WOLCEN : Lords of Mayhem (Indie ARPG)

[Onikaroshi]

I hope they don't have the same issue PoE has where if you don't have some stuff invested in defense, you're a paper doll who will get 1 shot constantly. They should know how gamers work (in that most players want to just build straight damage for them big numbers) and design it so, at baseline, you can simultaneously do damage and take damage, and the points themselves are just specialization on top of the competency you innately have.

Think of wow. How many DPS actually have to spec defensives, or use defensive items to have baseline survivability? None. They removed the "choice" for you to be a complete bonehead and just gave all you needed on the gear without asking you if you wanted it or not.

It's a lot more about dodging, but if you get hit, you die.

You can play glass cannon just fine, but if you fuck up you're going to be eating floor.

[EbonBehelit-]

I don't mean which skills you use and the variation thereof, but how they interact with the mobs and how impactful they feel. Which is kinda underwhelming in PoE, whereas in D3 when you hit that first mob with your basic attack you can really feel the impact of your blow, like the character is actually hitting something and not just pixels on a screen. I can't speak about PoE and how it feels in endgame because I never got to that part since I can't get past level 30-40 before I get bored with it. I'll give it another go when 2.0 drops cause maybe they improve that aspect.

I've spent many hundreds of hours in both games, and I personally find it to be the other way round: PoE's combat, while clunky, has far superior skill impact, enemy feedback and sound design. Just compare D3's whirlwind to PoE's cyclone -- it's night and day.

[BeepBoo]

It's a lot more about dodging, but if you get hit, you die.

You can play glass cannon just fine, but if you fuck up you're going to be eating floor.

Ah, that's fine. So long as there aren't a slew of random "WTF just killed me" moments, which POE is riddled with. If it's like dark souls where I can see what's going to happen and react, I'm good with that.

POE's problem is that shit goes for faceroll to oneshot and you can't even tell because the screen is just flat covered in shit 100% of the time and animations are basically impossible to see on anything other than big boss battles.

[StillMcfuu]

IDK man, poe2's animation look smooth AF to me



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Sums up the game right there lol, couldn't agree more.

Fuck you click issue, i just want my gear

Poe reminds me more of a tower defense game where you are a mobile tower. It never really felt like an RPG or I was playing a character that's hitting other characters.

[Onikaroshi]

Poe reminds me more of a tower defense game where you are a mobile tower. It never really felt like an RPG or I was playing a character that's hitting other characters.

I just can't agree, I love poe combat, the animations are still a bit stiff though which PoE2 fixes.

[FlubberPuddy]

Tanky builds are definitely viable, but they kick in later on when you start to get all the "convert block/toughness/etc" into damage. I plan to do a support tank for online, since you can put out decent damage but also debuffs on mobs that everyone want.

EDIT: the xmog system omg. Coupled with the nice models, it's insanely cool.

Oh yeah I can definitely see that with certain skills from praetorian and siegebreaker. I love that. Game gives a decent amount of different kinds of options.

Although I'll have to say that the magic/blue or melee/red trees seem to be far more interesting than the agility/green trees. I'm still having trouble thinking of a cool build idea for an assassin or ranger skills based character. But it could be because I also rarely happen to find dodge gear (most I've found are dodge% which don't help a lot). But also the ranger skills I've seen haven't looked that interesting (and no I don't wanna use a railgun!) while on dagger/assassin side there are some decent ones.

I may have to give that a go next.

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While technically the game is playable, i’m hard pressed to see how that’s a valid argument to push for.

Because having like almost 80k players concurrently means online woe issues are being blown out of porportion. Especially with a game from an indie studio.

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/

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On my online char (that I only got to lvl 9) I was splitting points between ferocity and toughness cause I was worried bout tankiness. On my offline char I figured I'd just dump ferocity until my health started to be a problem and thus far my health is keeping up fine (9.3k at lvl 39) just from passive talents I got along the way to damage ones and gear. I've made barely any effort to build tanky and the game hasn't really given me a reason to.

Would definitely recommend building "glass cannon", though you may not end up very glassy either.

I think I may try that! And yeah I believe at the beginning it kinda I guess looks like the nodes from the trees are huge but I think also getting higher lvl makes gear drops with a lot more stats as well which is probably what helps too.

I think I may try my glass cannon warrior or a glass cannon rogue today.

[agentsi]

I just can't agree, I love poe combat, the animations are still a bit stiff though which PoE2 fixes.

Are you sure PoE2 fixes them? They've been saying for years they would fix melee builds, and every season, melee builds are typically 100% shit unless you farm/craft perfect items. And even those perfect builds, are never as good as other builds. I think they need to tone the game down drastically. It's way too fast, and sometimes you die to things you don't even see. This coming from someone with several 95+s, and 2 of those are hardcore.

[Onikaroshi]

Because having like almost 80k players concurrently means online woe issues are being blown out of porportion. Especially with a game from an indie studio.

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/

It's funny that people say the online issues of the first week (we'll just call it week, it should hopefully be fixed by the time a week rolls around) are going to kill the game, when it seems the game is actually increasing in user base.

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Are you sure PoE2 fixes them? They've been saying for years they would fix melee builds, and every season, melee builds are typically 100% shit unless you farm/craft perfect items. And even those perfect builds, are never as good as other builds. I think they need to tone the game down drastically. It's way too fast, and sometimes you die to things you don't even see. This coming from someone with several 95+s, and 2 of those are hardcore.

Don't know how you see "poe2 fixes the animations" and see anything at all about balance? And no, please don't slow the game down, the game is amazing because of how FAST it is.

If I wanted slow I'd go play Grim Dawn.

(I also played about 3 different melee builds this league and they worked fine, one, cyclone, required specific weapons but the other two, ice crash and molten strike, worked fine with a hodge podge of gear)

[FlubberPuddy]

Ah, that's fine. So long as there aren't a slew of random "WTF just killed me" moments, which POE is riddled with. If it's like dark souls where I can see what's going to happen and react, I'm good with that.

I believe Wolcen has really nice telegraphs! You can see a big enemy either about to rear their weapon back before swinging (or head lol) and there's either red bars/circles or projectiles that can be dodge rolled or your char moved in order to avoid.

The game feels a tad slower than what I've seen from PoE videos kind of like the difference between sekiro and dark souls if that makes sense (Wolcen being dark souls).

Every character having an innate dodge roll means the game expects players to put it to use (unless ofc you somehow build to not need it - still has that sort of power fantasy). But I haven't seen anything that would come to terms of "how can you even prepare for that? It's so bullshit fast/unavoidable/unseeable!"

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It's funny that people say the online issues of the first week (we'll just call it week, it should hopefully be fixed by the time a week rolls around) are going to kill the game, when it seems the game is actually increasing in user base.

There are honestly a lot of whiners going "mah gaming weekend is gone!!!!" when they could literally be playing the game and enjoying it like the other thousands of people right now.

Like what makes more sense in the grand scheme of it all (especially knowing the amount of concurrent players): Spending the entire weekend complaining/raising stress levels/blood pressure or literally playing the game in offline mode ? Seems ridiculous anyone would pick the former. Especially if they're someone with limited gaming time.

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Also looks like servers are going back online now: https://www.reddit.com/r/Wolcen/comm...ck_online_now/

[Mamut]

Servers are up but cant create game atm.

[Baconeggcheese]

I think I may try that! And yeah I believe at the beginning it kinda I guess looks like the nodes from the trees are huge but I think also getting higher lvl makes gear drops with a lot more stats as well which is probably what helps too.

I think I may try my glass cannon warrior or a glass cannon rogue today.

Bit of everything, theyre very generous with % max health nodes, you gain health every time you level, and increasing amounts of flat max health on gear + being able to cheaply roll sockets onto gear that give large amounts of flat health.

[Sarethion]

Anyone knows what the MF issue was?

[Daltin]

Anyone knows what the MF issue was?

It would stack to infinite levels at the end of areas and reach literal points where chests would spew rare and higher loot for minutes.

[Lindon]

Anyone knows what the MF issue was?

When going on expeditions you can enter and leave one of the random extra zones that may pop up. Doing so multiple times will increase the magic find that the zone has.

[Sarethion]

Well, thanks guys

I can confirm that the servers are getting back up - my game logged into the online mode successfully, but I wasn't able to create a game. Going by what they said in their reddit post this might just be a little precaution so that everyone doesn't jump right in again Hopefully they'll have everything running by the end of the day.

[Tang0]

Because having like almost 80k players concurrently means online woe issues are being blown out of porportion. Especially with a game from an indie studio.

Yeah, that's obviously out of proportion. We hereby apologize. After all, it's just a small indie studio, they never saw it coming and they could only do so much with the servers they've built and prepared for launch. Oh, wait...

They could see every single copy of the game being bought and expecting the amount of people playing on release is not that hard when you have access to literally all the data. Oh, and they have no servers of their own, so they could just rent more when they saw the game purchases spike. IF it were the server issues, which it was not. Their code just shit the bed, hence the data loss. Could you stop whiteknigting this?

There are honestly a lot of whiners going "mah gaming weekend is gone!!!!" when they could literally be playing the game and enjoying it like the other thousands of people right now.

Like what makes more sense in the grand scheme of it all (especially knowing the amount of concurrent players): Spending the entire weekend complaining/raising stress levels/blood pressure or literally playing the game in offline mode ? Seems ridiculous anyone would pick the former. Especially if they're someone with limited gaming time.

Playing what game, again? It could be 2 separate games for all the people care. You play your single player arpg. We bought an online arpg. Do you not understand the difference?

You suggest people with limited time spend said limited time putting effort into something that they will never find useful, ergo wasting that limited play time? Great advice.

[Onikaroshi]

Yeah, that's obviously out of proportion. We hereby apologize. After all, it's just a small indie studio, they never saw it coming and they could only do so much with the servers they've built and prepared for launch. Oh, wait...

They could see every single copy of the game being bought and expecting the amount of people playing on release is not that hard when you have access to literally all the data. Oh, and they have no servers of their own, so they could just rent more when they saw the game purchases spike. IF it were the server issues, which it was not. Their code just shit the bed, hence the data loss. Could you stop whiteknigting this?

So they have a crystal ball that showed how many people would buy day one? I want that crystal ball!

They had servers lined up for expectations, they exceeded expectations on day 1 purchases, they worked with their server provider to get more servers, these things take time and issues pop up.

[FlubberPuddy]

I've been able to successfully login and playing my actual build online now. Feels good!

[Tang0]

So they have a crystal ball that showed how many people would buy day one? I want that crystal ball!

They had servers lined up for expectations, they exceeded expectations on day 1 purchases, they worked with their server provider to get more servers, these things take time and issues pop up.

I bet you most sales came not on day 1 but the day before that, when people on the fence learned that the price is gonna go up. If you have been paying any attention to the developer's limited communication, servers were just the peak of the iceberg. The maintenance was to address the data loss, restoration and whatnot.

They publicly stated that their netcode just shit the bed with too many requests to the database. Not really the servers' fault. 100% dev's fault, although, in their defense, they probably would be hard pressed to find the means to do a stress test for such things, like big companies do. Most companies, though, do have a queue system in place, just to avoid that particular issue.

Also, please don't tell me you think renting servers in 2020 "takes time". Modern datacenters run an extremely efficient business with great scaling potential.

[Onikaroshi]

I bet you most sales came not on day 1 but the day before that, when people on the fence learned that the price is gonna go up. If you have been paying any attention to the developer's limited communication, servers were just the peak of the iceberg. The maintenance was to address the data loss, restoration and whatnot.

They publicly stated that their netcode just shit the bed with too many requests to the database. Not really the servers' fault. 100% dev's fault, although, in their defense, they probably would be hard pressed to find the means to do a stress test for such things, like big companies do. Most companies, though, do have a queue system in place, just to avoid that particular issue.

Also, please don't tell me you think renting servers in 2020 "takes time". Modern datacenters run an extremely efficient business with great scaling potential.

For a company, yes it does take time. The launch servers were probably set up at least a month beforehand, so even if sales spiked the day before it would be too late at that point.

They weren't expecting it to be so popular, it shows, they fixed it, servers are back up and working. The fact that they've been working around the clock shows they want this game to succeed and it's not likely to be abandoned. There's AAA launches that have been worse, and those companies should know better.