Slot wild symbols: do they actually help or just feel good when they land

Whenever I’m playing slots and a wild symbol pops up, there’s always that little jolt of excitement, but then half the time it doesn’t really lead to anything big. I get that wilds are supposed to boost your chances by acting like any symbol, but most of my spins with a wild feel like teases instead of real value. The stats in the paytable show how often they show up, but it seems like you need a really specific setup for the wilds to actually create a big win, not just plug a random gap.

Maybe I’m looking at it too much from a blackjack mindset where every small edge is worth tracking, but with slots, it feels a lot more smoke and mirrors. Has anyone tracked wild symbols over a big sample of spins or actually run the numbers? I wonder if they’re mostly there to make the reels more exciting and not really change the expected value much. Curious how people here see it from their own play.