Pushback on timers and timed game mechanics

Wicked Feedback
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I have seen a lot of interviews of Thomas, and I think I have an idea of where it is comming from when he says that he wants people to come to Wicked everyday and there is something new to do, and I think this is great, and totally excited to follow that vision, but I think that using real life timers and timed game mechanics like daily shops and Finley is a terrible mistake and it will have an opposite effect, especially giving no alternative to players.

My experience comes from a vast amount of hours in mobile games and personal frustration with these systems. I have no issue with the timer for building sacrament since I have a CHOICE for speeding up the process.

REAL TIME TIMERS: Why I think this is a terrible idea when you dont give the player an alternative to speed up?

Well you can just look at the revenue of mobile games, specially in farming games, they artificially create this problem (waiting) and then people are willing to spend A LOT of money to get rid of this problem, thats how anoying it is. I can think of more examples of developpers artificially creating problems that dont exist and then charging for it (timed battle passes etc.)

Now does this time keeping help the vision to make people excited to come back tomorrow for something new? Maybe the first 2-3 days but after that, for the average player this is just annoying, I need to plan my life based on your game for no legitimate reason? You are just creating friction in my opinion.

Finley goes from 8-12pm, do you work night shifts? Too bad for you, do you have other responsabilities and today you can play 5h but you cant for the rest of the week? Too bad for you too, etc. etc.

There is literally no reason why I cant pay 2 silver and have rerol on the shop or calling finley early on the day instead of waiting until 8pm.

For the minmax andy, he will just create 20 worlds and thats it, but I dont think Thomas wants this as his vision right?

Oh yeah I am really exited to log in - check shop (nothing interesting) - check finley (nothing interesting) - log out and repeat this process 20 times for how many days until I find what I want, because this is allowed by the game, for the average player, instead of doing that process which is boring, I just go to an area and clear it, interact with your world and then rerol. The outcome is the same but one way is fun and the other is not.

I am being a bit harsh because I think that this type of time keeping will push out a lot of casual players and make people dislike the game, and I dont want that I want wicked to succeed and hence trying to give my 2 cents.

For finley and the shop to be frank I dont even think rerols are needed, just tie the “rerol” to the in game clock, make me look at the clock and think oh damn its finley time, or new day let me check the shop, now thats more exciting.

Why I put the shop as an example in particular is because I think a lot of player will enter this unfun cycle:

  1. I have finished story with a megh weapon, ok damage but not my playstyle and not that fun
  2. I build my character example main dex
  3. I dont like my weapon and want to try new one
  4. I have played for 10h-20h and mainly get armor drops and int/faith/str type of weapons
  5. I dont want to keep farming more with this weapon since I am not having fun
  6. I try to buy a new weapon suitable for my character but uh-oh wait.. and for how long?

Why do I need to wait so long to have fun?

I believe in the vision of coming back tomorrow and have something new and excited, but not at the cost of limiting the players at this level. I think the intention was to distribute fun in multiple dosis, not to wait in order to have fun.

I think this system work ok if you have not completed the story and if you had luck at the begining and found a weapon suitable for your playstyle then this systems feel ok, but when you finish the story with a megh weapon, oh man it feels bad. I think the trade off is just not there. In the long term you will lose more user retentiom than have satisfaction from existing and new users.

When I think of exciting things if I log in tomorrow I am thinking off things like:

Give me multi-layered quests where everyday I advance to a new tier increasing the difficulty and reward.

Give me events where i can get more enchantment materials

Give me quest where I can pick the reward like selection chest in clash royale if you want.

I hope that I put my point accross, I want to be excited to come back tomorrow and play wicked, I just think that looking at the shop or finley should not be one of them in my humble opinion

Have a great day guys, you guys earned a fan here!

1 Like
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I think you’re into something there. The time mechanics can be frustrating and sometimes even unclear. It would be cool a little timer or re-roll button as you mentioned inside the NPCs shops UI. For Finley, as he is a rather “rare encounter”, it would be cool a notification/banner that informs his arrival or a news board somewhere in Sacrament that informs of his arrival or something like that if his time mechanic is going to stay.

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Yes exactly, even if you want to playtest during early access you dont even need the rerol in the shop.

Just give me a weekly quest where you give me 10 rerol tokens to spend on any shop, this is very limited and you can see the impact - effect on how much user interact/want this system.

To be honest this timed mechanic has a lot of underlying issues in my opinion:

User retention: How long do I need to wait to find my fun experience? Feels like I need to plan my free time around your game since most suitable time to play is everyday between 8 - 12 pm.

Content creation: If I want to make guides for your game how much time I need to invest to pop out videos? Return on time invested?

Even if you are insisting on keeping the system I still think you should keep the filosophy of stick and the carrot, I give you artificial problem, but if you are willing to interract with my world and my systems for 10-30 more minutes by clearing this area or farming 10 wood then you can get rid of this issue this time. If I dont care about the shop then thats fine, I will just do another activity nobody forces me to do this, the important thing is having the choice here in my opinion, if you give me the stick, give me a carrot and let me choose to eat it or not.