Rating Every Quest in Wynn (3/11)

I’ve decided to rate all the Wynncraft quests and give feedback about what I thought was great/not great. Note that I am not a videogame designer (though I have some completely irrelevant game design experience), and a lot of this is just my opinion, so feel free to disagree. Also, my memory might be a bit rough as I came back to Wynn after a three-year long hiatus, so I am checking other players' Let's Plays and the wiki to ensure my memory is up to date.

I have a pretty high view of most of Wynn’s content in general, and I weigh heavily towards the ideas and motivations behind the quest stages rather than just their execution. Since that would mean 90% of the ratings would be in the 7-10 range, I will be scaling my numbers a bit lower so the better quests are more distinct from the worse ones. My average will still probably be higher than the professional critics among you, however.

I’ll also be rating with the location of the quest in mind -- for instance, gameplay-wise, an earlygame quest is supposed to introduce mechanics with a tiny serving of challenge on the side, and a lategame quest is supposed to better test players’ builds and abilities.

So far, I've done the level 1-10 quests, and I'll update this after each multiple of ten I get. Here's hoping I actually get around to finishing everything.

Spoiler: King’s Recruit (8.5/10):

Ah yes, the beloved intro quest. It’s gone over numerous changes through the years, and from my memories of past updates and having been repeatedly sent back to redo this quest, I’d say it took a turn for the better. Killing mobs for drops / doing professions in the introduction ended up wasting a lot more time than I’d wanted, and replacing that with a loot chest intro was honestly more fun and a lot faster. Plus, mob farming / professions are best introduced later on throughout the game (which they are, through Katoa/Underwater) -- cramming side-stuff into the tutorial would probably overwhelm the player.

The introductory stuff that is taught (dialogues, parkour, loot chests, IDing, environment interaction, basic mob fights, spells) represents the basic pace of the game well while being quick for players who have done it before.

PS: This quote from Aledar is very interesting, which reveals a lot about Fruma lore:

Aledar: It looks nice. The war clearly hasn't made it this far.

Which begs the question. What war?

Spoiler: Enzan’s Brother (8/10):

Another intro quest that got a revamp for the better. It’s your first quest where you aren’t railroaded, so it’s supposed to be short, simple, and sweet, and it fits all of the above. Players meet a decent variety of mobs (some with spells) along the way and get some practice combat in a relatively safe environment. Initially, the player had to run all the way to the Nivla entrance, which was a bit far for a first quest (players might get sidetracked or end up somewhere else, as they haven’t followed many paths before this). This also has the unfortunate side effect of luring level 1-3 players into probable death by fifteen spiders.

Changing Therck’s position to be a bit closer made it a lot faster, and the additional mushroom cave was far more interesting than running from the IDer to Nivla. The stair dialogue was funny enough to become a meme for a while, so it wasn’t boring for me on the replay. It also introduces observant players to secret discoveries and introduces an optional, though dangerous (for new players), fight if they want.

First Steps being locked after completing Cook Assistant is also another good design detail that ensures players get used to the quest structure early on before it gets way wilder.

PS: Enzan’s post-quest quote gives me a fuzzy feeling every time I return to Ragni.

PPS: The Ragni Archers do absolutely nothing. Just movement spell yourself up there and you’ll see what I mean. Seriously, 90% of them just aim straight down and shoot the floor, while the remaining 10% aim at a nearby tree. I’ve literally pushed some over the edge and could not get them to even shoot a basic zombie. They’re getting PAID for this?

Spoiler: Poisoning the Pest (7/10):

The Help Wanted sign is great, for players who haven’t found out the existence of their quest book yet. The quest appears designed to ease players into dealing with unique quest mechanics, which it does a decent job at. Collecting rat poison by killing a mob, dodging an unkillable mob’s ranged attacks, and literally dropping an item from your inventory into a specific zone. Cutscene could be quicker -- we don’t need a five year animation of a mob dying. Dialogue is also pretty good, though I think Cevalus should clarify from the start that the plan is to poison the water supply and then use the sprinklers; it’s easily missed from a skimming of the text because the steps are discussed in reverse order.

It’s definitely been improved over the previous rat hunting quest, for what it’s worth.

PS: Can’t convince me that Cevalus didn’t relish the opportunity to call his step-father a pest at every turn.

Spoiler: Cook Assistant (6.5/10):

First introduction to professions, and while I do love that the coordinates of Katoa are now available, it would be nice if the cook explicitly said the items could be found at Katoa himself. The bored farmer is a pretty helpful NPC if players are confused as well. Gripes are the following:

Relatively long travel time between Ragni and Katoa for an earlygame quest

Players may get the wrong type of wheat, return to the cook, and be very confused

However, there isn’t too much that can really be done about the former, and there’s a few spots of wheat in Ragni for the latter if the player is observant.

The Waist Apron lock encourages new players to head into Nivla once they’re a bit stronger, and the quest does a pretty good job at what it is supposed to do.

PS: I embarrassingly left clicked and got the wrong type of wheat the first time (I had not done any actual profs before). I figured it out, thankfully, before I left Katoa.

Spoiler: Infested Plants (8.5/10):

Can we talk about how amazing Ope’s dialogue is? It’s hilariously sarcastic:

Ope: You look like you work as a soldier of sorts. We can clearly see that. You soldiers never had fashion as your strong suit.

Ope: Take that money and head to Detlas won't ya? You can maybe buy some better clothing, because you need it.

For a character with eight lines of dialogue, he’s surprisingly accurate regarding players’ earlygame item choice. After all, Shin Guards is level 3. Ope’s VA in the Voices of Wynn mod also nails his sarcasm quite well.

Ope aside, this is the first of the introductory quests which has some amount of parkour on it! The parkour is relatively clean and simple, but it also introduces the player to carpet trails, which it does a pretty good job of highlighting. The spider pit also sets up for the Infested Pit spider egg mechanic so they don’t have to introduce it at the start of the quest.

I also like how Ope appears at the end, and while it’s unrealistic it prevents the player from having to go locate him again, which was not very fun before.

PS: You thought I would have a half-decent pun here, but nOpe.

Spoiler: The Sewers of Ragni (6.5/10):

The introductory dungeon quest, and Wynncraft Sewer #1. Reinforces the corruption theme rampant throughout Wynn, as you get attacked by literally corrupted sewage. It’s disgusting.

The Witherhead buildup is pretty cool, as you get small glimpses before the final encounter. The “miniboss” section also introduces players to charge AI mobs and the idea of killing certain mobs for their drops to move forward. The pillar you are supposed to click also has a janky hitbox -- this generally holds true for all quests, and I just end up spam clicking all around the spot I’m supposed to click. The water flooding “RUN” part has pretty good tension for an earlygame escape section.

At the end, Jenprest has a bruh moment and complains that you opened the entrance to the dungeon. What, would she want to be stuck there forever too? Introduction to the Bob lore is pretty cool, though she just throws out a name and a tagline.

PS: I can’t get over how inane “Dungeons are sealed for a reason” sounds. Sure, it makes a lot of sense in context, but out of context, it just sounds like a line from a thirteen-year-old.

Spoiler: Tunnel Trouble (5.5/10):

First off, I like the set level for this quest -- players see this right after they clear Decrepit Sewers. They see the coordinates and immediately see the main problem: the sheer distance between Ragni and Detlas. The main challenge of this quest is to make it to Detlas alive. And for a new player with normal gear and around two accessories, it can be quite challenging surviving Nivla’s spider spam (though it appears to have been heavily nerfed from my previous memories of the game). Once they are past that, it’s probably ideal for them to run all the way to Detlas and engage as few mobs as possible because of the sheer mob tankiness.

Players may not choose to do this quest right away and do a few other things instead (like rerunning the dungeon for gear, running around Nivla, doing later quests), but the lower level cap ensures that any early player who makes it to Detlas will be able to make it back for the later Ragni quests. Because of the gap between this and Underwater, players may be incentivized to explore a bit on their own instead of just methodically doing every quest in order. The freedom to choose here allows players to forge their own path and highlights the open world component of Wynn. (Later level gaps aren’t as successful as exploring with a few mob kills here and there won’t reach that gap because the XP gain is too large, and they end up incentivizing grinding instead).

Now, the quest itself. Defend section is very uninteresting -- the mobs die way too fast, even for less experienced players, and there’s not much to do. The Drale subplot is quirky but the stealth minigame is kinda bad for two reasons: firstly, fencegates sometimes not opening (even with an empty hand) and secondly, Bylvis is too slow to turn and has weird vision. It just feels like you’re leaving it to luck as Bylvis sometimes sees you when he is not facing at you and vice versa. Would be nice if there was a way to see which direction he’s facing easier.

Ending scene pushing the cows is great, as well as the triumphant return of the cows at the end of the quest.

PS: MOO. MOOOOOO? MOOOOOO.

PPS: The year is 1337 AP, and Miner Linton is still guarding the passage so nothing bad can happen to it.

Spoiler: Underwater (4.5/10):

The first “real” professions quest. Omango seems kind of generic? Replacing his name with “Maltic Citizen” wouldn’t really be a huge difference. It’s a pretty generic quest so far, and once you get to Sayrr, you learn you need 10 Gudgeon Meat of the same quality. Which means, you need to fish about 16-18 times because sometimes you fail and sometimes you get meat with more than one star. While you’re being harassed by crabs who you can’t hit, because you’re proffing. The Breathing Helmet part is a bit slow due to how swimming works, though I expect it to improve in 1.21 -- it’s far more interesting than 10 Gudgeon Meat though because you have to pop your head in air pockets.

PS: At least you don’t need Pigman’s Meat from the literal opposite side of Ragni. Yes, I’m going to judge longer distances harsher earlier on because players don’t have access to their movement spell, ws gear, or horses yet.

Spoiler: Mushroom Man (7/10):

The quest starts in Detlas and teleports you to Nivla, which I think was a great improvement from the original level 14-ish quest starting in Nivla of all places since it minimizes travel time. It does not teleporting you to back and leaving you in Nivla, which might seem dumb at first, but Nivla is very close to the starting point of Elemental Exercise, the quest immediately after this.

It’s not a very interesting quest though. You just click on logs and buy a bowl from a nearby forest. It seems the purpose of the quest is to simply explore Nivla a bit more and find the forest village. Yahya miraculously being right next to the bowl merchant is also a very nice QoL addition, though the quest lacks any challenge whatsoever.

PS: Yahya canonically has the ability to teleport and you can’t convince me otherwise. Even aside from him starting in Detlas, ending up in Nivla, and finishing in the forest, he literally gets past the Yeti into the tree in the Blizzard fest! Wynn Theory: Like Professor Eih, Yahya is NOT a hallucination in Shattered Minds and is legitimately that powerful.

Spoiler: Elemental Exercise (7.5/10):

The entire point of this quest is to teach players about elemental weaknesses and how to exploit them, and I think it does a pretty good job of that. It does a pretty good job of highlighting the importance of elemental weaknesses by showing how a 1 damage weapon can increase to about 30 in one hit, but I think the CT could have done a better job at clarifying how exactly elemental weaknesses work. When I first played the game, I thought they were multipliers (in fact, Ragon claims that “the fire weapon did exponentially more damage”) instead of true damage bonuses.

I appreciate the fact that you don’t actually have to get 10 Scorched Roots because the players probably already got the point about elemental weaknesses on the first enemy. I’m still not seeing the point of the latter part of the quest though -- you enter and leave a cave for no reason, except maybe to fight a few actual mobs weak to fire along the way (thankfully, without the grind).

PS: You know what would’ve been cool? Getting five individual weapons each with one of the five elements and you have to fight mobs with like 500 HP by countering them with the right element. I mean, five is a bit ridiculous, but it would be cool if the cave section had you swapping between two or three different elemental weapons right then and there to target weaknesses.

________________________________

Oh, and I apparently just found that I can't change the title of the post because I haven't made a thread in like three years either. Very well.

 

you might want to change that elemental exercise review i can already feel the despair coming from all the class builders

 

Why elemental exercise deserves a 4 or below for me personally:


tl;dr: it fails at everything it tries to do



also how to retitle posts:

 

Yep, saw that vid when I was trying to figure out exactly how elemental weaknesses worked, and it was very helpful. Rated it a 7.5 because of the placement of the quest (very close to Mushroom Man), how it made elemental weakness effects very visible (by having the weapon do literally 1 damage), and the general introduction to elements -- would have been higher if they explained that eleweaknesses were actually true damage.
And thanks for reminding me thread tools was a thing.

 

Interesting, I had always just assumed that Aledar had already known about the corruption war before heading to Wynn and was talking about that, suprised on how clean and safe looking the outside area of Ragni outskirts looked.

 

Here's levels 11-20! Quests took a slight quality hit after the earlygame, but it's primarily because the earlygame quests had a higher frequency of updates and remakes.

Spoiler: Potion Making (6.5/10)

After an extreme grammar fix:
This quest has you face off against the charge AI mooshrooms, and while 8 Red Mushrooms seems initially like a long and arduous process, it goes by really quick. The Mooshrooms are pretty good enemies for this, as they spawn fast, are dangerous in hordes, and are mixed in with Yahya Apprentices (ranged hostile mobs). Being able to misdirect hordes of rushy mobs at once by grouping them and hitting them as they strafe by is a pretty important skill for a new player.

You give the mushrooms to the assistant, who proceeds to give Illegal Substance #1 to Dr. Essren. Now, for the boss -- the boss has charge AI, just like the mooshrooms! Maybe all the mushrooms hurt your ability to focus on a target and cause you to rampage like a bull and missing by miles. Jokes aside, it’s more or less a test of whether players have learned to deal with charge AI -- meteor can be a nasty surprise for new players, but they’ll get used to it I guess.

PS: The apprentice looks like a chonky toothy caveman and I’m all for it.

Spoiler: Stable Story (7.5/10)

First of all, many thanks to the CT for making this level 13 instead of like 25. An earlygame horse is so useful to have for newer players, and I’m going to gradually weight long travel times less and less from here on out as players get horse levels, ws gear, and more ability to spam movement spells.

Enkser: Preferably with no friends or family, but I'm not picky!

…

Enkser: Ah, god bless. And I presume Betty did all the work while you just- lounged around.

Enkser: I kid! I kid. But as the great bovine above is my witness if I see the smallest bruise I will-

And then there’s Enkser. Great character.

And then there’s Betty -- everything Seluc wishes he could be. Fast, does actual damage, can see more than four blocks away, and not braindead. The mobs in the tunnel are the most dangerous thus far because they have actual health and Charge, though that’s not saying much. The minibosses, Albert and Etus, are also the hardest boss fight thus far, especially since it’s the first dual boss fight with a combination of charge and pull, which may catch new players off guard. Despite the fact it’s a dual boss fight, Etus can be safely ignored for most of the fight. As Albert goes after the player first (and notably does not have retreat AI), the player probably targets him first, and he’s decently tanky and hits hard. Etus only has pull which players have not really seen before and they’ll be able to figure out how that works once Albert is dead.

Not an amazing quest in a particular area, but solid all around.

PS: Betty is the best blue mob in the game and nobody can tell me otherwise.

Spoiler: Arachnid’s Ascent (5.5/10)

The quest starts you off with having to talk to the extremely competent Private Cob. Who immediately tells you to run 900 blocks away to talk to Captain Enduyn. Yeah. At least you can start by talking to Enduyn, but the Cob step should probably not exist in the first place -- or just let Cob let you use the tunnel in the first place. Also, why are lava bombs equal to flaming spiders? As a result of this, they almost always exploded on me because I thought those were just spiders landing and misjudged the explosion hitbox. Best part of the quest was the volcano build -- it was really scenic and fun getting rocketed by the great web (I like getting launched. Slime parkour FTW!), but it doesn’t make up for the 900 block journey for almost no reason. The parkour section is also pretty cool, and the stakes appear to be quite high.

PS: I know this applies to normal MC as well, but doesn’t lava melt buckets?

Spoiler: Creeper Infiltration (8/10)

Creeper Infiltration is the first navigation-heavy quest, just because it’s located in the Pigman Ravines. When I did this years ago with no minimap and only my rough estimation of coordinates to guide me, it took me an hour to even finish the quest and I accidentally did the creeper skin part twice because I got very confused. The dialogue has improved since then, and with the addition of Wynntils’ minimap, the tracking compass, the beacon, and my surprisingly accurate memory of the ravine from a niche area three years ago, I finished it in about 10 minutes. The changes really do improve the quest significantly.

The ravine secrets are also really cool. Once you get the Creeper Mask, you notice there are other masks available -- but you have no clue where to get the ingredients for most of those. Even if you get lost, you’ll end up exploring a lot more beyond the quest -- and you’ll be rewarded by finding the ingredients doing so. The parkour in the cave is also decently challenging for an earlygame parkour, and the plot, while quite plain, does its job well. The characters are mostly uninteresting, but it is cool to “discover” a basically extinct species (and this gets touched on more in Lost Sanct.).

While it was a bit much for a new player, with the later updates, it got a whole lot better. It can be done fast, and even if you get lost, you have the chance to find exclusive items for your troubles. Only change I can suggest is making the creeper explosion animation more fluid (the creeper is invisible at first and has no fuse animation). I would suggest making the creeper helmet a quest item so you don’t lose it, but then players can’t purchase it and therefore won’t see the other cool helmets they could potentially buy.

PS: oH, yOu THoUght The PigmaN rAVINeS WeRe baD. wAit tILL YOU get To canYon oF thE loSt.

Spoiler: Maltic’s Well (6.5/10)

The quest itself is very plot-focused, being both comical and sad at the same time. The initially “find the right cave” is pretty clear, and the parkour is also fairly simple. The plot does a good job of making you feel sorry for the witch (“She was nice at first and made me cookies”), and the witch’s unloseable “pick a door” is pretty novel and makes you feel pretty good about your luck heading into the fight. The fight features your first ranged AI boss (no, Witherhead hardly shoots and therefore does not count); maybe the witch having Vanish would also make sense since it’s plain and simple otherwise. It’s not really dangerous unless you all-in melee and don’t have the walkspeed to strafe.

Where the sole problem lies, however, is in the level of the quest. You just explored the Pigman Ravines, and you’re checking out the Savannah right after this. This is in Maltic.

I think this would be better as a Level 7 quest, maybe right next to Underwater because it’s right nearby. There’s really no difficulty with the quest at all, and everything in the quest should be manageable for a Level 7 player by simply just scaling the enemy/Witch level down. Of course, if this occurs, that creates a 3 level gap between Creeper Infiltration and Lava Springs, so something would need to take its place.

PS: Kelight asking you for Maltic’s Recommendation Letter is kind of oddly specific. In fact, much of Kelight’s requests are ridiculously specific. Why specifically from Maltic? Wouldn’t, say, one from Ragni or Detlas be more important? Kelight is either omniscient or completely insane.

Spoiler: Lava Springs (5/10)

Honestly, the lead-up to the quest is pretty meh from both a plot and gameplay perspective. Finding three pieces of evidence is fairly uninteresting. Then there’s the weird Bremmlinglar subplot, of which the best part is the password actually being “penguin eggs”.

The most notorious part of the quest is that the location of the borehole is very unclear. The dialogue changed (I believe) to make this more clear, but myself and many others have not seen the borehole and jumped into the lava spring right underneath the borehole.

With Wynn’s lava jank in mind, this part of the quest becomes especially bad. The “Potion of Obsidian Skin” only gives you immunity to the lava in the borehole, not the lava surrounding it. I’ve also tried to enter in three different (incorrect) spots on my first run-through of this quest and lost almost all my health as a Level 90 archer. I’m glad the dialogue was adjusted, but I feel there should be some better way to telegraph that the entrance to the borehole is in the building (which players wouldn’t expect).

The quest gets notably better once the player enters the borehole. The mobs inside are actually dangerous, which is a pleasant surprise for players looking for some amount of challenge. There’s a wide variety of them with varying elemental defenses, and the final Heart of Lava boss introduces the player to Flamethrower. It also has 2000 health, so it doesn’t die instantly. It’s a pretty cool section to be honest.

The quest also introduces Bremminglar and its Battle Brew, which is pretty hype.

PS: The way Wynncraft deals with fire is very wack -- touch lava for half a second and you’re on fire for almost ten. It lasts far longer for every second you remain in it, and it makes you lose half your HP, minimum, especially at lower levels. To be honest, lava duration should probably be nerfed into oblivion, as it’s ridiculously punishing without potions if you aren’t a mage or assassin. You shouldn’t have to worry about literally BURNING TO DEATH every time you touch a fire source. I’ve lost half my health as a Level 105 archer because a level 25-ish mob push spelled me into fire in an enclosed space (Underworld Crypt during the miniboss phase). I’ve lost half my health in the AHC fight after escaping onto a midair burning block of all things. Losing literally half your health to half a second of fire (something that’s sometimes unavoidable with mob push/pull and random torch builds in the middle of nowhere) is not very fun.

Spoiler: Grave Digger (6/10)

The quest starting in Detlas naturally incentivizes the player to run to Nemract for the first time, which is pretty great. After a player does a quick pit stop at Nemract (buys potions and does bank stuff) they’ll be able to instantly continue the quest, and they’re incentivized to do so, because they have to look around for the Potion of Drunkness anyway. It’s also great that the potion is cheap and sold in a reasonable location.

Now, the 12 Rotten Flesh requirement. It’s obnoxious. If you’ve saved up your rotten flesh since Ragni, you’ll be in great shape (and I always remember to save rotten flesh in my bank for new classes because of this)! If you haven’t, you’ll have absolutely nothing and have to grind for them. I’ve found that no matter when I grinded rotten flesh near Ancient Nemract, drop rates were far below 50%, which is not ideal when you need TWELVE of them. Also, not every mob with “Zombie” in their name drops them, to add to the confusion. Not to mention you’ll need MORE rotten flesh to even attempt rotten passage.

The Sayleros fight is pretty cool, and a great and easy introduction to multi-phase bosses. Players will easily notice the boss phase bar progress. It’s also fun to watch Sayleros’ brother just get weaker and weaker and lose abilities over time -- he can no longer Charge, he switches from Melee to Crawl, from Crawl to Jumper, and literally has 5 health and is just a floating head at the end. Great quest, made notably worse by the rotten flesh requirement.

PS: It’s hilarious how Sayleros at the end literally gives you his brother’s ashes. He has no need for it and he’s too lazy to throw it away himself, so he just yeets it to you and expects you to do something with it.

 

you act like that's weird when kelight is also asking you for a potato, a stained bowl, and some random dude's ashes

 

Hey, can you help me out? It wont let me into the pigman tunnel and says "this is too dangerous to enter, please turn around blahj blah blah" im combat lvl 26 and i just want to finish thois quest

 

You get and put on the creeper mask, that you should have gotten eariler in the quest.

 

He’s definitely not talking about Fruma at all. The player, Fruma, and Aledar don’t remember anything from Fruma in the first place, so they wouldn’t remember a war, and also the line of dialogue before the one you quoted:

• Tasim: So this is Wynn, huh?
• Aledar: It looks nice. The war clearly hasn't made it this far.

Tasim mentions Wynn, and the three just crossed the border into Wynn before this, so Aledar is just talking about the war in Wynn (the war against the corruption that they were sent to Wynn to help with). So he’s saying the war against the corruption hasn’t made it into the Ragni Outskirts, because it looks nice.

 

Yeah, I entirely forgot that the recruits were aware of the corruption war because I was too caught up in making a Fruman Walls joke.

After a bunch of IRL stuff, was able to finish levels 21-30. The earlier quests are a lot more meh than the later ones and don't have many interesting things going on, but things get better towards the latter end.

Spoiler: Studying the Corrupt (6.5/10)

This quest is primarily good from a lore/exploration perspective -- it is kind of lacking in gameplay, however. You run around from the Lost Sanctuary entrance to Elkurn to the hidden church to the Nether Portal and all the way back to the start. The plot is decently solid, showing Garoth’s history and his good intentions before getting taken over by the corruption. It also serves as a further lore dump for the corruption, and introduces players to the nether area which they will proceed to never touch again until Reincarnation.

I’m not really a fan of the three mages section at the end where they can suddenly break open the seal once they know Garoth was corrupted, as it feels a bit contrived.

The models of the (dog/cat?) under the church are really well done. I’d like to see some amount of combat/parkour in this quest, though, or at least some more elements other than exploration (which was well done).

PS: Feelsbad for the creepers. They were once a thriving race, forced into hiding sometime before Creeper Infiltration, Garoth kills thousands of them, and then YOU enter Lost Sanctuary and then hunt the few that are left repeatedly for their drops. That’s basically all you do in Lost Sanctuary -- murder the remnants of a twice destroyed race. That’s even how you kill Garoth. With the power of genocide. Suddenly, Lari’s pacifism isn’t looking so bad, huh?

Spoiler: Macabre Masquerade (6/10)

Apparently, as per the wiki, people gave this quest flak for being short, as all you do is run into a cave, do parkour, do a short fight, and finish. I don’t think that’s inherently a bad thing -- as long as a quest is good for its entire duration, it’s fine with me. Plus, quests that are horrible and short are infinitely more bearable than quests that are just as bad and long.

Regarding the quest itself, the parkour is pretty cool, and the gimmick (stationary mobs that use multihit to try to send you down) adds a fun flair to it. Only qualm is how much of the parkour you have to re-do again if you mess up or get send downwards by the mobs. The rooms have a nice dramatic feel. I’ve always played through this quest (and actually all of wynn) with fullbright enabled, but without it, it looks a lot spookier.

The mobs in the final room post-parkour are quite scary and making it through is actually a bit of a challenge. The boss, as expected of any halloween boss, has vanish and teleport, but the boss’ minions also have teleport as well, which gives it slightly more tension than all the minibosses before it.

PS: I failed the parkour at the very last jump (overshot the ladders) and had to do it all over again. Fun!

Spoiler: Cluck Cluck (5.5/10)

The quest is the first quest requiring the Seaskipper, which makes sense since the player should’ve just arrived in Nemract right before this. The quest only consists of going into the basement and ripping Cluckles to shreds.

The Cluckles fight is extremely tame. The only difficulty comes from dodging arrow storms in an enclosed space, but just keep your distance and strafe and it’s over. Cluckles also has charge, which primarily forces you to change your position a bit, but then the fight is even easier because Cluckles is now hugging a wall or a corner and you have even more room to dodge.

The quest isn’t bad because it’s short, but there’s just so little depth to it -- even the earlier quests certainly had more. At least there’s a few tie-ins to Bob here and there.

PS: I’m convinced that everyone had an urge to kill Nohno’s Wife, and those who say they didn't are lying to themselves.

Spoiler: Pit of the Dead (4.5/10)

This quest seems little more than filler. It adds nothing interesting to lore, has a barebones plot, lacks any challenging sections, and it certainly doesn’t seem intended to do anything long-term (ex: introducing a major area or a new mechanic, or testing a player’s abilities). There’s nothing bad about it, but nothing good either. At least the two previous quests (which were likewise short) had cool builds and parkour, and introduced the ocean/Seaskipper and had a Bob tie-in, respectively. Here, you just talk to Merloni, yeet yourself into a pit, complete some of the easiest parkour ever (I’m pretty sure Infested Plants and the Sewers of Ragni of all things had harder parkours, and they’re less than level 10), and then run to the shrine while getting stabbed in the back by mobs.

PS: Admittedly, during my first class this quest took me around five tries to complete because I had garbage armor and could not make it through the cave without getting annihilated by the ranged mobs. Didn’t help that archer’s movement spell, Escape, didn’t give forward mobility and is hard to aim precisely. It does seem like enemy damage has been nerfed significantly since 2018, though, as I’ve only seen them deal scratch damage on my other classes.

Spoiler: The Dark Descent (6.5/10)

Another lore related quest with very little gameplay. You fall in a pit, explore some realm, collect a gem, and leave. However, it goes a lot deeper into lore than the previous dungeon quests by virtue of flashback abuse, and it gets very dark. In fact, this was the first quest that made me realize exactly how dark Wynn was able to get, even before the SE quests. It is quite easy to get lost in the “strange dark realm”, and I ended up missing the correct route and going in circles on my first playthrough. This doesn’t affect the rating significantly, since the builds are pretty impressive that getting lost isn’t that all too much a bad thing.

Spoiler: Dwelling Walls (5/10)

Another quest without any combat. However, while this quest has no extremely difficult combat, it makes up for it with an extremely difficult puzzle. It’s simply way too hard for a level 24-ish puzzle, especially considering all the puzzles the players have done up to this point. Oh right, players have done absolutely no puzzles of any reasonable difficulty up to this point. The gimmick is that the rooms shift around every time you press the button clockwise (or counterclockwise, I don’t fully remember), and it’s telegraphed decently well, if you pay attention to the floor. However, is the player expected to remember the contents of each room, the holes and stair entrances, and calculate exactly how many turns they’ll need to progress? That seems completely unfeasible for a player who has not been exposed to any remotely difficult puzzle yet. Not to mention there’s another floor, with another button on it, but no floor pattern on top of it. I’m fairly certain players either just kept going until they got lucky or looked at the wiki solution.

PS: Relevant Berdly quote - “Kris! I get it! Your head's gotten big from solving that puzzle by DUMB LUCK!”

Spoiler: Tempo Town Trouble (8/10)

Let me get this out of the way -- the Time Trouble minibosses are a great addition to the game. The primary gimmick of only being able to fight them once every 24 hours is annoying, however, though I see what its intention was: to get players to try to fight other minibosses instead of grinding an easy boss. They’re a fun challenge, though because they’re fought in the open, there’s a lot of environment abuse that can occur -- for instance, I just killed the Broken Olm by hiding behind a wall and spamming spells that could go through it, backing off whenever Explode/Meteor was in play.

The other mobs aren’t as cheesable though -- the Time Skipper likes to spam teleport and land a multihit, the Wight is a ranged mob which does heavy damage and closes distance with Heavy Charge, the Eternal Bloom is a stationary DPS check because of heal and also tests your reaction time with Arrow Storm, and the Awoken Olm is just generally nightmarish at level. They’re really great content for skilled players or players not on their first class.

The quest fight itself isn’t bad, and the Timekeeper is actually quite dangerous for a quest fight, having around 5k health and a wide slew of spells (of which most bosses have had around 1 or 2 thus far). The rewards are also really solid, and it’s well worth it grinding for them. However, I would replace the boss time spawn mechanic with something else -- maybe the first time you defeat a boss, you get three drops instead of one? (Obviously, scale the prices up as well)

PS: Longevity, one of the shop necklaces you can get from this quest, is a really nice QoL item. It gives +15 health regen when the player is likely to be regenerating around 3-4 at the time with no other gear. Also, Hourslip is a really nice QoL chestplate. Definitely worth grinding the rewards at one point or another if you're doing 100% quests.

Spoiler: Recover the Past (9/10)

Big improvement over the previous Tower of Amnesia quest, which was just a scroll hunt and a farewell to a low level player’s life savings. Now, there’s actual lore and content -- in fact, this quest singlehandedly sets up the entire Fruma arc. It shows the player what exactly happens in Fruma, and caches in on the player’s lack of an origin story. It also does a good job of making the player care for the minor characters as the Fruman government just bulldozes over their families, hopes, and dreams. The cutscenes are pretty solid as well, and one of the best in the game. There’s also a combat section and small exploration steps (gathering ingredients near Elkurn for the potion of shrinking). Not much challenge to the quest, but it’s really great in every other aspect.

PS: There’s also apparently a Ragni Archer in one of the cells, probably put there by Ragni’s King himself once the king observed the archer wasn’t doing his job and firing arrows into the ground near his feet repeatedly, thus wasting government funds.
PPS: I love the NPC system. I get to take an NPC around the world with me when I’m feeling lonely. GeneralCobra19’s Adventures with 100% More Sailor Caid coming to a theater near you!
PPPS: “It's almost as if you didn't have a life before you came to Wynn” is a very relatable quote.

Spoiler: The Corrupted Village (6/10)

The amount of sheer dialogue and unnecessary to-do in this quest kind of ruins it for me. It feels as if the entire purpose of the quest is to demonstrate how the corruption spike has affected the village, but to elaborate on this, the first two thirds of the quest ends up being a dialogue dump with very little content. First, the player has to investigate a spike and learns absolutely nothing. Then, you go inside a cave and endure 21 lines of dialogue with multiple cutscenes in-between where all Alfonse, Orikal, and Roy do is discover that TNT doesn’t work. You exit it, then speak to Orikal again, then visit the mining camp.

The mining camp step is pretty cool -- the 30 second parkour challenge adds some nice pressure (although movement spells go brrrrrrr), and the wrecking ball and bucket fluid steps require a decent amount of exploration while still being easy to spot.

Then you go into the cave again, then leave it again, then talk to Orikal. Fun.

Still better than The Angry Village, for what it’s worth. The lava parkour in that quest was obnoxious and could lead to death if you mess up.

PS: The best dialogue in the quest is completely optional. If you talk to some generic NPCs hanging around the village post-quest, they’ll indicate that they’re feeling less angry, but that their eyebrows haven’t quite adjusted yet.

Spoiler: Lost Tower (6/10)

The quest seems to have very little going for it, being a “get in cave, do thing, get out” quest. Those quests aren’t bad on their own, as long as they are engaging throughout the entire period. However, what makes this worse than, say, Infested Plants, is the lack of interesting characterization and distance you have to travel. Ope’s funny, sarcastic, and witty, while Laen is generic and more boring (not that Laen’s dialogue is bad, just notably less interesting). Ope has the courtesy to be right next to the parkour adjacent to the cave entrance, and the courtesy to be right at the exit when you arrive there. Meanwhile, Laen is quite a bit away from the tower, and you have to run back as well. Despite the fact it’s not that long of a journey compared to the Infested Pit dungeon quest, because the quest is so short, the ratio of content to running is still heavily tipped towards the running side.

What you do in the cave isn’t too interesting either. You go through a small maze and kill the rotten necromancer, which isn’t a threat at all, given that it has less than 1k HP and literally only has multihit. The Timekeeper had 5k and a wide slew of spells. Cluckles had 2.6k and had arrow storm to keep you away. No such thing for this fight. Generally, not a bad quest, but nothing remarkable either.

Spoiler: Deja Vu (8.5/10)

Quest on its own is pretty solid. It also incentivizes the player to return to the Time Valley area to try some of the harder Time Troubles that they were having trouble at an earlier time (horrible pun intended). Asher’s characterization was jarring (in a good way) right from the start, and does a good job of causing the player to question whether he’s crazy or Asher is. They figure it out soon enough once they return with the shovel.

The saving Asher part is also quite funny, as it’s basically Dumb Ways to Die on steroids. The entire universe is out to get him and you have to somehow prevent all of it by being both quick and observant.

The quest also adds a bit of Martyn lore, who I’m pretty convinced is an Olm. He also makes funny remarks every time Asher dies:

[Asher gets crushed]

Old Man Martyn: My my, a crushing defeat to be sure.

[Asher gets exploded]

Old Man Martyn: Well that was quite the explosive end to our friend there. There must be a way to prevent that.

[The universe itself conspires to kill Asher]

Old Man Martyn: Oh, so close on that try.

No challenge to the quest, but the quest has everything else going for it: funny dialogue, great plot, and clever observation puzzles. Plus, now you have an excuse to go spend those Time Fragments you got last time you came to Time Valley because now you’ll actually be able to afford stuff.

PS: Better hope you’ve got one of those Tempo Town scrolls, or you’ll have to make the 1k block journey here. Don’t forget to bring a Nemract scroll too, or you’ll have to make the 1k block journey back. Totally didn’t happen to me, nope, never.

Spoiler: Misadventure on the Sea (10/10)

The quest has so many layers to it that I can’t do anything but rate it this high. The plot is a joke at the player’s expense -- the player is so used to doing funny things for NPCs that Honip is able to get the player onto their boat without any suspicion whatsoever.

Honip: Some extremely suspicious pirate comes up, offers you a drink, and leads you to his suspicious boat.

Honip: Any normal person would've turned back by then. But what do you do? You hop on!

The player then has to locate and sponge seven bodies throughout the boat. While this would normally be something I would dock the quest for, it accomplishes a secondary objective of getting the player to explore and find hidden secrets throughout the boat. You can find seeds and give them to Honip’s pet chicken, and likewise with a bone for Pep. Outside of those two, there’s still a lot of minor easter eggs and hidden items to find around the ship, and some cannon foreshadowing for later.

The Osearer actually presents no threat at all, but it appears scary as it’s a level 50 mob in a level 28 quest. It does a good job of creating the illusion of a threat while really just being a cutscene. Also, Snoo can 1v1 the Osearer if you tame him, and it is hilarious to see a chicken wiping the floor with a mob terrifying the whole crew.

The quest thus far has absolutely no combat, and yet it’s one of the best in the game. And then they threw in a combat section with a whole bunch of rats, which you clear easily. Then Giant Rats drop down, and you clear them too. And then there’s a dramatic music shift, and the Colossal Rat drops from the sky. It’s also quite a threat too, having the most health thus far along with Multihit and Charge.

Then you escape using the human cannon mentioned earlier, and then you literally fly over Selchar and dodge damaging seagulls in the air. I don’t need to specify how comically great this is.

The island phase is my least favorite part --I think there should be more than one trigger for the seaskipper. Initially I found everything but the button and ended up swimming underneath the island forever because I thought there would be something there. It’s still more or less my fault, but having the trigger be one specific thing out of many is kind of weird. Then the Seaskipper picks you up, which introduces you to him in case you didn’t do Cluck Cluck, and brings you to Selchar.

Absolutely amazing quest. Honip’s characterization still makes him fun to be around, despite the fact he literally just drugged you and kidnapped you onto his ship. Snoo and Pep are great additions as well, and it’s full of secrets to always keep the quest engaging on future playthroughs.

PS: Who else remembers the good old days of [honip lol]?

Spoiler: Craftmas Chaos (6.5/10)

The primary issue I have with this quest is the sheer amount of navigation. First, you have to talk to Tom and he tells you to locate Santa’s island. Which is all well and good, but there’s no Seaskipper at the island, which means you have to go to the adjacent ice nations islands instead, and from there go to Craftmas Island. Then you get TPed to old Selchar, and you have to go through a really long (but scenic) cave to destroy a dark relicstone which has flamethrower. Then you escape the portal, somehow end up in future Selchar (indicated by the Ghost of Craftmas future), meet Tom again, and end up going in the same cave once again to kill Santa.

Santa is… really dangerous? He hits quite hard and has arrow storm, with charge to close space. The most annoying part though, is that if you die (which I did on my first class), you have to redo basically the entire quest and have to go to the ice islands back to Craftmas Island back to old selchar back to the cave back to future selchar back to the cave to refight santa. I’m not sure if there’s a good fix for this, but it would be great if there was one.

And then Wynn’s ability to get really dark shines through as you realize it was you who caused Santa to turn evil in the future and you could have totally prevented it. Well.

The plot and builds are probably the best part of this quest, though I think the gap from Selchar to Craftmas Island should be shortened by having it be a direct Seaskipper destination.

PS: “Santa Evil?????” is one of the best plot twists I’ve ever seen in a Christmas one-off.

Spoiler: The Mercenary (8.5/10)

Like many other quests, the long-term purpose of this quest is to move the player from one place to another. In this case, that’s from Nemract to Almuj. It does its job well, and once you brave the Savannah and the ten thousand wild ocelots that bumrush you, you talk to Amerigo who gives you instructions to kill Takan. Then, you go to the bank to deposit your items, but as it turns out, you can’t use the bank! Very cool.

It then becomes a stealth infiltration quest in everything but name, as there’s quite a lot of mobs near the Barracks and you definitely aren’t able to take them out bit by bit. Ideally, you make a beeline for the hidden entrance and sprint past the mobs along the way. There’s also tricky ceiling parkour, and if you mess up, there’s a lot of nigh unkillable scary mobs below you to punish your mistakes, though it’s still possible to recover.

Despite the travel time from Nemract to Almuj to the barracks (which was going to have to be done at some point) it’s a really great quest because of how it incentivizes approaches without mandating them. For instance, there’s no jankiness when it comes to “getting caught” in this quest, compared to something like Tunnel Trouble’s stealth section. In fact, you don’t even need to be stealthy, as it’s incentivized instead of forced, which makes all the difference. Likewise, dangerous mobs are a good choice of stakes when doing the parkour, as normally, you’d either just be teleported back or fall into lava (insert more complaints about Wynncraft lava jank). It adds a sense of danger while still being perfectly survivable, and that’s just part of what I love so much about this quest.

PS: I’m probably going to say this later as well, but please swap the levels of Green Gloop (31) and Sandy Scandal (32). It’s a one level difference, but it’s really nice to be actually able to use the bank to put away stuff you’ll be getting in the meantime, especially since the lack of an available bank was not telegraphed in advance.

 

[honip lol}

 

@Lex! consider crying regarding it

 

no