SPOILER Exploration feels absent from modern Wynncraft

With the addition of 2.0.3, we got a new feature called the content book. In addition to showing quests, it now shows the location of caves, and lets you track them with a beacon. A similar feature has been added for the game's boss altars.

Now, there has been some debate over whether this is a good addition, and personally I'm neutral. If this is the direction the game wants to go in, then I'm not opposed. Caves feel like they're meant to be discovered, as some of them feel like entire mini-dungeons now. The gameplay aspect of them comes from repeated completions, not searching for the cave on your own.

However, what this has made me realize is that exploration is no longer really a core aspect of Wynn.

Yes, secret discoveries still exist, but those don't really count in my opinion. You're intended to find them given that they're in the content book, they're just a bit more hidden than everything else. But the player is never directed to go exploring the world on their own, and if they're guided off the beaten path, it'll probably be because they're following a beacon. There's no reason given to do this, and there's almost nothing to find. The two main "secrets" left in the game are world events (most notably this castle highlighted on the map - it still has a special event right?) and ???, a quest so obscure it needed a week of player coordination to have its solutions discovered. I guess some prof nodes might be a bit hidden? But that involves profs, which is something most people don't want to touch.

It feels like reasons to explore the map on your own without direction have been declining for a while now. First, secret discoveries marked in the quest book became the primary "hidden stuff" in the game. Then T3 and T4 chests were removed from random spots on the map, and designated "eco caves" were made. Then icons for these caves were added to the online map. And now, the content cave feels like the final nail in the coffin.

Now, I want to reiterate, I do not mind if the "Exploration" I'm describing is cut from the game entirely. If it doesn't fit in to the game the developers want to make, that's okay.

But damn, exploring the world organically not only feels perfect for an open-world game like this, but I think there's evidence that this is something gamers want. Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom are open-world action games that have sold over 10 million copies really quickly, and both those games have a heavy emphasis on exploring a vast world without guidance. You're incentivized to check random corners of the map in both those games, and hey, maybe you'll be rewarded for it. And that reward is doubled: you'll feel satisfied from venturing out into the world, and satisfied for finding a reward like currency or a cool item.

And the main reason that I'm making this thread is because I know exploration for exploration's sake works in Wynncraft, because it was one of the only things you could do back in the server's early years. I remember checking obscure parts of the world because not only could I find a T3 loot chest, but I genuinely felt like I could be the first to uncover a secret no one else had. Back in 2014 there used to be easter eggs hidden everywhere, and discovering one before anything else brought prestige with it. There really isn't anything like that in the game, and despite Fruma being a perfect fit for a thing like that, I doubt it'll happen.

To summarize, I'm fine with the current state of exploration in Wynn, but I feel like incentivizing players to wander around, and reward them for doing so, outside of the content book would still work and would be a perfect fit for the game.

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I'm aware this post might be somewhat controversial, so I'm excited to hear your thoughts in the comments. A lot of my thoughts might be due to bias and whatnot, so I'm happy to be proven wrong here.

 

Honestly, I think the Content Book was designed to help create higher player-retention (AKA preventing people from getting bored, logging off, and never coming back, which is a pretty big issue from what I've seen).
So I understand why they added this, and I'm happy that we're getting new content & better caves... but I agree with all the points you made as well.
Exploration is really fun in Wynncraft, so I hope they reconsider their approach when it comes to adding features like this.

 

I couldn't agree more. If this is the direction that Wynncraft is going in, then fair enough - I suppose that by making the various toggles in the content book, none of it is forced on the player, but it still feels like every aspect of the game is being spoon-fed to the player. Maybe that's just because I've been playing for 9+ years and change always feels weird though.

Either way, I still love Wynncraft and 2.0.3 and will continue to play :)

 

Perhaps they should add a counter, or bar, like

caves: 55% or maybe 77/303 caves

so that you may not now where the caves are until you explore them so you know when you did all of them and then they get put in your quest book so you can find the chests again. But you also know how many caves until you did all of them

they could also do it by region, like: you have completed 6/10 caves in Olux swamps. (This would be the best way in my opinion) and then it would be added into your book so you have the information on it.

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Also I don’t know if the numbers are correct I just used random ones.

 

I've always hated quest tracking and the beacons. When I turn them on, I don't really look at the map around me anymore. I just run through stuff towards the marker that's shining on my screen. As soon as I turn the tracker off, I feel way more immersed in the world. The default should be for these to be turned off instead of encouraging players to use them in my opinion.

When I started playing, I always used the online map site to navigate the world, nothing else.

Caves being marked like this is fine in my book. However, there should still be good loot chests, mini-bosses and world events hidden all around the world, especially in those really obscure spots. Half-moon island used to have actual hidden content and a miniboss in 1.17, but all that was removed. Why? Who knows.

 

Respectfully disagree.

Exploration is a good part of the game, though most of the progress is linear. Rewarding the player for randomly wandering off of their path invests the player in it, also making them spend more time in the game without "spending" major content.

I undeestand that some help and guidance is necessary (having played Rain World recently), but holding the players hand to basically everything is bad in my opinion. At some point, it becomes just crossing another pointer from the questbook.

 

Honestly, the new content book would push me away from wanting to play more than the old quest book if I were a newbie.
I'm an endgame player that's been here since 2013 and the first thing I felt when I opened the new content book in the beta was overwhelmed, seriously. I see no reason why the content book has to show ABSOLUTELY everything. This book is overwhelming as hell and I say that as someone who knows nearly every corner of the map.

On top of that, it removes the exploration factor as you said. It spoils cave locations, boss altars and even secret discoveries. I really am not a fan of this change personally.

 

I’m fine with quests having beacons bc they’re part of the main content and sometimes the quest book description isn’t the best and I get lost.

But I agree that cave locations, boss altars, and secret discoveries shouldn’t immediately appear in the quest book. They should only appear after you found them, and it would also be better than before since it would only tell you how many discoveries you have left, not which ones you have done already.

 

Thinking more about it we are all gonna be glad that it shows caves since you need to explore all the caves in an area to lootrun there.

 

i agree when ever i have them on i just feel like im going from a to b not going through the world its

this is an isssue i was thinking about i think the only way to remove this (while keeping fetures) is to unlock new parts of the content book via quests
eg the passage unlocks the boss alter section or u do one ur self and it unlocks cus thats when we find out about boss alters anyway just an idea im stupid so i probs forgot something important

 

I remember on my early days of Wynn (before I had basically the entire map memorised) that exploring was a huuuuge part of the enjoyment for me.
Wandering into and trying to pass through Neesak forest as a low level assassin and getting obliterated by the wolves, or trying to make my way through the abandoned mines because I was curious where it led to, and also getting obliterated (both which just made super excited to get to the proper level and explore it), or arriving at the jungle and really having to cut my way through the bush to find Troms.
I remember vividly the first time I got to the great bridge and made my way through it or when I finally managed to make it across COTL and arriving in Molten Heights.
The map did feel a lot "larger" on that time since I didn't know where anything was, and I was constantly finding new stuff.
This doesn't really connect to op's points, but I just wanted to share my personal experience with the exploration aspect of the game. I guess my point is just that if too much is handfed to the player it may kill the potential enjoyment of not knowing what to do and genuinely having the explore, which for me personally was huge and something that gave me the most memorable moments.

 

I totally agree on the caves part, as caves being more naturally found I prefer and is much more interesting. But, I do find exploring to still be a large part of the game for me.

Here is my ramblings on it.
Warning. If you want to see these details in game idk I'd suggest you not read too much of this I rambled a bit too much haha but I want to have this all here to state my point.

I explore for the sake of exploring, finding cool parts of terrain or builds or other things. And I feel that is not absent at all in new builds. For example with the cotl rework, I found many parts that I found cool. Random caves with lakes or structures. Large intricate waterfalls crashing through rocks which hang off the terrain. Following the river which winds below roots of trees and in and out of caves. Or simply following all the paths to see where it leads me. With new nivla changes I found cool armour stand scenes of murdered adventurers near spider dens and a giant beautiful flower in a corner of the forest. With the new cities I felt this the most. With cinfrases varied homes with their own personalities and stories and nesaaks cozy corners and varied buildings. With nesaak I would walk into a building and know "Oh this is for food storage" or "hey look its a church" or I would scale a ladder and be above the bank looking down at the hanging plants and then walk out to the back to a hidden Dock behind the building along the river. With the newest village this trend is continued with extreme amounts of varied detail which makes it one of my favourite.

I absolutely love the new nivla village, and exploring these new builds is one of my favourite things to do. Firstly, it's complex as fuck. There's so many connections with cool stairways and paths across the trees and ropes you can climb and homes in the treetops.
So many buildings with personalities and cozy corners with small features like book areas. And amazing details like a mini shooting range with targets and arrows in a barrel and daggers in the tree nearby. And a hoe next to the small farm. And smoke which comes out of the chimney nobody would notice.
There's clothing being dyed which explains their some of their production and the clothes are being hung to dry.


Not just in towns though. With new changes to maltic plains I came across details such as a bucket floating in water or a crab being cooked above a open fire or a book being written in a house.


Other cool details like interconnected river systems across the aldorie mountains which are fun to follow and a hidden area with cool underground lake area.

Before these existed obviously but I never really felt super amazed by them. I think it's a personal thing but the new buildstyle really makes it much more interesting to find these things.
Even after playing it for a long time I'm so excited exploring new areas and new builds. Especially with one of my favourite new areas being the gateway realm and having the freedom to explore this interesting area with weird plants and terrain.

For buildings its not just exclusive to cities though. House invasion is my favourite wynn activity. Random homes nor in towns work too.
I found this cool newly made house on a random cliff along the sky islands border and its quite cool i liked staying there.
Im rambling lmao i just have so much to talk about when it comes to this I think.


Just a ton of out of the way unessescary detail being made in areas which are generally out of the way(example: the whole of old lexdale(in lore like the stone city not the old lexdale from 1.19)

I honestly feel personally my will to explore as new builds and updates come in has been rising every time, as well as my interest in the things I come across when exploring.

I feel exploring has gotten more satisfying. An example is house invasion like I said before. Before I would find a random house and it would be like "Oh. OK." And leave because the interiors and exteriors were never too interesting to me. But now I enter a house and its like a unique interesting maze to explore with cool details in every corner like armour stand stuff and I'm excited and sit around in spots cause its so cozy and it's fun.
Another example is thesead rework. let's compare upper thesead. Before these were a bunch of kinda samey buildings with a boring colour and a observatory which was.. cool I guess
New thesead there's this cool plaza! And emeralds being stored!
And a entire living complex with a cool church and rooms and it looks nice on the outside!
And there's this entire unesescary hall with cool statues and a massive table and a nice upper area and there's even MORE with staircases to a upper area with more rooms and there's a cool garden!
And then there's this nice outside path to this really cozy plant room! With armour stand stuff making it ooze with personality and its so cozy I would wanna sit there with a view over the entire city!
And then there's a whole mountain path up to the previously barely noticeable observatory! It's its own building! Which makes more sense! And it's elevated! It makes sense cause then it's higher in the sky! I think. Anyways then you enter and there's a whole planetary model giving lore that they're studying it and the room is pretty open with a big telescope! And then to the west there's the mines! With a house for the head miner and cranes and miners mining coal and equipment. There's even animated working machines!
Its just.. much more exciting and interesting

Maybe it's the potential for exploration which rises, but the incentives and satisfaction to new players is the issue though.



I do believe that caves being made into "mini dungeons" is a bad thing and there is a general direction towards less exploration. But I also am finding a ton of fun exploring all the new builds, so I don't think exploration is dead. Maybe for new players they won't be exploring as much but for me I'll keep enjoying anything new that comes this way.

(I could continue this rant on the stuff I've found interest in in my exploration of newer areas and content but yeah. Just know there's still a lot)




(There's this really cool good thing I found in the new update from exploration and its really cool its a text thing but holy it hit hard anyways erm yeah it's very cool I just wanted to express how much I think it's cool hehe)

 

Aren't coordinates enough?

 

My biggest problem with the content book (aside from looks) is just how overwhelming it can be, showing pretty much everything you possibly could do. I definitely think caves are pretty excessive on it, but I definitely think the existence and reward of caves should be pointed out for newer players. Boss altars on the other hand are really easily missed by the player until that one midgame quest that forces you to do one. They're also on the map, so I don't think that exploration is a major part of finding them. I'd rather new players know about them and give them a try than miss them entirely.

I do have to say one of my fondest memories in wynncraft is from finding a cool cave with a puzzle on my own. I was looking for secret discoveries and instead found something else that was fun. I wish more stuff was somewhat hidden like that, and exploring on your own was rewarded in some way.

 

Not all quest stages give coordinates, and even if they did it’s just more annoying and less intuitive to use them than beacons. And if you’re already giving away coordinates, at that point it isn’t organically exploring new stuff on your own anyway like boss altars and secret discoveries. So you might as well make it easier.

 

make it like tears of the kingdom - caves can still be in the content book but in a way similar to secret discoveries. there is no guide on how to find them, and if you want to track them more easily, there's a place in each region you can go to to put a beacon on all nearby caves.

also caves and secret discoveries should only show up in the content book if you use the filter for them, and boss altars should have a warning telling you that the content is designed for more serious players

 

Before I figured out how beacons worked, I used coordinates, and those are just an awful form of navigation. It's a slow, time-consuming method that encourages the player to avoid going off the beaten path, because its time-consuming to get back on it.

 

this is why we should have a system that means you unlock stuff as you go along
like you first have quests and caves (unfortunately)
then once u do a dungeon the dungeons tab gets unlocked etc
it means you dont get overwelmed when you first log on and i said it so it must be a good idea

 

I will sort of agree that having caves on the book is a bit much, I sort of enjoyed finding them on my own but in another vein ive already found multiple caves i didnt know existed because of it. If i had to change one thing it would probably be the way the book sorts stuff by default; the All setting is SUPER overwhelming and its going to confuse the living hell out of new players.

 

Looking at the comments here, it seems a lot of people aren't happy with the cave beacons. The reason I'm personally neutral towards them is because I feel like with how Wynn is currently set up, caves are intended to be found, especially in the endgame. Besides, even without beacons and the map markers, I feel like a lot of them are pretty obvious. Rather, I'd like to see Wynn use other methods of encouraging exploration, like T3 chests just in random parts of the world (dunno how that would mess with lootrunning), or maybe more quests in between The Olmic Rune and ??? in terms of making players discover stuff. Or hell, even some more easter eggs would be neat.

I completely agree with this: it'll probably be even MORE confusing for players returning after a long break.

This is an interesting take that I never really considered much, maybe environmental design is carrying the torch of exploration more now in modern wynncraft.