encourage doing something that isn't Sitting in Detlas or CSST grinding, it's just going to add more players to be in a small area. The problem is still there and i’d agrue is now worse since there are more people on a single world in two areas already filled with players. We need to incentivize going to different areas and having reason to not be in a few areas. The issue isn’t a lack of players to be around, it’s a lack of areas to be in to meet other people.

As for difficulty, i’d agree, it is too easy at times and seems to get easier (Qira’s recent rework as an example). The only difficulty showing up when you made a mistake in creating a build, finding the pieces for your build, and Legendary Island. I am fine with either an increase in areas of stark difficulty spikes, or a higher raise in difficulty.

 

As a guy deeply invested in guilds (3000ish guild wars done in my time on wynn, ingame member of the Kingdom of Foxes, community member of Imperial, honorary member of HHU, you get my point), I can honestly say player interaction is perfectly fine. Even without guilds, I still have a friends list of nearly 200 people, and I talk to at least a third of them avidly. Perhaps you think I just talk too much and I'm an insane extrovert, but I'm honestly not. All I've done is just played the game like normal and helped a few people out, and here we are now.

Dunno, maybe I do talk too much.

Regardless, as for the difficulty situation, I do have some complaints, but in all honesty, this is minecraft, and the stuff we have now damn near pushes simple plugins to the limit. There's only so much you can do without making the server require mods, and considering how many texturepack complaints I see, I heavily doubt anyone really wants that.

Kudos, CT.

 

To be completely honest, I'm perfectly happy with the current state of player interaction. If you want to interact with players, it's not difficult to do so. And on the flip side, if you don't want to, you don't have to. I'm personally on the fence with in-game activities that require more than one person to complete. ??? Is just flat out annoying to do, and Bob's lost tomb/incarnation isn't much better since assassin can't even do anything besides sitting on the pressure plate.

Now onto the difficulty part. I do agree that the game is too easy, and that even LI is a pushover. My issue with this though, is that when the game tries to be difficult, it resorts to oneshot mechanics. (Looking at you Cybel.) It's just unfun to have oneshot mechanics. Just look at games like overwatch for an example: Being oneshot isn't fun because you have no way to react or counterplay it, aside from trying to avoid it. Even then it can be too hard to do that 100% of the time. I agree that the game needs to be more difficult, but it needs to be done in a way that makes you go "What could I have done better in that situation", rather than "Wow, I got oneshot, that's bs."

 

Maybe they could take advantage of knockback mechanics more... perhaps having bosses that deal low dmg but with high knockback

 

Now that would just be super annoying for a slower class that doesn't have much range. e.g melee classes

 

Okay I haven't even read the entire thread but I just wanna point out my opinion on "Some bosses/challenges/dungeons shouldn't be possible to solo".
I do agree that in a big MMORPG such as per say Warframe some stuff should not be possible to solo, But that only applies when the said MMORPG has enough playerbase to allow the player to get a group of people willing to do the "Activity" that shouldn't be soloed almost instantly, In Wynncraft's case... It's another story.
I personally believe that for the time being, Bosses and challenges in Wynncraft should be possible to solo duo to the fact that the very vast majority of players quite simply prefers to play the game alone, As mentioned before on multiple occasions "Random player interactions" are nearly impossible to find which is another problem that comes up once you make challenges/bosses that aren't supposed to be soloed, And finding an actual group of skilled players to do a certain challenge/boss with plus time everything with everyone is quite hard and takes the fun out of the game, Sure it's possible, But it's not very convenient like in other games with matchmaking systems.

The only MMO aspects in Wynncraft that I would say is actually "Fun" or "Useful" would be trading and some dungeons, Beyond that the game can and should be played completely solo.

It's also good to mention that the CT (At least a big part of it, Or the admins) have been trying to encourage random player interactions a lot lately, But without considering one very important issue: They've proven multiple times that they don't do quests/challenges testing in groups, And if they do, It's done in a very lousy way, Which is basically what makes random player interactions in Wynncraft a complete and utter pain in the ass, Even if it does happen.

Do you guys remember the glitch in Legendary Island where there was a chance for the "Teleportation thing" to take everyone's tokens, But only teleport one of the players?
Do you remember the enormous amount of bugs that occurred in the latest Hallowynn quest when multiple people did it together, Or one after another?
Do you remember when cut-scenes were literally impossible to see with multiple people entering them together?
Do you remember how about 60% of the Corkus quests completely broke when multiple people did them together right after the update came out?
Do you know about the still currently existing bug in CSST where players might literally get stuck in place because some other guy rushed forward?

That's what I'm talking about when I'm saying "A pain in the ass".

Raising the player capacity to 100 might raise the chance for random player interactions to happen, But it doesn't make them any more fun or productive, Which is exactly what they should be.
Players are supposed to be glad to find another player in the middle of doing an activity, Not frustrated or disappointed.

My suggestion: If you do want some bosses or challenges to not be soloed, Find a way to reward players who do challenges or bosses in groups, Instead of punishing the ones who solo them by making the bosses/challenges a lot harder or by making the player a lot weaker.

Also please start testing quests/dungeons/challenges with multiple people doing them at multiple times together, I believe that by using that technique the amount of quest bugs to still not be found right after the release of a new update could be significantly reduced (I gave the idea to Pepo a while back and he said he'd pass it on).
Example:
Say the quest has 5 stages, Get 3 groups of 2 people to test it like this (All of it should be done on the same server):
>Group one tests stage 1
>Group one moves to stage 2, Group two starts testing stage 1
>Group one moves to stage 3, Group two moves to stage 2, Group three starts testing stage 1
And so on.

Mutton out.
also lag, please god just reduce the maximum player capacity back to 60 already, I'm almost completely certain literally any player would prioritize having less lag over getting a higher chance to randomly find a different player