Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

Vit,

Those accounts you're referencing are not "first time player" who played 225 ranked games and ended up 150/75 and in challenger. It's almost impossible to know for sure how many hours the Challenger players of LoL have played total, but it is almost assuredly far more than you're implying here. I can't prove it to you -- just ask anyone who plays LoL if they think a 150/75 Challenger account is a first-time LoL player orthe smurf of someone else. The fact you'd even search for this to prove me wrong is ridiculous.

I did not say that simply playing 10000 hours of LoL makes someone good, I was saying that playing a shitton of hours is a necessary condition to be in the top echelons of LoL. Or, to rephrase, to be a LoL challenger you not only have to spend quality time but you need to spend a shit-ton of quality time. Compare/contrast to be a "top raider", and LoL is going to require substantially more time AND skill.

My Implications should be taken with a grain of salt on this matter.

Either way being good at something and being hardcore at something are two different things. Putting the two together and it's described as something different. Usually "Top-Tier" or "Professional" come to mind.

People mix these two together a bit too easily on these boards. IMO of course.

To keep this subject on topic: I feel like Wildstar made the mistake of forcing players into a hardcore play style and less of a focus on being good. Sacrificing accessibility and completion value in the process.

Wildstar probably would of been really fun if instead of being WASD-hotkey based, it was full on MOBA based with full on movement and ability control.

Back to Wildstar for a moment. While I stopped playing it long ago due to lack of fun. I still have to give it props for some of the best music in a MMO.

Jeff Kurtenacker did a fantastic job with that and ill more then likely give any game he is doing the soundwork for a shot, just for his involvement alone.

FFXIV was good but nothing hit me like the Eldan exploration theme from WS. Especially when the game was fresh and you didn't yet know about the horrible strain plotline.

Harkon_sl said:

Jeff Kurtenacker did a fantastic job with that and ill more then likely give any game he is doing the soundwork for a shot, just for his involvement alone.

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This industry?

Anyone working on ANY project will get a shot at another game. There seem to be very few blacklists out. Competency doesn't really matter; it's how cool that bro you worked on Warhammer with was and how he was a hoot everytime he got drunk. Oh yeah, and he gave good email funnies. It's kind of the reason the industry seems to have not developed standards along with the technology and the games all mirror each other.

Only thing it seems like you get blacklisted for is doing someone's girl (wife) or doing drugs, so if he did that.. good luck.

Sean and Draegan now both assume I'm angry when posting. Seems about right.

The fact that you're arguing WS should've been a top down click-to-move (which you could enable by the way) means there's no reason in trying to argue with you.

Wildstar planned to please everyone, but in the end that just takes too much.

I'm sure Draegan loved War of the Wilds though.

Well, to be honest, your posting style in this thread has been "Come at me, bro!" in content and the people you are referencing either don't exist anymore or have valid (personal) concerns for the game. Wildstar did -not- plan to please everyone and that was their modus operandi from day one. It just so happens that the particular stance they favored is not reflected to a real degree within the mmo-sphere.

Who knew! (myself and countless others) that making your content overtuned was a bad idea for a game striving for mass appeal. WHO KNEW.

Oh yeah, all of us people who have been incredibly hardcore at one point or another and realize just how niche our experience was. Those people knew. Tuning for the 5% means 95% think your game is bullshit. Especially in this modern era of gaming where your options don't include the words "there is nothing that caters to you."

I think they did plan to please everyone. I think the only thing that stuck was what people attribute to 'hardcore' (though I'd just say 'good') players. The raids and silver+ dungeons. If you were a mediocre player, who didn't like PVP, and didn't have friends or a guild to play with, you weren't going to have fun. It's not being hardcore. You didn't need to spend much time at all to get into GA or complete GA. You just had to have a competent group of people with decent gear. That gear wasn't even the top dungeon gear like it should've been. It was all crafted gear that anyone could've purchased/crafted.

Hardcore would've meant more of a time investment than the 4+ hours it takes to clear GA a week and the other 2-4 hours a week to cap gems and/or do dailies.

They said that the raid was for the 1% for months before release. They said most people wouldn't make it. That was true. They were pretty fucking accurate, actually. I honestly don't know what they could've done for casuals. People probably would like a token system like WoW where they can run adventures or dungeons over and over and save up to buy something. That was elder gems. The gear was there. People wanted 'better' (not really because crafting beat out 70% of raid loot) gear that they saw from GA. Mostly the weapons because weapons contributed like 30% of your overall AP/SP.

I'm not hardcore. I'm in Arche Age right now half-assing it. I just liked doing Wildstar because beating a dungeon, beating a boss, no matter how many times you've done it, felt challenging. I still remember our first Stormtalon kill. It took us probably 10 hours on that fuck. Probably 40 wipes. Because we weren't geared and we weren't specced and we didn't understand every aspect. But the first kill was sweet. In fact, the second kill was sweeter because it meant it wasn't a fluke and we had actually learned the fight. I'm sure a lot of people here who made it in GA can tell you how good it felt to actually down Kuralak or Convergence or Ohmna. Nothing I've ever done in WoW compared to Convergence in terms of micro management. So many different things, that change weekly, that you have to adapt to. Only 5-10 people in our raid would have the same role each week regardless of the combination.

This game was hard, or at least, challenging, if you didn't exploit it. That's the reason I enjoyed it. I would wager most people that complain about this game complain for that reason. They couldn't hack it. Whether it was gear, grouping options, or actual skill they just didn't have access to the most complete part of the game. The veteran dungeon+/raid level.

For those of us that made it there are other reasons that made it a badly managed games. In my mind the bugs, exploits (GCD exploitation and multi-casting), and poor itemization were the biggest problems of this game.

Bosses would randomly cycle their phases sometimes ruining silver runs or wiping raids. Some items just didn't work with specials unless re-equiped after every death. Shit was dumb. They had to slow content release because of stuff like that. They fixed 3 things and broke 5 things almost every patch.

Macro programs allowed people to bypass GCD and multi-cast shit that made medics and engineers god-mode. Other classes quit or rerolled because of stupid shit like that. And for the large part they were just ignored after these exploits were fixed. No justice.

Items in GA weren't up to par, or at least, it didn't seem so to most. People just stacked AP. That was the easiest way to improve your DPS. Stack AP. It doesn't require math to do, just go from 1800-2100 and you're doing better! Because of this a lot of people thought GA gear was shit. Some was. A lot wasn't. People would let shit get salvaged because they'd gain 1% crit and lose 15 AP. Smart people understand this was an upgrade, but for the general chat reading ignorant public that was bad. Cuz AP not as high. This was one of the major reasons the people capable of GA stopped doing GA. They just didn't feel the rewards were there. There were those Datascape golden-colored-stat-bombs waiting for people after GA, but not many could field 40 people with 6/6 who could stay together for that. So people beat bosses then quit. Game was over. GA was impossible.

These are the reasons this game sucked for those of us who put lots of time into it. I would have LOVED to seen PVP improved. Daggerstone was kind of fun, but very long and added during a problematic PVP stat patch. Warplots never existed. My hope was to make a zone with Warplots where Dom could fight Exile and there'd be some sort of player limit. Like a non fucked up SWTOR Illium, but if that is ever to come it'll be months from now.

Basically I just think people were butt-hurt they didn't get attuned or didn't get 6/6 or didn't get DS or whatever, and that's where most of the criticism comes from. I'm sure people will disagree. That's fine. But for me I think this game had the most potential of any game I've played. With a retuned PVP and crafting systems, I'd definitely be willing to sub 15 dollars credd or no credd.

Xevy_sl said:

snipThese are the reasons this game sucked for those of us who put lots of time into it.snipBasically I just think people were butt-hurt they didn't get attuned or didn't get 6/6 or didn't get DS or whatever, and that's where most of the criticism comes from.

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Could those reasons, which were heavily present during the first two pay cycles and some still present, possibly have anything to do with people making the choice to not put lots of time into it, or at the very least present criticism? Nah, it's cause they were butthurt over not getting attuned, totes couldn't hack it.

As for the paragraph on GA and stats,"This was one of the major reasons the people capable of GA stopped doing GA."Were the stupids just in general chat and destroying the stability of raiding guilds from the outside by saying, "AP for life yo" or were they infiltrating guilds and destroying them from the inside by salvaging gear with stat upgrades?

Most GA gear was shit because you were too reliant on RNG of the runes. If you got the right runes it was absolutely better, but that was almost impossible. I don't think that was a major roadblock though, more just a nuisance on a long list of nuisances. The raiding itself (Bugs in DS and such aside I'm sure) was quite fun, it's the rest of the game that really wore you down. I've never been as conflicted as Wildstar, where the basic combat mechanics of the game were so fucking fun, but they do everything in their power to make me not want to play it.

Xevy_sl said:

Sean and Draegan now both assume I'm angry when posting. Seems about right.

The fact that you're arguing WS should've been a top down click-to-move (which you could enable by the way) means there's no reason in trying to argue with you.

Wildstar planned to please everyone, but in the end that just takes too much.

I'm sure Draegan loved War of the Wilds though.

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Sorry if you're not actually angry, but your post came off as petulant. My bad. Regarding Wildstar top down click to move stuff, my whole point which you missed was that if some imaginary MMO company from out of no where (like Carbine) was making a game, a MOBA style control scheme would be kind of cool to see if it worked. Obviously WS wasn't designed that way, and suggesting you could play like that is silly.

God damn Draegan has such a hardon for Moba shit. I don't really care for Mobas but that is more to being late to the party and the community is shit to newcomers. The more I think about it though, why the fuck not? Nothing says a MMO has to be in the traditional camera views. Time to try something new. I would think it would be easier to make but that's just an ignorant guess.

MOBA community is fine as long as you stay away from reddit. Then just mute retards in game. I usually just play with brother in law and some beers.

But I like the design elements. It might be shit in MMO form, but anything is better than another diku game.

Madsapper_sl said:

As for the paragraph on GA and stats,"This was one of the major reasons the people capable of GA stopped doing GA."Were the stupids just in general chat and destroying the stability of raiding guilds from the outside by saying, "AP for life yo" or were they infiltrating guilds and destroying them from the inside by salvaging gear with stat upgrades?

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I meant more that the people who didn't do research on DPS calculations, etc. just took the word of whatever is spewed in advice or zone chat. That means when the 100 brutality sword drops and the 70 brutality 70 moxie sword drops, they took the 100 brut. Because they just followed the mantra that AP is better than everything in any amount. Which was wrong. Then they go on believing that the loot is bad because they lose AP to gain other stats and spew for that ignorance.

If you want an MMO MOBA I believe Marvel Heroes has that type of battleground. Also I think it would make more sense to have D3 or PoE do that than to hope for an entirely new MMO MOBA. They're top down (more or less) click to moves. Throw some battleground with chain spawning mobs and 5 paths and voila~, you've done it.

Xevy_sl said:

I'm not hardcore. I'm in Arche Age right now half-assing it. I just liked doing Wildstar because beating a dungeon, beating a boss, no matter how many times you've done it, felt challenging. I still remember our first Stormtalon kill. It took us probably 10 hours on that fuck. Probably 40 wipes. Because we weren't geared and we weren't specced and we didn't understand every aspect. But the first kill was sweet. In fact, the second kill was sweeter because it meant it wasn't a fluke and we had actually learned the fight. I'm sure a lot of people here who made it in GA can tell you how good it felt to actually down Kuralak or Convergence or Ohmna. Nothing I've ever done in WoW compared to Convergence in terms of micro management. So many different things, that change weekly, that you have to adapt to. Only 5-10 people in our raid would have the same role each week regardless of the combination.

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Pfft. I quit after 30 days but in 10 years, I'm gonna tell everyone that I did all of that too.

I think the biggest problem MMOs have (at least from a PvE end) is that the amount of innovation you can do now has pretty much been tapped dry. EQ and WoW were able to throw things at players that the players had never seen before - there was a huge sense of mystery and wonder. I'd argue that it's almost impossible to capture players to that extent today. Even a well received game like FFXIV wasn't well received because of new mechanics or a sense of wonder, rather it was well received because an overpowering presentation factor that made the game fun in the short term.

When it comes to mass appeal in gaming, I would argue quite heavily that game genres have a shelf life. What happened to traditional MMOs is really no different than what happened to the marketshare of PC FPS/RTS games after their glory days in the late 90s. You can only throw so many new mechanics at people in a genre before the vast bulk of things have been tried and new genres suddenly become way more appealing. It's why the MOBA genre is going to have a sharp decline after League/Dota/Heroes, because making a new game in that genre that won't have people thinking "I've played this before" is pretty much going to be impossible.

If you're a game developer right now, the last thing you want to be doing is making another WoW or a DOTA-clone type game. Instead, you want to attempt to create a new genre that can impress people with mechanics and ideas that haven't been tried before. Not an easy task, but something that has way more promise than making a game in a tapped out genre at any rate.

How many dungeons have great design with mass appeal on the level of classic grouping, exping, farming, factioning, whatever gameplay? Devs these days can't even hold the attention of a group, let alone an "extended group" that is raiding and they toss all this logistical hurdles and cockblocking retardation on top of it.

If your game involves hitting a cap of [insert any name here] each week to 'progress', it's shit. Period.

Malakriss_sl said:

How many dungeons have great design with mass appeal on the level of classic grouping, exping, farming, factioning, whatever gameplay? Devs these days can't even hold the attention of a group, let alone an "extended group" that is raiding and they toss all this logistical hurdles and cockblocking retardation on top of it.

If your game involves hitting a cap of [insert any name here] each week to 'progress', it's shit. Period.

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I don't see how you avoid that right now from a PvE perspective though. Technically speaking, the end game problem for MMOs is sort of self-made by the industry shifting towards the end game to begin with. The first generation of MMOs (and honestly, even early WoW to an extent most people might not like to admit) was much more about the journey to max level as opposed to what you did after getting there. The cycle was

Spend a very long time getting to cap/leveling up in games like EQ/Lineage 2 (later WoW) --> Do a small amount of activities at cap, but bask in the fact that you're one of the few people that actually have a capped character.

Vanilla WoW's end game had options that were absolutely dreadful by today's standards. It took maybe a week to get your full blue set out of the end game dungeons, and then you raided some relatively mundane instances in MC/Onyxia for the next 4 months getting loot that in retrospect was actually pretty boring. The game was made fun more or less by the fact that very few people were actually at 60, and your reward game wise was running around on a server where in general you were more powerful than 95% of your server (at least on the PvP end).

I guess if you wanted to sum up the above in a more technical term. People had fun leveling up because there was a distinct goal - even if it took a long time to hit that goal. People had fun after being leveled up because they felt a grand sense of accomplishment due to all the people that were still having fun leveling up, yet currently far weaker than those who had finished leveling up. When you design a game so that the entire server hits level cap in the first few weeks, you not only lose the "fun" period of leveling up for most people, but you also lose one of the most significant rewards of actually leveling up (being ahead of others).

Edit: Here's another way of putting it. When MMOs were a fresh concept, people didn't mind spending a very long time to hit level cap. The long time to hit level cap not only added longevity to the game, but also acted as one of the biggest rewards to players after hitting cap. Removing long leveling times because players are tired of leveling inadvertently cripples one of your biggest end game rewards, while simultaneously forcing everyone to focus on the newly crippled end game. It's a positive feedback loop that just got worse and worse as time went on.