The state of Wakfu. Comment down below on your take.

In terms of QoL this game has improved a lot, chest and kamas being account-wide are by far the second best changes this game had, and I still ask myself why it took so long to get it, the first one is scaling all spells to your level. (For those who don't know years ago you had to level spells by casting them, and yes, it was terrible).


In other aspects it's been underwhelming and some things really feel out of touch with the playerbase.

Class revamps were a hit or miss but mostly miss, so many builds and playstyles were removed just to give more damage

Increased level cap that does nothing besides increasing the already painful grind

Removal of kit skill, they should have disabled it only for modulated dungeons rather than straight removing

The difficulty gets more frustrating as you level up, monsters have mechanics that aren't properly explained while also having ridiculous ammounts of damage, tankyness and mobility

Being unable to unlink costumes is a change i will never like

Almost every run and every finisher on shop are account linked which hurts the cosmetic market

Leveling professions is still a massive chore, and this is coming from someone that enjoyed fishing and mining at 2AM with some chill playlist

Lack of pvp updates

This one is more on me but I don't like the removal of the 7-day booster

Just wake me up when the mono account server arrives. 

im hearing a lot about different language barriers... and i think a good solution to this is what First Person Shooter Games do... they have different pings to mean different things. " enemies spotted over here"  " items here" "hold"  "attack".  I think it would be super helpful if there were simple easy pings players can make.  panda - " lock boss"  ecaflip - " earth damage"   all - " only backdamage" or something like that to help communicate... kinda like emojis... " i need healing!!!"  " move me here" "move enemy here".... it would need to be easily clicked and able to ping because it cost time to communicate and there should also be a good way to cancel your ping just incase there was a missclick or something

I know I'm kinda resurrecting an old thread, and I've already stated some of this. But I'd like to add a few things.

• First, 15-level brackets don't really make sense. 230 level cap is super weird / hard to attain. I know this might cause some pushback, but personally I'd say "downlevel" or "down-scale" the levels of everyone. Make it 10-level brackets, and down-scale everyone by a factor of 1.5. Make 200 the new(/old) max level. This would mean we set characters at level 20 to level 10, level 35 to level 20, level 50 to level 30, etc. This would keep profession level and character level matched. Level 230 characters and their equipment would be set to level 150 (which could be a "temporary max level")  and open 50 levels of advancement (the equivalent of 5 additional level brackets, or total level 305 using the awkward current system). (ok i realize people will be annoyed about this - if it comes down to it, you could do the opposite and scale characters and professions up to 20-level brackets. I just think my proposal makes more sense.)
• Second, and this is rehashing an old problem - fix the experience curve. As previously stated, it gets brutal after about 160. 185+ absolutely sucks. 200+ is impossible for the average gamer. I regularly spend 3+ hours doing a level 200 dungeon and get <2% of a level worth of xp.
• Third, make dungeons a little more accessible. I don't want to suggest that they should be easy, but it's a bit frustrating that to unlock the full drop list from dungeons we have to do them on "hard" mode. Almost no level 186 team can beat a level 200 dungeon on "hard" (stasis 3+). They're just too punishing. This used to be okay, because we could still buy the Epic level items from the dungeon machine using tokens. But now, tokens are reduced and we can't buy Epics. This generally sucks. It's exciting to unlock a new bracket of dungeons - but they just aren't accessible until you achieve optimized max-level gear for the bracket.
• Fourth, scale down the time requirement on dungeons. This fits in with point #3. It often takes 2+ hours to do a level-appropriate dungeon. With sub-optimal gear, this can be 3+ hours. I like the new 2- and 3-room dungeons (it's better!) but I'd even support taking it a step further and making it fewer mobs per room. That could even apply to stasis levels (e.g. stasis 1: 3 mobs. Stasis 2: 4 mobs. Etc). You can get more widespread appeal if it's possible for casual gamers to spend 1 hour playing and actually complete something.
• Fifth, make the repeatable quests automatically appear like the almanax quest. That includes the daily "complete a dungeon in XXX level bracket," the Modulated Level quests, and guild quests like "kill 10 monsters" and "craft 10 items." I feel a low-key rage when I forget to accept these quests. It seems like my efforts are wasted for no good reason.
• Sixth, and I'll make this the last point, fix the transportation system. Dofus has "teleport all group members" to a dungeon. I have no idea why Wakfu doesn't have that system. There was a sudden developer movement a while back that involved deleting dragoturkey transporters, and I think the general opinion is that was a Bad Change. Please add more rapid transport rather than removing it.Some dungeons (think Wabbit Island Tunnels) are just obnoxious to find.

 

cody5#2705|2022-12-24 16:48:48

for 6, the devs said it's because they want making groups for dungeons to be a more social events, with players meeting in front of dungeons and making friends, that's also why they deleted the group finder

dam, whats the spawn chance of this social event you are talking about
Because after introduction of hero system only ppl i see on dung entrances are 6boxers
​​

i dont know how i feel about conversion stones. back in the day it was awesome seeing people with auras and items... with amazing builds. you knew they earned it. but nowadays you just made wakfu a pay to win game. someone can just buy 1000$ worth of stones and sell it for gold. I know it sounds crazy 1000$ but you'd be surprised at the amount some people spend on other games. diablo imortal over 100 000$. thats crazy...its great for players to not feel like they need to spend as much time to play as long as they have money but damn what about the people that put in years but dont have the funds... what about the loyal player base? they dont get rewarded in anyway

 

Jangho#8090|2022-12-30 20:08:54

i dont know how i feel about conversion stones. back in the day it was awesome seeing people with auras and items... with amazing builds. you knew they earned it. but nowadays you just made wakfu a pay to win game. someone can just buy 1000$ worth of stones and sell it for gold. I know it sounds crazy 1000$ but you'd be surprised at the amount some people spend on other games. diablo imortal over 100 000$. thats crazy...its great for players to not feel like they need to spend as much time to play as long as they have money but damn what about the people that put in years but dont have the funds... what about the loyal player base? they dont get rewarded in anyway

Well it was either this or the illegal kama trades we had back in the day, at least with this you know you won't get scammed

people buying kamas has always been a thing. at least with conversion stones ankama gets the money and not some parasite with a bot.

OP is right, veteran of different kind of mmo, this game is great and actually has a monopoly in his genre but it has recently become schyzophrenic.

I think Ankama did irreparable damage to the game, I just don't see how they could balance things now that they implemented so many things that seems to contradict each other.

By that I mean, the enchantment system is completely broken balance-wise, I would expect something like that to be end-game and for the effect to be noticeable but not excessive but it's ridiculous, you can double your mastery with the shards at the level 200 and also the sublimations adds another like 50% or even more damage on top of everything, I absolutely hate how this is implemented and how strong it is, it just forces everyone to make multiple of every gear and to pay high sum for sublimation, for low level pve content it does not matter if you don't do it as it is easy enough, but for high level content you have to, the high level content is balanced around it. But what I also hate the most is that you can apply the bloody sublimations to low level gear, it just ruins what I liked about the ALS as it severely benefit high level players as they can access expensive sublimations and a lot more shards allowing them to absolutely annihilate in battlefields anyone who are not spending tens of millions like them in mid-level gear.

And don't talk to me about the pact system that has nothing to do in this game, the simple fact that they considered it absolutely irritates me as it shows how little they know about their own game. But they did not just consider it, they implemented it, it's just... well...... It makes me think very low of them.

Also the economy is not running well at all in this game, the humongous difference of power between each level brackets allows high level players to just flood the market in mid-level to early high level monster resources, nothing is worth anything because high level players can just stasis 10 and power through any dungeon and sell huge lots of resources. I also don't think we should ever be able to loot legendary gear, high level players just loot them and sell them for nothing, the enchantment system is there to make people destroy excess gear but I think if we did not loot so much high rarity gear we would not have needed such a game changing system to ever be implemented. The only reliable way to make some money is through harvests, but even that would have benefited from people actually needing to craft their gear at all levels instead of just buying at low prices, so many people just mine ore and make kamas directly, insulting each other in the process because there is not enough, or straight up just buy conversion stone and pay high level players to just pull them through leveling.

I just don't think the game can recover, and even recovering would require Ankama to be putting a bit more will into it, in the French forum they answer concerns about the enchantment system by saying they will absolutely not change it, they are satisfied with it, with the gearing system as a whole. I just don't think they play their own game. Talking to my friends on my servers, it seems that those who are still playing today have no opinion towards the game as a whole nor to the enchantment or anything, it is what it is and they don't care, they take breaks from the game or even just stand at the zaap talking to their friends instead of playing because they just feel overworked, I have seen only one player actually liking the enchantment system, for now. I think that's quite bad, it seems that a lot of people playing right now are not used to other games or are just playing this because that's all they know, and just take everything and blame themselves for not putting up with the monotony of the game. It makes me believe that the reason there is not that many people screaming at the game is that everyone who cares already left the game and the remaining would take anything.

I haven't played in a while, so what i say may not be true anymore. For me the game lost it's shine with how punishing and complex dungeons are past lvl 170.
The game used to be social, it was fine to run a dungeon with a random player that didn't had the best gear as you could explain it on the go. But now a single mistake can ruin the dungeon for good with insane damage and sudden death mechanics.
Take as example some old dungeons:
- Cactus. You need to deal damage in every element to can damage the boss.
- Blackspore . The boss will leave a death fog as it walks after a certain health
- Enurado. Break the gems in order to deal damage in that element.
Now try to explain some dungeons:
- Past xelor: The dial moves at each player turn, you need to be in the right place at the start of the turn in order to damage the boss. PLUS the opposite of the dial is a sudden death. PLUS the boss has phases and can change place with members
- Croc Dungeon. You need to remove ap from the boss in order to damage it. PLUS the boss gain damage and resistance for each monster you kill. PLUS you insta die in certain spots. PLUS the boss and monster can push you to death titles. Plus any move skill moves extra places

Having a random person on the team was too much of a risk. There was no incentive to be social but rather the opposite. I felt like some classes and builds felt out of grace while others felt like mandatory.

Sum this to how gear enchantment works. Having 4 right colors could give you more resistance / damage / etc than the gear itself (not to speak about sublimations). But you need to sacrifice the same gear and may not even advance on gear slots or end up with worse colors than you had.

Wakfu is the game I come back to once a year to see if it's improved enough for me to want to start playing again. I usually play for 3 days and then lose interest after that because of the same core issues.

Enchantment: 

Beating a dead horse I know. The enchantment system punishes more than it rewards. RNG is not a system you should base gear progression on, it is poor game design in my opinion and an obvious ploy to make players sink an ungodly amount of time into sets. I'm all for time sinks but when my brain is not receiving the dopamine boost from achieving something after days of grinding it's not fun. Plain and simple. Don't tell me "no one's forcing you to max your gear" that's a bullshit argument. When you drop something you want it make it the best it possibly can be point blank.

Impossible to find groups:

The fact that a game with so many dungeons doesn't have a working team finder is disgusting. It's impossible to find groups for dungeons. And now post server merge it's impossible to find someone who speaks the same language to run a dungeon with you. Heroes also makes it hard to find groups. No one wants to drop their extra characters because you lose out on drops if you do. This means all the groups running dungeons are either one person 6 boxing or 2 people with heroes.

ALS and Stasis Drop locks:

I hate having to scale down to do content i've already done. I didn't grind for years to not be or feel powerful. I understand ALS isn't mandatory (most of the time) but I have basically given up on Ultimate Bosses or trying to drop Epic items. Locking Epics behind high stasis is a way to encourage you to try and become stronger and play smarter I know. But when the enchantment system is so punishing I'm absolutely not interested in wasting weeks trying to drop an Epic item, rolling for one slot and then being forced to grind for months trying to drop more of the same Epic item so I can try and improve the same Epic item because I only rolled one shitty item slot on it.

I really love Wakfu and I can see how much work and love the Devs are putting into it and I commend them on it. But the core game design now is completely different from when I started back in 2012. Plain and simple the game isn't the same for me and it's lost a lot of the magic that captivated me when I started. There are still glimpses of it in there but it's not something I want to invest my time and money into in its current state.
 

I stopped playing because... end game just doesn't reward you.

Most Legendary items have something like 0.25% drop rate. Let's say you have a bunch of characters  and a bunch of prospecting (is that even in the game anymore)? You can spend three hours on a dungeon, and have maybe a 3-4% drop rate on good items.

So the only options are to get the item doing 10+ runs or getting enough kamas worth of other gear to purchase the item. Which is going to take a similar amount of time, due to how markets work.

Ok. So you finally have your item. Now what? ... Roll a 2 slot. Who'd want to keep playing after that?

Say you did continue anyway, and you went and did it again. Smash your item... maybe by luck (I think it was like 10% chance per roll? so there's like a 52% chance after 7 rolls) you get a 4 slot. Finally, after like, 40 hours (a full work week)? You finally get that dopamine hit.

In any case, that was only one piece of gear. You still need the rest of the set, not to mention sublimations. If there are 10 pieces, and it takes 1-2 weeks per piece... It takes pretty much three months of full time grinding just to see if the build idea you had actually works. And.. this is just one character out of 3, or even 6, that you might have to manage. The level cap will probably have been raised by the time you get here. It's crazy how the devs can't see how that's frustrating.

But none of this would be an issue if the game were actually enjoyable to play, right? Isn't the game itself supposed to be fun? Aren't we supposed to be enjoying those 40 hours? Well, yes, for the first couple times you run the dungeon. But not when you run it 10 times in a row with the same characters and same builds, without dropping any useful loot. In other words, maybe 20% of actual gameplay is actually rewarding to play.

I won't get into professions, but they're basically the same story. Repeating the same thing over and over again with basically no rewards. Harvest and replant a couple thousand crops for half a level.

So yeah. This is the main dealbreaker for me, personally. I can put up with poorly mechanics, buggy UI, broken economy, if the game were rewarding to play. And I suppose I did, for the first 200 levels. But are no rewards left here at the end of the universe.

Being a long-time player and customer of Wakfu is frustrating. It shouldn't feel that way. Why does it feel like my opinion as well as the opinions of many of my friends do not matter when it comes to changes in this game? The developers have infinitely ignored the opinions of english-speaking players to the point where 99% of them have quit--or will quit soon. They only care about what the French playerbase has to say.

Nox -- and now Rubilax -- has been abandoned by the Wakfu team. We have language barriers, but no language channels. We have low playerbase, but no community. We're missing all of the things needed for an MMORPG to actually survive.

• Rewarding progression? Nope. Have RNG enchantment system instead.
• End game? Nope. Have a never-ending level grind.
• PvP? Nope. Have a cat & mouse system that rewards high level players for ganging up on noobs, and a battlefield system that only happens in your level range ONCE per 2 months, and ONLY for 1 hour.
• PvM? Boring & frustrating. The dungeons in this game can be compared to playing chess VS a computer where there are death tiles that only kill your pieces. Oh, and good luck finding a group too. Our dungeon finder doesn't work and you don't speak spanish
• Balance? Nope. The classes could not be less balanced, in fact, for PvP and PvM. The dev team don't even try to hide the fact that they love to play favorites. The dev team doesn't favor your class? Just pay them $30 and class change to their favorite class
• Functional? You wish. This is THE buggiest game I have ever played in my life. Now, to be fair, I could overlook this if the rest of the game was decent. But it's not.

In the French forum, the game designer answered someone with the following kind of infuriating thing, I translated it for you :

- Yes, for the enchanting we answered. The economy today is in better shape that it was before the implementation of the feature. We remind you that optimizing is optional. It is absolutely possible to enjoy the game's content without have 4 slots and Raw power III on all legendaries. This feature was essential to Wakfu and had a very positive impact after a few years, though I understand it can be frustrating.
- The battlefields and the pacts are feature when it is possible to avoid PVP to a certain extent. We remind you that we did a survey in 2020 to know if the community was agreeing to a stats balacing system in PVP or if the community favored that the [gear] optimization had a point in PVP. We followed the opinion of the community.

I bolded what annoyed me the most.

I didn't think it's possible to be that deaf, their only objective with the enchantment system was to mend the economy and they are satisfied with it, changing the whole gameplay and entire game balance instead of addressing the cause of the weak economy this game have...
The answer about PVP makes me kind of furious, the French community has a fair amount of people who loves crushing other without any effort and playing multiaccount grinding their life away alone and they expect that the survey will represent the wish of everyone ? Who is going to speak the loudest, of course is the people who benefit and get high from all those grindy ways to get ridiculously OP and to humiliate others without playing tactics like this game pretends to be.
And what is "avoid PVP in battlefield", it's a PVP feature, their response to the imbalance is that we can avoid PVP in a PVP feature ??
At the end I think it can't be clearer that they don't play their own game and I don't sense competency in the way they talk about those features.

 

princessflora#1695|2023-01-28 05:01:46

In the French forum, the game designer answered someone with the following kind of infuriating thing, I translated it for you :

- Yes, for the enchanting we answered. The economy today is in better shape that it was before the implementation of the feature. We remind you that optimizing is optional. It is absolutely possible to enjoy the game's content without have 4 slots and Raw power III on all legendaries. This feature was essential to Wakfu and had a very positive impact after a few years, though I understand it can be frustrating.
- The battlefields and the pacts are feature when it is possible to avoid PVP to a certain extent. We remind you that we did a survey in 2020 to know if the community was agreeing to a stats balacing system in PVP or if the community favored that the [gear] optimization had a point in PVP. We followed the opinion of the community.

Just because they added a possible solution to a request from the Community doesn't mean we have to be happy with the answer or that it was even the right solution, why is it so hard to understand.

No offense but I swear, I feel like I lose a little faith in humanity everytime I read Siu calling Enchantment (a basic feature found in pretty much ANY mmorpg) something optional. In their own words, it is an "essential" feature for Wakfu so I ask: How can something "essential" be optional? How can a player overlook an important aspect of the game with multiple benefits?

YEAH, Enchanting weapons is also an option in Minecraft but it is a must to power-up the character to increase your survival and has multiple benefits in every single area of the game. Mojang's Devs WANT YOU to Enchant and customize your experience in an accessible way. Why is it so hard to do something more enjoyable in Wakfu, from what I've seen on the Forums and inside the game over the years, Enchanting is just NOT FUN for the vast majority of the players. What's the point then in coming up with a complex system if the players won't enjoy it? It isn't a matter of "we want easier stuff" or "we want free bonuses without putting any effort to attain them", players WANT a challenge but Wakfu just feels like a part-time job obstructed by the layers of requisites and the current Enchantment system (something that devs seem to be proud of) just doesn't help, not necessarily the system itself but the grind it requires.

Demonic Pacts are a good example of a truly optional feature: it is some sort of side-activity that doesn't provide any additional reward except for a faster leveling and increased chances of getting objects but don't effect your character in any other impactful way. Enchantment, on the other hand, is an essential feature that directly impacts your character's growth and how you customize it to your playstyle. You could also try playing without equipping your character and using ALS stats for everything, but would you still call "equipment" something optional?. The difference between something optional or not is clear.

How can you design a game with long-term rewards and not provide the players with the tools to do it in a comfortable, enjoyable and fun way? Call it whatever you want: a 6-Heroes BP (a good solution imo), a Dungeon Finder, Language channels, the thing is right now even if the game is cool you can't just jump right in to do stuff. You want to play but you just can't and have to go through even hours of looking for people to play with PRAYING that they will stay in the group for multiple runs, play the dungeons the right way, you get the drop you are looking for, nobody goes afk and clear the content at a decent pace.

All of this is convoluted in a way that sabotages the gaming experience in Wakfu and yet, APPARENTLY, most of this is intended to provide players a so-called "long-term challenge". The insane grind, the lack of a Dungeon Finder (which according to a Dev it negatively impacts the community aspect of the game because spamming "LFG" for hours is more fun and human than having an automatic system that does it for you), how the playerbase is spread throughout multiple levels ranges and content, and the soon-to-be-implemented Single-account server just kills the mood and makes Enchanting a hell of a feature (in a bad way) even if it gives life to the market and stuff.

About Battlefields, I think they just don't work. The timing, how they unfold, the amount of participants, I don't really enjoy them to be honest. Demonic Pacts on the other hand, I like how wild they are but there are some unfair scenarios, but then again those unfair scenarios are warned the moment you activate it. A Colisseum would be the ultimate answer for a good PvP system, but *sighs* Devs are unable to do so.

It sucks that Wakfu is the only option for someone who's looking for a tactical turn-based mmorpg with multiple classes, final fantasy tactics style and it is so hard to enjoy because of the basic elements that it is missing and how unaccessible some of them can be.

I often feel like the meme that best describes the situation is:

*Change the word "children" with community

Now, this isn't hate or a way to call devs lazy or anything, that's my take on the Enchantment system, state of the game in general and PvP. I like the classes, story, dungeons and all of that but it is the layers of requeriments that the game has in order to do something what annoys me. Things that I feel that if they were solved Wakfu would be one of the best tactical games ever.

I want to love Wakfu, I really do. 
But it seems like over the years, some glaring issues have either been ignored, or are getting worse. While the direction of some of their changes have been questionable or detrimental. And this has been a trend for years.

Like how many QoL features or technical improvements has the game had over the past few years?
How many classes did they arbitrarily nerf and remove/change their core mechanics?
What are they doing to to help bring in new players?
How are they making it easier for players to communicate or party?
How far can [solo] players progress without paying?
How many times did they ignore player feedback from like 80% of the community according to their own polls, and end up doing the opposite of what the majority of the community wanted?
What bugs have been prominent in the game this whole time?
How often they moved around the world/maps for whatever reason?
There's also things like PVP, enchanting, and Haven Worlds which have been questionably changed for questionable reasons.

It's almost always felt like Ankama's priorities have been mixed up, and the game has been worse off because of it. 
Like they ignore the big issues, and then try to change non-issues, and only end up creating more issues.

Wakfu is a unique game, it has unique concepts, art, and gameplay. It could be amazing if they played off it's strengths, and got rid of it's weaknesses.
However it's currently in the same zombie-like state as all other old MMOs where it's mainly just a hub for invested players to stand around and chat.

Also, some newer classes would be a great addition to breath some more life into the game if they fixed the previous fundamental issues first.
Instead of changing older classes and getting rid of their identities for no good reason, just create newer classes with the mechanics you would like to implement. 

I quit with the level 215 update, i said "wow, why can't they just be like Dofus, being level 200 since ages and being just more succesful"

the enchantment system is grieving the game, it's just not casual (especially the endgame) and it's not good for such a small MMO community, mono server is coming but this game seems like it's built just for the Heroes System and Multiboxers, there are no new players playing and staying in the game, ignored promises of pollitical system rework, they tried to make Wakfu's progression a vertical progression game and doesn't seems good at all, this game should've stayed at a level cap of 200 like Dofus and then focusing on other things.

I'll give this game another (and last) opportunity with the mono server, who knows, even the economy might be healthier without so many high lvl multiboxers.

My two friends left from this game at lvl 133 and 152 (main character).
I got to hear from one of them.

"The mechanism of the dungeon bosses is tedious."

Surely... especially with respect to the "invulnerable" mechanism, fighting bosses may be "not strategic" as we just follow the steps set by the developer.
To use an analogy, it's like a jigsaw puzzle where we know where to put the pieces.

Perhaps Ankama should rethink the nature of the boss fight.
Wouldn't it be ideal to have a variety of spells and other things used by bosses, so that there are multiple solutions to a single boss(Even strategies that the developers never thought of!) , instead of just incorporating a simple "invulnerable mechanism"?
Anyway, I think the invulnerable gimmick should be removed from bosses in all level ranges (maybe it's okay to leave only a small amount).
If that happens, there's a chance that my friends who left for Eorzea might come back to World of Twelve...?

 

virtualshade#7101|2022-12-07 03:06:31

yeah gearing changes would make level cap increase way better to digest, or any updates to class reworks would be taken a lot better. I think it is painful when your character was an AOE build, so you gear for months grinding dungeons and get all the subs and rolls you need, then a rework comes and now your class is single target, sucks... and i dont like the suggestion people make like  "choose a different class" or " use that gear on a different class". you worked hard to build this character the way you wanted and your gear shouldnt be useless to that class from a rework.
 

This is a rather interesting comment.

The devs claim that they have been striving for more build options for each class. However, more often than not, each new rework still favours certain build. Shrugs.

I kinda miss the old Wakfu when everything was much simpler when it came to gearing up your characters. All that mattered was your brain and playstyle and you still could complete difficult dungeons.