Wanted to start by saying that I am absolutely loving this game. I followed the game closely during the big hype last year but as a console only player, I never experienced it myself. After I saw a trailer for The Breach, I ditched my console, picked up a Nvidia Shield Pro and have been playing Wicked through GeForce Now ever since. Awesome service by the way - Wicked has run great for me and looks stunning on my TV.
I’m currently just over 150 hours played and still can’t get enough. I have put together several endgame builds and landed on a 2H staff using lightning as my favorite to play. I’m at the point where pretty much the only thing that kills me is gravity, but the journey to this point has been so fun and rewarding.
I’ve been working on a hardcore playthrough for about a week now. Definitely changes the experience and the way that I play and approach things that I never even had to consider before. I’ve lost a few characters which is of course frustrating at the time, but I can usually laugh about it pretty soon after and start it over again. I can hear my kids singing “Dumb Ways to Die” and all of my hardcore deaths playing on a loop! None of them have felt unfair though and I can see exactly where my mistake/lesson was.
The only issue I remember having during my initial playthrough was with re-rolling gear using fallen embers. I played for a week or two before The Breach released where fallen embers had a different use. I of course didn’t read the tooltip on the embers after The Breach and just thought that re-rolling my gear would come later. I was probably level 20 something with close to 100 embers before I even discovered (from a Reddit post) to use the embers on my gear to re-roll them. What if when we rescued Fillmore, he had us choose from a selection of starter weapons off of a nearby weapon rack and forced us to use an ember on it before proceeding? I think this would have personally helped greatly with my initial playthrough.
I know we are still in early access here and there are already a lot of great things coming that I’m really looking forward to, but number one on my personal wish list is some kind of leaderboard. Historically, leaderboards probably haven’t had the greatest track record in gaming and I’m not sure if this crosses over into more of a live service type of thing. But, when I think about the games that kept me hooked long after I “completed” the game, the majority of them had some kind of leaderboard.
From a strictly gamer perspective, I can see it working in a few different ways with Wicked. I have no idea about game development and the time, cost, or feasibility of any of these:
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Diablo 4 Gauntlet Style - a timed static dungeon with bosses and trash mobs that award points for each kill. Probably a more live service model but could still potentially work here with some Wicked adjustments. I may be in a very small minority here but I had a blast with the gauntlet. One of the biggest issues I remember people having with the gauntlet was players exploiting death and the way that points were awarded. I always played hardcore characters in D4 so I never dealt with that and it always felt challenging and competitive to me. I wouldn’t have stuck with D4 through 5 seasons if it wasn’t for the gauntlet.
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Monster Hunter Style - a timed boss encounter. I haven’t played MH Wilds which I hear is having some issues with the leaderboard they introduced. But, what I remember here is playing Monster Hunter on my Wii U and battling my friends for the fastest arena times. I could see this fitting nicely with the job/class system being introduced. Having a set loadout for each class - armor, weapons, and runes are selected for the player. A true test of player skill in this scenario where each player enters the arena with equal gear, level, and runes.
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World of Warcraft Arenas Style - 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 ranked PvP matches. I’m not sure what the PvP will look like in Wicked but we do know it’s coming! It’s probably been 15+ years since I’ve even looked at WoW so I’m not sure if these are even still a thing. But, some of my favorite gaming memories are from playing WoW and no other video game has had my adrenaline going like high ranked arena matches. Waiting for the gate to rise, not knowing who you’re up against and having to come up with and execute a winning strategy on the fly.
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Anything With a Wicked Twist - I’m sure there are many other great ideas out there. Parkour time trials to the top of Sacrament or Marin Woods?! I spent an embarrassing amount of time on the Super Mario Odyssey races. Playing over and over to shave off fractions of a second because I knew I could have done something better.
I’m sure any kind of leaderboard is a huge undertaking and come with a whole extra set of issues to deal with but I just thought I’d share my thoughts. On another note, the streamers and content creators would probably be attracted to some kind of leaderboard and would bring in a ton of new players to Wicked.
Anyway, just want to say thanks again to the Moon Studio team for your hard work and dedication to No Rest For The Wicked. I haven’t been this excited about a video game in a very long time. In all of my time gaming, I have never felt compelled to share my feedback, suggestions, or experiences on any online forum until now. And even if none of my wish list makes it into the game at some point, I will still be having a blast and singing my praise for Wicked to everyone I know!