KickStarter Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem - open world isometric action-RPG

[d1r]

How's the itemization in the game? Are they going the D3 or PoE route?

 

[Van-d-all]

Other than obvious stuff like story being whatever, you didn't play enough to form an opinion. You didn't even bother to read the whole passive tree and come up with shit like "classless system is a gimmick".

And the fanboys are coming out of the woodwork.

Show me how to use mage skills with melee weapons then. At least I gave arguments to what I wrote.

 

[spectre]

So i demoed this Volcel thing. Obviously 3h is not enough to have a full opinion, but here's what it looks like.
Mechanically speaking, it looks like it's mashed together everything from every game in the genre. You have a big ass character tree divided (vaguely) into green (dexterity + archery + dodge), red (melee + strength + health), blue (magic + intelligence + energy shield)
Which is basically Path of Exile. You have stats to allocate on levelup like in Diablo 2, skills seem to levelup independently and have additonal modifiers similar to D3 runes. Itemization looks like it took the PoE route, you have plenty of slots to work with (including separate left and right shoulder pad, left and right glove), basic (white) items give you energy shield, resistances and health, so again PoE should sue their asses. Final thing I saw was item sockets which seem to operate the same as in Diablo 2 (with the same system of chipped/flawed, etc. gems).

I'm not fundamentally against mashing together the proven things from other games in the genre. The important thing is, what does the game offer on its own? The graphics are pretty good with CryEngine hard at work, i'll give them that
You have dashing and manual dodging (with invincibility frames) to spice up the combat a little bit. As a result, it feels quite dynamic.

I've barely scratched the story, completed the prologue and barely started what appears to be the main quest. What struck me at first were the overgrown, comedic shoulder pads attacking me everywhere in the opening section of the game. As I progressed, shit got toned down, but I am not sure if it was an intentional jab at Blizzard, or will it be getting worse. But the story, not gonna lie, it's a bit like an edgy teen threw together everything cool they could think of: inquisitors, roman legions, demonic possession, monster invasion, feels like a trainwreck from a head-on collision of Diablo and Warhammer 40k. Also, the dialogues are really bad. But, you will say, the original Diablo was just like that, and who cares about the story anyway? Yeah, but this one is so much worse. Especially the dialogues are fucking cringy (as much as I hate the word, it gives you the perfect impression of what it's like).

I'm not giving up on the game just yet, but so far it feels very rough around the edges. Combat feels quite nice, but there's this annoying thing popping up everywhere, as though the game was still in beta: problems with movement, problems with displaying item stats, problems targeting things. Worst offender, probably, was that in my 3 hour run I didn't feel like I accomplished anything. Cleared a few caves, hitting the same monsters with the same base attack on my LMB and the same attack on my RMB. I mean, I achieved level 10, by this time I would expect the game to open up a tiny bit. A thought entered my head (and it's not a good thought as far as Volcel is concerned), perhaps I should just get back to PoE? I think I'll give it some more time, as it may take some time to take off, but compared to PoE, Titan Quest, or any of the Diablos, the pacing feels a bit slow.

 

[abija]

And the fanboys are coming out of the woodwork. Show me how to use mage skills with melee weapons then. At least I gave arguments to what I wrote.

You can use 1h melee/ranged + catalyst.

https://prnt.sc/n82hiw
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....898/3033D5CA28A96DF14E27B74194892DD1FE4463BB/

You also have skills that allow use from other "class", at least I remember some mage one that allowed warrior skills to be used some seconds after.

 

[RoBoBOBR]

Look at that posture and those proportions. Lika a drag-queen version of Bayonetta, and those weird legs look hilarious in some animations. All female faces look trans-y.

Another random annoying thing: you get into a small cave and are tasked with killing all the mobs inside. As you go through you are suddenly presented with a "quest complete, pick your reward" pop-up, even though there are still mobs left, and they are engaged in combat with you. That pop-up makes fighting very hard, so you gotta chose your prize fast.

Also, characters created in offline mode are unusable online and vice versa.

What was the point of early access if they still gonna release beta version?

 

[d1r]

This is horrifying to look at.

 

[Van-d-all]

And the fanboys are coming out of the woodwork. Show me how to use mage skills with melee weapons then. At least I gave arguments to what I wrote.

You can use 1h melee/ranged + catalyst.

https://prnt.sc/n82hiw
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....898/3033D5CA28A96DF14E27B74194892DD1FE4463BB/

You also have skills that allow use from other "class", at least I remember some mage one that allowed warrior skills to be used some seconds after.

Alright then. Still, unique items are hardly a mechanic, but as for skills I'll give it a thorough look in the evening.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I was halfway through Act 2 and lost all my progress and am back at square one in Act 1 so beware. The game has some really cataclysmic bugs.

 

[what am i doing]

Started playing it. Graphics are great, music is even better. Voice acting is fairly good. The gameplay is fun but kind of simplistic; I am going to assume this changes as more skills (compatible with equipped weapon) are acquired; for the time being it's basically spam fireball until out of mana then attack to recharge mana and repeat.

It's kind of buggy. I'd say "not severely so" but I can't talk to merchants to sell my excess items and that's pretty severe. EDIT: I restarted the game and merchant works now. I haven't been having many server issues, so generally I guess I'd say the bugs haven't been that bad so far.

Overall so far it's decent, I guess? It's no Diablo 2, but at least it's better than, say, Titan Quest.

 

[V_K]

It says "open world" so there must be hiking. So how's hiking?

 

[Perkel]

There is no "open world".
Also i recommend to not play online when servers are burning. Play offline.

So far so good. Halfway through act 2.

 

[Van-d-all]

There is no "open world".

This.

Also i recommend to not play online when servers are burning. Play offline.

If the characters are non transferable I don't really see myself playing it twice. If server problems will persist I'll just put the game back on shelf.

 

[Reinhardt]

I watched it a little and dialogs are actually painful to watch. Dis shit is bad even by non-existent arpg standards...

 

[Grunker]

Itemization looks like it took the PoE route, you have plenty of slots to work with

PoE doesn't even have a pants slot. For all the game's complexity, it doesn't really have that many basic item slots.

 

[Van-d-all]

Itemization looks like it took the PoE route, you have plenty of slots to work with

PoE doesn't even have a pants slot. For all the game's complexity, it doesn't really have that many basic item slots.

Actually it struck me when playing Wolcen it's rather silly when you bash something to death and it drops "Pants", so it might be somewhat intentional to omit that slot.

 

[Grunker]

I was just making the point that a lot of item slots isn't the PoE route

 

[Reinhardt]

Itemization is more like Diablo 3. Yes - there is many slots for equipment, but items are pretty underwhelming with lolrandom bonuses. Most of the time you don't even read it - everything is just vendor trash.

 

[Van-d-all]

I watched it a little and dialogs are actually painful to watch. Dis shit is bad even by non-existent arpg standards...

Behold (timestamped)

 

[spectre]

Yeah, that particular dialogue is like a goldmine... only instead of nuggets you get turds of hilarity.

This one cracks me up:

It's like the guy is carrying a legit barbician on his shoulders. I know it's supposed to be gothic, but this is fucking ridiculous.

Itemization looks like it took the PoE route, you have plenty of slots to work with

PoE doesn't even have a pants slot. For all the game's complexity, it doesn't really have that many basic item slots.

Yeah, I was referring to the way armor types are tied to specific defensive mechanics (hit points, resistances, energy shield) not the basic number of slots.
It's just an early impression anyway, cause I've yet to see any higher rarity items.

 

[Turuko]

And the fanboys are coming out of the woodwork. Show me how to use mage skills with melee weapons then. At least I gave arguments to what I wrote.

You can use 1h melee/ranged + catalyst.

https://prnt.sc/n82hiw
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....898/3033D5CA28A96DF14E27B74194892DD1FE4463BB/

You also have skills that allow use from other "class", at least I remember some mage one that allowed warrior skills to be used some seconds after.

Alright then. Still, unique items are hardly a mechanic, but as for skills I'll give it a thorough look in the evening.

i don't think you need uniques for that.
you can have es. simple melee+catalyst to use melee&magic skills
and the other permutations of course
i also think that's why there's no weapon set to quick swap

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Look at that posture and those proportions. Lika a drag-queen version of Bayonetta, and those weird legs look hilarious in some animations. All female faces look trans-y.

Another random annoying thing: you get into a small cave and are tasked with killing all the mobs inside. As you go through you are suddenly presented with a "quest complete, pick your reward" pop-up, even though there are still mobs left, and they are engaged in combat with you. That pop-up makes fighting very hard, so you gotta chose your prize fast.

Also, characters created in offline mode are unusable online and vice versa.

What was the point of early access if they still gonna release beta version?

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

Behold (timestamped)

The worst part is it's not even bad enough to be funny.

 

[tripedal]

I've been rolling with a mage/gun hybrid, level 17 at this point. So far itemization seems extremely weak compared to GD, but otherwise it's reasonably fun. Balancing the two resource pools is an interesting addition to the genre.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

So is this just a pure scripted gauntlet? As said, NO open world? Pity not both but when you look at D2 or even d1 it wasn't all that open either. Lord knows even the mods didnt change it that much though E=mc2 was interesting.

 

[what am i doing]

This one cracks me up:

It's like the guy is carrying a legit barbician on his shoulders. I know it's supposed to be gothic, but this is fucking ridiculous.

I think of this image every time he's on screen.