QOL, combat design, and general feedback

Wicked Feedback
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Introduction: Hello, i hope you can read this whole think i just worte in one go and hopefully that helps you, i mean everything to be constructive feedback, please take no offense, english is not my primary language too.

Boss in the crucible: The boss in the crucible became a sponge, bosses should have longer stun periods and/or mechanics that lead to a window of time where you can deal tons of damage and then start to read mechanics again, legendaries are really bad.

Game focus: You should focus on single player and story first because that is top class, meanwhile change the combat/ effects/ stats design Increase the high risk high reward mechanics and make everythink work based on damage dealt and taken, just quit that % and hit thing that is bugging averythink out.

General combat design: Imho the design of effects and stats based on number of hits and % is killing the combat experience. Atm we just need a couple of effects and can spam skills doing tons of damage perma stunning everything while healing. Ranged felt super cheap and easy with the locking on enemies from so far away and ability spam.

Skills Design: Add skills that are more than a spin or jump and hit, give them a cooldown other than a focus requirement/consumption and balance the game based on that (just look at mmos or mobas and take inspiration from there, can have shields, fear, silences, grabs, disarms, sleep, polymorphs, reflection of projectiles, energy beams, turrets, magic orbs, healing auras, elemental forms like fire that make you intangible and can walk through enemies setting them on fire, or water to wet them and then combo with electricity, shadow to posses enemies at execution trashold to walk them in a group and make everythink explode, ice to create a slow aura or barriers in form of 1 hittable walls, stone skin, stealth, dashes that displace enemies and stun on wall collision, marking enemies to teleport on them, tricks to lure enemies in a different direction with thinks like summoning illusions, trowing items on the ground… taunts and so on).

Weapons stats requirement: The stats requirement to use a weapon is old news tbh, all weapons should be used in their normal state and we should have increasing benefits for having a higher amount of the correct stats and not be punished for not having a base requirement (benefits like, cooldown and focus cost reductio, higher damage, higher effect duration, movement speed for 2 sec after using a skill, damage absorption after using a skill, guaranteed crit after using 2 skills etc etc and maybe a special skin/icon image and weapon visual effect for maxing out the correct stats).

Healing and resources management: Insert a flask system and make the current recipes become a power up to flasks, early game is stressfull to go around gathering herbs just to heal a bit while knowing nothink: resources position, game mechanics etc… is just a burden too heavy to carry. Also reduce the amount of different resources gatherable or make all recipes use all tier of materials or even better make recipes upgradable and craft them using all tiers of materials in different amounts or we will have tons of useless materials and recipes after a week of playtime: assign every material a value of contribution to a recipe, for example T1 mats contribute 1 point so you need 1xT1 mat to complete a 1xT1 recipe, when you upgrade to a T2 recipe you then use 2xT1 mats to craft 1xT2 recipe or 1xT2 mat, this way you thin out the menues and ease players life, oc T3 and T4 will need multiple of 4-6-8 times the T1 mats but this way all the zones resources stay valuable, you just balance that how u want.

Buffs: You should split bufs and hp recover items and make buffs not share cooldown with eachother, makes no sense to wait 4 min to start a fight with buffs, make buffs time duration of the same type and tier stack, example a +10 strenght that lasts 10 minutes should be stackable to 20-30-40 minutes…

Character investment: To invest in a character and “make every choice matter” is old news too, new players dont know what they are doing, casuals will never know, metaplayers will copypaste the unbalanced build of the week. So design based on that, we play mobas, mmos, class shooters, fighting game where you can switch and play all type of characters, builds and tactics every 20 minutes, you need to understand that, you need a dynamic and modern game or people will end up with tons of weapons and armors in their chests having nothing to try and have fun with for days just because they need a + 5 int to use a shield but they dont want to commit points because dont know the game, people will get bored and quit.

Conclusion: Point is that you need to keep the depth but refine the complexity, so players can experiment, adapt their playstyle to the situation and benefit from everything you crafted.

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TY for the tips, i made the post better with your input. :sweat_smile: i will come see what people say in the forum from time to time. I felt the duty to give my opinion to make the game better, i think all modern devs need to be more inclusive of all the steps foreward gaming has made, despite genre or playerbase.

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NONE of these are QOL :face_with_raised_eyebrow:. Also everything you list as “old news” is in fact not old news, like at all. I appreciate the sentiment and even agree with some points but huuuuuh, weird basis. It’s like listing coca-cola as old news.

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We have a different idea of qol them. To me having a gather and crafting system that makes everythink usefull from early to end game is a qol. Having 10 recipes that you lvl from start to end game instead of having a menu with 50 recipes to navigate is a qol. Being able to use weapons and gear in a standard form to decide if you keep it or not wo being forced to hold 50 chests in the house is a qol.

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The first one is 50/50 quality of life and a major game design decision, the last one is DEFINITELY a major game design change. Because you’re not just saying make all weapons tryable like we have now, you want everything single weapon to be viable regardless of stat composition with no investment, that isn’t QOL. That is a major act of rebalancing you have to do and a fundamentally different approach to the RPG mechanics we have which push towards a soft-class system.

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This isn’t me venting, this is me just pointing stuff out, I also came in expecting QOL things I could agree with(cuz I agree with almost all of them there’s a lot of communication & UI that needs to be improved) but everything I see is mechanically related. I just think the post should retitled. If you think this is me tearing stuff down I’ve got a lot of words on just one paragraph in particular I could raze. Also what does “new to all of this” mean, genuinely asking. Are you saying they’re new to gaming, forums, discussion? Cuz I can’t gleam any of that from what they wrote.

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If you just want me to be nice, I do agree on the recipe thing being a thing you just upgrade. 4 of the starting herbs to make one T3 dish, then 8 for a T3 is a good idea, I don’t agree with homogenizing every recipe and reducing it though because the game kinda doesn’t allow that. The recipes aren’t nearly as plentiful as they seem to be implying, it’s just 4 recipes per tier(health buff, stam buff, focus buff, and a standard one basically) and meat/fish are split up amongst that currently. We have some meat & some seafood put in there is the main problem, so unless you categorize meat & seafood the same it can’t quite work yet.

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uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh bro it sounds like you are having a way worse day than I am if my first initial post freaked you out that much; you’re also implying like I know the guy. I ain’t saying sorry for any of my first one, almost none of it was QOL(telling the devs what to focus on & how to balance EK isn’t QOL by any metric) & they have no basis for any of what they said afterwards other than “old news”. Which is a really funny thing to say about a genre dominated by Diablo-likes(which lock weapons to classes) & soulslikes(which lock weapons to stats). I see something weird I point it out.

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If anything I respond too much, I’m still responding to this thread perfectly appropriately I feel considering your outburst, and I discuss a LOT in here. I mean you think I’m mean sure whatever you’re allowed to think that, but if the person makes a completely false claim, how do I rebute that without sounding mean or arrogant huh?

If a person goes “you shouldn’t lock weapons via stats anymore obviously it’s an old thing that no one does” when literally the most critically acclaimed Developer of the last decade released the most critically acclaimed game of the last decade that spawned an entire freaking subgenre, how the heck do I tell them they’re wrong and sound nice? I’m not looking to criticize the OP for the sake of criticism, I needed them to defend themselves because the foundation was just … wrong. Like they cited fighting games as an example of flexibility… FGC characters are essentially classes lol

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I mean you say that, but it doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m not obligated to be a teacher, don’t make false claims, don’t let it get started in the first place.

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I mean it depends? In this case, no, I’m not convincing anyone, I need the OP to convince me that they’re right about the design choices they want to change. That’s my problem here, they’re making a claim, I made a counter, they have to refute my counter.

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Biggest thing I agree with is the Skill Design part of the post.

I have argued many times in the past that Wicked should draw inspiration from Moba’s and MMORPG’s in regards to combat, runes/moves and PvP. It would help making runes more mechanically distinct from each other if we have shields, grabs etc. Rather than just raw damage.

The cooldown element, which a lot of people dislike, but I love, would make combat feel more fluid for me. With focus being a shared resource you will always decide between using runes rather than using them in addition to other runes. Cooldowns create this, MOBA’s and MMORPG’s have such fluid combat and combo’s innate to them. With the rune system we could create our own combo’s free from the limitations of focus. I still think V-Rising is the closest comparison to Wicked in terms of combat. And, I prefer V-Rising’s combat.

Sorry if this was a bit of a rant, but, I have a very strong opinion about this :sweat_smile:

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Yes i agree, the gameplay atm is focused on spamming the most broken skills, every survival and tactical element is gone at “endgame”

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The post is named “Qol design tips” there is qol and design tips, and for me some of them overlaps because the implication they have on the player items management and mental stress… Do i need to put a “,” or “and” or change the title in a way you can suggest me ? So you dont feel scammed reading someone opinion just because you expect just QOL ? There u go i changed Titol To QOL, combat design, and general feedback.

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One thing with basing runes or the game in general off MOBAs & MMO adjacent systems is they all follow a power fantasy perspective and the skills work in place of needing to dodge or shield with consequence. If I dodge here it’s because we deemed it necessary to avoid damage & I lose stamina. If you get a rune that just freezes the enemy… I mean how’s that not exploitative, who wouldn’t use that cooldowns be damned?

There’s a lot of MMO bosses too which are just cycling skills offensive skills 1-5, then using defensive skill 6 every 30 seconds, and you just follow this pattern until the boss dies. I don’t think cooldowns inherently fix this. I did make a post in the past(or maybe just a reply IDR) about how we need to make rune inputs more dynamic: let them charge, make it timed attacks, input-dependent, let you lob say 3 bombs in areas you choose, etc. The Radahn spell in ER summons 3 giant space balls above you, if you could do that and choose when to shoot out each for example it would add tons of Rune variety.

I don’t think overhauling the rune input system though directly correlates to taking skills from MMO-adjacent combat. Being able to shutdown a bosses’s moveset for example shouldn’t be a thing(I’m actually against staggers for this very reason in all soulslikes)

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I think you only see that in the currently niche EA sphere. I honestly think if you did a poll or the developers had some internal tool, most people aren’t doing focus spams yet of the extremely broken runes like lightning flurry. Most people just use whatever they’ve got on hand because you gotta remember, all these broken builds are mostly from people who farmed EK for 50+ hours which gets them the Crucible-exclusive runes.

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The main focal points for me from MOBA’s and MMORPG’s are the mechanical distinctions between abilities and synergies to create combo’s. Which I think Wicked lacks currently.

Think of any melee character in any Moba, they have various sequences to their abilities. Maybe they always start with Q, E, W or they weave auto attacks in between them. In Wicked we mostly go AA, AA, AA, Rune and repeat. I don’t think we have enough incentive to weave runes together. I would love it if we had a big leap ability that stuns/slow enemies on impact so I can then whirlwind on top of them without having to run to the enemy only for them to dash away. Just a simple 1 → 2 is enough for me. I just want more mechanical distinctions between runes and not just raw damage.

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I agree but I just think pedantic as it is grabbing straight from MMOs/MOBA-adjacents you gotta be careful because those games create situations with clear counters in terms of mechanics. Like there are attacks or moves that are unevadable and the way you’re supposed to beat the enemy is use something that can break you out of it, it is basically not optional. Which works for something like VRising, if you get caught in a net THAT is something which would guarantee a death in any soulslike, but in MMOs/VRising you just activate a spell that lets you phase through stuff.

We can’t have that in this game is what I mean. You can have a gimmick boss maybe who sets the arena on fire and you’re expected to outheal it or up your fire resistance, but you can’t make the moment-to-moment gameplay consist of mechanics that can’t be beaten by skill in these types of games. You can’t make a boss that can only be countered by blitzing it or having this singular class of runes. But at the same time regardless of if you have a boss which requires the rune, the rune is now severely overpowered for the average enemy. AOE silences for example if you’re crowded by mages, it doesn’t matter if the cooldown is 30 seconds(absurdly long btw) and the effect only lasts 5 seconds, that’s 5 seconds for you to just annihilate them, then back off for 30 seconds if there’s any survivors

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I just know that since i found the ice throw the game went from hard and challanging to easy mode, then i found the focus ring, the health and focus on hit and it became omega easy mode. All the tactical and survival aspect of the game went out of the window and so my desire to play. I now have 99h on the game but half of that time was just exploring, doing useless daily missions , learning the map, trying stuff on multiple world instances that gave me zero progress. I think that the focus should be on the endgame not reaching it. For runes, i just saw a archer build of a average player spamming 1 ranged rune and some basic attacks 20m away from the crucible boss, dude was randomly clicking 4-5 dodges one after the other every time he could get hit and was still able to kill the boss abusing range and infinite heals (this is why we need limited flasks enanced by foods). I dont think this should be endgame. I would prefear people to use actual tactical runes even if broken but that add to strategy and gameplay depth. If you have a rune that makes u water form and intangible for 3 sec on 60 sec cooldown that would make you use that skill defensively to avoid some lethal damage or to reposition ,or offensively to combo into lighting to stun the enemy. You could have a rune that doubles the parry time window of the next 1-3 parry attempts (goes on cd after the last attempt) and on each parry summons a zombie that explodes charging the enemy or gives you a aura effect of whatever, or transforms your weapon in a divine artifact for x seconds and soo on… if they want to make broken stuff to make you op in endgame it has to feel tactical or have a mechanic… not just spam shoot 8 arrowns from 20 m or throw a 2h weapon and kill everythink while its stunned and gives you back all the focus if not more. Even the silence you talked about, yes, for example would be better to have a skill that lets you manually aim and pull enemies on you one by one, then silence them with another skill and then f them up while they are unable to use spells for 5 secs, but you set the whole think up and earned the right to destroy them.

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the ranged thing is present in literally any game is the problem. It’s not the build that’s the issue, it’s that since gaming has existed devs never program AI to deal with ranged-only players. Cheese archer/mage/necro builds that stay far away and don’t do anything have always existed & will continue to exist until bosses have a programmed function to close the gap & pressure the player. The other option though to prevent cheese builds is to make them so unequivocally boring that anyone who does it is essentially punishing themselves. This is a valid game design strategy.

Your water form thing is just too strong & too weak at the same time and contextually not too dissimilar from our blink rune thing. You stick a long cooldown on it, no one’s gonna use it, don’t have a cooldown, spam. You’re not gonna end up with this balanced offense/defense strategic thing in the game you hope for, players will just naturally gravitate to damage dealing runes that’s how gamer brains just work. Focus in a hard battle is a valuable resource and people won’t want to waste it on a simple one-off evasion when they could die any moment. And consider if you could just be intangible through the waterfowl dance … yeah no. Unless you’re telling me with that ratio you want to give damage runes a 120 second cooldown to balance it which GL with that.

Runes are broken but for a multitude of reasons, even if you stick a cooldown consider the fact we have three mainhand weapons which gives us at minimum 6 runes to rotate through & at max 12 runes. Include offhand like bows and suddenly you have 24 runes to balance. Cooldown doesn’t fix this. Unironically the biggest problem right now is that runes give back focus, could you imagine if weapon arts in souls gave back FP jajajajaja.

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