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Drastic because you didn't mention any starter spells and you put 1 spell every 10 levels...

I didn't mean to fix the spell cost, I meant to fix the lack of purpose a player can have to level always the same 15 spells for months just to see the spell stats change in the hope to get a slight change in their game play when they finally can spend the points they saved in all this time...

You say this is wrong because the players should spend their points in more spells and not to focus only in one or two of them and you are absolutely right but you can't make a good build if you have to use all the spells...


This post has been edited by -Rhal- - June 27, 2011, 17:46:44.

NoNo, i say this is wrong because its unobtainable. Especially unobtainable for everyone, no change to this system or any future system is going to please everyone.. and yet people seem to believe that they should be the ones that should be pleased.

I myself, find very little reason to dispute the current system. I see its flaws just as everyone else does, but i understand that these flaws are necessary when compared to the flaws they prevent later on. I for one prefer less advancement in the earlier levels, where level ups are plentyful then at 100+ level when they are few and far between and there can be a period of weeks between each one.

But it wasn't Dofus, it was Wakfu. So it's all relative, and frankly I'm not exactly enamoured with Dofus' systems anyway. You could probably pin a lot of what's wrong with Wakfu, and some of the more unpopular changes to "making it like Dofus" (and some of those systems aren't in Wakfu any more either)


I think this is currently one of the points in Wakfu's development where you'll find people (me included) lurk/disappoint-quitting (especially with that wipe "sometime"). Maybe they'll come back, but I'm not sure it'll be as part of the current developing Beta, but rather as a fresh start once this has blown over and something enticing introduced. I know I keep popping back in for the new classes.

Well you are right, everyone has his point of view and obviously a solution that pleases everyone does not and will never exist. I just tried to put a new point of view (by one occasional player of a good % of paying people) for a system that CAN be good (I didn't mean it can't) but that needs more attraction...

I'm afraid I can't be more "constructive" but you can't disagree when I say the system is lacking something...

Your right, it is lacking, i mean it does take a long while to gain the skills, and to some this is going to seem like an unacceptable amount of time, for me, it doesnt bother.. purely because im playing for the long haul so at least i know il never get to a point where the invitation to level more to gain a new spell becomes boring.

I personally think they need to buff some spells cause they bonus are to low for the points you need to spend on...

Any way this is just the first release of this new skill they will in the future work it out

Sorry goldfish, i completely missed your post!

Anywho!

I understand what you mean, "its not dofus its wakfu" and i agree, i was happy that this game had a difference in system it added to the "apparent" difference and didnt make it basically dofus 3. Let me make it apparent here i am in no way saying that changes such as this skill update are THE best thing that could happen.

However i am an advocate that this skill system is a solution to a problem, and in that, it has solved the problem it set out to counter, that was , the slowdown of the game post lvl 60/70.

Is there better solutions? Probably.
Would those better solutions work? Probably...Probably not. It would upset someone still.

My point remains this is the devs' choice on how to solve the issues they are faced with, and i feel that currently they are pushing back to more "what they know works" instead of "trying something new" purely because the third time around is hardly the place to stop and say "hey!, lets try this!".

I feel that sadly it will slowly revert to tried and tested systems used in dofus as that is what they know, its what they are comfortable with, its manageable, easy and simple to do.

As i posted above, the simplest solution (not the best, by no means is it the best) is to break the 15 elemental skills down into level locked trees, akin to dofus. That is a possible solution that the devs may turn to if pushed too much by the community to make a change. The development time that has led up to this current skill system is no doubt backed by research, and that research has prompted them to set the skill costs at what they are set at now. If they use the same research for any other changes its only going to get worse.

Its more of a "be happy its not this bad" rather than a "be upset cos we are missing what we had"


As far as rage quitting goes, no offence but beta testers, open or closed, should test what they are given regardless. This is the most common problem in QA teams these days, people join (job wise i mean) thinking its all fun, then realise they have to run into a wall 50 times to work out where a bugs comming from. People simply do not understand the concept of tester VS customer.


This post has been edited by Gobbos - June 27, 2011, 21:14:50.

Part of this is that they've essentially screwed it well before this point, and 3 versions on they've come to the end of the road, and burnt all their bridges... They can't decide "oh wait, 200 levels is a terrible idea" because that is such a huge change, that they'd probably feel the need to start v0.4 (fundamentally it is only a number, but in practise they'd probably have to change the world/monster/skill layout yet again).

The project is basically bankrupt, and they can probably really only rearrange what they have now without pissing off Square-Enix, and whoever sits at the very top of Ankama (because payrolling 4+ yrs of nothing is gonna hurt anyone's bank account).

The influence of Dofus on the development has been very palpable at times. They added soft-caps at one point, the "Temporal Dungeon" idea they floated basically insisted that the two MMOs had to be compatible (which they implemented in a very blunt manner). At other times they seem to want to create as clear a distance as possible so people might actually consider paying for both MMOs simultaneously (having 2 thematically near-identical MMOs is a pretty questionable market strategy in the 1st place)... but often create such a bizarre system that it's just a car-crash to play. Each piece at least wastes some time, or leaves some dumb system loitering in the guts.

It has never come across as a very "strong" project with real design goals. Rather a mish mash of "prototype toys" and "Dofus proved" ideas (much like the dodge/tackle system that Dofus has actually abandoned), and missing features (things like the ability to transfer between your own characters, even if those are clearly popular/or in Dofus).


Well, thankfully this isn't an actual job, with money-exchanged and contractual obligations. But, even if it were a job... I'm going on sabbatical.

Kinda why I said "disappoint-quit" as opposed to rage-quit... at least for me, I know there's a core of the game which will simply be Dofus (The 12+ classes, at least in name/theme. The monsters, the gods, the lands, the equipment, etc). But that's not important if they can really create the split needed, and push the technology and "from scratch" opportunity. But it's like drying mud, there's a layer of fluidity on the top, but every so often another layer solidifies into a rather Dofusy texture, so less and less is "new and fresh" (and even that is questionable after the 3rd reinvent)

Basically the more and more it goes on, the more and more disappointing the development looks, so the less and less I want to play it.

What I'd really like to see from Ankama? A game that has nothing to do with anything they've already done. Not an Iop or an Ecaflip or a Gobball in sight. Not even an MMO (thankfully they've shown they're willing to try and make non-MMOs).


This post has been edited by GoldfishGod - June 27, 2011, 22:46:06.

See id agree with that, similar cell shaded art style on a new world/game concept. Still an MMO but started fresh.

I agree, would be great to see something fresh with the same art style and humor.
But I think Ankama owes a lot to the world of twelve and it put a lot of effort into that. Think about the merchandise, the TV series, Dofus/Arena/Island...

Ankama IS Dofus and I suppose they think the fastest way to make money is to take advantage of it, make known the world-of-twelve not only in Europe but also world-wide...  


This post has been edited by -Rhal- - June 28, 2011, 10:07:19.

Well, keep in mind that most of these other Wakfu products were intended to be spinoffs of the game... it's just that the game has taken so long to be released that the intended spinoff products were instead released long before the game. (Bear in mind that the first open beta for the game was in October 2008, indicating they were originally hoping for an early 2009 release for the game)

As schmendrick said above originally a certain tv series, comic spin off, books ect were all supposed to come out alongside or after wakfu.

The point is the dev team have got it wrong far too many times now for them to take risks, and half the features people are expecting they wont do for fear of it going wrong and prolonging the development so they stick to stuff they have already done semi-well in the hope it will end the constant recycle of development.

I think they're still getting it wrong.

Look at it not from a high-level balance perspective, but from an attracting-customers perspective, and that's one reason I think this whole "skill rebalancing" was a mistake (in execution, not in theory). Better that the low-level game be a little too easy (and attract more new players) and the high-level game harder (when the players are already committed and are looking for new challenges) than the other way around... but the latter is what they just did. Worse, they did it in a game that has no high-level play yet.

Sure, there are always gamers who don't mind or even crave a challenge right from the very start, but they're not the majority (they're often the most vocal, but they're still not the majority). So there might be a few thousand hardcore gamers who just love their MMOs difficult and slow-moving right from the start, because they love to overcome a challenge, but Ankama needs to get a few hundred thousand players committed to the game for years in order to turn a profit (if not more - as I said, they're way behind schedule), so they need to turn it down a notch or two (or three or ten) for starting players. Faster level gains, faster skill gains (both elementary XP and skill points), higher item drop rates (especially on the Piwi, Googoo, and Adventurer Set pieces) - just faster progress in general - for low-level characters is needed to attract those new players to the game after the first few months, once the New MMO Smell has worn off.

So while I absolutely understand why they don't want to to max too many skills too early, and I completely agree with the idea that players shouldn't be able to max every support skill, and I completely agree with the idea that players shouldn't run out of skills to max at high levels, I still think that they've gone overboard in the other direction, spreading the rewards too far apart at low level in order to speed them up during the literally non-existent endgame.

I really just hope someone from Ankama is reading this (by which I mean everyone's comments on the EN forum, not just mine) and taking notes. Zidrune? Are you out there?  

Totally agree... At least for the early versions of the game. They can rebalance with patches when they add new high level content...

The real main point of troubleness is not the huge cost of spells or the new syste itself, but the moment they decided to think "Let's make a spell maxable in 40 levels". All the Tiris' arguements will be only valid when there will be contents for 200 levels. I mean, saying "Having all the spells maxed by level 150 is so a trouble!" when after levels 7x you have nothing else to do is premature. Before you could enjoy the game and gradually evolve yes, maxing a spell in only seventeen levels, but at least it was more interesting to play.

I don't wanna say something like "GIVE US BACK THE OLD SYSTEMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", but i just suggest Ankama to revise in prospective the spells. Before raising at astronomic prices the spell cost maybe add Brakmar or contents at least to level 100.

Good game to all,

-Frank'n'Furter

Ops, seems like it's been already said all this. Nevermind


This post has been edited by FranknFurter - June 28, 2011, 14:37:37.

This touches on my thoughts but I just want to expand on it a little.

Firstly: What kind of player starts a new game and immediately thinks about their build in 200 levels time, which at best is several weeks/months of play away. This is a great way to drag people out of the fun and remind them that "Hey your class doesn't have much potential for the next 200 levels, get grinding."

Secondly: This game greatly lacks gradual progression. Even more so now the support skills have become so expensive. Despite my overall dislike for blizzards mmo practices of late. There is no denying that their talent system is an ingenious way of not only allowing progress on a by-the-level basis but also allows you to think ahead and prepare for maximum level.
The solution is very simple, the old system and this new system need to be utterly scrapped and a by-the-level build progression system needs to replace it. And it doesn't need to be a talent system but heck it is a good example of where it is done right.

The current system is basically just a dull barely functional means to end.

What I mean by; by-the-level progression:
It is simple really, every level you gain a small amount of progression in your chosen build. This keeps players always feeling like their class is actually going somewhere. Especially when compared to the current system, which actually spaces build progression further and further away from each point the more you put into it. Meaning you inevitably end up waiting 50+ levels for some support skill levels.

Putting points into your stats doesn't count because it doesn't essentially effect your gameplay. It is no different from finding a new piece of gear.

This might be a good idea, but it's not gonna work with just 10 skills. In fact, for 200 levels that would mean a LOT more skills...so i somehow doubt ankama would take this as a viable plan, they're having a hard enough time with 10

Most support skills already have a rather large progression jump per skill level up...

It wouldn't take much to spread a lot of that out and instead of it being a sudden upgrade after 30 levels of waiting, being one that gradually builds up over time.

It would also give them the oppertunity to create multiple builds within each support skill if they so wished.


This post has been edited by Aellia - June 28, 2011, 16:38:27.

Loads of constructive arguments/ideas here, keep it up.
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I still say something needs to be done about leveling up Class Abilities, it takes far too much effort to get a still leveled. Improvements to combat capabilities are not apparent at this rate, in fact, I'd say it isn't really doing anything at all. Not unless you start putting points in skills after saving 30+ level of skill points.

But meh, just my opinion. It could be different for other classes (I am testing this out on Eni, Sac and Cras)

This is true, except that it still wouldn't work with all skills which is still a problem. I mean, while this could work with skills such as skills that give +% damage by spreading it out to +1% per lvl instead of +5% or something it wouldn't work with other skills like say ones that give +leadership seeing as it only goes to about +3 and you can't really spread that out much. Even if it wasn't needed to make completely new skills a fair amount of skills would need to be completely redesigned to fit this type of skill system which i don't think will happen unless ankama desides to scrap everything and start over...again...

That being said, something like that WOULD make it possible to make a lot more "in-between" builds which would be a lot more awesome than the 2 or 3 set builds available per class right now