124936-just-another-returning-player-perspective

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So, I’ve recently come back to the game after a fair bit of time away and wanted just to offer up my feedback on what’s different from my perspective – what’s good and what still needs adjustment to really make this game as popular as possible. (Popular is good. Popular brings money. Money brings new content and more Carbine staff!).
 
I still find this absolutely the most FUN mmo you can play today. The core of the game is fantastic. The art – the music – the combat – the VO work – characters - it’s an absolute joy just to hit buttons and do things.
 
That being said, it’s not perfect just yet. Here are some of my thoughts (keep in mind I just re-leveled to 20 again in addition to dabbling around on my 50s):
 
THE GOOD:
 
Leveling speed is MUCH better (so far).  You’re in zones just long enough to enjoy them without feeling like they are dragging forever.  That being said, most of it was done with rested xp so I didn’t really experience baseline xp.
 
Glory. Having solo progression paths for players outside of raids is great. The raid model at release was REALLY exclusive, and you need players to be able to get something (if even much slower) outside of that as they go forward... which leads me to...
Vet Shiphands. Another awesome idea.
 
Bug fixes and account-wide costuming. This is really leading in the right direction. The more account-wide stuff the better. Would love to see mounts and dyes have similar systems in the future, and include save-able customizability for mounts per character (like costumes). While we're at it, I really hope that the current raid tier of gear becomes outdated at some point, so solo characters have a shot at super-cool costumes also. Give the raiders and hardcore some new stuff, and let us have the old stuff. Even for glory. Not a super huge ton of sweet costumes available outside of raid just yet.
 
WHAT I STILL THINK NEEDS WORK:
 
1. The rune system. Yes, we now sell cheap runes on vendors, but at least up to level 21, I didn't see any vendors while questing, so all of my gear remains unruned. Merge the rune vendors WITH the engraving stations and solve the issue.
 
Also, the set bonues and rune system is still extremely unintuitive and clunky. My new guild pointed me to runemaster (I think) addon... which is great, but, when you need something that looks like this:
 
 
or a spreadsheet to figure out what runes to buy, your system is too clunky. And this goes against the "fun" feel of wildstar. Since I don't like posting issues without suggestions, here is mine:
 
Decouple the set bonuses and runes from stats. Create new slots on gear (prismatic? maybe) that accept a "prismatic" rune that is basically a set rune. These can accept ANY rune. For example: Firestarter Rune. They add up and only give you the bonus if you're that class (if class-specific). So, if you have 12 set runes amongst all your gear, then you're 12/12 for the bonus. You can mix-match if you want to. But this eliminates having to worry about specific colors, etc, and makes it super easy to rune your stuff.
 
For stat runes, those would be by-color, and essentially not change from the current system. So, earth rune of brutality or whatever is perfectly fine.
 
I just think that would make one of the most un-fun and tedious parts of this game more intuitive and managable. You could even make a craftable item that adds rune slots to gear, up to a max # depending on item quality, like the others that were recently done (and nice btw!). Or make them purcaseable for glory/renown.
 
2. Renown/elder gems. I get that one of them is sort of the "solo" cosmetic currency and the other one is the "group" cosmetic currency, but really what's the point of more systems? I was completely confused on currency for a while when I came back. How about we just combine them into one currency (elder gems maybe) and where you'd earn EG's AND renown now, you just get EGs. And can buy all the rewards for both from one vendor? Would just help make things smoother.
 
3. Housing buffs. Just make the buff board give you 10% for each thing, every day. I get that it's supposed to be "pvp incentive day" but more often than not for me it turns into "not going to level today" because it's not 10% pve day. You still have to login to get the buff and it encourages you going back to your house so... what's the harm?
 
4. Attunement. This has been made much better, but instead of me buying CREDD for plat for a key for attunement, why don't you just sell the key on the website? I'd gladly pay $20 for a one-time use key for my alts. Just sayin'.
 
Those last few are very minor. The rune system is by far the biggest thing I think needs overhauled still. All-in-all, very nice changes and I'm glad to be back! But...
 
And here is the biggest reason I haven't jumped back in feet-first to the game yet.... I'm nervous. I'm nervous that my time spent and my efforts will all be for moot when either 1. the business model shifts and we get a skeleton crew put on the game and the rest of Carbine gets tasked elsewhere or 2. the game just gets dropped by NCSoft. I really want to put alot into this game and wring every ounce of enjoyment out of it, as I do see it heading in the right direction, but I want to know it will eventually get there, that development of new content and support will continue, and this will be a game I can enjoy for years and years to come. This "box copy" liquidation seems to be a prelude to that, so please give the fans who've paid the sub all this time and champion for this game on public game forums and social media a heads up on what's the come so we can be reassured.
 
Thanks! Will update as I go on my journey back.	
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			Please do another podcast episode.	
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Agreed with merging the rune vendors and stations for leveling.
 
But I love the complexity of figuring out how to rune my gear. Runemaster is awesome and has made the whole process a lot more fun.
 
I'm a big fan (maybe the only one?) of how runes are currently implemented at cap.
 
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4. Attunement. This has been made much better, but instead of me buying CREDD for plat for a key for attunement, why don't you just sell the key on the website? I'd gladly pay $20 for a one-time use key for my alts. Just sayin'.
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You're right. And I can totally see that. I myself was about to buy a key for plat. But I don't know currently how many keys are sold. I don't think EVERYONE would pay the $ and a lot of people would still buy keys with earned plat, so it wouldn't COMPLETELY tank the market I wouldn't think. Again, nothing earth-shattering. Just a suggestion to make QOL easier to get people in raids.
 
One thing that really hurt the economy was stuff like trigger fingers (THANK YOU FOR PUTTING THAT ON A VENDOR). I had a guildmate at launch make over 2000 plat from that item alone.
Speaking of, you shouldn't be able to buy/sell the same CREDD over and over again. I currently make ~1p a day doing exactly that. Seems like if you buy it on the exchange it should be BOP. If you buy it for money you get a token that you can either sell or use. One time.
Just a thought though. I don't know how bad that is for the economy, but it's super-lazy money generation for me right now.
 
 
Wouldn't you say that runemaster has made the process fun because you can understand it? When I first runed my GA-raiding SS, I had a full spreadsheet I had to fill out. Yes, runemaster is nice, but do we really expect every player who wants to be properly geared to know of and use that addon? Or should the system just not require it?	
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Runes:
 
Sort of a love/hate relationship.  I get your point.  It is indeed complex and that complexity may be offputting.  The minmaxing grognard in me sort of loves it.  The practical engineer in me realizes the fact that you NEED to use Runemaster to make any sense of the system is a major dent against the system.
 
I don't understand your proposal though.  It sounds like you want to devote each piece of gear to a set in some fashion.  I have to say, I like being able to achieve the low end if Set X, go heavy into Set Y, and take what I can get out of Set Z.  I know for DPS specs, it's more of a "get max in these two no matter what" but for tanking I maintained minimal thresholds in 4 different sets while gearing up slowly and being able to add more and more into them.  That was actually fun.  I would not want to have to devote myself to only one set, and if you munge multiple sets into the same name in the effort of simplicity, it sort of degrades the distinctiveness of each set.
 
So I get where you're coming from.  We've seen WoW go from medium customization, to heavy (enchants, gems, buckles, tinkers, fur padding, embroidery, etc) all the way back to minimal (itemization seems like it's done by robots, only occasional customization and even then it's just "slot one gem of your classes best secondary stat").  I'd argue that the latter is WAY too far down the spectrum, while I can agree with many of the arguments that Wildstar may be towards the more extreme end.  I don't know where the happy medium is.  Even if there is one best rune set, there is still an interesting puzzle in where to put the pieces in order to get everything you want.  I do like that part.  But yeah... Runemaster makes the process manageable.
 
Attunement
 
Personally, I think it could be stripped away almost entirely.  I wouldn't even advocate paying Carbine for it.  I have subscribed from day one.  Paying them to let me into their raids seems a bit much.  I'd personally just argue for removing the reputation, world boss, and kythria phases.  Do some story stuff, hit the adventures up, hit the dungeons up.  Let the raid groups sort out whether someone is sufficiently skilled and/or geared to let them play with them.
 
Housing Buffs
 
Honeslty, personally don't care here.  I'm of the opinion that leveling is quite speedy.  If you hold off because you didn't get 5% extra that day... meh.  You are so far into an optimization headspace that I don't even know what universe you're in (and this is coming from an engineer, to whom the phrase "technically correct -- the best KIND of correct" is sort of a mantra.)  5% will not break your experience and if you're so fragile that it will, MMOs are probably not for you.
 
Currency
 
You are probably correct here.  It's a bit of a hassle to sort out where you get which.  PvP currency makes sense, it's a very specific sort of activity, and should have very specific infrastructure.  Renown and Glory are gating mechanisms and I suspect you'll see the two collapse back into a single "PvE" currency.  I think the reason Glory was created was due to some engine design restraints in the way Renown was gained, so instead of reworking that currency engine, they tacked on Glory with new parameters.  	
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Good feedback! I noticed a lot of the same things as you with regard to leveling. One thing I think that could help with the runes while leveling is to place a greater emphasis on salvaging your items. The weak runes are cool and all but I got a substantial number of armor runes from salvaging as I leveled.
 
As for runes at max level, I absolutely agree that runes ought to be simplified. I think what you're getting at is to have rune slots in your armor that are specifically allocated for set bonuses (like the runes you add to armor in GW2) in addition to "element" slots that add stat bonuses.
 
This would definitely make understanding the runing process a lot simpler, but I think it would diminish the amount of sets that a person could carry with them at one time unless there were multiple "set slots" per armor piece. Better? I'm not sure. There's already usually only one or two "right" ways to rune your armor for set, so maybe it wouldn't impact things that much if it were simplified.	
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			Thank you so much for the feedback, nice and detailed. :) 	
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I get where you are coming from. RM definitely makes the process what it is. But I also think that optimizing runes is pretty much an end game/raider kind of thing to do, and that's the set who normally would love that kind of thing.
 
Before I was raiding I just kind of stuck in whatever worked on my existing pieces, and that was good enough for dungeons.
 
So I don't know- it just doesn't seen like the kind of thing that would turn people off from the game, though the default interface could be streamlined so you don't have to do a bunch of running back and forth to the runs station to figure out what mats you need.
 
This is probably a point in your favor, but I've done most of the runing for my wife because she does see it as complex and I love doing it. I'm sure she'd figure it out if I didnt, but since I like it just works out well for us :)	
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I just wish WhatTheRune would come back, it was so much better than the default runecrafting ui.
 
EDIT ----
 
I'll just leave my subtle hint for you add-ons makers right here :).	
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Runes:
 
I don't understand your proposal though.  It sounds like you want to devote each piece of gear to a set in some fashion.  I have to say, I like being able to achieve the low end if Set X, go heavy into Set Y, and take what I can get out of Set Z.  I know for DPS specs, it's more of a "get max in these two no matter what" but for tanking I maintained minimal thresholds in 4 different sets while gearing up slowly and being able to add more and more into them.  That was actually fun.  I would not want to have to devote myself to only one set, and if you munge multiple sets into the same name in the effort of simplicity, it sort of degrades the distinctiveness of each set.
 
Currency
 
You are probably correct here.  It's a bit of a hassle to sort out where you get which.  PvP currency makes sense, it's a very specific sort of activity, and should have very specific infrastructure.  Renown and Glory are gating mechanisms and I suspect you'll see the two collapse back into a single "PvE" currency.  I think the reason Glory was created was due to some engine design restraints in the way Renown was gained, so instead of reworking that currency engine, they tacked on Glory with new parameters.  
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I get where you are coming from. RM definitely makes the process what it is. But I also think that optimizing runes is pretty much an end game/raider kind of thing to do, and that's the set who normally would love that kind of thing.
 
Before I was raiding I just kind of stuck in whatever worked on my existing pieces, and that was good enough for dungeons.
 
So I don't know- it just doesn't seen like the kind of thing that would turn people off from the game, though the default interface could be streamlined so you don't have to do a bunch of running back and forth to the runs station to figure out what mats you need.
 
This is probably a point in your favor, but I've done most of the runing for my wife because she does see it as complex and I love doing it. I'm sure she'd figure it out if I didnt, but since I like it just works out well for us :)
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This would definitely make understanding the runing process a lot simpler, but I think it would diminish the amount of sets that a person could carry with them at one time unless there were multiple "set slots" per armor piece. Better? I'm not sure. There's already usually only one or two "right" ways to rune your armor for set, so maybe it wouldn't impact things that much if it were simplified.
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Not easy, no. But I like that system too. Sort of like a GW2 type thing with skill points except set bonuses. But yes, it removes the value of set runes and other issues. And yeah, it took them forever with the first go-around, I don't think it'd be made easy anytime soon.
 
Just one final point of clarity on my idea - the set rune "slots" are generic. Any set rune can go in any set rune slot. So mixing and matching is fine - runes just have no "color" or "slot type" anymore. If you were a SS and used an Eng rune set, it just wouldn't work. I realize it's not the best idea in the world - just wanted to make sure I communicated it clearly.
 
It just seems out-of-place complex to me. Like, everything else in the game is so fun and easy to use and simple.... except that.	
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			Awesome point about the "easy fix" on the currency. Let's hope we get enough popularity so that they can remove bandaids (if thats indeed what they are) one day! In the meantime though, it's better than what it was. Even runes. But I still would like to see the vendors added to the engraving stations, or near them  :) - maybe it was just me - but the 2-3 engraving stations I came across while leveling up didn't have vendors with them that I could find.	
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The vend bots at any crafting station, including Algoroc and Celestion, sell the weakened runes.
 
The rune system could use a little more explanation. I do like the flexibility and hard choices you have to make with the current setup.
 
I'd hope for another pass over the rune sets and helping the weak ones, like sucker punch. Basically, any set rune that sells for it'd vendor price on the CX likely has some significant flaw. Either the rune set is very weak, or the particular stat for that set rune is anathema to the rune sets purpose, like focus recovery on an assault rune set.
 
Some rune sets are also still limited in their rune choices, e.g. DPS espers have 1 good (moxie, fire) and 1 ok (crit, life) choice for the synapse set, followed by 1 or 2 bad choices (crit sev) and a whole lotta completely useless ones (insight, SP, recovery).	
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Leveling speed is MUCH better (so far).  You’re in zones just long enough to enjoy them without feeling like they are dragging forever.  That being said, most of it was done with rested xp so I didn’t really experience baseline xp.
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OFF topic: I hope you guys make another WIldstar podcast it was soo cool to listen to you guys. If your the "dope" I think you are.....
 
ON topic: I'm having a hard time as a fresh level 50 to get into the whole rune thing....I still have not runed anything....I cant find the NPC who sell those cheap main stat runes... :(...and in addition...I was searching for 30 mins last night..for a runeing (engraving) station in thayd...is there no such thing?	
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OFF topic: I hope you guys make another WIldstar podcast it was soo cool to listen to you guys. If your the "dope" I think you are.....
 
ON topic: I'm having a hard time as a fresh level 50 to get into the whole rune thing....I still have not runed anything....I cant find the NPC who sell those cheap main stat runes... :(...and in addition...I was searching for 30 mins last night..for a runeing (engraving) station in thayd...is there no such thing?
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There's a runeing station right next to Academy Corner, just up the hill in the area with all of the crafting vendors. It's underneath one of the tents. (I had trouble finding it at first too.)
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			Yeah, I dunno. To be fair though, those stations are scattered everywhere throughout the world. Most quest hubs in zones have them. It's just the ones in Thayd that are a bit difficult to find. :)	
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Yeah, I dunno. To be fair though, those stations are scattered everywhere throughout the world. Most quest hubs in zones have them. It's just the ones in Thayd that are a bit difficult to find. :)
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For the rune set, why not merge the elden set and the normal set together and have 4 bonuses that includes the 20/20 of the elden and the first set bonus of the normal.
In 1 go you almost half the number of runes without changing anything really.	
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yea..and where is the npc selling the main stat runes?;)
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The crafting vendbot next to the engraving station sells the cheap stat runes. You're probably better off searching on the Commodities Exchange for higher level stat runes though, they are comparatively cheap for level 50 stuff.
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Very good post, TS, very to-the-point.
 
Back after 10 months myself and started all over, I feel happy playing -- something I haven't experienced in years. Game is fab.
 
I only hope they decide on the f2p transition asap and in a manner which will not hurt us paying founders. It has to happen, game needs a healthy population. You, me and the few thousands of other payers just won't cut it anymore.	
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Thanks for the podcast love! We had a great time doing the show. It was somewhat polarizing due to our style and started going down a path that wasn't so fun towards the end for things non-Wildstar-related, but it was an absolute blast to due. IMO, was infinitely better to give it a break when we stopped playing as much because you should (imo) never do a podcast and talk about things you aren't intimately familar with. Too many podcasts do that now-a-days and I don't think it's good for the games.
 
That being said - you never know! I'd love to at least do one more update show to put out to the community the good changes that are here and give the game some boost. We shall see! I will say - I've listened to that Strange Tales show a few times and I dig what those guys do. Give that a whirl if you haven't yet.
 
Maybe Mr. Rey can make another appearance and get Terry Bearstack to make a comeback :)	
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			Also note - if it hasn't been mentioned yet - you can do all the runing work in the field. Right click any piece of equipment and there should be a open runing window option. You can drop in and destroy runes, add and reroll slots anywhere.	
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I'm a big fan (maybe the only one?) of how runes are currently implemented at cap.
 
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I would assume you are :-P But, I wouldnt mind too much if the runes on gear was not RNG =/ would make planning bonuses, A LOT easier.
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			Problem is your suggestion for runes would be a pretty large nerf, but at least you're thinking I suppose. Also, we have a prismatic slot, they're called omnislots. 	
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			Please stop asking for things to be purchasable with real money.	
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Please stop asking for things to be purchasable with real money.
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Welcome back and good feedback!
 
I personally think the rune system is a trash can system that should never have seen the light of day.  It screams gold and timesink (and if that was the goal of the team lead, they succeeded).
 
Nevermind that this is the second iteration of the rune system, and that RNG slots ran a ton of PvPers away, but:
 
I like your idea of separating runesets from runes.  Perhaps they should consider having 5 runeslots for Set runes, so you could choose to have weapon specialist for instance regardless of the colors / stats on your runes.  That would ease the system into more runesets into the future.
 
The rune crafting system and the way it is implemented really devalues the feeling you get when you get a new piece of gear.  The first thing you look at is the runes, and then calculate how much of your time and platinum its going to take to get it up to speed / to fit with your other gear.	
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If you have a problem with things purchasable for real money, you're not going to like the future of video games, including this one.
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You're not going to like it when someone has a fatter wallet than you and takes your spot in a raid/annihilates you in pvp
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Exactly. Buying an attunement key, or buying a mount, or buying an xp pot is just a time-saver. It's not a p2w game-breaker, as what you're implying is. I never said gear (or glory) should be purchasable. 
 
And with the f2p writing on the wall, most cosmetic things/other stuff will probably be based off of a "gem" type system where real money is involved. That's all I meant. All-in-one sub models just aren't going to happen - at least as the ONLY way to play the game.	
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RE: leveling speed... Honestly I wish there was a way to slow leveling down. I really don't like the feeling I get when I've totally outleveled a zone but I still have a bunch of quests left to do. It makes my brain go haywire and either I struggle through it and forever feel antsy about missed quests, or I just keep going and get bored because I'm mowing down mobs I massively outlevel. :(
 
The rune thing is something I only half understand. I'd... actually never heard of runemaster until this thread, and now I'm terrified to try using it for fear of learning that the runes I do have are completely and horribly misplaced. x.x	
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RE: leveling speed... Honestly I wish there was a way to slow leveling down. I really don't like the feeling I get when I've totally outleveled a zone but I still have a bunch of quests left to do. It makes my brain go haywire and either I struggle through it and forever feel antsy about missed quests, or I just keep going and get bored because I'm mowing down mobs I massively outlevel. :(
 
The rune thing is something I only half understand. I'd... actually never heard of runemaster until this thread, and now I'm terrified to try using it for fear of learning that the runes I do have are completely and horribly misplaced. x.x
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If you have a problem with things purchasable for real money, you're not going to like the future of video games, including this one.
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actually never heard of runemaster until this thread, and now I'm terrified to try using it for fear of learning that the runes I do have are completely and horribly misplaced. x.x
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At this point CS is deep in the sunk costs for their rune system, they'll tweak it but I don't think they'll scrap it. 
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			Oh I'm being a little bitter with the sunk costs thing haha. I know it doesn't matter - that's why it's a sunk cost. That little tidbit of financial wisdom seems not to matter here though.	
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But that's PRECISELY what companies *cough* Blizzard *cough* do with systems (or entire games - Titan) - that just don't work or aren't fun. The sunk costs don't matter, because in the long haul, the game (and your reputation as a company) will be better for making the hard decisions and making changes.
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