My review on RS Dragonwilds

[Bert]

Coming from a "casual" survival game player that has a couple thousand hours sprinkled through other survival games and probably over 15 years worth of on and off OSRS play I would like to think my opinion comes from an educated perspective.

I think Dragonwilds is extremely easy. There needs to be more of an imminent threat in every zone (based off gear progression).

The multiplier for having 2/4+ gamers in your world needs to be cranked up at least double.

There needs to be more animation canceling via rolling. Getting caught in a lightning bolt while mining feels a little janky.

And finally the world just doesn't feel big. Maybe its the loadstones and they need a nerf, but after 50 hours of gameplay i can zip through the map like I'm the dragon.

Also ****SPOILER**** after killing the dragon why am I still being attacked by him. I was pretty immersed in Ashenfall until I saw this dragon flying around literally minutes after killing him.


In the end I think this game has BEAUTIFUL art style. Gear and equipment looks immaculate. I think the weapon combos need a little tweak, but are honestly really cool at root.

The monsters AI is not the greatest and outside of the classic runescape cheese I shouldnt be able to spam fire spells into melee NPCs and they just be glitched in spot. Yes it is easy, no it is not challenging.



If I could give Jagex one tip of advice is this:
The Community just evolved from OSRS andys to a hybrid including Survival Gamers... Give us the sweat, give us challenges, make some bosses unbeatable if you are not fully prepared and locked in. OSRS has been a great journey, but you guys kept the limits capped on how hard it could be. Don't do that with Dragonwilds. Let it be scary when I walk out my door.

[Druark]

Easy? You die in 2-3 hits from any enemy, the parry window is tiny and often doesn't even register and if you roll twice you can only swing about 3-4 times before running out of stamina. I can handle this fine having played similar games, my more casual friends (the majority of players) cannot very well. Every game is always easier with a party of 2-4 too.

If being "fully prepared" just constitutes having 4 players who ran around for 3 hours collecting rocks and plants to make every potion possibly needed, that isn't fun, it's tedious padding. This is a Coop Survival game, not OSRS and It sounds like you want OSRS-2. You played 50 hours, in any other survival game you'd be finished by then, it's not an MMO with endless grind.

The best solution would be what VRising and Palworld did, add world options to change the grind, scaling, etc. That way they please everyone and dev's don't need to compromise on their vision of the game for the default settings.

[dcb$510]

Also lacks monster variety where are they ?

[Tim Chambers]

They released it way to early. Guessing they wanted some good numbers for their quarterly proffit numbers.

[Wise Old Man 👴🏻]

I don't know if it's just me, but I find my character swinging an extra time while mining even when I'm making sure I click once, and I get zapped by a lightning bolt.

[Apocq]

the dragon that attacks after you killed velgar is probably queen kuldra, js.

[Y SO SRS LAWL]

Originally posted by Druark:

Easy? You die in 2-3 hits from any enemy, the parry window is tiny and often doesn't even register and if you roll twice you can only swing about 3-4 times before running out of stamina. I can handle this fine having played similar games, my more casual friends (the majority of players) cannot very well. Every game is always easier with a party of 2-4 too.

If being "fully prepared" just constitutes having 4 players who ran around for 3 hours collecting rocks and plants to make every potion possibly needed, that isn't fun, it's tedious padding. This is a Coop Survival game, not OSRS and It sounds like you want OSRS-2. You played 50 hours, in any other survival game you'd be finished by then, it's not an MMO with endless grind.

The best solution would be what VRising and Palworld did, add world options to change the grind, scaling, etc. That way they please everyone and dev's don't need to compromise on their vision of the game for the default settings.

This game is by no means hard. Go play Valheim and come back lol. Even then Valheim is not hard with enough time invested to learn the mobs. 50 hours is nothing to that game as well. Speed runners can get it done in <15hrs but thats being as optimal as possible on a random seed.

[GafferGragz]

Originally posted by Bert:

Coming from a "casual" survival game player that has a couple thousand hours sprinkled through other survival games and probably over 15 years worth of on and off OSRS play I would like to think my opinion comes from an educated perspective.

Sounds about right and the review are neat and on point and a joy to read.
Thanks I needed this I've been camping the forum for 16 hours straight, trying to help where I can, giving a taste of shame if needed, but most ppl recognise this as a public space and the soapbox speech/hollering is somewhat entertaining. Although I do cringe of the most infantile texts that is only holler -.-

[Bert]

Originally posted by Druark:

Easy? You die in 2-3 hits from any enemy, the parry window is tiny and often doesn't even register and if you roll twice you can only swing about 3-4 times before running out of stamina. I can handle this fine having played similar games, my more casual friends (the majority of players) cannot very well. Every game is always easier with a party of 2-4 too.

If being "fully prepared" just constitutes having 4 players who ran around for 3 hours collecting rocks and plants to make every potion possibly needed, that isn't fun, it's tedious padding. This is a Coop Survival game, not OSRS and It sounds like you want OSRS-2. You played 50 hours, in any other survival game you'd be finished by then, it's not an MMO with endless grind.

The best solution would be what VRising and Palworld did, add world options to change the grind, scaling, etc. That way they please everyone and dev's don't need to compromise on their vision of the game for the default settings.

IDK bro i mean not to spoil gameplay, hoping you have finished the main quest but you can take zero damage and kill the dragon with stone arrows SOLO. I think the mobs need to be scaled up some.

The only time I really have trouble killing mobs is when im rushing through areas and taking on 4/5 mobs at a time and even then sometimes I lock in and kill them. I personally think more one shot mechanics and unforgiving mobs.
Being able to perma snare mobs with fire magic from a distance or caster mobs just running away from me is not challenging

[Bert]

Originally posted by Wise Old Man 👴🏻:

I don't know if it's just me, but I find my character swinging an extra time while mining even when I'm making sure I click once, and I get zapped by a lightning bolt.

Dude the response on mining/woodcutting is actually impressive haha! Sending an extra swing has happened more than I care to admit

[Bert]

Originally posted by Apocq:

the dragon that attacks after you killed velgar is probably queen kuldra, js.

Thank you although it looks exactly the same and has the same poison effect... I think this is a good way to calm my aggravation and immerse myself deeper.

[Bert]

Originally posted by dcb$510:

Also lacks monster variety where are they ?

Yea seeing the same mobs in 3 zones is kind of rough, although you can kind of get a feel that there was a fight between the Gargou and dragons long before we arrived So it makes sense that this Horizontal line of progression (including the swamp peninsula) has the same species of mob. Although 4ish mob types for an entire race is kind of rough. Give us a Shaman to go with the Druid etc.

[HERBDESTROYER420]

Atleast your game didnt randomly delete your world (all of your friends progress gone) and character after 50+ hours

[southernsparkd]

Agree with the original posts comments. For experienced teams the dungeons did not present much of a challenge. The limit cap of 4 party members needs to be increased, this was a big let down not being able to play with your friends and trying to select who plays with who. Limited variety of monsters was disappointing. The building aspect was very nice. Hoping for more of a variety of textures later along with added defense features for bases like spiked walls or something. Overall it was a fun game and will play again. It just needs a little more.

[Bert]

Originally posted by HERBDESTROYER420:

Atleast your game didnt randomly delete your world (all of your friends progress gone) and character after 50+ hours

That's rough brother. I had this happen to me In Valheim on my first character of roughly 200+ hours. The seed just completely broke.
I am looking forward to dedicated and non dedicated servers to help fight against this.

[Bert]

Originally posted by southernsparkd:

Agree with the original posts comments. For experienced teams the dungeons did not present much of a challenge. The limit cap of 4 party members needs to be increased, this was a big let down not being able to play with your friends and trying to select who plays with who. Limited variety of monsters was disappointing. The building aspect was very nice. Hoping for more of a variety of textures later along with added defense features for bases like spiked walls or something. Overall it was a fun game and will play again. It just needs a little more.

I agree with this. My community too has about 7 of us and it was sad that we couldnt all log in together on day one. I did see on the roadmap that they will be implementing a in game messaging system, So I hope this creates more bridges between different player seeds.

It would be cool if the dedicated servers had a "hub" like Port Sarim where you could go and trade/ talk with other players to make the world feel bigger and not so limited to a 4 man that absolutely crushes everything.