148366-small-bit-of-fun-was-fixed

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So, I had a very lengthy post here and then realized that ultimately... people would just want me to get to the point. So! The reason I am posting today is the PVP Season 1 Costume weapons bug was fixed. Why does this matter, you ask?  Well, it seems like one of those things were something that wasn't harming anyone was 'fixed', and this came about despite no one seemingly to complain about it? I never saw it complained about despite watching multiple chat channels, and I can't even find posts about it on these forums. Maybe I'm missing something or my search-fu is weak today.
 
In any case, 99.99% of the time I am on the same side as game devs in regards to fixes, changes, etc. This just struck me as one of those times where something that was fun to a portion of the community was removed despite its lack of harmfulness. And in fact, I would argue that its existence actually accomplished a stated goal Carbine has, of encouraging PVP. I know I, personally, ran quite a few pvp matches across a variety of characters just to unlock these costumes (at first it was for the weapons, but it didn't stop there, so yay for pvp activity!). So now, this change doesn't seem to really help anyone, but it stole some of the usefulness and fun that some players found in it, most notably the roleplay community.
 
As I alluded to in my monster feedback post regarding Winterfest ncoin items, I feel that moments that generate discouragement and robbing of fun should be avoided. Creating, promoting or even simply allowing little fun moments to happen are not only great but essential for maintaining a loyal community and playerbase. And not to derail my own post, but it seems like sometimes the roleplay community are the ones left with the brunt of the fun-removing-moments, while still dealing with issues more often than most of the rest of the playerbase. For example, these costume quirks that a few players used for fun or character reasons (after spending their time, effort and prestige acquiring these items, as well as holowardrobe space to hold them, etc) are removed, but a large variety of housing glitches remain in place, such as the crate search function now being broken, for example.
 
Granted, we all know issues like that are lower priority on the list of things to be fixed, but then it feels really strange that something small and innocuous like the costume bug would be fixed, but not other bugs of a similar caliber. And that some issues like the Snowtron Smash event/achievement are known but don't seem like they will be fixed this year. It's disheartening, basically, especially changes/adjustments that seem to really only hurt the RP community. That last point strikes me as especially strange, since roleplayers spend a ton of time in-game, and from my experience, a ton of money too. Know who's buying those $20 mini-house fabkits? Roleplayers. Know who I've actually seen state a few times that people who spend any time/money/effort on housing in general are dumb? PVPers.
 
To be clear, I am *not* trying to turn this into an PVE versus PVP war or anything like that. Honestly, even if being able to cross-class model weapons and such were a store-bought option, I think you'd see a ton of RPers buy it (and then probably add it to the list of things they get mocked for by other players at times). Maybe that would be a middle ground option even? Some low-cost unlock to access weapons or other uniquely-locked holowardrobe items across characters on an account?
 
Gosh I'm bad at being brief. I'm sorry =_= TL;DR - my Draken can't be the medic class, could she at least have her costume resonators back? pretty please? *puppy eyes*	
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I'd agree, personally. It was a bit insulting to have a 'harmless' glitch fixed so quickly (one that actually inspired additional play), while we still have several painful glitches in other (similar) areas. I'm sure fixing this glitch was /easier/, and that's likely the MAIN reason it was fixed... but it still put a sour taste in my mouth that such a small bit of fun got 'fixed' while we still have to deal with several gameplay/fun-obstructing bugs anyway.
 
And yes, I'd totally invest in a class-weapon-unlock store-purchase for my costumes.	
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Hard to believe that they fixed such a minor bug so fast when there are major bugs that have existed since Beta and still remain unfixed to this day. The Felling the Wildfallen challenge and Settler Public Safety bugs come to mind. This bug wasn't hurting anyone while the two I mentioned permanently block players from completing certain objectives (the Felling the Wildfallen one in particular for me as I've fallen victim to this bug before and can't do anything about it). Fix the game breaking bugs first please, Carbine.
 
I love WildStar and want it to succeed but when Carbine focus on fixing minor issues like this over game breaking ones that have existed for so long and been reported so many times, and still remain, I can't say I'm surprised that it's losing players :( The Felling the Wildfallen challenge bug alone is enough to stop me from playing but it won't for now as my new main hasn't gotten that far and I'll make damned sure he doesn't succumb to this like my old main did.
			
				
	Edited December 20, 2015 by Greedy Chibi	
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			As much as I enjoyed the bug it did need fixed. Part of the class design is an easily recognizable silhouette granted by weapons. Now as for it encouraging PvP, sure, but that could as easily be done any number of ways (that carbine isn't doing) that don't include farming bugged items.	
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Hard to believe that they fixed such a minor bug so fast when there are major bugs that have existed since Beta and still remain unfixed to this day. The Felling the Wildfallen challenge and Settler Public Safety bugs come to mind. This bug wasn't hurting anyone while the two I mentioned permanently block players from completing certain objectives (the Felling the Wildfallen one in particular for me as I've fallen victim to this bug before and can't do anything about it). Fix the game breaking bugs first please, Carbine.
 
I love WildStar and want it to succeed but when Carbine focus on fixing minor issues like this over game breaking ones that have existed for so long and been reported so many times, and still remain, I can't say I'm surprised that it's losing players :( The Felling the Wildfallen challenge bug alone is enough to stop me from playing but it won't for now as my new main hasn't gotten that far and I'll make damned sure he doesn't succumb to this like my old main did.
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Don't use game breaking anymore, please, it's definitely not. Also, I doubt a single player quit because they can't complete a challenge or a settler mission, maybe carbine should check to see if they lost only their settlers! More likely people quit when they feel they can't complete content or there's not enough new content out currently. Either way, I don't care anymore it's a f2p game.
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They fix this but can't be bothered to add dye channels to all the gear that is missing some despite clearly having multiple color areas. Seems pretty typical!
 
To be perfectly honest, though, the bug does seem like it could potentially harm the PvP of the game by breaking the 'class silhouette' as CunningLinguist mentioned above. When you are in combat it's very important to recognize threats and this was hindering that ability. As I didn't bother with PvP matches lately, I missed the bug, so I can't say how 'truly' harmful it was to target recognition. But it does seem like it would cause problems.	
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As much as I enjoyed the bug it did need fixed. Part of the class design is an easily recognizable silhouette granted by weapons. Now as for it encouraging PvP, sure, but that could as easily be done any number of ways (that carbine isn't doing) that don't include farming bugged items.
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From what I understood, the rapid-fire-changing-costumes problem extended far beyond just PvP and brought troubles to the whole server and client architecture. I could be wrong, though. 
Racial silhouettes were never a thing in this game, anyway: Cassians and Exiles are the exact same race with different hairdos and that's it. 
As far as why disabling costumes in PvP isn't an option, the problem is , I wager, PvP servers. Restrictions that work well in secluded enviorments like battlegrounds and arenas don't work so well when the whole world is the battlefied (not really, but ideally).
 
I guess a possible solution would be to have a client-sided 'hide costumes on other players' manual toggle.	
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This was the reasons given for the fix if you want it:
 
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I realize that it is fun to run around with other class weapons. It needs to be fixed though.
 
FX attachment points don't work correctly
Animations aren't supported 
We can't use silhouettes for easy recognition on the battlefield because we allow cross-class costuming. That makes the weapon the most important item for quick recognition of class.
 
 Fixing a costuming issue is 30 seconds of time to adjust data by a designer on my team. The other issues listed are being investigated, but it requires multiple hours of another team(Engineering) and they are hard at work trying to fix those issues.
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I meant to add that these little things might be what brings someone who otherwise wouldn't PVP into trying it out and possibly loving it, but maybe that is a moot point. I just sat in a battleground that was versus premade and was so awful all it did was depress the 10+ people I was grouped with (I say 10+ because some left, others came in and also were disappointed). We spent the time discussing the battle instead of actually, you know, playing and enjoying it. I won't be queuing again for the rest of today, and I bet I'm not the only one who was discouraged enough to say that.
 
But now I mention this to say - I tried to pay attention to the weapons. I actively looked. I almost never saw them, and certainly not quickly enough to use it to a tactical advantage. What I DO see and recognize immediately is abilities and their animations/telegraphs/sounds. That is far and above more useful to me.
 
Ildur, I believe such a toggle would be HIGHLY welcome, and could be a great middle ground on an issue like this. Let weirdos like me have their fun, without spoiling actual gameplay for others. A+. Might even have the added benefit of people can now see at a glance roughly what armor people are wearing as well (I know that used to be a big thing back in WoW before they added transmog).
 
I appreciate you posting their stated reason for the fix, Typrop! For some reason I hadn't been able to find that information. Sadly, the first two points listed just get a shrug from me. The FX points don't work? Of course not. Though to be fair, even with the correct weapons my abilities are sometimes firing 'from behind' me, so....  The animations don't work? Of course not. Though again, I don't think most people were using them for the animations? Maybe I'm looking at it from too much of a roleplay standpoint there. But at the same time, I can unequip my weapons entirely and still activate some abilities, including firing off shots from my epic 'fingerguns'. And that has existed since launch.
 
I see that I'm clearly on the losing side of this discussion and I doubt the change will be changed back, it just makes me sad. Adding to that pile of small things that eventually break a player's experience I guess. Though again, I agree with you Typrop, I would like to see the race/class combinations topic revisited. Even while posting this I noticed a conversation in a chat channel that was entirely people wishing their favorite race could be a certain class, only that class is restricted.
 
 
Edited to add: Actually, I just had to say... The battleground experience I described here took more wind out of my sails than I had realized. I had today off. I was looking forward to knocking out some contracts and earn some gold by grinding PVP. I was even looking forward to getting the prestige to buy gear upgrades, etc. I had everything set to go, and even downed a flask. One match. I got through one match that was the most miserable time I have spent in game lately, and now I'm not only done PVP for the day, but this actually turned into a logout event for me. I'm offline now, and once I'm done this edit, will be off the forums too. That's depressing. I had been looking forward to playing on my day off. Now I'll go do other stuff.  I've never been a huge hardcore PVPer, and in most MMOs I actually disliked PVP and avoided it. Friends encouraging me to give PVP in this game a shot when I first hit 50 a long while back actually got me bit by the PVP bug. PVP in this game was fun, and even loses were at least somewhat rewarding instead of punishing. I didn't mind losing, and even in 'bad' matches, there was a time limit of how long you were captive for. It was all great. I enjoyed it.  Now? I don't. And in this case, it actually sapped enjoyment from the rest of the game for me. I'm sure this is just a drop in the bucket and no one's really going to care, but they should. Even if you boil it down to "how much is one player worth?" I have been subscribed for over a year. I am still subscribed. I make ncoin purchases, and had been intending to make another today. Well, not now. Now I'm loading up Steam to check other things out, and even that I'm sad to do because I would rather be playing Wildstar. I really don't want to feel this way again. I left WoW because it did this to me too often, and I was loyal to WoW for over 10 years. Come on guys. Let me love you. :-/
			
				
	Edited December 21, 2015 by Meyoline	
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This was the reasons given for the fix if you want it:
 
 
 
 
In my opinion the bug just brought more to light how much people really want the race/class combinations thing revisited.
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I do agree with Typrop here, but further:
 
These reasons work within the business. It's obvious why the technicians and engineers at Carbine would want to fix any bug, especially one with an easy 30 second fix.
 
But it doesn't hold up for players. I have /never/ used weapons to quick-ID opposite players in PVP situations. Not. Once.
 
I use the telegraphs and ranging of the player to ID WHAT they are. Not the appearance or race. Especially with same-faction battlegrounds? No, the 'silhouette' argument is /completely/ blown out of the water, and is NOT a valid argument. Period. Just don't waste the time giving it. It's nonsense.
 
I'd respect a more honest answer of 'it was the fastest bug we could fix, and it was on our checklist, so we got it done. Sorry if it spoiled fun, guys.'
 
Trying to blame it on 'this is how players quickly recognize/tactically estimate their foes' in game? Nooooo. Just. No. Doesn't fly. Makes it look worse/deceptive even. (No, I don't believe anyone at Carbine intended deception here, it just LOOKS REALLY BAD)
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Lets be realistic though, what game designer in their right mind would allow cross class weapon appearances? Sure it's lulzy to be running around with a sword on an engie, but the animations don't match, and it can be confusing to others, especially new players. As for "never having used a weapon to ID a class", sure probably not on a conscious level, but when you see a familiar shape + telegraph output it clicks that much faster.
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It was pretty confusing to zone in alongside a player wearing a sword but, according to the PvP UI, was supposedly an esper. xD I had no idea if I was looking at a bug or what. So in that respect, I can totally understand why they fixed it.
 
That said, I know a lot of espers were using it to glamour stalker claws to hide their weapon, so... when we getting a display weapon toggle, Carbine? :D	
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