146723-wildstar-not-for-this-average-player-page-2

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There's lots missing. LOTS. Until MMO devs (not just Wildstar) stop believing that repetitive dailies, assorted variations on instanced group content (dungeons, raids etc) and instanced PvP matches on a limited number of small maps are "enough" then the genre can only stagnate. MMO development has got into a lazy rut, with a dearth of innovation and it's slowly killing the genre. There's a real sense of 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt, poured way to much time down the MMO drain" knocking around the genre these days. Every MMO just wants to mimic the competition, play it safe and to suck up as much player time as possible so they have exclusive access to the player's spare time and wallets. Everything is geared to keeping rears on seats and noses pressed to some grind or other for as long as possible, then offering cash shop bypasses. The day that MMOs started marketing "Pay Not To Play" (which takes various forms from instant level capped characters to all sorts of boosts and speed ups) is the day the genre started to die from the inside out. It'll be a long slow death, but it'll happen unless something changes. Players need to feel they are part of a living breathing world and community. That logging in matters and is worth doing. Not because they need to log in to be a slave to the dailies. Not because they need to be eligible for their daily login rewards. Not because their raid lockout timer has reset. Not because they need to see what the latest re-skin is in the cash shop. But because a MMO is a fun place to be, with a community, friends, rivals, events, things changing. Not just an alternative digital grind to the 9-5 grind they already do IRL. To be fair, this problem isn't just Wildstar's, it affects the whole genre. But theme-park MMOs like Wildstar feel it more than MMOs with more sandbox or player-driven content because all they really have to offer is content + grind. Content is easily exhausted. Grind is hard to tart up as anything other than what it is. When MMOs were mostly subscription based they had to try and make the grind palatable. Now F2P is the norm, it's flipped to making the grind unpalatable so you spend your cash to bypass it. The Pay Not To Play model is so ludicrous really that MMO publishers must be laughing themselves silly that everyone falls for it. It's a scheme the Lopp would be very proud of - keep grinding those shinies!


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Could not agree more with this statement! I've been saying this for a long time, why the hell make such a beautiful world to level in and then at max level, you throw it away, because all your content is instanced based. Not even that it's all obtainable by menus. SO you can just literally sit in your city or house and pop up your menu and go from there. You don't even need to touch the open world once you're 50. Honestly, these theme park mmo's feel more and more like Moba's than MMO's.


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He started a thread about wanting more raids and a few of us explained why it won't happen like he wants. He didn't get it, he didn't get it at all.


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That's such a wrong thing to take away from this. One of the biggest problems is that no matter the game, barely any percent of people actually raid, due to high players and coordination requirement. If they only see the issue in a funneling order, then they don't get it. Some will have no desire to progress past dungeons, others will find dungeons too hard and won't progress past adventures. And if those people are not offered a decent alternative way of progression, they won't stick here for too long.


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not from quests. But look at FFXIV. Every 3 months it's catch up patches. Previously dungeons had weekly ticket cap that allowed you to buy iLvl 200 gear as a casual, iLvl 210 was reserved for raiding. This patch, there's an open farm zone that drops iLvl 210 gear that's all RNG, open world hunts allow you to upgrade your iLvl 200 gear to 210 and there's a casual raid that drops you one upgrade component weekly. Next patch chances are raid gear will go up to 220 (that's in around 3 months), patch after that will play catch up and catch everyone else up. No, dungeons don't drop iLvl 210 gear, but they provide you tickets for buying iLvl 200 gear. What do adventures do exactly? There's such a big gear disparity, that you'll end up jumping past adventures and expeditions for sure and will either run vet dungeon gear, or do world bosses for world boss gear. But because gear disparity between content is so high, and there's no other kind of progression tied into old content, it ends up not being run. And then what's passed that? There's either raiding, or.... What if you actually have a life and can't organize with another 20 people? What to do here now? Your progression kind of ends after world bosses and you have nothing real to work towards. This is where amazing crafting systems could come into play for example. But at the moment top level crafting requires recipes that you get from raiding, anything below that is throwing plat away for adventure level gear. Meaning that that doesn't work. Do we have hard mode dungeons? Nope. Do we have casual raids? Nope. Do we have enough casual mini game fluff outside of housing? Nope. The hoverboard racing was AMAZING. But it went away.

Edited November 23, 2015 by mirta000


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this is pretty much the point. People want better gear to do what? You can do everything in WS with ilvl70 besides raiding where you need better gear to kill the bosses. players who dont raid dont need raidlvl gear. I like the way WS handles this. i cant just go into pvp with ilvl120 gear and expect to destroy everyone. the pvp gear is better. and if you choose pve as your endgame thing you get better items during raiidng.


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World Bosses =/= Casual Raids. Non-instanced zerg fests that down the content in 30 seconds or less isn't exactly a challenge, it's just there. Now, they could if they were treated slightly differently, but at the current implementation they are just not and no one should think they are. Just because Carbine slapped Healer/Tank requirements on them and called it a day doesn't mean they're anything that different than they were. It's a very weak attempt. I agree, we don't need harder dungeons. Many people, even myself, have trouble with them for some reason or another. I think the difficulty level is good there overall and there's really no need for advancing this at the moment, well not for a bit of time at least. Too much focus on just "get good, do raids". That's not the only means of progression and it's that kind of thinking that has led to the position Carbine is in, they horribly miscalculated the market. Now, I don't skip Raids by choice, mostly since I know I'm not good enough for them right now but I also know that it's content I'll likely never do regularly. You show me the Guild with a raid schedule that's between 3am-7am EST regularly and I'll gladly talk with them, but it doesn't exist in this game at all from what I've seen. Even if I did do them, it's probably just to see them and not master them fully. For one, I don't have the time to commit to the schedule due to my own, and I'm far more interested in the world and other group content that's more easily manageable around weird schedules. Also, no one here is saying they shouldn't fix things either. Again, most of the ideas being floated here are more 'think tank' level and looking towards ways to fully utilize the game and make it fun for everyone on all levels of play. I do fully agree that PvP needs worked on, as I like to run BGs randomly as they are fun, but if they can't do PvE and PvP at the same time they are in bigger trouble than any of us realize as they're not dependent on each other to work and balance.

Entirely missing the point. The game will NOT survive if there isn't a wider world of content. If they keep things too stratified and limited then the game is already dead and won't draw people in. Just look at the FFXIV reference above, there is TONS of reasons to get higher level gear as the story progresses, new monsters are seen, new dynamics added to the world, new zones, all of which have higher difficulty, requiring the higher level gear. The problem is that too many are thinking far too narrowly about the issue. Step back and see the big picture and it will make sense why progression can happen all over the spectrum.

I don't think spoonfed is what anyone is after really, a little explanation would be nice because right now there's not even that half the time. In reality WS gives even less reason to group up than before F2P currently. Tons of the 5+ groups are gone from lower level zones, and with how EXP is handled now people can just go back and kill the 2+ content before even leaving a zone due to the overleveling issue. Players aren't given a reason or value to partying up with others. To be fair, WS has always had a problem with conveying any real importance to grouping up. Long queue times at normal dungeons also turns people off, and when they ask? "Just do it at 50". Again, not a real solution and sign of failed design concepts. There is nothing in the game that puts value on it until end game and that is a problem.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Kitsune Hazard


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I agree with everyone that says you're being too hard on yourself. It's not ENTIRELY about twitch reflexes, the bosses all have patterns, and once you learn those, you get to EXPECT certain attacks. Like certain monsters attack in front 90% of the time, so you fight right up close, or others  do AOE around themselves, so you kite more and keep at range. And if you fight the range guy up close, you get stomped, and if you fight the directional guy by running, you get stomped. Repair bills aren't bad. I'd rather help a guildie learn and die a few times, repair bills shouldn't bankrupt anyone, and if they're willing to put up with it, it's not a big deal. Make them something nice as a thank-you if you feel like you're imposing, maybe? Most people are quite willing to explain to someone when they're dragging them down. :P


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