In WildStar , a player analyzed the negative aspects of the new update “Urmatrix” and referred to it as power creep. These insights lead to devastating results.
Developer Carbine has announced plans to bring new momentum to the Free2Play MMORPG WildStar in 2017. A system that went live last week was intended to herald this revival: the Urmatrix.
Similar to the Paragon system in Diablo 3 or the Champion Points system in The Elder Scrolls Online, players can further develop their characters beyond the maximum level with the “Urmatrix”. They collect essences and become stronger week by week. Some dungeons and expeditions scale with the increased power, receiving a scalable difficulty level.
As always, when such a new system is introduced, the developer strives to paint it in the best colors.
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On reddit, the player Rapid_Twirls has shed light on this from a different angle. His thesis: “The Urmatrix is ruining WildStar.”
Because through the improvement of characters, the heroes become proportionally stronger, without a large part of the game content “scaling up” with them. This means that everything that remains in the game as old content and does not scale up will be trivialized by the increased damage values and hit points of the players. This results in 4 dungeons and 6 expeditions being obsolete. The 3 current raids become meaningless and trivial as well.
Using percentages and razor-sharp arguments, the player dismantles the supposed advantages of the system and highlights the disadvantages. The catch-up mechanic, intended to help players who fell behind in the race for the Urmatrix, will either lead to a terrible grind or tempt players to spend money in the cash shop.
The entire balance of the game is completely thrown off because everything is designed around the current number of ability points and AMP points. If something new is added, it will completely destroy class balance.
Furthermore, new players will have an even harder time in both PvP and leveling, as veterans would exploit their advantage in the “Urmatrix system”. And so on and so forth.
It is a long, quite depressing post that leaves no good Chua-hair on the Urmatrix mechanic in WildStar. The post concludes that the update is bad for WildStar and that one should not play the MMORPG anymore.
Mein-MMO says: Such a “power creep” is always difficult. Only games that are actively and consistently developed can afford a power creep. So, games that are doing well and have steady revenue.
If players are allowed to become increasingly powerful, new game content must always be pushed that “scales up” with them. If 5 old pieces of content become obsolete, 5 new, current contents must be generated. Not every MMORPG can afford that.
However, players want to become stronger. Therefore, WildStar has taken this path with the “Urmatrix” and now faces new challenges that are certainly solvable. A large part of the objections would be resolved if Carbine said “Okay, in PvP or in non-scaling instances, we simply deactivate these advantages – there we normalize everything.”
Seeing the entire update as negatively as the reddit user does is painting a bleak picture. Games need to evolve and bring new impulses. Every MMORPG that relies on a power spiral will encounter problems with “power creep” and must find solutions for it.
A first such system, as in WildStar, is surely never perfect and requires further adjustments until everything scales and functions correctly. But one should not come with: In 2020, this system will lead to… – By then, Carbine will have come up with something. The bitter truth: Carbine must find new ways for WildStar if the game wants to survive into 2018.
But one thing is clear: such an extensive system like the “Urmatrix” involves a tremendous amount of work and requires a lot of fine-tuning.
More about the Urmatrix can be found in this article:
With the Sci-Fi MMORPG WildStar from Carbine Studios and NCSoft, you can expect action-packed gameplay with tons of content and a completely new story in the wa...
