I'm replaying Wynncraft (yet AGAIN), 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.