As the title mentions, I just finished the story up to unlocking pestilence. I’ve had a blast with the game but it does have some issues that I’ve noticed. Before that though, I’d like to say that I enjoy a ton of different types of games. ARPGs are some of my favorite. I have 5k+ hours in POE, 500+ in POE2, 150 in D4, 1k in D3, and 200 in LE. I know what I’m looking for in ARPGs specifically and have found Wicked to be a breath of fresh air. Note that I have not read everyone’s comments. I may end up repeating a few gripes and or suggestions.
I enjoy challenging combat while building a character that can eventually destroy everything. Wicked does this quite while as there aren’t an overabundance of mobs on the screen to blow up. So, it gives me a sense that I need to actually care about each encounter. On top of that, I enjoy that the bosses are actually challenging. I get this type of experience in POE2 campaign and LE at high corruption. However, Wicked makes it feel more like a souls game, which I’m sure many of pointed out. I like that I need to bash my head against a boss until I understand its attack patterns and eventually defeat it. This approach is probably one of the best things in Wicked.
With that, my favorite thing about Wicked, hands-down, is the world itself. It truly feels like the devs want me to care about this the most as it feels great going around the world and exploring. This does have diminishing value over time though. I enjoy the fact that the zones level up with you. However, after 10+ times of going to the same area, even with the shortcuts unlocked, I start to zone out a bit. This is not an easy thing to resolve as I generally prefer the devs approach here. I like the hand crafted world without needed procedurally generated content. Though, seeing it within caves and minor zones would spice things up a bit. I wouldn’t mind side areas being random.
I also, genuinely, enjoy the combat. It does need quite a bit of fine tuning. However, I know there is a combat patch in the future. So, I’m not going to focus heavily on that. I suspect the gripes I have with it will be addressed later. Just the thought of better animation cancelling gets me excited. I’m the type that loves to charge up weapons and have to take the hit and hope I survive. Thus, pushing me towards plate gear. The biggest issue I would say here is targeting, though. I hope this will be address but it is so awkward, at times, trying to hit with a charged attacked and it targets a different enemy. This might even be an issue with the controls.
The controls can be a bit wonky with mouse and kb. I’ve played Wicked on Steam deck as well as PC and the controller experience feels a bit better. I can’t really pinpoint the exact reasoning but it WASD does seem very sensitive. This is incredibly apparent when jumping from one ledge to another. It can sometimes feel like roliing the dice on whether I’ll land exactly where I was aiming. Speaking of which, I would definitely prefer a jump button. Running around town climbing random walls and jumping randomly is not a fun experience. On top of that, if use sprint toggle, you sometimes jump off cliffs when you only meant to fall down. A jump button would fix this issue immediately.
This is a bit of a long discussion. So, I’ll stick to general notes here that I wrote down during my first play through of the game.
- Runes need to say which weapon they apply to. ‘Slot this into a Weapon’ makes me think I can choose any weapon I want.
- I’d rather have one main chest in my home that has tabs for multiple types of items that I can set. (Similar to POE)
- Resting bonus is great but it always wears off after I login and run around doing my daily stuff. This bonus shouldn’t wear in Sacrament/homes. Also, I’d prefer to talk to the inn keeper to rest and choose different types of beds + the option to logout at the same time. This really should cost something as well.
- I’d prefer a jump button. Running to an edge and jumping super far and dying when you only meant to fall down a step feels really bad.
- An option to use best food in combat and worse food out of combat.
- It seems unintuitive to have durability on gathering items. This concept makes sense for battle items. I don’t think my tools should break if I decide to bash my head against a boss.
- UI adjustments for the skills would be nice. Icons alone aren’t enough to always remember what every rune does, esp if you rarely use them.
- A waypoint system in town would be nice. This isn’t to say I want to go from one place to another like shops > house > dailies etc. I want to be able to port out an exit of the town. Something near the esper would be nice or the esper itself. Check out how FFXIV handles this with their Aethernet. You can port in town, sure, but the focus is the port right outside of town that would save a ton of time.
- The toggle sprint option is great for out of combat but once you’re in combat it should default to walking. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sprint attacked instead of charged my weapon.
- Using a rune to port back to Sacrament feels like a weird design choice. I’d almost rather have a return option time gated. It feels almost rewarding to just die and use that as a way back to town. Durability loss is not high enough to deter this option.
- Continuing conversation with space has gotten me killed before by advancing the dialog and rolling off a cliff. I’d rather have a separate interaction key. F is good for me for talking to everyone. Not sure why that can’t also select/continue dialog.
- I wish there was a way to separate Ichors from power and inventory. I feel like Ichors would be great for power such as ring slot and extra weapon slot (build dependent). However, a secondary item that could be farmed for expanding inventory would be better. A resource that could come from completing challenges or bounties, for example, rather than bosses.
- Once I’m 20 or so in the campaign, the zones do not feel as challenging as they were from level 5-15. This is in part due to my build coming online and me getting used to the game. However, the enemies should have a bit more difficulty in higher zones to accommodate.
- Not a fan of the purple color gear. I’m conditioned after so long of gaming to think that it is automatically going to be good. However, the gear is mostly bad unless there are specific downsides I don’t care about.
- At some point gold feels boring. I’d like to be able to break down gear even if it’s only purple gear. A ways to make blue gear without enchanting and losing gem slots would also be nice.
- Odd complaint but the fishing line doesn’t actually go to the fish in the water
- I’ve noticed a few instances of raining within houses and even the sound of it in a cave.
- I’d like a loadout system of some kind. I know that I’m conditioned to replay the entire campaign for a new build from other ARPGS. However, this doesn’t feel like a great option with how long the campaign currently is and may end up being. I have yet to experience the NPC for changing my build. However, I doubt it will allow me to change everything and experiment how I want. Going through the game the first time, I stuck to one build never swaying. I’m not sure if that’s the devs intent or not but it would certainly be more fun to swap in town.
Love the direction of the game so far. You guys are making something truly unique. I’m looking forward to see what’s next with the game. I still plan to check out crucible and pestilence end game.
TLDR: Keep cooking