Hello,
We introduced our devblog on level 215 yesterday, and it sparked a lot of negative reactions within the community.
About that, we would like to remind you that insults and threats are not tolerated on our forums. We would also like to thank the players that sent positive and supportive messages.
We’re writing this answer to provide more explanation about our intentions. We have identified several apprehensions and misunderstandings, which we would like to bring some light to.
“This feature comes out of nowhere.”
A poll was made earlier this year, to present you three big leads, that weren’t yet in any process of production.
The fact is we need new content to keep the game alive. It’s not only a strategy linked to the community’s expectations. It’s also something more global that preserves the whole production team.
Wakfu is starting to have quite a lot of content, and it’s becoming tricky to add content and rewards that are interesting enough for players to actually go and do them. That’s why we thought it was time to add a new endgame cycle. It’s a natural phenomenon in an MMORPG. And Wakfu is already prepared to welcome such a change because most of the system design was designed with that in mind (professions for example). In our communications, we never closed the door to raising the max level of the game someday.
It’s only the logical continuation of your everyday adventures. This type of game is made to evolve and give you new challenges. And once you start making content, it may as well be relevant.
We had the choice between raising the max level cap to 215, or add new 170/185/200 content (for example). Adding new 170/185/200 content would only make it compete with the other contents in the game, it just wouldn’t fit. Players wouldn’t have any need or purpose to play on these new content.
The poll’s results: “The community is not listened to.”
We are not obligated to communicate any of our polls’ results. Besides, we don’t only work on concrete results but also on relations, on links between the main thematic and the subsidiary questions. We want to understand why people who voted yes voted yes, and why people who voted no voted no.
It appears necessary to reveal them this time, because of the many voices raising against this change on social networks and our official forum.
The community has been in favor of the max level raising to 215.
- Not interested at all : 19.93%
- Not interested : 7.31%
- Indifferent : 13.58%
- Interested : 26.34%
- Very interested : 32.93%
Weighted average reveals a 61.25% approval score.
If we remove the “indifferent » answers, we get proportionnally 31.41% against, 68.59% in favor of.
We decided to approve of this while bringing some changes to go with the side of the less interested part of the community. Two main problematics were raised:
- “The game progression (leveling) is too long” -> See the current devblog, we considerably improve the leveling in the game.
- “I don’t want to obtain and optimize new equipment” -> See the recent improvements on enchantment. We also mentioned that we were still open to making other adjustments in regard to the community.
“All my stuff is now obsolete, I searched optimization for nothing. ”
They don’t become obsolete from one day to another.
Level 215 will have roughly 10% more stats than level 200 items. To compare, level 200 items have roughly 30% more stats than level 185 items.
Today, level 200 items have an unparalleled variety. A lot of level 215 items will be standard and will remain less strong than some level 200 items that have perfectly distributed stats, or a malus/condition that gives better main stats.
Level 200 items won’t disappear from your inventories or the market: there will be a lot more of them on the server quantity-wise at first, and they have big inertia because a lot of players enchanted a lot of items. We think that a lot of time will pass before the norm becomes « all - 215 gear ». We are also willing to balance characteristics on level 215 items according to your feedback from the beta, in order to abide by that intention.
We remind you that the enchantment system was never made so that every player achieved maximal optimization. It was always designed with the purpose of giving an appropriate power level, the appropriate power level to achieve the content and win the fights in exchange for a certain investment. This power/investment ratio is also easier to reach than with smithmagic, except that ratio can go a lot higher. In short: it’s not necessary to have 4 sockets to complete the game’s dungeons.
Do you wish that we add not a single item that could be stronger than the current ones, for the next years to come?
If some players want new and fresh content (26.34% interested, 32.93% very interested) and not the others, how do you think we’re supposed to choose?
“That’s not the priority, we expect other changes”
Of course, we’re the same.
But it’s been a while since we became a smaller team. It’s becoming harder and harder to bring major changes. Today’s priority is the server merge, and it takes a lot of time from our developer friends. As long as it’s not done, we simply won’t be able to start new systemic features. GDs, LDs and graphists are led towards classical content, which is also the game’s direction.
Raising the max level was okay enough for us to plan it for this content.
If you’re not a dhrellzerker, AP and MP are different resources. You can’t use 10 AP thrice in the same turn. That’s how it is. Of course we want to improve the game and we work every day towards that goal. We’re adding things to the game every day, we think there’s a need for this, and developers unfortunately can’t do everything in the same time. We can’t send graphists to work on the game’s code to help.
Conclusion
In 2019, you mainly voted for new content (a new island, quests, dungeons). It appeared that your will was to have new extensions and new contents. Unfortunately, we have the constraint that there's already "too much content" in the current level ranges. This is why we suggested to add content on a new level range, and this is something you've been in favor of in early 2020.
We are completely open to the idea of discussing this again, after this update. Perhaps now, the community doesn't wish the community to focus on adding classical content anymore.
We are aware that the context isn’t easy. It’s been 5 years since the level 200 was the max level, and some players invested a lot of playtime in Wakfu. We think that this change is necessary to sustainably extend the game’s interest.
We await your feedback on the incoming beta.
Siu.
I hit 200 less than a week ago...is there any point in even grinding for my build anymore if the cap and gear is increased???
Okey
...
bring anime season 3 content .... god dungs and oropo story to game and then is possible a thumbs up
Nice
I don't like this idea one bit. One of the reasons stated for this change is to "avoid making current 185–200 content obsolete", but that's exactly what a level cap increase will do. There's already tons of content in Wakfu that just isn't worth doing because there isn't enough incentive to do it.
I think ALS needs to be enriched before any new level tiers should be introduced.
You have my attention
The biggest worry is the enchantment grind
But the enchantment system is also undergoing a rework in the same update
So i'll adopt a "wait and see" approach
Though i admit there is some giddy excitement at the prospect of new monster families, but thats my personal bias
Isn't this community wonderful, Suspect?!
Just because you didn't 100% trashed this idea you got -14 downvotes! What a wholesome community we have here!
This is what I would like to call a "Band-aid Patch note."
It is a non-sensical shortcut to something Ankama would like to use in order to bait their community into playing their game longer without fixing major issues. All dungeons are level 186+ currently. There could easily have been 200 only dungeons with massive stat differences in comparison to what Dor Mor/Dreggon/etc could offer.
This instead is a cover up on previous mistakes without directly addressing them. Yes, I can't disagree that if the Wakfu Development team is competent with patches forward from the level cap increase we may see a more balanced and better end game. The problem there is that we have yet to even see a real end game, at least in any community beyond Aerafal.
No one asked for this. In fact many were either No, or Why not. Many who voted yes to this have yet to even reach 200. Many who voted for this have yet to even fully gear at 200. Many voted no I presume. Enough must have voted yes.
You've pushed your playerbase away many times with a patch, and you say things like "Not everyone can agree with the content we put out," but why wisk away those the thoughts of those who care and voice dislike. This is a selfish patch, and will quite literally ruin a populations worth of progression.
What about Perceptors? What about Wild PvP? What about making prisms have more value? What about other end game elements? There is a clear lack of things to do in this game beyond spamming the same dungeon over and over. Im sure this will poke the wrong buttons, but I am extremely upset with this shortsighted patch note.
This post is basically
"People aren't even Lv200, their opinion shouldn't be valid"
Nice one, bruh! I agree with you! Ankama should just keep doing the same content over and over! Increasing the level cap? On a MMO?! HOW RIDICULOUS!! Not a single MMO has ever done that and every MMO that did that failed HORRIBLY, like WoW!
Please no
Why's everyone pessimistic huh, this is exciting. Hopefully new gear isn't going to be overstatted, maybe there will be some penalties like on Shadofang gear. And smoother levelling curve will let more players get to endgame content quicker, so there are actual live parties for stuff like etherials, and not only hero parties. Still thanks for the announcement^ There will def be a lot of testing to negate at least some balance issues, but hopefully everything gets tweaked sooner or later. Keep us posted~
This is a bad idea, not everyone is at our max cap. People are grinding too much for their character and suffer from rng system. Pls don't make this mistake the game will suffer because this is a big impact for people who don't play 24/7
What do you mean? This change will make it easier to get to 200 for those not yet at 200.
Basically everyone who reached level 200 and grinded the hecc out of their gear, it's all gonna be obsolete and the grind begins all over again.
It won't be obsolete, you can use it for 200 ALS
I cant help but feel like this single devblog did make our current gears, which some players might finally have about maxed out, obsolete or at least extremely deflated in value. It becomes the new level 185 gear, nice for adjusted level system runs, but why would i do that? Its a new grind all over again and even with the most recent improvements to the enchantment system it feels like a slap in the face.
indeed ... i guess is more acceptable ,if maybe (as when dofus launch omega levels) basing on time logging into game all 200 lvls, get some auto progression on that new 215 new cap in order to be fair enough to the treasure nerf we all will have to live with in 1.68 ... so the more active players dont feel scammed:s
maybe they want new season 4 anime content be thats 215 lvl content in game ...but still awful future , possible many will sell all have 1-2 years break from game and back when all 215 lvl op gears will be cheap :S...
215? Bye
Classic ankama ignoring player feedback to do what they want regardless. Why is it that everytime I come back to this game and see all the positive changes you release patch notes that take 5 steps backward?
Why can't you just take your 10 steps forward and stay still? Why do you consistently have to take steps back every single time without fail?
nice
constructivecritcism there mate5 steps forward 5 steps back blahblah. not a single word regarding a solution or even regarding or naming any of the actual problems that you "refer" to in your reply.. do you expect anybody at all to this kind of feedback remotely seriously?
i got to 200 a year ago and im still working on my final build and gear. now i just did all of that for nothing! are you serious???!! is this a prank?!
Please say "jk".
You don't need to increase the level cap to offer newer objectives. Sooner or later, you'll be doing the same for sure because the reasons why you had to increase the level cap will still be the same, that being:
Now, it's not inherently bad but there's a good reason why other games have opted for a different solution, namely item level. You have your own level as well as the independant level of the items. This allows a couple different things:
That does mean creating 2 types of content but that shouldn't be seen as unnecessary extra work considering that a lot of players quit in the first place due to the insane and ridiculous grind put into place.
I've said it during my last post when enchantments were gonna hit the servers and I'll gladly say it again, this is supposed to be a game. People have different approaches to games due to their own life circumstances. Not everyone can spend nearly as much time as is expected from them to keep up with the gearing. Even less so when the population of the game leads to some players having to gear more than one character just to clear content.
That being said. Increasing level caps is still a thing you can do eventually but for much bigger updates. It's just that infrastructure needed for such a level cap increase should be in place before you just repeat the same issues that made Zinit a lot more unbearable than Moon was.
Why do you even bother asking the playerbase whether they want level increase and then implement it anyway despite the majority not wanting it. When do you ever listen to your playerbase? :/
I assume they did, I guess most players liked the idea
I dont care if its easier to level. We all spent hours, days and nights grinding for our final 200 gear. some of us spent millions of kamas for our final gear and now your telling us none of that matters because youre raising the levell cap? watch how many people quit after this update
Why wouldn't it matter? You will keep all your gear, they won't nerf it