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The latest WildStar Wednesday has been published on the official site. This time, the team gives readers and inside look as to what is happening with the beta of the forthcoming game from Carbine Studios. During the recent closed beta events, the team has asked players for input and the letter addresses changes made to the client in response to that feedback.
So, what is this change? Well, it comprises two major shifts in design:
We are going to remove numerical quest objectives from the game (i.e. "Kill X Vinds" and "Collect X Sentient Veggies") and instead introduce a "quest completion bar." For kill quests, this bar will increment the player’s quest progress in relation to the amount of XP earned. For other quests, this bar will simply increment in set amounts for each completed interaction. This helps improve the system in the following ways:
By basing quest completion off XP gains, players can now choose to go after larger targets or smaller targets and earn quest progress appropriate for those choices. While killing harder things is slower, you will earn more quest progress for it. Those who prefer to fight easy things will kill faster, but progress more slowly for it.
This approach also helps groups stay on target for leveling progression. Even though groups will destroy creatures much faster, they will need to kill more in order for each player to earn the credit needed to complete the quest objective.
Read the entire letter on the WildStar site.
Comments
fun for them...
but looking forward for this release.
Mundanity through obscurity... how GW2 of them.
EDIT: Kudos to the devs for having pure support role builds. This is a concept that is ripe for return to MMOs from the "old days".
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
As to your edit: I agree. I really enjoy playing support and CC roles. Far more interesting than a healer (the only "support" some may be use to), dps, or tank imo. If the mechanics for tanking were changed from the norm via taunts, I may like them more. For example, mob collision and holding down the front line.
"Don't tell me what to do! , you're not my mod"
Saying invented by me.
Lets just hope this doesn't also bring in more flaws to the Level system.
As in...your character power is such that you get to a point and you face some rated super weak creature that gives you zero xp....yet they mercilessly slaughters you.
Game developers keep defending this poor balance issue and game play with saying things like "but those are for groups of players....or are quest monsters."
And every time the players find it stupid....and leave because they hate broken issues.
So I hope this change doesn't result in things like this.
Just wish they would give us more!
Very excited!
MMORPG Gamers/Developers need a reality check!
Or, you know, you could make your quest objectives *interesting* instead of basing completion around killing monsters.
Just, you know, throwing that out there.
Uh yeah the name "Wildstar" doesn't invoke a D&D or fantasy style feel. Glad you just figured this out. Wouldn't have wanted you to be unnecessarily disappointed lol.
Jumping to some conclusions about the questing system a bit aren't you and balance issues a bit too? Have you played the game? Neither have I and I'm not jumping to any conclusions based on past MMO experience. You should really wait and see before you judge.
"Even though groups will destroy creatures much faster, they will need to kill more in order for each player to earn the credit needed to complete the quest objective."
I hope this means that exp. is divided among all the players that participated (grouped or un-grouped), and not that kill credit only goes to the person who tagged it first.
Well it explains it in the blog.
Instead of kill credit for a quest, it's based on experience gain. Experience is gained by how much damage you do to a mob. It's an open mob tagging system.
Thank you, It does cover it some of it (didn't realize this article left out so much info. lol), but here's more of what I'm really concerned about:
" ...speccing your character to play a pure-support role, to the exclusion of all damage-dealing abilities, you are building a role meant to work in conjunction with other players. Grouping will remain the primary method for this. That being said, we are investigating ways to make grouping much easier to do. We want grouping to be useful enough to our players that they not avoid it out of convenience, so anything we introduce to simplify the act of grouping will build on that intention."
I hope by "grouping" they mean players in close proximity (ie: a support player can just run around helping random people - not something I would choose, but I know people who would) and not that players will have to join an actual group.
If that's not what they mean (which I suspect it isn't) then while they are "investigating" I hope they will make it so players aren't forced to join a group, regardless of their spec choices - instead allowing them to just randomly help people of their own free will, with no prior group commitment.
Many people don't like to have to commit to joining a group (for all kinds of reasons) and would much prefer being able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want.
This is a GOOD thing.
http://lyrics.iztok.org/verse/Lynyrd_Skynyrd/Simple_Man/80615
I hope they DO make it mandatory to join an actual group, based on premeditation and planning - with a specific goal in mind.
GW2 was awful because it centered around what you seem to percieve as the correct form of grouping.
http://lyrics.iztok.org/verse/Lynyrd_Skynyrd/Simple_Man/80615
GW2 is one of several games that have done similar methods now. I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, unless I don't remember correctly, weren't you also allowed to group in GW2?
support is my favorite role -- I miss that from EQ1 / DAOC
EQ2 fan sites
^ Some thoughts on this specific part ^ :
Just to be sure we are talking about the same thing, this is all with respect to open world PVE (so not instances):
What is it about "an actual group" that gives it the ability to have "premeditation and planning - with a specific goal in mind?" Certainly it’s not the invite process itself. So, what is it?
You really don’t have to be invited to a group to have meaningful content or “premeditation and planning - with a specific goal in mind." What you really need are:
-Difficult mechanics that can be identified which require organization and practice to overcome.
-You need a communication system.
-If you have a trinity (which I prefer) you need a UI to feed you information about the encounter and the other players - so the different roles have the information they need to do their jobs.
-Rewards.
None of that has to actually require the invite process.
Most games already have name plates (which are helpful but not enough), so just take that one step further and give people stacking health bars for everyone engaging the boss just like a group or raid would give you (one that locks when players are in combat - or something - so players don’t suddenly drop from your UI, and can be hidden or toggled on and off - just a general example).
Communication systems are already there - unless you’re Defiance lol.
Game Developers already know how to make encounters fun, difficult, and varying – so just keep doing that (and don’t skimp on the difficult part). If the people in the area don’t have the skill, gear, numbers, or are not enough of the right classes, then don’t engage it – or engage at your own risk.
Rewards can be done so many different ways that I’m not even going to go into it - many games are doing phased loot now which I personally think works great and can easily be built upon. I will say that any of the traditional ways of awarding loot can be handled by quantifying participation (many different ways to do this), and/or instanced content. But, if everyone helps kill a “world dragon” then everyone should get “cookies” for their participation.
Aside from all of that, just make the different roles interesting enough that people want to play them - this way there is a strong distribution of each role for the % they are needed.
There are so many talented, creative, and driven people at Carbine Studios that I am confident they can come up with creative solutions that “agree” with their engine and don’t require grouping for open world content.
Don’t force people to have to join a group when the only reason it was done that way in the past was because of hardware limitations. Several games have already started scaling encounters to account for an unknown quantity of players, and this is only going to get better with time. So if Wildstar wants to be one of the “big boys,” which I hope it will be, it’s going to have to build a game that can grow with the advancements already being seen in the MMO Genre to meet the demands of the future.