To AGS: The only way I think you can recover

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No, it is not a wipe and restart. Although it would be a ‘fair’ way of rebalancing everything, that would only drive at least 75% of the remaining players away and the number of returning players would not be nearly enough. This is a released game, and most players (unlike those of us who participated during testing phases of the game) do not really like redoing content they have already done.

That said, there has been irrevocable imbalances created due to past and current issues. You acknowledge this wholeheartedly when you found out what happened when some people got lots of gold. You couldn’t just remove the gold or items purchased, entire markets were purged and people maxed out their skills. Your solution was a rollback. That means you acknowledge the damage done when some people had a huge advantage. Just because it wasn’t as obvious with the earlier issues, doesn’t mean this same thing didn’t occur at a lower level before. 1-day bans without character rollbacks resulted in the same problem; people getting skills maxed, HWM maxed, and all the trophies by exploiting your game. Your stats showed people getting to this point and to prevent the majority of non-exploiters from doing this you nerfed all of those avenues so you effectively punished non-exploiters while benefiting exploiters. That is the reason many people have left and or leaving, even if they don’t consciously realize it.

My suggestion would be to, in a single mega update:
(1) Set everyone’s skills to 200
(2) Set everyone’s HWM to 600
(3) Set everyone’s gold to 10k or something
(4) Give everyone 3x major trophies
(5) Implement an actual combat balance change, not a massive imbalance change
(6) Increase skill cap to 300
(7) Add 650 or 700 GS items to the game (gear did use to go up this high before)
(8) Rebalance your luck system (gathering / general) so the given trophies give you access to the mats/item drops that currently exist in the game, but generally require next tier trophies/skills and HWM to get mats/drops for higher level gear and drops.

TLDR: Fix broken things, effectively reset the game without having players regrind existing content, and add content to keep them playing. I think this is the only way you would bring back any sizeable portion of the population that left.

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So instead of polishing and refining the content then pulling an FF14, you want them to just eliminate all progression?

So literally any new players past your megapatch have to deal with everyone who joined before them being auto-boosted?

They’ll also need to fix CS. CS has already done their damage but maybe they can reconcile a little by shucking whatever godawful third party they drafted for this.

There’s also the matter that people still weaponize reports. They refuse to admit this is a serious problem. So long as they do, I don’t know if they’ll effectively pull players back in.

At this point, everyone suggests the wipe as a Scorched Earth policy, because it’s problematic to have so many different issues affecting so many different levels in such differing severities. AGS has repeatedly proven that they cherrypick what they want to listen to and which problems they will address. For them to pull off either a wipe or your solution though, would require delicacy and grace they’ve long proven they just don’t have.

This whole thing is a mess and they don’t want to admit to it. There’s no transparency, as is so typical of AAAs now, and the problems just keep mounting and getting worse while they don’t actually deal with the old problems.

Something has got to give. Is it the staff? Is it the engine? What the hell is wrong with this game?

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Good point on new players. I don’t have an answer for that other than giving players the option to create a boosted character or a fresh new one.

I agree, I doubt they could pull this off without other issues. I just think this is better than a wipe and not doing anything.

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Lets be real, how many if any are paying 40 dollars to come into this shit show?
I’d venture a guess that’s it’s definitely under 100 people throwing 40 dollars into the wind.

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Not saying your suggestions are bad. I would rather they fix the issues. Than when its all nice and polished/better with the known issues.
Start a fresh server with all the fixes. So people can start fresh. However, give a boost on xp, crafting ect. With tokens given to that user on time played and what was a accomished.
This would allow players to level faster if they started over on these servers, craft, gather etc faster.
Could also start people at level 20 or 30 depending on what level they were and time invested, and maybe level 100 on any trade/crafting skill they had maxed at 200.

I think the best options is fix what they are doing. But offer new fresh server for thouse that wish to start over on a fixed server.

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If they gave everyone all these things, what would be the point in playing the game? This looks more like how to finish off the game before shutting down the servers for good, instead of making it better.
As a piece of advice, next time you come up with these suggestions, try to take into consideration that PvE players are not the same as PvP players, and that all this progression/grind exists for a reason.

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I think they really just need to shut everything down and fix it all. And REALLY test if its good. Honestly with over 700 hours I wouldn’t even care at this point if a wipe was needed after shutting it all down and fixing it. Because if we just sit here waiting for the next patch, its not going to change a thing. Its just gonna keep happening. But it doesn’t even matter what anyone says, you know AGS doesn’t even listen to feedback so…lol

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Year thats true. Im really worried that at thos rate in few month they will make new world as f2p and mocrotransaction with xp boost or premium items

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What if I told you that you can take a 6 months break and when you return, everything will be fixed?

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Lost Arc is coming, and while many are disgruntled now and are hating on Amazon, Lost Arc wasn’t developed by Amazon, but is an established and successful game already in other parts of the word. Players will be drawn in by the hype of the release, I am pretty sure, no matter the current mess with New World, and not care Amazon got the rights for it.

GW2 is going to drop its 3rd expansion start of 22. It is hands down one of the best games out there, although not sure they will be able to match 1st and 2nd expansion, with first gliding, then mount introduction, but I am sure it will be big enough regardless.

Ashes of Creation, probably one of the most anticipated releases, may or may not to hit the market in 22, but if they don’t mess up and do get it right, it could be a real issue for many current mmos.

New World, I think, was rushed to be first in this line up, but they will struggle to gain players back, unless they could manage to convincingly turn things around before any of the above get launched. Especially AoC must be a headache, although that one does not have a release date yet, it could well be end of 22, if not delayed into 23. Still, GW2 is introducing a new fishing simulator, as far as I am aware, and boats, and well, Lost Arc will be ‘in house’ competition.

I dearly hope New World will survive, but to take it down like FF did, and rework it, would throw it against the above listed competitors, while many would still remember this launch. Not sure they’d be able to pull off the same magic, FF did, and a reset will cost the game even more, and the OP’s suggestion would create a whole new set of issues. It’s messy right now, really is.

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The only way they could have saved it is with server merges and fix remaining bugs. Its too late now.

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I fear you might be right. I really really hope we got this wrong, the game deserves so much better, but I think the rushed release, and the unpreparedness for the insane launch numbers, now having led to all these dead servers, is a deadly mix.

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I think the game, as they are going about things, will still live for awhile. I have been in similar situations before and I would expect they should have enough support to at least last through one expansion. I have played over a thousand hours (overall), and I would expect others who have not put in so much time would have some more patience still.

I just think their current approach will yield only a shadow of what it could be. I am looking for ways, or at least seeds of a possible way, to try and recover from where we are currently at. I don’t see a full restart being tolerated, but the bugs and exploits have caused serious issues. These get compounded with server transfers and merges where players on servers with few exploits will find themselves merged with ones that had heavy exploiters - and I don’t think players will be taking the vast gulf in wealth/gear/trophies/skill levels that they suddenly find themselves against very well.

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What in the actual fuck?

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The only way to recover is to shut the current disaster down, buy out a game studio with a functioning and actually well designer game, then instead of burning more millions in this dumpsterfire, throw your visual designers, composers, and audio artists at the acquired game. And for the love of God, fire your current Game Designers because they don’t know what they’re doing and would mess it all up.

If I can suggest one game that would be worth “rescuing” and “resurrecting”, look at RIFT. Great core, great mechanics, well balanced, with a flexible and customizable skill progression. Or SECRET WORLD. That’s another criminally underrated gem. All it would take is minor updates to change the old tab-targetting into a more action-like style, and update visuals and sound design. AGS 2d/3d artists and sound designers have proven they stand big and tall above the rest of their coworkers.

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They cannot fix anything soon. They need to do lots of band aids now, get their CS, QA processes working, create functional PTR they will actually use, and then work on future content. They might be able to add new levels and higher GS in a year or maybe bit sooner. Then they should open some new servers for new players and people who want a fresh start once all the major issues have been fixed for good. And no transfer from old servers to the new ones. And merge old servers so they are not ghost towns.

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Problem is if they boosted everyone like that the content would still be quite a ways off.

I wouldn’t think they have content ready to go. What we have is a mess, i can only imagine the state of any content they held back.

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Any suggestion that puts everyone at max progression is just a no for me. Thank you for your opinion.

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It wouldn’t be max progression. It would be equal progession with new higher maxes to grind towards in everything at the same time.

But, as others say, the content is not ready to support this type of change. So they announce it now, but give a bonus for players who stick around - say a 1x max general luck trophy or something - while they work on all this. I already have most skills at 200 and a couple of hwms past 591. I do not care if they do a ‘restart’ either with a wipe or this other way, but like I say, a wipe would drive far more away than would come back.

I do think some ppl would leave if they restarted at current max like I suggested, but I also think more ppl would come back than leave at that point if the game were fixed and they were on a near level playing field.

I also wouldn’t care if they just made new boosted servers for new players only and left legacy ones up.

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