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What is "Things KI MUST do?"

I am creating a group of threads with this title. The purpose of them is (obviously) to tell KI what they need to do with the game. These threads aren't going to be filled with things like simple ideas meant to improve the game, they are filled with ideas to fix the huge flaws in wizard101 that hold this amazing game back.

Intro

When I created the first one on the Pet System, I was thinking how important that was and how all these ideas are equally important. My view now though, is that 3 of these threads (this one, Balancing the School, and fixing pvp) are going the real things KI must do, and out of those three things, this one is the most important.

Your probably still wondering what exactly what this thread is about, so I'll start explaining. When you level a character through the game, there are many parts that you may find "boring", but the overall grinding aspect alleviates that just enough for you to get by. When you start your next character though, you barely even enjoy the questing aspect. The point of this thread is to turn questing from a grindy chore to an enjoyable journrey. If possible, I want this effect to carry over to the next wizard you level up, and even the one after that. (To those of you that enjoy questing, don't go straight to disagreeing as is will make questing even more enjoyable.)

Fixes
Note: Multiple could be implemented, but the first MUST be implemented.

1. Adding Spells: WTH? How is adding spells going to make questing fun, its just going to make questing more grindy. The funny thing is that this is the best way to fix it. Think back to when you first joined the game, think how close the spells were. You went from wanting lightning bats to storm shark, from wanting locust swarm to sand storm. Every time you got a new spell, it was extremely exciting, and they were so close together, so you never got bored in between. Sadly, as you traveled through the world, the spells grew further and further apart. Have you noticed, that the games slowly gets more and more grindy as you progress, more... boring. You may blame all too similar quests, long worlds, etc., though these may play a part in it, the biggest offender is the wait between exciting spells. By going back and adding spells in the areas that are dull, questing could become an extremely exciting adventure. (When I say adding spells, I mean going back to level 20 or so, not adding level 65 spells in a new side world.)

Now for implementing it. The golden age of spells is in between the levels of 1 and 10. There are 6 spells between those levels (1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10.) So, to make the whole game a golden age, we would need to make sure that their are 5 (6 is a little much) new spells every 10 levels (note: the distance between level increases as well, but I think its ok considering how condensed the spells would now be.)

Before we show when the spells need to be added, we need to go over what counts:

- Secondary school training DOESN'T count.
- Astral spells DON'T count (as they are a replacement for secondary schools.)
-Side World spells DON'T count (unless they are extremely early on in the world so it requires only a small amount of extra questing.)
-Spells obtained by secret trainers (they would be okay if they were exciting, the problem is most of the aren't (who cares about minion spells?))

These spells don't count as they don't compare to the excitement that your teacher spells do give (Side world spells require too much extra effort.)

Now that we've got that cleared up, lets distribute our spells (note: the sixth spell is optional as that may be a little overboard.) (levels listed are the levels where a new spells should be added.)

Level 1-10: No spells needed
Level 11 - 20: 14
Level 21 - 30: 25
Level 31- 40: 31, 36
Level 41 - 50: 43, 46, 50
Level 51 - 60: 62, 64, 66, 70
Level 61 - 70: 72, 73, 75, 77

If spells were added at these levels, Wizard101 would be such a better game! Think how easy of a fix this is for KI as well (other ways to fix monotonous questing are either harder to program, or aren't effective.)

The next problem we face is where we would get the spells. I think the best idea would be to make the spells trainable from the wysterian teacher (bar the level 14 spell.) Really, anything could work though.

The most important problem is what the spells would be. You can't add anything anti-climatic (like a minion spell.) I think, the best way for KI to take this would be to use this opportunity to balance the schools as well (i.e. adding a life DoT, life bubble, balance blade, balance shield, etc.) If you have a spell idea thread, post a LINK (please, don't type your spells in the comment, link is much more efficent) and I will add a link if it pasts my test (to see if the are fair or not.) (Spells cannot be "New Rank" spells (i.e. level 78 spell ideas (it's OK if you have utility spells along with your 78 spells, just make sure your 78 spells aren't lonely.))) (please, post ANYONES spell ideas here, they don't have to be yours.)(Mine are added by default (sorry if that bugs you.))

Spell Ideas:
FireArrow - http://www.wizard101central.com/foru...376&highlight=
FireArrow - http://www.wizard101central.com/foru...014&highlight=

Note: I will be emailing KI about this thread sometime in the future (becuase of its sheer importance) so it may be great way for KI to hear you idea, so please don't be scared to post links to them.

2, Adding New types of quests. Collecting and fighting quests probably get old after awhile, considering its really the majority of what you do. So adding new types of quests (i.e. Defense quests and what not) may help alleviate the pain. The problem I see with this though it how much programming it would require, you would also need to go back to older worlds and add new quests (as adding a new quest in a new world doesn't help make DS any more fun.) Though it's harder to implement than the previous idea, it is viable nonetheless.

List of Quest ideas:
---

Feel free to post a LINK to yours (or someone else's) idea for a new type of quest. They don't jabe to pass any kind of test as my skill lies in spell ideas, not quest ideas.

Conclusion

KI, add spells ASAP. That's about all it takes (you would be surprised.) Feel free to post your own fixes to the problem (most will be added.) Don't just disagree without saying a reason, I want to try and make this as flawless as possible so that when I do present it to KI, it represents the community of w101, not me.

-Sorry for BBC errors, its copy pasted-

Post I wrote on March, 2011:

Greetings, Wizard101. I hope you get to come across this post and read this.

These are some suggestions/changes to the game and some mechanics and issues that I have found over the last 3 years that would make this game possibly a whole lot more fun, enjoyable, and longer lasting.

Now, before you roll your eyes and approve this post without even reading any further, please, read this entire post. While some suggestions require extra work and programming from the staff/developers, in the long run, is it not worth it if you keep happy and longer subscribers? Happy subscribers and longer subscribers equals more potential money for you guys. I and we ALL know that money is what makes this planet go 'round.

Issue I have had since 2008:

Monsters using mutate spells. While I suppose it is 'legal' in a technical sense, it becomes nothing but a cheap cop out. Especially in Celestia, when mobs have 2,000 more health, and use Ice spells with the same exact strength of storm spells. (Icezilla, Ice Kraken, etc)
It is also very inconsistent. You then, when advancing further into the game, face more ice mobs that won't cast those spells. It is sloppy AI, in my opinion.
Aside that, make mobs more *interesting.* Make the mobs cast spells only from their school. With the exception of bosses, if you really do insist on them casting mutates. Instead of them always casting a Stormzilla of a specific element, or a colossus of a specific element, or a kraken, make different school mobs actually use those spells that we don't ever seem to see except in a few very rare circumstances. I have had an issue with this since forever. I don't know, am I the only one?

Encounters. I hope you have read all my previous rants about the encounters. Long story short, there has to be a reason to enter encounters other than just simple and mindless quest objectives. One part of the reason this game may bore players over time is the fact that the only thing you can do is quests. Maybe countless quests is not the only thing you can do to level? The whole reason fleeing is such a huge issue in this game IS because encounters are worth nothing outside quest objectives.

Ideas I came up with to improve on the game even more.

Dueling Circles. At most, 4 players are allowed to enter. And, if a minion is summoned, it automatically locks out the player from participating.
I have noticed that the duel circles have 8 circles. Well, there is enough spaces for two more evenly spaced circles. Those circles can be designated to minions. They can be of a slightly different design or color, to indicate this.
This allows a full 4 player duel the use/aid of minions. Now, before you say something like "this allows the players to be overpowered" think of this: Celestia.

Classes and their 'balance.'

Myth wizards pretty much lose their minons, in a sense, once they enter Celestia. They become inefficient, counter productive, and simply suicidal to keep up with. The only minion that effectively becomes the Myth wizard's ace is the lvl.0 Living Puppet. Improve the power of Myth's minions, and Myth players will have a lot more fun and reason to play a Myth wizard. Their lower damage is perfectly justified with this, and no longer will a legendary Myth become a weak, washed out has been with low damage and ineffective stuns.
Bringing us to stuns. Why make bosses and ELITES immune to stuns? This does not make too much sense, in my opinion. The card like Medusa would become much more potent, even with the lower damage. Any type of stun brings up 4 stun blocks, preventing players from completely stun locking opponents. So what is so overpowered about the stuns that justifies an incredible decrease in spell damage? Especially since at legendary level, most players will spend the majority of grinding/fighting on bosses and elites.

Ice Minon. While the Ice minion will certainly be nice to have, and unquestionably LOVED by any ice wizard, I believe the Ice minion is incredibly overpowered, considering that not even MYTH minions are not even a match compared to it.
It will regularly cast Ice Bats, and Ice Shark. Ice Shark? If you took away the Storm shark from the myth minions, why are you allowing the Ice minion the Ice Shark? True, you don't have a Myth shark, but we are talking about the spell strength here. If Ice wizard mechanics dictate low damage, and incredible tanking ability (class distinction) don't apply a double standard here and keep it that way. I just find that, cheap. Yea, yea, another player complaining about "unfairness" but it is not "unfairness" that I have an issue with. It is about the whole 'class distinction' issue. Also never seen anyone complain about it on forums, and I may be the only one, but, here you have it.

Fizzles. Fizzles have been an ongoing, hot debate, since the start of the game. I have a solution to this. Instead of making it possible to fizzle 4 times (or even more) in a row and being totally smashed to the ground, give players an edge, especially when it comes to Celestia. After 3 fizzles in a row, fizzle rate (the natural fizzle rate, not affected by any spells) is reduced to 0. This will fix any fizzle concerns, but keep this game's balance in 'check' in terms of strength's relation to accuracy.

Fleeing. I have not come up with a solution to this, really, but an idea. Players who enter duels or get drawn in are forced to spend at least 120 seconds in it. To counter simple 'passing' a player who passes 3 times in a row automatically forfeits the duel, and will be locked out of dueling for 10 minutes. (to prevent afk'ers.) Not sure how viable this is, but that was my idea. Or something simliar to this.

Endgame. A very common thing I see is "What next?" and "What am I going to do now?"
I have a solution to this, other than gardening, pet breeding, and crafting. Players get the option to "merit grind." This brings the reason to play at legendary to a whole new level. Any encounters, NOT including boss encounters, gain you exp. Well, at legendary level, it will gain you "points" instead. Or exp towards a 'merit pool.' Upon reaching a required amount of points, players get to increase their wizard's stats. Now, a lot of points should be needed, to keep players from downright grinding themselves towards God mode.
But lets say every 2000 points (based on current exp earnings) gets you an increase in stats. That increase may be in health, accuracy, power, defense, resistences, etc. That would give a wizard a reason to enter random encounters, and something else to do other than constantly farming boss mobs for pets or other items.

Pet training. Make it free. I realize, you are trying to earn money here by trying to coerce players into purchasing crowns to refill their energy, but people will have a much higher incentive, and more reason to breed and train pets if they are NOT limited to only a certain amount of training per day. Also, that will make the whole pet breeding a lot more fun. Remember, more fun=more money for you.

Celestia. You have heard this before too, I am sure. Celestia is hard. It will slap casual players like me right in the face, and drop kick anyone else. Why? Yes, you want to provide players with challenges, but keep that restricted to boss fights and dungeons. The whole point of the game is to make it casual, fun, and addictive and fun to play, right? Simply adding a 'grudge' factor to players by slapping players with such a high difficulty gains you absolutlely nothing. Yes, I still keep up my subscription, but my opinion of you guys not even willing to debate the 'difficulty' issue just drops it that much lower. One good way for starters is to eliminate mob criticals. Just one critical can be enough to destroy a fight, and the fun of it.
I read a post on the Celestia thread regarding the difficulty, and a response that really should hit home. The response read something like 'this game was made to be enjoyed casually by casual players geared towards the younger audience.' Well, I don't see the general audience enjoying Celestia very much with all the "this is hard" posts. Why destroy part of the casual enjoyment? There can always be boss fights and special dungeons in which you guys can ramp up difficulty to frustrating levels and have this game be perfectly fine.

If you can make this game much more fun to play, and give players much more reason to play at endgame level (other than continuously raising level caps), you will make a much more happy player environment. In the end, much like a 'happy employee is a productive employee' a 'happy subscriber is a continued subscriber.' That is the whole point behind you having created this game anyway, correct?

Please, I hope you have read all those ideas, suggestions, and issues. And to all you wizards, tell me what YOU think. Are my ideas good? Are my solutions to any of the issues good? Is my reasoning justified?

Edited: Proof read, clarification, additions.
Edited: Grammar.

Response to Colagada or anyone else who thinks the same way.
While these things may make the game easier, that is not the point.
It is to simply make the game more enjoyable and entertaining. Sure you can say 'it already is easy.' Any legendary will turn around and think so once they hit level 60. Any death or life or even ice wizard may turn around and say the same before they even hit level 60. But based on general observations and experience being in Celestia, it is not as easy as you make it so sound.
And while 'hardcore' players will find a way around the difficulty, adapt and face it, those people who can not do so will simply be frustrated and 'left in the dark' when they cannot find extra people or friends to play with.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Apr/27/2011 5:10 pm

Maybe if I could add to that? A housing minigame would be cool, and I know that the tag game is progressing. So, I'll display my ideas on minigames:
Capture the flag-
Each school has its own 'power'. Fire will have a burn to make a 5 second barrier wherever the Fire wizard clicks, Storm will have a soak/flood to create a moat, Ice will have a power to freeze up the ground and make your opponents have a hard time getting around the terrain or to freeze up a moat, Death will have a ghost-tag effect that lasts 30 seconds and they will hang around the flag to 'tag' the enemy if they get close by, Life will have a 'distraction' effect to make fake holograms to go and get the flag but they can't get the flag because they're only distractions and they disappear when tagged by an opponent in the opponent's territory, Myth will have an earthquake to make cracks in the ground so your opponent will have to go around. These powers will have to recharge every 30 seconds.
PvP Tourney- a pvp tournament randomly setting one wizard against the other.
Pet Derby Tourney- Same thing as the pvp but with a 1 on 1 pet race.
Defend the castle-You have to defend your house by placing your pets to fight and defend. If your pets get defeated, they will NOT disappear! They will just be gone for the minigame! The higher the rank the pet, the stronger, and also the enemy mobs will be from:
Trolls 25 HP 15 DM
Cyclops' 100 HP 35 DM
Kroks 275 HP 50 DM
Colossus' 330 HP 30 DM
Phoenix 225 HP 75 DM
Wraith 550 HP 125 DM
Giant Gnome 1025 HP 160 DM
Kraken 600 HP 290 DM
Ra 2200 HP 150 DM

The pet HP will be at:
Baby= 150
Teen=300
Adult=600
Ancient=1200
Epic=1250

The pet damage (DM) would be at:
Baby=10
Teen=25
Adult=150
Ancient=275
Epic=300

Minigames are fun and we need some new ones! So I think these would be pretty fun, and will take experienced programmers to make, but no joke, out of all, these games would be EPIC!

Read Me

Many of the comments show lack of understanding rather than actually disagreeing with what I'm saying. Some of the comments do actually disagree, but I am going to put my arguments in here so KI will see them (and thus make the decision that they think is right.)

1. Reworking the game: Many of you think of this as some huge project that would take KI as much effort as they are putting into China right now. It's not that bad. All KI needs to do is add a secret trainer in some very early world (or multiple spread throughout the worlds.) This isn't about removing the existing spells and adding new ones or anything of the sort, its simply adding spells, similar to a level cap.

I am going to say this though, it's not simple either. KI would have to add 15 spells for each school, that's 105 spells in all. At first, you think "you might as well rework the game," but if you think about it, it's not THAT daunting. Players suggest spells all the time, so if KI doesn't really have to be creative if they don't want to, they could just tap into the very abundant source of suggested spells that already exist.

2. Adding Spells is Horrible! This thread isn't about adding spells (though it is my favorite option.) It is about making questing not grindy, so if you vote "I disagree" on the poll, your not saying no to the idea of spells, your saying that questing is fun as it is and doesn't need to be fixed.

3. KI works to hard already. We aren't KI's employer, what more do I need to say? KI wants us to tell them what we think of their game, so we reward them with "you work so hard, so we won't tell you what we think as we are giving you break." We should be saying things like "Fix this, I like this, etc."

4. To many spells! Whats the point of spells you wont use? Weren't you excited when you got your rank 3 spell? Do you still use it often? Exactly. It is very possible to add spells that are useful when you get them but not in 10 levels. You can even do things like adding a premature version of a spell.

5. That will unbalance the game! Did adding the 48, 58, and 68 spells unbalance the game? Yes! So how the heck is this change going to be any different. It is also possible to add spells and not unbalance the game as well, all you have to do is not favor one school over the other.

This died off so quickly. Man Solstice64, what are we to do?

(completely off-topic) Solstice64, weren't you gonna critique my new spell ideas?