One of the most discouraging aspects for many players right now is investing a large amount of time into progression, knowing it can all be erased with a full wipe.
Vendor progression, city development, research, and long-term PvE goals require significant time and effort. Losing everything after dozens (or hundreds) of hours feels less like a reset and more like punishment, which directly hurts motivation and long-term retention.
For many players, this leads to a simple conclusion:
Why invest time at all, if all progress will be lost anyway?
🔄 A Soft Wipe Would Already Be Enough
A soft wipe would solve most of the problems without killing motivation:
Reset character stash
Reset character inventory & equipped gear
Reset character level / XP
While keeping:
Vendors
Cities / Lodge / Research
Campaign progress
Utility unlocks
This would:
Refresh the economy
Reset power gaps
Encourage fresh seasonal starts
👉 Without erasing long-term PvE investment
⚠️ If Full Wipes Are Kept…
If full wipes are absolutely necessary, then the rewards must justify the loss.
That means:
Much stronger and more meaningful seasonal rewards
Permanent unlocks that clearly respect the time invested
Cosmetics or account-wide bonuses that feel proportional to the grind
Right now, the time investment is heavy, but the long-term payoff is not.
This imbalance is what causes burnout and makes players quit instead of returning for the next season.
🎯 Why This Matters
PvE players are not motivated by constant resets
Repeating the exact same progression every season quickly becomes exhausting
A soft wipe still preserves balance without destroying player attachment
A system that respects time investment will always retain more players than one that repeatedly deletes it.
If you want, I can:
Make this shorter and more direct
Adapt it to sound more technical / dev-focused
Merge it with the previous vendors & cities feedback into one strong post
