[Megathread] Wildstar - Now F2P

[Acidbaron]

We as a raiding guild are planning to time and improve our leveling speeds as we need 10 elder gems before the early access server reset, due to the server reset if you want to raid the first week in.

The quickest time so far and no i'm not going to say how and yes no exploits are involved comes down to 60-65 hours from 1 to 50. That's counting the servers not going boom if the servers go down at any point for a couple of hours that short window of 72 hours we have will shrink and make it impossible to get that.

[Pejo]

Played casually, with recent xp tweaks, takes about 90 hours. I think the quickest was about 68 from people's screenshots already.

As for the raids, I think they are tuned well for what their intended goal is. The first boss, while having an enrage timer due to platforms, doesn't have high dps, tank or healer requirements. I find it similar to ZG20 in regards to what it is currently at (even with little info on last boss) due to difficulty of Hakkar. It should lead to some decent progression for all guilds that want to raid but also emphasize that it is easier than the 40 man. What I expect from their raiding is that the raids will be cleared first week that is possible, once attainment is completed (heh attunements that are time based versus skill/task based) but will provide decent challenge. I have no clue if the 'dynamic' raid content will be there at launch since we've heard nothing since. They won't put another raid into the game for the first 6 months (hopefully they will use this time to implement more leveling/veteran dungeons/adventures and additional shiphands). They may try to rush a one-off boss a la Onyxia or extend a raid wing within that time but doubt it. By having attunements/exclusive content, they shouldn't need to add for a bit at least. We shall see how it goes.

[Acidbaron]

All previous kill videos can be disregarded regarding time, AMPs has gotten a major nerf, buffs no longer stack up but they add multiplicatively same for Debuffs.
I have no idea how much of a nerf we are looking at but numbers like 4K dps will no longer happen, all raids and veteran modes with that in mind now have their correct difficulty and raids do have a large gear requirement now if the developers were succesful in their tuning.


Also massively just published a new interview with the game director found here

I guess we had enough talk about raids, so this what they plan to add primarily post launch.


"So once the game goes live, what's the first development priority for the team? Getting in more solo content. Yes, that's probably not the expected answer, but it's something that needs to happen quickly. Solo content is always being consumed, and unlike raids or PvP maps, solo content ensures you can't just repeat the same quests over and over barring dailies. Story development and new battlegrounds are both important, but players of all stripes need something to keep them engaged in the game, and solo content is the most consumed content out there. That means it won't take long to be gone, and it needs to be replenished quickly."



So their intention is there, as for their solution of raids being too hard, they spoke of maybe raising the player cap of the raids for a week-end to allow people to get a view of the place but i think any of that will happen when most of the progression guilds are done.


Also that's bit of the opposite world, where often mmo's focus on getting the game out with solo content and than spend months to deliver on a raid for end game purposes, where we already have raids, giving them more time to develop solo content to get people to come back monthly.

[Pejo]

Thanks for the link. That was expected but is good to see that they are following through with it.

[Puupi]

By the way I think the raid sizes are a bit backwards in the game. 20-man..PERSON.. being the more casual/easier, 40-PERSON hardcore/harder.

It would be more logical to have an easier 40-PERSON "pinkzforall" raid and then a harder tighter 20-man...PERSON raid....

- - - Updated - - -

All previous kill videos can be disregarded regarding time, AMPs has gotten a major nerf, buffs no longer stack up but they add multiplicatively same for Debuffs.
I have no idea how much of a nerf we are looking at but numbers like 4K dps will no longer happen, all raids and veteran modes with that in mind now have their correct difficulty and raids do have a large gear requirement now if the developers were succesful in their tuning.

I watched some Esper DPS stream from raids and he was doing like 7-8k dps.....

[Acidbaron]

I know it's everything stacked on top of each other, so imagine a few 15% debuffs, plus buffs that damage your own output it got silly. It got so silly that you essentially go in raids with greens as long your setup worked. That's just wrong as it allowed you to zerg encounters for a good part and have a high amount of deaths and still get things done, while i think everyone finds it more satisfying once you get your execution done almost perfect and get the kills.

[SirRobin]

Ugh... Tried dl'ing it again. Failed after Failed after Failed. Seriously, I think my PC hates this game.

[nomorepriest]

Ugh... Tried dl'ing it again. Failed after Failed after Failed. Seriously, I think my PC hates this game.

I getting failed patch too

[Pejo]

Running as Admin doesn't help here, SirRobin? I haven't had a patch fail yet, so sadly I don't have any experience here.

[beanman12345]

I had a patch fail a couple months ago. Only thing that worked was turning off my anti-virus.

[Puupi]

Ugh... Tried dl'ing it again. Failed after Failed after Failed. Seriously, I think my PC hates this game.

I had a failed patch like a month ago. Had to redownload the whole thing.

[Tekkommo]

And there we have it! The 1000th page!

900 of those pages are the same 3 people talking about the same things all the time.

This is perhaps the most boring mega thread of all time.

[Acidbaron]

If you can't update check here Or mail support if it still doesn't work they are generally very responsive.

[Tidezen]

I don't think they need to go that far. All they need to do is honor their intentions as stated from the very beginning of beta til a few months ago...that is to provide an actual solo and small group progression end game with its own gear. Most people doing LFR don't actually want to raid, they just want the ability to progress their character on their own time. I wager most of those people would be happier if they could do it on their own or with a few friends. It would actually be far superior to the LFR model because everyone can have their slice of cake. Will it happen? I have large doubts now, but I jumped in to see how it plays out in any case.

I agree quite strongly with this...I never did LFR to be "raiding", I was doing it simply because it was the fastest way to better my character, without having to actually raid.

Ironically it was the warlock green fire quest that finally killed my interest in WoW...not because it was badly done, but because it was so well done. I realized Blizzard had the chops and knowhow to make strong, challenging single-player content if they wanted to...they just weren't. Then they also had the Brawler's Guild...again, totally great ideas, fun fights, a good challenge, but like the Warlock quest, purely cosmetic rewards. And cosmetic is fine and all, I mean hell, I loved soloing old raids for nothing other than the challenge, some achieves, and a piece of transmog gear.

But at the end of the day, I'm left with this feeling of, "Well, why not? Why not give actual, progression rewards for doing some of the hardest solo (or small group) stuff in the game?"

I think MMO's are stuck in this mindset of the hardest stuff needing to require a massive amount of people...that is what the first two "M"s stand for, after all. But after seeing the rampant, insane levels of success of something like League of Legends, one would think that developers would start to understand that it's not really about the size of the group that matters; it's completely, and always has been, the complexity and challenge of the gameplay itself. You can have complex, rewarding gameplay, whether you are an army of one, or one hundred.

Since Wildstar is still in its infancy, and because last year their devs were talking about making solo endgame progression an actual thing, an actual, legitimate way to play the game, formally recognized by their in-game system, I hold out some hope that they might find the dev time to make this into a reality. It's almost embarrassing how slow MMO developers have been to pick up on this trend, that their game would be a lot more enjoyable to a lot more people if they could just play it on their own time, progress on their own time. That the "massive" part of an MMO only really has to mean the game world itself, not how many "facebook"-type friends I have at any given time. I feel this is going to be the MMO 3.0 category, when someone finally picks up on the fact that most players don't want to be forced into massive groups just to get anything done in the game. The stats have been there for awhile now, it's a huge, untapped audience...they just need to start creating content for it.

[Kelimbror]

*SNIP*

I'm right there with you on like...everything you just said. I think it's honestly a management problem that results in this never happening. Every game has the potential to make this content, but they seem to not know how to approach it. I think if a game took the approach Blizzard took with hearthstone, which is to make a small group of people who can do just about anything from art to coding, and let them have a try at small scale content development then we would see more meaningful bursts of content like this.

[Primernova]

I agree quite strongly with this...I never did LFR to be "raiding", I was doing it simply because it was the fastest way to better my character, without having to actually raid.

Ironically it was the warlock green fire quest that finally killed my interest in WoW...not because it was badly done, but because it was so well done. I realized Blizzard had the chops and knowhow to make strong, challenging single-player content if they wanted to...they just weren't. Then they also had the Brawler's Guild...again, totally great ideas, fun fights, a good challenge, but like the Warlock quest, purely cosmetic rewards. And cosmetic is fine and all, I mean hell, I loved soloing old raids for nothing other than the challenge, some achieves, and a piece of transmog gear.

But at the end of the day, I'm left with this feeling of, "Well, why not? Why not give actual, progression rewards for doing some of the hardest solo (or small group) stuff in the game?"

I think MMO's are stuck in this mindset of the hardest stuff needing to require a massive amount of people...that is what the first two "M"s stand for, after all. But after seeing the rampant, insane levels of success of something like League of Legends, one would think that developers would start to understand that it's not really about the size of the group that matters; it's completely, and always has been, the complexity and challenge of the gameplay itself. You can have complex, rewarding gameplay, whether you are an army of one, or one hundred.

Since Wildstar is still in its infancy, and because last year their devs were talking about making solo endgame progression an actual thing, an actual, legitimate way to play the game, formally recognized by their in-game system, I hold out some hope that they might find the dev time to make this into a reality. It's almost embarrassing how slow MMO developers have been to pick up on this trend, that their game would be a lot more enjoyable to a lot more people if they could just play it on their own time, progress on their own time. That the "massive" part of an MMO only really has to mean the game world itself, not how many "facebook"-type friends I have at any given time. I feel this is going to be the MMO 3.0 category, when someone finally picks up on the fact that most players don't want to be forced into massive groups just to get anything done in the game. The stats have been there for awhile now, it's a huge, untapped audience...they just need to start creating content for it.

For dungeons, queues are OK, imo. If they are same server and if you have to go to the dungeon that is. That cuts down on needless spamming for support.

LFR type queues, are an abomination to everything an MMO stands for. If you have ever clicked a button that queues you for a 'raid', you are a problem and a blight on this genre.

That concept, is unthinkably bad development.

It exists, to addict and milk bad players.

[Deleted]

For dungeons, queues are OK, imo. If they are same server and if you have to go to the dungeon that is. That cuts down on needless spamming for support.

LFR type queues, are an abomination to everything an MMO stands for. If you have ever clicked a button that queues you for a 'raid', you are a problem and a blight on this genre.

That concept, is unthinkably bad development.

It exists, to addict and milk bad players.

Just one question for you. Why should raids have a difficulty level so high that you need a premade well coordinated group to complete them, while it is OK for dungeons to be easy enough that a random group of strangers from LFG can tackle them?

Why shouldn't people who prefer small scale dungeons or open world events or single player instances have difficult content that lasts for months?

[Puupi]

Just one question for you. Why should raids have a difficulty level so high that you need a premade well coordinated group to complete them, while it is OK for dungeons to be easy enough that a random group of strangers from LFG can tackle them?

Why shouldn't people who prefer small scale dungeons or open world events or single player instances have difficult content that lasts for months?

That's two questions and you didn't even ask them from me but I'll answer to them

First question: the difficulty is roughly the same, but adding more players adds complexity, risk and probability of failure thus making it harder. For individual player 5 mans and raids are just as easy/hard. But when you add that single player experience x 20 or x 40, someone or some people will fuck up and cause the system to collapse.

Second question: Why shouldn't they? Has someone claimed that there shouldn't be difficult single player content?

[Kelimbror]

Second question: Why shouldn't they? Has someone claimed that there shouldn't be difficult single player content?

Pretty much all MMO design has failed to provide it, so I'd say it's been pretty clear that it wasn't a priority. Believe it or not, WoW provided more of this in MoP than any game I've played so far...it just wasn't a means of progression, so it was still ultimately less engaging as other content. It was a great start though. Brawler's Guild was A++ in terms of awesomeness, challenge, and a very good concept.

[Darometh]

dont know if its already been posted, but betakey giveaway for this weekend at dealspwn, cant post link because i cant post links