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

[Reinhardt]

Not THAT gud.

 

[Perkel]

Base game is there. It needs a lot of fixing and mechanics overhaul which is far more easy than to redo animations system or models.

The best part is that it has offline and it is on cryengine which means if devs won't do it there will be people who will just mod it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Wolcen just beat POE peak...

PoE doesn't require steam and many(I'd guess most) don't use Steam simply to launch the same exact client. Can you even login to the steam version with a regular pre-steam account anyways?

 

[Reinhardt]

So i killed act 1 boss without dying and then just died to some random champion in random cave, because game decided to block me with "chose your useless reward" screen when i'm in the middle of the battle. This shit is really annoying. Did they even played the game themselves?

Also they really dropped the ball with voice acting. When you meet your sister in act 2 it's just... i can't even... my poor ears...

 

[Sykar]

That PoE is janky? Awkward slow animations which just get accelerated. No combo, just degenerate 1 button play the higher you get. Not like you have anything but your own feelings to offer.

Yet Wolcen animations are way longer, get accelerated the same way and you can't queue properly something like attack->dash->attack. How the actual fuck do you work 5-6 years on a game and do not realize how bad it feels not being able to chain a skill into a dash, nevermind actually canceling the skills (which would be the expected behavior for a mechanic like that)?

As for 1 skill gameplay/zoom meta while being major issues in PoE have nothing to do with fluidity of combat. Btw, PoE degenerates in endgame or with overpowered items while leveling, Wolcen doesn't even have a solid endgame or even a resemblance of balance to argue if it degenerates or not. Still nothing to do with actual responsiveness/fluidity/feeling of combat. Wolcen is almost as bad as desync PoE.

Btw, why did you switch the comparison to PoE when Wolcen copies so much from D3 and D3 shits all over PoE in this particular aspect?

You are seriously comparing Wolcen which was just released to PoE and D3 which have been out for many years. This is a hilariously stupid comparison. Let us reminiscence of the "great" endgame those two games offered when they went public. PoE? Farming Piety and harbor. That was it, that was all you could do in endgame in PoE. A little later you got Dominus who was talking your ear off every time you got there. D3? Dying in act 2 Inferno, that was its "endgame". Even if that idiocy had not happened, there was no endgame in D3, all you could do is farming act bosses. It took many patches and/or an expansion before something resembling an endgame was even present. Meanwhile Wolcen has a form of endgame fully developed with its own personal twist.
As to Fluidity, animation canceling has nothing to do with fluidity, it just speeds the game up. For most of its existence PoE did not even have animation cancelation and the only reason people felt the need for it is because of the degenerate power creep its developer subjected the game to. I not once in Wolcen felt I need animation cancelation. Fluidity is not about how fast shit happens. It is about how fluid animations of different skills come together. PoEs animation even for their time were janky garbage and once sped up the characters look like complete spastics, especially true for skills like Double Strike and Dual Strike those two skills look utterly hideous and retarded. though the other melee skills look hardly any better.
D3s animation are decent to good and the game feels pretty smooth but especially melee is boring as fuck.
Wolcen by comparison not only looks ten times better but also feels great and impactful. You are not just mostly standing the same spot for half a minute watching the same animation going off 30 times a second it is a very dynamic/fluid game where you are constantly on the move.

So i killed act 1 boss without dying and then just died to some random champion in random cave, because game decided to block me with "chose your useless reward" screen when i'm in the middle of the battle. This shit is really annoying. Did they even played the game themselves?

Also they really dropped the ball with voice acting. When you meet your sister in act 2 it's just... i can't even... my poor ears...

You can continue fighting when the reward screen pops up but you are right, it is annoying it does while you are still in combat. They should change it so for example a little reward button pops up somewhere near the edge of your screen which you can press to make the menu pop up once you are done.
I guess because of me being non-native speaker the voice acting does not sound that bad, just somewhat goofy. Not like PoE or D3 voice acting was great either.

Not THAT gud.

Better than PoE and D3 at release at least. Let us see what a few years of patches, expansion and polish will bring.

 

[Fedora Master]

The story and presentation are cringy as fuck and in no way is the look inspired by Warhammer.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

no way is the look inspired by Warhammer

Them pauldrons don't hold your assertion none too good.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Better than PoE and D3 at release at least. Let us see what a few years of patches, expansion and polish will bring.

If they wanted to compete with PoE at release they should have released their game 7 years ago.

 

[Fedora Master]

no way is the look inspired by Warhammer

Them pauldrons don't hold your assertion none too good.

Warhammer Fantasy was about fabulous hats not pauldrons.

 

[what am i doing]

The story and presentation are cringy as fuck and in no way is the look inspired by Warhammer.

WHFB? Sure, not much similarity. WH40K? There was definitely a lot of inspiration there.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

no way is the look inspired by Warhammer

Them pauldrons don't hold your assertion none too good.

Warhammer Fantasy was about fabulous hats not pauldrons.

Now who said anything about fantasy

 

[PrettyDeadman]

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I've beaten the Eldr*c finally. It took a couple of levels & finalizing build's abilities (bulwark of dawn and anomaly).

 

[Sykar]

It is just too bad that he is the toughest boss during the campaign...

 

[Perkel]

The story and presentation are cringy as fuck and in no way is the look inspired by Warhammer.

Warhammer is cringy as fuck... This is how Warhammer looks to all other people when you leave your bubble.
Warhammer would be great if they had different art. Current art just doesn't mash at all with lore.

 

[Reinhardt]

You can continue fighting when the reward screen pops up

Not, if your target is some spinning barbarian champion. He hits like a truck and completely covered by rewad screen.

 

[Reinhardt]

Warhammer would be great if they had different art. Current art just doesn't mash at all with lore.

Current warhammer is cringey because now they went full retard in every direction, not because of old art.

Also i don't remember warhammer being generic fantasy about another chosen one. Even stuff from old legends like Sigmar or Empreh is not like that. Wolcen is more in line with some low effort isekai animu.

Protagonists of arpgs should be allowed to open their mouths only to deliver random oneliners on level up. Period.

 

[Commissar Draco]

The story and presentation are cringy as fuck and in no way is the look inspired by Warhammer.

WHFB? Sure, not much similarity. WH40K? There was definitely a lot of inspiration there.

Age of Sigmar more like Comrade, but here it does looks cool, also the the female toons have proper boobs and long hair too, still would wait for game to get patched, optimized and added some expansions, for now it feels like beta sold for AAA shekels.

 

[Peachcurl]

also the the female toons have proper boobs and long hair too

On the other hand, sizes of all other body parts don't really seem to fit. Especially head and legs. That was my first hint that the main characters are not human. I'll call Ordo Xenos on this.


PS: I agree there's inspiration from Warhammer 40k here (especially for the Purifier faction). It's coming up alot in discussions, so I guess it's a pretty obvious one. Since I'm playing W40k Inquisitor at the moment, I have to say they are doing well in terms of art direction, proving to me that W40k art does not have to be cringey. If anything, the few loyal space marines you see are pretty much low-key: bulky and large, but not really heavy in terms of ornaments. The traitor marines are a different story, but then again, that is kind of in sync with the lore.

 

[Van-d-all]

Ehh aside from the 3-fucking-day long post release server down time, glitches and % calculation being outright broken, the game IS quite fun. It takes 1-3h to notice what's what and pick the right active skill, then some more to realize that it's probably Infinity Blades (OP as fuck), Anomaly or Plagueburst + Bleeding Edge (top meta), and lastly that knowing all this you're about to be using the same 3-4 skills up until the end... Honestly with the attack-move & insane Life Leech (who even needs Toughness?) I've stopped even using dodge because I offed bosses in seconds. So right now I just had to respec and try to make Burning Embers into something usable before I loose my mind. The game needs a balancing run because it becomes apparent too quickly which actives are hilariously powerful.

 

[abija]

You are seriously comparing Wolcen which was just released to PoE and D3 which have been out for many years. This is a hilariously stupid comparison. Let us reminiscence of the "great" endgame those two games offered when they went public. PoE? Farming Piety and harbor. That was it, that was all you could do in endgame in PoE. A little later you got Dominus who was talking your ear off every time you got there. D3? Dying in act 2 Inferno, that was its "endgame".

I compared the combat flow, not the endgame. You brought that into discussion. And it's been the same in D3 since the first demo release. While in PoE it improved a lot. And Wolcen has been in development and EA for a long time yet still they didn't fix basic shit.

Ehh aside from the 3-fucking-day long post release server down time, glitches and % calculation being outright broken

Can't even pin point what's wrong because they provide almost 0 info on how shit should actually work.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Ehh aside from the 3-fucking-day long post release server down time, glitches and % calculation being outright broken, the game IS quite fun. It takes 1-3h to notice what's what and pick the right active skill, then some more to realize that it's probably Infinity Blades (OP as fuck), Anomaly or Plagueburst + Bleeding Edge (top meta), and lastly that knowing all this you're about to be using the same 3-4 skills up until the end... Honestly with the attack-move & insane Life Leech (who even needs Toughness?) I've stopped even using dodge because I offed bosses in seconds. So right now I just had to respec and try to make Burning Embers into something usable before I loose my mind. The game needs a balancing run because it becomes apparent too quickly which actives are hilariously powerful.

How far in are you? I noticed that nearing level 60 the champion + boss enemies started to get tankier and do more damage so I have to move around a lot again.

Also if anyone is playing as a Ailment Mage I could use some ideas on what passives people are taking. After I maxed out the Cabalist tree and took +10 more stacks from Time Weaver there isn't much else to do. I saw two nodes for 12% Ailment Damage each but it'll take about 10 levels to get them with a lot of useless picks on the way. Not really sure what to do, apart from just stacking lots of survi I suppose.

 

[abija]

As to Fluidity, animation canceling has nothing to do with fluidity, it just speeds the game up. For most of its existence PoE did not even have animation cancelation and the only reason people felt the need for it is because of the degenerate power creep its developer subjected the game to. I not once in Wolcen felt I need animation cancelation. Fluidity is not about how fast shit happens. It is about how fluid animations of different skills come together. PoEs animation even for their time were janky garbage and once sped up the characters look like complete spastics, especially true for skills like Double Strike and Dual Strike those two skills look utterly hideous and retarded. though the other melee skills look hardly any better.
D3s animation are decent to good and the game feels pretty smooth but especially melee is boring as fuck.
Wolcen by comparison not only looks ten times better but also feels great and impactful. You are not just mostly standing the same spot for half a minute watching the same animation going off 30 times a second it is a very dynamic/fluid game where you are constantly on the move.

Exactly as I said, one button awesomeness at work. Fluidity is about how the character reacts to your inputs not the ballet it does after you press a button.

It's about graciously switching between various combat states. It has everything to do with animation canceling, the way various skills chain and consistent queueing. For example: the animations (usually built rest state -> action -> rest state) shouldn't reach rest state while you are fighting.

 

[luj1]

The question now is... will Lost Ark come out in EU/NA by the time Wolcen becomes worth playing (in around 2 years). If not, I'll gladly pick up Wolcen then.

 

[Van-d-all]

Ehh aside from the 3-fucking-day long post release server down time, glitches and % calculation being outright broken, the game IS quite fun. It takes 1-3h to notice what's what and pick the right active skill, then some more to realize that it's probably Infinity Blades (OP as fuck), Anomaly or Plagueburst + Bleeding Edge (top meta), and lastly that knowing all this you're about to be using the same 3-4 skills up until the end... Honestly with the attack-move & insane Life Leech (who even needs Toughness?) I've stopped even using dodge because I offed bosses in seconds. So right now I just had to respec and try to make Burning Embers into something usable before I loose my mind. The game needs a balancing run because it becomes apparent too quickly which actives are hilariously powerful.

How far in are you? I noticed that nearing level 60 the champion + boss enemies started to get tankier and do more damage so I have to move around a lot again.

~40. I hope it will be so, because one more hour of Infinity Blade on autopilot will make me puke.

Also if anyone is playing as a Ailment Mage I could use some ideas on what passives people are taking. After I maxed out the Cabalist tree and took +10 more stacks from Time Weaver there isn't much else to do. I saw two nodes for 12% Ailment Damage each but it'll take about 10 levels to get them with a lot of useless picks on the way. Not really sure what to do, apart from just stacking lots of survi I suppose.

I'm planning it out, but it seems that proper ailment build will require reliance on more than one active. Note that most ailments don't even do damage (eg. stasis or curse...) so stacking ailments just stunfucks enemies. I'm thinking Anomaly opening (stasis / Time Weaver dmg boost) + Embers spam since it's elemental, does burn dmg and opens up Oracle Of Trinity (although it's kinda meh it's better than nothing).