Remaining gripes before perfection

[DamarusRex]

Hello !

Dear devs and community,
I love Wayfinder. Ever since it was announced, I followed it's story, and witnessed it's fall before the project came back. Though, I only purchased the game after the MMO era.
And despite itches encountered, I saw the studio pulled some significant improvements and fixes to this gem (I really did appreciate the filtering added in all inventory tabs for example !).

Seeing to it a sign that we are being listened to, I'd like to share my last bits of annoying details affecting my experience in the game, so it can be discussed and eventually adressed.

My history with the game :
- Main character : wingrave (full awakened), I focus only him.
- Power level : depending the builds my power is around 4700-4900. I played a tank/support build as solo, and now I play dps build for co-op.
- Personnal goal : reaching power 5000, buy everything from NPCs (but likely not doing it because of reasons listed below)
- Current playtime : +130hrs
- What is my thought on playtime and replayability regarding Wayfinder ? I wont lie, I don't see myself play this game 400hrs. I play until I fulfilled my objectives, if the gameplay loop still appeals to me at this point.
- What I like : joining from lobbies to lobbies in order to help other players clearing their own goals.


My gripes :

1) Jobs are uninterestingmm too restricting and unrewarding :
As it stands, I don't really have fun doing any jobs in the game because they force you to go after a particular ressource or enemy, in a particular place or expedition, which sounds more like a detour and chore.
I'd rather engage in jobs that you can passively achieve while doing exactly whatever you want. Why not replace the specific ones by "kill 60 enemies", "kill 4 bosses", "Find 30 spectras" or "Finish 2 world events" or "Finish 1 expedition" ? Give me the choice to feely enjoy the game through my own agenda, while crossing several jobs and story quests at the same time ! Engaging, thrilling, rewarding.
Also the hunts reward (glory x1) is ridiculous imo, I personnally lost interest in this.

2) Bonus classes locked from the start :
Just a shame to force players to experience only one of the 3 starters for a first impression, when you have 8 available in the whole game.
I fell in love with Wingrave, but I can clearly imagine someone looking at the 2 hours refunding policy window of steam, and leave the game because none of the starters gave a good impression while others could.

3) Expedition system is repetitive :
No matter the RNG, I am so done with this rinse&repeat dungeon system. It makes the already annoying grind even more tiresome. I like them as unique story-bound dungeons you do the first time in main quest, but having to do them a couple hundred times for farming is not my idea of fun content.
It's a shame because those dungeons are amazingly designed and put together ! I love the archives ! I just can't stand them anymore, am sick of it, and modifiers aren't gonna fix this.
And also these are the same activities for co-op as in solo.
Why is there no new endgame dedicated mode, or co-op exclusive dungeons or raids. Or even new high level modifiers (minions replaced by elites, duplicate bosses in final rooms, an unkillable nemesis chasing players till the end, better/more reward if speedrunning fast enough, etc).
Finally, having "hidden" quests inside the expeditions themselves is pretty silly, since they show up randomly, and of course in the middle of the dungeons. Can you put them in entrance area, so we can leave and retry ? Or better yet : outside the gloomgate, somewhere in skylight ?

4) Many and long loading screens
The very design of the game revolving around a hub world, and remote activities to load, I understand why it has to deal with loading screens. But isn't there a way to store data in local so the loadings speed up somehow ? Or make it seamless ? Why do I have to wait so long to jump into areas I just played 10mins ago ?
As for co-op loading, I guess it depends host/guest network speed, but still very annoying.

5) Echoes not memorized in items slots :
Can't say it better, the echos are vanishing from equipements as soon as you remove trinkets, armor or weapon. Let's say you have 6 echos on a weapon, and want to try another weapon. You remove your main weapon, try the other one, but nah you don't like it after all. You take your main weapon back, but all your echoes disappeared !

6) No loadout system
AFAIK, the game doesn't have a loadout system in which you can swap between different builds of the same character. That is especially needed in a game with so much customization tools !

7) Azerty support :
Maybe it's just me, but I play on azerty config, and since Wayfinder can't keybind the options "mark as favorites" and "mark as trash" in inventory, I can't use my azerty keys. So I have to play qwerty specifically for this game. It's not that important, but swapping back and forth between 2 keyboards language when I need to chat or use the UI is very annoying.
An option to remap those two inputs would be great.

8) Can't reattribute skill tree points one by one, need to reset the whole tree. Tiresome...


Thx for reading !

[Elvarion]

You seem like the perfect person to ask;
How does this game coop wise when people have played different amounts. I like to really farm games and got more time on my hands than the rest of my friend group. If I were to play for a couple hours how would that affect our coop experience? Would I just steamroll stuff or is there some party scaling?

If I’m someone that enjoys doing the same thing over and over, grinding/farming is this a decent game for that? By your post it seems somewhat in lines with that.

[dreamstate42]

Great post, I agree with pretty much all of your points. I would add the following as well:

1) Archetype balance:
I have mainly played Venomess (Survivalist) after unlocking her, but tried different characters at random points (all of them are at least 10+ at this point, so all abilities unlocked).

Arcanist, so far, seems to be the archetype that is in the "weirdest spot". It seems this archetype is more focused on dodging than other archetypes, especially given the increased iframes during dodging and characters like Niss actually being "built" around dodging. My issue with this so far is the fact that there does not seem to be any way to increase stamina recovery. Even when using "+max. stamina" echoes, there are many situations in which stamina will completely drain, leaving especially Arcanists in a horrible spot (yes, every archetype can play every weapon, but that's beside the point). The game loves putting quite a few enemies on the screen, with multiple overlapping AoEs that need to be avoided, and adding in slow and other negative status effects, Arcanists can very quickly have a very bad time. Especially comparing this to Survivalists and Warmaster and their ways to mitigate and heal damage.

2) Weapon Power / Ability Power scaling feels off:
Maybe I'm missing something here, but the balance of weapon and ability power seem way off. Comparing the damage of a weapon with let's say 6000 WP to a damage ability with 6000 AP, it feels like just weapon damage comes out on top most of the time. Which is kinda bizarre considering the cooldown of abilites.

3) Stat numbers in general:
Considering the genre of Wayfinder and the amount of items, echoes etc., the way stats are presented is just akward. High numbers with no direct meaning. Maybe I haven't found a way to get actual numbers and scaling shown (besides Crit Chance), but "6000 Weapon Power" really doesn't mean anything unless I actually know how my damage and abilities might scale with it? How much "ability power" do I need for which increase in damage? The game would really profit from more information on how things interact with each other.

That's the stuff just from the top of my head. I still absolutely love Wayfinder in it's current iteration, but I think the devs could create something even more amazing with some more QoL improvements :)

[DamarusRex]

Originally posted by Elvarion:

You seem like the perfect person to ask;
How does this game coop wise when people have played different amounts. I like to really farm games and got more time on my hands than the rest of my friend group. If I were to play for a couple hours how would that affect our coop experience? Would I just steamroll stuff or is there some party scaling?

If I’m someone that enjoys doing the same thing over and over, grinding/farming is this a decent game for that? By your post it seems somewhat in lines with that.

Hi !
For all I know, devs made a setting in-game to scale difficulty as follows :
ON : all enemies from all realms will be scaled to your current level
OFF : enemies will have their level scaled to their own localisation as you discover it through the storyline. Basically early enemies for first areas will be low levels, compared to endgame enemies in last areas which will be higher level

Concerning party scaling, I don't really know how things work tbh. Do I think the enemies are stronger/harder because I play with 2 more people ? Not really. But that's my own 2cents.

In my experience, the co-op is not the best implemented feature in this game. In summary, a team of 3 will simply clean areas faster. The point today, is to help each other, or live the story with a relative. But clearly not facing a new challenge or trying synergies. Characters builds are not interesting enough yet to make a difference in team composition.
And the game has no additionnal content exclusive to co-op play once you are done with the campaign. The co-op content is the same as solo, but with friends.
Hopefully the formula will evolve and offer something more thought through and satisfying for groups, something "role" inducing.

As for the farm, yup Wayfinder will definetly be your cup. That's funny because it is currently what I don't like with the game, but help yourself. For now it's pretty much in your league then lol.
Jokes apart, I think a grindy game can be fun, it's a matter of balancing. I just dislike the current balancing between freedom, time and reward.
But there for sure is a ton of stuff to farm, and lot of customization possibilies !

[DamarusRex]

Originally posted by dreamstate42:

My issue with this so far is the fact that there does not seem to be any way to increase stamina recovery. Even when using "+max. stamina" echoes, there are many situations in which stamina will completely drain, leaving especially Arcanists in a horrible spot (yes, every archetype can play every weapon, but that's beside the point). The game loves putting quite a few enemies on the screen, with multiple overlapping AoEs that need to be avoided, and adding in slow and other negative status effects, Arcanists can very quickly have a very bad time.

[...] the balance of weapon and ability power seem way off. Comparing the damage of a weapon with let's say 6000 WP to a damage ability with 6000 AP, it feels like just weapon damage comes out on top most of the time. Which is kinda bizarre considering the cooldown of abilites.

3) Stat numbers in general:
Considering the genre of Wayfinder and the amount of items, echoes etc., the way stats are presented is just akward. High numbers with no direct meaning. Maybe I haven't found a way to get actual numbers and scaling shown (besides Crit Chance), but "6000 Weapon Power" really doesn't mean anything unless I actually know how my damage and abilities might scale with it? How much "ability power" do I need for which increase in damage? The game would really profit from more information on how things interact with each other.

I didn't delve much into Niss talents, abilities and skill tree, but I also think stamina feels like an after thought sometime. Stamina recovery would be one hell of a specialization if it had proper tools to be pushed. There could be many ways to implement that.

I hear you about abilities/weapons balance. My understanding is that perhaps devs thought of abilities as passive/active effects rather than damaging skills.
For instance, I have near no ability damage on my Wingrave because I just use them to trigger their effects.

A stats detailed insight would be nice yes, as well as a gameplay codex. Agreed on that.

[Elvarion]

Thanks for the reply Rex
Solid information, really helpful :)

[Elveone]

You can get additional stamina through the talent system and through the Equilibrium rush echo.

AP is plenty strong - abilities have higher damage multiplier than attacks which compensates for the cooldown and there are quite a few abilities where you can reset the cooldown in one way or another. Weapon abilities also scale both off AP and WP so they are viable in an AP build as well. Additionally Arcanists receive bonus based on AP on their weapon attacks in some cases and there are rush echoes that scale off AP as well that could supplement your playstyle.

[DudeBro69]

Do you face any stutter when something new happens in game?

[DamarusRex]

Originally posted by DudeBro69:

Do you face any stutter when something new happens in game?

Stutters, yes. When something new happens, no. It can happen in the middle of a combo during a fight (and freeze a couple seconds).
Honestly I have low hopes that it gets fixed one day. It has been said many times in forum and reviews and it's still there. You just get used to it.
Some people say it's setup-related, but I a mixed about that.
My fps drops in some areas in the game, I know that. I run a mid setup (xt3600 + rtx2070 + 16gb). But still, the stuttering is unique to this game. I don't have this issue with others.

[e N e L]

Yall should drown in clown awards for daring to even mention this game and perfection in the same sentence

[DamarusRex]

Originally posted by e N e L:

Yall should drown in clown awards for daring to even mention this game and perfection in the same sentence

I am sorry that you have a bad experience on this game. It is not everyone's case.
Also it is my checklist for my own experience to reach perfection, it's subjective.
Feel free to add your own fix to the list, this topic is also meant to share improvements you wish were in the game.