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Server Wipe - Pros/Cons


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Well i remember from live there was better trade routes that used higher lvl trade goods, i have my old map from when was in live and i have these markers on it showing me the best trade routes that live had to offer. like glenn to primus or kaliaasa to endriago, just couple of them i have marked.

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The way people leveled after ST4 started:

1. Suicide trade runs - Fixed

2. Progen self destruct trade runs - Fixed

3. Jenquai Return to base trade runs - Fixed

Trapt my buddy... not to disagree with a guilde... but those things that you say are fixed... they were a wad (working as designed) and imo the dev team broke them by removing them... now I realize the people that didnt use those methods will possibly be insulted... but (and I didnt use these either cuz I was too lazy)... but... too bad... cuz as you said... the only method left now is grind... woohoo... go team go :)

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Hello all.

Server wipe IMO.

Cons. :)

1) Smaller player base.

(some players are leaving and not returning)

2) Lower / lack of donations. (see donation goal)

(no point to donate because they can't acquire their level or item)

3) Fustraited players.

(an exploit would be a welcome thing to keep quite)

4) Less likely that a person would join a group(s) untill raids make it necessary.

(more multiple accounts players are grouping with their alts for risks of not getting that item or level before the wipe)

5) Server over run with heavy armor heavy shielded characters.

(this takes away from the true play nature that E&B was intended to be character interaction)

6) Erratic NPC spawn / drop locations from ST to ST.

(Some of the NPC spawn that I have seen in ST2 are no longer there. What was good is now not so good. )

Pros. :D

1) Perfectly working Missions, jobs and NPC target spawns.

(If the missions, jobs and skill advancements are done over and over again. they will get to the point of fixed and being done smoothly)

2) NPC Damage to Hit ratios fixed per NPC level.

(No more 1 hit level 20's)

3) What should be rare drops will not drop as frequently as E&B was intended.

(Blackbox m22 won't drop like common body parts or debris)

4) Grammer errors, talk trees and mission logs will be fixed.

(Talk trees will make sense and mission logs will contain the critical necessary mission information so you can pick up where you left off with no issues !)

5) Black hold characters will be a more rare problem.

(I don't know if some of you have noticed but, in ST 1-2 your BH char would require a GM to get your char back now they mysteriously land up in Net-7. Much better than waiting 2-3 to days to get your char back)

6) Item and skill buffs will work as they should.

( I can't wait to Have my Corona Borealis buffs working and my energy drain skill working properly)

These are some of my concerns and those of the players that have voiced theirs but have not yet or are willing to post their opinions or fears.

IMO if there needs to be a wipe let the players keep their build list, this would certainly take the sting out of a wipe while still having content tested.

Yes Getting the PS Call forward working would be a big thing for us to use, I would love to

do one or two during my chars advancement.

But truthfully The ST3 wipe has taken some of the excitement of playing E&B again, and i'm sure it has for some of you's although you won't admit it.

Its like reliving that infamous September day over and over again.

When the anouncement of live (Permanent stable server) all of this will change.

Phorlaug...

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Another way this could be done without a wipe would be to lockout all existing characters on the server. Your old characters would still be there but, you would have to level up a new toon to level 70 or whatever. When your new character reaches that level your old toons unlock and you could play them a usual.

I have no idea how hard this would be to code but i do see it as a race to the unlock level.

This is a pretty cool idea :) I also like Merlin's last suggestion that Tien commented on, not FORCING people to start again but suggesting that we make a new character or two. I for one would gladly make a new character to see if i can find any bugs/exploits etc.

Oh and Phorlaug, not trying to make your post any less meaningful, but aren't a lot of the Pros that you listed, things that can be done without a wipe? They seem like bug fixes that can be pushed to the player server at any time, that's all :D

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Oh and Phorlaug, not trying to make your post any less meaningful, but aren't a lot of the Pros that you listed, things that can be done without a wipe? They seem like bug fixes that can be pushed to the player server at any time, that's all :)

:D yes some can be.

But the low level stuff would become un-noticed and not reported unless we had low level chars (us) from a wipe testing it.

An example of this in ST2 or was it ST3 was The 1st 2 levels of the Jenquai JD cloak was missed labeled and the ability was better at its lower level and theres other things that wouldn't be seen unless there was low level chars doing the missions or skills. Sometimes things don't always get pushed to the play server as intended.

ShouldbeCloaknotadvancecloak.jpg

The .zip is a report I gave to Kenu when I was a Beta, just a couple of other examples that wouldn't be known otherwise.

Thanks Sharz

Phorlaug..

Screens and Report Sep 13 09.zip

Screens and Report Sep 13 09.zip

Edited by Phorlaug
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Trapt my buddy... not to disagree with a guilde... but those things that you say are fixed... they were a wad (working as designed) and imo the dev team broke them by removing them... now I realize the people that didnt use those methods will possibly be insulted... but (and I didnt use these either cuz I was too lazy)... but... too bad... cuz as you said... the only method left now is grind... woohoo... go team go :)

Not to open a can of worms but . . . was issue #2 really working as designed? This is potentially another one of those things where some of us remember Live one way and others another way but I don't recall in Live that Self Destruct actually killed the player and sent them back to their last registered station (another can of worms there, don't get me started). AFAIK when a PW used SD and allowed it to complete they stayed right where they were.

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I've been watching this thread for a while and I agree with a lot of Phorlaug's points, as well as other posts, but have to stress (without jumping on some people's bandwagon) this is a stress test. To amplify my statement: I have been a part of beta testing of WoW (actually started pre-beta when there were only humans and dwarves), EvE-online, E&B, Saga of Ryzom, RF-online, SWG, and many others back in the day when you actually had to fill out an application with essay questions (all of these were closed beta or alpha, don't get me started on what most of you know today as open beta (that DOES NOT count as testing, just a pre-launch try out usually with a few dedicated players, a fair amount of players who know how to level quickly and love to PK new players to the game, and a metric butt-ton of gold farmers getting ready for launch (most games in recent history do not wipe between open beta and live))

So I have seen many wipes in many games (I typically quit at open beta for reasons given above) and take it as part of the process.

I think the major difference between those other games and this iteration of E&B for experienced players is remembering what it was and how long it took to reach 150, now it is quick and we are settled in to our rememberences; and for the players new to E&B used to the relative ease of leveling in recent games just can't handle a decent grind (not to say all games currently are easy but at the moment E&B grind is).

Face it, when you can max level in a few days to a few weeks and play at max level for what 6-8 weeks now, the thought of starting over can be very disheartening when you are used to running around with (in my case) 3 bile ml's and a smiter's wrath and 5 lvl 9 devices. But I would only feel bad for a day.

Even in live games I may spend months creating, experimenting, deleting and remaking a toon til I found my path; even when I found my path I may remake the toon a couple times to re-experience a few things and make different choices. Didn't even settle on my JE to max in live til like 6 months after it went live, but that's just me.

Don't get me wrong, if I had been playing (and paying a monthly fee) for a game for months and years and had a high lvl toon with great gear and a wipe was announced even for a critical database error or exploit I'd be mad as freaking hell and may quit.

That is not the case here (and again I say I am not jumping on the generic "it's a stress test" bandwagon), but there IS a lot of work to be done and a lot of rash changes made that pile up and bite the project in the ass.

The grind isn't that bad as things are now, I only have 1 lvl 150+ toon and not because the grind is too arduous to lvl my alts but because I am part of a guild and spend most of my time on my 150+ helping others in the guild and outside the guild. Do I welcome a wipe? no I don't; will I quit after a wipe? no I won't, tho I will probably take a few days to a week for a break to regroup and recompose myself.

I know I've gone off topic a bit and some will agree/disagree with me even within my guild so I will say my main toon is the Terran Scout Bill so you can blast me in teamspeak or guild chat or we can discuss my OPINIONS.

Cheers mates

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This is a pretty cool idea :) I also like Merlin's last suggestion that Tien commented on, not FORCING people to start again but suggesting that we make a new character or two. I for one would gladly make a new character to see if i can find any bugs/exploits etc.

Oh and Phorlaug, not trying to make your post any less meaningful, but aren't a lot of the Pros that you listed, things that can be done without a wipe? They seem like bug fixes that can be pushed to the player server at any time, that's all :)

I'm not sure that people would like this, although I can see it's preferable to a wipe. I quite like the idea of freezing level progression in all chars until a new char is leveled past 50, so at least you know your alts are still there.

Anyway, leveling up and balance isn't a big issue at the moment anyway - I think the eye of sauron is mostly focused on mob behaviour and loot.

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I understand wipes may be necessary but imho they should happen only in last resort. Some of us spent a lot of time leveling and gearing up several characters and I for one know that I would take a break before redoing it again. I will (would) be coming back at some point tough. I believe the risk of losing disappointed players is very real, specially considering that nowadays many of the online characters are dual or tri boxes.

Exactly this.

Dont forget, while some dont mind starting over again, some do - which means less testers every wipe (counterproductive).

There's no wipe on the horizon either, so don't worry about that.

Means i am logging in now after month of absence due to the last wipe.

Why ?

Because TradeXP is the uber-suxor and missing job terminals are not helping this issue :)

But i think ive read about jobterminals...so im going to check now.

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I think the eye of sauron is mostly focused on mob behaviour and loot.

doomed2.jpg

Also, Avani, on what basis (actual proof, and not memory) were the things you listed Working As Designed? More specifically, since the team is designing it based on partial data (if any data), how is someone other than the designer qualified to claim something is working as designed?

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you musta missed the :) and who I was responding too... I was just breaking a guildies (Trapt) ballz :P sry for the confusion...

Yeah I did, lol. :P

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Well, my 2 cents....

I agree, wipes are necessary when major content has been revised or removed. This prevents odd variables between the old and new. But if content is just only added, I see no reason to wipe. If the data structures are final, then no more wipes in beta.

I think the idea of adding a few toons to test content is a great idea - I would go further and just let everyone keep just one toon. You could transfer all your important loot to it then start others.

If the consensus is to wipe, why not give everyone level 20(?) in all categories and the points associated with those levels from the start. The lower level content has been tested to death anyway. This could be a way to get the old players to come back too as the leveling wouldn't be so long.

Of course right before live there should be a wipe to start everyone off on the same note.

I hope there is still consideration to increase levels to 200 or more? :)

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I would very much prefer wipes remain a 'last resort' or 'testing stage transition'.

As someone who doesn't get to spend much time playing I dread wipes even for extremely valid reasons (database crashing). I play with my husband who has even less time to play then me. We don't get to make much progress per week and sometimes can't play for weeks at a time. It is rather crushing to come back and have all our progress wiped out knowing that it will be months before regaining my old progress. Yes I realize people can sit down and grind out 150 in a week, but we still haven't achieved a 150 in emu. Part of this is due to the fact we really only play on weekends, part of it due to wipes. Honestly, getting hit by several frequent wipes back in ST3 turned us off of the game so that we left for about 4 months before trying playing emu again.

Personally, multi wipes even turned me off of PS. PS was my favorite in live and I was beyond happy to get to play it again in emu. I managed to get to lv100 in ST3 before it was wiped. Figuring that there wouldn't be any new wipes for a while I happily releveled to almost lv50 before we got hit with another wipe. After that managed to get to 30 before getting hit by yet another wipe. At this point both me and my husband felt the game was 'unplayable' at this point and left for a while. I realize these wipes where more 'spread out' for people than what it felt to us, but again its that play time thing. In addition, we where not able to benefit from the bonus xp given after the wipes to 'soften the blows' becuase of our time restrictions. When I came back, I just didn't have the energy to do PS version 4...only so many times you can do progen hull upgrades before you get sick of it. Currently I'm on TT and I'm pretty sure after all the work I've put into getting my build set I'd be highly turned off of a build job again if another wipe happened unless extremely unavoidable. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind redoing a char if its necessary, but just to test low end content seems avoidable with other solutions.

If baby chars are absolutely necessary for testing, I would prefer people be asked to start a new toon as opposed to a wipe. I myself have been thinking of starting a PP or TE and wouldn't mind recording its progress if needed. If this fails to get the desired testing a only partial wipe; Either volunteers to be wiped, people are allowed to select one toon they keep per account, people retain builds/items are just some examples of partial wipe ideas. Also wiping could be used as a punishment instead of banning (if your banning them do you care if they get upset and leave?). I'd even be willing to support the forced lock on high lvs (aka until you lved a new toon to lv50) just to avoid a wipe.

Due to the wipe frustration in the past, I am pretty sure if we where hit with another wipe for anything less then a 'stage transition' or 'absolute database failure' at this point my husband would just stop playing completely. That's really what I fear about wipes the most becuase 90% of my enjoyment in this game is doing things with him. This game was meant to be about community interaction and wipes just flat out kill community. Lets try to keep them to the bar minimum required. I realize this is a 'stress' test and some 'stress' is expected, but there is a point where the 'stress' becomes 'agony'. When that is will vary player to player, but lets not try to push that bar with unnecessary wipes when there are other solutions.

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I would very much prefer wipes remain a 'last resort' or 'testing stage transition'.

I completely agree with this. As much as I loved and still love EnB, I don't have the time to keep re-leveling characters. Especially since I play a JE and the combat grinding is agonizing. The last time there was a wipe I just decided to stop playing for 5-6 months, it just wasn't worth the effort to go through the painful leveling process again.

Wipes should be absolute last resort. If new low level content needs to be tested, simply ask people to level an alt so people like me aren't driven away from the testing entirely.

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I completely agree with this. As much as I loved and still love EnB, I don't have the time to keep re-leveling characters. Especially since I play a JE and the combat grinding is agonizing. The last time there was a wipe I just decided to stop playing for 5-6 months, it just wasn't worth the effort to go through the painful leveling process again.

Wipes should be absolute last resort. If new low level content needs to be tested, simply ask people to level an alt so people like me aren't driven away from the testing entirely.

Given what I talked about the other night on the game server, we are talking about opening the developer server to people who register to come test for us in focus tests. We shall need 50-100 people depending on the change in most cases, and it'll be a lil more like work than play BUT if we get enough people we should be able to avoid any need for wiping the play server for a long time to come.

I just wanted to put this here as well so that those who might not have been on are aware of it.

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Given what I talked about the other night on the game server, we are talking about opening the developer server to people who register to come test for us in focus tests. We shall need 50-100 people depending on the change in most cases, and it'll be a lil more like work than play BUT if we get enough people we should be able to avoid any need for wiping the play server for a long time to come.

I just wanted to put this here as well so that those who might not have been on are aware of it.

I REALLY like this idea, ive been told there is rarly any1 ever on that server unless they are testing something they cant do on other 1.

anything to postpone a server wipe lol

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Given what I talked about the other night on the game server, we are talking about opening the developer server to people who register to come test for us in focus tests. We shall need 50-100 people depending on the change in most cases, and it'll be a lil more like work than play BUT if we get enough people we should be able to avoid any need for wiping the play server for a long time to come.

I just wanted to put this here as well so that those who might not have been on are aware of it.

been there done that... the problems with those kinds of tests it that people just run their test booklet they are given and thats it... as stated its more like work than play (and it really is)... so they run tests for an hour and then hop back on the play server... so in the end things are not truly throughly tested and then they go live and crash bang boom.,.. big suprise it fails...

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been there done that... the problems with those kinds of tests it that people just run their test booklet they are given and thats it... as stated its more like work than play (and it really is)... so they run tests for an hour and then hop back on the play server... so in the end things are not truly throughly tested and then they go live and crash bang boom.,.. big suprise it fails...

Well, it's that or wipes, which do you want? I'd personally go with that in your position rather than just talking about how it won't work. :)

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been there done that... the problems with those kinds of tests it that people just run their test booklet they are given and thats it... as stated its more like work than play (and it really is)... so they run tests for an hour and then hop back on the play server... so in the end things are not truly throughly tested and then they go live and crash bang boom.,.. big suprise it fails...

Giving the situation, either we test and help them with bugs, or the server gets wiped, I'm sure I can convince a good portion of Static to help you Kyp. Most of us have 5-6 150's and need something to occupy our time with anyway. Let me know when/if this happens and I'll be one of the first to create a toon and help you test stuff.

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Actually, now that I have gotten up to the higher levels, I have seen the game from a different perspective... we should prob just wipe the server... or better yet... MAKE SOME DEV TOOLS THAT GIVE TOON STATS... it would appear to me that some people made alts only cuz their main is maxed out on credits... you have smaller groups than live regularly raping end game raids that used to take 30-40 people... and imho those same people will be max level real quick after a wipe...

the other concern is people who never hit max level due to time restraints on their gameplay... well imo the only difference between L50, L100, and L150 is the number... the game plays the same way... combat, explore and trade are the same... what I believe to be different imo and why this group does not want a wipe is how people level... imo the most effective way to level is to keep trade and explore up high enough so that your overall level gives you an edge in combat... and lets face it, leveling trade is a bore and explore is a bore if your not an explorer

well if you are in the boat of people that has limited playtime (me included - this is my first toon that has broke L90), then I would suggest (and in no means am trying to tell you what to do... just a suggestion that may or may not improve your game experience) that you focus on the lower levels as if it were the higher ones and dont do the boring meaningless just level me stuff unless its absolutely necessary...

Edited by Jaya
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Coming from someone who hasn't played since the last wipe, I think you know how I feel about it.

ENB's Early game is fun, and end game is fun. But leveling TL/EL past 25ish is TERRIBLE. It is the sole reason I only ever had ONE level 150 in live, and probably 10 level 40-75's and I played from about 1 month after launch to sunset. EnB's mid game is just a terrible terrible grind that is not fun at all.

for me, the game doesn't start to truly shine till cl 50 and OL 135. There just isn't any point and trying to maximize your character till then, because even the BEST level X gear, is worse than the worst level X+1 gear.

Don't hang me for mentioning it, but one of the good things about leveling in wow, is that If I take the time and effort to get a good blue level 40 weapon, It will last me till I can use a green level 50 weapon. I enjoyed leveling in WOW. I haven't played since the expansions, but levels 1-59 were my favorite. I had like 10 characters. I only ever hit level 60 with two, and I rarely played them. I just loved leveling alts. Alts suck in EnB. Because the leveling and gear options suck. Way waste hours and hours to get gear that is 10-15% better, when i could use that time to maximize my EXP gain to use higher level gear that I can buy from a freaking vendor that is 100-200% better.

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It disappoints me immensely that the whole reason that it seems wipes are even being discussed here by the powers that be is due to exploits. It isn't for correct content or to fix major bugs that can't be fixed otherwise...it's exploits. I could honestly care less how everyone else got to 150 in the game. In other games when exploits are fixed they patch them. Those people that figured them out got lucky and took advantage of them...and the number is usually pretty small before others figure it out or it comes to the devs attention. They don't 'punish' everyone cause there was an exploit. If there is an exploit, fix it when it comes to your attention but I don't know anyone who wants to grind the trade runs over again. You do it to enjoy the stuff after it. The thought of having to do it all over again on the same toons to achieve the same goal makes me not want to even continue leveling at this point because it sounds like a wipe is imminent and honestly I do not want to do the mind-numbing trade runs all over again. The reason I did them again this time is there was what 5+ years to forget how awful it was to do them the first time around.

Please do not wipe it again. I honestly do not see any people that are in favor of the wipe saying..."wipe it or I am leaving" but I can tell you for sure that there are people that will leave if you wipe it again and past experience you already know that this is true.

Thanks for listening.

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