Game Design Claim to Heroism Feedback

While I have already expressed most of my criticisms to the minigame's creator already, I felt I should create a more general location for all of my thoughts and for anyone else to voice their concerns. I've played quite a few games so far now, and whilst originally I heavily disliked it, the more I played and developed an actual game plan, the more I enjoy it. Asides from some minor issues, there's two problems I have with the minigame fundamentally.

1. It's not very new player friendly.

While I enjoy the game now, it took me around 6-8 games to fully understand the game, its layout and the locations of all the bosses, become accustomed to the hitboxes of each individual weapon, and develop an idea of how I want to play. I consider myself an already pretty devoted Wynncraft player and was even excited for this specific event despite not actively play the actual game anymore, and it was really difficult for me to get into the minigame. Battle for the Bonfire had a simple capture the flag concept that anyone could understand, and so while I do not dislike Claim to Heroism's slightly more complex mechanics (I quite like it, even), that same complexity is what will usually drive new players away or even quit mid-game, especially if they're consistently losing or dying.

2. 6 players is too many.

There is certainly a merit to 6 players, as if you can get a full party of 6 experienced players all trying to win, it feels incredibly fun and balanced. But perhaps due to my first issue with the minigame, doing so is really difficult. Typically, should any one or more players AFK, disconnect, or not actively participate for whatever reason, then the hero will win the game every time. The hero's melee, HP and abilities, while all really powerful, can certainly be overwhelmed by a group of 5 experienced players all trying to win, but typically against any amount of 4 or less and potentially even inexperienced players, they will always lose, and so actually trying to stop the hero might feel like a pointless effort. Should the minigame/map have been made and balanced with a smaller player size in mind (4 to me sounds good), you would have a lot more leeway in amount of players actually trying to win.


Some additional miscellaneous issues I have with the minigame are:

- Tisaun's passive dodge adds an unnecessary level of RNG, especially when combined with his special ability; he already feels like a strong and balanced hero without it so I don't feel any buffs would be needed to compensate in the event of its removal.

- There could be a slightly higher or even pre-determined chances of Gray/Talespun Essence mobs at the start of the game. Talespun Essence is the most important material, and at times if you simply have bad luck you may or may not encounter enough gray mobs to get a weapon for a couple minutes. I think potentially having pre-determined gray mobs in the center would be interesting, as it would also force players to get close to each other.

- Higher tier song upgrades could likely use slight price decreases. What I would consider to be the current "meta" is to simply rush ascending as fast as possible (although, I think is likely the intended way of play?). And in doing that, much of the higher tier upgrades are entirely out of the question, making them rather pointless. When a player ascends, even though there is a 20 second grace period before they can begin destroying castles, you typically don't want to upgrade at all as it wastes very valuable time that you could be using to kill the hero. I think that if these upgrades were made more price reasonable, then it could be a genuine a strategy to avoid wanting to ascend altogether and simply buffing up for whoever does.


Overall, I seriously enjoy the dynamic of gathering materials and fighting other players to slow them down on the way to ascension in phase 1. I love playing as the hero against a trying and coordinated team of 5, or being in that same group of 5 against the hero. But these are rare occurrences. For whatever potential future event minigames are created, I think that making something a bit simpler would make it significantly more accessible to the general playerbase, especially for a limited time event. If Festival of the Spirits follows the pattern and gets a minigame, it could also be worth considering creating something entirely group PVE. While I have no issue with PVP, a lot of players are discouraged from the two major event minigames because that they are PVP. Something different to this would likely shake things up a bit. If you have any additional feedback you want to add, then please do so.

 

well although the first point makes sense... i feel as if making the game less complex may have made me and possibly others not like way more. maybe its just because ive played similarly complex games before but i understood everything pretty fast from just skimming over the info sign and playing 2ish games. HOWEVER i must ask why the game barely gives direction on where to find citadels whispers. like it took me 5 games to even notice the dam pillars. also it would be nice if the info box gave information on the bosses.

for the second point... i think 5 is a good number but yeah 6 may be too many because of either a) people are really good and will always beat hero or b) peoples are all bad and hero will always win. no inbetween.

and yeah having a pve would be really nice

 

Yeah, it really isn't amazingly complex but I brought it up just because from the people that I've talked to personally and see rage in chat over having such little direction and not being interested in learning it was pretty high. Even a slight learning curve, for a game where you'll get crushed should you not know what to do, can seriously hurt peoples' morales. I don't think it's something that should be changed now (it would pretty much require reworking the entire gamemode), but is just something to be noted for the future.

 

I agree.

I played this minigame as I wanted to have fun during the event. But wow! Whole thing through me for a loop. It was confusing to understand what I even was doing. Usually, there is an explanation or video to watch to show how to play something. Heck, I even looked around on youtube to see if someone made a fan made tutorial on how to even play the game. But nothing. I only played twice and after that it wasn't even worth playing.