The Wipe - Post thoughts/comments

[Genisaurus]

Never say never to a wipe. That being said, we don't want to do one anytime soon - and you can read into that whatever you like.

It seems obvious, but wiping every character would put every player back in T1, and it would take most of them a while to get back to the end game. So why would we do this just as we release T4 content that will inevitably be horribly broken? We will require large numbers of people to root out bugs, stress-test the RvR lakes, and gather feedback on the RvR system. A wipe as we launch guarantees that this won't get done for at least a month after release.

Now, there may come a day when there are far fewer bugs to be found, and almost no critical bugs; when we want to gather data on progression and leveling speed and RvR mechanics from T1 through T4. In that situation, a wipe might be more valuable, as we could track 2-3k players leveling through all four tiers at the same time, instead of 70% of our playerbase sitting in T4 while 30% play alts. A wipe might be useful then.

tl;dr: you only do a full wipe when you need to collect data and feedback on the whole game, from the perspective of a player advancing from T1 through T4, where each tier is as populated and busy as possible.

It's worth reminding you all too - you're our testers, and you are here playing this game with the understanding that this is an alpha game, in development. Under no circumstances should you become attached to your accounts or characters as if the status of this game were permanent, or as if we had an obligation to preserve your playing experience. If a wipe is deemed necessary in order to make this game the best it can possibly be, and you quit for it, we respectfully ask that you don't smudge the door with your ass on the way out, as they were just cleaned and our janitor.

We won't wipe unless we feel it's absolutely necessary. But if you think the time you invested into leveling your characters in what is functionally a demo will have any bearing on our decision to do so, then you should feel embarrassed, and know that we are laughing at you.

[Arbich]

1. renown wipe? I am not against it, but see no reason in a renown wipe. you earn renown really fast.

2. full character wipe? I hope not. Many people spent a lot of time already on their toons. This would only be a viable options, if it is a single patch with great changes (T4, Instance and city-siege together). At the moment the devs change the game in smaller steps (that is better, imo), so you can argue when is the right time for a total restart.

3.professions wipe? getting professions to 200 is basically grind. I see no reason why we should experience this again. Devs already changed it, so it is easier to get to 200 now.

4. gear wipe? I am against a gear wipe, but if the devs implement another set, this should require higher emblems and medallions. It should not be possible to exchange your emblems/medallions with the new, higher emblems/medallions.

[Penril]

@Geni: There is huge difference between what you said and what OP is asking for. Being an altoholic i would completely hate a wipe, but i understand if the devs do it for a particular reason (as you said, if it is absolutely necessary to test something). OP on the other hand is just asking for a wipe once we go from Alpha to Beta, just because.

[freshour]

keep in mind I just made the post to get people to post their opinions. I am good at getting "responses" in that way .

[Tklees]

another one of these....

1. Renown is literally the only level in the game that you have to earn over time for the most part(exp is stupid easy to earn in War and max level can be reached in hours). Renown on the other hand must be earned through a legitimate amount of game time and through the games main feature (PvP). Not to mention its hindrance to the use of the new sets once a bracket would be released and its influence on balance in the later tiers which will need to be discussed and tested.
2. As in a complete wipe of all of the player bases characters? I do not see how this would not lead to a significant drop in the population that the team has gone a long way to cultivate. Just my opinion.
3. Professions can be earned in a day of power lvling (gathering profs) if not faster (tali making can be done in minutes using teleport stones but costs a bit of coin to do so). The only profs that take a bit of time to level are cultivating, and salvaging. Again I don't see the point, but I wouldn't care.
4. Gear as in game currency(medals and emblems)? As this again is tied to the games core feature I do not see the reason to wipe what players would need to properly play in t4.
5. Items/Gold which for some reason you didn't mention I have zero issue with wiping as if all of the above are not touched they can be remade and replenished.

My final thought on this entire subject at the end of the day we are subject to whatever is deemed best for the server by the dev team and threads like this are just embarrassing to see as they pop up literally every week.

[Genisaurus]

@Geni: There is huge difference between what you said and what OP is asking for. Being an altoholic i would completely hate a wipe, but i understand if the devs do it for a particular reason (as you said, if it is absolutely necessary to test something). OP on the other hand is just asking for a wipe once we go from Alpha to Beta, just because.

Don't worry, I have ideas for dealing with people like you.

I thought it was worth publicly stating our (or at least my) stance on full wipes. Other wipes are probably less likely, for individual reasons I'm not going to get into right now.

[StormX2]

@Geni: There is huge difference between what you said and what OP is asking for. Being an altoholic i would completely hate a wipe, but i understand if the devs do it for a particular reason (as you said, if it is absolutely necessary to test something). OP on the other hand is just asking for a wipe once we go from Alpha to Beta, just because.

Don't worry, I have ideas for dealing with people like you.

I thought it was worth publicly stating our (or at least my) stance on full wipes. Other wipes are probably less likely, for individual reasons I'm not going to get into right now.

if a wipe is needed, is it possible that the characters are wiped out but still remain? would hate to see people doing ye olden Name Grab and people not being able to run there old Live name etc.

[Tklees]

@Geni: There is huge difference between what you said and what OP is asking for. Being an altoholic i would completely hate a wipe, but i understand if the devs do it for a particular reason (as you said, if it is absolutely necessary to test something). OP on the other hand is just asking for a wipe once we go from Alpha to Beta, just because.

Don't worry, I have ideas for dealing with people like you.

I thought it was worth publicly stating our (or at least my) stance on full wipes. Other wipes are probably less likely, for individual reasons I'm not going to get into right now.

if a wipe is needed, is it possible that the characters are wiped out but still remain? would hate to see people doing ye olden Name Grab and people not being able to run there old Live name etc.

I am pretty sure they can just reset everyone to lvl 1 renown 0. As this has been a penalty before for players.

[Penril]

Don't worry, I have ideas for dealing with people like you.

You mean altoholics ?

You had me at "Don't worry".

[th3gatekeeper]

@Geni: There is huge difference between what you said and what OP is asking for. Being an altoholic i would completely hate a wipe, but i understand if the devs do it for a particular reason (as you said, if it is absolutely necessary to test something). OP on the other hand is just asking for a wipe once we go from Alpha to Beta, just because.

I dont think the OP was asking for a wipe - just asking what peoples thoughts were IF they were going to do something...


That said, @ Geni, I dont fully understand the purpose of what a full wipe would accomplish. Having lower tiers maxed population doesnt seem like it would accomplish something that couldnt be accomplished now. Also, as many times as I have posted on the forums asking for balance, the resounding answer from the DEVs was "wait till T4, noone cares about <t4 balance" - I am summerizing blunty but you get the point. So from a "balance" perspective, I dont see it.

THAT said, if you guys do deem it absolutely necessary that we need a full wipe, I think the reasons would be well known by the player base and hopefully they agree. I would suspect something would have been exploited or caused massive imbalance in the game for a select few or something of that nature.

My only major caution is a FULL wipe, would have some negative ramifications that I hope gets seriously weighed if it ever comes down to it.

I guess another way of approaching the same thing, possibly without backllash, would be to "shut down" different tiers of PVP. So rather than "wipe" you say, "for the next 1-2 weeks only T1 pvp will be working. We want to test XXX in Tier 1" This accomplishes your goal of testing that with max population without players feeling like they have to "Reset" and I would GUESS more players might even play T1 just to help you test if it was communicated for a purpose. Heck, I know I would level some alts just to play T1.

Then after that, shut down all but T1 AND T2... Most of those "alts" will just progress to T2. Eventually you re-open T4 and players now have many many alts to play, I see that (in my narrow perspective) as a much better way to encourage participation without pissing people off and losing player base versus a wipe will inevitably cause some to leave...