Wildstar, beta forum posts of interest. July 6th, 2013.

Post #1

level 28 feedback from mr_gahdoh (you've probably seen his housing screens. Yep, he was initially banned, but he managed to talk his way out of it. Smart kid.)

"So I just hit level 28, and thought I would comment on the game so far. I'm playing a warrior on Exiles, so this is half warrior feedback and half general gameplay feedback. I'm going to leave out some of my combat impressions until CBT4 though, since big changes are on the horizon.

Challenges:

There are two things that I really dislike about these right now. First, is that the rewards for gold are vastly superior than the quest rewards by a staggering amount. The rate at which I can kill monsters, even as a fully chipped DPS warrior with brutality and moxie, most of these are simply impossible to achieve. Even if I decide to outlevel the content and go back later, it is still impossible to hit the gold medal. This is a problem.

I understand you want perks for grouping in this game, and that's fine. But right now the only way to get the nice, blue quality leveling gear is by getting gold on challenges. The quality of loot also dwarfs crafting, at least in armor-smithing. There needs to be a way for solo players to be able to get blue quality gear without being forced to group.

The second problem with the challenge system is the RNG. I can't tell you how many times I achieved gold medal (not on a kill mission obviously, which are the vast majority) and got a sandwich, or a piece of leather. A lot of effort goes into getting gold, and you get squat out of it. This is not fun. In fact, this is downright frustrating. If you really want to keep this "spinner" thing in the game, you need to section off what is available per medal award. So bronze rolls between 3 items, silver rolls between the two items listed, and gold simply gives you the best item every time. The possibility of receiving a piece of cloth for achieving gold in some of the most difficult challenges in the game is a huge letdown.

Questing:

While there are certainly a lot of "kill X monster" quests in this game, I have been enjoying the variety of quests once you get past Galeras. Punching drunk bar denizens, dodging avalanches, and running Stormtalon have all been quite memorable. However, I feel there's a big, gaping hole right now. There is no real player to player interaction aside from dungeons. There is no group effort for some cause. In essence, the world as it stands right now, feels like a big single player game with a few multiplayer side options.

I realize a lot of people here didn't like GW2, or the tiered events in it, but for me, that was one of the best parts. I was able to be part of something. Even if we weren't talking in a group, we were all working towards the same goal. It felt like a massively multiplayer game. Right now, WildStar doesn't. I'm not sure how this could be remedied, but it's simply the impression I'm left with after hitting level 28.

PvP Battlegrounds:

Battlegrounds are pretty fun aside from the rage-quiters, premades, and insanely long queue times (400+ minutes this weekend and still waiting... GG). However, there are some real apparent problems that stuck out right away.

First, defending your masks needs to be incentived. It's an important job, and it's not recognized in any way whatsoever on the scoreboard. In SWG, I was very happy how you got rewarded for defending points, and I think something similar should be done here.

Second, healers, particularly espers, are absolutely out of control. It is not uncommon to see them as the top damage dealer and the top healer at the end of the match. This is quite franky, absurd. Against a good player, it can take 3+ DPS to take out a helaer, which is wildly imbalanced. Perhaps try reducing the effectiveness of healing in PvP by 1/3 and see where we're at, but right now it is too good. (*puts on flame resistant jacket* Did he say NERF meh Healz?? OMG!)

Finally, I really feel it's premature to add a rating system into the beta. If you've payed attention to the PvP forums, the drama and problems this has created has turned away many players. I myself was dissuaded at first before giving it a shot. In my opinion, you should disable this feature until we have a much larger beta testing pool.

Mounts:

First, they are aggravatingly slow. You can sprint faster then them! Please, bump up the speed.

Second, that dominion mount looks terrible. I feel bad for them riding past them in my slick motorcycle.

Telegraphs:

Small thing here, but these are sometimes difficult to see on snow, or dark green ground patches.

Warriors:

Since I've been playing as a brutality/moxie chipped warrior, I can't comment on the support skills or the tanking side of things, but right now I feel the DPS side of the class is in a very bad state. Don't get me wrong, leaping around, albeit once every 25 seconds, which is an extremely long CD, can be quite fun, but the rest of the assault scaling abilities are frankly terrible. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to compare the numbers on different rotations because I can't find someone who has a target dummy (stupid architect only thing >.<), but here's my rundown on rotations and abilities.

Rotation 1: Builder + Sinister Strike spam, mixing in saw for the DoT with leap opener, and Kick on cooldown for moments of opportunity.

These are the abilities you start the game with at level 3 (minus kick) and sadly, I'm pretty sure they out perform all of the higher level assault abilities. Sure you can change to the armor reduction builder in your late 20's, but this rotation is incredibly boring. I find it incredibly strange that there are so few options for warriors who want to DPS. Almost all of the new skills you learn are support based for tanking. Where is the diversity? Where are the options? I would have rerolled by now because combat is frankly, very boring right now, but I plan on sticking it out until 36 to see if this changes.

Rotation 2: Builder + Whirlwind spam, mixing in Saw, leap opener, kick on CD.

Apparently whirlwind used to do a lot more damage, but unless you are fighting 3+ monsters the DPS has been substantially lowered. This is the "next tier" assault ability that warriors get at 12, and it's worse at doing damage to monsters than the starting cell dump. This doesn't make any sense. I'm not saying it should do more damage, but it's place on the hotbar is very limited if you want to optimize your damage in solo play.

Rotation 3: Builder + Saw to 1 Cell + Augmented Blade + Charged Strike, into a 3 cell whirlwind.

Let me first say, that abilities that make you stand there and do nothing while you wait for them to "charge" are boring as all hell. They are not inventive or exciting. They are poorly designed. Augmented Blade and Charged Strike need a complete rework in my opinion. Sure, this rotation can, and I emphasize "can", do a lot of burst damage, which is nice in PvP, but holy smokes is it aggravating to play. It doesn't help that you don't get charged strike until well into your 20's.

Overall, the biggest problem with DPS warriors is the lack of ability choice. Sure you get blind somehwere in there which scales horribly off assault power, but other than that, it's pretty meager pickings. It's pretty telling when I feel forced to use the same abilities a level 3 warrior off the boat is using. Warriors need more assault abilities. These abilities need to be distinctly different, and provide unique advantages over others. Warriors also need more than 1 gap closer. A 25 second leap is not enough, especially when it comes to PvP.

In any case, hopefully this wasn't too disjointed, and remember, this is simply my 2c.

Cheers!"

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#2: Newbie writeup, from tamster.

"First off, let me say this game is beautiful in every way. The biggest draw for me in any video game is aesthetics – and WildStar met that criterion from the very beginning. I love the stylized character models, the landscapes and vistas, the lighting, the voice acting … pretty much everything there is to see and hear is just wonderfully created and presented.

I wanted to get that out of the way. No, this isn’t one of those “I love it buuuuut …” posts. I just want to be clear how much artwork means to me, since I’ll be focusing a lot on it. Gonna break the feedback down into chunks, so it’s easier to follow. I’m not going to concentrate on things I know will improve, like code optimization and low FPS. It’s still early Beta and I get that, so little else about performance.

I’m also going to approach this from the New Player perspective, since this is my first CBT here and I came into this patch knowing only what I’ve seen in official videos and websites.

CHARACTER CREATION

Love it. Of course, it’s easy to see it’s not totally complete – and that’s fine. What is there is enough to see the depth of potential once all the models and sliders are put into place. With enough pre-created variety and careful use of the sliders, I have no doubt that creative players will be able to achieve the look they want. The varieties shown in the Male Aurin, Granok and Mechari were enough to leave me anxious for the final product more than anything else I’ve seen in-game. If I had one

request, it would be Body Size sliders – not to make Granok-sized Aurin, but enough to have taller/shorter/thinner/bulkier versions of each race.

CLASSES

I have played all four current Classes to level 8-11. While I do have my favorites (so far), each Class LOOKS distinct on the screen – but the rotation sort of feels the same once you get into a rhythm. I’m not saying that’s a terrible thing, just that my fingers couldn’t tell the difference after like level 5 or 6. Also, about level 8 things seems to really slow down. Like a lot. I didn’t mind terribly much, since the scenery is pleasant enough – but that was the biggest reason I didn’t get farther in each Class, because once you hit that Level Eight Wall, the leveling kind of bogs down.

Spellslinger was my first choice but I hadn’t gotten used to the combat, so I got discouraged at dying so frequently. I love the concept and the animations, but I felt like I was beating my head up against a pixelated wall after a while. I haven’t given up hope though, since I’ve had a lot more practice since I started.

Warrior is a lot of fun. I don’t care who y’are … jumping into a pile of enemies and wailing away without a care is just a freaking blast. Had a lot more success with Warrior during my learning curve, and the class mechanics helped a lot with figuring out positioning at close quarters. While I’ve never been a Tank, but these guys will make me try it out when the time comes.

I’ve always been a Rogue in every other MMO, so Stalker was a natural. The Stealth mechanic feels kind of lame though, to be honest – but I fully accept that’s my pre-conceived notion of how awesome Stealth should be. I can only hope there are ways to improve how bad-ass your Stealth works at later levels, because honestly at times I forgot I even had the power and just ran through or jumped past mobs I didn’t want to fight.

Finally, I just started an Esper and wow, see, that’s good times right there. The animations and audios are screamingly cool and the rotation didn’t feel like all the others. I was level 8 in what seemed like no time and had a lot less difficulty with the hold-out and mini-boss encounters that gave all my other attempts a hard time.

PATHS

A mixed bag of good, bad and ugly. Ugly first … the Soldier. I am just too terribad to do even the earliest hold-outs without help. There, I said it. I suspect this Path will get a lot new players frustrated unless things are toned down at the starter levels. Or maybe I’m just really awful and other new players will get it right away. Either way, this ain’t for me.

Explorer seemed like a good match for me to start, but I got overwhelmed with stuff to do pretty early while I was still learning. Scientist wasn’t too bad – and most of those missions just kind of happened in the course of wandering around, so that was cool and painless. I’ll definitely give both of these Paths a greater work out in the future.

Settler really shined for me. I love collecting nodes in every game – and Settler let me do that right out of the gates. I also liked the idea of my efforts helping out other players. When I first heard of this Path in the dev movies, I thought “no one is going to waste time helping other players!” but boy, was I wrong. This one is the pick of the litter for me.

FACTIONS/STARTER ZONES

Both Factions really have a different atmosphere, and that’s about the best we can hope for in a Faction oriented game. At no point did the rebellious, frontier Exiles feel like the Imperial, take-no-prisoners Dominion. The early Exile zones drive home the rustic environment – the ranches, the prairies and gulches, the Southern accents. As a native Texan, this will be my Faction of choice, no doubts.

But the Dominion side was every bit as appealing for different reasons. The high-technology of the Chau juxtaposed against the tribal savagery of the Draken, wrapped in the cold austerity of the Cassians and Mechari, creates a crazy patchwork of awesome that stands in stark contrast to the home-on-the-range, tree-hugger look of the Exiles. Where it not for the cowboy hats, I'd be here in a heartbeat.

PVP

I tried it. Did a few of the Walaki battleground and, I have to say, it wasn’t my favorite part. Maybe it’s that I’m still learning, maybe it was the beta-tastic frame rates and choppiness … whatever it is, it wasn’t a lot of fun for me. I didn’t get frustrated and I’m certainly not knocking it for good, but until I get better at combat in general, I’m just going to stay away. That said, Walaki was easy to learn and the map is as well-designed as any Capture the Flag map (only prettier!)

GENERAL GAMEPLAY

Telegraphing was easy to figure out. Dashing (like Stealth) did not meet my own ideas of what it should do but I’ve gotten used to it. Double jumping and sprinting working as intended. Naturally, as I improved my skills, fights got easier but I do think the challenge curve for higher-level mobs is kind of crazy. As in a mob even a single level over you is WAY harder to kill - one missed telegraph and it’s over. Two levels higher is just a roflstomp and anything higher than that is pretty much insta-jib. If it’s going to be like that, you guys might want to keep us just “locked out” of quests more than a level higher. Several times I wandered into a quest hub, took every quest offered and set off … only to be totally wiped out the second I dared to set foot in the area.

On pretty much every character I end up missing a quest hub somewhere, because I didn’t immediately realize the quest tracker had a scroll bar and the quests don’t seem to organize by level, but rather when you accept them. This seems very counter-intuitive to me. I suggest having quests in the tracker sorted automatically by level, then proximity – and while I appreciate the little gray (-1) or (+3) out to the side, I’d much rather be able to tell instantly by colored text whether I’m wandering into a red-level zone. Not to mention when I did eventually find the hubs I’d overlooked, all those quests sorted to the BOTTOM of the list, forcing me to scroll down to find the “T” button items and other details of the quest. Again, this could have been solved easily if the quests sorted instantly by level. If there is a way to do this, I never found it - but even then, I'd have to look for it, which is bad, m'kay.

Quest designs and difficulty are hit and miss. I don’t mind the “standard fare” because, let’s be honest, there are only so many variations on a theme possible. My issue is, by and large, the massive number of quest chains that end with a hold-out or lopsidedly powerful mini boss. Of course, they aren’t all bad, but some of them (many, really) seem way out of balance for a new player just learning the ropes. The Falkrin hold-out, the Termite hold-out, the fuel tank/droid/mercs hold-out/boss combo – hell, even the ghosts in the Housing plot, every one of these fights gave me no end of trouble at the recommended level. I only got through these fights after grinding out another level (or two), after which I’m robbed of decent XP and possible rewards. In short, for a new player who doesn’t have any friends in-game, playing mostly solo, these fights are very frustrating and bordering on not-fun-at-all.

IN CLOSING

Carbine, you’ve got something special here and I mean that. I’ve beta tested games and played on test servers a helluva lot over the years and nothing compares to what I’ve seen here in the last couple of weeks. When I’m not playing, I’m thinking about playing – and I want to return and see more. It almost breaks my heart to not be able to share the amazing game I’m playing with other people – I want to talk about it and can’t wait for the chance to experience the full game with all my family and friends. I have high hopes for the final product (and I’m sure you do to) and welcome the chance to provide feedback on it. Thank you.

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#3- Commentary about questing from ixath.

"I am level 19. This might change later, but I feel it should happen earlier.

I have no reason to explore the map (or maybe I haven't found the right places yet).

My experience with progression so far is:

1: Repeat until map is 100% explored

2: Travel to Quest_Hub_#

3: Uncover 20% of map while completing quests at Quest_Hub_#

4: Be directed to next Quest_Hub_#

5: Goto 2

There is no incentive to breaking that chain and heading in a random direction to explore, because I know that sooner or later I'm going to end up there anyway. Except when I'm directed to go there I will probably be able to continue a quest from the previous Quest_Hub_#. Going there early can possibly end up with me having to repeat content. If I'm supposed to be at QH1 but instead go exploring and do the quests at QH4, 5, and 6 first.. I might gain a level or two in the process. Now I outlevel the content at QH1, 2, and 3..they pose no challenge and award sub-par experience.

I feel that I'll never need to search the lake bottoms or mountainsides, hoping to find a partially concealed entrance to the (non-instanced) Lair of Ugly-Somethings which is sometimes inhabited by the Boss of the Ugly-Somethings. Currently, if it exists, one of the people in town will undoubtedly need me to go there to harvest some rare flowers or disable a device of some sort.. and they'll tell me right where it's at.. and if I'm really lucky, upon arrival I will find a wounded soldier who wants me to rescue his wounded comrades who are trapped inside the cave.

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I don't need a quest for every cave, cliff, alcove (It's kind of like nooks and crannies), or farm. Finding and exploring something is often an adventure and reward all by itself. I found a porn studio in the side room of a gas station (in the snowy area, Exile side, I think in the Gas n' Guzzle?).. and this was the most excited I had been all day. Another (also in the snowy area) thing was to the east near the frozen lake, outside of the map, wayyyy up on a hill... was a lone tree, overlooking everything. Useless, but it was still neat.

When presented with an abundance of quests I feel like I'm watching my mini-map and quest tracker more than playing the game. I'm given a series of tasks to complete before moving on to the next series of tasks. Once I finish killing 10x BadGuy and taking their money I have no reason to stick around in an area to see what else is there. Doing so won't benefit my character at all, nor will it benefit me as a player/person since all of the interesting artwork and features are placed where I'll find them while doing the quests. I have to rush from point a to point b, all the time watching my minimap for a golden ! to display itself.

These areas do not always have to be level appropriate either. Finding a cave when you are level 10 and seeing deadly mobs staring back at you gives you something to look forward to (Passing Guk for the first time is the easiest way for me to describe this).. you might see a level 30 riding his mount there, or standing outside with his really cool looking sword waiting for his friend to show up.

TL;DR

I am not in a living world.. I am stuck in a series of tasks.There is very little feeling of discovery, exploration, or excitement. Content is forced (this is not unique to WildStar. It happens in most MMOs these days) on the player and only useful until there aren't any more guys with !'s over their heads. There is potentially more of penalty than a reward for doing things out of order.

Sorry for the length.

Ixath

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