An Open Letter to Players

Wicked General
,
1

My first few hours with Wicked were infuriating. I don’t have a background with Souls games so I was in for a rude awakening when I wanted to run in and cut mobs down, swords swinging as much as my stamina would let me.

This game is not Diablo. This game is not Skyrim. This game is not Ori.

I died at least a dozen times to the first boss - and that’s not hyperbole. My cat would put her ears back when I would scream at the monitor after being a fingernail of health away from delivering the final blow but instead getting flattened into a pancake by the boss.

I persisted.

I stopped rushing in. I stopped mashing buttons. I waited. I watched the boss’s movements and his attacks while kiting. I learned. And when the right moments showed themselves, I took small chunks of his health at a time, dodging away to regain my focus on the fight and to wait for the next opportunity.

This is Wicked.

I’m now 32 hours into the game and have learned how to play the elusive “soulslike” genre. And man am I damn proud of the progress I’ve made. And what a blast combat is now that I understand it.

I’ve given responses to various posts in the forum but thought I’d share a general message as well. Wicked is not for everyone.

If you’re expecting a Diablo clone, Wicked is not for you.
If you’re expecting anything close to Ori. Wicked is not for you (but props to you for wanting to support the devs because you loved a previous title).

And don’t forget this is also Early Access, two words most gamers seem to have forgotten the meaning of, or never knew in the first place. Mechanics will be janky. Progress will be hindered. UI will be unrefined. This is all to be expected if you understand Early Access titles.

I see a lot players in the forum and on Reddit expecting perfection or even making demands on changes or they’ll refund the game.

Refund the game. Please.

If you’re not willing to, or interested in, learning how to enjoy this masterpiece, then… say it with me now, Wicked is not for you. And that’s okay! It’s okay for you to not enjoy the game or want to commit to learning how to play it successfully. It’s okay to be frustrated that Wicked is maybe not what you were expecting.

What is not okay, is to come into feedback forums and ask the devs to change the foundation of their game to appease you with a style you’re more familiar with. It’s not okay to leave negative reviews after playing for 1 hour because you’ve not even scratched the surface of what Wicked truly is.

This game is breaking barriers. And once they take the genuine feedback from honest players that can see the gem that Wicked is, the final product will be something many gamers have been waiting on for a very long time. So if you want to share that journey with the devs, stay a while and listen. Watch. Learn. Constructively critique. But stop shitting on the devs and the game just because it doesn’t happen to be the game you were expecting. Cheers.

50 Likes
2

Nicely put and echo your sentiments

3

This is great.
The game is ofc still rough on the edges - but its the first days of EA. Like you said - some ppl. dont know what early acess is.
i get furious about negative reviews on the games from people which played it for 0,4 hours and yell “refund” because they dont get what kind of game this is. i also cant understand how you can rate something negative when you see how much effort and heartwork is put into every frame of the game by the devs - even if soulslikes isnt the thing for you…even if you dont entjoy getting smashed thousand of times - you still can acknowledge, that the game itself is truly amazing but maybe nothing for you personal…

1 Like
4

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I do genuinely believe if the devs can continue to give this game the development it deserves, it will be a major GotY contender whenever it releases.

Great post, couldn’t agree more.

2 Likes
5

Couldn’t agree more. I hate souls games, they frustrate me and cause more stress than fun, but I love both Ori games and Devs have my full trust, and darn it, I’m having a blast now after 25+ hours.
An increasing number of positive steam reviews gives me hope.
This is an awesome game, will become even better before full launch, but it’s not for everyone indeed.

1 Like
6

I was about to rip into you until I continued reading. You are doing exactly what you are supposed to do in a souls like. Get humbled and stop to think about how to play differently and more patiently. These games punish those that think you can mow down anything and everything in 1 shot and all at once. I’m glad you stayed with it and kept going! Now you know why we play these games, they reward you will feelings as opposed to gear and items.

Welcome to the Souls community!

2 Likes
7

Well said! Nice to read someone else has similar feelings to myself and glad you’re also enjoying the game :blush:

8

I knew what I was getting into with NRftW. But that didn’t make it any easier. I immediately fell in love with the art style, the world building, and most importantly the characters and story being told. But what I wasn’t ready for was just how much I found myself wanting to spend more and time with this title. Does it have performance issues on my PC? Yes. But I simply don’t mind. In the grand scheme of things for an EA title this launch is fantastic imo. By the time 1.0 launches all of these issues will more then likely be sorted. I’m here for the long haul. Good or bad. So happy to be part of this growing game and community. GLHF all!

3 Likes
9

I can relate to this, I’ve not finished one Souls game because I didn’t take the time (or have the patience) to learn the game and that’s ok. I didn’t blast the forums with negatives, I simply moved onto other games.

This game had me close to giving up but for some reason, I persisted. Then I finally was able to beat the boss before gaining access to Sacrament…and what a relief that was. Walking through the town, I could see where the developers plan to take this game and this is going to be good.

Later on after exploring the town, I took one of the quest and was walking back to an area that I had already cleared and to my surprise, the area was loaded with baddies, which quickly took me out. Well, I didn’t see that coming…another surprise. After a couple attempts, I could see I needed something more, so I went back to town and did some upgrading and that made a big difference. Wasn’t really sure what I was doing but the changes I made, made a positive difference.

Yeah, Its safe to say this game is hooking me pretty good. Sad to see so many players bombing the game for their various reasons, considering the game is in early access and the developers have been very open about what to expect.

Looking forward to the game fully launching when they’ve decided its ready.

Cheers

3 Likes
10

Agreed! well put. i really hope the devs dont listen to those make the game easier or add difficulty level bull**.

11

I think if the Devs can update the players on what they are working on and as much detail as they are allowed, it will keep the players satisfied.

Maybe post it on this forum so players can feel heard and know what is being done.

I only found out about some things the Devs are working on from a cross post from Twitter and I don’t use Twitter, so I only found out about it today.

12

100% agreed

This game is so unique and the more I play it the more small details I see that build into that vision the devs have.

Also good job on the patience and learning!

1 Like
13

giphy

14

It’s a little like Ori. I died a lot in that game too, lol.

That and it’s just a beautiful fun game that I can’t put down.

Just needs a soundtrack. Ori’s is still one of my favorites of all time, its Final Fantasy level good.

Honestly at this point I only think I need three things to make me want to sink 4 or 500 hrs into it. 1) More item/rune info. Tooltips maybe. 2) better inventory management (having 99 in a stack would be a good start); 3) some serious adjustments to weapon stat requirements. A greatsword doesn’t need to require 40 str/int. How about 40/20? I get the whole build your own class thing but its not reasonable right now.

15

I agree with you. It’s early access but it’s visible that this game would be a gem!
I like pointing out stuff that feels off so the devs could take some inspiration in our ideas. But giving the game bad review just first day of EA is stupid. I hate those people who couldn’t understand what EA means and are impatient with the progress.

16

The way the game opens up from typical soulslike to ARPG once you get access to the enchantment, infusion, and rune mechanics is truly magical.

1 Like
17

Hear, hear!

Strong agree. Gamers can be an awful, entitled bunch.

1 Like
18

Well written, bravo. I wanted to write something similar recently, but this forum told me that a similar post already exists. Special thanks for such a handy forum

19

Okay then. Can you explain what will happen with your personal experience if some players will play on lower difficulty and you will play on current one? Will you feel bad simply because someone plays on “Easy”? Why?

21

ok sure. First you need to understand this has nothing to do with anyone’s personal gaming experience. You and all who are asking for a difficulty level settings need to figure out what this game is about. What are you playing when you play this game?
The nature of this game is: the devs have created many “problems” for you to solve. The enemy one shots you? Cant constantly swing your sword? Dont have mobility skill? Foods are not enough? etc. These are all problems they intentionally created for you to solve. You need to find the solutions and finding the solutions is what you are playing when you play this game. Find a shield so you can block, increase your hp to get tankier, get bink ability on your weapon, get regen affix on your armor or eventually find all the right affixes to be able to kill a boss by pressing 2 buttons.
You get it now? the process of finding solutions to solve problems is what you are playing, they want you to create your own easy mode. You dont see difficulty setting on your Windows Minesweeper, or Candycrush-like games, or any soul-like games because the core of these games is: find the solution, we cant let you just click a button and find all the mines, touch your screen once and all the candies pop and you pass the level.
Yes some games have difficulty settings, because they are not about solving problems. I played Red dead redemption on normal, and God of War series on easy. These games are designed for you to feel for the story and feel for the character development, its like movies, and these two games made me cry at the end. You never heard people say “oh I can’t kill Micah in Red Dead Redemption II, its too hard!” because Micah is standing there for you to kill, the story mush proceed this way.
But there are also games are meant to be “solving problems” games, No Rest for the Wicked is clearly one of them. They designed areas like mazes, secrets hidden everywhere. and gear affixes, materials, your strength dexterity etc, armors that are so good for protection even have counter effects, they are too heavy so you need to decide.
ok, to summarize it, adding an easy mode is against the whole idea of the game. No one will say to you: “hey, pop quiz and here is the answer to it:…”