I'd like to see some ideas that people have regarding Gameplay and Combat.
A majority of the complaints I see and ideas that people have are really just artistic things. For example, "The next world could be Cat People!" "How about a Robot card! (That does the same thing as a dozen other cards but has a Robot animation instead)" These are fun things to talk about, but ultimately don't speak to the core of the game.
What are some ideas about changes or additions to the game's "core", not the "fluff"? Here are a couple examples:
Gameplay : Foot Speed- Would love to be able to run faster. You do A LOT of running in this game, especially when you're soloing. Mounts would be a nice addition for this. Or perhaps your speed increases with certain levels.
Quest Puzzles - The puzzles that exist now aren't really that puzzling. My 7 yr old even figures them out without having to think. Essentially they are just "Here's a clue to figure out in what order to turn on lights." Simple puzzles are fine. But some more complex puzzles would be a nice addition. See the Zelda games for some great ideas.
Party features - When playing with others, there aren't any party features. Follow & Party chat are 2 nice things that come to mind.
Combat: Depth: Frankly, I think the Combat system is unique and very well done. The Devs might already have a plan for this, but it can't hurt to offer up any suggestions. Adding 1 new element into the game can have a huge affect on the depth of the strategies in combat.
For instance, what if there was a Flying spell? The Wizard's feet would raise off the ground and the enemy's spells which are ground based no longer will hit the Wizard. A Flying Wizard does less damage to grounded opponents and takes less damage, but does equal damage to other Flying Wizards. Air based attacks that can hit the Wizard have a chance of bring him crashing down to the ground for additional damage.
This one small aspect would have a huge impact on the depth of strategy in combat...yet it would still be well within the capabilities of the target market. Any 9 yr old boy can play Magic the Gathering and it has more layers to it than I can count. So adding 1 or 2 more to Wizard101 wouldn't be too big a deal.
Other layers could be Flanking, Group Spells that require more than 1 player to cast, multiple minions for a player.
Another way to add depth that would involve a lot more work would be a new attribute. We have damage, defense, accuracy, health, & mana/pips. Things like intelligence, wisdom, charisma, luck, etc. could always be explored.
What ideas do you have that aren't strictly artistic?
Great game! Both my son and I love playing! Keep up the good work!
I would love to run faster There is a chat system your daughter is probably used to menu chat? You can do fix that if you want by going to my accounts! Puzzles? Well the whole concept of the game is to fight. The puzzles in this game are sort of childish . But if they are to hard for like 7 year olds then ...? Then you would need someone elses help. But then again she can't always need help. Others would have to have a chance to complete there quests to as for combat Its to long to read
I would love to run faster There is a chat system your daughter is probably used to menu chat? You can do fix that if you want by going to my accounts! Puzzles? Well the whole concept of the game is to fight. The puzzles in this game are sort of childish . But if they are to hard for like 7 year olds then ...? Then you would need someone elses help. But then again she can't always need help. Others would have to have a chance to complete there quests to as for combat Its to long to read
I don't understand most of this....
Chat - I'm referring to Party Chat. Chatting within a Party. Most people understand what I mean.
Puzzles - I said the puzzles were easy for 7 yr olds. Too easy for 7 yr olds. They are capable of figuring out much more complex puzzles.
The game is not all about fighting unless you make it that way. It's also about collecting cards, decks, pets, items, social interaction, and questing. If it was just about fighting there wouldn't be any quests. Quests have a lot more potential that is untapped so far. It would be great to see them expand on some of the puzzle aspects they have now.
I created this thread to consider ideas for the future with regards to gameplay and combat. We want to encourage people to think and give their ideas, not attempt to shoot them down without understanding them.
I just wanted to throw some ideas out, but also note some aspects of the game my family is enjoying. We have only played to level 12 so maybe some of our suggestions have already been implemented.
The look of the game is fun! The variety of locations is great, and we want to see more. Keep tying them in with the quest lines too. How about a giants' world where we have to travel through a zone that is a huge garden of vegetables with enormous insects to fight? Once at the giant castle maybe the objective would be an obstacle course and to spy on a meeting? (In addition to a boy named Jack, there are cartoons with a famous rabbit and mouse with similar settings.) How about an underwater ocean zone? A cloud zone? Jungle?
The mini games are good fun! Let's see more. I would suggest some simpler ones for those less skilled with computers (6 year-olds) and some retro 80's games for us older folk?
Valentines was neat, but about making up some holidays for the world? Magic day with a festival of gems and lights? Broom day? etc.
The quests are good fun; here are a few ideas for a little more variety: timed quests, helping other live players in the streets, more quests like finding the smiths (search for the hidden objects in the zone), how about some quests with levers and switches to move to gain access to places (the first Resident Evil had some fun but simple, color, button, switch, and collect and combine quests).
The animations on the spells are fun! I like that most have 2 (that I have seen). I would recommend adding a second to those few that I have seen that don't have 2.
The room with storage is neat! How about allowing the characters on the same account access to the same room. I found a great life robe, but my son has the life wizard. If I could put that in the trunk in the room, he could go pick it up.
How about a chain attack system for random effects? 2 Fire spells in a row = 10% chance for 1 to 10 random effects? Maybe 1-6 are minor but 7-9 are stronger and 10 is a WOW! Each spell school could have its own special ten chain effects that might happen the more times you use a spell type in a row. Wands could not trigger this effect?
I love that the spell schools are balanced; please keep them that way. Want more damage, fine you will get more fizzle. Great design. To toss this out, and I am sure it has been brought up, but it just may not fit; how about a few melee classes? Ninja, samurai, archer, knight, barbarian? etc. Maybe it would just give the game a flavor that isn't desired.
The zones are a nice size. How about a zone or two that are just for exploration and running around in? Maybe there is a farm where baby pets are running around and follow wizards if they do something, maybe there are spring spots that shoot you up to secret spots, balloons to float up with, etc...only in this one zone. Where people can just go to run around like a playground?
How about a 3rd map button to set a return point for the (now inappropriately) labeled Commons button? Then, when you use the Commons button you are returned to the new return point. I really don't like all the running around. It becomes very tediuous, especially in MoosShu and DragonSpyre. My enjoyment of the game doesn't come from looking at the same scenery over and over again, but from progressing the story line.
I would like to see some spells that are available only to people of a particular school. For example, maybe a high-ranking death card that does damage but also has a small percentage change of killing the monster out right. Or perhaps a "Mascot" card that converts (for 1 round) the player to a minion from their school, level based on the number of pips used. The player then goes to the center of the circle and has an attack that is predicated by the level of monster they turned into. Not sure this is great strategy-wise, but could be fun.
I don't really like the mini games. They seem very slow and choppy in terms of performance (on any computer I play). Sourcery Stones, for example, just doesn't seem to respond well to the mouse movements. I know how difficult it would be, but it would be nice if different worlds had differing mini games.
I think the biggest change they could do at this moment in time and an easy one, remove the lvl 50 cap many of my friends are lvl 50 and have not even completed dragon spire, what would be the point of it, later when they do add a new world, all those that went through DS will be cheated a few lvls because of that cap "redoing completed missions gives you zero exp in any world, come on guys give the ppl who have worked hard a break and take off that cap
Better yet how about a zone where wizards can rent garden plots to seed with magical flowers, some are from quests some can be bought. Flower colors can be selected too. They can be decorated with floating butterflies, perched birds, scarecrows, garden gnomes, etc. There are tons of accessories you could add for collecting and updating. Basically a whole zone of player made magical gardens! I could be great fun to travel through and look at. There could be contests, etc.
One other thing, could we make sure that people can buy any crown items with gold also? Here is why. My son had a little problem with spending all of his gold on pets. So I talked with him about how other items were important too and that I wanted him to talk with me before he spent his gold. Fine...A few weeks later, he had done really well with a tough situation so I bought some crowns to get him a nice hat. His sister has a witch on the same account and I was going to get her something also at a later time. I go off for the day and came back to my son who was excited, "Dad, I got a robe with a storm shark!" I was like how? He had not only broken his word to me, but he had also spent all of the crowns I was saving to share with his sister. After some thought, I went into his account and sold the robe. We then had a discussion about keeping one's word. He agreed that he had done wrong and apologized. I told him why I had deleted the robe. He said that he would work to get the gold to buy the robe. I thought it was a great learning lesson. Having the option to buy with gold allowed that to happen. If the item was crowns only this wouldn't have been possible.
For minigames, how about a mastermind type game? Maybe a tic-tac-toe? Othello? etc.
Dark i don't mean to speak for the people that made the game but if the crown items were available for cheap amounts of gold then no one would buy them with crowns the game has to be able to make money i would be more infavor of making crown item exclusivly crown only if we spend real world money last thing we want to see is a "Froob" for lack of better word running around in the same gear we just blew a portion of our pay checks on "froob = term for a free player in another game i used to play" i think the way the have the system is really good i used to play DOMO and i used to really enjoy that game but they got greedy and only the ones that used real world money got to have anything in the game i think they have done a decent compromise with this game by allowing only crowm buyers to get it fairly cheap and if the froobs want that item they can get it but only with a lot of work and ingame gold, but developers and designers don't work for free and they do have to be paid thats where the crown sales come in i would rather see something like the ppl that have a one year subscription get some unique item "unfortunately only ppl refered to the game can get the special dragons "
Keep seeing peaple wonder about an eighth school if they did one it would be so obvious which school and even spell types "Chaos" to balance the balance school" spells could be reflect types and minions could be dream realm type night mares i would love to work with the wizard ppl on story boards and creature design on this but i doubt they will utilize me :) but i can see many worlds and creatures for this game in my minds eye and can pretty much almost hand them a completed class
I would love to run faster There is a chat system your daughter is probably used to menu chat? You can do fix that if you want by going to my accounts! Puzzles? Well the whole concept of the game is to fight. The puzzles in this game are sort of childish . But if they are to hard for like 7 year olds then ...? Then you would need someone elses help. But then again she can't always need help. Others would have to have a chance to complete there quests to as for combat Its to long to read
Well I must be really dumbo. I know there are some puzzles I had to ask other players for help with. And I always mess up in Krokotopia with the banners and the different fire color flames. So no I am not smaerter than a 7 year old :)
