World My current problems with 2.1 (and my fixes for them)

I have had the pleasure of taking on the Rekindled beta and I gotta say, while I love some parts, I have problems with others. First things first, 2.1 is currently in beta and subject to change. The point of this post is to help point out the problems that need to be fixed.

Immersion:
As expected, I love the idea of ambient mobs and the way it's handled is very good. I love the way certain ambient mobs spawn in fitting areas (like cockroaches in the sewers), but it could be even more immersive. I think that there should be more types of ambient mobs as well as mobs in general that interact with the world better. I'll be very clear here: this is not at all a full criticism but more of a general suggestion. Unlike everything else in this post, this is not a problem that has to be fixed, it's more of an idea to make the game more immersive.
Anyways, I noticed that fireflies appear in Alekin village at all times of day, but seemingly never anywhere else in Nivla woods. So, here's my basic idea to make ambient mobs more immersive.

• Fireflies spawn in any forest or open field area only at night. Conversely butterflies spawn in any forest or open field area only during the day.
• Birds in general only spawn during the day and they spawn more frequently.
• More ambient mobs in general because they are a really nice addition.

Mob Balance:
Now this is a complicated issue, but the first thing I have noticed about world events and raids is that unless you have a very good build, they are impossible to beat solo.
Whatever scaling is used for mobs in these situations is scaled way too high for a normal player to even consider fighting them. I fought many raids and world events and still have not won a single one without having some high-level player carry me through it, and I've played Wynncraft since 2018. My whole problem with raids in the past is that they felt impossible to play at the level you unlock them because everything in the game oneshots you at that level. Well, now that scaling is in play, that still happens. My level 64 characters are still complete detriments to the team because all it takes is a single hit or two hits to kill them and it almost seems like the problem is even worse. And I haven't fought Annihilation, but I know that many are saying he is also completely unfair to fight. And "just hit the sun" is not an argument because for one, it's floating in the air and 2 of this game's 5 classes are melee with little to no range whatsoever; and two, how will a new player who hasn't fought it before know to hit the sun? And three, it's a damage check. And damage checks shouldn't exist in a game with no actual roles or ways to revive your teammates.
But all this begs the question, how on earth does the scaling even work if I'm still getting oneshot with 40+ defense from mobs that scale to my level?

So, what's the solution to this problem? Well, a simple solution is to just reduce the damage but it's actually more complicated than that because it's not just the mobs that are the problem, it's the way Wynncraft's damage system is designed. What needs to happen is a complete full-scale rework of skill points and damage in order to make defense no longer mandatory to simply play the game without getting oneshot by raid and world event mobs. Overall player durability needs to be drastically increased but defense needs to be decreased, while agility and dexterity in general need to be completely reworked because "dodge change" literally shouldn't exist in a first person action RPG and critical hits should at most be a weapon stat instead of a skill.

One last problem with mob balance is that many mobs don't have special AI and their gimmick is to run at you faster than you can outrun them, forcing you to spam mobility to get away. Basic enemies having basic AI is fine because they're slow, but Arakadicus' children for example are way too fast for a new player to fight.
The solution to this problem is to reduce their speed and instead implement a new "swarm" AI type for horde enemies (such as Arakadicus' children) that makes mobs with that AI move with more variety and unpredictability from each other. This would add a level of variety to the fight and make it so that the threat of her children isn't that they're running you down, the threat is that they're everywhere and you have to be creative to avoid them beyond just spamming an ability. This AI type could of course be put on basic swarm-type enemies as well to make the game more immersive.


Dungeons:
I generally really like dungeons but their harder difficulty means that something new needs to be added: checkpoints. Dungeons already consist of multiple separated rooms so I can't imagine it being too hard to implement checkpoints for them. Now, I'm of the opinion that Wynncraft needs to have a revive system where you can revive dead players similarly to Destiny and Warframe. But I could make a whole separate thread about that later so let's just stick to checkpoints for now.


Runes:
One thing I do not understand is why runes are being made harder to get (by not dropping from raids anymore) if the raids themselves are objectively harder to beat. I could understand if world events were not completely impossible for solo players to do, but runes in general need to have more sources in the world. There is nothing wrong with having more runes available to the player because it makes raid queue times shorter by having more players interacting with raids, which helps the community thrive.

The simplest solution is to either make runes potential loot from loot chests or to have them occasionally drop from enemies in their respective level areas.


Shadestepper:
This is where I get quite a bit more ranty. Now, I get that "buff shadestepper" isn't exactly a new criticism and it's very out of place for a 2.1 problems thread, but it bears repeating because Shadestepper is now officially in the worst position it's ever been in due to the fact that important content now scales to it with the 2.1 update, so even if you have a good build you're still at an objective disadvantage against other classes and archetypes.

But to fix this, we need to actually fix the problem with Shadestepper instead of just giving random buffs to it. The reason why Shadestepper is so absolutely atrocious isn't because of a lack of damage or convoluted damage rotation, it's because simply playing the archetype means forfeiting your ability to play the game to begin with. The entire archetype revolves around using Vanish to deal damage, which makes you invisible. So why is this bad? Because what it also does is remove your ability to regenerate health or mana, and any form of attack you do cancels it early. That means you can't use it to retreat and regen because it doesn't let you, and you can't continue fighting because you're far too squishy and you didn't regenerate any mana since using the ability in the first place; and on top of all this, it also has a 5 second cooldown. This all begs the question, why does the archetype even exist in the first place if you're going to be actively punished for playing it?

"Fallen also gets punished for its main ability"
Yeah, and the Fallen is part of the tankiest class in the game and it's all about striking a balance with how much damage you take versus how much damage you can tank and has several forms of sustain including percentage health true healing after it leaves Corrupted, and most importantly can actually regenerate mana. Shadestepper does not have so much as a single sustain ability in its entire ability tree which would be completely fine if it could simply regenerate health, or even if it could just regenerate mana during Vanish, but it can't even do that.

So what's the solution? It's simple. Remove the anti-regen mechanics from Vanish. That's it. Instant win.
"But then Shadestepper would be op." No it wouldn't. And if it is, then nerf the damage. What's so hard about that? Why is it so bad for the Shadestepper to be able to, you know, step into shadows without being punished for it? Isn't that the literal point of the class? At least their sustain+damage rotation would require some degree of skill because of how squishy they are. Fallen has sustain abilities so why is Shadestepper being singled out when it's objectively more risky to play Assassin than Warrior?


Conclusion:
I don't want anyone to misunderstand these criticisms as me saying that Rekindled World is a bad update. It's not. I think that laying groundwork for the future is the most important type of update and that's why I tie it with Spellbound for the title of best update to Wynncraft.
It's an amazing update that simply needs to introduce fixes to these problems in the future. Also, I love fireflies :)

 

yes yes yes yes and hell yes

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also add a poll

 

I completely agree that the world events are too strong currently. I have tried them on level and with a fully maxed out character, and both seem to be impossible.

 

Fireflies only spawn at night.

 

Poll added

They do? Maybe it was some kind of bug then (no pun intended) because I saw them spawning in Alekin during the day

 

I also saw them spawning in Alekin during the day

 

I think the reason for the ruins is too make people engage with wider gameplay variety. It stops being from 'optimizing the fun' out.of Wynncraft by grinding the same raid for hours on end. I think it's a fine system as long as world events become easier, then they won't be as hard to get.

 

They spawned at night and some persisted during daytime. When it's day, they run a random chance to despawn, and if they continually fail the despawn, they'll stick around

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They physically can't spawn during the day. On spawn they run a check as to what the time of the world is, and if it is day, they simply won't appear

 

ah that makes sense. maybe by dawn, they start doing the despawn chance thing, and then if any are still there by daytime they despawn no matter what