103022-chmmrs-positive-feedback-on-wildstar

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Hi all,
 
All I can promise out of this is a good read.  I'll try to be concise as possible with my feedback.  For the record, this feedback is coming from someone who really enjoys the game and has a yearly subscription.  I won't be going anywhere anytime soon but do recognize that the game has several critical flaws that will continue to damage it unless repaired.
 
1.) It's ok to be Retro, as long as you don't necro age old problems
 
Ok so Wildstar has a few problems.  However, as a long time gamer I've noticed these problems have already occurred in other games.  Now you can't just go and say "All new games have issues" because that's just White-knighting.  The big problem with Wildstar's core issues is that they are problems that we gamers have already seen in other games and don't want to see again.  An important thing in the gaming industry (or any industry) is lessons learned.
 
I understand that Carbine wanted to create a Retro and very traditional MMO that rekindles that harder "vanilla" experience that veteran gamers miss.  That's all fine and dandy.  The problem is that alot of the old problems we hated from that vanilla era were resurrected along with the traditional model that we see in Wildstar today.  As an example.  Look at 1800 Arena carries of raiders that want BIS weapons?  I remember several years ago when Rogues in WOW were topping the DPS meter with gladiator PvP swords because they were BIS.  The queues were full to the brim with raiders and there was constant screaming on the forums.
 
Look at the PVP itemization problems and gear superiority?  Remember RIFT PVP?  Same issues.
 
These other games have already experienced these problems and taken steps to mitigate them.  I don't remember raiding and killing heroic Lich King with PvP swords, do you?  Remember when RIFT had a complete stat overhaul because of all the PvP stat inflation and the aoe mage 1 shotting going on?
 
It feels like Wildstar was developed in a box with no windows to the outside industry.  These problems should have never made it into the game because they were fixed or mitigated a long time ago in other AAA MMO's.
 
Someone should have been keeping an eye on those other games and taken in some lessons learned.
 
No one wants to come to a new MMO and deal with old problems that made them miserable in their old MMO -ESPECIALLY if their old game fixed those problems.  Alot of Wildstar's major issues were fixed or addressed in other games.  There's no excuse for us to be dealing with them now.
 
Age old problems that have been fixed in other games burn players out fast, because they've already dealt with them before and have no patience for them.  They are tired of a dead horse problem that was already beat to death in WOW, RIFT, Aion, or whatevers.  Now its even harder for Carbine because they are behind on the 8-ball and these players can just go back to another MMO where the problem is not as serious.
 
It is critical for Wildstar to fix these issues fast using industry tried and true solutions.  Steal the solutions from other games if you have to.  Re-itemization is something that they said would happen soon, so good!  We are on the right track.  Keep the good retro experiences, leave the retro problems in the grave where they belong.
 
It's cool to make a Retro game, but don't go retro with your game's issues too.  You have to modernize, steal, or implement good solutions that other game makers have already used to solve common problems with if you want to survive.
 
2.) Players have changed, you have to fight for their attention.
 
So this is a big one.  In the age of WOW, MMOs were ultra hardcore.  Item loss, permadeath, and corpse walking was the norm.  MMOS required huge time investments, hardware, and had a very small audience.  WOW came in with almost no competition and opened up the market of MMOS to everyone by creating a super casual game in comparison to its competitors.  It had a huge IP, charmismatic characters, and new ideas like soul bindings and a graveyard death system.  It once a once in the industry opportunity that will never occur again.
 
Back in those days, those long attunements were considered casual in comparison to the hellish corpse walks in everquest or "die and lose" everything in Ultima.  There was also nothing else to play that was as friendly as WOW.  If you got burned out on attuement, where did you go?  Lineage to enchant a weapon you spent 3 months on just to have it break and roll you back 4 months in progression?
 
I don't think people understand what hardcore was.  WOW was not successful because it was hardcore.  WOW appealed to everyone, the majority being casual gamers.  Attunements only worked because players had nowhere else to go.  People also had more time and more money.
 
Look at today.  The U.S. economy tanked and alot of people work 2 jobs.  People work themselves through school.  People have less time, less money, and less of an attention span.  There's also THOUSANDS of games to play online.  If attunement pisses you off in Wildstar?  You can go play something else.
 
Those options didn't exist in the vanilla WOW days.  You could sit there and be mad at attunement, or you could go to EQ and get even more pissed when you die in a high level zone and can't get back to your corpse to reclaim all your items.  I'd stick with the attunement back then.  And you know what?  Most people did.
 
It's a completely different world now.  This is why alot of games go free to play.  They put out flashes in the pan that only have a the goal of catching your attention for a short time period so you can get milked by their cash shop.  So these games don't develop any meaningful content.  An example is Guildwars 2, which hasn't had a full dungeon addition in over 2 years and simply survives on soulless festival updates that continue to fish for your wallet.  The promise of new content is but a distant whisper and what little content you do get is given to you in nanoscopic chunks just big enough to drag your attention long enough to make a cash shop buy.
 
In comes Carbine, to create a triple A mmo that actually has a soul.  It's a noble thing, but players are like cats.  You need to constantly flash something shiny in their face or they will just look away and find some other mischief to get into.
 
Attunements and content walls are fine, as long as you have the flashes in the pan to cover up.  The attunements and hard mountain of progression is the final goal and what keeps people long term -but you gotta have short term goodies too.  This is just how players are.  If they are bored for 1 hr, they're gone.
 
An example is Hammerknell in RIFT.  That place was so freakin' hard when it released, with lots of gating.  We found ourselves bored to tears the first few weeks it came out because we had nothing to do except wait for the next gate to lift.  Trion realized we were losing our attention, so they bombed us with fluff.  10 man sliver dungeons, raid rifts, new invasions.  At that point time we had a long hard dungeon that gave us a goal, and a bunch of fluff to do when we were on lockouts.  Double win!
 
I mean think about it.  A raid is what, 2-3 hours every 2-3 days?  The average player plays alot more than that so what are they going to do in the meantime?
 
I mean in these days you gotta have alot of side track content, which is extremely important in covering up your long nasty time walls and lockouts.
 
Wildstar has the long hard mountain, but no breadcrumbs or flashy fireworks to keep people interested.  You gotta herd the cats and hide your obvious content blocks with well decorated fluff or amusing content (not just boring daily zones).  Sabotage is a good move, but only if its not wrecked by the PvP retro gear problems I talked about up top.  You gotta do more and add more fun stuff too.  World bosses, invasions, public quests, fleets of ikthian ships that drop mobs all over or abduct cupigs, zombie Lopps, low gravity zones... I mean come on, you got alotta options and creative minds in that studio.
 
Housing is excellent, but you need more.  You have to create fun and reusable content that variates and flashes all sorts of different colors because players nowadays are not loyal at all.  People hop games the first second they get bored, that's just how the industry is now.
 
I mean I remember in RIFT where there was a random invasion event that dropped giant robots you could grab to siege armies and capture a fortress.  That was some fun stuff.
 
I mean we already have tanks you can use in grimvault.  Add in a PVE wintergrasp-like zone or something where we siege some fortress with tanks and spawn a 40 man end raid boss when the event completes.  You know FUN stuff that's crazy, creative, and that will hold attention until those time gates come down.
 
I got faith that this game can make it.  It's got a good foundation, just a few smart decisions need to be made :3
 
TL;DR: Just read the big red letters.	
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You left out something else, something that is quite common to all of the new MMO's out there....."Twitch Gaming".
 
My son likes jumping around, ducking, dodging, weaving, darting in to strike and then jumping back out of harm's way.  He loves PvP in any online game for that main reason.
 
I, on the other hand, hate it.  I hate having to turn just to hit a target in front of me.  Oops..there's a rock or something between me and the target and my attack simply fizzles.  I don't twitch.  I could forgive most of what you talk about because I'll never get BiS, I'll never go on a raid, won't even do an adventure.  For me, twitch gaming ruined what I hoped would be a fun, quirky MMO that didn't take itself too seriously.
 
Not too many games out there for old farts like me.  Shame.  Because my son doesn't have a job.  Any money he gets he gets from me.  Any money that Wildstar would have made would have come out of my bank account.  And trust me, I've got more money than brains, or skill.  Just can't see spending it on a game like this.	
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You left out something else, something that is quite common to all of the new MMO's out there....."Twitch Gaming".
 
My son likes jumping around, ducking, dodging, weaving, darting in to strike and then jumping back out of harm's way.  He loves PvP in any online game for that main reason.
 
I, on the other hand, hate it.  I hate having to turn just to hit a target in front of me.  Oops..there's a rock or something between me and the target and my attack simply fizzles.  I don't twitch.  I could forgive most of what you talk about because I'll never get BiS, I'll never go on a raid, won't even do an adventure.  For me, twitch gaming ruined what I hoped would be a fun, quirky MMO that didn't take itself too seriously.
 
Not too many games out there for old farts like me.  Shame.  Because my son doesn't have a job.  Any money he gets he gets from me.  Any money that Wildstar would have made would have come out of my bank account.  And trust me, I've got more money than brains, or skill.  Just can't see spending it on a game like this.
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You left out something else, something that is quite common to all of the new MMO's out there....."Twitch Gaming".
 
My son likes jumping around, ducking, dodging, weaving, darting in to strike and then jumping back out of harm's way.  He loves PvP in any online game for that main reason.
 
I, on the other hand, hate it.  I hate having to turn just to hit a target in front of me.  Oops..there's a rock or something between me and the target and my attack simply fizzles.  I don't twitch.  I could forgive most of what you talk about because I'll never get BiS, I'll never go on a raid, won't even do an adventure.  For me, twitch gaming ruined what I hoped would be a fun, quirky MMO that didn't take itself too seriously.
 
Not too many games out there for old farts like me.  Shame.  Because my son doesn't have a job.  Any money he gets he gets from me.  Any money that Wildstar would have made would have come out of my bank account.  And trust me, I've got more money than brains, or skill.  Just can't see spending it on a game like this.
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You can't be that old, or much older than me. I'm 36 and "twitch" just fine. I grew up with Quake 1,2, and 3. Unreal Tournament, Hexxen, Wolfenstein, all games requiring quick reflexes. I smoke, I drink and I play for 12 hours some days.
 
I haven't let my age hold me back.
 
That said, I do have great equipment to help me play better, make things easier on myself. Orbweaver, Razer Naga MMO mouse etc..
 
The final piece to the puzzle is the class you play. Currently, the only viable classes for pvp are Warrior, Spellslinger and Stalker. They're all  "Ezmode" and take little to no skill to play decent and you can do well on accident. That is, if you're going to PvP.  Tanking and healing, forget it. It's like trying herd cats with a squirt gun. Not to mention boring as hell.
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			Well said, and very, very true. :)	
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Spellslinger is viable and ez mode?
 
 
OHHH You said PvP. Ok yea, we can kind of hurt people in quick bursts if nobody is paying attention to us.
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yeah I wished I had rolled SS first, 2 wasted level 50s later, I found out Engineer and DPS medic are straight garbage for anything aside from ...Housing? They're good at housing. :)
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Wat, engies are #1 DPS right now, the delta between engie and medic is massive.  :P
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Good guy Gathord setting wrong information right!
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Spellslinger is viable and ez mode?
 
 
OHHH You said PvP. Ok yea, we can kind of hurt people in quick bursts if nobody is paying attention to us.
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			36 years of age isn't old, kid. There is a reason for bifocals.	
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Good guy Gathord setting wrong information right!
SS is one of the few classes that work well with EVERY single PvP comp, because they do insane dmg and have insane survivability due to great utility(aslong as you know how to use it)
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And after PTR goes live, medic DPS will be better than SS (In PvE).
 
For PvP Medic healing is best. Then again rolling a MEDIC to DPS would be like rolling a warrior to heal. I just... what? The name implies healing.
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Unless I misunderstood the patch notes, they're getting a small single target nerf, and a minor AE buff. They were already terrible single target, so I don't know how they would pull ahead of SS.
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INB4 Rift haters!lol
 
Anyway. One thing I pointed to a few weeks ago is WildStar has no "Signature" Minigame. I won't mentioned the person's name but in PMs he went on about how WildStar doesn't need Fluff like Pokemon, Proving Grounds, Rift's great Non-Raid Large Group Content or Invasions. I told him "that Fluff is content".
 
Yea WildStar has cool housing but Housing is housing. Even Blizz is getting in on the act. Also, I want to see this game start to use it's platform side a bit more in the Dailies. I don't remember which zone it was but 1 quest had  you grab this items that boosted your jump height so you could grab these items in tress. Can I please get something fun like that for a daily?Dailies can be fun. How about something like that Space Chase quest(I don't remember the name). Where you piloted that ship and eventually shoot the guy down? There's a minigame there somewhere! Full Zone Hoverboard Race Courses! The hazards are already there lol . "Oh look it's collect Ammunitions...again"	
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			This is what good criticism and feedback looks like folks. It's also a good analysis of how players have changed in the genre.	
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I hate 'hardcore' its meaning changes between generations, games or pretty much everything. Tbh i think a major reason vanilla was successful is because it was in the golden zone for difficulty vs reward, not only is W* on the higher end of the difficulty/time required but it offers zero reward, no incentive.
 
Im actually pretty happy with the content, im even happy doing the dailies or spending hours wiping in dungeons but there is literally nothing to be gained at the end. 	
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