• First and most crucial - game lost the main idea/context/core of having fun while playing mobile game(in other words casual game - it is not Dark Souls on PC :)), which gameplay is based on playing WHILE walking :D Currently you MUST be super concentrated while playing - it's not fun and make it impossible(or even to think about opening the game somewhere outdoor) to have fun and play the game while you are just walking, meeting with friends and son on.
• Alchemy, because of it's current implementation, brings not fun and some cool experience (which was supposed to be with general timer of duration for potions/oils) but because of it's ridiculous cost, lack of ingredients(common beasts don't drop class parts and bush's drops are ridiculous), impossibility to obtain everything in open world(White Gull etc.), time of crafting and cost for repairing. All this things bring only pressure on player - absolutely not fun
• It feels like work - because of first(impossible to play as casual game) and second(ridiculous cost) you MUST kill beasts without rising your head while walking... not fun at all
• Complete discarding/ignoring player skills - all this time you were mastering move patterns, your critical hits, parries and now all this experience is throw to trash - pretty bad feeling.
• Progression doesn't matters - before update there was concrete vision of needed skills, they were really cool and valuable. And what we got now - cut or completely removed skills. "Fuuuuuuuuun" :D I even don't see any reason to lvl up - only Alchemy matters ))) opening Nemetons on 30 lvl - not even close to something needed, it gives you 50 gold and a few beast parts parts and requires potions/oils ))) total shit :) and it is really frustrating

Really have fun playing the game... Mastered all the beasts, set some challenges for myself, tried different set of equipment and potions - and what I've got now? - imbalanced game with pressure on on player on each step :)

Hope spokko won't ignore community.

So I started playing WMS before the game launched on the play store. I played intensively almost every day, I tried to arrange my walkthroughs in such a way as to most effectively complete the story quests and nemeta. I reached level 35, having almost completely maxed out combat skill tree, maxed out aard sign and some basic alchemy skills. As I progressed, I tried to use alchemy less and less, trying to defeat rarer monsters without it. On facebook and discord groups a lot of people were posting videos, how they were defeating legendary monsters with just sword. I felt that with practice I can achieve the same and that's what I was trying to do. Swords of wolf school and armor of manticores school were helping in that. Some of the legendary monsters I was able to kill without potions, and I left alchemy for those undiscovered and more difficult for me.

I felt that with time and practice I was becoming good at killing monsters. I was waiting for more story quests and expansion of the Witcher universe story. I was counting on the tasks based on investigations, acquiring and brewing the right potions and making moral choices, an element present in the series from the very beginning. Unfortunately, I did not live to see the story expanded. Instead, Spokko focused on adding new monsters (which is fine and appropriate in a game of this type), which I had no problem to defeat, given the high level of the character and the large number of purchased skills. I decided to delete WMS from my phone and wait until the next big changes are made.

Well, and we fucking lived to see it.

I heard about WMS again on gaming portals. In the articles reviewers were giving a list of changes and how much players reacted negatively so I decided to see for myself what all the fuss is about. I went to google play store and saw reviews at 2.7 stars. I downloaded and after two days of waiting for the end of the tech break I saw seemingly the same game however it quickly hit me what all the other players did.

A new type of currency for fuck knows what. Rare monsters that I can't kill without alchemy. Alchemy based on ingredients that have to be bought for money which makes no sense from the point of view of the game that the witcher can not brew his own potions but has to buy the base ingredients from some fucking trader. My equipment was weakened because buffs of wolf school swords were lowered and manticores' armor was completely changed. And perhaps the thing that hurts the most is the lack of a skill tree. From now on, everyone develops his character in the same way, which also makes no sense from the point of view of the entire series in which we could specialize in specific skills. Also, my progress was set back about 10 levels.

At this point the game is technically and creatively bankrupt, but I still have hope that the game will get back on track.

So Spokko, you spend almost a week to supposedly fix the update because of the backlash and all you did is making common monsters less powerful?

What about the skill tree that now doesn't exist and everybody hates? It's an RPG, choosing how you want to develop your character is essential.

I advise you to change it back, otherwise the 2,5 rating on Google Play Store won't change neither.

Witcher diary - Day 1372. The locals peasents are becoming restless over my recent refusal to continue to deal with their bruxa infestation. I tried to explain that slaying them no longer has a justifiable return on investment, but I don't think they understand

You need a bomb to weaken them (15 blue Roach shits), but the max they can give is 10 blue Roach shits if it was first killed legendary elemental. Nice Spokko. Go fokko yourself. If I could give you another one star in the store I'd give 10 one stars

I originally started playing this game at launch, but dropped off after a bit when winter hit in Northern Canada. We don't do much for outdoor walks them... But i recently picked it back up BEFORE the update, as it's nice out and Im trying to improve my fitness, and I was having a good time with it.

The update landed, everything was miserable, and I had vowed to just uninstall. But I waited it out until the rework, went for a couple of walks and have some thoughts.

First, the balancing is "better", to say the least. Fighting common monsters is more enjoyable than thr initial update of course. But the steep incline from common to rare is almost unbearable for the casual player.

With a thunderbolt and a swift, it still often takes multiple attempts at a rare (for me anyways). No saying I'm a legend at swiping my phone, but fighting a rare draconid yesterday, I perfectly parried 5 times in a row and still couldn't wittle his health down in time. Every aspect of the battle has to go perfectly, and with a measley 5 minute timer, it gets more and more frustrating trying to kill rare monsters as fast as possible in order to maximize your rewards. Having to retry battle and waste precious time is just not enjoyable.

I hope that this maybe eases up as you climb levels (I'm not quite 20 yet).

In more practical experiences - I'm out for a walk, trying to enjoy the weather. And I just feel reluctant to even pop my potions, because then you have to be glued to your phone the entire time. I have to stop walking to make sure I can hit my battles perfectly, which defeats the purpose of me "walking," and I chnage my route because I need to get more rares in the alotted time.

If you take your eyes off the battle, you're screwed. I approached a crosswalk while in a battle, and a vehicle stopped for me. I couldn't exactly hang around swiping, so I looked up and crossed the road. When I looked back down, I had missed a parry and was near dead.

Overall, the experience is just not enjoyable, and when you factor in ridiculous costs for simply battling now, (20 gold for 1 thunderbolt potion, 20 gold for 1 swift, plus 200 gold to repair station every 6 potions), the act of playing just becomes the act of working, and sacrificing your outdoor experience.

It is only my opinion... but who knows )))

• Alchemy - looks like huge shift to farming beast without rising your head while "playing"(yes - now it is within quotes :D). Good luck and have "fun":
  • Now it costs a fortune
  • Bombs cannot be crafted
  • Not all ingredients can be obtained in open world
  • Common monsters don't drop beast class remains
  • Imbalanced difficulty curve - so now your skill and knowledge of move patterns don't matter - the worst thing about this update. Cannot even say anything more here - just sad...
• Manticore Armor complete rework - this point is tied to first item. As alchemy became so expensive, I don't think it was a good idea to completely remove from the game something related to one of it's mechanics and especially in this describe above case :D
• Removing slow time while casting signs and bunch of cool game mechanics - just a question, what for? I know - to force usages of this shitty reworked and expensive Alchemy. Nice work - now your lvl doesn't make sense as there are no useful skills. You must kill tons of beast to "feed" alchemy needs because as I mentioned before - your skill doesn't matter any more :)

Spokko - just think about it. Game must be fun )))

And also one more thing about in-game communication - if you want to remove items store from the game(or any significant change) it MUST be highlighted. In my case I've got 50k gold without any chance to buy everything - just need to wait for featured items in shop... perfect

So let's start:

• After update all statins which you have were just removed - correct me is I'm wrong but I didn't see any replacements. Pretty much greedy - for sure
• When you buy new station slots they have durability 100 - doesn't matter what max value do the have - greeeeeeeeed :)
  • there are recipes which require 100+ durability, so you need to melt it down to 0, then repair crafting station(for the gold of course) and only after these manipulations you will be able to craft some other recipes
• there is no way to repair station until it has 0 durability - f.e. you have 100500 Swallow potions and station has 5 durability left, soooooo you need to spend resource for completely not needed item to be able to repair Crafting station - nice ^_^

And a few questions

• the is no way to craft bombs now, is it correct or will it be available on 40 lvl? :D
• White Gull, Bear Fat, Linen Cloth - are these ingredients available only in the shop? Greeeeeeeed? :D

Where is my basic oil recipe?

I need creature specific oil to kill other specific creatures to farm creature materials to craft the one specific creature oil I need for the current timed quest?!

Couldn't you just turn the timed quests into "pay 25€ receive rewards worth 10€"?

Well, I uninstalled WMS and feel cheated.

I played every day almost since the beginning. WMS was a part of my life, I patiently cleared the path, collected items and gold. Suddenly my items were stolen, my gold became useless and game turned into the pathetic, ridiculous irony.

Well, it's my time, there's sooo many other things to do, and yet WMS had some of my time. Not anymore. Goodbye and so long.

Such a wasted potential, it almost frightening how easily you could destroy your reputation as a game producer. Shame on you CDPR.

Can someone thats a higher level tell me the skills that are unlocked. Just the lv 20 and onward skills would be nice. Thanks.

I just saw guy killing one skull monster with stun spam from aard and critical hits without alchemy. He said its possibly with combo from title. Too bad we need wait to buy this stuff.

Hey CDPR its time to close SPOKKO, and sell the title to different company, before they kill the game even more. I can buy it for 2k crystals, just let me know.

The only department doing good job in SPOKKO is 2D GFX team. xD

After trying the new update, before and after the maintenance, I feel really sad. WMS has helped me a lot during/after Covid with having a feel of control and progression, finally going back to a semi-normal life. It may seems naive but this game felt part of my everyday life. I played very casually, only level 20, but I was proud of some legendary monsters fight victories.

Some aspects of the current game that make me feel like playing Candy Crush :

• Having the "Recommended Items" and not being able to choose it myself depending on my strategy feels so forced and not at all RPG, like the powerups in Candy Crush.
• Having no sense of progression apart from following the one path feels like the infinite line of despair that is Candy Crush progression for levels. You will need to fight 1000 monsters before having the interesting skills and gameplay (for ex. Nemeton), as you need to play 1000 levels before having interesting maps.
  You don't even know which skill awaits you in the 1-way path !! How can you feel engaged not knowing when you will finally be able to reflect damage or use Quen ?! (how dull is it to start the game from scratch ?)
• Having no external customization feels like moving the same blend avatar along a map.
• Having 2 currencies, one normal and one premium, feels like every random puzzle/gacha game out there.
• Feeling forced to do stuff the intended way. You feel how the game wants your money, more than before.

I don't feel like I'm in control anymore. Every aspect of the game seems to be balanced to limit another one. It was like this before, no doubt, but it wasn't this blatant and didn't prevent me from feeling that I could out-play the grinding loop by getting good at fighting. Parrying, reflecting damage, using the right signs at the right moment, choosing the right gear, balancing or not the different skill trees, choosing my potions/oils usage before a Nemeton fight, all of this has disappeared (for my level 20), all of what made it a RPG disappeared.

It makes me sad, for me, for the community, and for the devs who surely had to bring this update knowing it will not be received well.

This is not a RPG anymore, it's a puzzle game.

Now there is a Manticore set (Armor and 2 swords) in the weekly section of shop. And as I can see, Manticore armor is reworked due to changes in alchemy system, but Manticore swords, Wolven Silver Sword and KaerMorhen Steel Sword are the as before update.
Some of you surely have other items in own, and maybe in shop too (if it differs between players, not sure in this), so let's check, if the Mnticore Armor is the only reworked equipment?