125962-returning-player-some-thoughts

== Content ==
			
I played this game during launch for the first three months. It's the best mmo I ever played and I've played quite a few. I quit back then because of itemization issues and players being really bad in raid/dungeon making it very tedious for me to progress. I am someone that is usually within the top 0.2% of players in most competitive games.
 
I started again yesterday and was shocked by how little people actually play this game. It's impossible to find a group pre level 50 even during primetime. I just had a 2 hour queue for the lvl 15 adventure as tank/dps at 19.48 CET. This just makes me not want to play anymore. I refuse to play to 50 without doing any group content. Like its honestly mind boggling how few players this game has i've never seen such a dead mmo tbh. It's even surprising they still push patches for this game.
 
F2P will not save this game. The game is too hard to be popular or successful. I know this is what makes the game great for those of you that still play it. The challenge is great and the combat is amazing. Only thing i can possible see saving this game is making it easier. The amount of people i saw leaving/quitting this game when they couldnt beat stormtalon vet was absurd. Anyway just a little rant. T_T im just rly sad i was looking forward to playing this again but with such a dead server its just not fun.	
----
			I've run across a bunch of low lvl people as I'm lvling my medic. I don't think low lvl population is the problem. Saturday I had 10+ people around me questing at 3am. people just aren't queuing for anything. They are questing. Over the weekend I was able to get 1 proto games and 1 shiphand. Nothing else popped. Like I said in another post, people just need a reason to que up for stuff. I'd like low lvl contracts and/or dungeon quests like we have for the vet stuff. 	
----
			Troll, stop.  IF people are actually reading this and your new, dont fret.  Game really opens up at 50 and queues are not that long.  Yes, some dungeon pre 50 don't pop due to the rewards versus time spent leveling isn't that great.  You will still ocasionally see people leveling, especially if you are in a LFG channel.  PVP queues are no longer than a few minutes atm and thats not at peak time.	
----
			
Here is a question. 
 
Did you use the custom LFG channel to try and make a group instead of he queue system? I can't speak for EU, but on NA it is far easier to get a group pre-50 using the chat channel than the LFG queue for getting groups to do normals.
 
If you're on NA:
Exile: /chjoin lfg
Dominion: /chjoin Entitylfm
 
Use those channels when trying to get groups for sub-50, you'll most likely have more success that way.	
----
			try to make a group the old way for pre 50 content, spam in global channels and zone chat and you will go in a few minutes	
----
			Diid you try and queue for Protostar Academy? You only mention Riot in the Void, just curious nothing else. 	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
try to make a group the old way for pre 50 content, spam in global channels and zone chat and you will go in a few minutes
----
			
A couple things:
 
- There is a training dungeon before Stormtalon now. I can see having trouble finding a group for it though, that's what happened to me when I leveled recently. The low level population in the game is insufficient for sure.
 
- Coming here to day that this game is dead no matter what and we'd all better bend over and kiss our asses goodbye is obnoxious.
 
Edit: I'm talking about the low level population for fast queues. You can certainly put together a group through chat.	
----
			
Game being "too hard" would not be the reason for a long queue for the level 15 adventure.
 
FWIW, got a 10 minute queue pop for Hycrest and an insta queue for the traidning dungeon last night queueing with my wife as healer/tank. Yeah, we were in support roles. Sometimes that's what it takes to get a quick pop.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Did you use the custom LFG channel to try and make a group instead of he queue system? I can't speak for EU, but on NA it is far easier to get a group pre-50 using the chat channel than the LFG queue for getting groups to do normals.
 
If you're on NA:
Exile: /chjoin lfg
Dominion: /chjoin Entitylfm
 
Use those channels when trying to get groups for sub-50, you'll most likely have more success that way.
----
			Yasfan I agree with you completely. I'd also add that the pvp servers really shouldn't exist.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Look, we can make all the FAQs we want about this, but the reality is that you cannot expect anyone new to simply know to do this. The fraction of players who come to forums at all is too small for this to be a required part of player retention.
 
Either Carbine needs to actually incorporate a LFG channel into their default chat channel lineup, or people need to stop using a channel that new players won't even know about when organizing pre-50 group content runs. Given that the playerbase clearly isn't going to do the latter, I would strongly recommend the former.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The game is too hard to be popular or successful. I know this is what makes the game great for those of you that still play it. The challenge is great and the combat is amazing. Only thing i can possible see saving this game is making it easier. The amount of people i saw leaving/quitting this game when they couldnt beat stormtalon vet was absurd.
----
			
Occassional returner here. Still loving Wildstar and what the devs are doing, except that Chua and Mechari still are wearing underpants for no obvious reason despite political correctness.
 
{| class="blockquote"
F2P will not save this game. The game is too hard to be popular or successful. I know this is what makes the game great for those of you that still play it. The challenge is great and the combat is amazing. Only thing i can possible see saving this game is making it easier. The amount of people i saw leaving/quitting this game when they couldnt beat stormtalon vet was absurd. Anyway just a little rant. T_T im just rly sad i was looking forward to playing this again but with such a dead server its just not fun.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I'd hate to see the vets tuned down, though. They are still soooo much fun to run. I remember the days of people bashing their heads against STL Vet. Now most pugs have no problem completing them and even getting silver. Interesting, because the dungeons haven't been changed at all.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Here is a question. 
 
Did you use the custom LFG channel to try and make a group instead of he queue system? I can't speak for EU, but on NA it is far easier to get a group pre-50 using the chat channel than the LFG queue for getting groups to do normals.
 
If you're on NA:
Exile: /chjoin lfg
Dominion: /chjoin Entitylfm
 
Use those channels when trying to get groups for sub-50, you'll most likely have more success that way.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I played this game during launch for the first three months. It's the best mmo I ever played and I've played quite a few. I quit back then because of itemization issues and players being really bad in raid/dungeon making it very tedious for me to progress. I am someone that is usually within the top 0.2% of players in most competitive games.
I started again yesterday and was shocked by how little people actually play this game. It's impossible to find a group pre level 50 even during primetime. I just had a 2 hour queue for the lvl 15 adventure as tank/dps at 19.48 CET. This just makes me not want to play anymore. I refuse to play to 50 without doing any group content. Like its honestly mind boggling how few players this game has i've never seen such a dead mmo tbh. It's even surprising they still push patches for this game.
F2P will not save this game. The game is too hard to be popular or successful. I know this is what makes the game great for those of you that still play it. The challenge is great and the combat is amazing. Only thing i can possible see saving this game is making it easier. The amount of people i saw leaving/quitting this game when they couldnt beat stormtalon vet was absurd. Anyway just a little rant. T_T im just rly sad i was looking forward to playing this again but with such a dead server its just not fun.
----
			
My opinion on difficulty: If WS messed up here, it wasn't by making the game hard but by making the game all hard. Leveling demands focus and proper gear/spec to get any kind of efficiency, normal dungeons were shockingly brutal (and I don't mean that in a good way), while most adventures and other 'lite' content weren't necessarily combat hard, but "this is a confusing mess" or "this is tedious" hard.
 
Contrasting this, I found WoW's vanilla leveling experience to be quite accessible. It wasn't too hard to level up, but had some red quests here and there that could be a challenge, or if you wanted to speed level it would require attention, memory, and planning to maximize your class's features in gameplay. That, to me, was a near-perfect new game experience— it was fundamentally accessible to almost all gamers, but you could find ways to make it harder that would actually reward you (complete a red quest for a good piece of gear that would help in dungeons or PVP, speed level to get your character maxed faster, etc.).
 
While I realize that the idea of a 'living world full of static dangers' is cool, it's certainly not a good recipe for flexible fun, longevity, or keeping a lot of players around. In essence, I think this emphasis on high combat difficulty externally set in stone is terrible for an MMORPG.
 
As to difficulty's role in keeping queues slow, I definitely think that has something to do with it. I would cite population as #1, but if dungeons were less difficult or more flexible, and had much better rewards, Wildstar dungeons would probably be popping way more often. I mean, shit, the combat is fun, and a lot of people will do fun over and over, even the same content. It's the template, the style of difficulty that needs to change IMO. Or maybe just the rewards; high difficulty becomes easy fun when you've mastered it, so just giving all new rewards, maybe even player-driven rewards where we get to choose from a few things, could be the best solution.
 
 
 
When we first hit Nexus the dungeons were too hard primarily because we got  mediocre rewards and low XP. Whereas if the rewards had been high, maybe something like the last boss gives everyone a token that they can trade in for any one piece of gear type, or the XP was a nick above leveling for time value, players would have been risking LFG more as well as actively making friends to run the hard content with.
 
That's what I did in WoW. Barely spoke to anyone while I roamed the world and discovered Azeroth, but as soon as I stepped up against the harder, usually group-based content like dungeons and world PVP, I'd be shouting out in zone and hooking up with other folks. Whispering with a /who 60 was commonly done, but I wouldn't dare to whisper a person that way now. Partly because, why bother? And also because they could be a complete ass (somehow that never factored or even happened much for me in vanilla WoW).Although this is strictly personal experience, i don't like the feeling I've had in every MMO since WoW that I need to join a guild to enjoy the content. Back in the day it wasn't about guilds, it was about networking and just making allies. Eventually that led to guilds when bands of allies would come together. For me, guilds and the social scene went from an experience of discovery and cooperation like high school or university to an experience of obligation and grind like joining a new company to get my paycheck. Maybe I'm alone there, but do I ever miss the heyday of WoW. :P
 
Back to WS, I really have no idea how game devs handle risk/reward systems, but I can't possibly emphasize enough that they need to be 1000% in tune with one another to keep me interested. In summary, this is why I've drifted from gameplay interest to housing interest and have barely touched group content in this game since last July: The high difficulty, or rather the time to learn encounters, followed by mediocre rewards, mixed in with the somewhat artificial feeling I get from guilds and LFG channels, has made the experience of getting a group and completing content a big chore.
 
My suggestions that will probably not be helpful because you're the game designers and who wants to let random internet people design their game:
 
1. Give some kind of flexible reward system for vet dungeons and raids
2. Find a midway point between 5 and 20 person content; I don't want storymode with freebs, but do dislike WS's demanding raid guild schedules, which I believe are a direct result of the difficulty and organization involved
3. Try to create some kind of social system for gameplay that facilitates relationships. Super complicated I'm sure but stuff like Diablo's Recent Players list could be helpful
 
 
 
 
edit: and rereading this it sounds like a "WS bad, WoW good" comparison thing, which isn't what I intended haha. I think currently WS is the better game, including for difficulty, and I don't think the difficulty is or was objectively bad design. IMO, if it's bad, it's only bad through the lens of designing for a populated and paid MMO. If Carbine designed to produce a challenging game with a specific vision of demanding gameplay... then it's not bad at all, it's actually very good. 
 
consequently edited to clean up and expand on solution	
----
			
The protostar academy was 2x 1hour of queuing before i got a group. The adventure was 4 hours total or something and still nothing. I just decided to play on my old 50 stalker. Found some vet shiphand groups quickly I suppose adv/dungeon should be fine aswell during primetime since there are a lot of 50's.
 
And yeah difficulty is IMO the only thing that could be "bad" for the game. Everything else imo is just so good in this game. Atleast now at launch there were definitely some issues with the game (itemization) Dont get me wrong I love that this game is so hard but during the first three months almost all players that I knew left because of the difficulty. Or because they couldnt get silver dungeons at all. Everyone runs a dps meter in this game.  In games like ff xiv its forbidden and you can/will actually get banned for it. Here you get kicked from the dungeon group if your gear isnt good enough or ur dps is lacking. The game and community aswell is simply too hardcore oriented to have a large audience imo.
 
If there was something like an easy mode for raids/dungeons perhaps more casuals or the average player would play this game. Which means more money for carbine and we would get more content, better quality which means more likely to attract new players. I understand what im suggesting isnt a perfect fix but im not going to cover everything. Just saying the game does need something to blow more life into it. I honestly expected it to be like one of the most popular mmo's and again, only reason i can think of why it isnt is the difficulty.	
----
			
For easy content you should see shiphands, solo, fast and easy content for people. on the other point i didnt recall any time kicking someone or being kicked for underperforming since drop 3, some folks are ubergeared to a point it doesnt matter much what are you doing (even got carried on 2 gold dungeons this week on my dommie), only known about people being kicked for 2 reason,  really really bad attitude or wont listen to indications when they are new.
 
About the changes listed by TT in the dungeons forums i dnt see it like a nerf (only the AA damage lowered, meanwhile the others seem more like QoL stuff) so i dont expect to be much more easier, more like fairly easy to tanks and healers but still dps have to support their own weight or they wont go anywhere.
 
PD: why is the reason someone will get banned by having a dps meter, i have it but dont showing on every pull (thing i saw in obnoxious players in wow) its just a way to measure everyone is on par to the content and if someone is really underperfoming (those warrior with 3,1k ap and 3k dps) give him some advice or tell him it will be more usefull if bring more utility or boost to the party  at this moment	
----
			
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/125940-a-discussion-about-dungeon-difficulty-and-its-impact-upon-the-casual-player-base/
 
It seems like this is a good discussion, carbine staff responded about the difficulty aswell and are planning some changes. Seems like they will be nerfing the amount of IA on mobs. And some other changes that seem good.	
----
			
Normal dungeons mostly getting changed.  Not vet.  
 
And I haven't ever seen someone get kicked other than a couple times.  1 time because the guy was just autoattacking and no IAs and trying to get carried thru a vet STL.  And another due to bad attitude and not doing what the group wanted (pulling mobs early, training more mobs onto group than we could handle, and just talking smack.  
 
There are alot of pug dungeons I go into and it's "Hard" because they run 0 interupts or the dps is low (not knowing class, not gearing correctly such as warrior wearing engineer gear) or tank not holding threat.  Although hard for a dungeon/adventure geared tank to hold dps on a DS geared player.  This game isn't a just run in and afk and autoattack and be ok.  Have to actually play, like interupt or get out of red, or not run into tornados.
 
Alot of the community is patient and willing to work with the player as long as said player isn't hostile.  I have offered advice to warriors (7/9 DS Warrior) in dungeons and got 3 responses back.  Hostile, thankful and indifferent.  But I personally don't tell a player how to play.  2 weeks ago running with a warrior and he wasn't using BS, and asking why he didnt and said he didn't like using a on demand talent, and was like ok thats cool.  I'm not going to tell him how to play even though I know using BS and his dps would be better and not be such a baddie.  Not going to tell him.  There are players that do, and sorry that they have to deal with it, but every MMO has those just a lot of the majority I have seen in Wildstar aren't like that and more on the helpful side.    	
----