Anyone else looking forward to Wildstar?

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Played this weekend. Was enjoyable at least. Couple bugs were annoying like zooming to far out of the map breaks the map. Seriously? Oh well, a quick add-on reload works. I do like how much of the game functions are "add-ons" that can be enabled or disabled. I also assume replaced?

There was a decent amount of voice acting even if it wasn't word for word or in all dialogs. Gameplay overall was fun though even if a bit confusing. For example the first time I got a quest with an activated quest item it took me awhile to figure out to use the default "T" key to actually use the quest item. Why did it take me so long? Because the pop-up tip/tutorial window on using quest items with the "T" key didn't show up until AFTER I had completed the quest. LOL!

I didn't get very far though. Only reached level 10. Less bugs that I saw at least then ESO in the same relative development phase.

My only real beef with the game was the massive FPS spikes and dips. I'm using a pretty beefy system and I'll bounce from 120fps to 20 fps. It was really jerky when first starting the game in the newbie areas as well. There is a ton of complaints about this on the net. There were also some tips/tricks to help combat this. I managed to implement most that smoothed out the fps problems I was mostly having. Although I would still get the occasional dip below 30 fps, it wasn't happening every 3 seconds as it was before.

The UI needs work badly. The text box popups sticking and refusing to go away or not showing up at the right time is kind of rampant. Also, it (the UI) crashes way too much (not generally game-breaking but annoying and unprofessional) and I think at least some of the frame rate drops are because of underlying UI issues (personal opinion). I've also heard some areas need to be optimized for performance still too and that's causing some issues.

From what I've gathered, the UI is HEAVILY replaceable, but that isn't an excuse to not have a polished basic one. Granted they still have time to fix it up and they seem to be working hard on polishing things running up to release. It also hasn't bothered me that much while actually playing just something that's obviously lacking right now.

 

[Aikouka]

I can only recall a single framerate drop that seemed unexplainable. I mean... I expect to see a difference in framerate when you play an open-world game and go from looking at the side of a mountain to looking far out into the world (with good draw distance on). I recall one time when I was under water (staring at the bottom), and my framerate just tanked for a good few seconds. It was rather strange, and for a split second, I thought the game had actually crashed!

They did recently overhaul their UI, so that might explain some of the issues with it.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

They seemed to have improved the UI a ton this beta weekend. Well, as much as I could tell up till my character kept getting DCed >.< Apparently, they're having server issues.

 

[HumblePie]

The UI needs work badly. The text box popups sticking and refusing to go away or not showing up at the right time is kind of rampant. Also, it (the UI) crashes way too much (not generally game-breaking but annoying and unprofessional) and I think at least some of the frame rate drops are because of underlying UI issues (personal opinion). I've also heard some areas need to be optimized for performance still too and that's causing some issues.

From what I've gathered, the UI is HEAVILY replaceable, but that isn't an excuse to not have a polished basic one. Granted they still have time to fix it up and they seem to be working hard on polishing things running up to release. It also hasn't bothered me that much while actually playing just something that's obviously lacking right now.

Ahh, cause the UI issues and FPS issues were my only biggest gripes last weekend. As you said, UI not popping up until later, or not being closable, or just crashing and refusing to work like the map were just annoying. Not game breaking, but annoying. Still it's better than having half the quests not being completable. Cough cough, ESO.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Ahh, cause the UI issues and FPS issues were my only biggest gripes last weekend. As you said, UI not popping up until later, or not being closable, or just crashing and refusing to work like the map were just annoying. Not game breaking, but annoying. Still it's better than having half the quests not being completable. Cough cough, ESO.

I've run into two bugged quests. Granted, they weren't progression stopping and they seem to be fixed now : p

 

[Chaotic42]

I was in the beta and it wasn't for me. I hope they do well though. They seem to not take themselves too seriously and it looks like it will be a well done game.

 

[zokudu]

Maybe I'm crazy but I don't get their shtick. Difficulty? I watched that video Humble posted above and maybe it's more involved than a WoW 5 man but that whole fight seemed reasonably easy. I'm sure 40 man raids will be more difficult, but not due to difficult mechanics, rather the difficulty of herding 39 other slackers through the raid with you.

That's really what this comes down too. WoW is "easy" now because it's easy to find 10 people who aren't mouth breathers.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te1O4bgzlTA

Here's a video about how they're working on raid content. It at least has me convinced it's worth a shot.

 

[jmachin]

That's really what this comes down too. WoW is "easy" now because it's easy to find 10 people who aren't mouth breathers.

I'm not sure, people haven't suddenly got smarter in the last few years. More computer literate, maybe. I think it's easier because there's less work to do; everyone gets shiny looking things for little time input. While people say they like that they like that, they shouldn't be believed. In general players aren't the best judges of what is best for them. People want shiny stuff for free, but then the game looses its atmosphere and feeling of progression.

 

[Clemenza]

Maybe I'm crazy but I don't get their shtick. Difficulty? I watched that video Humble posted above and maybe it's more involved than a WoW 5 man but that whole fight seemed reasonably easy. I'm sure 40 man raids will be more difficult, but not due to difficult mechanics, rather the difficulty of herding 39 other slackers through the raid with you.

That's really what this comes down too. WoW is "easy" now because it's easy to find 10 people who aren't mouth breathers.

This. Also my friend who keeps trying to get me to play just harps on how skilled the combat is. I played the beta a couple of weekends and felt like all ground target aoe attacks felt very lame. I dont call it aiming when I just have to face my target and I can hit everything in front of me with my attacks.

Also pvp made me want to vomit.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Two questions:

1. Can this be played in first person?

2. What would an Everquest fundamentalist think? ie How is the progression and stuff?

 

[Aikouka]

I dont call it aiming when I just have to face my target and I can hit everything in front of me with my attacks.

What class did you play? I played a Stalker quite a bit (not surprising given I tend to gravitate toward the Rogue-like character), and to sum it up as hitting everything in front of you is seriously short-changing it. There were plenty of times when I needed to properly position myself to get the intended targets into the telegraph. That's especially the case when said telegraphs aren't always just some frontal cone!

1. Can this be played in first person?

Honestly, I don't understand why you would want to do this. When a game is designed as a third-person action-oriented RPG, you're expected to have perspective of everything around you. Without that information, how do you expect to properly react in an encounter. I mean... watch that raid video posted earlier, and tell me if you could actually do that in first-person.

 

[Hacp]

What class did you play? I played a Stalker quite a bit (not surprising given I tend to gravitate toward the Rogue-like character), and to sum it up as hitting everything in front of you is seriously short-changing it. There were plenty of times when I needed to properly position myself to get the intended targets into the telegraph. That's especially the case when said telegraphs aren't always just some frontal cone!



Honestly, I don't understand why you would want to do this. When a game is designed as a third-person action-oriented RPG, you're expected to have perspective of everything around you. Without that information, how do you expect to properly react in an encounter. I mean... watch that raid video posted earlier, and tell me if you could actually do that in first-person.

Let the first person die-hards play it in first person with their 90 degree FOV. The reason why I always never enjoyed first person is because you had to physically turn your character to see around you. That is not how it happens in real life. In real life, I have a field of view of 180 degrees just my moving my eyes, and 240 degrees if I turn my head.

 

[Mandres]

I gave this one another shot this weekend and it's the last time I'm going to play it. It just doesn't have anything new and fun going for it and it looks so dated. After 12 levels I was so bored I never bothered logging back in. If I don't want to play your game for free, I'm definitely not going to pay for it.

As far as I can tell it has nothing to offer over TERA or SWTOR, both of which are f2p, unless you just happen to love the WoW-in-space aesthetic which I thought was terrible.

 

[SithSolo1]

Open Beta is live until May 18th:

http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/openbeta/

 

[HumblePie]

I have been enjoying the game quite bit. So much to do gameplay-wise. Far more variation in mob type and attack patterns compared to ESO which is one thing I really disliked about ESO. Doesn't feel like I am doing the same fight from level 1 to max level as ESO had done.

Game is mostly bug free, although there are still some UI bugs, and objective marker/graphic bugs where stuff just decides not to display anymore until you restart the client. Reloading the UI actually doesn't fix it when the objective markers and various graphics decide to disappear. But those are minor problems compared with shit ESO had where main story line quests were broken and not doable so people were stuck not even able to travel to the next leveling zone at release. Yah I am doing a bunch of comparison to ESO, but that is because I am still playing both at the moment. Since I re-subbed ESO I got at least another month out of it to play.

Really, wildstar has a lot going for it. Questing is fun. Humor is abundant. Heck, even deleting a character is funny as heck to a degree. There just seems like a a much fuller world and environment compared to ESO. Mobs, quests, and things to do abound. You can't move 5 feat withough running into a new quest, a challenge, aventure, or something. It's almost overwhelming once you reach certain areas. And a little confusing at times, but something one can figure out.

Character development is fun as hell. Much more intricate and personal as compared to ESO. ESO was lazy and easy. With only a few skills, some of which are clearly crap and others the clear winners, it basically made everyone almost completely the same when playing the game. There was littler variance. Healers were either full templar heals, or if not a templar it was the same 4 resto staff abilities that everyone used. Nothing was really different. ESO made it seem like there was more variety, but it was a farce.

Wildstar combat is FUN! If you like to be the on the move constantly twitchy character, then there are classes specifically for that. If you like to be the person that is artillery, there is a class for that. Like to be the person in the middle just laying waste, there is a class for that.

Wildstar is just so much more FUN compared to ESO, although ESO is still fun for me at this point as well.

 

[Aikouka]

Character development is fun as hell. Much more intricate and personal as compared to ESO.

I thought their system seemed a bit overwhelming at first. The core setup is actually a lot more like Diablo than most MMOs. You gain an ability, and you can place points into an ability to give yourself a stronger tier of that ability. Actually, that's probably more like Torchlight II's tiered talent system. When I was playing, I took one look at the AMP system, and said, "Uhh... I think I'll wait to start assigning these..."

Wildstar combat is FUN! If you like to be the on the move constantly twitchy character, then there are classes specifically for that. If you like to be the person that is artillery, there is a class for that. Like to be the person in the middle just laying waste, there is a class for that.

I find myself having problems with one thing in particular: dodging. It's not that I can't dodge attacks, but rather, I accidentally dodge when I'm not trying to. It's really a bad habit from my FPS days where I tend to make more finite movements (key presses) than just holding the button down. Well, double-tapping in Wildstar will perform a dodge, and those are limited to two on a recharge cycle. The last thing that I want to do is waste one when I may need it.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I find myself having problems with one thing in particular: dodging. It's not that I can't dodge attacks, but rather, I accidentally dodge when I'm not trying to. It's really a bad habit from my FPS days where I tend to make more finite movements (key presses) than just holding the button down. Well, double-tapping in Wildstar will perform a dodge, and those are limited to two on a recharge cycle. The last thing that I want to do is waste one when I may need it.

It can be rebinded to something more deliberate if you want although I rather like it as double tap at the moment so haven't tried anything else.

As an aside, here's some ways to fix FPS for people having problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHFIwsaaAc0 apparently the default combat log and target frames are a big culprit. Mine runs fine, but hopefully they'll fix it for other people before launch.

 

[HumblePie]

I thought their system seemed a bit overwhelming at first. The core setup is actually a lot more like Diablo than most MMOs. You gain an ability, and you can place points into an ability to give yourself a stronger tier of that ability. Actually, that's probably more like Torchlight II's tiered talent system. When I was playing, I took one look at the AMP system, and said, "Uhh... I think I'll wait to start assigning these..."

Yah, you have different character based attributes that are different per class, although "Moxie" the the best "general" attribute for all classes to get a decent amount into.

The Amps, are like a mini skill/stat tree. Rank 1 amps cost 1 point to get into, and you can unlock the rank 2 amp tier pretty easy. The problem is that all rank 2 and rank 3 amps you have to buy or find in the game. They aren't available automatically once you reach that next rank of amps.

Then there are different stances as well as build layouts. So as a stalker I can swap on the fly from a build that is pure dps, to one that is pure tank. No need to have to worry about visiting a respec vendor each time.

I find myself having problems with one thing in particular: dodging. It's not that I can't dodge attacks, but rather, I accidentally dodge when I'm not trying to. It's really a bad habit from my FPS days where I tend to make more finite movements (key presses) than just holding the button down. Well, double-tapping in Wildstar will perform a dodge, and those are limited to two on a recharge cycle. The last thing that I want to do is waste one when I may need it.

The combat system simply rewards good players massively. I've been doing much of the content that requires groups almost solo. I did use the group finder for the first "adventure" dungeon which is available at level 15. Got into a group as a dps build. Ran around a fairly large "zone" which was a exile farm area being raided by Dominion. You do a bunch of mini quests leading up to a final boss fight.

Most of the adventure zone was a breeze although just about everyone else but me died at one point. We get to the final boss, and everyone but me dies to the red in the first 10 seconds. The AoEs from the boss were HUGE!!! The boss is still sitting at something like 75K health. Yah I solo him down as a level 16. The rest of the group was like, "OMG that was fucking awesome!!!" Why? I know how to stay out of the rest pretty easy. I'm decent at twitch games and movement.

 

[pathos]

I went ahead and downloaded the game to try it out during this beta.

4 days later, Im still not sure if I like the game well enough to justify a purchase. Well, I guess that alone tells me I probably don't want to buy it.

It does have things I like. It also has alot of annoyances too.

Rather than seeing the secondary class thing (explorer, settler, etc) as expanding content...my first thought when I hit the...3rd zone (?) and seeing the massive amount of secondary class content was..."geh, this is to much like work". Well, it's probably just me.

The combat itself is ok, but honestly, having now played my 3rd game thats crosshair/twitch based (tera, eso, wildstar), I'm already getting a bit bored with it. And, I never really got tired of the old staple "target a mob, turn on auto attack, and pound special attack keys". I wonder why. I guess it all boils down to preference.

The artistic design is...well, someone said earlier of wow in space. Thats probably the closest i could come up with either. I will note that the art style of wow wasn't it's strong point. So, wildstar's art style isn't doing anything to draw me in, or turn me out. It's just kind of there.

I do like the humor of the game quite a bit. Even doing things like dying or gating back to you home point is worth small chuckles. Thats actually a pretty big plus.

 

[Hacp]

The combat itself is ok, but honestly, having now played my 3rd game thats crosshair/twitch based (tera, eso, wildstar), I'm already getting a bit bored with it. And, I never really got tired of the old staple "target a mob, turn on auto attack, and pound special attack keys". I wonder why. I guess it all boils down to preference.

I believe they have an auto-target system where your character would automatically run into range and face the direction before using the ability.

 

[Cuular]

I believe they have an auto-target system where your character would automatically run into range and face the direction before using the ability.

I think the point he was making, is that back in the day you have an auto attack that costs nothing, you can turn it on and it attacks. With proper dodging, moving etc, you could actually win a fight with it.

Most of the newer games make it such that if you run out of endurance, mana, spirit, whatever they call it, you are stuck with nothing to do, while your enemy with unlimited resources gets to beat you down.

I also miss the days of resource consuming attacks being special on top of normal attacks, not required as crucial to survival.

But games change so you learn to live with what ever the newness is.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I think the point he was making, is that back in the day you have an auto attack that costs nothing, you can turn it on and it attacks. With proper dodging, moving etc, you could actually win a fight with it.

As someone who's first 60 in WoW was a Paladin... I say FCK (I really can't understate that) that.

 

[pathos]

I think the point he was making, is that back in the day you have an auto attack that costs nothing, you can turn it on and it attacks. With proper dodging, moving etc, you could actually win a fight with it.

Most of the newer games make it such that if you run out of endurance, mana, spirit, whatever they call it, you are stuck with nothing to do, while your enemy with unlimited resources gets to beat you down.

More or less, although there wasn't any deep meaning behind it. I guess my point is, when everything is said and done, it feels like the newest batch off mmo's are based off of action games, like god of war, or prince of persia, rather than being based off of rpg's.

I've always liked rpg's, were as I've only have a shallow interest in adventure games. So, once the newness wore off....well, I'd rather just play a "rpg" mmo.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I think the point he was making, is that back in the day you have an auto attack that costs nothing, you can turn it on and it attacks. With proper dodging, moving etc, you could actually win a fight with it.

Most of the newer games make it such that if you run out of endurance, mana, spirit, whatever they call it, you are stuck with nothing to do, while your enemy with unlimited resources gets to beat you down.

I also miss the days of resource consuming attacks being special on top of normal attacks, not required as crucial to survival.

But games change so you learn to live with what ever the newness is.

Autoattack is better because you don't have to mash the buttons for every single attack, ad nauseam. Everquest did it best by having autoattack be the primary and special abilities required extra clicks. Late EQ of 5-6 years ago best of all. And it was actually quite different from EQ of 1999, but nevertheless, lots of people feel like new games MUST do something different at all costs in every single category, be it combat, progression, or whatever.