[Megathread] Wildstar - Now F2P

[SodiumChloride]

Up to a point. But that said I didn't find anything grindy about the Wildstar attunement myself. I've had much bigger grinds and huger timesinks to go through in every single WoW expansion to be competitive for example.

Well, I suppose there is "trial and error" grind which most find acceptable - although I don't really like it; as a player I want "all the pieces to solve the puzzle" available at the start and don't like "failing" because information was withheld from me. [1]

Then there is grind "grind", where you do the same (relatively simple) mundane thing over and over and over again - this few find acceptable because it's hella bothering.

[1] The classic examples would be NES games where you practically have zero time to react to the one-shot kills and have to pretty much memorize the level to get past them.

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1. Hardcore raiders generally don't whine when they have to grind something to be competitive or to get access. The raids in Wildstar are hardcore, so if you complain about attunements and grinds you're not hardcore and the raids aren't for you. Very simple.
2. Grinding stuff requires a certain amount of discipline and patience. Two qualities which are very much required to get through difficult raidcontent too.

I disagree with this so much I can't even put it in words.
Trying your hand at really difficult content should have nothing to do with doing really boring content BEFORE you can try your hand at said difficult content.
Look at for example Ys: Oath in Felghana. It's not an MMO I know, but this game just throws boss after boss after boss at you without much grinding.
They always completely kick my ass, and I have to learn the mechanics etc. Which I love about it.

If that game required me to do 10 days of collecting flowers before I could try a boss, I would have chucked it in the bin months ago.

I suppose there is a reason Blizzard has removed ALL "prep" for raids - attunement, consumables, resist gear ... etc.

Most likely it's because a huge number of players didn't like it.

[shimargh]

Besides I think you guys are right in many points, about the attunements -for me, I don't really have much time, but I don't see them as "awful grinds", but I hate dailies, alwasy have.- it's not so different from starting any game with more than one expansion from zero, you have to level the way up and gear and prepare for dungeons, then raids, or do bgs then arenas, and some reps for certain items -at least wow was that way, until "island of freebies", but you still need some time for others things. Yeah sue my now for comparing.-
The difference here, its just is a new game, you don't have a guild ready 100% to help you bypass the whole process or friends that already had professions on top and full with mats to craft your way up.
I kind of like they force you to see the content -this sould be a must, this is no COD- before raiding, but they fucked up with the repititions.

[DeadmanWalking]

If you don't think hardcore players whine about grind then you obviously were not paying attention. I hear the most whining from hardcore raiders about 'forced to do X' because they would much rather just be raiding. It gets to the point where they say 'forced' when content is optional because their guild forces them to do it but they blame the game devs for putting it there even though it is optional. Dailies, forced. Fishing to make food, forced grind. DPS can use bandaids to heal bloods, forced to level first aid. Grind. Forced. Anything outside of knocking over bosses and kicking over loot chests can be considered a grind to a lot of vocal people. Hardcore guild wants you to have an alt of dps/tank/heals? Tripple Grind!! GAWD Devs!

I have even heard some people say they would be open to a game with just a city for auctions and a portal to a never ending line of raid bosses with no other things to do because everything else is a grind.

Being a hardcore gamer doesn't make anyone a pure hearted paragon of their gaming community.

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Besides I think you guys are right in many points, about the attunements -for me, I don't really have much time, but I don't see them as "awful grinds", but I hate dailies, alwasy have.- it's not so different from starting any game with more than one expansion from zero, you have to level the way up and gear and prepare for dungeons, then raids, or do bgs then arenas, and some reps for certain items -at least wow was that way, until "island of freebies", but you still need some time for others things. Yeah sue my now for comparing.-
The difference here, its just is a new game, you don't have a guild ready 100% to help you bypass the whole process or friends that already had professions on top and full with mats to craft your way up.
I kind of like they force you to see the content -this sould be a must, this is no COD- before raiding, but they fucked up with the repititions.

The biggest problem with attunements is that unless you get 20+ people who are serious about effectively jumping over the attunement gate in a timely mannor you are doomed to a never ending cycle of dying guilds. You practically jump out of the pan into the fire, out of the fire onto the grill, out of the grill into the burning house, out of the burning house directly into the first level of hell and then you bounce all the way down to the seventh level of hell before you give up. If anyone is not making as much progress as those in the guild who are closest to finishing attunement the forerunners hop ship like a boat made of fecal matter. Burning Fecal Matter.

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That and the last guild I was in every time someone said, "Lets get X dungeon attunement done" several people in the guild would say, "I just did all my dailies and I am burned out today, I don't want to do anything else today now." And dead.

[shimargh]

That and the last guild I was in every time someone said, "Lets get X dungeon attunement done" several people in the guild would say, "I just did all my dailies and I am burned out today, I don't want to do anything else today now." And dead.

yeah, I get you there, that happened a lot in my last guild in wow, pretty much because we were almost all burned down by that time, even the runs for JP were awfully avoided.

[Mirishka]

Didn't see a mention of this here, but the devs are making a pretty substantial change to the game's content delivery:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/...5848e43e00000a

In short, too many smaller buggy releases that have more players bitching than there are players praising 'yay fast content!' So they're switching to quarterly releases for more polish.

[Punisher069]

Didn't see a mention of this here, but the devs are making a pretty substantial change to the game's content delivery:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/...5848e43e00000a

In short, too many smaller buggy releases that have more players bitching than there are players praising 'yay fast content!' So they're switching to quarterly releases for more polish.

A previous poster posted that, but thanks anyway just in case someone might have missed it. Also your avatar makes me laugh every time.

[Tekkommo]

Didn't see a mention of this here, but the devs are making a pretty substantial change to the game's content delivery:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/...5848e43e00000a

In short, too many smaller buggy releases that have more players bitching than there are players praising 'yay fast content!' So they're switching to quarterly releases for more polish.

Wasn't it more, the content you're releasing is crap, plus your game is already bugged.

[Post]

- The rep/gem grind is to build your patience for wiping
- World Boss farming combines patience and groups bigger than 5 people

it does relate to raiding but not int he way many think it does, its allot softer than proving grounds in WoW can get but longer and more tedious.

Sorry this is nonsense, grinding does not build patience for wiping and that seems like a desperate attempt at trying to rationalize. I could say any horrible mechanic in any game is building tolerance for a shitty part of the game if I went that route..

The lack of logical coherence in that reasoning is that you equate an exclusive endgame with 'catering to a select few'.

Exclusivity doesn't equal catering to a select few? That's exactly what exclusivity is...

Secondly it also is a considerable lacuna to somehow equate anything that is happening to the game with Carbine's financial success

That's cute for someone who says stuff like:

Yeah, shady stuff going on. Where there is smoke there is fire.

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Something we have pointed out since thousands of pages ago. Making the attunement easier would only mean all these people who couldn't be bothered with doing their attunement would end up having to face content they equally couldn't be bothered to learn the required skills for.

You'll never know that because they won't waste their time with pointless shit to test their skills at the actual raids.

The reality isn't that the attunement is bad or wrong, it's that if you don't like the attunement the raidcontent behind it isn't for you either.

That'd make sense if the attunement was based on raid content which is to provide a challenge. Unfortunately it's just there to waste your time.

The argument could be that there isn't enough solo-content, but ... which magical MMO have people played over the past decade that has decent solo-content? Maybe the realization should be happening among this large market of customers who keep purchasing the wrong genres.

Just because other games suck in certain areas, doesn't mean people aren't allowed to call out this one for sucking in that area as well. Oh, and they probably shouldn't hype up solo content if their solo content sucks...

People who don't like timesinks also don't like difficult PvE content. Ergo it serves to keeping the people with a wrong mindset out of raiding.

Nah, people are fine if difficult PvE content takes time because it's actually difficult and that's rewarding. Pointless time sinks aren't rewarding.

Also, I'm aware of the mod warning, I see people making counter points not getting infracted so I'm assuming me arguing like I am above is okay. If it's too hostile I'm not sure where to go with that, because the thread is just people arguing nonstop for both sides, and I feel I should have the right to defend my opinions if the other side continues to voice theirs.

[Pejo]

One thing I have an issue with is they are looking at switching over to quarterly patches (I can deal with this), but the current content plan doesn't seem like a lot for pushing a 1month release schedule to 3. If they're including Veteran Shiphands, I can agree that this will feel more substancial; however, with it just being a new zone and fixes to core things, I am worried it'll become ghost town. Do we know if this release will include the new starter dungeon? That would be nice for sure.

36 now, and am hoping I won't be 50 until the next patch - I am looking forward to the rune changes so I can feel the gear progression. Also really hoping that Dominion gets quite a bit bigger population with the megaservers - my warrior is attuned, but alone.

[Lane]

Yeah...my vote was Darkwitch as well. Entity is the most bland name I could imagine for a megaserver.

Entity sounds like a pretentious guild name, which considering the audience the game is/was trying to cater to I suppose is apt. :P

Course, I'm biased because Darkwitch reminds me of the enemies of the same name in Phantasy Star IV.

[Gaidax]

Didn't see a mention of this here, but the devs are making a pretty substantial change to the game's content delivery:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/...5848e43e00000a

In short, too many smaller buggy releases that have more players bitching than there are players praising 'yay fast content!' So they're switching to quarterly releases for more polish.

I way their PR twists and bends stuff, I am pretty much sure that the new quarterly schedule is not the result of whatever they say, but probably a result of this game being scheduled to get over to the life support maintenance mode or work on some feature designed to bring back the crowd such as shop or maybe even partial F2P.

Partial F2P or unlimited trial until level 20 would do good for this game, in my opinion, since these are the good times there, you get a Dungeon and Adventure access, you do not experience the grind yet, so basically you get all the good stuff that might make people consider purchase.

Of course they need to prepare level 50 content too, get rid of the whole attunement grind - make it much simpler such as complete all level 50 Adventures and Dungeons and kill one World Boss, make GA an entry level raid with according difficulty except for maybe last boss or two and start the real game from Datascape.

The game IS good, it's just their whole HARDCOAARRR attitude ruined it by scaring everyone away with insane grind and frustrating attunement requirements. Bugs, meh, to be honest except for a couple really annoying bugs with Drusera questline (basically almost every Drusera solo instance used to have some bug preventing progress, which was VERY annoying, but fixed fast) and Deathbringer Kala bug, I do not remember anything OMG insanely bugged really. Well bot UI was dumb and I happened to play Engineer, but you could work around it.

So no, bugs are definitely NOT the reason for the state of this game. It simply was a lack of decent solo content and progression path, horribly designed medal system (the idea is good, but it was gold or go home, which led to disbands 5 minutes in) and unreasonable attunement, which basically meant that most of the players were stuck at the main city while waiting for queue to pop up only to get back into queue after 5-10 minutes because party disbanded due to missing gold and dungeons being limited to pure premade groups only and being useless unless you managed Silver at least.

Bad design and lack of forethought all around.

[zito]

unlimited trial until level 20

Not really. The first 20 levels are horrid.

[Gaidax]

Not really. The first 20 levels are horrid.

They are horrid if you do them for 200 times, which we all did in early access and beta weekends. For me first and even second time around they were very nice, although it depends on a zone you chose, but the first Adventure was really nice and Dungeon could be nice too if it was easier and more rewarding.

OK, they are not AMAZING, but they are very decent, it's not on the level of WoW's Forsaken low levels zones, but they are better than everything else.

Anyway, my point is that the guys who quit Wildstar are probably lost, unless something REALLY big and exciting happens (think new raid tier, alongside with GA and even Datascape becoming puggable AND big bonus for previous customers who resub, such as 1-2 months free or something like that), which probably won't happen. So you need to call in fresh guys.

[Post]

OK, they are not AMAZING, but they are very decent, it's not on the level of WoW's Forsaken low levels zones, but they are better than everything else.

The zones look awesome, and the path stuff is awesome, but the normal questing is horrible in my experience. Like maybe on par with some WoW zones (IMO should be a way better leveling exp considering it came out in 2014), and not even close to GW2, which was actually a fun leveling experience. All of this is subjective though obviously.

[Pejo]

I still think that my 'fix' for questing is a great idea, and will shove it down their throat at every attempt.

I believe that they should remove all Task quests and only have World/Regional and Zone stories. This would drastically reduce the number of quests, and would make the story more engaging since you will not have to read 10-12 filler quest text. I believe this would also reduce people feeling overwhelmed due to the large amount of quests given at a time, and make them feel more meaningful. From there, I would move Task quests to optional bonus quests that pop up when you enter the questing area. It would have a very similar format to WoD's new questing system.

I was going to attempt to build this as an addon. It would basically auto-accept any quests marked as tasks, and hide them on your quest tracker. The regular quests would show up and be readable. From there, the tasks would only show up on your quest tracker when you enter that area, and have it pop up showing the objective and your progress. I don't have the time to learn their API, but maybe one day.

Oh yea...remove restrictions on Mentoring also.

[zito]

Oh yea...remove restrictions on Mentoring also.

They still have those pointless restrictions on mentoring? Sheesh

[Pejo]

They still have those pointless restrictions on mentoring? Sheesh

Yes. I'm still hoping when they introduce Veteran Shiphands (and hope to god they do it right by keeping its scalable nature, versus forcing a group size), that they will also fix mentoring on that day.

[Deleted]

Not really. The first 20 levels are horrid.

Loved them all....most fun MMO I have ever played

I never joined the race...I took part in the journey, and what a journey it was, a sheer delight for eyes and ears, so many players these days hammer a beta till they reach burnout, then it's all rush to max, so many miss so much.

[Punisher069]

Sometimes I really think you're just writing parodies of actual good reviews.

It sure does sound like considering their non Wildstar posts as well.

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Loved them all....most fun MMO I have ever played

I never joined the race...I took part in the journey, and what a journey it was, a sheer delight for eyes and ears, so many players these days hammer a beta till they reach burnout, then it's all rush to max, so many miss so much.

Some people enjoy racing to max level. The "journey" as you put it doesn't mean much to them. I know a lot of different types of players. I know some people that barely read quests, just enough to get them done, and I know people that read every single one without skimming.

[Graeham]

Wildstar's quests became a shining star in areas such as Farside where environmental mechanics were actively embraced. One of my most enjoyable moments in-game involved a standard kill quest in a very dark and derelict silo filled with monstrous creatures and only a flashlight to illuminate the immediate area around my character. It was atmospheric and just as fun as the low gravity outside in the rest of the region.

It's a shame that the developers didn't add similar mechanics to the rest of the game's zones.