Support NeoGAF

[aka_bueno]

Agreed, the combat in Wildstar is what sets it apart. It's GREAT action combat, and having to aim is so refreshing and rewarding. The combat in this game just makes perfect sense. And the dungeons and raids (though I stopped playing before raiding) benefit greatly from the combat, making for some of the most intense and fun moments I've had from any MMO I've tried (which to be fair is only a handful).

Unfortunately, everything else about Wildstar is a chore (to me). Especially the leveling experience, it's pretty terrible.

I'm back to WoW after a few years of not playing and while i'm enjoying the leveling experience tons more, and the load of content at my disposal...it took me a few hours to get used to the tab-targeting combat. It feels outdated and clunky compared to Wildstar's aim 'n attack awesome-ness. I swear, if WoW just had Wildstar's combat/telegraphs, it would be the perfect MMO.

 

[TheYanger]

Raids are 20 and 40 atm, though the next one coming out is 20 and they indicated at some point they would change things if it wasn't working out. I honestly don't expect 40 to continue but that's my personal opinion. There are like less than 5 guilds in the world in the 40 man, where the 20 mans have a couple hundred.

I honestly, as much as I love the combat in this game, would probably not play if I wasn't going to raid however. Maybe it's because I wouldn't play any MMO if I wasn't going to raid, but I don't care to do dungeons over and over, and housing is actually super neat but it's not what I live for here. The dungeons are VERY fun especially gold runs, but they can be taxing. Things take a while both to learn and to execute here. There's not a lot for a solo player to do besides farm money/mats for crafted gear, or do adventures. Dungeon queues are full of failure (from what I hear) and that's about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkogI-idNME reasonably good idea of what raid content is like, this is our most recent kill and it's a very wildstar spin on Omnotron Defense System from Blackwing Descent if you've ever played WoW.

Explanation since videos are videos:

4 robots, 2 active at a time, set order unlike omnotron. Each one does a 'big' ability when it spawns, then has 2 abilities while they're up the rest of the time. It cycles twice and then they all become active to wipe you.

1. Commander - When he activates he puts links between people that you have to break or you take HEAVY damage.
Casts some big tank damage ability
Casts Forced Production - this ability forces the other active bot to cast their add summoning ability instantly. We let it go through with one set and interrupt it with the other.

2. Augmenter - When he activates, 5 people get sucked up to the top of the room and get a colored circle under their feet, then on the outer ring of the room there are 5 colored 'zones' and each needs to reach their appropriate zone for them all to come out. They drop dangerous void zones the entire time until they succeed then they drop friendly dps boosting zones, those are the green sparkling circles you see twice during this fight.
Casts Borer Drills - The + shaped red things you see, makes like 8ish at a time 4 times in a row really fast. They hurt.
Casts Repair Bots, these come out and walk towards the other active mob, if they get there they heal a ton (10%?) basically a wipe. Forced Production instantly makes another repair bot spawn.

3. Protector - When he activates 5 people get sucked into a circle of purple balls. Those 5 people are 'stuck' in that circle until they kill the gravity vortex at the center. It's hard to dodge shit in there.
Casts a tank swap - the two bots swap positions and tanks have to taunt.
Casts a stomp thing that shoots rays of little blue balls accross the room. You'll see that plenty of times and it's super easy to avoid. This guy is a joke.

4. Fabricator - When he activates he fires a bunch of missiles in the air, those are the red circles we soak a few times. Each one has to have someone standing in it or it AE's the entire room, and there are probably 8-10 of them that cascade out. Think bouncing bolts on Lei Shen.
Casts Destructo Bots, these bots spawn in 3 on the boss and quickly fan out around the room, if they get to their destination they start to explode and if they finish casting the explosion they drop a HUGE void zone on the floor. Forced Production makes a wave of 3 spawn.

Fight just goes: Commander, Augmentor, Protector, Fabricator, 2.5 times then you lose quickly.

Edit: Bah, forgot spoiler tags work like they do now instead of just shrinking it all into a clickable spoiler button

 

[questionmark]

I feel that it's needs to be pointed out that the attunements for the raids are massive, and involve grinding, and will be very hard to finish without a guild to help you out.

 

[TheYanger]

I feel that it's needs to be pointed out that the attunements for the raids are massive, and involve grinding, and will be very hard to finish without a guild to help you out.

They involve completing the dungeons and adventures It's not particularly grindy. People that whine about the attunement are typically stuck on the dungeon part because pugging it is hard, not because it's grindy. To be totally fair: you will not be raiding without a group to raid with, so why does it matter that soloing it is rough going? The raids aren't absurdly hard or anything thusfar, but they're not EASY and they certainly aren't pick up group level at all, maybe a couple minibosses.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Raids are 20 and 40 atm, though the next one coming out is 20 and they indicated at some point they would change things if it wasn't working out. I honestly don't expect 40 to continue but that's my personal opinion. There are like less than 5 guilds in the world in the 40 man, where the 20 mans have a couple hundred.

I honestly, as much as I love the combat in this game, would probably not play if I wasn't going to raid however. Maybe it's because I wouldn't play any MMO if I wasn't going to raid, but I don't care to do dungeons over and over, and housing is actually super neat but it's not what I live for here. The dungeons are VERY fun especially gold runs, but they can be taxing. Things take a while both to learn and to execute here. There's not a lot for a solo player to do besides farm money/mats for crafted gear, or do adventures. Dungeon queues are full of failure (from what I hear) and that's about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkogI-idNME reasonably good idea of what raid fluffy is like, this is our most recent kill and it's a very wildstar spin on Omnotron Defense System from Blackwing Descent if you've ever played WoW.

Explanation since videos are videos:

Edit: Bah, forgot spoiler tags work like they do now instead of just shrinking it all into a clickable spoiler button

I'm still amazed 40 was the number and not 15/30. Not with this kinda movement. Not with so many raid guilds shrunk from attrition. Not after years of gamer bribery. Not with mmmmmmmmmmmmmobas sucking up talent.

 

[JustProgress]

Yeah getting Dom/Exile rep maxed and 300 PPPs isn't grinding

 

[TheYanger]

Yeah getting Dom/Exile rep maxed and 300 PPPs isn't grinding

Getting Dom/Exile rep maxxed is literally a matter of fact, the only way you won't get it immediately is by pvping your way to cap.

300 partial primal patterns aren't for the first raid, so I'm not sure why you're concerned with them. I get that you have friends in good guilds, but everyone does. It gets EASIER over time to get primal patterns, not harder, and they're only relevent to a couple people in the world right now. Either way, unless you're 6/6 GA (Which I know you're not, and obviously someone that isn't playing the game isn't) you need precisely 0 of them.

 

[JustProgress]

Getting Dom/Exile rep maxxed is literally a matter of fact, the only way you won't get it immediately is by pvping your way to cap.

300 partial primal patterns aren't for the first raid, so I'm not sure why you're concerned with them. I get that you have friends in good guilds, but everyone does. It gets EASIER over time to get primal patterns, not harder, and they're only relevent to a couple people in the world right now. Either way, unless you're 6/6 GA (Which I know you're not, and obviously someone that isn't playing the game isn't) you need precisely 0 of them.

That's not true at all for Dom rep maxing. I did every story quest and skipped out on maybe 25% of the tasks in Malgrave and still had to do a couple weeks of dailies and 4-5 gold adventure runs every day to get max rep. I don't really care, but to say the attunement isn't a grind isn't factual. That's also why I brought up the PPP farming.

 

[TheYanger]

That's not true at all for Dom rep maxing. I did every story quest and skipped out on maybe 25% of the tasks in Malgrave and still had to do a couple weeks of dailies and 4-5 gold adventure runs every day to get max rep. I don't really care, but to say the attunement isn't a grind isn't factual. That's also why I brought up the PPP farming.

What is there to say other than your statement is literally full of shit? A couple weeks of dailies? 4-5 gold adventures a day? A set of dailies is almost 1000 rep on its own, if you started at 0 and only did dailies, it would take you a month to cap out (Prior to them adding new, even faster dailies. Now you could do 0 to 32,000 in two weeks, despite it being impossible to even have 0). Too bad you start level 50 at like 75% done, and every gold adventure run is like 500 more. What you are saying simply IS NOT TRUE. Get that through your head. You need to have some rep, but the only thing you do in this game that doesn't get you that rep is PvP, so there's no way to hit 50 without having a lot of it short of PvPing 100% of the time.

Primal Pattern farming? You brought it up for what reason again? Because it has 0 relevence to anything? I'm sorry your friend in DnT rolled on an empty server and was ahead of the curve. Normal people A) aren't even REMOTELY near needing those, because they're for 40 man content that people aren't doing. B) have tons, and C) can easily buy any they need.

I get it, you inexplicably hate the notion that there was some rep required, or some quest that you've never seen before being part of getting attuned, but realistically none of it was a grind. The reason it took so long for everyone was because of having to learn the dungeons. The people that knew the dungeons were attuned within a couple days of buying the key. Including your precious PPP whiners.

 

[JustProgress]

What is there to say other than your statement is literally full of shit? A couple weeks of dailies? 4-5 gold adventures a day? A set of dailies is almost 1000 rep on its own, if you started at 0 and only did dailies, it would take you a month to cap out (Prior to them adding new, even faster dailies. Now you could do 0 to 32,000 in two weeks, despite it being impossible to even have 0). Too bad you start level 50 at like 75% done, and every gold adventure run is like 500 more. What you are saying simply IS NOT TRUE. Get that through your head. You need to have some rep, but the only thing you do in this game that doesn't get you that rep is PvP, so there's no way to hit 50 without having a lot of it short of PvPing 100% of the time.

Primal Pattern farming? You brought it up for what reason again? Because it has 0 relevence to anything? I'm sorry your friend in DnT rolled on an empty server and was ahead of the curve. Normal people A) aren't even REMOTELY near needing those, because they're for 40 man content that people aren't doing. B) have tons, and C) can easily buy any they need.

I get it, you inexplicably hate the notion that there was some rep required, or some quest that you've never seen before being part of getting attuned, but realistically none of it was a grind. The reason it took so long for everyone was because of having to learn the dungeons. The people that knew the dungeons were attuned within a couple days of buying the key. Including your precious PPP whiners.

Dang dude I didn't know you were so attached to the game, especially with your WoW avatar. And I guess my experience grinding out Dom rep didn't actually happen. And I guess all the PPP whiners who need 12,000 patterns for their guild should man up and grind out adventures/dungeons or transfer servers so that they can buy literally every single one off the AH. Oops, I said the word 'grind,' try not to have a heart attack. Just clutch your Aurin plushie, it helps to relieve the disappoint that is Wildstar's endgame.

 

[H1PSTER]

I want a new toon on a PVP server, which tank class should I choose?

Bare in mind I've never tanked before in any MMO.

 

[docbon]

Lots of changes coming to itemization, as well as the attunement path.

http://dulfy.net/2014/08/12/wildstar-nexus-report-livestream-qabig-changes-to-rune-attunements/

Rune system revamp

• Player don’t like the random slots on gear. We are going to tier out the number of slots based on the quality and source of the item.
• Previously blue item can roll 1-4 slots and there is a lot of variance.
• From now on, dungeon/adventure blues will always have 3 slots but they will be random types.
• Green items will have 1 random rune slot item.
• Crafted/world drop/vendor blue items will have 2 random rune items.
• Players still have to deal with the random rune slots they get. We will add a new item, which allow you to reroll one type on your item. If you have 3 slots on your item, you can reroll each slot once and once only. Rerolling give you a choice of two new types of slots and you can never reroll the first type of slot you got. Say the first slot of an item have an Earth type slot. If you reroll it, it will give you Fusion or Water for example and never Earth. If you are still not happy with the rune slot you rolled with this new item, you will have to reacquire that item again.
• Items will have the ability to have slot upgrade. Another new item will drop from different type of content that can be used on an item to unlock one additional slot. Purple and orange gear have two additional slots unlocked with this new item.
• Crafted gear will 2 slots by default but can be upgraded to 3 slots. Adventure/Dungeon gear have 3 slots and can be upgraded to 4 slots.
• Current gear is unaffected, we are not going to reduce the number of slots you got. You can upgrade existing items with more slots up to the maximum number of slots it is allowed. So if you have an existing dungeon drop with just 1 slot, you can upgrade it to 4 slots.

Attunement

• Players get stuck with dungeon silvers – the timers are difficult. We don’t want silvers but instead we are dropping the silver requirement to bronze requirement (complete all optional objectives and kill all the bosses without a timer)
• World boss – we are going to revise this step to make it easier for players to get through.
• When players complete Genetic Archives step, the additional step to collect 300 primal patterns to get into 40 man raids will be reduced from 300 to 100.

Some of the elements are getting additional runes, highlighted below:

(from https://forums.wildstar-online.com/...-part-1-new-statelement-breakdowns/?p=1115205)

Had a lot of gear sitting in my bank that just became amazing.

Spoiler

Also went to the market and bought several item pieces that are criminally undervalued with this news.

 

[TheYanger]

Had been saving some items, hadn't seen the chart. That's a nice change.

 

[Nakazato]

Anyone have a friends pass my gf would love to try before she buys

 

[Swhalen]

Starting to feel a bit down while playing my character... My server has just emptied. I haven't been able to form a party for any 5+ player quests in a long time. Is there any intention of merging servers or anything to help?

 

[docbon]

yeah, game's looking deader than ESO nowdays, holy shit.

 

[Einbroch]

Logged on my brother's account.

Man, ghost town. F2P would really, really help this game, I think. It's got the customization options for it.

 

[Won]

Haven't logged in much over the last month. There was a pretty sizeable drop of activity in my farming circle, but Thayd, on my server at least, always felt like a ghost town.

Seriously, no one ever chatted there. Eerie.

 

[JustProgress]

Rowsdower on the Dominion side is literally empty. And D&T left the Exile side, gg

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Haven't logged in much over the last month. There was a pretty sizeable drop of activity in my farming circle, but Thayd, on my server at least, always felt like a ghost town.

Seriously, no one ever chatted there. Eerie.

That's been a godsent from other recent MMOs. *shudder*

The zone chat has been alot more community like, though. It's wierd.

Logged on my brother's account.

Man, ghost town. F2P would really, really help this game, I think. It's got the customization options for it.

*shrug* Doubtful; much of the rest of the game and some of those facets themselves is play-based. It would involve a complete 180 on that front.

 

[Vestal]

Anyone having issues patching the game or even reaching the wildstar website?

 

[Retro]

Yeah, DDOS attack on NCSoft Data centers.

 

[Vestal]

Yeah, DDOS attack on NCSoft Data centers.

*SIGH*

 

[TheYanger]

Yup :/

 

[friday]

yeah, game's looking deader than ESO nowdays, holy shit.

Yeah what a bummer. I really dig the combat, but my friends quit playing so I have no reason to play.

 

[Tohsaka]

Hearing about the low server populations is kind of worrisome. I played the free trial recently and enjoyed it. I was thinking about buying the game at the beginning of the month, but if the servers are really underpopulated I may reconsider.

 

[Coonce]

Hearing about the low server populations is kind of worrisome. I played the free trial recently and enjoyed it. I was thinking about buying the game at the beginning of the month, but if the servers are really underpopulated I may reconsider.

Pergo seems to be the most populated server at this point and time, I would probably roll there.

They have to do some merges sooner or later though.. Bloodsworn has been pretty empty as of late.

 

[Ferny]

So no more Monthly updates.

 

[HBroward]

We didn't even get a weekly patch. The next weekly patch is aimed for the 26th/27th. I'm glad to see them holding things back until a proper level of polish and testing is achieved. As a spellslinger healer, we've been dealing with issues for almost a month now. As long as fixes come without introducing new bugs, they can take as long as they like as far as I'm concerned. For what's it's worth also not all servers are dead in this game, Stormtalon is doing great, even on our Dominion side. Lots of active raid groups and competition.

 

[Yaven]

I'm interested in this game, but I have a few questions about the aspects I consider to be most important. If someone could please help me out, that would be great

The Combat System
• Does it feel responsive and fluid?
• Do you queue up spells/abilities, or do you spam what you want, when you want?
• How many spells/abilities does each class have on average?
• Is the combat fast paced and twitchy?
• Is the combat focused heavily on skill, and is there a noticeable gap between a good player and a great player?

The World PvP
• I understand this game has two factions?
• Is there world PvP?
• Can you gank lowbies?
• Can you attack major/capital cities?

The Arena PvP
• Are teams ranked?
• Are there rewards that are reserved only for extremely high rated teams?
• Is the current system effective in rating players based on their actual skill, or is it more of a grind/whoever plays more is higher rated?
• Is the rating system exploitable?

Thanks fellas!

 

[Rokal]

Orias is pretty dead, especially Dominion side. I got to 50 but it really feels like there just aren't a lot of people playing at this point. It would be tough to find an active guild given the player population on the server and I don't want to run dungeons with PuGs given how they are tuned in Wildstar so at this point it seems my options are to pay for a transfer to the 1-2 active servers or to let my subscription expire. I'm planning on doing the latter.

 

[Yaven]

Also... does anyone have a free trial code they'd be willing to give me? If you have 2, even better; my fiance wants to try it out with me

 

[Kalnos]

I'm interested in this game, but I have a few questions about the aspects I consider to be most important. If someone could please help me out, that would be great

The Combat System
• Does it feel responsive and fluid?
• Do you queue up spells/abilities, or do you spam what you want, when you want?
• How many spells/abilities does each class have on average?
• Is the combat fast paced and twitchy?
• Is the combat focused heavily on skill, and is there a noticeable gap between a good player and a great player?

The World PvP
• I understand this game has two factions?
• Is there world PvP?
• Can you gank lowbies?
• Can you attack major/capital cities?

The Arena PvP
• Are teams ranked?
• Are there rewards that are reserved only for extremely high rated teams?
• Is the current system effective in rating players based on their actual skill, or is it more of a grind/whoever plays more is higher rated?
• Is the rating system exploitable?

Thanks fellas!

Combat:
- Yes
- Spam.
- 8 at a time (30 to choose from) + customization
- Yes
- You can tell which players are better than others but I don't think the skill ceiling is very high, if that makes sense.

World PvP:
- Yes, two factions
- Yes
- Similar to WoW. Every zone past level 20ish is a contested PvP zone.
- I don't see why not

Arena:
- Yes
- Gear for mildly high rating and titles for very high ratings.
- They have made some changes but it was extremely broken and favored players who got the gear first. Selling rating / carrying people without the arena gear was commonplace.
- It has been exploited in just about every way imaginable.

 

[TheYanger]

You can dEFINITELY tell good players from bad. The rotations aren't too complex but you react to the environment a lot in this game and good players manage to do their max dps while also not getting hit by stuff, or interrupt faster, or use other utilities on point. I think it's easy to skill cap the 'pressing buttons' part in the sense of just hitting a target dummy, but in PvP or in dungeons/raids there's a lot of room to be better than other people.

 

[Yaven]

Looks like just about every PvP server (including Widow) is dead, except for Pergo. If you want to PvP, go there. I want to see a full server. I rerolled there as a Mechari Warrior and am loving it! I'm on a trial version at the moment, but I am considering purchasing if I can get involved enough with the community and make some friends (as my real life friends aren't interested in playing).

So, who else here plays on Pergo? I'm interested in mostly world PvP (ganking), arenas (I was a season 3, 6, & 7 Gladiator in WoW), and battlegrounds. Who's got a clan/guild/group that participates in that kind of thing? Is the experience consistently enjoyable?

 

[Icomp]

Might I beg someone for a Guest Pass (EU)? My friend thought he had one but he didn't :<

 

[Yaven]

Speaking of begging for passes, I have three 7 day trial codes for anyone that wants them in the US. Just promise me you'll come play on Pergo. Just PM me.

 

[pelican]

The game didn't click with me, but a shame to see you guys talking about the game's population taking a nose dive within 3 months of launch.

 

[Yaven]

The game didn't click with me, but a shame to see you guys talking about the game's population taking a nose dive within 3 months of launch.

I'm actually not that worried about it. There are still more than enough subscribers to make the game enjoyable, assuming you're on one of the more populated realms. The game is more hardcore, so those who get hooked will remain for quite a while. As long as NCSOFT doesn't shut this one down prematurely, I can see a long life ahead. It is also very possible that in the coming years, WildStar will gain more recognition, and the population will steadily increase.

Do I expect the population to explode? No. But I can see the population growing similarly to how EVE's population has grown; slow and steady. That's the way more hardcore MMOs work.

 

[Jira]

Jeremy Gaffney steps down as President of Carbine.

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/...a-new-role-with-carbine-studios/#entry1148679

 

[Yaven]

Jeremy Gaffney steps down as President of Carbine.

https://forums.wildstar-online.com/...a-new-role-with-carbine-studios/#entry1148679

Wow... I appreciate how real he was. Best of luck to him!

 

[Azzurri]

I hope he beats the cancer, he's a really nice and cool guy, I've meet him last year when I got to tour Carbine offices in LA.

But you have to think how well the game is doing, I wouldn't be surprised if it's free F2P by next June.

 

[Yaven]

But you have to think how well the game is doing, I wouldn't be surprised if it's free F2P by next June.

Going FTP would be an admission of failure. I'd probably quit.

 

[xrayregime]

F2P would at least get me (and I'm sure many, many others) to look at the game again. I thought it was a really pretty and cool game when I tried it in beta, but I'm not looking for any more subscriptions.

 

[Yaven]

I've still got 3 free 7 day trial codes for whoever wants them (US)!

 

[Einbroch]

WildStar Nation, my favorite podcast, has called it quits. The hosts no longer play the game. Such a shame. I haven't played in months, but dammit I listened to this podcast every week.

RIP

 

[Baskcm]

well sad to see neoexiles is near enough dead noones logged on for over 2months unless ive missed something

 

[Won]

At last, Surnames! Oh yeah, also, Megaservers are coming!

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Hrmmm, certainly an odd choice. Hell, I'd figure they'd merge back into the original launch servers since the reroll locusts left the overflow ones.

 

[etae]

Nvm