What Is Endgame Content?

afk in detlas and box daily boxes, also loot run

 

Ok serious discussion time.
Wynn's content pretty much ends at level 103-ish because the quests mostly run out, there's not much to gain from leveling further, and once you complete all dungeons and look for the secret discoveries and do the lore stuff, there's not much to do because the current PvE content is challenging for a little bit, but can be outscaled easily because it is predictable able to built around because it is the same every time.

So people turn to other things that are not so easily conquerable to "progress" whether that be collecting, professions, crafting, making money, build crafting, hunting, challenges, etc.
Because the content in Wynn has a maximum ceiling that is easily reachable.

There are a few "easy" ways to give people endgame content. Add a PvP feature that is popular, making it so that players will generate their own content by creating a hierarchy of skill competing against one another... etc. Given the nature of Wynn and the heavy emphasis on PvE, this seems rather unlikely.
Another is just add more content, which is lengthy and difficult, and obviously doesn't help player retention rate as interest quickly dwindles after each update, and too many non-important updates will mean less and less players coming back, so there needs to be something big to draw crowds.

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My suggestion for generating Endgame Content: PoE-style Dungeons with mutations/modifiers

A suggestion I haven't seen too much is a suggestion for structuring Wynncraft dungeons with modifiers, kinda of like how Path of Exile does their mapping system and how SC2 structures their Co-Op map pool.
It's difficult to create and implement exciting, brand new, and unique things to wynncraft. So what a modifier system would do is basically slap on a set of replicable, easy to apply changes to content that makes it more rewarding but more difficult. I saw the content team posts for encouraging parties to run different Corrupted dungeons with some player scaling to level up a loot chest, and I think that this is a great basis.
Basically dungeon mods would be like (Mostly satirical, these mods)

• Elemental Equilibrium: increased ele damage done by mobs
• Cursed: lower player ele resistances
• Shields Up: increased boss resistances
• Prickly Pear: boss has thorns/reflect %
• Frostbite: Constant degen of players current hp % effect on anyone in the dungeon
• Stim Addicts: Mobs and Bosses randomly gain a stat potion effect and deal that potion's elemental damage
• Everywhere is a Hive if you try hard enough: spawn mini Qira's in the boss room
• 1914, Wynncraft Style: Spawn corrupter of worlds everywhere
• Time Warp: Everyone is slowed by 100% movement speed for 2 seconds at random intervals anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute
• For Whom the Bells Toll: Surprise mini death wretch affecting the whole dungeon at random intervals at 1 minute and 3 minutes between casts
• Retribution: Mobs explode for a % of players current hp on death
• Shooting Stars: Meteors will rain down and leave patches of burning ground
• Pandemonium: Everyone casts a random spell every 30 seconds while in the dungeon.
• No man left behind: A player death will cause all players in the dungeon instance to lose a SP.
• A lesson in Exponentials: Wybels will randomly spawn throughout the area. If there are enough wybels in the dungeon, the orange wybel will spawn in the boss room
• Prof Time, All day Every day: A random minable/harvestable/fishable/cuttable element will be in the boss room. As long as it exists, the boss will be empowered. Respawns every X seconds, re-empowering the boss
• No u: Spawn an enemy shaman, mage, warrior, assassin, and archer mob in the boss room that will cast their spells at players or buff their allies.
• Speed Freaks: All mobs have Speed III
• other stuff like that

Mix and match to make your own "impossible" combination of mods that players will still find a way to be able to beat
Complain on the forums? "Git Gud" also this content is optional.
Although this is somewhat difficult to implement as it would need a separate instance from the regular corrupted dungeons.

Some mods are bound to be harder than others and one could avoid getting mods like triple death wretches that insta kill everyone by putting mods into categories and only allowing up a certain amount and type of mod to be on a dungeon when the mods are rolled. As a result, the harder mods add more to the chest than the easier mods, and these mods are randomly generated on a world for a single corrupted dungeon until the world resets (or some other refresh mechanic, maybe using runes or something lol). The thing is, you could make these mods extraordinarily difficult and scale the rewards accordingly, and this is an easy way to see what is over performing and what is not by encouraging players to "find OP stuff" to beat these mods and get the sweet rewards, maybe unique ingredients added to the chest based on the dungeon run. Obviously there are things to be sorted out like cost of entry (keys? LI ticket thing? Free for all?) and having to make sure that the modifiers work in every dungeon, but the worlds could keep generating a random set of modifiers therefore creating a system for endgame content that could be scaled by adding new modifiers. Of course it would make the creation of dungeons a lot slower as they need to be compatible with mods (or make a list of mods that are compatible with what dungeons).

For each challenge the content team gives us ATM, people still find a way to overcome it much faster than it took to implement probably. The content team can then make decisions on what needs a buff or what needs a nerf hammer. Perhaps you could make these "Mutation" dungeons cheap to enter, so that almost anyone may try, but there needs to be some sort of cooldown/gatekeeping (like tokens and boss room teleporting) effect so that people don't just keep running through the dungeon 1 at a time and group up to conquer the dungeons together, promoting team play (which is a bit lacking due to the nature of classes and the solo focus).
Limiting the dungeons to a few choices forces players to be versatile in their parties, maybe requiring different builds and classes, making warriors relevant ;)
The problem is that shoving a bunch of players into a dungeon usually makes it a lot easier the more you shove, so incorporating some of the more recent mechanics to scale with player count is a good idea.
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Obviously this isnt a suggestions thread, just an example of what I would think would be a decent way to implement neverending (or at least very long duration compared to adding a quest/new area/new reworks) endgame for people to smash their heads against.

But what do I know about Wynncraft content and implementation? I just came back to Wynn in the last 2 months lol and have absolutely no experience in Wynncraft content/game design because I'm not on the content team.
SC2 arcade game creator doesn't count nor experience on any other games.

 

I spent three hours typing up a reply for this thread but it was running too long so I might just make it its own thing. For now I'll just say that build creation and testing is probably the single biggest chunk of the endgame, and that while the difficulty levels of current endgame activities are fine, wynn definitely needs to add more difficult aspirational content, such as full scale raids.

 

Looking back at the games i've played that have really really good replay value (Terraria, Tf2, Super Smash Bros and Minecraft (I don't play many games)), I find that the two biggest things that make endgame content fun are Player Creativity and Good PvP.

Addressing the first method of making good endgame content, Player Creativity, I think there's some room for that in Wynn, with the ever-popular Housing suggestion, but this extends outwards to the community-related aspects of wynn as well. CT is an obvious expressiong of player creativity, where you actually make things for Wynncraft, but other miscellaneous things like guild art or modeling for fun fits into this catagory as well.

I think a way to add more of this kind of "endgame" would be to have more community events set up by the CT team or the Admins. Things like art contests or item naming contests (remember when those happened?) are really fun, and perhaps even going as far as making what's essentially a "steam workshop" equivalent where people can submit item ideas or weapon/hat skins to be used ingame would make for a very niche yet enjoyable endgame for those who enjoy those aspects of Wynn.

For the other point, Good PvP, hunted mode was... a step towards this. I'm not going to say it was a good step; it definitely tripped on the stairs trying to get to the end destination of making fun pvp, but it's a step nonetheless.

I think refining hunted mode into either a well-balanced high-risk high-reward style of terrifying and engaging player versus player manhunting or into a low-stakes fun romp around to test out your combat skills against other players with no huge setbacks on either end would be the next step. It's probably easiest to choose the second option (since then there is no extensive need for pvp balancing) but both will require a bit of work. After that, it's just a matter of adding rewards to work towards in hunted mode, and possibly creating spinoff minigames or interesting pvp arenas for more dedicated fights that can run alongside the more chaotic open world pvp that hunted mode tries to be.

As for other endgame activities; some kind of extremely difficult repeatable mission (possibly ramping difficulty survival, like Warframe's endless missions) would be really fun, to test out what the extreme limits of your build are, and how far you can push your self in really difficult fights.

Spoiler: Atlas Inc Opinions on Endgame

 

When we spend more time making hilarious (but effective) builds then the time we spend actually testing them lmao


But yeah for me I do profs and soloing LI / The Eye with different builds as endgame content

Also murdering toxo hunters in hunted because it's so satisfying seeing them baby rage

 

build making
but not for pvp

 

this

 

Spoiler: TBH

Making fairly liked suggestions that will never actually be added into the game.

In all seriousness, something I haven't seen anyone bring up yet is mob grinding.
It kind of annoys me, but in the game currently, there isn't a very sold endgame area to grind for loot, almost all grind spots are... well grind spots.
I remember the good old days of sitting around in ToL, attempting to find better endgame gear... well either way, as someone who doesn't like loot running,
it would be a nice alternative if someone added a good place to grind for drops.

I don't have much else to add, as frankly a lot of my thoughts have already been stated by other people.
I.e. More PVP, raids, Guild stuff.

I don't have much more to say, because I honestly haven't played much else in the way of mmos.
I've really only played WoW classic, but I didn't make it to the endgame.
I was going to watch a game design video or read a game design article on it, but I couldn't find anything talking about how games design an endgame.

 

g u i l d. smile

 

I consider the endgame to be the following:
- Reaching lvl 100 on a single class and unlocking 99.9% of the items in the game
- Completing the build on said class
- Completing Legendary Island on said class
- Buying a diamond tier accessory from Legendary Island
- Breaching the 100's and unlocking EO
- Completing EO
- Completing EO solo
- Climbing the economic market in order to get a mythic
- Spend hours on market research and or market flipping
- Using mythic(s) on guild wars
- Joining many guilds, losing your faith in humanity each time you leave
- Getting a Loot run set and basically playing Casino in wynncraft by lootrunning
- Succumbing to the innate greedy human desire of exponential wealth and attempting to get as much money as possible
- Realizing virtual money on a minecraft server will never get you anywhere and eventually spiraling into a deep depression and quitting
- Coming back after a major update and "starting fresh"
- Get bored of Wynncraft because you realize you've moved on from it
- Returning because you have nothing else to do
- Circlejerking mythics with other endgame players and talking about the game in Detlas

 

repeatable, fun content that can be done continually. The forgery chest can be considered endgame content. The weakest form of endgame content I would consider are quests, as they really are done only once, and are not repeatable. Endgame content should hook in the player to keep coming back, that's why I want raids pretty much.

 

There is no healthy endgame content in the current state of wynn.
The upcoming forgery chest is the only thing that looks to be even remotely close to endgame content.








- I'd love it if lootrunning wasn't the #1 way to get mythics. An extremely low-skill repetitive grind that almost promotes toxicity over "stolen" worlds? That's something you shouldn't want as a game designer to be an endgame way of acquiring wealth.
- I'd love it if PvP was rebalanced properly in a competitive way (which probably won't happen and wynn will probably turn to a Nova-like state of balance that has an extremely low skill ceiling, but that's fine too). With proper balance, adding rewards would be the next step.
- I'd love it if hunted would be a casual PvP mode where you don't lose anything (except hardcore status) on death, of course without the current xp bonus. With the current lack of balance, I'm surprised this hasn't happened yet.
- I'd love it if guild "wars" were meaningful. Wars need to be scrapped. The current system as a whole is completely outdated, repetitive, and again, low-skill. Because of how mobs work, inflating their stats won't change that one bit. Replacing them with a customizable dungeon-like challenge that's high difficulty would be one way?

The reason I say there is no healthy endgame content is because all current endgame content basically encourages toxicity. Kinda weird.

 

This is why I quit lootrunning, and our guild no longer actively participates in guild wars, and PvP...Well I've seen my fair share of ridiculously toxic hunters.

 

endgame content is making random ass op builds and testing out everything.

 

I'd consider the endgame content in Wynncraft to be professions, loot running, and guild wars.

 

Why do people think the new Forgery chest is going to qualify as "endgame content"? It's just running the same dungeons over and over, except you're running the same dungeon once every 7 times instead of every time.

 

I consider endgame content something that can't be grinded over and over because eventually watching numbers go up becomes meaningless. It's something you shouldn't benefit from, nor get literally anything useful from, but just have a good time! Something that has a lot of replay value, not because of any rewards, but because it's enjoyable.

In short, endgame content isn't about watching meaningless numbers go up only to quit the game or give it away later. It's about having fun when there's nothing else to do! That's why I don't think Lootrunning and such are endgame content, things like self-imposed challenges are.

 

Content at the end of the game. Duh.

Okay, seriously though? LI, EO, challenge runs, trade market fiddling, helping lower level players, professions (hahahahaha), guilds if you're into that sort of thing and of course, build tinkering.

Most of the endgame content for Wynncraft is either player-made (trying to get rich, specific challenge runs of LI/EO, etc.) or player driven, and, while that means that it often fits what players want, it doesn't have a ton of unique content.

 

Housing would be great you complete a quest to unlock the housing feature like you do to get a horse (Stable Story) there will be at least 50 houses built around the map to accommodate all 50 players that can be in a server you automatically get granted a house perhaps and your given the coordinates to it when you join in chat, you can also buy a scroll to your house at your horse which will remain consistent even when you have a different house (house location gets randomised whenever you join a different server) when you open your house door and walk in you will be teleported somewhere far away into your house interior you will be able to build by clicking a button in the compass menu (you will only be able to enable build mode inside your house) in the compass menu there will also be a “Housing shop” button where you can buy furniture and make your interior theme different and bigger for emeralds

edit: an idea just sprung to mind, you could make it so you can craft furniture/blocks instead of buying them with emeralds giving players a lot more motivation to level up there professions if they can have a nice big fancy house to show off maybe a way to make the house have more floors should also be implemented