I completed a full playthrough of (pre-Fruma) Wynncraft, here's my thoughts!

yeaaaahhh... After Fruma I'm hoping it can get some attention and get redone.

 

yeah its interesting phrasing

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jungle vibes are great
jungle content... Out of my Mind and that's it, I think

 

I write all this stuff down pretty quickly, completely forgot I said "a team of 6 soloed" lol

 

Nexus of Light:
Pretty fun! Challenges are a step up from NotG’s, and the raid is enhanced by the great builds and mob models. I like the music and how it incorporates leitmotifs.

Orphion is a ton of fun. It felt like a clustered mess at first, but I feel like everything is learnable. It’s also far above everything else in the visual department. I did not expect a bullet hell segment in the middle but I’m not complaining either.

The parasite is a bit of a letdown compared to Orphion. Attacks aren’t as well telegraphed and they kinda just bounce around most of the time. From a lore standpoint though, the raid has a satisfying ending.

RoL Questline:
(I have yet to do most light forest discoveries, so I may be missing some context)

The questline has what can be called an “idiot plot”. No one properly communicates with each other and everyone makes the dumbest decisions, just so there’s an excuse to add conflicts in RoL 1-4 for your player to conveniently solve.

Lari acts like a sad & terminally-online teen in RoL 1-4, not a battle-hardened adult. She’s not just stubborn, she seems genuinely dumb for someone who has lived a millenia. Have her try to kill the parasite in RoL 3, and maybe she could question her actions afterwards. Her plotline about feeling like a failure comes out of nowhere and ignores the fact that she’s solely keeping the decay at bay. Why are we of all things what pushes her to violence after a millenia?

Then after her boss fight Lari somehow does a complete 180, and only now realizes she messed up. Why does she suddenly change this quickly; she’s even apologizing and everything! For the rest of the quest, she’s the generic Maxie/Axelus/Aledar type companion.

I think there needs to be a balance between RoL 5 and RoL 1-4 Lari, and it should be present throughout the whole questline. I want her to be stubborn and have friction with the player, just not to this absurd extent! She can still argue with the player about morals, and wonder if resurrecting Dullahan was the right thing. If done right, she could be a great deuteragonist.

I dislike Orphion more than Lari. They refuse to help get the far more powerful Lari on the right track but are somehow perfectly capable of helping you. They waste 1000 years not bothering to save themself. “They care about survival not morals” that is not special, it's something humans and animals do all the time! Orphion doesn’t seem the least bit morally grey either.

Aldorei’s Secret Pt. 2
I was spoiled on the ending of Part 2 shortly after 2.0 was released. I hated it so much I kinda quit Wynn as a whole, despite not playing the quest. Never judge a book by its cover, because the quest is actually good. It would be great if not for the flawed ending.

Olon is a good companion character. He just seems like a normal guy who has a very personal cause. The quest has a good sense of mystery to it as well. This quest uses dialogue options better than any I’ve played yet; it was funny getting to make Amber cry lol. Given its length and lore revelations, this quest kind of feels like the climax for an “Act 1” of Gavel. Could be a good template for a WynnEx D or ToL revamp.

The ending isn’t great, and the reason why is because it cements Orphion as one of the dumbest characters ever. Why did the all-powerful god tell the elves not to fuck up the multiverse? Otherwise, I don’t have any strong feelings for the elves opening all the portals. Solves the plothole of the Corruption and Decay starting at the same time, although I do miss the old “wynn miners uncovered unspeakable horrors” angle.

Hunger of the Gerts:
I have no strong feelings either way on the Gert questline. It was whatever in both the gameplay and story department. Part 2 wasn’t as bad as I had heard, although it ended very abruptly. It really should be merged with Part 1. I prefer this storyline over the random battery farm thing.

Other Quests:
It turns out that All Roads to Peace has numerous tasks you can do for the orcs, even after you’ve beaten the quest. My favorites are hide and seek, and the one where you have to pronounce an orc’s name right.

The level 74-79 range has a lot of shorter funny quests (Murder Mystery, Bigger Picture, Ultimate Weapon). Makes for a nice intermission after Wynn & Kander.

Aldorei’s Secret Part 1 was a lot of fun. I’m glad the quest puts a lot of trust into you figuring out stuff yourself.

Misc. Positives:

• I actually liked RoL 5’s ending. I’m not immune to a Hype Moments and Aura fight.
• Aldorei Valley is absolutely beautiful. The builders did an amazing job with it!

Misc. Complaints:

• I hate the RoL 5 backrooms. An inferior version of the concept for the sake of a reference.
• The NPCs having human and villager models in the NoL lobby is super immersion breaking.

 

Thanos:
I know the update came out five years ago, but I’m so glad Gavel Reborn turned the absolute worst city into a pretty solid one. From the Bottom is improved a lot just by not having to trudge through a field of fire and slabs. I like the volcano aesthetic and I think it does it better than Rodoroc. The respawn point should definitely be moved up to the top though. The Qira Hive runback is not bad at all; that downtime is important for making you consider if you should focus on getting a better build or doing something else.

Purple and Blue:
A great quest. Pretty fun to play, although the last phase of the crystal defence should end once every Weird is killed. Korun and Nikoler’s rivalry made for a good self-contained story. It incorporates multiple endings fairly well.

A Marauder’s Dues:
I found this to be one of the harder quests so far. The parkour took me like 25 minutes and the puzzle was tough as well. I’m not complaining though (except when I randomly got teleported to the start a few times in the last parkour stage); this quest is one of the more memorable ones as a result. Good dialogue too.

The Canary Calls:
Not the best quest, but also far from the worst.

The minecart section was mostly a lot of fun, but it has a massive flaw. The first checkpoint is awful. Getting back onto the main track requires you do a weird jump onto the track that brings you to the secret, and then you have to use a speed boost to reverse your movement. None of this is intuitive at all, and the other checkpoints function perfectly fine. I’d like to say that I do have great ping, and I understand that this section probably needs a rework for those who don’t. If a section gives you the option to skip it, that’s a symptom of a needed rework.

The excavation section was my favorite part. Felt like a great tribute to vanilla minecraft, and I loved finding the secrets. The nausea wasn’t a big deal for me either. The canary “boss” was decent enough, and I like how the quest introduces the Colossus as an antagonist.

Hiding secret lore documents throughout the gameplay segments is such a cool idea and one that’s executed well. I only found two, but the story they tell seems interesting. I look forward to finding all of them in my next playthrough.

Raids:
Rekindled making raids a viable thing to do pre-level 105 was a brilliant idea. It leads to a good gameplay loop where you’re exploring caves and discovering new areas, and then putting the gear you found to the test in actual challenges. Having two raids unlocked by level 79 means you already get to choose which raid to run for Aspects. Yet at the same time, those don’t matter too much to me because the boss fights give me the thrill of a challenge and the chance to beat my records. I’m genuinely having a lot of fun with raids and I pretty much try one in between each quest.

Other Quests:
Generals Orders was hilarious. Loved the looney tunes fight the Lecades got into.

It’s cool that they combined Belly of the Beast and Thanos Vaults into one quest, which ended up working out well.

Desperate Metal has a cool puzzle. If quests like it and WynnEx B get reworked, I hope their puzzles at least get put in a cave complex or something.

I liked the Hidden City for the worldbuilding it does, although its ending is very abrupt. Narder (quest start npc) really ought to acknowledge the giant crashed airship next to him at the end.

Cowfusion was absolutely insane and managed to pull that insanity off, even if it did end kinda abruptly. The puzzles based around the inability to jump were nice.

Enter the Dojo would be an alright quest in the earlygame, but at level 89 I want something much more interesting.

Misc. Positives:
Fallen Delivery teleporting you to the Olmic City for one second is an amazing “blink and you’ll miss it” moment.

 

You're making Lazarus Pit and Frost Bite feel sad

 

Those puzzles were fun too! Kinda funny how three different quests have such similar puzzles now.

 

Beyond the Grave:
There have been like a dozen quests that are notable for being funny. Beyond the Grave goes above the rest because it actually made me laugh out loud. Death is hilarious and his mansion is full of funny secrets. The fact that this quest still commits to the Sayleros’ Brother joke is the cherry on top. Apparently this quest is non-canon, but if they changed the whole “you resurrect upon beating what killed you” that could probably be changed.

The game show was very well done in terms of asking good questions and running very smoothly. Sadly, Krolton was very underwhelming. For a boss designed with multiple methods of being defeated, they were very easy and had a very dull moveset. But that doesn’t change the fact that I had so much fun playing this quest. It was one of my favorites when Gavel released and it’s still one of my favorites now.

Fantastic Voyage:
This was… fantastic. Relend is entertaining and I’m still amazed at how the game commits to his rhymes. The Jofash section is great, I liked the side objective with the parrot on the boat, and the part where you steer the ship played without any bugs for me (it used to be very glitchy). The collecting segment on the island was fine, and I actually think a traditional fetch quest segment works for foraging and scavenging.

The second half was where the quest became amazing. Discovering Bob’s letter quickly shifts the quest from another funny journey to a compelling adventure. The “Gateway Passage” looks amazing and has so many cool enemies. The sinister atmosphere and Relend’s desperation at finding his friend all leads to a final cutscene I wasn’t expecting at all. That, plus the passage dropping you off in Wynn, leads to an ominous conclusion and a great setup for the Silent Expanse.

Fallen Factory:
There’s some stuff to enjoy in this dungeon. Antikythera is a good character and it contextualizes killing mobs beyond just opening a door. I actually didn’t mind the parkour. The conveyor belt on the other hand isn’t great; too easy apart from that tedious hammer section at the end. If the conveyor belt can’t move, I don’t think it’s worth keeping.

The worst part is the boss fight. Absolutely insane how it’s 2026 and it’s still just a glorified SLAY! section.

The Feathers Fly:
The first quest is pretty standard in terms of gameplay, but Ava makes the quest as a whole memorable. She’s pretty endearing and I was rooting for her to succeed in the end.

The second quest is far better in the gameplay department; probably one of the better ones. Unfortunately, the ending kinda ruins the quest. Ava was a character who always wanted to do the right thing, and her trying to destroy a city makes no sense. Her punching Sybil makes sense, but the whole plant thing only seems to exist in order to add a dramatic conclusion. Efena’s turn from a total racist to someone willing to help Ava makes no sense either.

I think the quest would work much better if she runs away from the council like normal, and you and Maxie meet with her in the workshop to conclude the quest. Alternatively, let the player diffuse the situation! We’re a hero in Corkus now, and I like Ava, so give me a chance to speak to the council!

Corkus Storyline:
Corkus has a story full of missed potential.

The mechs seem like a less interesting threat than decay or corruption at a glance. But there’s some dialogue that shows they could’ve been much better. Mech X shows that the machines are sentient enough to not want to be sealed away. Antikythera says that the Corkians are the true threat due to what they did to the Avos. Mechs could be interesting villains if the game leaned more into their intelligence.

The Envoy has a mediocre plot. It’s based around the government hiding the threat of the mechs for like, 10 minutes of gameplay if you do both quests back to back. Not much really happens; you get the keys without trouble and the rest of it is mainly lore dumps.

The human-Avos relations are underexplored and honestly feel like a footnote in Corkus. Even Feathers Fly sort of brushes it aside with Ava’s attack on Corkus City.

Envoy Maxie isn’t great. They were the first questline deuteragonist that Wynn made and it shows. Lari (and probably Sui in Fruma?) does the low confidence character trope better. Right now he’s kinda there. Feathers Maxie is definitely more interesting though.

Other Quests:
Canyon Guides and The Lost were fairly fun. 2.0 reworks improved them a lot.

Misc. Positives:

• I actually like how the path to the diner in the Envoy has no mechs at all. This could potentially lead to a surprise reveal.
• The basic field mobs in Corkus are above average. I like the giant death robot that spawns every now and then.

 

Molten Heights:
Lower Molten Heights is one of the best areas. Not only does it look incredible, I think it’s great from a gameplay perspective. The area is very compact yet still manages to fit in a lot of stuff to discover. Clear landmarks like the lava lake and freezing heights ensure that you don’t get lost. Despite being underground the area feels very open. Compare that to upper molten heights, which while technically more expansive, everything there looks the same and it doesn’t have much to offer. The fact that so much was fit into such a small area fills me with more hope for Fruma’s world design.

Dwarves and Doguns:
While I acknowledge that this questline was pretty monumental at the time it was released, it feels pretty outdated now. I mean, it still has you throwing items into hoppers!

Part 1 is fine I guess. It succeeds at being an introduction to the storyline. A lot of lore dumping at the start, but I will say that I enjoyed the play. It’s a good way of showing the lore outside of flashbacks while also highlighting the cruelty of the dwarves.

Part 2 is better. It has this cool feeling of momentum as you and Axelus take on the dwarven military. You actually feel like you’re getting stuff done as you complete typical puzzle and horde stages. I actually like the plot twist with Axelus; it’s foreshadowed nicely and sets him apart from other NPCs. The toilet joke is beyond atrocious though. If they wanted to kill off Axelus, it should’ve been done here.

Part 3 is where the pacing gets rough, and the average gameplay doesn’t help much. The questline now has to juggle the threats of the Dwarves and Garaheth. I think these two plotlines could’ve been better merged by focusing on Frozen Heights and Korzim’s backstory there.

Part 4 starts out great. There’s a clear sense of urgency reflected in all the NPCs, and it’s clear you’ve reached the climax of the storyline. I still love the battle in upper molten heights (even if the normal area music doesn’t really fit the scene), and the summoning of Garaheth is really cool.

I completely understand that at the time, the Garaheth encounter was made as good as it could be. But I also can understand any new player being completely disappointed by the “fight”. It really just is a decent loot cave. I honestly think Garaheth is the #1 candidate for a rekindled boss rework, because at least CoW and Amadel are actual bosses. Garaheth doesn’t need to even be a giant monster in my opinion; just give us the impression that the Doguns have unleashed a living atom bomb as their last resort.

I hated everything that happened after Garaheth died. Axelus is killed by the Dogun Chief (he could’ve dodged that attack IMO), and despite this, King Draani decides it’s time for peace. Draani is a candidate for an inter-provincial criminal trial, not redemption, and I don’t see why he wouldn’t instead enter a fit of rage after his son dies. Axelus’ death only serves to end the quest because it didn’t seem like there was any other way to do so. I do not think this is a storyline where a clean ending (excluding Axelus’ death), or even a happy ending, fits.

Fruma Storyline Prototype:
While playing through D&D, I noticed a lot of parallels between it and Fruma’s 13-part storyline. It completely covers the story of an entire area from start to finish, it focuses on a resistance taking down a government, and it has different NPC companions joining you on quests. D&D even released exactly 7 years ago! The CT must have learned a lot while making this questline, and I’m excited to see how Fruman quests improve on it.

The Breaking Point:
Pretty solid quest! I’m impressed at how it manages to bring all the 80-95 storylines together into one big climax. I really enjoyed the interactions between you, Rhay, and Maxie. I had a lot of fun with the grappling hook section too. I didn't like Draani here for the same reasons as in D&D. His redemption arc didn’t work there, and it doesn’t fit here either. Honestly, if Axelus lived he’d fit pretty well in the Freezing Heights section.

Pull Spell:
I absolutely hate this mob spell, and I do not remember a fight that was improved by its addition. If 99% of bosses lost this spell the game would probably approve. It doesn’t even make sense as an ability to have, do these mobs use the Force or something?

Every other ability can be countered through movement but unless I’m missing something obvious, strafing and high walkspeed doesn’t work. I think you can use some movement spells mid-pull, but I’m playing as Shaman which doesn’t work. Is this mob spell designed to counter ranged classes? If so, other abilities like charge are way fairer and accomplish the same thing. Maybe it’s kept around to counter acrobat?

I’m currently at the Solar Vanguard and every single death in their first phase is because I’m pulled into a melee one shot or fire explosion AOE. This sole ability turns the fight from a great one where positioning is key into a bad one where I pray he doesn’t use a specific ability. I was thinking about Vulcor Adrenophage and how they were a pretty old fight that still holds up. Guess what spell they don’t use?

1000 Meters Under:
It's still great, but it’s starting to show its age. The windshield segment could actually show creatures attacking the ship, for instance.

 

Fun fact tangentially related to this: did you know Garaheth was also meant to have a unique boss theme while doing his "boss fight". It got scrapped due to a messy structure, but I personally am a huge fan of it and always make sure I have it on whenever I fight Garaheth on repeat playthroughs. I'd love to see a rekindled remix of this when Garaheth gets his much-needed rework.

 

Never knew about that track! Would definitely fit a reworked Garaheth - in his current state, the theme doesn't really the weird stomach loot cave.

 

Funny part with this is that now, thanks to the fall abilities, this isn't even actually that bad for acro

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My suggestion: switch Axelus and Draani
Bad dies and Good lives

 

Royal Trials:
Getting a skyraider outfit instead of a wig makes much more sense for this qyest. It’s hard to tell what a guard’s line of sight is in the mansion segment. Funny how this quest acknowledges your actions during Flight in Distress.

Hero of Gavel:
This was the one Gavel Reborn quest I’d never played before, and it lived up to my expectations. It was clear going into the quest that Siegfried was some kind of fraud, but seeing the truth actually unfold was amazing. Hilarious how the player realizes in real-time that they got utterly scammed. I love how the quest rewards exploration, and seeming your decisions as well. I wanna replay this and try to get the bad ending. Gurix was really enjoyable and he grew on me over time. No clue what his ultimate fate is because the fireworks at the end genuinely distracted me.

The Qira Hive:
This is a quest/gauntlet with many flaws. But I feel like these flaws are known internally, so I want to instead complement the many unique things the quest does well. With systems and fights fully brought up to the modern standards, this could be the best quest.

The Hive and Qira have a cool sense of power and mystery, even after you finish the quest. I really like all the NPCs below the main hive, and the lore they add. Additionally, the mobs all feel very purposeful as a result of being Qira’s designs, and I’m very excited to see them get the rekindled treatment one day.

I love a challenge, and I’m glad the five elemental bosses delivered one. Each one forced me to switch up my playstyle to deal with them. Each victory led to a great feeling of satisfaction. Honestly, those bosses feel like they’re one removed spell away from being balanced combat-wise. Delete their pull spell and tweak the teleport combos, and you have a great bullet hell with Judge, for instance.

Where bosses really excel however is personality. I love bosses who talk back to the player, so I had a lot of fun with Gale and Psychomancer. Those two, along with Solar Vanguard, felt unique among Wynn characters, and Genesis’ absence of dialogue communicates just as much to the player. And of course, “Let’s dance, mortal!” is the line from Wynncraft that I consider the most memorable.

The items are a great incentive to complete the Hive in batches, and just to complete it in general. This is the hardest quest IMO, and I’m glad it has the best rewards.

Qira broke my streak of beating non-raid bosses solo. If she can summon 30 flamethrower spiders then I can summon some random Lightbender.

Tower of Ascencion:
If Qira Hive has a few very bad low points, and many high points, then ToA is just one consistent low point. No story, no interesting fights, and zero incentive to not put this quest off until level 75. There is a “bear cub” mob that uses the baby sheep model.

Legendary Island:
A lot of content has gotten worse as time passes, but LI was deeply flawed even back in 2017. At the time, there simply weren’t enough interesting bosses, and it shows. So many bosses blend together as a multi-phase fight with old spells and silverfish minions. I hope that one day, LI becomes a place to fight cool bosses like Rymek Luke at endgame level. I do like the mech puns and giant rat, though.

 

Silent Expanse:
I just love this part of Wynncraft in general. Super creative areas, fun to explore, and makes the most of what should be a linear road. I like the transition from ruined city to alien terrain to utter desolation. The portal to Dern just feels so ominous. The mob designs are amazing too, with Longleg Gripper being my favorite. Kantyrs and the eyeball birds are also great.

A Journey Beyond:
I thought this was pretty good! Strong gameplay and a strong introduction to a great region. I did not mind the Darkness Element actually; the bigger issue is the blacksmith’s name just being an anagram of Dern. Watching the mission fall apart is great, with the Obsessor cutscene being a standout moment. Elphaba being in an earlier quest makes her inclusion here better.

My biggest complaint is probably Elphaba and Aledar getting tricked the way they did. Elphaba seems smart enough to not fall for the liver thing, so maybe the worm eats her instead? Aledar would just search his own corner of the Olmic city, and then journey with you to Lutho outside of a cart. I hate the Aledar Cart by the way. Everything about it makes me feel like the CT were trying to force the next big meme. There are also issues with Aledar as a character which I’ll discuss in a bit.

Oh, and I LOVE the ruined Olmic City. What an amazing sense of atmosphere, and AJB puts you here in the perfect circumstances. The Omnispective Wanderer’s “ability” actually startled me too.

Aledar:
Aledar’s sacrifice should be a tragic moment, except it really isn’t since we barely know the guy. We haven’t seen him for 70 levels. As a result, I think it’s important for him to show up in between the Mercenary and AJB quests – more important than Tasim IMO. I think Aledar could absolutely be incorporated into some existing content. Have him fight pirates during Beneath the Depths or show him meeting “Elphie” for the first time or something. Aledar being a person willing to sacrifice someone to save the world makes him interesting, and contrasts well with Lari too.

Also, I feel like Aledar should mention Tasim once during AJB/AJF, in order to bridge into Fruma. I can realistically see the two of them going on separate adventures post Infested Pit, so Aledar doesn’t need to bring Tasim up constantly or anything. It would be interesting to see Tasim mourn someone who drifted away from them over time.

The Olmic Rune:
Not exciting to play, but interesting to think about as a piece of content. A place like SE can’t really incorporate traditional character driven quests, so this is a nice solution for rounding out the content book in the level 100-104 range. I’m glad it exists and I think Wynn should experiment more with these kinds of quests.

Eldritch Outlook:
The best dungeon, and the standard that all the others should try to meet. It has a phenomenal sense of atmosphere, and the only bad part is the mirror room. The parkour is fine. I thought it was hard, but this is meant to be a hard dungeon. I do think that in a party/group, only one person should have to finish the parkour for everyone to progress.

The Eye is a mostly great boss, and I like the upgrades Rekindled gave to all of its attacks. The final phase is a particularly great improvement. The falling eyes attack needs to be far better telegraphed though, since you can’t look up and down at the same time. I also want to say that the Eye’s visual design is awesome.

Immersion:
The more models, storylines, and builds improve, the easier it is for immersion to get broken. The silverbull syndicate all the way in the Silent Expanse makes no sense. I also don’t want to be seeing guild banners during the intense AJB cutscenes. Furthermore, mandatory villager models for identifiers and blacksmiths need to be changed. They break immersion in the Realm of Light and if they also show up in Fruma I’m gonna be mad.

Other Quests:
From a pure gameplay perspective, A Journey Further is good.

Point of no Return was the buggiest quest I’ve played. It was also very good. One of the few quests that’s justified in being puzzle-centric, with said puzzles all building on the same mechanic, which also ties into the very interesting story.

Misc. Positives:
I really like how the CGG key guardian is this weird tentacle. Doesn’t feel out of place at all in the SE as a result.

 

This right here is why I like the forums better than Discord. This could and would never have worked on the Discord, but here it gives a great opportunity to talk about this as a long conversation.

I really need to do a new playthrough; I think my last full playthrough was well before the 2.0 update and I would like to see if current-day me thinks as fondly of everything as I did back then. Maybe I'll do another quest review; I've been thinking of doing that for a while, and reading this really makes me want to once Fruma comes out.

I really liked your point about how weird the creepers in Creeper Infiltration feel, and it kind of let me put my finger on something I've been noticing for a long time. I think it's great to be able to watch how Wynncraft's evolved over the years, and I really like a lot of the changed and new mechanics, but it feels as if it's lost its Minecraft roots. It feels more like an MMO that happens to use a voxel world with certain similarities. I kind of miss the "MMO in Minecraft" angle that it had; it feels weird now to even think of it as Minecraft. It's lost a lot of the positives of that, but still has most of the negatives. I especially notice this with professions, where all of them are fundamental aspects of Minecraft, but several are worse than the vanilla method of doing the task; mining, fishing, and crafting especially feel worse for having been made different than what was already offered by Minecraft.

 

I miss it too

 

A Hunter’s Calling:
I start with the flaws. Most hints don’t seem too hard to solve, but the desert one is not clear at all and feels like it should be Hashr’s staff, and the Detlas one should point you to the barracks. A lot of the alt timeline areas are a bit outdated, and regular merchants keep spawning in during cutscenes.

I also want to mention that Hunted is an underwhelming reward rn given the current state of the gamemode, but I won’t hold that against the quest.

Apart from these issues, I thought this was one of the best quests. Yes, it can be considered fanservice, but where’s the harm in that? It’s nice to look back on your journey, and seeing the bad ending for all these familiar areas made revisiting them worth it. It makes you look back on your journey from level 1-103 and shows you that in the end, you really were the hero. You didn’t succumb to the corruption, you lived up to Bob.

Oh, the Olux segment makes that one part of Taproot a hundred times worse btw.

The Nameless Anomaly:
I think this might be the best raid, and that’s because of the challenge it provides. I’ve done a few runs now (still haven’t gone inside the tree, so maybe that’s horribly designed), and it hasn’t been easy; I’ll admit I’ve died a lot to Watched. Compare this raid to NotG and the difference in room complexity, raid buffs, and necessary team coordination is striking. The rooms do seem fair though (apart from maybe the tree maze?), and the boss is the best of the raid bunch. Their new model is excellent and goes a long way in telegraphing attacks. TNA has great music and mob designs too. Overall, this raid is my favorite, and I’m very excited to see how Wartorn Palace ups the ante.

Lootruns:
I’ve only done the MH and SE lootruns so far. Also, I did a bunch of lootruns before quitting in 2023, so I was already Grandmaster going into this playthrough.

Lootruns are a strong concept with decent execution. It’s nice to have another piece of endgame content that has good rewards and makes all your gear worthwhile. Starting out a lootrun is always pretty chill, but it can definitely get repetitive fast. Red Beacons and Trials feel like they carry lootruns due to the risks and increased challenges they provide.

I think one of the biggest flaws is that you know how each challenge will play out as soon as you see where a beacon is. Random events don’t seem to be common enough to account for this. I think what makes rougelikes stand out is the fact that you only have a rough idea of what you’ll be up against, so you have to adapt on the fly. In lootruns, you know your battles ahead of time and get to choose the best option. If you know what you’re doing, you can pick the easiest choice each time, and as effective as it is, I start losing interest quickly after starting a run. Lootruns need more challenges and more uncertainty in minute-to-minute gameplay.

Oh, I’m very happy about the upcoming lootrun inspect menu! It’s hard to keep track of all this stuff without mods, so I’m glad we’re getting something official in Fruma.

Outer Void:
I’m a big fan of this. Feels more like a “minigame” than the standard repeatable endgame content, but that’s not a bad thing at all. It excels at what it does, which is provide a chill experience (I love the music!) that gets you some rewards along the way. No silverbull syndicate, no competitions, just exploration at your own pace. The jumping mechanics are fun and far-away islands motivate me to get better utility items. I also really like how there’s exclusive gear you can get there.

Secret Discoveries:
I’ve found less than half of these on my playthrough, and that’s with remembering where some of them were already. I don’t mind this whatsoever; it will give me a reason to revisit old areas, and will serve as a good long-term goal to work towards. On that note, I don’t think secret discoveries should be in the content book. Unlike everything else (except ???), they aren’t very straightforward, and I worry people will just look up wiki solutions for 100% content solutions. There should be a proper way to track secret discoveries (hard to tell how many you’ve done in each area) that isn’t the content book.

Money:
With my playthrough coming to a close, I’ve ended up with about 2stx along with each of the special Corkian Augments (roughly 5stx). While I was lucky enough to get both those mythics in a low number of lootruns, it’s also clear that lootruns are powerful and I could quickly get the money by grinding them. If my math is right, this money could buy 12 shares, which is sadly far away from getting me VIP+ if I was a new player. No big deal, considering buying stuff with IRL currency is probably intended. However, it looks like my LE would be enough for me to get a great mythic (albeit with alright stats) like Abso or Crabs.

I also think that even prior to the endgame, money isn’t hard to get. It’s not like you’re spending it on anything other than scrolls and the occasional armor/weapon merchant’s item. Loot chests and blacksmithing legendaries will get you serviceable money in the early-game, and NotG, World Events, and especially quests become a very solid source of income once you reach level 55ish.

Misc. Positives:

• I love how cheap Wynn’s new endgame content is. Raids don’t cost much at all while lootruns are completely free. Big contrast with the Forgery
• I found the Otherworldly Exhibition completely by random and it was such a cool discovery.
• Haven’t done TCC much, but I do want to say it’s cool how the boss has an actual model now instead of a static build.