105339-wildstar-the-amazing-game-that-failed-to-be-what-it-could-be

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Yes, yes, another "I quit" post.  And yes, its a whopper.  Feel free to skip it if those are not your thing, as this was written for the devs as a form of feedback.Wildstar was going to be THE mmo of the decade for me, and so many other players.  We tried all the FOTM theme parks that followed in WoW's wake and hoped every time that we had found a gem, but never before had a game shown so much promise!  Here we had veteran developpers, a unique combat system allowing for a level of PvE depth never seen before (if you have raided, you know what I mean here!), a brand new IP set in an untouched niche, and the promise of a return to the days of challenging non-recycled content.  Hell, I remember playing beta and being amazed at how fluid and responsive everything felt, something most games fail to get even close to.  So what could go wrong?Well... everything.  Everything could go wrong.  See, the early game was beyond amazingly polished, but the end game... the end game was not even thought through. And it killed all hopes this game had of living up to its potential: 
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- Medals: the medal system was horribly implemented.  It was originaly meant as a side activity available to bored players but instead became the required norm.  Beyond that problem, tho, is the way medals were designed in the first place: instead of offering additional challenges, the medal system actually rewards players who avoid as many encounters as possible and learn how to use bugs to their advantages, be it in the form of platform jumping or straight up exploitation of broken mechanics.  This was a game that was supposed to give us hard fights, instead it made us jump over walls to avoid said fights.  How did this ever leave the writting board? 
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Oh this is new and exciting!
 
Also I'm not saying you don't have  a few Valid points, BuT I doubt NCSoft would have the patience or confidence Square had to do a reset.
 
Plus they didn't shut down the servers the whole time of the reset they let people who bought boxes play for free on the old servers and then a few weeks before ARR launched they shut them down.	
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			You've nailed it 100%.	
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Translation: This game does not appeal to me, so I'm leaving to play some other game that will result in the same thing happening again. 
 
Also, do you realize how much money would go into "redoing" Wildstar? Do you have any concept of money and time? FF14 took a really big gamble when they redid the game, which won't see a profit for a long time. You realize games are businesses, yes?	
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			One more game in the pile of "It had so much potential!"	
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Translation: This game does not appeal to me, so I'm leaving to play some other game that will result in the same thing happening again. 
 
Also, do you realize how much money would go into "redoing" Wildstar? Do you have any concept of money and time? FF14 took a really big gamble when they redid the game, which won't see a profit for a long time. You realize games are businesses, yes?
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my guess is no, they have no idea as to what it would take to make it into a game they would want to play
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			I don't think they need to go as far a ARR. The Core of XIV was a mess. WildStar isn't that far gone at it's core. Their problem is Philosophical. They can patch the Attunement. The RNG of Loot. The only thing I could see being a issue at the core is the Core Ability upgrades system. It's similar to Rift's Planar Attunement but PA doesn't unlock Tiered Effects for Core Abilities. Those Tiered Effects are going to make it extremely hard for the people who are "late to the party" to catch up and become what will be considered Raid Ready 6 months from now. Gear Won't be able to help you if we are evenly geared but my Collider or w/e is maxed. You'll be outside the instance making sure that nothing runs in(lol), while I'm doing the real content.	
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I don't think they need to go as far a ARR. The Core of XIV was a mess. WildStar isn't that far gone at it's core. Their problem is Philosophical. They can patch the Attunement. The RNG of Loot. The only thing I could see being a issue at the core is the Core Ability upgrades system. It's similar to Rift's Planar Attunement but PA doesn't unlock Tiered Effects for Core Abilities. Those Tiered Effects are going to make it extremely hard for the people who are "late to the party" to catch up and become what will be considered Raid Ready 6 months from now. Gear Won't be able to help you if we are evenly geared but my Collider or w/e is maxed. You'll be outside the instance making sure that nothing runs in(lol), while I do real content.
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Translation: This game does not appeal to me, so I'm leaving to play some other game that will result in the same thing happening again. 
 
Also, do you realize how much money would go into "redoing" Wildstar? Do you have any concept of money and time? FF14 took a really big gamble when they redid the game, which won't see a profit for a long time. You realize games are businesses, yes?
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This has nothing to do with appeal.  Broken mechanics are not a matter of preference.  If you could stop being a hopeless fanboy for 2 minutes you would be able to actually read my post instead of giving me the generic reply crap.  Of course, even then you will probably argue that everything is fine and dandy, but I can't help blind men see.
 
I am quite aware of how much time and money it would take.  Neither are my problems.
 
See thats a fair argument, but I still think merely fixing the issues might be enough to retain the remaining playerbase, but will do nothing to attract people who left.  A full reset/reboot is needed, even if they dont officialy "relaunch" for that.
 
 
 
 
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fixing issues, a few reinvite emails and free trials. who knows
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			I still think that the major reason most people left is because the game requires a freaking premade group using TS/Vent just to do simple Dungeons or even Battlegrounds without making you want to shoot yourself in the head. The game could have still been hardcore without that nonsense.	
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I still think that the major reason most people left is because the game requires a freaking premade group using TS/Vent just to do simple Dungeons or even Battlegrounds without making you want to shoot yourself in the head. The game could have still been hardcore without that nonsense.
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It's weird. According to Carbine themselves ~65% of the playerbase is predominantly solo, but so much endgame stuff is near-impossible without a premade.
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We played solo leveling up because that's all that was required. If you had a leveling system where you HAD to group to level, i.e. FFXI, not only would dungeons have been better received, but you'd have far more interaction amongst the playerbase. Sadly, this was a failure in design.
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Did this in Vanguard. You had to group for the most trivial of Quests. It's so cute until the playerbase Dries up and your LFG requests appear to echo in Chat lol. Forced Grouping Progression is a terrible, terrible, idea. Unless you want to be Niche when XI was. I don't want my character progression dependent upon whether you feel like helping me or not.
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Did this in Vanguard. You had to group for the most trivial of Quests. It's so cute until the playerbase Dries up and your LFG requests appear to echo in Chat lol. Forced Grouping Progression is a terrible, terrible, idea. Unless you want to be Niche when XI was. I don't want my character progression dependent upon whether you feel like helping me or not.
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Whoa now, i wasn't saying that it should have been like that. You're correct, once you can't find people to group with the idea falls apart.
 
My point really was that this game was schizophrenic about its playstyle; solo for the majority and then forced cooperation with a high degree of coordination.
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Oh. I misunderstood the context. I thought you wanted that lol
 
 
I didn't stick with it long but the ideas it had stayed with me. I would always visit it from time to time. Seems like ArcheAge could have been the game VG was supposed to be. It's already Niche imo. FFA PVP and no True PVE End Game, plus it's Sandbox.
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well, Vanguard was known for its anti pvp attitude
 
thing is by the time they fixed everything that was more shattered than just broken at launch, was far too late for the game
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I wish more Devs would be honest about PVP upfront so PVPers would stop clogging the forums with their unimportant minigame issues.
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			Do you write up a dissertation whenever you bought and played a game and ended up not liking it? Not trying to side with A or B, just wondering if I should leave Haemimont a note because I didn't like Tropico 5, to inform them on how they could have made the game instead.	
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I have only one question in response to the OP.
 
Can I have your stuff?	
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I wish more games would be honest about their focus.
 
I mean you want to make a pvp game that has some pve, thats awesome, just SAY that.
 
I dont want to buy into a game only to find out that its more pvp than anything else, and pve is sacrificed to make pvp more palatable. heck, just make it pvp, thats fine with me. if nothing else I know where not to spend my money
 
same is the opposite way too though. if its a pve, DONT say you are going to have great pvp.
 
sadly developers these days (and for at least the past decade) cannot code for both at the same time. they really REALLY need to stop thinking they can.
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Trion was honest about what they were doing with PVP. They have Arena but it's not serious. They have BGS as well. They released a new one this week. They, from day one, let people know that PVE was going to be their focus.
 
Ironically, they had the best system to balance it seperately from PVE if they chose to do so. I'm not talking about their old PVP souls(dunno if you've played Rift but these existed). I'm talking about Mirror Souls that you would need to have equipped to enter PVP. They would be the same skills as PVE but if they were deemed to powerful in PVP but balanced in PVE you could just Nerf the mirror version.
 
P.S. That post was just me flame baiting lol
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Do you write up a dissertation whenever you bought and played a game and ended up not liking it? Not trying to side with A or B, just wondering if I should leave Haemimont a note because I didn't like Tropico 5, to inform them on how they could have made the game instead.
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I think in the end the biggest issue is that, at their core, WoW devs will always be WoW devs. No matter if the IP is new, having worked at the Biggest (sub-wise) MMO in the block, does a number on your coding prowess, so to speak.
 
The original idea, up to the last days of Beta, was promising because it had just enough hints of WoW without affecting the main concept, so we put up with it, I mean, we need to be realistic and from a  financial standpoint, it's a lot better NOT to reinvent the wheel.
 
But then, problems began to arise, and I'm not talking about the usual issues that pop up during the first weeks of a new MMO. And lo! the WoW mentality started to rear its ugly head: nerfs that were baffingly applied, QoL fixes that came about waaay late, and the worst offender... Fraggin' up PvE to accomodate PvP, a move that WoW veterans might recognize extremely well.
 
I agree with the OP about the potential the game had out of the gate, hell I'm still here hanging to a speck of promise, call me a masochist. But after the shine of the whole "the Devs are Listening" schtick wore off, I'd rather have Developers who could stop acting like our gaming buddies on Twitter and get to rescuing a player base that can't take another month of Nexus Dailies or Nightlies or whatever showing them PvPing against White Knight YouTubers on a game that clearly isn't the same one we play.
 
And yet, here I am, bored out of my skull with friggin' dailies I can't stand, looking for a group to finish Attunement that won't bite my damn head off if we don't get gold, and trying to convince myself that it will be better, that the next drop will help retain what's left of the community (hint: it won't).
 
At a certaing point Devs (if any are reading, which I doubt), we don't want to know you're Listening. I'd rather have you Fixing. And the silly optimist in me thought that having 6 or so months of content updates ready to launch would give you the time to fix what needs fixing.
 
Perhaps the problem is me. I'm too old to be this hopeful.	
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			Game is awesome and gets massive improvements each week.. not sure why you feel the need to quit. Its not like it costs money to keep the sub up (thanks CREDD)	
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Game is awesome and gets massive improvements each week.. not sure why you feel the need to quit. Its not like it costs money to keep the sub up (thanks CREDD)
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Can I please play the game you play?
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I mean really.. Wildstar is what you make it... you can choose to be like my ex.. and always bored, or you can pick up a video game or a good tv series or work out
 
you can choose to enjoy wildstar and do Arena till you hit 1800 or work on your PvE attuement... or you can lose two Arenas in a row and rage quit like so many do. The people who are really enjoying Wildstar, are the personality type where losing doesn't bother them	
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I wish more games would be honest about their focus.
 
I mean you want to make a pvp game that has some pve, thats awesome, just SAY that.
 
I dont want to buy into a game only to find out that its more pvp than anything else, and pve is sacrificed to make pvp more palatable. heck, just make it pvp, thats fine with me. if nothing else I know where not to spend my money
 
same is the opposite way too though. if its a pve, DONT say you are going to have great pvp.
 
sadly developers these days (and for at least the past decade) cannot code for both at the same time. they really REALLY need to stop thinking they can.
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I mean really.. Wildstar is what you make it... you can choose to be like my ex.. and always bored, or you can pick up a video game or a good tv series or work out
 
you can choose to enjoy wildstar and do Arena till you hit 1800 or work on your PvE attuement... or you can lose two Arenas in a row and rage quit like so many do. The people who are really enjoying Wildstar, are the personality type where losing doesn't bother them
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I mean really.. Wildstar is what you make it... you can choose to be like my ex.. and always bored, or you can pick up a video game or a good tv series or work out
 
you can choose to enjoy wildstar and do Arena till you hit 1800 or work on your PvE attuement... or you can lose two Arenas in a row and rage quit like so many do. The people who are really enjoying Wildstar, are the personality type where losing doesn't bother them
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Oh I'm not quitting, because after all the time and effort I have put in this game, it'd be stupid to throw it away. YOu asked what I find so broken, so here goes:
 
1. Simple things like the /who command not working, Mats disappearing while crafting, and in this day and age, no simple way to reply to a whisper.
2. I don't PvP, and yet I found it so much fun I decided to give it a try. Same level brackets? Pfft, not happening.
3. The changes to Loot Drops in Dungeons and Adventures are so ass-backwards that it is impossible to find a group that will do an Adventure other than for Gold. Say goodbye to learning a dungeon with a laid back group of folks, unless you're in a guild. Oh wait, people are leaving every day, so guilds are collapsing.
4. Speaking of Guilds, please, it's 2014 and the Guild functionality is retarded at best.
 
I could go on but you know what? It won't matter because you obviously have a game without any of these issues. Hence the reason I asked you to invite me to yours.
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			I think wildstar is a fabulous game, but admittedly I'm already getting a bit bored. No real reason to experience the end game content atm and the community is just awful. Guild wars 2 was another game I really enjoyed, but their endgame lacked content, as opposed to wildstar lacking accessible endgame.	
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Troll whatever you want. But he actually has good points. 
 
Medals where Ok before change. Pvp gear is kinda meh, Telegraph and latency should've been fixed before launch, having 100ms means leading 3 to 5 Meters. 
 
Tho this reasons aren't enough for me to quit it sure would be nice if carbine fixes the medal system and pvp gear. 
 
Before the changes to medals I was doing adventures and dungeons non stop and helping peeps with their attunement. Now it's just so boring. No carrot on the stick.
 
 
And carbine, you don't get to mess with the carrot and have a successful mmo at the same time.	
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I think there is actually some really great feedback here. The issue is that so many of us absolutely adore this game. It was like an ice-cold glass of your favorite beverage, after rummaging through a desert for years. The problem is that we are finding that it really wasn't our favorite beverage, but merely some stagnant water we had stumbled upon. Our shining oasis has had the mirage veil lifted, and it looks more like and icky puddle. That's not to say there isn't hope. If we plant the seeds now, tend to the land, and pray for some rain, our oasis could still be a reality!
 
Carbine has proven themselves over with the willingness to adjust and change for the sake of the players. Our best bet now is to continue with this kind of feedback, letting them know what's happening. Then they can see and make the right changes, hopefully before too much has been lost.
 
My husband and I came from hardcore down to a more casual schedule, with years of MMO's behind us. Wildstar has/had everything we wanted, but he got a new job. His hours changed to a way that made raiding difficult. We aren't naive, and we didn't want to pull anyone down with us. We decided our best bet is to play the game casually, working on hitting level cap and experiencing what we could. However, That has really proven difficult with the difference in skill needs going from Vet Adventures to Vet Dungeons. My personal opinion would be to make the adventures a hair more difficult, or make Normal Mode max level dungeons for practice. I absolutely do not want an LFR in this game. I think the current difficulty of Vet Dungeons is just right to prepare people for raiding. This goes well with the attunement process, to find commitment in others. 
 
We want this game to succeed, but keep some core attributes. I really do not want it to turn into something different, just to keep the servers live.	
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See thats a fair argument, but I still think merely fixing the issues will do nothing to attract the people who left.  A full reset/reboot is needed, even if they dont officialy "relaunch" for that
 
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 FF14 took a really big gamble when they redid the game, which won't see a profit for a long time.
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			The game is already dying. I give it 6 months to go free to play. My guild is already thinking of going back to WoW due to lack of stuff to do outside of raids. 	
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The game is already dying. I give it 6 months to go free to play. My guild is already thinking of going back to WoW due to lack of stuff to do outside of raids. 
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Many of those who played the beta foreseen the future!! Capping the endgame progress it and making players wait a week to do it again will only make then turn it off and forget. I've done everything and can't do anymore. They'll be one another game that will keep the busy and reward them daily rather than weekly. 
 
Receiving a "beret"? That's it? One thing that makes you ooh and ah for 3 seconds? It's such a joke and slap to the face for the subscribers. 
 
Fixing the issues that were addressed way before the release would have been better or delaying it for years until everything has been ironed thoroughly. 
 
I am now unsubbed. Sorry but it's been a pleasure. There was/is nothing to gain. (So many issues) I'll be back in a couple of months by then it 'should' be fixed. Just to see if it's gonna be worth a wildstar run!	
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Finnaly an intelligent post !!
 
Let me just express my concerns while at the same time supporting the points the OP made. I hope the devs are truly listening.
 
- Medals:  Our guild basically found a way to skip 1/2 of the content in STL to do speed runs for the Eldan Gauntlets. Basically all i do now is wait for raid night, luckily my guild raids 4 days a week. At least i'm not completely bored all the time.
 
- Gear progression/Itemisation: Tell me how its normal in an MMO to spend an entire week getting capped on Elder Gems and then spending said gems on an item from a vendor that ends up having the worst rune slots possible. Maybe having rune slots on gear being dropped in dungeons is fine, as it is an incentive to farm those dungeons ( If crafted gear wasn't OP and dungeon loot actually made sense ). But for the love of god PLEASE not raids and Elder Gem vendors !! I can't wait for the day when i get my first raid piece, and it will have Earth and Logic rune slots on it. Why would i switch out my crafted gear that has 125 finesse and 2x fire/fusion slots ?
 
- PvP Mechanics/Latency:  Had a guild member be jerked around for 2 days by NCSOFT tech support for an issue he was having with latency spikes. About 2 weeks after launch he started getting laag spikes anywheres from 200ms - 500ms, on a daily basis. After trying everything he decided to contact tech support, after 2 days they finnaly admitted that they were having an issue with the server he was connecting too. Him and thousands of others. Personally i am always at 120ms +. How is anyone suppose to PvP in a game where the core combat revolves around a telegraph system that needs to be aimed trying to play at a constant 100 + ms. I have seen, on countless ocassions, people in arenas and BG's INSIDE my telegraph and it just blatantly whiffs.
 
Currently i'm on Pergo and i'm noticing all kinds of guilds transfer over. It honestly feels like they are trying to run away from an MMO apocalypse, as they report that the previous servers they were on were dying or already dead and nothing but barren wastelands.
 
I love this game Carbine, please do something and do it quick :(
 
 
 	
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My wife and I turned are accounts off today. We got to level 20, wiped about 30 times in stormtalon, and decide this probably is just not for us. I played a MUD for 5 years, Everquest 1 for 4 years and WoW (Lead a faction first guild through out vanilla/TBC - Durotan Horde). My wife played Everquest for 6 years (raided in Fires of Heaven) and played WoW with me. We have played pretty much most other MMOs on the market, but those were the ones we stuck with the longest.  
 
We were excited for this game (at least I was) and although the Combat System and gameplay is fun, and for the most part the content is there -- the game as a whole is NOT Fun. Too little rewards most of the time for way too much effort put in. Itemization pisses me off to no end. The questing and overall direction feels so linear that there is no chance for exploration (and I fear there would also be very little reward.).
 
Anyways, I won't beat it into the ground. Obviously the game is not for us. I wish it was. We were looking forward to it! Add this to the pile of other /iquit posts. Sorry guys!	
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Thank you OP for your feedback regarding your issues with the game. We have been taking the information and passing them up to the team, and of course we are sorry to hear that they were the reasons you have decided to cancel your subscription and move on. I personally hope that these problems are fixed for you in the future and that you return and give the game another try. If not, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself. Thank you again. 
 
- team WildStar 	
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