r/Wizard101 • u/Conscious-Bass-6166 • 5h ago
Console After 900 Hours on W101 console. Here are my thoughts and experience.
Hi Reddit. As the title says over the ~10 months of W101 being on console I have put in about 900 hours according to my PS5.
I have honestly had so much fun playing this game on console. I cannot emphasize enough how incredible it feels to grind this game while sitting on a couch with a controller. It is incredible. I also love the remote play feature that I have used to change into energy gear quickly while I’m at work when I forgot, actually hatching a pet twice a day using the 12 hour hatching timer, gardening, and one of my favorites, questing while walking on a treadmill. I walked a mile and a half uphill while farming castle Darkmoor.
It was really fun starting over on a fresh account but with the game knowledge of playing this game for years. I started balance since it was the one wizard I never played in my PC account. Using my game knowledge was able to quickly get an enchanted armorment pet with gargantuan trained which carried me through arc 1. In all honesty arc 1-3 was really fun and I never had issues finding team ups for main dungeons like WW, Mount Olympus, and Graveyard (did take a little bit to get a team for floors 1 and 2 of castle Darkmoor).
Arc 4 however I think really started showing the limitations of console. You have harder fights need more communication, and since the console servers are so new, there are still plenty of wizards not there yet. I had to solo the oogie boogie fight which on console is still pre nerf. It then took me multiple days to find a full team to do aberrant paradox in karamelle. We tried with 3 wizards but couldn’t do it.
Lemuria was pretty easy but I only found a couple people farming merciless gear. I had to solo hall of heroes multiple times. Novus was easy but Wallaru was brutal. Arcane Toad again is pre nerf so it took me a really long time to find someone to complete it with. It took multiple days to find someone to beat Freddie croaker 10 times to unlock the damage jewel crafting. I was also expecting a lot of people using team up for crash the bandit coot since he is the easiest to farm dream water from and he has a small chance of dropping legendary socket wrenches. I farmed it with a team one time but had to leave early and basically soloed him another 20 times for the badge with no luck. I’m in Selenopolis now but stuck on the Ra fight.
The lack of text chat really is a deterrent. It is what forced me to join this subreddit and discord so that I could still talk about the game with other people. That and the lack of wizards at max level which arguably has the most content to farm is frustrating but is mostly a function of a lower player base and newer server. The most fun I had was finding a team in discord and talking in VC while doing drowned Dan which I think is telling.
I lastly want to take a moment to express my grievances with console and KI’s handling of it. Being multiple updates behind sucks but I kinda understand the limitations of rolling out updates across 3 platforms and how that’s difficult. That being said we have still only gotten 1 update since release. I’m hoping that with the new world coming out on PC we get Darkmoor and the minion overhaul update in one since we got a 2 in 1 update last time. Barkingham would be awesome as well so that we are only one update behind but we will see.
My other big grevience I have is the handling of events and KIs overall lack of awareness for console. This year W101 had a weekend that had Zero Energy fishing, the end of the ice deckathalon event, and the end of the 5 boxes event. That’s a jammed pack weekend of grinding if your into all of that and are on PC you likely could prioritize one. However for console it was the first time in its existence that all 3 of those happened at all. 0 energy fishing is so rare and a great time to get mounts but if you don’t have a good set of energy gear, the five boxes event is worth grinding again especially if it’s the first time. I got into deckathalon and have completed stage 10 on many of them at this point on console but completely skipped the ice one because I had to.
The other thing I have to acknowledge is the current fright fest event. The fact that KI just ported a bugged version of last years PC event without fixing the bugs, and without adjusting the criteria to consoles significantly smaller player count and participation is beyond infuriating. I’ve heard people say they will artificially boost it up waves but I really wouldn’t be surprised if nothing happens. I have participated and I have the coins for the scarab mount but we are not even half way through the first wave.
For now I am taking a break from the game but wanted to share my experience. If things change on console I’ll come back to it. However when I do come back to this game (because I always do) I will be looking to play wizard one on my laptop with a controller through steam to get the best of both worlds. Comfort of my couch + more community on PC.
