I love Wicked, it has quickly become one of my favorite games of all time.
I want this game to success and I fully support it becoming more accessible for a larger audience.
However, I’m not sure if Realm-Tier is the right answer.
Realm-Tier:
Why Elden Ring game design worked:
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Since Wicked devs looked at Elden Ring for inspiration, lets talk about Elden Ring. I believe their success was largely thanks to having no difficulty options, everyone plays the same game on the same difficulty. Unskilled players can make the game easier by grinding, but they will then come back and beat the same boss that skillful players beat.
Even though different approaches will results in different level of difficulty, the key is that the content itself did not change, whether players chose the easier or harder approach, we all beat the same content.
Thats why it felt satisfying even for casual, less-skilled players.
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Realm-Tiers on the other hand, is a literal difficulty option, an easy mode, beating contents on easy does not feel good. It will simply divide the community.
Technically it does achieve the same thing as Elden Ring did, but much less subtle. Elden Ring was very sneaky with their game design, they gave unskilled players the illusion of achieving the same feat as skillful players. The game became easier, but the satisfaction stayed the same.
Loot & Farming issue:
- In a loot-based arpg, players will want to maximize their farming efficiency. Wouldn’t everyone just use the lowest Realm-Tier to quickly farm items?
You can solve that issue by reducing drop rate of low tiers, and make them so easy that loot isn’t needed to win, but isn’t that the same as removing the enjoyment of a loot-based game completely from low-tiers?
Nothing is perfect:
- Despite all that I said above, EldenRing game design isn’t necessarily the best thing for Wicked, and Realm-Tier may not necessarily be a bad option. There’s up & down sides to every game designs.
One problem I can see with EldenRing approach, is that, gamers are known to optimize the fun out of their game. Players who enjoy difficult challenges also like to min-max their power. If there’s only 1 difficulty, but with the option to over-level, they will grind, destroy their own fun and then complain that the game is boring.
I’m one of those players. Despite enjoying difficult games, if you give me power then I feel silly to not take it. I like challenges but I also like power progression.
Custom Realm
I really like the idea, players can customize gameplay features & mechanics to whats the most fun for them. I think there’s a lot of potential to this.
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For example, Thomas mentioned building bases & defending against invasion, which reminded me of Palworld, that gameplay loop worked really well.
And there’s an interesting potential with this idea.
Usually for Farming games, you are alone and farm just for the sake of farming. Adding a co-op element where your farm can actually be helpful to the warriors that go out to fight can make the farming much more meaningful.
It could end up being a game where the different types of gamers come together in unison. The cozy gamers collaborating with the hardcore action gamers, thats quite a sight.
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However, I think that’d be very difficult to achieve, near impossible even.
Typically action gamers stay away from farm games, and farming gamers stay away from action games. Even if Wicked has the perfect system for both of them, its still incredibly difficult to convince them to try. Someone who enjoy cozy games wouldn’t touch arpg even if you tell them there’s a great farming system in there.
End notes
Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts after hearing about these possible future features. I don’t know whats the best answer, but Wicked has an great dev team and I trust that they’ll bring in something amazing. I’m excited for the future of this game.
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we had a quite productive thread about realm modifiers, but it seems gone now. the basic idea was that users would select a realm type when creating a new realm, something like farming, hardcore, story/adventure mode etc. I wanted to link it here, but since its gone i sadly can’t 
If realm tiers is code for difficulty modes, I really wish they wouldn’t- unless our current difficulty is the lowest tier.
When a souls like has an easy mode, you have lost the plot.
The understanding of Elden Ring was spot on, but the part I think they are missing is that at some point everyone has to face Margit. You can’t change the difficulty and force him to fight with a pool noodle.
why create a new topic? you can answer in the thread you want to discuss 
and as i understood the core idea, its not a difficulty slider. its more of a convenience for different types of players. some love farming resources others don’t, some want to experience the story, others want hard souls like combat. i think it would suit all players.
and i really can not understand the souls communities take on “if there is an option to make something easier the game sucks”. i am a souls veteran myself, with over 2000h in Dark souls 3 for example, but i think this (no offense) elitist view keeps a LOT of players away from those amazing games.
accessibility and catering to different player types is NOT missing the point. its making it fun for everyone.
you do not have to chose story mode or open a farming realm. u can just create a standard or hardcore one.
There is a shared sense of accomplishment When players beat a boss. The reason anyone knows Margit’s name, is because We had to respect him in order to beat him. No one discusses how they beat Thor in God of war Ragnarok, because there is a setting that lets anybody accomplish it for free.
Also, It’s not an elitist view, It’s a definitional one.
Souls like is defined by most as challenging, but fair, skill/knowledge based gameplay. If I say FPS game, it’s explaining to an audience, what they can expect. Anyone still playing this game in EA, probably enjoy the souls like elements even if they deny it.
Disregard your established audience’s expectations at your own peril.
I say all this because like the game, and I want it to succeed.
i disagree, i had very lengthy discussions about the Valkyries in GoW. and difficulty is highly subjective. while souls-like players might feel accomplishment after beating malenia after 2 days and 40 tries, a lot of players might just drop the game because their frustration threshold is completely different.
Plus, we have some people with disabilities in the community who requested accessibility options, because they would love to play the game, but simply can’t in the current state. those are all factors that should be taken into consideration.
Ok, well are we going to make sure players without hands can play the game? What about blind people? Seems pretty unfair that you wouldn’t cater to them. Disability features are whatever, but adding an easy mode is an insult to the disabled if that’s who it’s for.
I’m not asking for the game to be harder, and the devs can do whatever they think is best. But I made this account because I love this game and I like a lot of the decisions they’ve made for it. But If the steam reviews are what they’re worried about, it will get worse if they degrade elements that the core audience bought into the game for, in order to appease people that might never play it anyway. It’s just my opinion, but I’ve never heard of a successful souls like that had an easy mode.
i am not talking about an easy mode here. were are discussing customizable realms, that make it more convenient to farm resources or cater to people who want to experience the story seamlessly without being stuck on the first boss for 100 tries (which has been reported, i know it seems weird, but it is what it is).
what i meant with that example was that we should at least talk about how we can make the game more accessible for everyone, not only the souls community.
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I was discussing realm tiers, not customs.. Tiers’ sounds like easy, normal, and hard. Which is why I brought up that if the lowest one is the one we have, no complaints. You could get more enemies or new game+ on tiers.
I actually have no problem with custom realms being where the easy features are implemented. Perfectly reasonable compromise.
thats what i meant, and i agree. this is in my personal opinion a valid option to address several issues users have. of course there would need to be rules, like gear u got in “story mode” can not be taken over to the standard realms or into pvp. everything multiplayer related should stay in the normal or hardcore realms.
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If Realm-Tier isn’t a difficulty slider, but rather a “game-mode”.
I think that could work, yea.
Wicked has a good story, beautiful world, cool animation. Even if the combat is easy there’s still a lot to enjoy for non-combat players.
For them, a “story-mode” where itemization is severely limited would be a good option . The combat would be easy, but there wouldn’t be any unique/interesting loot, no embers to reroll, no exalt. There’s no need for deep build customization if they’re only playing for the story. And the original-mode would still be a great option for people who focus on gameplay, builds & loots.
But also, I agree about the shared sense of accomplishment.
Its what I like about EldenRing’s approach, as explained in my opening post. It is a real strength of that type of game design.
Would a middle ground work for this? What if there’s a post-game that only the original-mode has.
The story mode ends on the final chapter of the story, but the original-mode has an endgame extend beyond that. For example, Crucible & Echo Knight only exist in the original mode. If you beat Echo Knight then you beat Echo Knight, there’s no easy or hard version.
Now, when it comes to farm-support realm
Not sure how I feel about it. Don’t we already have that system? I made 3 extra realms to farm things faster.
If the devs want the world to feel immersive & lived in I don’t think its good to separate realms into “progression-realm” and “farming-realm”…etc, might as well just implement farmhouses in the original realm, wouldn’t that solve the resource problem?
I honestly don’t like the whole “creating new realm to farm” meta. Its a problem caused by the respawn timer, I think they should do something about that instead of forcing players to make new realms.