It was, but not as complex as they promised. For what I heard, the Apocalypse form is really underwhelming in terms of damage output to the point of being a downgrade to your DPS. The only thing that makes the power-up worth using is the invincibility it gives. I call that a total failure of a concept design.
1 Like
I backed Wolcen on KS a long, long time ago and I certainly understand the general sentiment here, but I am also a little bit confused as well. The entirety of act 1 has been available for some time now and is pretty much identical to the release version of Act 1. What demo are you referring to?
They pushed the release back from their initial target/announcement so I don’t think this is the case. I understand that it feels rushed/unfinished, but I don’t think it is quite as sinister as this, but maybe it is.
I agree with this and I think there are areas that this applies to in Wolcen. Some of the bugs introduced in act 1 (such as not being able to hit the bat things) existed at various points in the beta, but to a much lesser degree (would happen every couple of characters to me, but not constantly like in live) and it seems odd that these didn’t get caught during the internal process.
When it comes to the server issue, I am able to be a little bit more sympathetic. Largely because it was primarily the result of not realizing how many people would play their game. Prior to launch their peak was like 1900 people and at launch it jumped to 62,000+. Maybe they should have done a better market analysis/projection (I have no idea how this works), but I can understand that. On the bright side, at least they had an offline mode (granted it had some of its own issues), which can’t be said for a game like Diablo 3 by a company more capable of anticipating its popularity.
The game’s rating prior to the server debacle was positive, with very positive in the last 30 days (high 80% approval) with around 2000 reviews in the last 30 days. The negative feedback is largely because of the server issues.
As one of those people, I agree. I had written the game off until 2 weeks ago when I was surprised to see the positive ratings and, as is clear earlier in this thread, I thought this was worth giving a shot because I had some fun in the beta.
By far the biggest issue, beyond the obvious stability issues/bugs, is game balance. It sucked in beta, but they had said they were rebalancing so I was hopeful, but it still sucks. So many skills that could be great are just unusable. Others are just completely broken.
Yeah, they suck. No idea what they scale off. I understand not wanting to turn them into “I win” buttons, but their current implementation, especially given the anticipation, is straight up garbage.
2 Likes
I’d go further and say that ultimate forms don’t have a place in the diablo-like arpg genre. Make their benefits average and you’ll have no reason to ever invest on them because it would just waste resources that you could use to improve your main build. Make them powerful enough and you’ll end up feeling you’re with a underpowered character the rest of the time you aren’t using the form. Currently the Apocalypse form is just a glorified aether cluster.
2 Likes
They only released that to us in the “handful” of months leading up to the release. That in NO way makes up for the literal years it’s been in early access. 1 act, right before release?
Too little, too late.
These are the people that put food on your table for the past years - they deserve the whole game in front of them before anyone else.
Grim Dawn released in what, April or March 2016? Xmas 2015 Crate opened up the whole game, every difficulty in time for xmas.
I didn’t keep tabs on the score leading up to release but ignorant fanbois with no knowledge of the rest of the early access signing up during the very last portion of the runup to the release and then spam voting it up doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence. 
For me personally when I first heard the news that they were gearing up for release my first thought was, “No way is this going to be ready”. My gut instinct was spot on.
I didn’t really think there would be these server issues or even consider them I guess but the rest of the shape the game is in? Yea, I could see that coming.
The salt levels on /r/Wolcen are pretty damn high at present, mainly due to the shear amount of bugs and gameplay stuff that doesn’t work. i.e. stat boosts on items for magic users that don’t boost damage.
Frankly I’m just happy I didn’t back the kickstarter or buy the early access version, since Wolcen’s turned out to be such a fucking total mess and sadly pretty shallow too. So thanks to my ADHD + depression eating my income and so saving me from being severely annoyed.
2 Likes
many of the issues were reported during the beta already and clearly ignored. That many more issues pop up now is due to the harebrained idea to only release act 1 during 4 years of EA (and even that only a few months ago). Tells you everything you need to know about their expertise, really…
as long as they remain committed, maybe, hope dies last I guess, but given their track record so far and the current state of the game, chances are slim.
GD never was in as bad a spot, not even during the very first alpha release
1 Like
The game is in alpha and early access for years.
Bug and glitches that are reported and known for years are left unfix in the final release version.
To make it worse, the final release version was never play tested by those that supported the Kickstarter, they are only given an early prototype that only has the first act which explains why so many later act and end game is so broken.
They already have an extensive team of play testers on hand from their Kickstarter, the dev just can’t be bothered to actually release test build so it can be play tested.
It was half-assed, the forms are not customisable and serves as an invulnerable oh-shit button.
I withdraw my support during the Kickstarter because it shows that they are absolutely clueless what they want their game to be and have 0 direction where they want to take their game. They just simply take whatever idea backers suggested, slap them together and hope that it works. The whole Kickstarter pitch feels more like a tech demo than a real studio trying to create a game.
I only check it out again when I saw the video from Rhykker, Force Gaming promoting it making me think that I was wrong and the game is now decent. My previous experience with their Kickstarter makes me skeptical and I decided to check the Steam forum only to find the burning underground dumpster fire.
"However, following the situation that occurred last Friday with the data loss, we now know that we can’t continue to apply hotfixes and patches the way we’ve always done so far."©
2 Likes
LOL. It’s like Vire’s Might, but your DOTs are all Olexra’s FF.
1 Like
Most arpgs have these types of build. Maybe not all allow such a low cooldown. I immediately thought of Diablo 3 Explosive Blast build (it looks the same, you can spam the skill with crazy frequency and the OP wrote it was his inspiration.
1 Like
I’ll just leave this here from the GD Discord
“Zantai Today at 21:54
something like 20k people bought gd over the weekend,”
6 Likes
Lawl, at least they’re putting their steam refunds to good work. .
That also explains the spike in negative reviews, though no idea what the Chinese players are actually complaining about this time.
Like instead of passive tree we’ve got a "nice tree"™. It look nice, just half of it don’t work at all
Also best way to deal with backer ever . https://i.imgur.com/8hiUTjj.png
1 Like
Yup and blizz did the same thing with D3 yet the game survived and is still streamed and has lots of YouTube videos and a large following.
If they care about their product they will fix it along with feedback. If not, move along I say. Lots of games coming out, especially of the Arpg kind:
Last epoch
Slormancer (which I am super excited for)
Sanctum Breach
Chronicon (almost done, in EA)
Torchlight 3
Not to mentioned the ones that are already out.
wow, did not expect that, Wolcen is good for GD it seems 
seriously that translates to a lot of money… wonder how Crate will spend that to “improve” Grim Dawn. 
Quin69 review .
2 Likes
Epic review. I’ve been posting it over on the Wolcen Steam forum. As far as I’m concerned it’s a must watch for anyone that has doubts about getting the game.
I’m actually pretty amazed the devs haven’t banned me there yet. I’ve been giving them 10 kinds of hell from the start of the launch. I did receive a “warning” at one point tho for something ridiculous to receive a warning for.