Carbine Studios' "Wildstar"

[apocrypha]

Don't forget that there has been, for many years now, a significant minority of WoW forum posters who repeatedly and loudly proclaim how WoW was much better before the filthy casuals ruined it. Their volume is out of proportion to the number of players who actually want that (or, when given it, actually enjoy it), thus creating a false impression of the likely success of making a game like Wildstar.

I also don't think Wildstar's less than stellar showing is down to just this one error of developer judgement either. There were a string of them, including the major mistake of launching as a full price box *plus* premium level sub.

Edit: Also, this thread is going round in circles. A bit like the MMO industry.

[Typhon]

If you are making a raiding game with a WoW-sized budget (i.e. you aren't targeting niche) then you should have looked, at least, at what WoW did right and wrong.  Part of that should have been to look at the expansions and see what folks liked, and what they didn't.  They must have done that right? Due diligence.

Well, apparently they must have failed to compare WoW:WotLK and WoW:Cataclysm.  Or they did, and still came away with a conclusion of, MOAR TEDIOUSERER!  Seems like they were very resistant to doing a sanity check.  So I'd have to agree with Paelos, that's hubris.  Or just plain stupid.

[apocrypha]

I don't disagree, but given the background buzz of the "Vanilla/BC was bestest!" crowd it was inevitable that someone was eventually going to make something like Wildstar.

[Paelos]

I don't disagree, but given the background buzz of the "Vanilla/BC was bestest!" crowd it was inevitable that someone was eventually going to make something like Wildstar.

Sure, and you'd do it on a scale appropriately. You don't try to position it as a WoW-killer with that kind of budget.

If you can't do a game these days on a scale of 100k users, then how the hell did all these other MMOs stay afloat for all these years?

[Draegan]

You might make the argument that a raiding game could be successful as long as the underlying game systems are sounds and fun. Wildstar was a shit designed game from the get go regardless of content type.

[Threash]

You might make the argument that a raiding game could be successful as long as the underlying game systems are sounds and fun. Wildstar was a shit designed game from the get go regardless of content type.

No, you couldn't.  That's the main thing they don't get.

[Nebu]

The only way a raiding game could be made successful, is if they made it on a niche budget.  Wildstar was NOT made on a niche budget.  The dev team just didn't understand that their design was niche and no amount of mainstream marketing would change that fact.

[tmp]

I would be willing to bet these guys made a game they wanted to play themselves, and can't possibly come to terms with the fact that they are part of an extreme minority.

I think it's more accurate to say they revel in being an extreme minority -- it's part of the Vision that features them on one side and the throngs of filthy casuals on the other. The latter are necessary because without them there isn't going to be anyone fainting at the sight of the Raid Gear.

What they can't come to terms with is the filthy casuals for some odd reasons don't want to stick around and keep overall player base numbers high enough for the game to stay afloat. Ungrateful scrubs.

[Typhon]

The only way a raiding game could be made successful, is if they made it on a niche budget.  Wildstar was NOT made on a niche budget.  The dev team just didn't understand that their design was niche and no amount of mainstream marketing would change that fact.

Got to say this is one of the few times that I remember a AAA class marketing team married to B class dev team (and honestly, I think B-class dev team is too harsh, they had some good ideas).  Really solid marketing.

[Paelos]

Agreed, I absolutely would hire their marketing team. The rest of them can rot in the hardcore prison they built.

[Nebu]

Agreed, I absolutely would hire their marketing team. The rest of them can rot in the hardcore prison they built.

Agree with this 100%.  Loved their update videos.  Shame the game was such a hot mess.

[Draegan]

You might make the argument that a raiding game could be successful as long as the underlying game systems are sounds and fun. Wildstar was a shit designed game from the get go regardless of content type.

No, you couldn't.  That's the main thing they don't get.

False. Raiding games can be fun, just look at WOW. If you take that portion of the game including Flex, LFR, super hardcore Mode and make a bigger game out of it, it could be fun. There are a ton of people playing that game, so there is an audience for it. Wildstar just made a game and made a thousand and one terrible choices.

1 - No one wants to do strict 40 man raids. 40 Man raids are fun sometimes, if you have enough people on. But sometimes you only have 15, so that shouldn't stop you.
2 - The attunement stuff was pretty ridiculous. I think running through terrible PVE content while leveling up was enough of an attunement.
3 - I'll just repeat my already stated opinion that combat, classes etc. were terrible. Made the game bland and boring.

[Fabricated]

Hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhahaaaaaa 

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/118364-changes-coming-to-datascape/

We are re-balancing Datascape to be a 20-player raid instance instead of its current 40-player size.

This is, obviously, a big change and will frustrate and excite players to varying degrees. I would like to take the time to explain some of the reasoning behind this decision.

We spoke to a number of raiding guilds--including all of the ones at that time who had experience within Datascape. The feedback across the board listed the extreme pressure that the 'roster boss' put upon those guilds, and the (in our opinion) excessive amount of additional stress it required simply to maintain a stable 40-player raid roster.

Our analytics shows that the player buy-in (number of players attempting the raid) is too low and that the player turnover (players who entered, then left and did not return) is much too high.

This change should greatly help in addressing 'roster boss,' player buy-in, and player turnover rate without losing the epic experience of defeating some of the most challenging encounters in the market. Making this change will also allow us to improve the experience in several additional ways:
Combat - Our combat system functions much more cleanly in a smaller 20-player raid environment. We feel that it has been extremely successful in Genetic Archives. Reducing the number of players in Datascape to match Genetic Archives allows the encounters and rooms and mechanics to be much cleaner, clearer, and enjoyable for players.
FPS - More people means more load, and a 40-player raid further restricted the pool of players with machines that were capable of running the content as smoothly as we’d like. Reducing the player count will greatly reduce the load on players' connections and computers, helping out quite a bit for a number of rooms and encounters within Datascape.
Future Content - With a consistent raid size, it allows us to streamline our future content and no longer split it among varying raid sizes. This will allow future zones to have more clearly defined places in the progression, and avoid the disconnect that can arise when attempting to compare raids of different sizes.
Guild Management - Running a guild is a lot of work. Having two separate raid sizes forced many guilds to attempt to rapidly expand from 20 to 40 players after finishing Genetic Archives, additionally causing the work required to manage that many people to increase exponentially. Having our raid sizes be consistent across all zones will create a clear expectation and balance for players and guilds that they can plan and build around.
Testing - It is very difficult not just for players, but also for us to assemble 40 people to test these encounters. This has made it very difficult for us to adequately test many of these encounters internally. Reducing the size will allow us to balance, tune, and bug-fix our encounters much more effectively.
Finally, I'd like to make a couple more points that deserve clarification and answer a few questions that are surely incoming:

When is this happening?
Currently we are planning to convert Datascape to its 20-player version with our 1.2.0 patch.
It will be available on PTR in its 20-player iteration as soon as the next drop arrives there, and we would greatly appreciate all help players are willing to offer in testing it!

The best part is that this population of people whose obnoxious fucking voices resulted in nearly mortal damage to WoW and prompted the spending of millions of dollars making this disaster will only see this as proof that casuals ruin everything.

[Paelos]

Raiding can be fun if you remove three major stumbling blocks:

1 - Mandatory roster requirements
2 - Reliance on idiots
3 - Not having the right roles (Tank, DPS, heals)

The problem is that these things are almost self-exclusionary. If you don't have a set roster, you have to put up with randoms, and we all know that's a diceroll on getting a complete cockknocker in your group. If you don't have a tank, you get a random tank, then it's a crapshoot.

Then you have to have these five things be present:

1 - Combat has to be engaging
2 - Loot has to be worth getting and not slow to appear
3 - Tools have to exist to disburse loot appropriately based on your system
4 - Fights shouldn't be based on a gimmick.
5 - Replacing people should be painless on the fly.

Those things are hard to do. It's all hard to do. That's why raiding doesn't register with most of the population as fun.

[Lantyssa]

And about the only way to get that is through a dynamically scaling encounter.  GW2 probably came the closest with CoH boss monsters showing some of how it could be done.

But just having a big guy whose hit points change depending upon how many are around isn't all that fun.  The system would really need to pay attention to how well the players are doing and ramp up or down depending, else it'll never be able to account for an ever-changing roster.  Throw more or less adds.  Shorten or lengthen phases.  Make additional guard points that don't necessarily mean you fail but influence what happens in the following rounds.

It's not an easy design, but if you want to make raiding popular it will need to account for a wide range of player skill and desired effort.

[Threash]

You might make the argument that a raiding game could be successful as long as the underlying game systems are sounds and fun. Wildstar was a shit designed game from the get go regardless of content type.

No, you couldn't.  That's the main thing they don't get.

False. Raiding games can be fun, just look at WOW. If you take that portion of the game including Flex, LFR, super hardcore Mode and make a bigger game out of it, it could be fun. There are a ton of people playing that game, so there is an audience for it. Wildstar just made a game and made a thousand and one terrible choices.

1 - No one wants to do strict 40 man raids. 40 Man raids are fun sometimes, if you have enough people on. But sometimes you only have 15, so that shouldn't stop you.
2 - The attunement stuff was pretty ridiculous. I think running through terrible PVE content while leveling up was enough of an attunement.
3 - I'll just repeat my already stated opinion that combat, classes etc. were terrible. Made the game bland and boring.

Wow is about the best proof that you need to stay the fuck away from raiding to improve a game you could ask for.

[Nebu]

GW2 may be the only MMO that got raiding right.  You see a big boss and attack it when enough people have shown up ORGANICALLY to start the attack.  You continue to attack until the boss is dead.  Everyone that made a significant contribution gets a reward.  

The problem with this method is that it removes virtual dick waving from the equation.  Big guild powergamers don't like this because they a) need to wave their dicks often and b) want to feel like special snowflakes.  

[Rasix]

The downside is that anything that's mechanically more difficult than "don't stand in this shit" is almost an automatic fail.  The Marionette fight is just about the upper limit of what you can accomplish in GW2 raiding.  Even that can be torpedoed if you have a few wankers fucking it up.

Are the worm fights completable in non-organized pugs now?  Those AFAIK were only completed by organized raid guilds that were able to get all of their members in an overflow and with a large amount of build tailoring.   Nothing wrong with this sort of content, but it was just so out of place in GW2.  Then again, most of their PVE efforts were wildly inconsistent in the amount of skill/effort required.

[Nebu]

Then again, most of their PVE efforts were wildly inconsistent in the amount of skill/effort required.

That's an excellent point.  I was targeting my comment more at the early, more accessible boss fights.  Some of the high end stuff was really balanced in an odd way. 

[sam, an eggplant]

You guys are wrong about raiding. Super challenging content with correspondingly rich rewards is critically important as the aspirational peak of PvE play. That doesn't mean most people will actually beat those hard modes, of course. That's why you have various difficulty gradations so each player and guild can fight at their own weight. People need to aspire towards a target, and hard-mode raids are that PvE target.

WoW has done an excellent job of this. Wildstar didn't even attempt it. They fundamentally misunderstood how these games work.

[Malakili]

You guys are wrong about raiding. Super challenging content with correspondingly rich rewards is critically important as the aspirational peak of PvE play. That doesn't mean most people will actually beat those hard modes, of course. That's why you have various difficulty gradations so each player and guild can fight at their own weight. People need to aspire towards a target, and hard-mode raids are that PvE target.

WoW has done an excellent job of this. Wildstar didn't even attempt it. They fundamentally misunderstood how these games work.

I think there is a certain segment for whom that is true, but it is substantially less than it used to be I suspect.  It certainly was the case in Vanilla WoW, for example, but nowadays I think more people just want to log in and have something to do on their own time. 

Mentalities, even among "core" gamers, have changed in the last decade.  Things just aren't novel to people anymore so they are less willing to put up with bullshit just for a chance at a new experience.

[Draegan]

You might make the argument that a raiding game could be successful as long as the underlying game systems are sounds and fun. Wildstar was a shit designed game from the get go regardless of content type.

No, you couldn't.  That's the main thing they don't get.

False. Raiding games can be fun, just look at WOW. If you take that portion of the game including Flex, LFR, super hardcore Mode and make a bigger game out of it, it could be fun. There are a ton of people playing that game, so there is an audience for it. Wildstar just made a game and made a thousand and one terrible choices.

1 - No one wants to do strict 40 man raids. 40 Man raids are fun sometimes, if you have enough people on. But sometimes you only have 15, so that shouldn't stop you.
2 - The attunement stuff was pretty ridiculous. I think running through terrible PVE content while leveling up was enough of an attunement.
3 - I'll just repeat my already stated opinion that combat, classes etc. were terrible. Made the game bland and boring.

Wow is about the best proof that you need to stay the fuck away from raiding to improve a game you could ask for.

WOW has it's own issues in a micro sense, from encounter design, mudflation etc. I'm not here to talk about the details. I'm mentioning it based on the systems to get people into a raid and having fun doing it from a macro point of view.

[angry.bob]

Super challenging content with correspondingly rich rewards is critically important as the aspirational peak of PvE play.

No, no it's not. I'm sure it probably is for some people, but those people are dicks. Those people are the ones that talk about "meaningful achievements" in games and "welfare epics". Those are the people developers need to learn to just ignore, or at most toss them a minor bone each major content update to sooth their ouchy e-pussy. Content that can be replayed over and over again at max level without rounding up a bunch of people to slog through infinite dick punching is the critically important aspiration of PvE play. The public quests in Warhammer Online were just about perfect, they just didn't take into account that they needed to scale to the number of players working on them. Warhammer Online was an excellent games in a lot of ways, but it's fatal flaws were just too big to work. The biggest being world PvP being allowed to take place in way too many areas to keep the populations doing them together.

[Draegan]

GW2 may be the only MMO that got raiding right.  You see a big boss and attack it when enough people have shown up ORGANICALLY to start the attack.  You continue to attack until the boss is dead.  Everyone that made a significant contribution gets a reward.  

The problem with this method is that it removes virtual dick waving from the equation.  Big guild powergamers don't like this because they a) need to wave their dicks often and b) want to feel like special snowflakes.  

Yeah but those encounters sucked and were boring after you saw the cool giant dragon pop up. Games need roles for people to play. You just have to be good enough in your raid design (or class design) so if you don't have 4 tanks for a specific gimmick you're fucked. I think GW2 proved that.

[Lantyssa]

You guys are wrong about raiding. Super challenging content with correspondingly rich rewards is critically important as the aspirational peak of PvE play. That doesn't mean most people will actually beat those hard modes, of course. That's why you have various difficulty gradations so each player and guild can fight at their own weight. People need to aspire towards a target, and hard-mode raids are that PvE target.

There are a tiny number of people who want this.  There is a slightly larger number of people who think they want this.

The reality is, most people do not want this.  Most just want to play a game with their friends, their guild, or a bunch of random scrubs, not worry about getting kicked in the junk, and get loot.  Now doing that and making it interesting is the challenge, but that's going to satisfy the vast majority of the population if you pull it off.

[angry.bob]

I think there is a certain segment for whom that is true, but it is substantially less than it used to be I suspect.  It certainly was the case in Vanilla WoW, for example, but nowadays I think more people just want to log in and have something to do on their own time.  

Mentalities, even among "core" gamers, have changed in the last decade.  Things just aren't novel to people anymore so they are less willing to put up with bullshit just for a chance at a new experience.

Pretty much what you said. I've never liked grouping with people, but anymore I just want to play a changing, updated single player game at my own speed that happens to have a bunch of other people in it at the same time. The last group I was in was with people from here, and after an hour I was trying to stab Righ in the eye with hate via group chat. And that was people I know and generally like. I've said it before and I say it again here: The hero of any game I'm paying a subscription for should feel like me, not the 40 dickiest dicks in some hardcore raiding guild that drops and recruits members based on their utility at each content patch. Fuck raids and fuck hardcore raiders. Dangling the carrot of "maybe one day" getting to do content after it's been tuned down is not a way to keep subs. There's enough (mostly) objective evidence that it shouldn't even be a matter of discussion anymore.

[sam, an eggplant]

You guys completely missed my point. Nobody cares about the people actually beating hard modes. They're a vanishingly small proportion of the population. And sure, a lot of them are elitist jerks (and probably deeply unhappy in their real lives).

What's important is that apex achievement needs to exist for lesser players' aspirations. If only you had more time to play, or a better guild, or optimized your DPS priority, or whatever, you could be one of those elite few too. It's attainable, you could do it, even though most people don't. That makes the gear grind feel more meaningful at lesser levels of play, because you can always improve, even if it takes a huge investment to do so. That feeling of slow yet meaningful progression is important, it introduces friction. Stops players from slipping away.

That's the psychology Wildstar missed when they pushed their casual players into a brick wall.

[Lantyssa]

What's important is that apex achievement needs to exist for lesser players' aspirations.

No, it doesn't.  Even for a tiny number of people.  Most people don't actually give a shit.

The only achievements you need are stupid little one-liners for killing 10/100/1000 dudes.

[Paelos]

What's important is that apex achievement needs to exist for lesser players' aspirations. If only you had more time to play, or a better guild, or optimized your DPS priority, or whatever, you could be one of those elite few too. It's attainable, you could do it, even though most people don't. That makes the gear grind feel more meaningful at lesser levels of play, because you can always improve, even if it takes a huge investment to do so. That feeling of slow yet meaningful progression is important, it introduces friction. Stops players from slipping away.

Then how do you explain the hundreds of thousands of people that stay subbed literally for WoW pets? You know why they do? They like collecting shit. I assure that need to collect the next thing is infinitely much more powerful that what you are describing through the raiding game as a form of retention.

You don't need raiding as some form of apex level thing. You need to keep your players engaged through the idea of doing the next thing, no matter what it is. This is why achievements are so powerful to some, or collections, or maxing out alts. Raiding should be treated as such, another option with a low barrier of entry, and just as challenging a success rate as collecting pets.

They achieve the same result.

[Draegan]

What's important is that apex achievement needs to exist for lesser players' aspirations.

No, it doesn't.  Even for a tiny number of people.  Most people don't actually give a shit.

The only achievements you need are stupid little one-liners for killing 10/100/1000 dudes.

I believe you're completely wrong. The apex achievement doesn't necessarily have to be a nut crunching raid boss or zone or even group based, but there really needs to be a top tier level of challenging content.

[Draegan]

What's important is that apex achievement needs to exist for lesser players' aspirations. If only you had more time to play, or a better guild, or optimized your DPS priority, or whatever, you could be one of those elite few too. It's attainable, you could do it, even though most people don't. That makes the gear grind feel more meaningful at lesser levels of play, because you can always improve, even if it takes a huge investment to do so. That feeling of slow yet meaningful progression is important, it introduces friction. Stops players from slipping away.

Then how do you explain the hundreds of thousands of people that stay subbed literally for WoW pets? You know why they do? They like collecting shit. I assure that need to collect the next thing is infinitely much more powerful that what you are describing through the raiding game as a form of retention.

You don't need raiding as some form of apex level thing. You need to keep your players engaged through the idea of doing the next thing, no matter what it is. This is why achievements are so powerful to some, or collections, or maxing out alts. Raiding should be treated as such, another option with a low barrier of entry, and just as challenging a success rate as collecting pets.

They achieve the same result.

How many people play WOW strictly for pets? How many people play WOW strictly for hardcore raids?

What is the overlap? This is a silly statement comparison.

[sam, an eggplant]

Then how do you explain the hundreds of thousands of people that stay subbed literally for WoW pets?

They're playing a completely different game. And that's cool. PvP is a different game too. So is roleplaying.

I agree that raiding doesn't necessarily need to be the apex dikustyle PvE achievement. It could be small group content, or even something else entirely that surprises all of us. But so far, the apex achievement has indeed been raiding.

[Threash]

Obviously there has to be a top tier, but that top tier should be doable by a retarded chipmunk in a wheelchair.

[sam, an eggplant]

Obviously there has to be a top tier, but that top tier should be doable by a retarded chipmunk in a wheelchair.

It already is. If you put in the time, religiously show up on time, and don't generate drama, you will be one of the top PvE players in the world. Diku-style progression is all about time and attention. Player skill has minimal impact. These games are all incredibly easy, you just need to play a lot and focus on what you're doing when required.

[Paelos]

Sure, raiding done right. This time it'll work. I swear. And we'll reward that top tier and give those peons something to ASPIRE to.