The Deepwoken Experience [Final Verdict]

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Link To My Story Post

What I liked

  • Character customization and build diversity: While I did not get far enough in the game to make a proper build, I can see what’s going on here. The combinations of oaths, talent cards, mantras + mantra modifiers, and weapons are nearly endless. Every character is truly different and this is a good thing. I will admit, it is kind of overwhelming if you try to take it in all at once

  • Stat Progression: “Train specific stat to improve specific stat” is the most straightforward, understandable, and realistic way to level and most roblox RPGs fail to utilize this effectively. But DW does and that commands respect.

  • The Soundtrack: DW’s soundtrack bangs and Naktigonis popped off. I think this might be the best original soundtrack on roblox.

What i'm 50/50 on

  • Permadeath: We have already been over permadeath, do not cause a war in the replies for what i’m about to say here. I understand that wiping is a core part of DW so that you can try new builds and playstyles. It also prevents people from meta-mancing the same exact build and ensures build diversity…But I do NOT want to wipe Eli. It took me nearly all day to get him to power 10 and unless I find a faster way to level, I can’t do all that again. I am the type of player who wants something to show for all the work that i’ve put into a game like, idk, a max file that I can return to without the threat of losing it all and that if I wanted to start anew, I could make a seprate file (without a paywall). DW does not give me that. I guess you could say that this 5 day experience post counts as “something to show for”, but it’s not like people do this on a daily basis and record their every move. I see the point in permadeath and why it’s needed for the type of game that DW is, I just don’t like it. That’s why i’m 50/50 on it.

  • The Playerbase: DW players are either cinnamon-rolls or ruthless killers. There is no in-between. While toxicity is more of a problem with the roblox community and not the game itself, the gankers I met in DW did not surprise me at all. As annoying as they are, gankers are a Deepwoken staple and have been since the stone age which is why they’re worth mentioning. But what surprised me the most is the amount of chill players i’ve met.
    There were 8 players who did not have the intent to kill. I hope that number rises. Not all DW players are mean.

  • The Combat: “Easy” to learn, hard to master. DW’s combat tries to be a complex battle of wits and skill instead of stats and gear. This isn’t an awful system, and I daresay it’s FAR more intiutive than many games i’ve played. However, Complex != Fun. I don’t want to fight the keyboard, i’m trying to fight my opponent. But once you get better at the combat, It ends up boiling down to parrying/blocking/dodging. Your mistakes are heavily punished with almost 0 chance of recovery, and I don’t like that. This makes it hard for a new player to grasp combat because they WILL make mistakes, die, wipe repeatedly, and then quit without exploring what DW has to offer. I sucked at the games combat and the bandit leaders ate me for breakfast, but it’s all about skill (and ping)

What I didn't like

  • The Empty Sea: DW isn’t a sea-based game, so this isn’t a flaw. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t bug me. Afaik, the only threats in the sea are: Other players, The Dread Serpent, Obstructive wheather, whirlpools, and that’s it. Correct me if i’m wrong. The sea only exists for you to get from point A to point B and sometimes the sailing is just painfully slow or hard to control.

  • Need to consult external resources/New player experience is ass: Holy shit you need like 20 different tabs open in order to get the most out of this game. DW holds vital information from the player like Mantra Modification and basic combat maneuvers (the tutorial only covered parrying). Hell no a new player is not going to know that they can upgrade a mantra at the Mantra Table in the mantra building in Etris, as obvious as that may sound. The game just throws you in without giving you any idea of what you should do or where you should go. Look I get it, DW is a choose your own adventure game where the game’s story is the progression of your character. But would it hurt to drop a few subtle hints through npcs???

  • Low-Level PvE Experience/PvE Scaling: If you’ve seen the clips, most of my deaths have been to bandit leaders. They have a decent amount of health, do a good bit of damage, can dodge, and they can parry. For a new player, they are excruciatingly painful to fight and their spawn rate is awfully high. I’ve encountered more bandit leaders than actual bandits. The NPC war I had on day 5 also came out of left-field. It just felt hard to get anywhere because DW area level scaling makes no sense. This entire point can be summed up with “Skill issue” and you’re right, I do suck at DW atm. But what new player doesn’t?

Overall
  • I give Deepwoken a 6.7/10

Deepwoken is very unforgiving and punishes your mistakes. But when you learn from said mistakes, you are rewarded. I am proud to say that Deepwoken exceeded my expectations and that it is not awful. I had a solid time recording my adventures with this game. That being said:

It Is Still Not My Favorite

Don’t get me wrong, the concept of DW is dope. If an open world with unique character customization (stats, weps, mantras), deep lore, and deadly beasts doesn’t get you excited, then you’re a bot. But at the same time, DW is filled with too much bs for me to thoroughly enjoy it. The players can be (but aren’t always) assholes, The file you spent 7543259874307 hours on can be wiped from existence by dumbassery and things outside of your control, new player experience is rough for those who have never touched deepwoken before, ping can fuck you over in combat (where the stakes are HIGH), and it’s like you need to consult the wiki and/or youtube to figure out wtf you’re supposed to do at times.

But through it all, DW is a solid game and a lot of care and work was put into it. When you learn the mechanics, there is fun to be had. It does not cater towards the type of player that I am at all (passive/wants results/hates wiping) but that’s ok.

Sometimes you have to step out of the comfort zone to grow

QnA

  • Q: Will you continue to play Deepwoken?

  • A: Yes, but not often. I will play off and on and try to get to power 60 (20), but I have no plans on getting serious about it.

  • Q: Will you make anymore deepwoken posts?

  • A: No, this is it. I can’t bring up deepwoken without starting a war and this is the Arcane Odyssey Forums anyways. I will gladly respond to other deepwoken posts here but I will try to keep my talk about that game in it’s respective discord.

  • Q: How long did this take you to make?

  • A: Too long :sleeper:

  • Q: How long did you play DW for each day?

  • A: On days 1-4, around 3 1/2 hours. But on day 5? I had no responsibilities so nearly allllllllll damn day. I wonder if there is a way to progress faster bc I’ve heard of people reaching power 60 (20) in less than 5 hours. How tf?!

  • Q: Will you do something like this again where you record your gaming experience?

  • A: I will for AO, but take that with a pinch of salt bc by the time that game releases, classes start again which means limited free time. “The Arcane Odyssey Experience” may be much shorter, only touching the highlights and taking out redundant information. After AO, I don’t plan on doing this for any other game any time soon…but we’ll see.

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Hop off deepwoken

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Don’t have to tell me twice :sweat_smile: I haven’t played it in two days

I want to return to it off an on tho so I can reach power 60, but it’s not my main game

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don’t touch deepwoken or I’ll give you other deepwoken content

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hi

this is the first genuinely good and not dumb argument against premadeath and while i dont agree with you i 100% see where youre coming from

the only advice i can give is to stop seeing deepwoken as an rpg and see it as a roguelike, it might be hard to see it that way due to its rpg progression and gameplay style but if you do that then youll find the game much more enjoyable

this may be easier to do for someone like me, since 2019 ive played almost exclusively permadeath games, roguelikes, or just difficult games in general and i knew exactly what i was getting into buying deepwoken

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also your “what i dont like” section details all of my greatest problems with the game, your criticisms are super good and actual constructive compared to the deepwoken and ao communities’ “ao better deepwoken is trash” or “deep is better ao looks bad” arguments and i respect you actually looking into and playing a game before forming an opinion, W post

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Power 60 doesn’t exist anymore, max level is 20 now for some reason.
You got alot further than you think you did.
(exactly 3x further)

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Woah what!?

I need to check that out :eyes:

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To my knowledge, new power 20 is functionally exactly the same as old power 60.
except now you don’t get your lives back as often.

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basically changed to make you level up in quick bursts instead of slowly, more satisfying and fun

also allows you to grind early game areas for longer without it starting to get slow since ur more powerful at earlier levels

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This section really nailed what I don’t like about it, I disagree with a couple parts (it being important, ensuring build variety, or preventing metamancing), but aside from that I agree, I’d love to have the actual DW combat and exploration experience without the obnoxious stakes on every move. (not some bad copy)
I enjoy that kind of combat and that kind of world, and I want to have room to enjoy it my way, by recklessly throwing myself at it until I master it.
Deepwoken doesn’t let me do that, when I played, I felt like I was being forced to learn the game in a way that wasn’t interesting or fun (youtube videos) because trial and error is just a pain in the ass with having to restart from scratch.

I apologize in advance if somehow this comment pisses somebody off.

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Oh, that’s actually a pretty fair point. However, I’d like to note that in the Eastern Luminant, there’s a bit more variety of water activity, with enemy ships, sea life, etc, often spawning to screw you over.
But yeah, it’s still pretty empty.

Overall, my final verdict of your final verdict is a 9/10, it’s very accurate.
I think my only complaint was that you spent most of your time on the Starter Lower Erisia island, and didn’t explore most of the other islands around the Etrean and Eastern seas

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To be fair if he was wiping to the bandit leaders, the enemies literally anywhere else would have violently torn him limb from limb.

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Fair point

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On another note, I think that about 95.6% of the “wars” you mention in this post are my fault entirely.

I’m going to try and not do that in the future so don’t be too worried about making more posts on your experience with the game.

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If you stay playing, i can try helping you if you want(im not really good tho)
hopefully you dont end like @Diavalas who got brutally beaten to death by authority npcs and throw in acid when i tried “boost” him

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you should try trial of one after you wipe, it lets you skip the game to power 6 but you have to learn to fight a bunch of monsters. you can also only do it as a level 1

at power 10, i guess you could try farming minityrsa but its FULL of shadow/dagger npcs, which can be hard sometimes. btw, max level is 20 not 60 now, because they made you get a lot more talents from every level

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i agree with everything here

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sounds like something that would happen to him

also i could use some help tomorrow too but i was just playing with WarmWater earlier :blush: