Game Mechanics Remove Soul Points (v2)

Hard agree that soul points are an issue and you did a great job of outlining what those issues are, though I think there still needs to be a penalty for death so while I agree with your benefits, I think some of them (mainly the extra hotbar space) is probably unrealistic. There also needs to be some incentive so /kill doesn't become the fastest and also cheapest way to get back after an adventure, though that's also not a super important issue.

I think the main issue with the soul point penalty discussion is that everyone is focused on punishing death when I think the discussion we should be having is how to better reward survival. My favorite pitch would be to completely rework tomes (I think they're also awful, two birds with one stone) to make them temporary buffs with a soul point cost, sort of like an equipable and rechargeable potion, but that doesn't really make much sense since you get soul points from level 1 and it would be weird if they had no use until level 60.

Another idea would be to make soul points some sort of energy system you can spend every day. Maybe you could spend them every day to purchase a small number of untradable dungeon keys/runes or maybe instead of having gathering and XP boosts associated with hunted they could be moved to some sort of soul point shop where you can buy a personal DXP (probably not double) bomb once per day or something. I know energy systems are unpopular but I think something inconsequential like giving the player a free dungeon run or short XP boosts every day would incentivize people to log in without making regular play extremely important. It would also be another way to make gathering less of a pain in the ass and more F2P friendly which is something I think we're all looking for.

I'm not sure about these ideas, but I like the premise that when you die you don't lose items you already have, you just lose the potential to get more items. This would also give soul points a use really early on and as you level up you could gain more things to spend soul points on making them more valuable and raising the opportunity cost of death.

Beyond all that though, I think the most important change is making skill point reassignment free, the fact that it costs SP is dumb and punishes you for trying new things.

 

But why though? How harsh a death penalty should be is subjective to a degree so I'll give you that, though I really don't see what benefit there is to having a harsher death penalty. Plus everyone still needs to actually kill bosses or solve puzzles to progress through the game, so it doesn't impact how easy or hard challenges are in the game. Just makes them less annoying to practice at and doesn't discourage people from playing the game and experimenting with different playstyles and builds.

The bonuses seem kinda tacked on and token; it would be just much simpler to just remove soul points and I personally would value an extra slot more than some meager bonus from a complicated energy system. Maybe it is unrealistic, but then again everyone once thought housing and dialog options were unrealistic and look where we are now :3

 

I'm not sure what you mean by the first part since in the following sentence I go out of my way to say that I think it would be better to reward survival over punishing death and a way of spending tokens would do that. Is it the best system possible? Probably not but I'm not sure how you read what I wrote and came to the conclusion I was promoting harsher death penalties when I did the exact opposite. I also specifically pointed out making skill point resets free as one of my top concerns above all else so the comment about experimenting also doesn't make sense to me since I went out of my way to say that I agree with that position.

The reason why I don't want to see soul points go is because they're a time gated mechanism which however unpopular, is one of the most common and effective ways to encourage player activity and retention, two issues which Wynn really suffers from. It's a complete waste to throw away a potential reason for players to log in every day in exchange for a single inventory slot.

If you're that desperate for extra inventory slots then the best solution would be to completely overhaul the hotbar UIs, remove accessories and armor from the inventory page and move them to their own armouring UI. Would free up at least 3 spaces, allow people to show off their skins and allow for the sale of external cosmetics but that's a discussion I don't think anyone is ready for. Point is, there are other, I personally think better ways to free up space so if that's the main motivator soul points aren't the way to do it.

Also I don't see how turning it into an energy system would be complicated at all, you click soul point button, you click buff, you close UI. I don't see how that's any more complicated compared to anything else.

 

You said at the beginning though that the game still needed a penalty for death. Therefore it implies removing soul points wouldn’t leave a harsh enough death penalty then. So that’s what I was wondering, and I didn’t realize you meant just having an opportunity cost (in this case not gaining a buff from the energy system) instead of a direct negative consequence like losing items. My bad.

Complicated in the sense that you have to balance the rewards properly too even though they’re relatively minor, and you mentioned a soul point shop so you’d have to figure out the prices as well. Is it doable? Yeah. I just think if you’re gonna say that removing soul points is unrealistic, then I’d say an energy system is more unrealistic to implement because it’s more time and effort and less simple.

Plus daily chests with increasing rewards already exist and won’t be going away with soul points. Not to mention having updates and events and Objectives.

I do think that your idea is probably the best so far as an actual replacement to soul points. Though because it still can discourage players from playing the game due to losing a benefit (albeit much smaller than your items), it just seems to me like the simplest move would be to remove them.

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Plus if the benefit is really that small that idk how much you can argue for its pros as well as it cons. So it’s not a bad way to do it, just not the most ideal imo. But again bc it’s just a minute difference between the two solutions it could go either way :3

 

I said that at the start because I wanted to be clear that I think there should be a penalty to death (which is what I voted in the poll) but I never said it should be harsher and in the context of the following line about /kill being my main concern which I also called "not a super important issue" I feel like I was fairly clear about not seeing the penalty as that much of an issue. We're on the same page now so it really doesn't matter either way though, you're right that I could have been more clear and maybe should have opened with the second paragraph.

I guess I can see how that would be complicated to balance but at the same time I don't really agree, if it's getting XP boosts hunted picked arbitrary numbers and worked out "fine" and if it's free untradable dungeon keys you would just balance it around XP from the dungeon. The way I see it, it should be an entirely personal thing so balance isn't super important. I'm pitching this with hunted boosts being removed; Imagine if it gave 200% gathering XP or 200% combat XP for 20 min per day. That sounds like a lot but unless there are bombs (which could be worked around) it really isn't and it would really promote playing for 20 min per day in a way objectives and the daily chest don't.

Speaking of the daily chests, I think they get you to log in every day but they don't really give anything too good (even after being buffed) and they don't get you engaged in the game either. Objectives kind of do that but again the reward for objectives isn't progression, it's really just emeralds so once you've reached max combat level it's basically worthless to bother with either. I think something as simple as guaranteeing an untradable dungeon key at level every day in the daily chest would go far in making it more worthwhile since it would at least promote engagement.

I also want to be extra clear that I don't think buying buffs is the best possible solution, I just think it would be nice if soul points were repurposed rather than removed since they've been there since the start and I think there's an opportunity to build on a timer mechanism. I'm onboard with removing them too I would just prefer if they didn't (so long as they do something else with them).

 

You gave me an idea for an other possible soul points rework. What if you would get loot bonus, xp bonus and gathering xp bonus for every soul point you have? This way you will be rewarded for surviving and I think it's also be a fair price to pay for tp scrolls and skill point reassignment. And it is very easy to understand, balance and implement.
What do you guys think of this?

 

That sounds cool, I would be down for it, though I still don't think reassigning SP should cost anything.

 

I like the idea but the problem is how does that hurt the average high lvl player
If ur not into profs and ur over lvl 103 the extra dp doesn’t matter as u don’t really need any more xp
And loot bonus is cool but doesn’t matter too much unless ur lootrunning, so again there’s nothing stopping the average late-endgame player from dying 1000 times in raids or smth with 0 consequence and 0 reward for not dying

 

That would indeed be a problem, although I don't know how many players like that exist. It would at least be more of a consequence than just removing soulpoints completely. Thx for the feedback!

 

I don't really see why dieing should hurt high level players who aren't interested in the buffs and you're not really making an argument to support that, you're just expecting people to buy into that premise which is weird considering this whole thread has basically been disagreeing with that from the start. Using raids is also a weird example because if you actually did die 1000 times in raids too you're either winning raids thanks to your team (in which case, who cares) or more likely you're losing in which case you lost the cost of entry which at 1000 deaths (4 deaths per for 250 runs, 1 rune per run) would be like 250 Tol/Uth runes which is a shocking amount of money, probably more than you would have lost with soul points. Almost every piece of content in this game has a cost of entry you lose if you die, I don't see why there needs to be more than the entry cost to serve as the cost of death in challenging content.

I'm also curious about the kind of player you're describing who isn't interested in either a loot bonus or an XP bonus because I don't think they exist outside of the guild circuit and if you're only playing for guilds then you're not getting killed a lot anyways so it would just be a nice QoL feature if you at some point want to try a new class or something. I don't think criticizing a system for not appealing to people who already don't care is reasonable because even if you don't care for the perks, it's making an inconvenience for the sake of being inconvenient into a nothing, there isn't a reward everybody can get on board with.

Also, I don't know what you think the average level players level is but if its anything below 100 than it hurts them by making them need to grind more to level up which I think is actually a fantastic system because it holds people back who need to get better and allows people who are already good to level up quicker which is like, the perfect skill balancing system.

The more I think about this the better it gets, really good idea, LuckeyLuuk.

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Not punishing players isn't a bug, it's a feature and a good one at that. You should be more assertive, especially since it's a really good idea.

 

I mean yeah I agree with this usually the reason I stop playing Wynncraft (other than running out of time) is running out of soul points.

 

I made a suggestion with this once and people blow up on me, telling me it was a really dumb idea.

 

Idk sounds like a skill issue to me





nah great thread

 

That honestly doesn't surprise me but people are dumb and don't like the idea of even minor change. I have a lot of experience of catching heat for controversial suggestions but even I think those ideas are radical, the fact that you would catch heat for something so minor and inconsequential is actually wild to me.

 

What if every time you die, you get weakened for a period of time [-20% true dmg, slowness buff, +20% dmg received, -20% loot , xp etc gained] and the more you die, the more it stacks and the longer it lasts. (for example, it starts at 5%, then 15, 35, 60, etc)
Only if you really want to punish people for dying though

 

Wouldn’t that just cause people to die more though as they are weaker and, if they died in the first place, this would just make it even worse
Bc they die more the only way to counteract this is to just wait it out and that would just be like soul points time gating but worse as it’s every time you die, not just when u r down to 5 soul points

 

To be fair you wouldn't lose shit, but yeah.

 

Yeah losing stuff is annoying that should be changed, just also having it not super time gated would be even better

 

Oh, do you remember why they didn't like it? I was thinking about making a thread about it myself, since most of you seem really positive about it.

 

People wanted a death penalty, the point of what i said is to add minimal disadvantages at the start, while forcing yourself to keep going and dying 5-10 times in a row would weaken you significantly. You can just, yknow, take less risks if youve died too much in a short period of time.