WOLCEN : Lords of Mayhem (Indie ARPG)

[Beazy]

It's a good game. The Alpha/Beta weren't enough of gear indication, but it's more D2 than D3 or POE. The gem system is interesting.

Its only 40 bucks. Im seriously thinking about it. If you look at the bad reviews on steam, every single one is regarding release day woes.

Ill prob pick it up tonight. I need a break from PoE.

[Onikaroshi]

Its only 40 bucks. Im seriously thinking about it. If you look at the bad reviews on steam, every single one is regarding release day woes.

Ill prob pick it up tonight. I need a break from PoE.

I hate people who review based off release day issues.... like every MAJOR studio has release day issues, this is the first game from a studio with like 16 people... give them a second.

[Flurryfang]

I hate people who review based off release day issues.... like every MAJOR studio has release day issues, this is the first game from a studio with like 16 people... give them a second.

When you release, you release. The product is supposed to be ready at that point, so if there is issues, it is fair to bonk them for it.

[Onikaroshi]

When you release, you release. The product is supposed to be ready at that point, so if there is issues, it is fair to bonk them for it.

The majority of issues are server related, they weren't expecting so many people to be playing.

And if every game was reviewed off a launch day... oh boy there would never be a positively reviewed game. I can't think of a launch game that had online that didn't have launch day issues, from indie to AAA.

Even the best wow launch ever (legion) wasn't perfect.

[BeepBoo]

When you release, you release. The product is supposed to be ready at that point, so if there is issues, it is fair to bonk them for it.

Exactly. Just because the industry has lost touch with what "release" means doesn't mean consumers should be accepting.

On point: I talked a lot with a friend who has played the beta the whole time and now has the release. The cards Wolcen Studio was holding close to their chest have apparently paid off in spades.

I'm eager to try it out, because currently POE is my iso-RPG experience, and it's left me wanting. Victor Vran was my favorite most recent incarnation, but I beat that game and wanted something new. Grim dawn did nothing for me, and suffers from a lot of the problems I have with POE: Spam 1 attack to win. You either 1 shot enemies or get 1 shot by something that you can't see because the entire screen is so full of shit it's impossible to read. Case-in-point: yesterday in POE I was murderballing a metamorph, the morph dropped it's black crap all over the ground, I ignore it per usual, then I died out of nowhere. Not to a slam, not to anything I could see. I went back and died two more times, and the 2nd time I died I noticed a debuff that appeared for the 1 second it took me to die. Apparently there was fire UNDERNEATH the black goop crap that wasn't showing amidst the tons of other shit going on as well*

The big bosses in PoE are how I want combat to always work. They're methodical, take time, have well-telegraphed mechanics, often times won't just 1-shot you so you have time to figure out wtf is going on and react without having to actually KNOW what is going on, etc.

If Wolcen can deliver a more dark-soulsy combat experience than the feast or famine PoE combat, I'll be happy.

*I'm well aware of the entirety of the game. I'm level 72 with 2300 hp, 1k armor, 1k evasion, capped resistances, etc. The game still decides to murder you randomly in under a second regardless of what you do, short of stacking a dick ton of shield and even MORE HP, going full tank. Not interested in that.

[froschhure]

alltho, i will not buy this game. not that i don't like it or want to support it, but i don't buy unfinished things. And as above stated, with a bit work and less money one can get much more.

[Crissi]

Level 10 and Im having fun, even if I have no idea what Im doing build wise. Its at least not PoE levels of complex.

building around my fireball, which I suppose should be elemental / spell damage as well as ferocity for spell crit and wisdom for the burning damage after?

[Onikaroshi]

Level 10 and Im having fun, even if I have no idea what Im doing build wise. Its at least not PoE levels of complex.

building around my fireball, which I suppose should be elemental / spell damage as well as ferocity for spell crit and wisdom for the burning damage after?

Sounds good, but don't forget defense points, you'll hate yourself if you don't put anything into your defenses.

[Flurryfang]

The majority of issues are server related, they weren't expecting so many people to be playing.

And if every game was reviewed off a launch day... oh boy there would never be a positively reviewed game. I can't think of a launch game that had online that didn't have launch day issues, from indie to AAA.

Even the best wow launch ever (legion) wasn't perfect.

Every game is pretty much reviewed on launch day..... and most games do pretty well despite of it. Its not normal to have a shitty launch, servers might lack, but are fixed very quickly. WoW expansions also gets taken down a notch if they have bad launches. The reason why people already disliked WoD from the start, was because of the bad bugs/problems with the garrison

When a game is launched, it is in the players hands and deserves to be reviewed on what you meet when you open up the game. Even games in early acccess deserves to be valued on what they are, not what they can be.

[Nixl]

Ended up buying it. Played for 3 hours so far.

- EU servers are a mess so have to play with US ping.
- Crashes (most games do these days)
- Ping + general clunky feel while playing.
- Visual bugs and some telegraphs just genuinely not showing.


Trying to get a refund for now. I think it needs a bit more polish.

[Onikaroshi]

Every game is pretty much reviewed on launch day..... and most games do pretty well despite of it.

Because most of the the launch issues like server crap is pushed aside and reviewed in spite of it.

Giving a flat out negative review (though steams review system is horrible, it's only a positive or negative, nothing inbetween) because a company that was used to having less than 2k active players (1934 peak prior to launch) suddenly has 62k players and needs to scramble more servers (which they have, and have come out and apologized for) is not a reason to leave a negative review.

"1 day after launch and it's not playable. Wolcen Studio ♥♥♥♥ed up this launch soooo freaking bad....Diablo 3 Dev team are standing and clapping. Good job folks.

Can't recommend unplayable game. Sorry"

like seriously? Lol D3 was unplayable for more than a day and didn't even have an offline mode that you could play in the meantime.

[Crissi]

Sounds good, but don't forget defense points, you'll hate yourself if you don't put anything into your defenses.

yeah, I played enough PoE that I know that should be a main focus so I'm looking at the nodes I should be picking up. Prob resists over focus shields initially.

[Mamut]

Im not sure if I should buy this game or not. I love ARPG genre and Im abit burned out with PoE but I bought way too many games that I played maybe 3 hours and never touched again. And Wolcen is quite expensive in my country due high $ exchange rate.

I played it few months ago and I quite liked it but something was off for me and Im not even sure what. Maybe clunky combat or overall feeling, hard to say.

Does Wolcen got better in the last months? How you guys feel about the game? And I dont care about launch problems, Im asking how fun is gameplay, itemization, combat, endgame mechanics etc.

[XDurionX]

Tried to like this, but its flaws are too massive. Combat is clunky, enemies rubberbanding all over the place, input not always registered.

Think i'll try to get a refund. Disappointed. Made me appreciate Diablo 3 even more.

[kail]

How deep is the gearing system in this game.

Im looking for > Diablo 3, but < PoE. Im looking for a middle ground ARPG.

So far it fits right in the middle just by looking at the stat mechanics. All stats have a use, even stacking toughness adds to your damage and there are multiple defense layers available. In terms of what's worthless or broken, hard to tell but it's at least not as simplified as the crit stacking D3. I have yet to see set gear but unique legendaries exist and look build defining levels of neat.

- - - Updated - - -

Im not sure if I should buy this game or not. I love ARPG genre and Im abit burned out with PoE but I bought way too many games that I played maybe 3 hours and never touched again. And Wolcen is quite expensive in my country due high $ exchange rate.

I played it few months ago and I quite liked it but something was off for me and Im not even sure what. Maybe clunky combat or overall feeling, hard to say.

Does Wolcen got better in the last months? How you guys feel about the game? And I dont care about launch problems, Im asking how fun is gameplay, itemization, combat, endgame mechanics etc.

If money is a concern, my advice is to wait. The tech end is still messy atm but the game so far is an amazing base for an ARPG. It has depth in terms of building a character.

- - - Updated - - -

When you release, you release. The product is supposed to be ready at that point, so if there is issues, it is fair to bonk them for it.

Classic WoW was a massive mess as well, something a AAA company had time and resources to prep. Wolven devs are few and apparently the game peaked above 60k. This is a kids lemonade stand that suddenly attracted the entire neighborhood so I won't fault them for launch day stability.

[Orby]

Watched itmeJP play it on twitch in which I am glad I did because I saved myself some money, might get it when it goes down in price, I am not sure its worth the full price right now.

The game looks lovely and it has some nice customisation, there is a lot of familiarity with PoE and Diablo 3, from the UI to the boss battles. some of thos boss battles are ripped straight out of Diablo 3 its not even subtle lol. The end boss looks like the Zoltun Kulle fight but with more phases . :P

The game looks lovely regardless. but as I said I think i'll wait until it goes down in price It's still worth playing just not yet. Also its buggy as all hell right now

Its been received very positively on steam though so don't take my opinion, the general consensus is people like it.

[beanman12345]

I bought it early access in beta, for like 20 bucks, I enjoyed my time and was money well spent for that. IDK if I'd pay 40$ for the current product, probably would wait a week or two for bug fixes and server issues to stabilize and such, or just wait for a price drop. It is a good game though so I do recommend it overall.

[Majestic12]

Wolcen isn't doing too well. There are so many bugs in the game and the service itself is almost broken. EU server didn't work so I played on Asia with 200+ ping. Abilities randomly didn't work, and those good damn bats in the first cave were unkillable with a bow. I could shoot right at them and they'd not get hit. Meanwhile they'd chase me around the cave and I could do nothing about it.

The Act 1 end boss is seriously overtuned. With the ping, he was unbeatable. His damage would hit way before his animations and he was porting around. Ended my HC-challenge there.

Now I'm back where I was with a new toon. On top of all this, I just lost my stash and the servers are now down for maintenance to try to fix things.

I can live with instability, but there are so many issues with the game even on offline play that I'd seriously discourage people from buying the game. It's not worth it. It was not ready for release and that's just the truth.

[Sarethion]

Looking at dev responses, I get the impression that they're in a bit of a "panic mode" right now - and honestly, I feel really bad for them, because the game got a lot of buzz before release and if it launched in a better state then I feel it could have been a huge success. It probably wouldn't have surpassed PoE or D3, but I could totally see Wolcen become like the 3rd biggest aRPG out there, but now... We're more than 24 hours after launch and the game is still in a rough condition, which will undoubtedly turn a lot of people off. And that's a damn shame, because at its core - Wolcen is a good game with a lot of potential.

I have no doubts that over time the devs will fix all of the issues, but... you can only make first impression once - and at this point it's clear that the game wasn't ready to be released. And I'm not even talking about server problems, because that I can understand - devs got caught with their pants down by the popularity of their game and so the servers caught fire, it happens. I'm talking about other issues from huge ones like the game sometimes not feeling too responsive, progression not being saved, monsters not being able to be targeted or items being deleted to smaller ones like spelling/grammar mistakes, written dialogues not matching voice-acting, lack of/poor quality tooltips, inventory screen now showing item frames until you click inside it, some animations missing/looking funky, etc.

And I feel like most of these issues could have been avoided if the devs took 1-2 more months to polish up the game. As for me, I bought the game for like 17E (in my local currency) during Christmas sale, so I can't complain - I got enough value for my money, but... If I bought it after release for like 40E then I probably would be disappointed.

The conclusion here is - Wolcen is a good game, but if you want an aRPG that you can play right now... it's just not it, so if you're not desperate then I'd say it's best to wait a few weeks and maybe give the game a try then. Or straight up wait for a Steam sale.

[Super Kami Dende]

When you release, you release. The product is supposed to be ready at that point, so if there is issues, it is fair to bonk them for it.

Literally every product on earth has issues with first releases. Only idiots think otherwise.