[Megathread] Wildstar - Now F2P

[Stormkhan]

Bardarian got banned for those posts? Really?

Anyway, yeah questing could use some work but at least they are revamping the mechanics of it. Not sure if that will make them more interesting but at least they will be more bearable to complete.

@Bardarian banned i just got a mini heart attack ;< Dat gui is the most genuine guy i know on this forum and i love reading his material.

@questing: It`ll always be boring imo cuz ppl look forward to `end-game` and just want to get done with leveling asap no matter how interesting it is. Sure there are people who love leveling, but i`m speaking about the 80% + who take end game seriously (only). So no matter how dynamic leveling is (Look at gw2), ppl want to eat the food not just smell it ;D

[Sy]

@questing: It`ll always be boring imo cuz ppl look forward to `end-game` and just want to get done with leveling asap no matter how interesting it is. Sure there are people who love leveling, but i`m speaking about the 80% + who take end game seriously (only). So no matter how dynamic leveling is (Look at gw2), ppl want to eat the food not just smell it ;D

leveling doesn't matter only for the first character, though. all the more reason to give it replayability.
of course many people also level alts purely for endgame, and would rather not have to level at all :/

[zito]

leveling doesn't matter only for the first character, though. all the more reason to give it replayability.
of course many people also level alts purely for endgame, and would rather not have to level at all :/

If leveling isn't going to be interesting and the focus forever moving forward would be elder game then there really isn't a point to leveling, and everything should be a free for all. Every content is relevant thing like GW2 (except make zones more closer together in difficulty then GW2 does).

And I'm not talking about TSW, as they gated their content with gear which would be the equivalent of having levels. Invisible levels is what they do.

[Kelimbror]

If leveling isn't going to be interesting and the focus forever moving forward would be elder game then there really isn't a point to leveling, and everything should be a free for all. Every content is relevant thing like GW2 (except make zones more closer together in difficulty then GW2 does).

And I'm not talking about TSW, as they gated their content with gear which would be the equivalent of having levels. Invisible levels is what they do.

There are tons of interesting things that could be done to combat leveling if they insist on using it as a method for acquiring power and abilities. I think learning abilities by using lesser abilities (like GW2) is pretty drab, but questing to earn abilities would be ok to me if done well. It's the only way I can see using leveling to its purpose as opposed to just making a long slog to level cap.

The world could all be a lot more evenly tuned so that 80% of the content is available as soon as you enter the game, but the initial quest lines give you some foundation abilities for your class. Then you could have quests that direct you other places based on your playstyle, like zone A for healing abilities and B for dps but presented with a story. It would also mean you could queue for dungeons as soon as you complete that intro line for basic abilities, allowing people to start end game when they want.

As an addendum they could offer ability unlocking from competing in PvP and running Dungeons or single player instances so that people who don't want to quest can grind it out how they see fit. If we want to be honest it's the most fair system for everyone involved that way they can decide how they want to progress and what they want to earn. If someone heals and only wants to heal, let them do the healing missions, then run dungeons for healing gear, then go right to raids. No sense forcing them through anything else.

[zito]

It should go like this: Remove levels:

-Make every zone except the 2 starter zones equal in power and difficulty according to intended max "level" zones while removing the levels.

-Make the 2 starter zones have a set line path for players. Player starts here, then goes here, then here, etc and each traveling point increases the difficulty and pushes the player till the final point of the starter zone is on the same level, actually a little bit weaker, then the rest of the elder game zones that we normalized earlier. This will grant players the feel of character progressing and make them feel stronger for end game zones and also teaches players how to play the game.

-Elder game zones (since they are all equal in power) will give rewards according to max "level" solo content rewards that were already planned. So all gear you will get will be equal to power in other zones. So elders zones become a free for all of what you want to do. Rewards include various gear stats, new skills, money, cosmetic gear, housing items, etc, etc and with so many ways to customize people will want different gear sets further increasing character sense of progression.

-With levels gone the gear treadmill starts in dungeons where you can get better gear then solo content (after you finish optimizing and customizing your gear from solo rewards) from the elder game zones and then after dungeons is raids. You can mentor down your "gear power" if you so choose to go back to solo content with a challenge. Since its optional, people who want a challenge can scale themselves down and people who want to one shot everything can still do that.

Wala! You just created the game with the most relevant solo content in the history of ever. While still having a feeling of character growth and rewards and removing pointless levels.

Leveling, is fucking stupid and a waste of time.

Another addition to rewards for my idea:

-Questing in elder zones give various rewards to choose from in the form of currency tokens. 1 type of token for skills, 1 type for stat gear, 1 type for cosmetic gear, 1 type for housing items, a type of token for everything really and you choose out of the various things what you want.

So it is entirely possible to level a character and just collect all gear type tokens and him just collecting gear. But now when you level another character, that character can collect other currency's since your main character collected gear tokens, so for example now your new alt will collect housing tokens. This makes leveling alts progression feel fresh and they can also start in other zones first since all zones (except the 2 starter zones) are normalized.

Dungeons/adventures and raids also follow this token design. Adding new dungeons will be the same relevant power and difficulty as old dungeons but there will be more unique rewards such as cosmetic gear, housing items, new stat combos and among other things. New raids will still have a gear treadmill so you need to do the old raid first and gear up for the new raid.

So Hard core players still get their gear progression via raids and more casual and solo people can focus on more broader rewards and customization and not worry about a gear treadmill to "catch up".

BOOM, sometimes I have my moments of creative genius.

[Keren]

Look like I'm a special snowflake again :/ I hated GW2 questing. The way quests got picked up simply because you where in the zone and achieving something simply by doing anything that sparkles was just awful. I had no real reason ToDo anything other than that friends already had higher levels. I may had to rush those areas. But more over, I think these different zones had different story based on the leading race. I dont kniw, I swtiched so often that I dont even know who was the bad guy :/

The best questing I experienced till now are the class storys of SWTOR. Every arc was unique and got influenced by decisions you made through the story. However, I dont think we can expect something like that of W*. Nevertheless the different playable paths will lead to some distincted experiences playing alts..


edit: can we let Zito and Kitty develope a game?!

[zito]

edit: can we let Zito and Kitty develope a game?!

Give us money and a company takeover of carbine studios and you got a deal

[Kelimbror]

edit: can we let Zito and Kitty develope a game?!

I think the problem is that developers know how they could make these games, but publishers are too afraid to make them. And for the most part they are probably right to fear a flop, because the average MMO player isn't going to understand what they are trying to do. If you put in a game with no levels, they are going to assume something is wrong and feel like they aren't progressing.

It's a very uphill battle to convince people who have been trained to see an explosion of light and sound accompanied by your level going up by one that instead of all that noise you are going to gain a new ability and can choose how and where you get that ability. It all comes down to the fact that as much as consumers say they want choice and options, they want to be told exactly what to do and don't like deviating from that at all.

I've read some marketing stuff about that very principle, but it goes in line with customers not knowing what they want but knowing when they don't like something.

[Deleted]

Give us money and a company takeover of carbine studios and you got a deal

No just make your own.

[zito]

No just make your own.

It's easier to do a company takeover.

[Deleted]

In the (unlikely) case anyone is unable or unwilling to try the game, I'd take a code. Thanks in advance.

[Sy]

It would also mean you could queue for dungeons as soon as you complete that intro line for basic abilities, allowing people to start end game when they want.

i don't think that would be a good idea. a few initial quest lines are not gonna be enough to prepare the majority of players for a challenging dungeon. there would be three ways to deal with that, but they all have big drawbacks:

• make the dungeons really easy, but then many of the people who your design idea is aimed at will probably find them boring and lose interest in the game.
• you keep the dungeons challenging, but then many players that are new to the game or even mmos in general will find them frustrating and lose interest in the game. plus, skilled players will get even more frustrated due to 'noobs' in pug groups, than would already be the case.
• make some dungeons really easy, but others really challenging, with a steady increase in difficulty. but that means either that there would need to be a lot more dungeons, or that the few that exist will get repetitive very quickly, as people will not generally alternate between them. also, either the dungeons would need to be restricted and gated in some way -- which really would defeat the purpose of your idea -- or you will find that many players take on dungeons that aren't skilled enough for (yet), again leading to the problems of the second solution.

don't get me wrong, i'm sure many people would love it (especially ones that are already somewhat dedicated to the game, like in this thread^^) but i really can't see it being a smart decision for developers who want to make good profit.

It should go like this:

i see one crippling flaw in your whole system: if you have stat gear and/or skills as rewards (even if they are optional) from quests, most players will of course grow in power. that's after all the intention, to give people the much needed "feeling of character growth".
except, it's not just a feeling, it's an actual power increase -- both absolute and relative to the played content. which is a problem, because the zones in your system are all the same difficulty, meaning that they will be the hardest early on, shorty after people start playing or create a new character (after the starting questline) and then become less and less challenging over time, until they are the easiest just before you start doing other content. that is preeeetty bad.

generally content should either stay around the same difficulty, or slowly increase it over time. if it's the other way round, you'll have lots of people being frustrated by 'too hard' content almost right away and people being bored due to the lack of challenge.
and if you make stat gear and skills increase power only by a very small amount, you are sacrificing most of that feeling of growth that tends to be the main motivation for people playing mmos (and it would really only lessen the impact of the problem, not actually solve it).

now, one sort-of-solution would be to remove levels, but still have specific zones (or some areas within the zones) provide more of a challenge than others, with stronger/more enemies. but then you pretty much just replaced one artificial system of gating (leveling) with another (gear progression). also, this wouldn't really work if you want to make the power increasing reqards optional.

Look like I'm a special snowflake again :/

i loved leveling/questing in both swtor and gw2, but i guess they are kind of the opposite from each other. one is very linear with focus on player-npc-interaction, the other is for people who just like to explore on their own and do some stuff in one place, then some stuff somewhere completely different.

i can't see any mmos in the next years coming close to what swtor did though. it just cost them too much of their budget for content that can't keep most people for longer than a few weeks.

I think the problem is that developers know how they could make these games, but publishers are too afraid to make them. And for the most part they are probably right to fear a flop, because the average MMO player isn't going to understand what they are trying to do.

yeah, that's always a big problem =/
mmos are just so ridiculously expensive and time consuming to make, most developers/publishers aren't going to risk any more than they absolutely have to. can't really blame them.

In the (unlikely) case anyone is unable or unwilling to try the game, I'd take a code. Thanks in advance.

we aren't allowed to request or give out beta codes in this thread.

[zito]

snip

The starter zone is actually really big. When I said the starter zone I meant the entire first zone you go to, thats why I said a character follows a set path in the starter zone until the end where it becomes almost as difficult as elder game zones. Which gives the player a sense of learning and character growth before they get to elder game (which is all normalized zones to be equal in difficulty and power) and character growth from then on is obtaining skills, different gear sets, unique skins, etc etc and if a player wants to progress further, there is dungeons and then raids after that. With mentoring you can scale yourself down from dungeon or raid gear to still have a challenge in solo zones.

[Sy]

The starter zone is actually really big, thats why I said a character follows a set path in the starter zone until the end where it becomes almost as difficult as elder game zones.

that doesn't adress the problem at all, though. it just means it will happen a little later.

either you have gear progression or something similar while doing the zones (in which case there's the problem i described) or you don't (in which case many players will lose interest as they have no feeling of character/power growth).

[zito]

that doesn't adress the problem at all, though. it just means it will happen a little later.

either you have gear progression or something similar while doing the zones (in which case there's the problem i described) or you don't (in which case many players will lose interest as they have no feeling of character/power growth).

I already explained that in my first post about character progression after solo in the form of different gear sets, skills, and currency. And there is still a power growth in raids and dungeons and then mentoring down if you go back to solo content.

Read it fully, don't skim over it

[Kelimbror]

i don't think that would be a good idea. a few initial quest lines are not gonna be enough to prepare the majority of players for a challenging dungeon.

Since the design shift would focus on content over stuffing the world with too many quests, there would be multiple difficulties of dungeons that serve to introduce players to mechanics and account for the smaller skill sets. The idea is that the guided quests, which would be similar to the DK intro quest, would give you adequate tools to perform acceptably.

You're forgetting that we have dungeons as lowbies too. Same principle would apply here. Everyone has basic sets of abilities to make it through and it rewards gear and/or more abilities. You could have the queues function on a behind the scenes skill level that takes into account your gear and number/level of abilities gained.

To top it all off, quest chains in larger zones can reward cosmetic gear and spell effects. You want to be a mage that shoots cold lasers instead of ice balls? You can do that. Want to be a warrior who slings blood everywhere you go? You can do that. A druid that has unique animal forms? You can do that.

I need to stop talking about this before I want this game that will never happen.

[zito]

I need to stop talking about this before I want this game that will never happen.

Yea I just hyped myself up to something that will never happen

:x

[Nirawen]

BOOM, sometimes I have my moments of creative genius.

I guess that's a matter of opinion as the systems you described sound dreadful to me.

[Sy]

I already explained that in my first post about character progression after solo in the form of different gear sets, skills, and currency. And there is still a power growth in raids and dungeons and then mentoring down if you go back to solo content.

Read it fully, don't skim over it

i did read it all, otherwise i wouldn't have criticised it.

you mentioned at two points that there is gear progression while doing the elder zones, after the starting zone:

Elder game zones (since they are all equal in power) will give rewards according to max "level" solo content rewards that were already planned. [..] Rewards include various gear stats, new skills

With levels gone the gear treadmill starts in dungeons where you can get better gear then solo content (after you finish optimizing and customizing your gear from solo rewards) from the elder game zones

and that is a problem, no matter how large the starting zone is -- assuming the elder zones themselves also offer a lot of content, which (as i understand it) is the main goal of the system: to remove the gating of leveling, while still providing a lot of solo content.

and no, being able to artificially downscale your power will not work as a real solution. i reckon most people wouldn't like to have to do that in order to get a challenge, and it would also kinda defeat the purpose of power increase and character growth.
it's a nice addition, certainly, but not a solution to the problem i've been pointing out.

Since the design shift would focus on content over stuffing the world with too many quests, there would be multiple difficulties of dungeons that serve to introduce players to mechanics and account for the smaller skill sets.

good point, i hadn't considered that the shift in design focus would provide more resources for dungeons. it can't be too much, though, as otherwise many people will be disappointed by the lack of solo content.

The idea is that the guided quests, which would be similar to the DK intro quest, would give you adequate tools to perform acceptably.

i guess the general idea works, although it would still have to be a lot more extensive than the dk zone in guiding and teaching new players. the dk zone really only works for people who are new to the class, not to the game, let alone to mmos in general.

plus, there are still tons of horrible dks in the starting dungeon of outland. but then again, i guess that can be said to a degree for just about any class <_<

[zito]

and that is a problem, no matter how large the starting zone is -- assuming the elder zones themselves also offer a lot of content, which (as i understand it) is the main goal of the system: to remove the gating of leveling, while still providing a lot of solo content.

and no, being able to artificially downscale your power will not work as a real solution. i reckon most people wouldn't like to have to do that in order to get a challenge, and it would also kinda defeat the purpose of power increase and character growth.
it's a nice addition, certainly, but not a solution to the problem i've been pointing out.

When I said gear stats I meant different set bonuses and ratio of gear. All on the same power. The only gear progression is for raiding, everything else is for cosmetics or customization and if raiders want a challenge when doing solo they can scale themselves down.

Before LFR in WoW only a small portion of the community actually raided, somewhere around 10%. So I don't see the problem you are creating.