User blog:Thane Mantis/Quitting War Commander
Note: This is just a clone of my original post from the KIXEYE Forums. The original has since been killed off by KIXEYE because of course it has. On the off chance a KIXEYE employee with the right permissions ever finds themselves reading this, the original used to be here.
This has been a long time coming I think. I think its fair to say anyone to has known me for awhile around here knows that I've never been particular kind to KIXEYE as of late for their work on War Commander. The game has been going down hill into a special place I call the toilet, and an astonishing rate to the point Im honestly surprised that its even still here at all. When I take a look back at the games history, Im sometimes wondering if KIXEYE ever really knew what they were doing at all.
So with that being said, I present to everyone my latest rant, and likely my final one since this also serves as my quitting thread, because like other players before me, I've grown fed up of the game and KIXEYE's work, and have decided that getting the hell out is the best option available to me. And I want to convince others to hopefully follow along to show KIXEYE that their ruining this game.
So, lets get into it.
CONTENT RELEASE RATE:
As Axel has so fantastically proven with this list posted on this thread right here from awhiles back (scroll down a few comments to see his work), the content release rate of this game is absurdly and unnecessarily high. Like, ridiculously high. That list essentially covers the amount of content we see every 3 months, and its ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
Most games could probably pad that amount of content (or in KIXEYE's case, shovelware) to last a year I bet, and we see it every 3 bloody months. Why do we need this much content KIXEYE? This is like a treadmill, and we never get a break. How do you expect to retain players with this much crap being shoved into the game?
THE REPETITION:
This ties back strongly into my points about the content release rate. The game is nothing if not stagnating as far as Im bloody concerned. The units and ideas we see in game are just rehashes of everything we've seen before. The Valiant is just the Banshee which is in turn the Warhawk which may be in turn be a new Cobra. I can't really say much more on this to be honest except that this repetition needs to end. Its f*cking boring. I honestly can't understand how its possible to have fun in this bloody game anymore, with this endlessly repetitive cycle.
UPGRADE TOKENS:
So in Nightmare: Into Chaos we were introduced to another terrible trademark KIXEYE idea, of Faction Upgrade tokens. When KIXEYE announced this, I said I don't believe fundamental units like the Liberators, should be associated with an arbitrary upgrade gating system like this whatsoever, and lots of others also believed that this system was completely and utterly necessary. I think its one of the most unwanted things introduced into the game to date. And yet KIXEYE introduced this nonsense into the game regardless.
Why?
Why do we need another gating system that caps how far we can take our units? These are baseline units. These should not be limited in any way whatsoever. What is the point of introducing this? There are way too many gates in this game as it is, why do we need another of these bloodied caps on our unit progression. Even if KIXEYE insist on shoving more unwanted upgrades into the game (stop that already KIXEYE) must they be gated by stupid systems such as tokens? (In case you're too dumb to realise this KIXEYE, the answer is obviously no.)
EVERYTHING MODERN IS LIMITED:
Literally everything. The entire modern game has become based on a system of everything in it becoming limited, and its so damn fustrating. No more are the fun days of once you unlock something, you can use or create an unlimited amount of it, now you can only have x number of any one thing at any one time, including our baseline units like the Liberators and Hammers and Detonators.
Why? Why must everything in this game have a cap to it? Whats the point? We're well into the age of Faction Units, and everything is still limited for no reason whatsoever. I can understand from a gameplay perspective (even if from a lore perspective it makes no sense) for us to have units like the Omega Titan, Juggernaut and the damned Herald as limited units, but why are our standards like Liberators capped as well?
Same question applies to our workshop components. I can't understand why they must all be limited. This is both boring and frustrating. Its boring because we have to keep unlocking the same crap over and over again, and its frustrating because it becomes incredibly difficult to standardise any designs for our units now we have to juggle having a limited number of components in different classes. Its absurd.
BLEEDING THE FUN FROM EVENTS:
Anyone remember when Onslaught was a new (sort of*) concept that was fun? I remember. The first Onslaught was great. It had a trophy, great prizes, and zombies. It was great. It offered a decent challenge, and fun prizes, including that fun to use Zombifier tech for our heroes. Now however, Onslaught has had all the fun sucked out of it.
Rather than offering lots of tech and units, its generally either some bloody Thorium or some bloody Medals. Stuff any player who's capable of finishing the Onslaughts can likely get in bloody abundance. What benefit or reason is there to competing in Onslaught if the prizes are stuff we already have plenty of? Dunno about anyone else, but I see none.
As for Invasions, their basically the same thing by the looks of it. Its just lousy Thorium as the primary prize, and some stupid war paints for those that either finish the Invasions, or get in a certain band on the leader board. <Sarcasm> Whoop dee doo. Your big prize for earning your way into the top 100 players is a cosmetic item that makes near enough squat difference in battle. But hey, Im sure the level 30 guy you're kicking the crap out of without effort is really impressed with your Gold Sandstorm War Paint. </Sarcasm>
And now we have main events. These are just endless and its boring. That's all there really is to say at this point. Every month its the same broken old cycle of a new couple units, a trophy, and a bit more story. Its an endless loop of boredom that never seems to stop, no matter how much we players protest and request KIXEYE stop.
*I say sort of here, because technically a defensive only event has been seen before. Some of WC's earliest events featured the concept.
UNIQUES SUCH AS THE HERALD:
Honestly, uniques are easily one of the most tiresome things this game has to offer. Uniques used to be great. They seemed fair and well balanced, the upgrade times were quire reasonable, especially with the old formula of 5 days, 6 days, 7 days, then Thorium all the way after. It used to basically be 18 days and depending on how fast you were at gathering Thorium and other resources, maybe a couple hours, to max out most old uniques.
Now, its a horrendous 191 days. The post I reference from Axel up above under the heading of content release rate, it also discusses unique upgrade times and the modern uniques have all slotted into this same awful formula for a grand total of 191 days to max any modern unique from start to finish. That's more than half a f*cking year! Why? Why are we asked to max out a unique and take more than 6 months to do it? Uniques tend to go out of date in that time.
Do you realistically expect the average player to either have the time or patience for that?
BUG FIXES & GAME PERFORMANCE:
Few and far between are the bug fixes. Its insanity how a game with this much content doesn't get more work dedicated to bug fixes, since I can only imagine how horrendously complex the code is. And its been made clear that there are alot of problems in the game. I stopped updating this list ages ago, Im not gonna lie, but I posted on the WC Wikia in the blog sections a long, LONG, list of technical issues for KIXEYE to use as reference, (seen here if anyone cares) and there still seems to be ALOT of things in need of addressing. And yet, bug fixes are so few and far between.
A DISTINCT LACK OF PRIORITIES:
This ties in alot with the big fixes section. In the last maintenace which lasted apparently around 75 minutes, KIXEYE fixed this sh*t.
Fix - Multiple Kondors can no longer be built. The Kondor is a Unique Unit and will follow the 1 build prompt for Uniques. Fix - Elite Mercenaries damage now references the correct data tables, no longer referencing non-elite information Fix - The HZ icon on the Valiant will no longer overlap with the unit's description details. Fix - The Omega Herald's fans will lift one time while the herald is attacking and will no longer "flap" repeatedly.
<Sarcasm> Yep, really making a difference here. </Sarcasm> Are you lot taking the piss? In a 75 minute downtime you fixed some stuff nobody gave a rats ass about? What sort of priorities are you idiots setting? These are a few minor graphical glitches that most players probably didn't notice because they didn't matter. This doesn't solve the infinite disconnects players are experiencing. This doesn't plug any of the exploits cheaters are using. This helps nothing. Why would you fix this sh*t of all the things you could address?
FLASH:
Ah Flash. What many great games have been built of the back of this engine. Its kind of a shame how Flash has gone from such a great tool for creating games to a doomed piece of software isn't it? And what a shame it is that KIXEYE seems too lazy to uproot this game and move elsewhere. Lots of this games issues are caused by Flash and this decaying engine, and KIXEYE continue to cling to it despite there not only being better options out there for the web and developing games in browser, there are better engines out there period. But instead of taking the time to free themselves from a limited Engine that even its own developers (Adobe) don't recommend and instead suggest people use new standards like HTML5, we're still here.
Why?
Adobe Flash is a damned engine. We all know this, yet KIXEYE seems to, at least publicly, not be remotely concerned about this. Strange for a company that built its entire original business and catalogue of games within this engine. And when we ask questions about this, they get shuffled out into Off_Topic, or locked, often without any answer. Rather than address player concern, KIXEYE seem more content with simply removing the important questions being asked completely. This is not how KIXEYE should be going about things.
GENERAL GAME BALANCE:
The game balance is horrendous. It seems like KIXEYE do no work whatsoever to fine tune to anything in this game to make sure it works well with everything else. Things like the Herald and Juggernaut are game balance killers, especially the Herald. Not only that, but the game is a free for all, which leaves the lowers screwed as a result.
Not only that, but we're seeing new super uniques and Elite counterparts introduced at the same time in things like Shadow Ops, and within 3 months, we get the Omega version for those units. For example, the Herald and Juggernaut. The originals of these units had barely been in the game and is often just as unstoppable as ever by the time the Shadow Ops campaign is over, and we're promptly seeing even more overpowered versions in the form of Omega Classes arriving within only a few months of the Elite and Standard versions of units.
LACK OF COMMUNICATION:
KIXEYE seem to spend so little time communication with their player-base, which is strange since their a company with dedicated community managers who should surely be here to speak to us and pass on what we have to say to the team. Yet despite all the promises and claims, little to nothing we may call on KIXEYE to do ever seems to get done. At least not in a timely manner.
For example, this Faction Training Token bullsh*t. There no mention of that on the Road Map. None. At all. KIXEYE despite all their promises for better communicating just seemed to up and go "f*ck it" as far that little bombshell was concerned. Or the Nightmare: Into Chaos event. Nobody told us about this at all either. No mention on the Road Map. Nothing.
CONCLUSION:
So to pull things all together, f*ck this "game." Of the many games I have played, f*ck this "game" in particular. I've played alot of different games since discovering the world of gaming, and very few have come close to disappointing me as much War Commander has, and few companies have earned my scorn and absolute resentment such as KIXEYE.
If Im perfectly honest, it well and truly astonishes me how a company such as KIXEYE could ever remain in business when they seem to hold such absolute disdain for their players and are nothing but ignorant to the infinite number of problems surrounding them and their products. It is legitimately astonishing to me. I'd describe it as one of the greatest mysteries of our modern time.
I'd say its been fun, but these last few months have just been and endless source of frustration for me. The game is nothing but a broken pile of corrupted code and bad ideas. There are some times where I actually take a step back and wonder if the game was ever meant to even actually be released or survive as long as it has. There are so many red flags to me that make me wonder if the team that originally had any plans in place for the game after its initial conception and release and sustaining it long term because it seems like nobody was really prepared for anything.
I remember it being discussed by WT and/or Sulaco for example about how the original Tech Centre had such a difficult way of being designed that it made it very difficult to separate air and ground. Seems like from the start nobody was planning ahead for the future in case things might change. Or Land Mines. Apparently the original coder left (probably hated the company too, I imagine) and nobody knows how his code works. I guess nobody comments their code either to explain how it works or something?
Anyways, point is, I don't think much forethought is put into this game at all. No thoughts for how players might react to content introduction, or making sure systems can be easily changed and updated in the future, and is generally disturbs me quite a bit. Again, Im baffled as to how KIXEYE remains in business with them going on creating their games as they do, and filling them to the absolute brim with little more than shovelware as far as Im concerned.
Rant over folks. Good luck.
TL;DR:
Quit the game folks. The game is doomed.