Wizard101: My Thoughts on Raids.. 

This is a hot topic in the community right now and I wanted to make a video fully explaining how I feel about the situation. There's lots of room for opinions on this one, so let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments. Thanks for watching!

I genuinely believe that Kingsisle is one of the laziest gaming production companies out there. I believe when players give "constructive criticism", they are either too lazy to consider it or only view they're players as stupid kids that will take what they give them. It seems, especially on Twitter, when someone has a valid complaint about the game, the devs respond with attitude, condescension, and disrespect.

Haven’t even thought of bothering with guilds/raids; seems just as pointless as pvp even if it my give good gear. Catacombs was the last big farming thing I’ll do in wiz

But are people really surpirsed? People love to act surprise when yet another update is failed from KI every update will always have hype and then it won’t live up to the hype and it always fails that how this game works it will never be good like everyone wants every update will always disappoint the players sense they argue with their own community that keeps this game alive and I hope people start to realize that the more they argue the more they don’t listen to players the game will die it’s already super old game and the only people playing are the dedicated fan base that grew up with it so if they argue and lose their only dedicated fans goodbye wiz lol

gear farming peaked with darkmoor

my biggest issue is the farming to unlock the raid in the first place. I'm not willing to grind for hours just to get the chance to play new content for a few hours and presumably not even complete it since it's so hard. You don't need to farm for hours to press X on the waterworks sigil.

A fellow wiztuber Ferric has done the raid multiple times. I asked him " how many successful runs did you do " in his stream. he said 2/5 runs which is kinda insane. You basically need to speedrun this mode in order to win. Also the amount of effort and time you need to open the battle door to even get to raids is insane and on top of it you need like 600 azoth to craft one key. I think KI really should rework this. It's kinda unfinished in my opinion and this update was rushed.

raids are only for streamers and their fanboys, its only been streamer groups that have done it so far. Normal players cant get 12 max players in comms to do raids at once on a dead game.

the drop rates in the raids might not have been such a glaring issue if raids were even mildly accessible to begin with. guilds seem rather closed off to players who aren't very connected in the wiz scene and the sheer amount of grinding that goes into unlocking raids makes them particularly unappealing, considering how much effort, coordination, and luck you need to complete a raid after all of those prerequisites are met. imo: really cool concept, lackluster implementation 🤷‍♀

why would i waste months of my life grinding for gear just for a new world/new gear/new levels update to come out a month later. I think guilds are fun but raids are a huge waste of time an effort for a tiny upgrade in stats that will be irrelevant by the time you get all the gear on every wiz

KI devs (specifically you know who) really should try and learn from other immensly more successful in the west MMO's such as WoW, FFXIV, ESO and streamers e.g. Asmongold about how artificial player friction (which is at an all time high with how keys are farmed, raids are unlocked and spellements are farmed) kills enjoyment leading to players leaving for other games. Instead of taking frustrating wasting time concepts from gatcha's games e.g. trying to get +20 upgrade in Lost Ark and acting like narcissist with superiority complexes. Its not 2008, you know that most people who play are adults who played as kids/teens and only stay for nostalgia but that only runs so far. Fire RatBeard.

The raids concept itself is cool but they just made it all so difficult to get, I'm not even going to be surprised if the just drop some insane pay to win pack that drops azoth and stuff

ratbeard is honestly a joke to the community. Makes snarky comments about players needing to get better in order to see good drops but like, for those who have done raids and all the other new things with the update, drops are just awful. It more seems like ratbeard just wanted people to interact more with the things he gets to oversee. Honestly a joke

also that's a great point on how raids are setup. they feel like speedruns that the devs want you to do over and over, its not very fun imo. maybe they should look more to other game's raids

Why can't we have regular dungeons with 4 people going in? I don't understand why do we have to be this giant group.

Raids suck honestly because of this... and i actually understand what you're saying..

yeah fr i dont want to do raids and grind if the devs are just going to tell me to get better when the drop rates ARENT that good, wiz devs dont listen ig

Imo the drops are too weak and just not worth it for all the effort that's required. Of course if they were too strong, they would be a problem for pvp, so I suggest that by getting the drop from raid, you can buy the pvp version of the item which would just be a nerfed version of the raid item. Obviously the actual raid item won't be allowed in ranked pvp and such

This game hasn’t been fun for a while. FF14 is my new favorite MMO. The devs actually give players what they want and they care.

One of my favorite parts of Wiz is the community. I first played this game when I was little and I’m 19 now. Everyone who plays this game is older and they are willing to help with almost everything you need if they are free. I’m not connected with the community that we’ll. I have some in game friends but I would never be able to do this. I feel like they are making this so hard to get so that it doesn’t even become accessible or so they don’t need to work on things for the future. It’s rough because I like this game. I love it. Really I do and I play it all the time but when they do stuff like this it makes me question where the are heading

Hey there, thank you for addressing this in a video. I appreciate the constructive criticism and am saddened that the Wizard101Dev account even made a statement like that. Definitely not how a company should be communicating with people. I'm very happy to see people making their comments on this.

This game seems to be in this rut that won’t go anywhere unless the devs and players begin to work together better than we ever have. I completely agree with your points about how long getting this gear takes. I’ve played the game a few times over the years and I’m replaying it now and currently in Mooshu. Your constructive criticism is constructive. It’s clear; it’s not raging against the devs, you’re just calmly giving the facts about what is happening now and what can happen to change things. Miss you dude, great RU-vidr over the years

Not a big fan of some of the Devs currently. I miss the Wiz era back when Celestia first came out, that was the best Wiz ever. 😪

I just don’t think this was a smart move for ki. This is a casual game. Most players are casual. Why are they creating content that 95% of their players will never touch?

KingsIsle is one of those companies where I have absolutely nothing but respect for the artists and writers and general creators behind the games, because they do phenomenal work, but the devs that come and speak are just... Not great with what they decide to do and say. Sort of like Nintendo, on a much smaller scale.

Ok, so players want hard challenges but at same time complain if its challenging. Wtf?

As one of the very few players that has a ton experience (I've done easily 20+ hours of raids) with raids I have to say the rewards just aren't proportional to the difficulty and grind you put into it in the first place. With that being said, just think about the fact we grind to do a grind, to do raids, then to farm raids, and then only to hope we get something somewhat decent every single raid. Oh and by the way each raid on average can take 25-30 minutes alone and even with a good strategy things can go wrong. Just keep in mind I am one of the major sweats and even I am complaining about the drop rates.

The devs react like those coworkers who ask for feedback/ constructive criticism and then get angry when it's given.

This game will die soon if they dont Make it free to play and only make revenue by crowns My friends dont join me because they cant see the game at all Why should they pay if they still dont know if they even want it or not

I think my biggest problem is with the gold keys like I want to farm omen and some other bosses. I don't care for raids as I will probably never do them so why change gold keys why not just make a raid key that needed to be crafted and let the rest of the other players enjoy the gold key bosses like how are new players going to get the aphfro gear in the graveyard or like a mount from omen if they pretty much removed the only way for them to get the chance at fighting them.

They could have AT LEAST made the raid gear look cool so you were grinding for aesthetics but nope it looks awful. You’re better off playing another game until the new world drops and new gear comes out

I think one of the biggest problems with the raids is that you need 12 people to do it. I mean how the hell are you supposed to get 12 people online together at the same time and make sure everyone knows what to do and just have general communication without a live stream or a discord call? I think a decent way to “fix it” is to takeaway the mana drain and take away the 4 player mana team by extension. I feel like it would be much easier to coordinate 8 people that are being more casual and only using the wiz chat. Even then I still think there are other underlying problems with the raids in the first place.

Most adults have a life - we are lucky if we get to play 2 hours on Wizard 101. Today I was able to get on and take care of my garden, that's about it. And I pay my membership to play the game. Very sad.

Dick move on KI's behalf.

Elie Akilian is responsible for this. He sold the company after blowing the company money on useless mobile games. Then when the mobile games failed miserably, Kingsisle went into debt. Those massive layoffs proved my point. Elie sold the company to a game company that has a horrible reputation with operating MMOs. Kingsisle should had just focused on Wizard101 and Pirate101. But NOPE they made the dumbest decision to develop mobile games.

The fact you need 12 minimum players online at once to get a guild going to begin with is a HUGE undertaking. And I've never had the chance to see a guild or the raiding system because setting up a guild is a huge ask from your players. The game is already heavilly designed and favored for solo players, or even groups of 2, maybe 3 players at most. Getting 12 friends together for a raiding system is a near impossibility if you ask me. They keep nerfing spells to favor the PvP crowd, breaking the PvE experience overall. They intentionally make the game grindier for the sake of making it take longer, or you could just give them some dollars to have another attempt at the RNG. When something's "Overused and overdone", they nerf it into the ground to where nobody wants to use it anymore. And now Raids... I cant say anything about them because I've never done them myself. Not that I dont want to, but the requirements for it are so outlandish that I dont think I ever could get one going. OH YEAH, now that I remember it, they keep saying things like how to make the game more "Co-Op Friendly". But there's so many design decisions in the game that go against that notion. You cant properly strategize around cheating bosses with players that are stuck with menu chat. Tell me, why is it when you reach late game you dont see menu chat players? Because nobody wants to play with them, because they cant get a grasp on the game, and they cant communicate to other players because of a communication's barrier. This is actively hurting the game. That's just one example of the myriad of "team based" problems this game has.

It’s game devs who refuse to listen to their audience that kill their game ngl. They’re wasting everyone’s time introducing this mechanic, the expectations for time and even having enough active friends to do anything is bad enough but then adding low drop rates and refusing to change them - who the hell is going to do raids then? Huge waste of time for everyone involved.

I see a lot of comments blaming kingsilse but didn't they sell the company? Are they still operating under kingsilses name?

I just don’t understand why they put so much effort and time into a thing only a few people can manage to pull off lol. They coulda put that time into a quality of life update that a majority of people would enjoy - or give an option of choosing how many people do the raid, instead of 12 u could have 8 and u wouldn’t have a mana team, or 4 and it’s just vanguard with no outside teams, raids seem cool - just hard to find enough players that want to research and learn how to do them to even bother participating.

Not kingsisle deleting the tweet SMH lolll

Would love to give input on the raids, but I can't access them to do so. It's bad enough that the raids require guild membership, many hours just to unlock the ability to raid, and 12 max level wizards who are online all at the same time (and who are at least competent), but having it be a farmfest past all that is is dumb. Good gear shouldn't be a guaranteed drop rate, for sure, but there should be at least a decent chance to get the desired gear (especially after putting in a that effort in to raid in the first place). Also, throwing a "git gud" at the player base struggling to get rewards from this exclusive content with a garbage loot system probably isn't the best plan? This is Wizard101, not Dark Souls; I'm not sure mockery will get them very far with their players. I know they don't playtest their game at all, but the least they could do is listen to their audience testing the game for them.

Blaze said that this gear isn’t supposed to be game changing, but in my opinion it is supposed to be game changing and they made it the opposite. This is the first time kingsisle has implemented a part of a game where it requires 12 people to work together simultaneously towards one goal in a single “dungeon” (Ik its a raid but it’s just another form of a bigger dungeon). How is that not game changing? The rewards should reflect that. A new pet isn’t a game changer. The new pets will have the same stats as our old ones, just a different cosmetic and different cards. In my opinion that doesn’t change the game at all. Stronger gear, spells, enemies, etc change the game. And these raids don’t reflect that at all. The gear just isn’t that big of a step up to lvl 100 gear. So how is that going to motivate players to even grind 600 of a reagent and so on to not even replace gear that’s 50 LEVELS BELOW THEM? It’s just a little mind boggling to me that they even ask for “constructive criticism” when they respond like that.

Only thing I don’t like with raids is how it’s 30min or so and 12 players is crazy to me. I’m a destiny 2 player and just enjoy the raids they have where you have your people, have a checkpoint at whatever boss, and then have a week to finish the raid before it resets.

I dont know anything about raids, so i looked it up and did some research, and its stupid. I would make a long comment saying why, but im not gonna waste anybodys time :)

This is what I exactly mean by the players knowing more about the game than the actual freakn Devs & its extremely sad!

Raids suck. The effort you put in isn't comparable to the rewards you receive, the update notes were needlessly vague on how you actually _start_ a raid, hardly anybody is gonna have 11 other coordinated friends online for this, and this is supposed to be an E10+ game that isn't extremely complicated.

"the rates aren't trash, y'all are trash" -KI Devs 2022

I have no interest in either the raids or the guilds. I normally play solo, so this feature is relatively useless to me.

your saying is truth

The drop rate is not worth it for minimal upgrades to stats. I think it also says a lot that I’ve only seen 2 people with raid gear, and a handful with the raid badge. The raid is fun if you approach it from an experience perspective but getting the key is a massive grind. I’ve attempted it 9 times and only completed it twice which I’m okay with and still learning, but the drop rate makes it that this is only fun as an experience and provides no real value to stats since you’ll likely not get anything before you give up. It’s like they created this fun new raid and guild system but then did their classic grind dump all over it.

Aside from the lazyness on their part for improvement. Lets not forget their audience target are children 12- younger and receptiveness on children works regardless if its the same thing. Their mindset does not think beyond change because they comfortable with what they have and get. I go back to it for nostalgia playin, been on and off since 2010!!

If guilds and raids are going to be like this, then it's a botched feature for me. I come and go from Wiz and only play a couple hours at a time when I feel like it. I prefer casual gameplay over grindy competitive gameplay. With raids being how guild rewards are earned, I have no incentive to even join a guild which means I will be spending as much time on Wiz as I was before, which isn't very much. New features should make players want to play more. There is no reason for KingsIsle to make raids like this except for pure laziness because it isn't making the game better.

I vote we make wiz expand their game to console

Blaze, dude, you need to check Kyle's twitter. "Something" popped up.

I mean the fact that it's timed with a game that the majority of gameplay is animations that take time. So yeah it's a dumb mechanic just make it a super hard boss for a group of eight to fight boom already better gameplay.

I agree with your points and KI is just filled with greedy clowns that make changes that are half-baked and waste your time. They make snarky remarks that our “win rates” are too low when they’ve stupidly made it a tedious grind just to get the chance to enter the raid in the first place using raid keys not to mention needing high coordination between 12 currently online players and all the resources that go into that such as time, gold, energy, etc. Then the content is the hardest in game. Our win rates are low because they make accessing it absurdly grindy & unnecessarily difficult making it slow for us to do the thing in the first place, then the bosses have cheats and it’s a timed thing basically like a speed-run for doing the hardest thing in game. They purposefully made it even harder after players successfully completed it in test realm. Our win rates would be higher if they didn’t keep making it harder after they made it more impossible. They’ve just done circular reasoning since our win rates are low because they make it absurdly hard to enter & participate in the first place unless you’re a streamer & then even harder to complete on time & lastly hard to win/beat despite all the odds/obstacles in your way. The win rates being low is their fault too, not the players fault. If we keep beating it, they’ll just make it harder like they’ve already shown they’re willing to do in test realm. Perhaps future iterations of raids will be even harder, who knows. Lastly, the drops rates are atrocious since it’s not guaranteed to drop a piece of gear and if you do get a gear piece, it’s not guaranteed to be your school type, & even if it’s your school type, it may not be the one/type you want. You may want the damage/offense one and you get the utility or defense one instead. Talk about BS! Then if you do finally get the piece you want by some miracle, it may not even have the best stats currently for that role (Damage, Defense, or Utility) not to mention that it’ll likely be outdated when the next best thing comes around with the release of the next world defeating the purpose of raid gear. Raid gear itself is also not the best-designed in terms of aesthetics since they’re is definitely cooler looking gear. One only has to look to the spiral villains hoard pack to see the creativity and potential of what gear can look like when KI actually does things right. Raids should drop the BEST of whatever the reward type is. If it’s new pets, the pets should have the next gen max stats with rare item cards or rare/new pet talents. If it’s seeds, the seeds should be super easy to take care of and drop some of the best harvests at mature & elder like lots of amber, gold, rare tc, jewels, tapestries, +55-60xp pet snacks, etc. If it’s spellements, then it should be 30-50 spellement drops every time, maybe even drop lore spells themselves. If it’s housing item decorations, it should be lots of gold skeleton keys for farming those bosses outside of raids and even new housing decorations unique to raids. If it’s crown-shop items, then mounts, Couch-Potato/EMP seeds, & other elixirs from the crown shop should drop too. All those things are considered some of the best if not the best for the reward type that it is that would make raids feel worthwhile. If they pigeon-hole themselves to low drops rates for mainly gear stuff that has comparable stats or worse stats, then raids will die off for sure.

I mean what they make drop rates higher more people get the gear sooner thus less people will run the raids later..... Throughout all mmos raiding is the endgame and isn't meant to be easy and drops aren't meant to be easy to get WoW for example you are only able to get a drop once a week so be grateful that you can even farm this.

I don't really have an opinion on raids other than it's content that's not for me. Some people really like the grind and the satisfaction of completing a super difficult task, and that's great, but I'm a pretty casual player and don't enjoy the aspects of pvp, beastmoon, deckathlon, or raids/guilds. It kinda sucks that those things are their main focus now and they're trying to force casual pve players, like myself, to play those. I enjoy the casual grind for good gear or opening packs but I don't want to do things that have a lot of try hard sweaty gamers. (Not saying all people that enjoy those events are try hard sweaty gamers but I'm sure we've all met quite a few that take it too seriously.) Anyway, that's my two cents on the matter. Not for me but happy for those that enjoy it

They said same thing with drop rates in Pirate 101, they never learn . . .

Everyone at KI needs to go. They all need replaced by people with actual heart and spirit to keep this game going. At the moment it's on life support. And has been for a while.

The concept of Raids is great! It gives Max wizzes more things to do endgame, and has a chance to be a fun semi-challenging feature. Its execution is horrible. And KI's response is not surprising, but its still a JOKE. These devs care more about money than the game being fun for players

Kingisle really said "get good" to their fans huh. That's insane

Wizard101 changed so much without even caring about how players feel,ive been playing for years like sense the start and in the past 2 to 3 year i slowly stoped playing in the last year ive only played 2 times which is insane cause i was to be a hard core pvp player. The game is dying and its cause they dont care what players think

Raids kinda exclusive i barely have 5 friends that play this game and they arent the closest of friends. Getting a whole guild going seems like an impossibility to me.

This game because of the company, has became disgusting to me. I am about to be year 3 away and unimpressed from this game but I always come back to hear from you about it. I recently heard their player base dropped even more since I left which is a good thing considering how they scam players from their time and money. My faith dipped completely on this game and now I am expecting it to fail to the point it gives the game over to another company again. I am generally optimistic but it must align with reality and the reality is the company is destroying this game that has so much potential to be good. It will never be good underneath this company. Also most players are adults and my God he knows that being an adult with responsibility there is not enough time to be scammed out of it from a company that is too dumb to understand that. They scam people out of time and money. I only have time to comment this because it's the weekend. It's so angering when it can be so good but they make it so bad.

You have to remember that KI was bought by Gamigo a few years ago and they have been greedy from the start. I stopped playing for a few years for that reason. Now that I am back I can see that people are seeing that as well. This comment seems to be a little late, but as I mentioned I just came back to play again.

Wow. The Dev's tweet was so condescending. I agree with your comments regarding incentive.

They tryna look at other games with raids and be like “if their drop rates are low for good gear, why can’t ours?” Really tryna be like other games a bit too much imo

This raid thing is not worth it to me what's the point of doing it if you need 12 people to do it that's ridiculous ki is seriously killing themselves with this their digging their own grave before the update I said this before to my sibling this new update will destroy the game from the inside and it will cause backlash from the community ki really is stupid no doubt

I'm more of a casual player, so I'm not one to farm like crazy for gear. If raids are really that bad at dropping stuff, then what would be the point of me joining a guild?

In what game do you only complete a raid once and get all the gear you need? That is such a ridiculous stance. Cant think of a single mmo with that mechanic

Advanced combat killed it for me. Keep pvp rules in pvp

agreed, there is literally no incentive. ass compensation gear to waste this much time. wiz has been the biggest investment when it comes to this wizard101

What are raids? I just got back into the game.

i agree so much with you because getting 12 people to completely cooperate with you for raids is a hard task. Plus the amount of times you have to restart because you won’t finish in time. Then to craft the keys it takes FOREVER. Just watching people do raids make me not want to do them just because of the difficulty and the drop rates, what’s the point of failing over and over then when you win you get the worse gear.

Mr Dingle agrees with you

They talked a lot about endgame content, so there may not be another world and raids will be here to stay relevant. However, doesn't mean that the next pack will not have different/better/alternative gear. Personally, I work and have a family. An hour or two at any time are max. I can't see that there are lots of people interested in putting a full workday into raids, that are so hard to even access, much less complete

it's the natural consequence they complained about the drop rates so ki switched the drop rates for the win rates.

Video: 1 second in Me: “Oh sh*t”

To me, it just sounds like the same hardest difficulty raids/dungeons/whatever for any other mmo. Not going to be for everyone. It's gonna take time. Not a big deal to me

malistaire robe for storm is not the best robe in the game anymore.

Is anyone in the comment section financially free ?

4:12 The lack of incentive in general has slowly taken over the game post-2015 and it's been frustrating. Thinking back to my struggles getting the Verboten Mimic to drop the 120+ crit ring or even Shadowwock dropping the 120+ boots - both of those grinds were such a waste of time, especially considering a normal drop from the mimic could be a pillow housing item.

this game is for rich kids now lmao'

one thing thats bothering me is non tradable gear within the account like my life is 150 my death is 80 i want a helm from a boss from darkmoore but i cant get it till polaris and its purely for cosmetic reasons but its not tradable why

Check out the new teaser for the new world.

The raids are way too hard and not worth the efforts. Its major weakness is that it takes too many players and they take too much coordination.

I started playing wiz when it first came out when i was 4. Been playing consistantly for 11 years now. This seems weird

I was never a fan of these QOL updates tbh. Most of my questing buddies stopped playing altogether, now I see why they left when they did 😅 It's just unfortunate.

Level is also a barrier of entry, which is... kinda sad. KI isn't even considering adding new content for the lower levels to keep the early game fun and exciting for everyone, new and old. If raids are open for every level player (or have level dependent drops) then I'm sure there'd be more people doing it too...

i agree w him

Face it The KI we grew to know and love Just sucks now... I'm not doing any the new stuff they have shoved down our throats the last few years.. No canteips..no scroll of fortune..no beastmoon..no decathlon..and very little if any spellements...and I will never do a guild or a raid It's turned into such a time and money suck it's just not worth it!!! I know many find some of this stuff fun...and it helps fill in time when there is no world to beat.. So I don't blame them.. But now PVP is basically garbage..NOBODY ever does pet derby..so the lesson I learned is why invest in these side show Bob things when KI will just " fix" it and wipe out all your progress you worked so hard on Today I just play the worlds..and help others with doing the same And I'm happy as hell!!! I get to play..I'm not pissed off or frustrated...and that to me is how I want to spend my gaming time If MORE of us did the same...they would be forced to start listening to the players

In my personal opinion, I like lower drop rates. This is nothing new. When Darkmoor was on test realm it was "way to hard, with way to low drop rates" in the communities opinion. Same with the dragoon stuff when it first came out. When KI has made content difficult like this in the past, I have never sided with the community. I always thought KI should stick to they're guns and keep the content difficult. The vast majority of wizard101 players aren't kids anymore. the game should be more difficult. I will acknowledge I'm biased, as my favorite part of the game is talking to friends while farming, and comboing our favorite spells. Raids require increased cooperation due to increased difficulty, which I think is a good thing.

Capitalism baby 💕

everything i herd about raids make me not even wanna get back to wiz, ill just enjoy old school runescapes new raid ty

What are raids

I think your giving constructive criticism. Also i do think raids are very hard to access and complete, which should give good rewards.

So much for PvP being fair lol I have to spend hours to get basic spellements through rematch or retriever, don't got 300 gold keys for other spellements, don't even have 11 players active on my list to make a guild on top of that there's this pointless grind for unlocking guild stuff and then the 1% drop rates on gear.

They should have done something like making a titan a raid battle honestly, even pirates dreadnought is better then this and is a blast

Honestly I feel like raids should be open house. Sure lots of low level wizards are gonna end up in the party. But hey, at least no more grinding just to get the chance to join it.