- Your an excellent story teller… expand on the story, Go more in depth. We dont have to wait to finish an act to progress in the story. Expand alot more on the character of Odessa and all the people in Sacrament, give them quests instead of just the guy next to the tower in sacrament that gives daily and weekly quests. We want to empathize with these people. This game is different and you have to focus on the strong parts. Story is everything. Not only, if the story is catchy you will be able also to make expansion that will just focus on the story itself instead of trying to make (like all rpgs) a endgame content that should make people rins and repeat.
- Co-op shouldn’t just be the fact that you can play together, but that you can actually synergize. Make some kind of zones that a group of 5 or even 10 can fight. Some type of instance like in wow where you fight up to the boss. In that respect people should be able to create real classes that can help a group, like healers, real tanks that can take a ton of damage. Similar to WOW but with fighting mechanics that are completely different and are only a NRFTW philosophy. People want to play together… that is a real plus, not only for pvp but also for epic battles against bosses.
- Make some kind of tutorial like in POE2 where when you scroll through something it actually shows you what it does. Very helpfull on runes, but also on weapons so that someone can actually see how they work and what combos and special moves they have. This will help greatly the gaming experience. Why do I have to buy a weopon just to use it and see what it does? otherwise make an armory where you can go to practice all runes and weapons.
- Try reducing the frustration for falling deaths. Most of the time people die from that but only because the game doesnt really seem to grasp some basic ideas. If i go toward a ladder, even if i am running, the game should understand that i must get it and not just let me fall down. And there are many types of deaths that happen from that type of mechanic. This frustrates alot of players. Death is fine, but for the right reasons.
- I tried playing on very heavy with big weapons and personlly i feel there is to much of an inbalance with lighter builds and casters. When you reach endgame is fine for a caster to obliterate everything… this should happen also the other way round, at least they should become invincible by taking little to no damage. I am sure that someone will respond that he make the invincible heavy build. No doubt, but the truth is that even if i played almost 200 hrs in this game alot of weapons I even havn’t seen and couldn’t even try.
- Drop alot more gems. There are too few gems in the game.
- make a free downloadable version of the game that ends with act I. That should make people buy the game, however there is a flip side… alot more people will play the game and alot of them are not ready for the frustration of a souls like game and that could revamp the negative reviews… so thats a risky move. But a game cannot be fore everyone… you make a game with your philosophy and the poeple that embrace it will buy the game.
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They can start by not labeling the game as Souls-like or brutal, precision-based combat, like in their Steam page. At first glance, it pushes most casuals away and by saying souls-like, they are putting the game in a niche corner. Not all players like Souls-like game. Most players, myself included, just want to have fun and not experience frustration. Let the players decide for themselves if it’s Souls-like or not, we all have different skill levels and preferences.
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Adjust the difficulty accordingly, make it not as brutal for first time players before reaching Sacrament. Make the mobs not hit as hard so players have more opportunity to learn the moves and understanding the game, that it’s not a button mash game like D4 or POE, this game requires more finesse. As the proceed further in the game, their understanding of the game improved and their characters get stronger, then the difficulty should increase too.
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Simplify the stats allocation, or at least give players easier access to re-spec the character, that way players are not afraid to experiment and learn. Most players don’t know what to allocate as it’s they have not understood how the stats and gears works yet. I understand that Thomas has plans to change the leveling and stats in future patches, and i’m hopeful and looking forward to it.
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Then release in Consoles too. Maybe once Co-Op is up and running and leveling has been streamlined, release it on console and update the game accordingly. My group of friends who plays ARPG are all on console. I am lucky to have both PS5 and a reasonable PC but my friends want to play it and do not have access to it.
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Make the game grind reasonable by default. All loot; Ichors, crafting Materials/ingredients, Gems, Blueprints and leveling should be reasonably obtainable just from regular play. I understand that the Devs are making adjustment to this and soon we will have target farming, which i think is heading in the right direction. With the planned Realm setting, players can then adjust the loot drop or leveling to be as grindy as they want. This will capture more players to stay long term.
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Also include a Tooltip as this game is very unique and different from most ARPG. New players can get overwhelmed when first playing it. I know i was in the beginning, and have started multiple characters to get things right as i learn along the way.
I think the most important is to market the game to the casuals just avoid using words that will pigeon-hole the game into a certain category.
Mahler mentioned about settings that we can adjust when creating a Realm. This is a good idea as it word of mouth will spread when players know they can set the Realm to be as brutal and unforgiving as as they want. More players will buy the game knowing they can play how they want.
the single most requested thing here besides coop is transmog/layered armor.
and that also is something u can actually advertise on steam!
whatever balance changes etc will happen, those are not selling points. nobody who thinks about buying a game reads 3 pages of balance adjustments and then is like “yeah, thats my game”
and get realm modifier and the system that replaces the current attribute system rather sooner than later. those are also things u can advertise on a store page.
everything else is nice for those who already play, but not really pushing sales. if u want to sell u need USPs. and those would be transmog, realm modifiers, unique leveling system.
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100%.
Gotta sell them fashion wars to sell an RPG lol.
The realm modifiers and housing should be on the store page, as well as the upcoming class system.
The idea of 40 classes sounds super appealing.
So does having your own farm/front/backyard in housing.
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yeah, no offense to OP and sam, those are good points for the long run to balance the game, but no real selling points. we need things that make wicked unique.
also, i notice that a while back:
the ingame video footage and trailers on the store page are sorted really weird. we get 2 breach videos, then tons of screenshots and at the very end 2 more videos. that might not be super critical, but people will never scroll for those 2 last videos. Imo the order should be 1. breach trailer, 2. second NRFTW trailer, 3. 1st NRFTW trailer, 4. the 25 min breach deep dive. people have short reaction spans. give them short footage first, then the longer one if they are interested, screenshots last.
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Yup, each video should be a youtube short-like display of a cool feature the game has.
Then another short video can show the armor fashion variety, another the different houses and furnitures.
And another the different weapons and their animations you can choose from to sell the player on a wealth of playstyle variety.
I think a lot of people also get sold on cities being upgradable, so show th a teaser of Sacrament being upgraded.
LOL
this won’t make more people buy the game, I don’t think, but surely will prevent a bunch from refunding it… XD
I kinda agree here:
I mean, yeah is a way to describe NRftW, but also it does give the wrong impression since this game in particular is not going for what most souls-like are: emulate FromSoft.. a much more factual description would be it “inspired by”, “borrows some mechanics from”, or something to that effect…
the only thing that matters: when is co-op coming…??? this is the single most important feature that drew me in to this game, everything else is a bunch of cherries on top… and apparently I’m not alone in this sentiment… XD
now, my opinion on “selling more EA”??? going viral… no matter what this game is nor aims to be… is just not the most popular type of game… it appeals to a certain type of player, and because of all the comparison to other established franchises it probably drew more in than it has any business… early access is outright controversial on itself as is…
Not act 1 but a Demo that ends after Warrick The Torn.
Yea, I thought that act 1 ended when you enter Sacrament.
Stop whining and focus on the game, expand on it, don’t crunch, a good game will do wonders and word of mouth will do the rest. INVEST IN MARKETING. Have a nice day lol
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Nope, act 1 is the whole story that we are going to play after 1.0 release. We haven’t played act1 yet. Act2 will be a new DLC content and so on.
We are not whining we are trying to give constructive criticism and suggestions to help the devs. They already invested in marketing… how many youtubers reviewed the new ‘expansion’? many.
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Awesome that means that we have a long way to go and the story will expand a great deal. Happy to hear that. Love this game.
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The advertising of Wicked being a “Souls-like” is purely from the community. I don’t think Moon Studios ever officially advertised Wicked as being “Souls-like”. Keep in mind that the tags on the Steam page for the game is almost entirely defined by users and not the developers.
Very hesitant to add to this discussion because every time I write a draft it feels overwhelmingly critical but here goes…
They could be upfront that at this point without being supported by a publisher that the games EA is directly tied to the release of the game in full. At least that’s the sentiment I get from Thomas’s Twitter…
Do a roadmap accurate roadmap which has been requested since launch. And promote all the great things they aim to accomplish in one place as it’s currently a scavenger hunt. It may even need to be a list of things Moon is committed to adding in the base game and a list of additional goals/features to be added through support of the EA… Idk
I’m hesitant to suggest a demo. All my friends which I’ve recommended the game to have only wishlisted the game on steam. Not a lot of players bother with games in EA. So if funding aka support ties to the games launch in full it might just be tied to how quickly can the base game be launched. With a demo I’m not sure how many people would just just play, wishlist and move on.
I’m sure multiplayer will have a surge due to people being able to play with friends but there isn’t an awful lot of content for one player yet alone 2-4. Don’t get me wrong I’m at 600+ but that’s because I feel I have to test “everything” before I can give good feedback, not because there’s 600+ hours of in game content. People play for different reasons so I think my playtime is very much an outlier.
If the games release is as heavily tied to the success of the EA as it feels recently. Why not lean into it and show off what what you’ve made what you aim to accomplish in a succinct marketing push with multiplayer? Just my two cents but it seems better than asking for an upvote if so we can be worthy of being “a good person”.
That said I hope the combat update comes with multiplayer. I’d hate for that many new players to become an echo chamber for issues that are actively being worked on since they don’t know the history, nor do I think that is their burden as I’ve said it’s an absolute scavenger hunt to track down all the juicy information. Just the size of the map alone should be enticing if people like the world design and feel as I have
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i really do not think this would help. having a roadmap in the beginning, and then changing things due to multiple factors did not help, in fact it made things worse.
roadmaps are great for games that have events, seasons etc. but mostly they are like cages the devs trap themselves in. imagine claiming again that update X will be next, but then some things just don’t work out as planned, and update x gets delayed or even completely tossed. that would cause outrage, not more sales.
the game already has great stuff. they should stick to their USPs, and advertise some frequently requested features etc.
Another reason why so many players don’t even bother with games in EA.
I don’t believe a roadmap has to be extremely specific but if Moon wants to sell copies of a game I don’t believe they can keep customers in the dark either. What you refer to as caging the developers I look at as them just delivering on the product.
If people are hungry they’ll go to a restaurant. Which restaurant they pick will in large part be dependent on the menu and their current cravings, no?
All I’m saying is they need a menu to show their offerings.
Something as simple as, this is what we aim to accomplish, here is our amazing living world. Here is where we are at on the trail to release, and the more support we get means the more we can add to the base concept of the game.
If people want to belly ache about which patch comes first they’ve completely lost the concept of what they’re buying into, imo. But its bound to happen regardless of how they approach it. So my sentiment is more directed at how can they attract more interested parties.
But anywho, just my thoughts on it.
yes, but a menu is what they currently have and sell. not a schedule that usually backfires as development is not only cooking a burger for 10 minutes, but as we have seen with the whole PD thing, can face serious challenges a roadmap can never really fit.
sure they should deliver, but forcing oneself on a strict schedule is oftentimes rather bad than good for customer retention.
delays, no matter what caused them are always worse than positive surprises. so i rather have them cook without the corset of a schedule. and the constant “where is coop” and “when is console release” kind of proves my point 
it was a mistake to have that roadmap at the start.
Didn’t say schedule. Said roadmap and one I’m interested in is key features and planned updates. I’d advise they keep it simple.
They could lean on community voting to help decide what features are implemented first. Despite the community asking for it I do agree with Moon the multiplayer release should have some meat to it content wise in order for it to feel good. So sometimes the community will want something that’s not in their best interest so we’ll have to leave that up to Moons judgement and let it ride.
This just comes off as tone deaf. If players buy into your game specifically for those features, I don’t think they’re wrong to inquire about it. Sure some of them can be an ass about it, but I’m not advocating for that kind of behavior.
I manage multi-million dollar construction projects for a living (believe me or don’t I’m not doxing myself over a game to prove a point) and I can’t stress the importance of managing expectations. It’s so critical and a big part of what I feel is lacking from Moons marketing. I suggest a roadmap to address it. That’s all.
All projects have an end date, tentative or otherwise. I made these comments over a year ago when every update was “we’re working on it”. We don’t know where we are in the development cycle and now if players share my sentiments we have concerns if the game will be even make it to released now… something I’m sure the project red team is cackling over.
Me, I’m fine supporting an indie dev trying to shoot past the Moon (no pun intended) with lofty goals but is any of this information available in one place? No. I’m a pissed off consumer who’s tired of the same games year after year, hungry for what Moon is attempting to deliver so I went looking for more information. I got involved on the forum, etc… I’m an outlier. Not the typical consumer. I’m saying they need a hook. Something people can look forward to, etc.
Again everyone I’ve recommended the game to only has it on wishlist. I was surprised none of them purchased the game since it was similar to other things they’ve played and I showed them some of my gameplay, etc. The most common response was too many things change in EA. And that when they play the game, they want to experience it at once in it’s final form. No different than the trickle discussion we’ve already had.
IF and I say if the games release is dependent on EA as it feels, we need a hook to get people vested early imo. But I’m not in marketing so what the hell do I know.
What I do know is the easiest target to miss is one that isn’t well defined.