Where winds meet holy shit

TLDR Summary. i m having so much fun playing WWM. i recommend everyone to give it a try.

Long read ahead.

i went in for the memes but damn. its real good.
i m a chinese dude but me and my friends typically have bad experiences with asian developed games as they tend to be ultra grindy and p2w. "its a chinese/korean" game usually comes with the connotation that the game is made intentionally grindy to sell solutions and is filled with p2w.

black myth wukong changed our perspective a little on "chinese games". where we saw a solid game from china.

WWM is a different beast but with some shared DNA.

its technically a single player MMO where you can play as a team but heavily incentivized to play solo first.

it has so many side quests that has you travelling around. and its full of chinese culture. as a chinese person who cant speak chinese and is out of touch from chinese culture. i find this game appreciating chinese culture a whole lot more.

theres a lot of old chinese folklore injected into the game that made me go eeeeeeeeeeeh this is actually an "insert x folklore" reference! if you're from south east asia, you would also know about legend of condor which is also ref'd.

theres a whole lot of love and many interesting sidequests. and its really NOT half assed. i expected to not care about the sidequests, i practically speed runned d4's sidequests.

then i realized one big take away is, the game is NOT seasonal. i'm appreciating the game for what it is and what it has to offer. this is similar to my experience in POE. GGG put so much effort into making seasonal npcs voice acted but i simply skip the dialogue. i got places to be and no time to waste.

but i went into WWM with the idea of just having fun. i really went in with the mindset of "i'll just give it a go, complete the main quest line and get back to POE". but nope. it went the opposite. i m going in HARD. i'm doing all the side quests, i m doing a lot of "meaningless" mini games such as fishing.

content aside. one thing that the game devs nailed on the head was LET PLAYERS HAVE FUN.

the game has an easy "story mode" where you get a lot of help from the game where you could spam the deflect button and you would probably deflect all deflectable attacks in the game. but you could tune it up to a sweaty soulslike mode where you have to actually git gud. some of the harder challenges over ride the difficulty setting so you actually have to git gud if you want to overcome the challenge, but usually these challenges are for bragging rights. they give you titles to show off and some in game rewards but nothing exclusive. which makes them feel optional.

if anyone's played sandbox games like GTA or RDD you know that we love trying to just climb up the hill/mountain rather than follow the proper path. the devs know this too and unlike those games this game is set in a setting where we're fantasy kungfu fighters so they just let us RUN UP WALLS and do parkour. i rarely found any invisible walls and usually those are at the edge of the map rather than an actual boundary. this makes me want to explore every crook and cranny the game has to offer.

i m level 55 now, and one annoying thing the game does is have level caps that require actual IRL time to bypass. the con is, well, you're stuck. but the pro is, you can still explore the world, an believe me, theres so much to explore. you still earn xp but it becomes stored xp which will accelerate your xp gain once you break the level cap.

the game is VERY skill based but if you have good gear or if you play in story mode, the game is reasonably "challenging enough" for the casual player. but if you're still struggling, you could party up with others and even form a typical "MMORPG" party.

bosses in this game. fucking epic. tian ying holy shit. the game makes me immersed and i really feel like i m a martial artist fighting others with mystical powers. the attacks come fast and are telegraphed. some require memorization but most of them can be reacted to with the caveat where you need to react in a splitsecond (LOL). unless of course you're on story mode where the game is VERY generous with the reaction times. and if you're on story mode, exploiting these generous reaction times can feel so satisfying as it still makes the game feel epic with you deflecting powerful attacks as well as multiple times in a row. and if you're all about skill, cranking up the difficulty lets you really test your actual skill. holy moly.

as for monetization, its mostly cosmetics BUT there are a lot of pay for conveniences. to me i m very harsh and pedantic when it comes to game classification.

My definition of p2w:
Can a player get an advantage over another player by buying an something from the official game shops, using real life money?
if yes then its p2w.

to me stash tabs in poe are p2w as you save infinite time and effort over players who do not buy the premium tabs.

but despite being pedantic on the classification, i would say pay for convenience can be an acceptable form of p2w. almost no one complains about stash tabs being p2w in poe. and most people are to the point that they misclassify stash tabs as NOT p2w. i view stash tabs as acceptable p2w.

as for WWM its in a similar situation where certain conveniences are indeed P2W. but i would say theyre "acceptable" p2w similar to POE.

closing.

one thing i really appreciate about the game is letting players have fun and playing how they want to play within reason.

one highly debated point in poe forums is xp penalty. some want it removed, some want it retained and some want it to be made harsher.

i used to be one of the retainers. but i have long since changed my stance. Hardcore mode exists. if your idea of making players play better is by giving them a penalty. hardcore mode exists. casuals just want to have fun.

WWM gave me that. want to cheese a boss? sure! use story mode! dont want to walk a long winded path to reach an objective? you're the boss, go wall run up the mountain if you prefer it that way!

death penalty? item gets hit with some durability loss. but its mostly negligible as you could just pay to have em repaired. you lose something but it doesnt make you feel salty.

POE has many areas where the game can be made more fun. trade for an instance. it took the game a literal decade before players were given async trade.

a lot of players tend to talk about getting good at the game. the reality is, the baseline of being good at poe is just getting good gear and just "moving out of damage" areas. you need a high baseline of good gear to get there.

in WWM players rarely have access to speed enhancements. playing on harder difficulties require actual real skill. much more than what poe has to offer.

its a different genre for sure. but one major take away that i have is POE really needs to be more fun.

the meme "no fun allowed" exists for a reason.

i've been semi dedicated to this league but after getting hooked on WWM. i no longer care for the league. i care for playing a more fun game. and to all the people who would defend the xp penalty and how POE is not that kind of game. maybe you guys are right. and the proper solution for people who dont like the xp penalty is to just play other games. and that is exactly what i m doing.

I'd rather play PoE2.

sorry exsea, I didn't read the wall of text :D

Its great if u like the game and have fun playing.
I couldn't get into it. I tried for 2-3 hours, but I just can't get over the menus and meaningless currencies. Exploration felt bad to me, because the reward was always some sort of currency that I didn't know what to do with.
Also the fighting system, at least in the beginning, was basically parry until their resolve is broken, attack once, repeat. It just didn't feel very impactful.

To me it looks like a mid game. Lots of stuff to do, but everything is just "good enough" and that's not worth my time.

thats perfectly fine. after all everyone has their own personal opinions that may differ from one another! cheers!

Tried it - absolute trash - clearly designed with mobile in mind.

The game is 'only' mildly p2w right now - yes - but if you think that's not gonna change in the near future[Removed by Support]

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arandan#3174 escreveu:

Tried it - absolute trash - clearly designed with mobile in mind.

The game is 'only' mildly p2w right now - yes - but if you think that's not gonna change in the near future, [Removed by Support]

to say its trash is fine. you're entitled to your opinion and i m not gonna try defending it since you've already made your judgement.

as for p2w. it already has pay for convenience the same level as poe's premium stash tabs which is also pay for convenience. i consider pay for convenience as p2w but on an acceptable level.

as for is it going to change in the future. if poe can survive on a similar business model, what makes you think wwm cannot?

if we check steam charts, wwm is doing pretty good and even better than poe in comparison.

and funny that you mention of "in the future". wwm global is actually "suffering" from lagging behind from the asian servers. wwm china has been online for more or less a year now and the community is still going strong and if theres any p2w there, we would have known about it now.

also, dont forget there are plenty of whales that over spend in the game. theres an in game boat that players can earn by spending 40k USD. thats really crazy and i've actually been on a few of these player own boats.

[Removed by Support]

edit: support removed the entire last sentence so i ll rephrase it.

being biased, its too easy to throw assumptions. if you look at existing information and with a more mature and objective mindset, free of bias. you can make a more better educated assumption.

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exsea#1724 escreveu:

TLDR Summary. i m having so much fun playing WWM. i recommend everyone to give it a try.

Hey there, do you still play this game?

With the disappointing reveal of 0.4, I decided to skip it, found this game in the PS5 store, and then recalled reading this thread a few days earlier. Been playing it for the last week or so. And holy shit!! It's borderline surreal and insane that a game this good and filled to the brim with content can be free. Genuinely free too. Much more so than POE even, where we are de facto required to spend quite a bit on tabs to be comfortable (ie, not go insane with inventory tetris).

It was a lot to take in early on, so many systems thrown out us with little explanation, and 2000 menus and sub menus lol. Still a lot now at level 50, but it's not overwhelming any more.

The game does have some issues though, especially for us non-Chinese speakers. I've got Chinese voices on, so ofc rely on subtitles. And a whole slew of them fly by way too fast. Like 0.3 seconds fast, for several lines of text. It's a little better due to the ability to pause some of the text, but it's not always present, even in main quests it seems. And almost all of the transitionary, explanatory and tutorial-like text goes by in a blink. Almost literally. The black background text is arguably the worst. It may not sound like a big issue, but I want to take in the story, and sometimes I miss it because of this pretty big oversight.

Either I suck at the deflection mechanic, or the timing is off or really weird. cause I miss most of the time. Which isn't great since that is essentially the core of the combat system. No wonder bosses are ripping me to shreds most of the time. Some bloke named Tian Ying (or along those lines) crushed me time and time again, even when I turned it down to Story (which seem to only be marginally different from Recommended).

Anyway, I won't blather on. It's a great game, I just hope they fix this issue with the super-fast text. Also hope it will be possible to beat some of these crazy bosses. Kind of hard to dig up solid info about the game, oddly enough.

Oh, and it was such a good move to turn off all those player-signs. 80% of them are trolls and useless info ("this is a chest", 1 meter from a chest), and immersion is much better now. Highly recommended. The signs in Chinese (which we can translate in-game) are generally much more helpful, but still, darn nice to get rid of them.

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Pangaearocks#9280 escreveu:

Hey there, do you still play this game?

With the disappointing reveal of 0.4, I decided to skip it, found this game in the PS5 store, and then recalled reading this thread a few days earlier. Been playing it for the last week or so. And holy shit!! It's borderline surreal and insane that a game this good and filled to the brim with content can be free. Genuinely free too. Much more so than POE even, where we are de facto required to spend quite a bit on tabs to be comfortable (ie, not go insane with inventory tetris).

i've been playing this game HARD (as in a huge lot). in fact, it's cure me of my mental conditioning where everytime after work i would want to go home and play games i would think "cant wait to go home to POE" even tho i would be playing a different game.

winds is so awesome that i find it hard to come back to any current d-like. i m glad you're enjoying it too. and yeah the amount of content is crazy. one thing i find refreshing is despite there being some FOMO mechanics in the game and the game having some time gates barring your progression, i find the game extremely relaxing to play as i can take my own sweet time to explore and progress thru the game content.

"

It was a lot to take in early on, so many systems thrown out us with little explanation, and 2000 menus and sub menus lol.

apparently the china version has even more menus. path of menus! hahaha
its one thing i dont like about the game but i guess its still organized enough that i can ignore this "flaw/feature".

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The game does have some issues though, especially for us non-Chinese speakers. I've got Chinese voices on, so ofc rely on subtitles.

this is a major mistake. i m a chinese dude (banana), when i first started the game i used eng voiceovers and eng subs. but my other chinese friends were telling me to use chinese voiceovers paired with eng subs to learn chinese. i quickly learned the same issue you had where the subs were just way too fast. theres a lot of dialogue in the game and the game tries to keep the narrative/story/cutscenes shorter by making the dialogue go faster. which hurts sub readers. i wholely recommend using eng voice overs, their english voice overs are actually quite decent and reminds me of sleeping dogs's english voice overs.

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Either I suck at the deflection mechanic, or the timing is off or really weird. cause I miss most of the time. Which isn't great since that is essentially the core of the combat system. No wonder bosses are ripping me to shreds most of the time. Some bloke named Tian Ying (or along those lines) crushed me time and time again, even when I turned it down to Story (which seem to only be marginally different from Recommended).

when it comes to deflection mechanics, players tend to have wildly different experiences, either loving or hating it so its a huge hit or miss (winks).

as long as you're playing solo, theres absolutely no reason to not play using "story" mode difficulty as it gives the deflection hints and even slows down time to increase your timing window to a disgusting amount.

the rewards are the same regardless of difficulty and story mode is great to learn how to fight bosses to see what attacks can/should be parried.

but if you're serious about getting good. the game actually has a practice mode (shown at the defeat screen after being defeated by a boss). you can use this to actually learn the boss attacks. in this mode, to learn, DO NOT ATTACK. simply try and deflect everything.

in my experience there are 6 types of attacks. 1- attack out of nowhere. these come out fast. the "tell" is the boss moved to attack you. you have a short split second to hit the deflect button or else he just slaps you out of nowhere. this feels bullshit but it is what it is. you have to identify these "out of nowhere attacks" and immediately hit the deflect button.

PROTIP. hit the button twice/thrice. theres no penalty for spamming. another "cheap trick" is to also hold down block at the same time so if your deflect fails, at least some damage is blocked. might not always work but its an option.

2- follow up BS attack out of nowhere. sometimes the first attack has a follow up attack and sometimes this follow up attack also "comes out of nowhere" so you have to basically memorize the attack pattern. for example in tian ying's second form (minor spoiler), he loves doing a pair of "attacks out of nowhere" 1-2 combo. so you need to deflect two times in a row. he even has something like streetfighter's ryu hurricane kick where you have to parry multiple times in a row. speaking of which

3- barrage of attacks/constant stream of attack/damage. the boss tries to hit you with a very fast barrage of attacks/constant stream. remember the part where i said SPAM the deflect button? this is one of the places to do it. in tian ying's 2nd form, one of his attacks is he charges his fist and summons a sand apparition that attacks you with a barrage of punches. you need to time the first deflect, after that just spam deflect like an idiot. you should be able to deflect all subsequent hits as long as you deflect the first one this way.

4. delayed/telegraphed attack. this is actually more easy to react to but since the game has been throwing a lot of BS out of nowhere attacks, you tend to press too early as you've been conditioned that way.

unfortunately the way i learned to deal with it is i treat ALL attacks as the first type that i mentioned (BS out of nowhere) so i will instinctively hit deflect whenever the boss even begins to move. BUT after realizing its a delayed attack, i need to prepare to properly time my deflect.

5. RED FLASH attacks. these are actually delayed/telegraphed attacks. tho they flash red because the damage is much higher. BUT due to the fact that it is delayed, if possible i highly recommend learning to deflect these attacks. red flash attacks that are deflected will also trigger the player performing a counter attack, so you can get damage in as a reward. BLOCKING usually does nothing as its considered unblockable. if you're not confident, simply dodge or move out of the damage area.

6. Yellow attacks. you're meant to dodge em or move out of the way.these attacks cannot be deflected.

if you're not confident on deflecting, dodging and moving out of the damage area is always an option.

the bosses really teach you not to be too greedy.

also you might want to get your oddity bonuses maxed out. they help a great deal.

i would also recommend playing with a mo-blade (tank). they can actually do very well against bosses, especially when the boss's qi is exhausted. PROTIP attacking as well as deflecting reduces the boss qi (blue bar). so you can even specialize into doing more damage during exhaustion/execution and even ignore attacking bosses with normal attacks entirely. the mo-blade Q ability gives you a temporary damage shield similar to ES/Ward. but last a few seconds. you could hit q and cancel the animation by hitting deflect, or letting the animation play out and hit deflect if necessary. if you get good enough, you can start hitting enemies in between deflects as you can immediately deflect cancel any attack.

tian ying is currently my fav boss. he feels really epic to fight, and i try deflecting everything he throws at me.

his third phase (gasp) has a tricky barrage where he attacks, attacks, attacks, attacks, double attacks, pauses then has a finisher attack. sometimes i fail sometimes i deflect all. either way its so damn epic.

if you still have problems fighting him i guess i could lend you a hand. just pm me your details. i tend to play at night (singaporean time). in fact i m guildies with one of the forummers from POE.

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Also hope it will be possible to beat some of these crazy bosses

i am confident you could beat the bosses. but i would say you need to put effort into either getting better gear or going hard in training mode. there even is a boss challenge mode which disable all deflect assists so you have to manually time them yourself. many people have completed these challenges HITLESS. may be some cheated, i do not know. but i can pretty much do all bosses on recommended difficulty (with varying ranges of success) i believe you can too. tho i must admit i m a persistent bugger if i m passionate about something. in wind's case i sometimes spend ungodly amount of time trying to learn boss patterns.

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Oh, and it was such a good move to turn off all those player-signs

same. i usually turn it off and KEEP IT OFF unless i m stumped at a puzzle. too many trolls. but i m glad its available as togglable option.

talking about info.... the game has TONS of hidden lore. if you check youtube, a dude covers tian yings lore. god damnn... after learning about his lore its so damn rich.

EDIT: final note, to add, i read you played it on your PS5. if you ever plan to play on a different console (mobile or PC) make sure to use your PS5 account to login. from what i read online, its a bitch to login using PS5 account. many players prefer to use their steam credentials on their ps5 instead.

and yes. the game has extensive crossplay capabilities which allows you to continue where you left off on your PS5 on your mobile device.

it really makes me have low/zero interest for poe mobile, where a giant game like WWM can be ported over to mobile. TLI and undecember allows players to do the same too.

I saw the game on steam offered for free, I didn't pay attention at the time it was an mmo. The bish weighs 100gb, it better be eyecandy!

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AlvinL_#4492 escreveu:

I saw the game on steam offered for free, I didn't pay attention at the time it was an mmo. The bish weighs 100gb, it better be eyecandy!

honestly, i was super skeptical. its a china game with gatcha and some "minor" p2w elements.

and yeah that 100GB install base is super big.

if my word counts for anything, me and a few of my friends enjoy this game immensely.

if you can get past the "100GB" free space requirement, its a free game so just give it a go.

as for eye candy.... the cosmetics are good and the super epic ones are stupid expensive. but yet people buy em.