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Spring 2021 Update - Your First Impressions

2
AuthorMessage
Survivor
Jan 27, 2010
3
Sounds like I'm in the minority, but I really dislike the updated AOE spells. I understand the reason for speeding them up but the way they've been animated makes them feel rushed and unimpressive. (The fire the dragon breathes, for example, looks nothing like fire, just the old animation overstretched.)

Haven't seen them all yet but, as a fire wizard paired with a life wizard, I've not liked any of our updated spells so far. The life ones seem the worst--Bartleby appears/disappears so fast he may as well have been cut entirely, plus the new angle makes him look much smaller (noticed that on a few spells). And the Forest Lord... having it rip a tree up seems against the whole life ethos of healing and protecting. Made sense for the equivalent fire spell (fire being a force of destruction) but not for a life spell.

Again, understand the reason for shorter spells, but think they need better quality animation plus less frames being cut (eg. the meteors hit much faster now) so the spell itself doesn't feel rushed and disappointing. Failing that, let us choose which animation we'd prefer to see, so people who don't mind the longer versions can still have them.

Survivor
May 21, 2014
4
Really not happy with the PvE Damage Limit. Seems pointless to me and only forces everyone to make changes to their gear and strategies.

Survivor
Aug 26, 2018
2
Why did pet spells become no pvp? (my red ghost). I think these should be made an exception, they are limitied amount and i'm forgoing other pets by having them on.

Explorer
Jun 06, 2009
70
I like most of the AOE updates... except for Forest Lord. Sure, the animation looks really cool, but it doesn't make sense for a Life spell. Why would a Life creature come in and uproot (aka kill) a tree and whack someone with it? Life is all about creation, not death and destruction! And I had always assumed the forest lord was some sort of protector of the forest, but here you have him coming in and ripping trees out of the ground! It would've made so much more sense to just have a felled tree on the ground to begin with, and have the forest lord get upset about that and use it to hit the enemies.

Survivor
Aug 10, 2014
6
So I like certain aspects of this update. I know a lot of people don't like the standardized blades and traps, but I don't have a problem with it. I also love some of the spell audits. Now I do agree some schools have their identity up in the air (mainly ice and myth), but they did an amazing job with life and death. Even balance in some ways.

Now I do agree with everyone about the crit and block changes. They are a little wonky.

I have noticed one thing though and idk if I'm the only one. I was farming for elissa's chill band and even some wood keys in pagoda of harmony. When I was farming I was getting gear that was missing the percent signs on the damage and resist stats don't show. Idk if its only me that has this problem, but it's just a small thing.

Overall the update I'd say is 5/10 right now. The crit changes are just broken right now.

Armiger
Feb 25, 2009
2425
Sorry, but not impressed with any of it. Least of all, the sudden exclusion of 32 bit systems.

Leaves a lot of players out.

This update feels thrown together and not thought out at all. Test was the shortest we have had in a long time.

Frankly, I think this whole update needs to go back to Test until it is working properly, and some of the changes need to be undone starting with the Audit of some spells that are now taking us backwards and destroying what we have worked for. After the mass Audit several months ago, there should not have been this reduction to blades. Blades should have been left alone. This just succeeded in making our weaker characters even weaker.

Speeding up the AoE's is ok but not really that good. The graphics were rushed which makes them seem unfinished.

Survivor
May 25, 2018
1
Questing especially solo is impossible. Taking so much damage now, not even getting criticals consistently, damage is terrible.

Survivor
Mar 03, 2009
4
AOE = Great

PVP = OK

PVE = Awful
This has to be the worse change ever in the game, I am a 115 Ice and I am getting almost killed in 3 rounds by mobs in Mirage. I have 48% resist across the board, and over 300 crit block to all. And I am still getting crited on and not blocking. Absolutely ridiculous. Took a update that had full potential and ruined it to a un-playable point where unless you have a partner in the later worlds is just about impossible. PVP should be an entirely different set of rules where the stats and boosts only change in PVP, PVE should not have be touched at all. If not fixed soon. I am canceling my family membership since no one on my family account is having fun anymore.

Sincerely,
Disappointed Community Members.

Survivor
Aug 26, 2018
2
omane2 on Apr 25, 2021 wrote:
Why did pet spells become no pvp? (my red ghost). I think these should be made an exception, they are limitied amount and i'm forgoing other pets by having them on.
Agree with this user, doesn't make sense when other pets with no pvp cards (ice bird for ex) can keep their card.

Survivor
Apr 16, 2020
10
I am guessing we are all complaining about our damage cap. The funny thing is that our damage has not been lowered, but the enemies resistance has been increased, not to mention the fact that critical is now a different animal altogether. Yes, we can see now our chance of critical but it has been changed 3 times in a year, it is hard to plan ahead with gear and the always nightmarish and the source of endless disappointing: failing pets. The point is that we would all benefit from consistency so we could plan our strategy in building our setups, what gear to acquire, what jewels to socket, and which talents to seek in our pets. I have to admit I was the first one complaining last year about our hp to damage ratio, (For PVP), it made no sense that we learn so many spells if we only need a couple blades and maybe one or two hits to kill each other. It left no room for planning or any kind of strategy that could be personalized. Low HP and high damage led to basically everyone copying one strategy making it boring at the end, when the point of learning so many spells is to be able to create an infinite myriad of strategies, each and all of them viable.
It would be helpful if the critical and critical block would be more user friendly as it was last year. I would know the magic number to have 100% critical and I would trade off some of it for other traits, but it was my decision. Now, I honestly have no clue as to which trait should I favor based on my style of playing. I do not know whether I should increase my critical, my pierce, or my damage (jewels and/or pet talents) and that leaves me in limbo.

In any case, and I am sure not everybody will agree with me, but finding questing a bit more challenging is not that bad. It had become so monotonous that we could kill first round and that was it even in Karamelle. If I could give a recommendation it would be to increase difficulty in dungeons, so they become exciting to actually team up with other people, and lower the resistance of regular mobs so it is not as tedious as it is now. And on that point, if a dungeon becomes more difficult, it would be great that it would drop better loot, even if it is an ultra rare drop. An example of this are the drain bosses. They take up to 2-3 hours and the drops are trash, and trash is a compliment.

That said, I do like most changes with this update, and I am glad you fixed the Mac problem since I am a Mac user.

Survivor
May 01, 2015
1
I, for one, am extremely disappointed in the update. I primarily play solo and the update has made this very difficult. Also, I "volunteered" and was put into an instances 10 levels above me -seriously? Also, once you "volunteer", do you have to re-do it every time you log on? Either you're a volunteer or not. Make up your mind because it takes time away from the game to go to the kiosk and volunteer for each world every time you log in.

Survivor
Nov 17, 2019
1
I have not seen anything regarding the new Kiosk system yet? I know I am not alone with my annoyance at not being able to use the team up kiosk, especially as this is part of our current event. Three of my wizards have the little link symbol at the bottom of the page, three do not, no options appear on the kiosk opening page. No way to play? One of the wizards that can't get in was doing the 2000 assist challenge to get the dorm room. This is a wizard that just leveled up to 30. He should have access up to Marleybone. I completely understand not allowing high level wizards into the lower level world options as this does eliminate some serious grieving. However blocking my lower level wizards from being able to play at all is not fair, they have lost 20 points a day each since this event started. I also don't like that there are no choice options when volunteering... this is the fight, like it or leave it, and if you leave...good luck getting another chance. It really feels like KI is going out of their way to make this game difficult to play. When my membership runs out, I am not renewing. Games should be fun not raise your blood pressure annoying.

Survivor
Aug 19, 2010
4
I think the damage cap is awful. I can understand for PvP, although I'd like the cap to be more of like 125, but in PVE?? Is there even a point to playing a storm school anymore if damage is capped, more resist, and less critical. Storm does not have enough health to have a damage cap in PvE. It makes it incredibly hard to solo, which is what I mainly do. Even if i didn't want to go solo, there aren't enough people on my world when I play to team-up anyways. I mean I struggled to find four people to run Waterworks with. I was helping a friend complete Waterworks, so lvl 60ish enemies, as a lvl 130 and I was having trouble defeating MINIONS!!! That's under half my level, I should be able to defeat them easily. It's not like I have bad gear, I have like 152 damage and like 400 crit. I hope KI rethinks the damage cap and crit rating, at least for PvE.

Survivor
Jul 13, 2019
6
I, for one, am ready to cancel my membership. Not happy about the critical nerf. What are you doing?

Explorer
Nov 23, 2008
96
One day my damage is a base of 192 level 140 Storm, now at under 180?, my fire a 126 was 178, now at 168? tons of money (crowns) and gold spent training the perfect 2.0 pet, and the dragoon gear grind. No, I am not happy with any of it. KI, so far all the updates done have been horrible to the members of the game, and its no longer fun to play. Seems one of your Devs has one concern and that is PvP. There are some of us that do not play pvp as it is a toxic place still. I bought 3 scrolls, and not sure if I even want to finish. I'm a level 5, tier 4 ninja pig in beastmoon. I've also crafted three of the beastmoon robes, bought countless housing bundles and Kroger jewels, and was a dedicated player and That isn't even fun anymore as some of the maps are so dark it is hard for some people like me with vision problems to see where we go in the darker maps. I have been a member since 2008 as you can see on my profile, and the every update is not for making the game fun anymore its about how much revenue KI can bring in. True, you are a business, understandable, but there is a limit as to how much you can literally push. I lost a fantastic friend before the Karamelle update because you nerfed our Darkmoor spells. She was a long time member also. Actually I believe she was a beta tester. The game is not the same. When we first started we were given extra rewards of appreciation for being long time members. Now, not so much. I have the frontier dragon mount and many other wonderful things from KI. Especially the ones for us USA Military Vets. Now giving out temp mounts are suppose to be fantastic, and all they do is take up room in our back packs, Many seasoned members don't use them because they have one goal, to become the best and we use the best gear whether to farm it or craft it, or buy it in packs. Its a lot of work and money put out. We all use the Ghulture mounts, and its a shame we have no choice to because that alone gives 3% more damage to all schools except balance at 2 % and every school can use those. Change our stats back please, show some appreciation for those of us that have been supporting your company for so many years, because right now I feel like we have all been slapped down. Instead of caring about your members, maybe take Tod Coleman's idea's of what his vision was and love your members. Sorry, but I am extremely distressed about all this, I think KI could do better then this. Separate pvp from pve, and stop this.

Survivor
Jul 18, 2019
1
I'm just getting back into the game and I realized my stats have changed, did they change the stats on some gear? I used to be able to get 180 damage on my death, but now the max I'm getting from the same gear is 167. I'm a bit disappointed if they did change the gear damage.

Explorer
Sep 19, 2016
72
CorentinTristesort on Apr 21, 2021 wrote:
Hello, I'm a solo PvE Necromancer player and I use to one-round/ two-rounds the minions, even for the Elite guards. But yesterday I discovered Karamelle and it's harder to one-shot them because they've their -45% shields or -80%, and since that spring update, I have something like 153% of damages instead of 155% plus my blade has been lowered to 35% so I struggle to find a good meta-deck. What if the solution was to permit players to add a sharpened blade on their deathspear, lifespear and so on? 30% of pierce + our stats would be so cool

Furthermore, I appreciate that update for its small interface details added on top and also for the new traps version
Also, Dark Pact went from 30% to 25%. Death School has become considerably weaker since the last update. It makes no sense to down-grade a school as part of an update. If I wanted to be weaker I would have chosen Balance School. No apologies.

Administrator
Some of the concerns here have been addressed in our recent update, check it out: https://www.wizard101.com/forum/halstons-laboratory/game-update-for-may-5-2021-8ad6a424793b9b3a01793d82223a6996?page=1

Thanks all for your first impression feedback so far, we appreciate it!

Survivor
Aug 11, 2009
9
I have 5 accounts with memberships on all of them. And after the spring update I canceled all of them. They don't end until October-November so my husband told me to play and maybe I'll warm up to it. But NO! I hate it!

I made a new life because I wanted to try soloing life for the first time. I spent a LOT of crowns on rat spin and even though I' haven't reached the damage cap, ever since the spring update it has been way harder to solo to the point where I just want to give up.

NOt only that, my storm Katie had 190% damage. NOw she has 173% damage. I used to be able to defeat (most) creatures on the first round with tempest. Now i can't. Neither can my fire. and it's making me very angry. Because it's just a waste of time!

I am extremely upset because my husband and I are poor but wizard101 meant a lot to me so we found a way to buy crowns and membership. I spent a LOT of crowns to get Katie to 190% damage. and now it's wasted! We could've used that money for more important things but my emotional and mental health was more important to my husband and wizard101 made me happy. Now it doesn't.

I feel like KI is focused on "Fixing" PVP. but please keep PVE out of it! There was nothing wrong with PVE and now there are so many changes that my love for this game turned into hatred. not everyone does PVP. I never do PVP. I did PVP one time and it was for the arena tickets to craft the revered wand. I haven't done it since.

you've changed crit 3 times in one year. and it's terrible! Especially since I worked really hard to get the best outgoing healing / crit gear for my life Angela and my life Amber who is nowhere near her stats does more! How is that even possible?

Some people are saying they want wizard101 to be more difficult. But I liked the fact that this game was (mostly) easy! When games are difficult it's just frustrating and it makes me want to quit. Karamelle was easy and relaxing and I loved it!
I'll probably check out the summer update so please fix it by then! Until then, I guess it's time to go back to reading in my spare time.

Also Sparck, the link you sent doesn't work. Please send again!

Survivor
Dec 14, 2017
1
It has always been annoying that you can't see the damage done to "taller" opponents, but now with the change to AOE spells, we can't see the damage done to opponents. We can't see their names/titles either. It would be helpful to lower the damage popups on the screen so that we can see what damage our spell just did to each opponent.

Also, not too pleased with Sandstorm update. The "Sand" in "Sandstorm" has been replaced with sparkles and very little sand. It doesn't make any sense.

There is also a problem with the player in the number one spot seeing the graphics of the AOE spells cast by players and opponents now. And the damage done to a player in the number one spot from from an enemy AOE spell is often impossible to see. It is frustrating and disappointing. It's okay to make the spell animations faster, but please don't take away from the visuals or the necessary information we need from the spells. Some of us enjoy seeing the spells and knowing what damage we are doing to the enemies/having done to us.

Not sure if the Polaris bear issue below is pre-update, but the Beastmoon issue is. Just thought I'd tack them on here, since they are annoying issues as well.

I just discovered in Polaris (where I am just questing for the first time), that the polar bears take FOREVER to go through their death scene. That really needs to be adjusted. You've done a great job at reducing the length of time for the AOE animations. Then we use the newly shortened AOE spell to finish off the bears, and we have to sit through 4 bears each going through an incredibly long death animation. This gets old very quickly. Long enemy death scenes should be evaluated/reduced as well IMO.

With Beastmoon Hunt events, it is seriously annoying to be stuck watching players cast spells in a battle that has already ended with the death of all enemies. Why is that a thing? As in the questing world of W101, the battle should just be over the minute the enemies die. We shouldn't be stuck waiting and casting spells when there are no opponents left to fight.

ps...thank you for listening to feedback about player CRIT and adjusting it! That was a "cancel my membership" moment for me as well. It is hard enough to solo without having that handicap.

Survivor
Nov 14, 2010
5
I'm grateful for most of the quicker AoE spell updates. Meteor strike, blizzard, humongofrog as examples... love them. Thank you!

I really dislike some others, though, particularly where there's a creature that is looking and attacking in between spots 2 and 3. It looks real weird when there's only one or two wizards fighting, like the creature is attacking no one. It'd help me suspend my disbelief if the creature adjusted to the number of wizards it's attacking.

Fire Dragon - The fire breath just looks stupid as it hits the ground and parts like hair to the sides. I hate using it for that reason only. Just make it look like it goes in all directions or something, not just split to the right and left. Please. I hate it.

Scarecrow - The execution is fine, but the ending is always awkward as you stare into each other's eyes for a good 5-10 seconds while the enemies do their death animations out of sight. You need to change the camera angle back to the enemies.

Forest Lord - Should have just left it alone, I think. He's killing the trees! The tree he picks up doesn't have roots. And its prior attack was way cooler and worth the wait in my opinion.
Those are the main changed spells I see that bother me. There may be some higher level ones that I haven't noticed yet.

Survivor
Jul 26, 2017
1
Hi! So this is my first time posting something on the forums and it's just a quick question about the new "friendly player" feature. On the friendly player menu, where other friendly players are displayed, what do the double smiley faces mean? Do they mean that someone is already helping the player on their quest?

Survivor
Oct 08, 2011
1
I Personally like the update :)

Survivor
Apr 18, 2011
6
I love the AOE spell changes! I would love some "quality of life" improvements such as these! i.e. if a match is over don't waste time casting buffs! Good Job!

Survivor
Mar 20, 2010
1
2