111799-small-patches-now-dont-wait

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Carbine, don't wait for 1 massive patch.
 
We all know the problems even if the 1% scream nothing is wrong. You have admitted the problems and given us clear examples of how you will fix them (via Nexus Report). For example, Silver to Bronze, a clear gear progression, etc. Great, but if you wait a few months to drop one big ass patch, you won't have a game left to patch. The game has lost insane amounts of people. I play on Stormtalon and counted 10 people at the AH last night (9pm EST prime-time). 10! I beg you reconsider this one big ass patch crap and just give us small meaningful patches in shorter intervals. Such as...
 
1) Silver to Bronze (like yesterday)
2) Server Merges
3) Total overhaul of gear and gear progression. (World/Reputation Gear < Vet Adv < Vet Duns < Raids)
4) Class Balance / Fix Class Exploits 
5) Fix PvP Arenas (hopefully class balance will fix other PvP issues)
6) Misc fixes such as your horrible dye / custom setup
7) Then and only then new content. 
 
If you could change 1-3 within the month I will gladly wait an additional 2 months after that for new content. 
 
Plus when you drop massive patches tons of shit gets broken. Smaller meaningful patches allow you to focus on fixing whichever bugs / exploits that particular small patch introduced, which allows you to nail them down faster with less frustration. 	
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They are trying to bundle enough changes in one drop to get a media splash. Ooo, look at the pretty articles.
 
The grisly word of mouth being generated by falling behind their own release schedule less than 90 days since launch is doing about a 1,000 times more damage than the media surge will offset in my opinion, but hey, I'm not the marketing wonk that's going to have the resulting stain on my resume.	
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			I use to be in marketing and professionally speaking, you are absolutely right. On both points. It's all very unfortunate. 	
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			Counting the people afk at the AH is always the perfect way to determine population...	
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Counting the people afk at the AH is always the perfect way to determine population...
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Counting the people afk at the AH is always the perfect way to determine population...
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OP, I agree with you 100%. I'm sure there are more that do as well but are afraid to be vocal about it.
 
The cold truth is that, Carbine isn't in charge. NCSoft is. They only care about their bottom line (Profit / Margin) and that's all. You, me, everyone, including Carbine is expendable.
 
Reporting back to NCSoft saying "No, we didn't add new content to trick users into subscribing, we simply fixed existing bugs that have lingered for over a year from closed beta" isn't going to bode well.
 
NCSoft knows for a fact that people that haven't played the game yet, or are on the fence, will likely take the plunge if they hear or see "new and shiny" content, the last thought on any new players mind is how busted the most basic systems are, class balance and exploiting running rampant.
 
Again, money talks and if it's not being generated, then heads will roll. Jobs are at stake. It's the ugly truth of the matter.
 
Anyone saying anything to the contrary is simply in denial or being paid to post disinformaiton. NCSoft got their money, the rest is history.	
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			Maybe I should email NCSoft then. LOL Though I'm sure some random gamer couldn't explain how fixing / maintaining a solid foundation of players means more money in the long run. ;) 	
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We're not talking exact numbers, but it's a pretty obvious and clear indication that a server is dying / dead when no one is using it. ;)
 
Besides, lets stay on topic rather than trying to derail it. :)
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I'm on Stormtalon too, and the last few nights, I've seen the daily zones jam packed with other players. Funny how your idea of "population indication" counts people not playing, and mine counts people actively playing. Which of us is more right?
 
This IS on topic, as it's a direct reply to one of your arguments.
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I'm on Stormtalon too, and the last few nights, I've seen the daily zones jam packed with other players. Funny how your idea of "population indication" counts people not playing, and mine counts people actively playing. Which of us is more right?
 
This IS on topic, as it's a direct reply to one of your arguments.
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			Fixes and balance changes should be released as soon as they are ready. Massive Drop will mean massive bugs.	
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Okay, so.
 
First of all, we're still doing hotfixes and weekly patches. The main difference with monthly updates and releasing one big patch is that instead of trying to rush everything and thus release stuff that doesn't work or breaks other things (which we know has happened) we want to take our time, make sure that the content and the fixes/changes are in a solid, stable place, and THEN release them.
 
It's not about marketing or PR splash. If it was, it would be better to continue the 1 month updates as they build up a cadence and get the game in reader's/visitors eyes more often. Delaying the update to make sure the content we release is in a better place stability wise is going to lose that, but it is necessary for the quality of the game overall.
 
We know there are eagerly awaited changes and fixes. We know folks want to hear our response on server pop. It's all coming, but we need to make sure everything is solid and we can deliver.	
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First of all, the press release basically blamed your players for the content developers not being able to hit a deadline of their own devising. "Fix your existing bugs!" was not put out there to be used as an excuse for holding up maps & encounters. 'Those are different teams' is the unending battle cry of Dev-defenders everywhere... I've certainly said it myself a few times over the last decade. Maybe you can walk us through how a meeting jumps from "players are eeking more out of the crafting system than we expected" is cause and "We are no-go on pushing the Black Focus to LIVE" is effect?
 
I mean I've probably stepped on the mines more than most - technologist as my main tradeskill/healslinger as my main grouping character. Yeah, I may be just a wee bit testy waiting for improvements. BUT. I simply DO NOT GET how releasing the Defile and finally delivering a complete tradeskill for technologists is something that needs to be tied together for anything other than promotional reasons. If we are seeing "weekly patches", then lets see some progress that's not been gutshot along with the 90 other things that could be fixed but are lingering in the wings waiting for the trumpet fanfare.	
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First of all, the press release basically blamed your players for the content developers not being able to hit a deadline of their own devising. "Fix your existing bugs!" was not put out there to be used as an excuse for holding up maps & encounters. 'Those are different teams' is the unending battle cry of Dev-defenders everywhere... I've certainly said it myself a few times over the last decade. Maybe you can walk us through how a meeting jumps from "players are eeking more out of the crafting system than we expected" is cause and "We are no-go on pushing the Black Focus to LIVE" is effect?
 
I mean I've probably stepped on the mines more than most - technologist as my main tradeskill/healslinger as my main grouping character. Yeah, I may be just a wee bit testy waiting for improvements. BUT. I simply DO NOT GET how releasing the Defile and finally delivering a complete tradeskill for technologists is something that needs to be tied together for anything other than promotional reasons. If we are seeing "weekly patches", then lets see some progress that's not been gutshot along with the 90 other things that could be fixed but are lingering in the wings waiting for the trumpet fanfare.
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Enough busting your chops for one night :).
 
Let me put a thought out there about the power of language. I don't want to see despair or panic from the Dev side of the fence... but I DO want to see a sense of urgency. I personally encourage you to never use the phrase "take our time" ever again when referring to "we're running late and busting hump to get it done". Note the subtle difference in connotation and consider the impact it has on the people who are obliged to pay the same monthly fee for both leisurely and diligent labor behind the scenes... ;)	
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Ok, who is making the decision that it's the best for the game and the players?
 
The game went in a bad way early on with PvP and has continued to go downhill ever since. The only hope people had were the monthly content drops. By removing those and still showing absolutely no improvement to bugs, balance, or the basics (Technologist crafting) of entry level 50 content the developers have essentially shot themselves in the foot.
 
Many people discount the effect that a poor pvp system has on a game. There are two things that persist past the 1-50 range, raiding (Gear grind included in raiding) and pvp. Raiding is a scheduled, static event that will not fill the 20-60 minute gaps in peoples day. With raiding comes the gear grind to get to raiding, this was skewed by horrible itemization (Crafted > Drop) on top of enormous loot tables that make gear hunting a nearly fruitless endeavor. This cut the raiding (gear grind) down significantly, essentially saying "If you have 10 plat, you're ready for raids!"
 
PvP on the other hand is a dynamic filler to end game content. Even people that don't take it seriously, can have fun with it. However, the immense amount of time it took the developers to even remotely begin to make PvP enjoyable had already turned a large portion of the player base away from it.
 
There has been literally nothing but promises of "in the future" to accompany all the grand ideas that have been presented to the player base. It's reaching a point where the players (the future of wildstar funding) are pulling out. The ship is sinking taking the stragglers (like myself) who haven't completely lost hope down with it. Whether we stay out of loyalty or some naïve notion that every developer at carbine isn't full of complete shit is yet to be determined.
 
Please don't make fools of us by continuing on the path that carbine has taken thus far.	
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 1) Silver to Bronze (like yesterday) No. Learn how to silver already.
2) Server Merges Depends on NCSoft and if they will let it happen.
3) Total overhaul of gear and gear progression. (World/Reputation Gear < Vet Adv < Vet Duns < Raids) Already being done,
4) Class Balance / Fix Class Exploits Unending cycle.
5) Fix PvP Arenas (hopefully class balance will fix other PvP issues) Also an unending cycle. 
6) Misc fixes such as your horrible dye / custom setup Opinion. Works just fine for what it is.
7) Then and only then new content. That's what they are doing right now.
 
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"don't wait" and "total overhaul" don't go together in the same request.
 
I don't know why you don't get a "sense of urgency" from the developers. I certainly do. And even if I didn't, urgency is not a good thing. Developers working under pressure work slower and produce more bugs than those who aren't.
 
The whole point of the delay is that they are doing exactly what you want- they are delaying on polishing the new content so they can work on a lot of that stuff in your list.	
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 1) Silver to Bronze (like yesterday) No. Learn how to silver already.
 
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Chiming in here to agree with the OP.
 
Only reason I'm still subbed is because CREDD rules and I'll be damned if I don't get to open the remaining 40 or 50 Boomboxes I have, even if it is to clog my inventory with Flask of Useless Crap (I have a feeling a lot of people are waiting for their boomboxes to run out as well)
 
In every other game, a pace is set from the get-go and said pace may be subject to change. Totally understandable, the genre is ever-changing and ever-expanding. It comes with the territory and whoever fails to understand this, he/she better look for a different genre to play.
 
However, Carbine (or NCSoft for that matter, I don't really care anymore) made the mistake of being arrogant, and it's a mistake that hopefully there's still time to fix, but at the cost of what? Thousands of players who followed the vision that the Devs had during all years of hard work, not only felt disheartened, but disappointed that the end result turned out to be an amazingly packaged deal, but completely devoid of legs to stand on.
 
It's not the fact that the Team isn't working on resolutions, I think no one here has any doubt that's happening. It's the fact that they took their damn time to "listen" to the playerbase and realize that certain things didn't work, others were barely working and other never worked in the first place.
 
I feel bad for Anlath, having to be the Messenger of the Devs, simply because he ends up being the sole recipient of all the frustration and the rage that comes from getting to experience a world you were eagerly waiting for, only to be mildly amused by it. Meanwhile, the Devs keep doing their Nexus Report, either willingly oblivious of the issues that require urgent measures, or trying to get the YouTube streamers to generate buzz over a game that clearly wouldn't have needed any if the right strategies had been applied.
 
I sincerely hope it's not a case of Too Little, Too Late, and that the game gets on the path to recovery. But I agree with the OP wholeheartedly: expecting your community to wait for a Giant Magical Patch that may or not fix whatever has been wrong, in many cases since CBT,  (spoiler: it may break even more stuff) is not only irresponsible but downright insulting.
 
We did our homework, we reported stuff in CBT, OB and Live, we endured the fiasco that was Name Reservation, we kinda understood when you backtracked on the Costume System, we believed you when you said there was a backup plan for getting Elder Gems, and time and time again... we trusted you guys when you said "The Issue has been Fixed" only to discover 5 minutes later, that in fact it wasn't.
 
I said it in another post of mine, there's no shame in admitting, once and for all, that there might be bugs that are too complex for you to fix, or maybe too entwined within the game code. But your strategy of writing "Fixed" on the Patch Notes when in fact it isn't, just illustrates how shoddy your QA Department is, and how little you've done to solve that.
 
Again Anlath, I feel real bad for you, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to have your job at this point. I'd rather have an honest heartfelt response, a la Over-Explainy Cougar, from one of the Devs themselves.
 
Of course, if they can be pried away from their YouTube show.
 
EDIT: At this point, the argument that  you guys don't want to "rush things in fear of breaking stuff", it's laughable at best. Believe me, anything you put out now cannot be as bad as it has been before. Rethink the whole QA process, please, because this is where you're failing hard. Your code might be pristine, but something in the QA is not up to par.	
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I would like smaller updates if only to contain the amount of bugs they're going to introduce. Look at the 8/27 update. It's fairly small and a weekly patch, yet it still required 2 further hotfixes to fix the bugs introduced into it. If they put all their planned balances into one patch, like the itemization/runecrafting/crafting changes, the silver to bronze, the planned ability/amp point changes, the planned class balance changes (a.k.a. the August Update posts) - what happens if all of those have bugs in it? How do you triage huge anticipated features like these where everyone is going to clamor for hotfixes? I'm not even going to touch whatever changes they might need to make to have their server merges work.
 
Release the major independent features one at a time, so if (well, let's be honest - *when*) things go wrong, you can focus your hotfixes on a smaller update and get it done. Then release the next feature, and build on the working code. If, for example, the runecrafting changes are complete, there is no reason to delay it because ability/amp point changes aren't ready. It only tests the patience of the existing playerbase, and it introduces more potential bugs that will take longer to fix because the drop is so large. Having all the major changes in one patch may be good PR from someone's point of view, but that's only assuming everything goes exactly as planned. If you drop the changes and break things for people, and then take too long to fix them because there are too many bugs, it's only going to hurt the game more.	
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			I agree with OP and can also agree with Carbine in the sense that they need to hold the patch off to ensure it's polished. Cause all Carbine needs now is to drop a patch/drop early that is full of bugs, glitches, and issues on an already fragile community. My guild is 2/6 in GA we made great progression with only 1-2 days spent on each boss. But, lately we're having issues even getting twenty individuals to login to the game. That's a guild that's not riding the struggle bus and wiping repetitively to the same boss over, over, and over.It's honestly getting quite disheartening seeing such a great game fall to the same problems that all the other MMO's of the last 8 years have succumbed to.. Everyone quitting within the first 3-4 months to never return, inevitably end up turning free to play.. Or in some cases shutting down altogether IE: Warhammer Online.I love this game.. But, server mergers are desperately needed as it's to the point where on Avatus there's almost zero new pool of players leveling to 50 to even fill raid spots of individuals that have went awol from the game.With Destiny, Gauntlet, Borderlands Pre Sequel, Archage, and other titles releasing over the next one/two months. The already fragile playerbase is only going to grow smaller and smaller.	
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1) Silver to Bronze (like yesterday)
2) Server Merges
3) Total overhaul of gear and gear progression. (World/Reputation Gear < Vet Adv < Vet Duns < Raids)
4) Class Balance / Fix Class Exploits 
5) Fix PvP Arenas (hopefully class balance will fix other PvP issues)
6) Misc fixes such as your horrible dye / custom setup
7) Then and only then new content. 
 
If you could change 1-3 within the month I will gladly wait an additional 2 months after that for new content.
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Chiming in here to agree with the OP.
 
Only reason I'm still subbed is because CREDD rules and I'll be damned if I don't get to open the remaining 40 or 50 Boomboxes I have, even if it is to clog my inventory with Flask of Useless Crap (I have a feeling a lot of people are waiting for their boomboxes to run out as well)
 
In every other game, a pace is set from the get-go and said pace may be subject to change. Totally understandable, the genre is ever-changing and ever-expanding. It comes with the territory and whoever fails to understand this, he/she better look for a different genre to play.
 
However, Carbine (or NCSoft for that matter, I don't really care anymore) made the mistake of being arrogant, and it's a mistake that hopefully there's still time to fix, but at the cost of what? Thousands of players who followed the vision that the Devs had during all years of hard work, not only felt disheartened, but disappointed that the end result turned out to be an amazingly packaged deal, but completely devoid of legs to stand on.
 
It's not the fact that the Team isn't working on resolutions, I think no one here has any doubt that's happening. It's the fact that they took their damn time to "listen" to the playerbase and realize that certain things didn't work, others were barely working and other never worked in the first place.
 
I feel bad for Anlath, having to be the Messenger of the Devs, simply because he ends up being the sole recipient of all the frustration and the rage that comes from getting to experience a world you were eagerly waiting for, only to be mildly amused by it. Meanwhile, the Devs keep doing their Nexus Report, either willingly oblivious of the issues that require urgent measures, or trying to get the YouTube streamers to generate buzz over a game that clearly wouldn't have needed any if the right strategies had been applied.
 
I sincerely hope it's not a case of Too Little, Too Late, and that the game gets on the path to recovery. But I agree with the OP wholeheartedly: expecting your community to wait for a Giant Magical Patch that may or not fix whatever has been wrong, in many cases since CBT,  (spoiler: it may break even more stuff) is not only irresponsible but downright insulting.
 
We did our homework, we reported stuff in CBT, OB and Live, we endured the fiasco that was Name Reservation, we kinda understood when you backtracked on the Costume System, we believed you when you said there was a backup plan for getting Elder Gems, and time and time again... we trusted you guys when you said "The Issue has been Fixed" only to discover 5 minutes later, that in fact it wasn't.
 
I said it in another post of mine, there's no shame in admitting, once and for all, that there might be bugs that are too complex for you to fix, or maybe too entwined within the game code. But your strategy of writing "Fixed" on the Patch Notes when in fact it isn't, just illustrates how shoddy your QA Department is, and how little you've done to solve that.
 
Again Anlath, I feel real bad for you, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to have your job at this point. I'd rather have an honest heartfelt response, a la Over-Explainy Cougar, from one of the Devs themselves.
 
Of course, if they can be pried away from their YouTube show.
 
EDIT: At this point, the argument that  you guys don't want to "rush things in fear of breaking stuff", it's laughable at best. Believe me, anything you put out now cannot be as bad as it has been before. Rethink the whole QA process, please, because this is where you're failing hard. Your code might be pristine, but something in the QA is not up to par.
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 On the day that the devs no longer speak and cancel their twitch tv show will be the day that they go behind closed doors and leave the community in the dark. Which is something I would rather not see period. They already canceled one of the shows and merged it into the main one so the developers have more time to work on these patches. Very few games have developers willing to make these types of broadcasts in the first place.
 
 The developers have had a lot of negative feedback with patches going live and breaking things. So its reasonable for them to decide on making sure the patches are working as intended without fracturing other structures in the game. I would rather wait a few more weeks for the big patch than to have it go live now and make it so the game is nearly unplayable. So its safe to say their in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation.
 
 Does this suck having to wait.. sure it does. But its the nature of the beast when it comes to games, console games are not immune to this.. I had to wait 3 weeks before i could even play skyrim because I couldn't even get to the character loading screen and the patch to fix it had to go through a lot of red tape to go live.
 
 I agree that there should be a series of small patches to throw us some bread crumbs while we wait for main meal.
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 On the day that the devs no longer speak and cancel their twitch tv show will be the day that they go behind closed doors and leave the community in the dark. Which is something I would rather not see period. They already canceled one of the shows and merged it into the main one so the developers have more time to work on these patches. Very few games have developers willing to make these types of broadcasts in the first place.
 
 The developers have had a lot of negative feedback with patches going live and breaking things. So its reasonable for them to decide on making sure the patches are working as intended without fracturing other structures in the game. I would rather wait a few more weeks for the big patch than to have it go live now and make it so the game is nearly unplayable. So its safe to say their in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation.
 
 Does this suck having to wait.. sure it does. But its the nature of the beast when it comes to games, console games are not immune to this.. I had to wait 3 weeks before i could even play skyrim because I couldn't even get to the character loading screen and the patch to fix it had to go through a lot of red tape to go live.
 
 I agree that there should be a series of small patches to throw us some bread crumbs while we wait for main meal.
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While we’re going to be pushing out our bigger update, we’re committed to updating WildStar with smaller bug fixes and feature updates in our hotfixes and weekly updates, as the schedule permits (typically weekly, but it can be a bit longer from time to time). These smaller updates are not affected by the shift in development focus and you will continue to see improvements to the game.
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			Gotta agree, I don't want to wait for the Defile PVE drop to enjoy my medic field buff in PVP.  As stated in a previous post all having one giant patch does is introduce one giant cluster of bugs that can't get fixed in a timely manner.  In the case of medic fields I can't say there's to much testing to be done with it, you can pretty much figure out what's wrong or right with balance changes within a week.	
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@Biytor :: You do realize all of these changes were already stated by the developers. My point was to break them up into individual patches rather than one epic drop. 
 
@SlyJeff :: I don't get a sense of urgency at all but that's personal feeling so eh, I can't really argue for or against. However, delaying patches for one big patch isn't "exactly what I want." I stated what I wanted, smaller more meaningful patches. 
 
@Lysdexia :: Fine, let's say "Smaller" patches instead of "small" patches. Way to be political and completely circumvent the topic. By the way, in relative terms even if each patch completely changed the game, individual patches would still be considered small compared to just one larger patch.
 
@Anlath :: Though I understand Carbine is still hotfixing and giving weekly updates, they are not patching the major issues and concerns (though I'll give credit where it's due, the last patch did try to fix some medic issues). However, also in the the last patch it made it so I couldn't use camp fires in dungeons anymore. Really? That was necessary to change? 
 
I know you are just doing your job, and I am in no way personally attacking you or Carbine (I fully respect you and Carbine and thank you for all the incredible hard work you've done), but what "polish" is needed on changing the flag from Silver to Bronze? Really, it's a flag on each character and unless you have some crazy ass coding, should be relatively easy to fix. Kinda like, you know, that flag to allow or not allow campfires in dungeons. 
 
"... things being waited for are probably not ready..." I completely understand this. However, what I'm suggesting is, when they are finished just patch them already. Or are you implying they will all magically be ready simultaneously? lol ;)
 
As a final note, I understand it's not normally good business practice to just drop patches / updates when they are immediately ready, because there is always another update right around the corner, so do you spend the time today to take the servers down and patch and then again tomorrow, or wait until tomorrow where you can have the servers down only once for two updates. I get that, but I feel this game is on it's death bed and drastic measures need to be made. But hey, I'm just some gamer. LOL 	
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However, also in the the last patch it made it so I couldn't use camp fires in dungeons anymore. Really? That was necessary to change? 
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Carbine should definitely decouple content patches from fixing stuff.
 
Keep the content, like Defile, on whatever schedule you need to develop and test it properly. But don't hold back fixes, like the rune stuff and AP/stance adjustments, because you decided to tie it to the content.	
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