WOWS 2019 - The Great Disconnection

[Gvozdika]

This isn't specific to one issue - but this year really does feel to me like WG WoWs has changed dramatically. Not for the better.

 

We had the CV rework. Whether you like it or not - it was rushed out and it was a mess. It was chucked into the live servers before it was ready. Most of the issues with it were patently clear at the testing stage - but WG went ahead anyway. They were determined that this route was the right way come what may. Later it was admitted to be bungled by WG themselves.

 

The NTC. The gasps of the CCs at the summit said it all. No really - Tier 11 upgrades that require an intense grind will be fine..... Again, the whole WG company machine went into overdrive to tell us players how wrong we were, how brilliant this new idea was. Until they admitted that it wasn't and pulled it.

 

The Benham grind. Locking a powerful ship behind an incredibly punishing grind isn't so much an issue. That it was combined with a cash grab was. Again, this smacked of a decision made by a bunch of bean counters in an office somewhere. It was a dry run for the future...

 

The RU BBs. Obviously it wouldn't be a WG title without adding some Soviet machinery with physics-bending qualities. It's almost expected now. 

 

Submarines. I could rant.away about this for days. I won't though. Suffice to say, it seemed at this point like WG was being selectively deaf. The game by this point has lots of issues - WG decide that the right thing to do is potentially add a complete new class. It'll be fine!

 

The Puerto Rico. I won't repeat everything here. Advertising it as entirely possible to obtain for free was a scummy move. Getting the CCs on-board with one version of the dockyard then dialling up all the values by ten before release was worse. The thing that really stood out was the fact that WG were once again telling us that it was great, it was fine. It wasn't actually the main focus of the event - despite promo videos and an entire section of game being created for it...

 

The head manager then implied that it was for jobless, sick people..... Change to the event simply was not necessary-.WG knows best!

 

Now the legendary module saga. Like a turd that won't flush - the NTC is back among us. 

 

TLDR -WG are so disconnected from the player base it is almost comical. The decision makers don't appear to grasp the mood of the players, then they act almost annoyed that people don't accept their latest half-half-baked idea with open arms. They have battered and bruised the players with one daft concept after another - squandering the goodwill of many players in the process. If wows is to keep going, we need less 'great ideas' like the PR and the devs need to realise that there IS a reality outside of their little bubble. 

 

The tragic irony of this is - they don't appear to have the faintest clue that they're doing it!

[Kenjiro_]

5 minutes ago, Gvozdika said:

The tragic irony of this is - they don't appear to have the faintest clue that they're doing it!

 

That is plain wrong. They do very well know what they are doing but simply don't care. Because revenue numbers justify their actions. 

 

This is not a game for them. This is a business and money will always overweigh the playerbase opinion as long as cash keeps flowing.. 

 

 

[Egoleter]

We could add even more things to the list of disconnects between WG and the players, but then Crysantos will probably just come in and tell us again how they did listen and did in fact act on our feedback in oh so many cases. That they discuss our feedback in their offices. All the while ignoring all items we list as examples of things that went horribly wrong.

[Fat_Maniac]

4 minutes ago, Kenjiro_ said:

 

That is plain wrong. They do very well know what they are doing but simply don't care. Because revenue numbers justify their actions. 

 

This is not a game for them. This is a business and money will always overweigh the playerbase opinion as long as cash keeps flowing.. 

 

 

^THIS^

Until players stop just ranting and actually stop opening their wallets, WG will do nothing and carry on regardless.

 

Which is a terrible shame, as the ideas and concepts are good, they really are. The ship building event, is a cool feature, grind as much as you want and pay the difference. Once again its the lack of communication and setting of expectations that have failed WG. They take a great feature, pass it over to the bean counters and PR departments, and the whole thing gets covered in poop. They keep telling us they have learnt and will improve next time. I've yet to see that happen.

[CapitaineGrosCHEH]

7 minutes ago, Kenjiro_ said:

 

That is plain wrong. They do very well know what they are doing but simply don't care. Because revenue numbers justify their actions. 

 

This is not a game for them. This is a business and money will always overweigh the playerbase opinion as long as cash keeps flowing.. 

 

 

This. 

Everything they did was calculated with extreme caution... not gameplay wise, but to maximise profits.

They are not disconnected. It's the playerbase that is, because most of us still believe they do what they are doing to make the game better.

[Capra76]

8 minutes ago, Kenjiro_ said:

 

That is plain wrong. They do very well know what they are doing but simply don't care. Because revenue numbers justify their actions. 

 

This is not a game for them. This is a business and money will always overweigh the playerbase opinion as long as cash keeps flowing..

 

Problem is that I think WG are seriously overestimating how much monetization this game will take, as a game it's a lot more niche than Tanks and when the niche players are gone what's left?  A slow paced and not very well balanced MOBA trying to appeal to players born half a century or more after the last of the in-game vehicles became paperclips, good luck with that.

[Fat_Maniac]

2 minutes ago, Capra76 said:

 

Problem is that I think WG are seriously overestimating how much monetization this game will take, as a game it's a lot more niche than Tanks and when the niche players are gone what's left?  A slow paced and not very well balanced MOBA trying to appeal to players born half a century or more after the last of the in-game vehicles became paperclips, good luck with that.

And there are other titles which are stepping into that niche. An existing Russian competitor (you know the one with the Snail Logo), and new tiles in development. coming next year.

[Gvozdika]

16 minutes ago, Kenjiro_ said:

 

That is plain wrong. They do very well know what they are doing but simply don't care. Because revenue numbers justify their actions. 

 

This is not a game for them. This is a business and money will always overweigh the playerbase opinion as long as cash keeps flowing.. 

 

 

I kind of agree - but being tone deaf to your customers is simply not profitable in the long run. Revenue calculations only get you so far.

 

Example - A car salesman may have worked out that selling nothing but pink Trabants gives him an excellent profit margin. The problem is that the general public don't share his enthusiasm...

[Fat_Maniac]

2 minutes ago, Gvozdika said:

I kind of agree - but being tone deaf to your customers is simply not profitable in the long run. Revenue calculations only get you so far.

 

Example - A car salesman may have worked out that selling nothing but pink Trabants gives him an excellent profit margin. The problem is that the general public don't share his enthusiasm...

The only thing that WG are going to listen too, is when the WoWS revenue stream actually starts falling.

 

Player numbers for example don't matter. They can fall as long as everyone else pays more. They could actually save money if numbers fall by consolidating server clusters, and reducing the hardware footprint. At the end of the day it's the amount of money coming in that the CEO cares about. 

[Yedwy]

1 minute ago, Fat_Maniac said:

Player numbers for example don't matter. They can fall as long as everyone else pays more. They could actually save money if numbers fall by consolidating server clusters, and reducing the hardware footprint. At the end of the day it's the amount of money coming in that the CEO cares about. 

I have a sneaking suspition this is already happening actually, did anyone else notice how big the numbers in MM que are since few updates ago, and no MM changes were in patch logs (the new MM algorithm was added a while before this started) so its suspitious?

[Panocek]

18 minutes ago, Fat_Maniac said:

And there are other titles which are stepping into that niche. An existing Russian competitor (you know the one with the Snail Logo), and new tiles in development. coming next year.

Snail themed competitor can give WG a run for their money when it comes to breaking their own game in new and fascinating ways

[Earl_of_Northesk]

4 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

I have a sneaking suspition this is already happening actually, did anyone else notice how big the numbers in MM que are since few updates ago, and no MM changes were in patch logs (the new MM algorithm was added a while before this started) so its suspitious?

Not in any way commenting on the topic at hand: but that is [edited]. We have second party means to check the player base and sorry, but your anecdotal experience re: que numbers is worthless.

 

In essence: nothing has changed.

[CptBarney]

3 minutes ago, Panocek said:

Snail themed competitor can give WG a run for their money when it comes to breaking their own game in new and fascinating ways

You can add the third russian counterpart to that list my.com spreeeeeeaaadshiiiiiet of dah west.

[Fat_Maniac]

39 minutes ago, Earl_of_Northesk said:

Not in any way commenting on the topic at hand: but that is [edited]. We have second party means to check the player base and sorry, but your anecdotal experience re: que numbers is worthless.

 

In essence: nothing has changed.

Exactly and for Steam users you can actually track the number of active players

 

[Fat_Maniac]

41 minutes ago, Panocek said:

Snail themed competitor can give WG a run for their money when it comes to breaking their own game in new and fascinating ways

I know, but at least they are more open about it. With t hem you know exactly what you are getting.

[BlackFish__]

It is quite clear that WG has chosen the path of Eastern MMOs. Super grind and pay to win. That may work in the Asian region but definitely won't work in western culture. Look at ArchAge MMO as an example. Brilliant ideas plagued by scummy payment policy. They eroded all their player base now they had to restart fresh with new servers etc in a non-PTW way. WG doesn't learn.

Sad thing is that it's a niche game unique in the market and they know it. While the fanboys claim it is free to play game WOWs to play competitively in the higher tiers is not free.

Most of the people have spent a great amount of time and a considerable amount of money - myself included. It is hard to let such investment go but there is a limit.  My limit is the line regrind which I will NEVER do. If I am not allowed to be competitive without it that's the end no matter what ill have to let go.

 

Now you may say WG does not give a crap if an individual goes or stays.  Any you'd be right. But also, consider the players impacted by the LM grind are the more committed ones that bring WG income. If WG drives them away well gl financing their game in the long run. There is a critical mass and if that is reached because of players leaving en masse the game will die.

[admiralgpt]

I bet if we saw financial information for the game - it's still way up. 

 

WG is a business first and foremost - and as long as there are people out there with more money than sense, WG like any other business, will exploit it.

 

I would like to see the playerbase put first. But it will never happen. It's the way of the world

[Ze_Reckless]

4 hours ago, Gvozdika said:

The tragic irony of this is - they don't appear to have the faintest clue that they're doing it!

If game companies were ships WG would be the Yamato with range mod and SE that reverses from spawn and uses DCP for the first fire.

[humpty_1]

4 hours ago, Gvozdika said:

 

The head manager then implied that it was for jobless, sick people..... Change to the event simply was not necessary-.WG knows best!

 

i'm a disabled player and i must admit i play more than i should, be it wows or something else. tbh though i'm kind of +++++++ with them saying this. but even playing many hours one could not do the pr for free. just one example. 48k bxp would take the average player around 30 games or more, because i'd say 1600xp per win is about what most get. but what about the losses? we then get a lot less bxp...a wr of 50% would make the amount of games needed around 40 to 50 at a guess. at 10 to 15 mins per game. is too much even for us poor ppl with no life as ppl are saying.lol. anyways just a bit fed up with it all.. good luck and merry christmas everyone.

[22cm]

Probably WG did not understand what idiotic stuff like CV reeework does to their income, and keeps adding more like that. 

[1MajorKoenig]

38 minutes ago, 22cm said:

Probably WG did not understand what idiotic stuff like CV reeework does to their income, and keeps adding more like that. 

 

 If they know one thing 100% then that’s how money flows. Rest assured about that 

[NothingButTheRain]

7 hours ago, Gvozdika said:

This isn't specific to one issue - but this year really does feel to me like WG WoWs has changed dramatically. Not for the better.

 

We had the CV rework. Whether you like it or not - it was rushed out and it was a mess. It was chucked into the live servers before it was ready. Most of the issues with it were patently clear at the testing stage - but WG went ahead anyway. They were determined that this route was the right way come what may. Later it was admitted to be bungled by WG themselves.

 

The NTC. The gasps of the CCs at the summit said it all. No really - Tier 11 upgrades that require an intense grind will be fine..... Again, the whole WG company machine went into overdrive to tell us players how wrong we were, how brilliant this new idea was. Until they admitted that it wasn't and pulled it.

 

The Benham grind. Locking a powerful ship behind an incredibly punishing grind isn't so much an issue. That it was combined with a cash grab was. Again, this smacked of a decision made by a bunch of bean counters in an office somewhere. It was a dry run for the future...

 

The RU BBs. Obviously it wouldn't be a WG title without adding some Soviet machinery with physics-bending qualities. It's almost expected now. 

 

Submarines. I could rant.away about this for days. I won't though. Suffice to say, it seemed at this point like WG was being selectively deaf. The game by this point has lots of issues - WG decide that the right thing to do is potentially add a complete new class. It'll be fine!

 

The Puerto Rico. I won't repeat everything here. Advertising it as entirely possible to obtain for free was a scummy move. Getting the CCs on-board with one version of the dockyard then dialling up all the values by ten before release was worse. The thing that really stood out was the fact that WG were once again telling us that it was great, it was fine. It wasn't actually the main focus of the event - despite promo videos and an entire section of game being created for it...

 

The head manager then implied that it was for jobless, sick people..... Change to the event simply was not necessary-.WG knows best!

 

Now the legendary module saga. Like a turd that won't flush - the NTC is back among us. 

 

TLDR -WG are so disconnected from the player base it is almost comical. The decision makers don't appear to grasp the mood of the players, then they act almost annoyed that people don't accept their latest half-half-baked idea with open arms. They have battered and bruised the players with one daft concept after another - squandering the goodwill of many players in the process. If wows is to keep going, we need less 'great ideas' like the PR and the devs need to realise that there IS a reality outside of their little bubble. 

 

The tragic irony of this is - they don't appear to have the faintest clue that they're doing it!

The tragic thing is that I have to agree with you, even though I don't actually want to. But I cannot deny that I feel MINDBLOWN with all the crazy stuff they are coming up with ever since their first recent fluke, which was the NTC.

 

I may be a minority with the CV rework, but I truely believe (still do) that the way it was after a month or 2 after its release was better then what it is now, as back then speccing for AA meant something. I had tons of fun baiting enemy carriers into attacking my AA specced Benson! 

[NothingButTheRain]

3 hours ago, 22cm said:

Probably WG did not understand what idiotic stuff like CV reeework does to their income, and keeps adding more like that. 

I do believe the rework was needed. But the tragedy is that at this moment, it's basically where it was before the rework: AA doesn't really matter anymore and if a CV wants to drop you you are fracked! When the rework was new, speccing into AA at least meant something even if it was at the cost of other stuff like accuracy or DPM. Now speccing into AA is basically meaningless and the carriers are once again playing their own game. The main difference being that what was once the Saipan is now the Enterprise and instead of oneshotting you, you get eaten alive slowly but surely. Yes, awesome improvement! 

[1MajorKoenig]

Rework was certainly needed.

 

However some of the other stuff begs indeed the question whether WG wants to push it a tad too far.

 

I mean - no problem with monetizing - that’s how they make money. And if some older rankings are to be believed they make very decent money - especially if you consider the rather small playerbase. Hence the product looks pretty profitable as far as we know.

 

Now pushing this side of monetization too hard may result in the opposite effect. Not sure if these measures are needed or if WG simply try to push the limits here - either way a fine line 

[MementoMori_6030]

Vor 4 Minuten, 1MajorKoenig sagte:

Rework was certainly needed.

Maybe, but what was NOT needed were those OP rocket launching planes...