[Megathread] Wildstar - Now F2P

[geekx]

Content exclusivity works well when you can provide a route that anyone can take and progress through. The exclusivity should be provuided by the fact that a small amount of people can get to the end of the road, while all the others stop before, for any reason.

A multiple difficulty styled raiding system covers pretty well this. I'm not saying it's the best method since i think that many people who could possibly progress further just stop bored by the idea to rerun content they have already seen, but it works to a degree.

Wildstar has an awesome core that can function pretty well in this optic - i'd really like to see what's up for the future of the game.

This is the description of the raiding system in TBC before hard modes that kept most people playing. Few where willing or had the people/skill to get to BT many guilds got stuck in Kara/Za until wrath. This is the system i miss in any MMO and Wildstar is the only game currently with a raiding system very close to this one, the only thing missing is a casual entry raid.

[LazarusLong]

That is some extreme strawmanning there.

Oh really. Says the guy who blamed WS problems on marketing budget /facepalm

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Content exclusivity works well when you can provide a route that anyone can take and progress through. The exclusivity should be provuided by the fact that a small amount of people can get to the end of the road, while all the others stop before, for any reason.

A multiple difficulty styled raiding system covers pretty well this. I'm not saying it's the best method since i think that many people who could possibly progress further just stop bored by the idea to rerun content they have already seen, but it works to a degree.

Wildstar has an awesome core that can function pretty well in this optic - i'd really like to see what's up for the future of the game.

Maybe, but you can't lock best parts of the game for 99% of players.

[Roshar]

That is some extreme strawmanning there.

"Hello Kettle, you're black.

Love, Pot"

[Coldkil]

This is the description of the raiding system in TBC before hard modes that kept most people playing. Few where willing or had the people/skill to get to BT many guilds got stuck in Kara/Za until wrath. This is the system i miss in any MMO and Wildstar is the only game currently with a raiding system very close to this one, the only thing missing is a casual entry raid.

Tbh i hadn't TBC in mind, mostly because what i didn't like about it was the fact people starting after or going slower needed to start from the very beginning - things like alt or compensating for people leaving was just brutal.

A crazy thought that passed through my brain was that raids could have become dungeons/scenarios since story-wise we've dealt with the menace there so when they're no longer current-content, they become catch-up for people who start later or simply dont want to deal woth raiding - they can experience the story/loactions, only later compared to raiding guilds, but they have the way to catch up (instead of putting every patch a not-so-good random daily hub that rewards overbudgeted items so people basically skip everything).

just my two cents anyway.

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Maybe, but you can't lock best parts of the game for 99% of players.

Agree - that's why i say that the road needs to be available to everyone. This doesn't mean you can get to see a lot of stuff with minimal effort.

[geekx]

Tbh i hadn't TBC in mind, mostly because what i didn't like about it was the fact people starting after or going slower needed to start from the very beginning - things like alt or compensating for people leaving was just brutal.

A crazy thought that passed through my brain was that raids could have become dungeons/scenarios since story-wise we've dealt with the menace there so when they're no longer current-content, they become catch-up for people who start later or simply dont want to deal woth raiding - they can experience the story/loactions, only later compared to raiding guilds, but they have the way to catch up (instead of putting every patch a not-so-good random daily hub that rewards overbudgeted items so people basically skip everything).

just my two cents anyway.

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Agree - that's why i say that the road needs to be available to everyone. This doesn't mean you can get to see a lot of stuff with minimal effort.

The main story of the game is outside of raiding with only a sidebar of the story being in raiding. This mostly took care of the problem with seeing the story in raids unless you want the sidebar too.

Converting raids in to dungeons would be very good for players who wouldn't raid most of the time like the LFR types. But I can imagine better catch up mechanics that keep the current structure in place, in WoW the best and fairest catch up mechanics where in Wrath. In my personal opinion it made past content too irrelevant but it did its job well for the amount of effort. If you take the wrath model and modify it to skip less content but have it skip one raid per previous tier the TBC model of raiding suddenly doesn't look as bad for the new/slow/behind players.

The idea is to slowly tone in casual content until you find a sweet spot so you don't make it too casual and feel like cheating for players use to the old ways.

[Graeham]

It's just not viable for a modern MMO to lock a significant chunk of content behind an artificial gate. Wildstar would be doing very well for itself right about now if it had embraced the fact that it's one of the few sci-fi MMO's currently on the market with a very unique and distinct tone and style. Perhaps it will still evolve into something very impressive, I certainly hope so!

[geekx]

It's just not viable for a modern MMO to lock a significant chunk of content behind an artificial gate. Wildstar would be doing very well for itself right about now if it had embraced the fact that it's one of the few sci-fi MMO's currently on the market with a very unique and distinct tone and style. Perhaps it will still evolve into something very impressive, I certainly hope so!

Currently the only artificial gate i know of is the attunement, not being a huge fan of the attunement they did its not that bad. Other than that the only thing keeping people out of raiding is finding the 19 other people, learning your class/role, and getting the pre raid gear. 40 mans will be gone soon an that part of the roster boss will be gone, the artificial walls are not that big and can be easily removed.

[Deleted]

Having problems understanding runes ? full guide at http://www.readycheck.org/en/guides/...w-rune-system/

[Kelimbror]

Currently the only artificial gate i know of is the attunement

Initially it was attunment, ability points, amp points, amps, gear, etc. They have mildly corrected the ability and amp points, since they supposedly drop from actual content and not repetitive grinds for elder gems. I have no frame of reference since I haven't played since those changes, but that was actually one of my biggest complaints.

When people did the math and found out you had to cap gems every week for 9 months or so straight just to have all your character's abilities...yeah...that was dumb.

[zito]

Initially it was attunment, ability points, amp points, amps, gear, etc. They have mildly corrected the ability and amp points, since they supposedly drop from actual content and not repetitive grinds for elder gems. I have no frame of reference since I haven't played since those changes, but that was actually one of my biggest complaints.

When people did the math and found out you had to cap gems every week for 9 months or so straight just to have all your character's abilities...yeah...that was dumb.

But hey it created a meaningful solo progression

/end sarcasm

[geekx]

Initially it was attunment, ability points, amp points, amps, gear, etc. They have mildly corrected the ability and amp points, since they supposedly drop from actual content and not repetitive grinds for elder gems. I have no frame of reference since I haven't played since those changes, but that was actually one of my biggest complaints.

When people did the math and found out you had to cap gems every week for 9 months or so straight just to have all your character's abilities...yeah...that was dumb.

Yes it was one of the dumbest things ever, I think someone had a screw loose at the time. There are so many things in flux at the moment that we dont know what to expect at what time. All i know is a more friendly boss in a box wintergrasp style boss is on its way after an overhaul of itemization and so much other stuff.

But hey it created a meaningful solo progression

/end sarcasm

Most of it was stuff people where going to do anyways at some point in time, the only thing despised by me in the attunement was the rep grind.

[Kelimbror]

But hey it created a meaningful solo progression

*rimshot*
*tears*
There are so many ways to make their content viable...I just don't get it. They could borrow from Rift, WoW, LotRO, god...just about any MMO. Rift has the currency system like WotLK era wow where you can run dungeons and world events to get one tier lower than current raid gear. It serves to make the accessible content rewarding without overshadowing raiding and also infinitely extends the life of the lower content.

Conversely they can actually implement solo instanced content like LotRO, which uses scaling at all levels so that you can run skirmishes of any variety even at max level and get max level rewards. It utilizes a simple currency system, which Wildstar also has a structure for, and just developed scaling tech. LotRO has had solo dungeons for forever.

I mean there's just so many ways to do these things right, I have no idea how MMOs fail at these things anymore.

[geekx]

*rimshot*
*tears*
There are so many ways to make their content viable...I just don't get it. They could borrow from Rift, WoW, LotRO, god...just about any MMO. Rift has the currency system like WotLK era wow where you can run dungeons and world events to get one tier lower than current raid gear. It serves to make the accessible content rewarding without overshadowing raiding and also infinitely extends the life of the lower content.

Conversely they can actually implement solo instanced content like LotRO, which uses scaling at all levels so that you can run skirmishes of any variety even at max level and get max level rewards. It utilizes a simple currency system, which Wildstar also has a structure for, and just developed scaling tech. LotRO has had solo dungeons for forever.

I mean there's just so many ways to do these things right, I have no idea how MMOs fail at these things anymore.

The older guys at the top beat down all the ideas of the more culturally in tune devs so until after the mass exodus of the higher up old guys things get stuck.

^ Theory i pulled out of nowhere for discussion purposes don't take it seriously.

[Lane]

For me it actually kept the game playable during the long content-draught between BT and SWP. Without it my alt would've been geared instantly instead of having several raidtiers to progress through with pug's or guild alt-runs. I remember back in WotLK I made a shammy alt and I actually felt bad, as if I was cheating or something, that she instantly could gear up with ToT epics the same week it was released, the same days she reached max level. It didn't feel right, at the time WotLK just was a too big change to how things used to be.

I do like your idea of making old raids into 'casual dungeons' so people can see the storyline though.

Not surprisingly, I was the exact opposite. As an altoholic, I've always had to sacrifice at least 8/10 of my characters because it was difficult if not impossible to gear out more than one. BC was especially brutal for that for a multitude of reasons. Wrath actually gave me freedom to play who I wanted, when I wanted, and almost where I wanted too. Excepting 25-man progression I could usually sub in any one of my alts because they were geared decently enough through heroics to go. It was great, for me.

To this day I still can't set foot in Shadow Labyrinth without feeling sick to my stomach, that's the lasting impression BC gearing/attunements left on me.

[Kelimbror]

The older guys at the top beat down all the ideas of the more culturally in tune devs so until after the mass exodus of the higher up old guys things get stuck.

^ Theory i pulled out of nowhere for discussion purposes don't take it seriously.

Oh it definitely was part of the problem with Carbine specifically, except the same people who behind scenes were driving archaic design would publicly say they knew better than to ever do that and even said they had data proving it was bad. But then...they did it anyways. Honestly this is why so much of the criticism, even from people who honestly want the game to improve, is so scathing and bitter.

Seeing someone (Gaffney) repeatedly say they know 60% of MMO players are solo and they will have content and end game solo progression and then watching the game launch with none of that is just insulting.

[geekx]

Oh it definitely was part of the problem with Carbine specifically, except the same people who behind scenes were driving archaic design would publicly say they knew better than to ever do that and even said they had data proving it was bad. But then...they did it anyways. Honestly this is why so much of the criticism, even from people who honestly want the game to improve, is so scathing and bitter.

Seeing someone (Gaffney) repeatedly say they know 60% of MMO players are solo and they will have content and end game solo progression and then watching the game launch with none of that is just insulting.

If most of what Gaffney said wasn't a lie i know the game would be in a much stronger place right now. As long as they find a much better way to implement casual raiding that is not LFR and keep buy to win out of it im still on board.

[Deleted]

Wildstar has and always had end game content, loads to do!
end game solo progression* ??? solo progression to what may I ask ? Solo progression to not doing dungeons ? To not doing raids ? To not doing housing ? To not doing all the 3 or 5 man content ?

WTF do you want end game solo progression for if your not going to do anything ?

[Kelimbror]

If most of what Gaffney said wasn't a lie i know the game would be in a much stronger place right now. As long as they find a much better way to implement casual raiding that is not LFR and keep buy to win out of it im still on board.

They said they are going to put in veteran shiphands. That's a large start. I'm not sure that they have the resources to deliver on a true vision of their solo end game....at one point it was stated to have its own gear progression (which would be the best way to do things). WoD is doing something interesting where some gear scales up depending on the content type. For example, they removed PvP stats from PvP gear, but make all that gear scales up inside of PvP content.

This way anyone can do anything, but you will be rewarded for earning the proper gear. They could have World, Instance, and PvP gear that functions similarly. A lot of these fixes are heavy systems work, which is not something they really can do right now because of how involved they are in fixing other systemic issues while trying to make new content as well.

I'm still convinced F2P is the only way to get them the cash they need to quickly change the game and I'm not sure they can survive waiting it out, but we will see.

edit: Another thing that I think would be a large fix is to allow optional scaling with level appropriate rewards instead of limiting scaling to only match a lower party member with no real benefit for doing so. If they fixed scaling, they could also convert several zone quests into dailies and let people go nuts like you can in GW2.

[geekx]

Wildstar has and always had end game content, loads to do!
end game solo progression* ??? solo progression to what may I ask ? Solo progression to not doing dungeons ? To not doing raids ? To not doing housing ? To not doing all the 3 or 5 man content ?

WTF do you want end game solo progression for if your not going to do anything ?

That's something i don't understand either when you progress there needs to be a carrot on the end of the stick or you wont do it. If you progress for the sake of your character and there is no other content your working toward your progression ends short and your left unfulfilled.

Some people want to play an MMO alone and i don't know why, for most they just want something to do when friends aren't online.

As for the other stuff there is only so many times they can run the same things before they get bored, I think the idea is to have a solo end game progression that lasts just as long as raiding but required no other people with a proper reward system. Daily questing was probably invented for this but sadly sadly falls in to the same category of other content.

They said they are going to put in veteran shiphands. That's a large start. I'm not sure that they have the resources to deliver on a true vision of their solo end game....at one point it was stated to have its own gear progression (which would be the best way to do things). WoD is doing something interesting where some gear scales up depending on the content type. For example, they removed PvP stats from PvP gear, but make all that gear scales up inside of PvP content.

This way anyone can do anything, but you will be rewarded for earning the proper gear. They could have World, Instance, and PvP gear that functions similarly. A lot of these fixes are heavy systems work, which is not something they really can do right now because of how involved they are in fixing other systemic issues while trying to make new content as well.

I'm still convinced F2P is the only way to get them the cash they need to quickly change the game and I'm not sure they can survive waiting it out, but we will see.

edit: Another thing that I think would be a large fix is to allow optional scaling with level appropriate rewards instead of limiting scaling to only match a lower party member with no real benefit for doing so. If they fixed scaling, they could also convert several zone quests into dailies and let people go nuts like you can in GW2.

That is a good idea i would love to get rewards from scaling down to other people and helping or just doing stuff to do it. They do have some learning dungeon coming in the next drop we don't know what this is or means but its something.

[zito]

To not doing all the 3 or 5 man content ?

do you not know the definition of solo?

Housing isn't solo or group content. It's the medium that is floating in space.