Something seem.... OFF to you? (Full Version)

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brotherinlaw -> Something seem.... OFF to you? (10/9/2021 20:54:14)

To start with: SPOILERS

This post has to do with this week's release, so to avoid spoilers, don't read this post or those after unless you've played the release.


Anyway, does something seem... off about this release? We're supposed to be in the past, at the time the Queen gets sealed, but nothing makes sense.

Alteon, Vath, Escherion and Lionfang are all alive and, though Alteon suggests they're ancestors of the ones from our time, how can they all have the same positions in life, especially since there was no indication Alteon's family was ever royalty before the Slugwrath dynasty

Vath has Stalagbite, who should remember these events, Ledgermayne exists and most importantly, Mobius is already inverted, which should have only happened just before the Chaos Saga started.



So, what is going on? This whole release seems really weird, and the Hero doesn't seem to bat an eye at most anything. Any ideas?




Beshin Adin -> RE: Something seem.... OFF to you? (10/10/2021 16:08:51)

Remember what Alina said? Time travel is a weebly-wobbly thing




brotherinlaw -> RE: Something seem.... OFF to you? (10/10/2021 20:15:12)

But if this were just bad writing, we've never seen it like this to my knowledge. The worst offense, in recent times, that I can recall is the.... We'll say "interesting" decision to abort the Queen Saga halfway through because it wasn't as popular as the Chaos Saga. And recently the writing has been stellar, such as with the Darkon Saga.

This is also leading into an anniversary release, so it feels like bad writing would have been caught in development. So either this weirdness is leading into something, or this is one heck of a fluke!




Beshin Adin -> RE: Something seem.... OFF to you? (10/11/2021 10:37:12)

It's chaos in every sense of the word




Tau -> RE: Something seem.... OFF to you? (10/17/2021 2:57:07)

I imagine most of us know why AQW isn't what it once was.

1, First off the Chaos Saga ended.
This is what kept a lot of people new and old coming back every Friday. It ended and was replaced with a continuation of the Chaos Saga rather than a new chapter to the AQW story.
(Trust me, there was so much they could have done which would have been great, but their choice was bad. Though when trying to recover it was clear it lacked direction.)
We are talking about a vast majority of players who who didn't want the pointless humor which is overly taking the place of what was once serious, impactful, and interesting story.
If a story can't take itself seriously, neither will the players.
People were invested in the characters, villains, heroes, and factions of AQW. Yet as the Saga Ended they have just been treated as decoration, a badge, and nothing more.

2. AQ3D came out, which pulled a lot of the old AQW players from the game. That's just the nature of new things.
Not much to be said about this, people like the idea of new.

3. Due to the more games put out, it's obvious the time and effort put into AQW has diminished.
Everyone can see and feel that the quality of AQW had dropped considerably, as we all remember that throughout the chaos saga there are point in animations which you could choose a faction based response.
(Not just no choice and the main character making a dumb joke.)
There use to be a time when a war meant something, it was a point in which something in the game/story that was important was about to change. It wasn't just a filler event used to have players grind merge items.

4. They doubled down on the grind.
People play games to relax, have a unique experience, conquer a challenge, take part in a story, or immerse themselves in a fictional world. They don't play games to exhaust themselves or work.
The sheer amount of grinding has taken over AQW and is practically all it's known for now.

So lets be honest, AQW is dying because they killed it with bad choices.
Now if you want more than just a list of issues here's a few ideas they could use to improve / revive the game.
Note: it'd have to be done in this order. Though these are just things off the top of my head and i may be forgetting something.

1. They need to cut the grind and reduce farming quests, if players don't enjoy the game they won't play it.
- When it comes to bosses it's great to have old players help new players, though this shouldn't be every major boss in the game as this breaks the immersion and challenge of beating a boss themselves.
That in mind, farming quests that involve 50+ level players going after the 13 lords of chaos need to be moved to an ultra-fight so that it doesn't kill the experience for new players beating a major boss for the first time.
- In addition farming / grind quests are exhausting, and when it's doing the same thing 5 thousand times for a single quest in a chain of 5 or 13 then players will see it as work, it's not fun and clearly the people who design the quests don't play them as QA.
It's the most basic game design you learn of in university or CC, they should know better.

2. Players need to be invested in the story.
- Frequent humor kills the mood, they are damaging their own plot every time they have an npc, villain, or hero crack jokes, break character, or make playful small talk.
This should not be something every villain and hero does, in moderation and from characters whose personality is humorous would be a way to avoid killing the scene.
- Factions should be more than a label a player wears. At the start of the game when you pick a side it means something. You are roped into their cause when the battle is interrupted and the two leaders are dealt mortal wounds. This causes many players to resent or despise drakath as an enemy. As choosing a side was their choice, he has now done the player an injury by hurting their chosen leader. This causes the players to want to know more about the battle, who this new threat is, and invest themselves in their chosen faction.
Mystery, tragedy and conflicting ambitions are great ways to grab peoples attention.
- Player agency is important, if they feel as though their character is just a passive observer in the story and not a player in it then it's hard to have players invest themselves in a story. The illusion of choice or true choice is better than no choice.

3. Fights should be interesting, not a brick wall.
There is a reason so many players used bots, it's because the gameplay is that bland that a bot could play it and a player doesn't need to pay attention to the game.
Uninspired gameplay in which a player is just slashing against a massive hp bar is not interesting. It would be better to have bosses which have low health and low damage, but interesting dynamics.
Most players can picture a boss or two which was hard because they did something unique, rather than simply being a slog of a fight or maxing out their dodge chance.
In turn this would allow old classes to still be used, as the bosses and classes would not need to be balanced around maxing out damage, dodge, or crit chance.
Examples of this would be a boss whose feature is fire or poison, which so long as the players fight them they have to deal with a DoT regardless of being hit, making healer classes useful. Or a boss who every 10 seconds casts a stun that last 5 seconds, so the party can't rely on a single player to carry them through the fight. Maybe a boss that locks the player out from using their 4th skill in a fight, mirrors attacks at 30% value, etc. Though everyone sees what I'm getting at, just not a massive hp or damage bar.

4. The game needs a new audience, as if no one knows about the game it's hard to build an audience.
- Quite frankly, making a mobile version of AQW would be a great way to introduce new / young people to the game.




Tau -> RE: Something seem.... OFF to you? (10/17/2021 3:16:30)

quote:

Remember, they need to release one these every week, are understaffed, and the writing is visibly on low priority given their focus on challenge bosses and new items for collection chests. I'm also not sure how many of the player base just outright skips cutscenes due to disinterest or just plain because of the language barrier too, but I reckon a significant enough amount.


Honestly, I would rather they put out one solid addition to AQW once every other week if they needed the time. Quality over Quantity is the best approach in my humble opinion. This is just one of those things where it feels like AQW has not been left to die, but rather it's mismanagement has caused it to end up dying. After all, it was never the painful grinding or brick wall hit box bosses that got people to play the game. It was the story, and well the other reasons I listed above. Which is honestly the most painful thing about it all, if an old player like myself and others can analyze the intro to the game + chaos saga, and why it created such a large following......... and their own writers can't..... I really don't know what can be done for AQW.




Beshin Adin -> RE: Something seem.... OFF to you? (10/17/2021 13:14:15)

^ Say what you want, but I like lots of weekly content




Roxas45 -> RE: Something seem.... OFF to you? (10/23/2021 10:39:09)

To answer the original question - They Basically Pulled a Zelda.

"I curse you to repeat this shenanigan filled journey from start to end for the rest of time" - With the added thing of "One day, you will be what you feared the most and will be your own undoing."

BUT That now makes me think of the mirror realm counterparts - The Lords of ORDER, and how they would differ from the Lords of Balance.




Tau -> RE: Something seem.... OFF to you? (11/13/2021 19:51:50)

I'll just have to agree to disagree with you on that point since that was more so a matter of taste, Lukrecia.
I suppose I fall more in line with this sort of thought, https://youtu.be/w41OH2rwa1A which addresses mostly the mechanical flaws of the game which caused it to die.




Beshin Adin -> RE: Something seem.... OFF to you? (11/14/2021 10:54:47)

AQW is AE's top moneymaker. Its not dead, its just gone silent




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