Carbine Studios' "Wildstar"

[Draegan]

I assume that means spec swap. The class system and it's mechanics are incredibly shallow. You should be able to pick up on in in a few minutes of playing any class.

edit: Maybe he means the long cool down ability that some classes get that changes your appears like the Engi's.

[Morfiend]

I have a few questions:

I love the idea of the Esper, but at low levels it felt very stationary due to the cast bar. Does this change, or is that a hallmark of the class? Would a hybrid Medic be viable that heals and dpses, as I like the idea but I wouldnt want to get stuck as a healer only.

[Lucas]

Open Beta starts in about 45 minutes.

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

[kaid]

I have a few questions:

I love the idea of the Esper, but at low levels it felt very stationary due to the cast bar. Does this change, or is that a hallmark of the class? Would a hybrid Medic be viable that heals and dpses, as I like the idea but I wouldnt want to get stuck as a healer only.

I think they are always a bit less mobile than some of the others for maximum effect but I noticed even in my teens as an esper I was slowly getting more and more things that allowed me to move while using them. I think at higher level you could build for pure mobility or for more stationary higher damage/higher heal depending on what you want.

That said I really loved the medic a ton more than I expected to it is very fun to just get in there in the thick of things and just jack people up and heal your team.

[Ghambit]

As usual, the info here is better than any I could find. Thanks all. I started as Spellslinger ans then tried Esper and Engy but none to get to any level of depth. I like what Spellslinger sounds like. For my brief play, I enjoyed moving around. Felt not entirely unliked dagger/dagger Mage in GW2 with the constantly mobilities.

What is this flipmodes thing though? Is this the Assault/Support/Utility choices you can make? Seems like I can only have 8 abilities. Can I have more than 8 and flip between two sets or something?

Higher level slinger can switch to "spell mode."  Engi. can switch to "tank mode" as can stalker occasionally.  Warrior has ranged attacks, etc.  Since there's only 8 abilities you're also given a deck system to swap in/out of between combats.  That's what I mean by flipmode. 

Sidenote:  Anyone have an idea how much the mounts will be?  I'm trying to decide on the deluxe box, which comes with the hoverboard.  If you can get a nice mount for say 5 bucks RMT I'd rather do that then spend $15 on a deluxe box.

[Draegan]

Did they change that extra ability thing?

Engineers could hit their ultimate ability and become some kind of transformer. It was essentially a 2 minute CD that boosted your stats, but did nothing else.
Stalkers's ultimate was actually just popping in and out of stealth. It's probably the only fun thing about the game.

Other classes got similar 2 minute cooldown abilities that are typical things you'd see in WOW or other games.

It was the biggest waste of space on the UI too because those abilities were boring and could of been much more.

[kaid]

Did they change that extra ability thing?

Engineers could hit their ultimate ability and become some kind of transformer. It was essentially a 2 minute CD that boosted your stats, but did nothing else.
Stalkers's ultimate was actually just popping in and out of stealth. It's probably the only fun thing about the game.

Other classes got similar 2 minute cooldown abilities that are typical things you'd see in WOW or other games.

It was the biggest waste of space on the UI too because those abilities were boring and could of been much more.

Actually those abilities are all on very short cool downs now and very useful.

Take the engineer one the one you start with is on a minute cool down. When activated you start gaining volitility very rapidly which allows you to use your best damage volitility burning powers more than normal. It also causes extra damage, reduces enemy healing effectiveness by 55% and removes the movement speed limitations of using powers engineers normally have.

Its up enough you can use it freqently and makes for an excellent oh shit button or a got to kill this stupid healer button.

Each classes is different the spell slinger turning it on activates spell surge and each power used once its activated uses a quarter of your spell power for greatly enhanced effects. So they are pretty active of about having to turn it on and off for maximum effectiveness.

[luckton]

Open Beta starts in about 45 minutes.

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

And no one here seems to care...sign of the times?

[Miasma]

I can only play one busted, dissapointing mmo at a time so I need to finish Elder Scrolls first.

Which class is the best tank in this game?

[Rokal]

Open Beta starts in about 45 minutes.

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

And no one here seems to care...sign of the times?

I don't think most of the people here have been excited about any MMO in the last decade.

I can only play one busted, dissapointing mmo at a time so I need to finish Elder Scrolls first.

Which class is the best tank in this game?

Best tank hasn't really been established. The beta has been slowly increasing the level cap, but how each tank performs at level cap is sort of a mystery. I  wrote a summary of how each class plays on the last page though, so you may be able to narrow it down by desired playstyle.

Stalker at level cap is really the tank I'm the most worried about. So many MMOs have done evasion/medium armor tanks poorly in the past. Statistically Carbine has a better chance of getting it wrong than getting it right. Based on the ability list I looked at when I was playing a Stalker, it doesn't seem like they will have to maintain a bunch of annoying buffs just to match the damage reduction that heavy armor tanks get passively and it also doesn't look like they'll be really squishy at the start of every pull thanks to the damage reduction when leaving stealth, but who knows.

[Rendakor]

Is open beta going to run constantly or only weekends?

[01101010]

Looks like constantly from the website.

Open Beta will begin on Thursday May 8th at 7:00am PDT and continues through Sunday May 18th at 11:59pm PDT. During this time, servers will be continuously running, and you will be able to experience game content up to level 30.

Following Open Beta, head start will begin May 31st at 12:01am PDT for those who have pre-ordered WildStar. If you're interested in getting a head start in the game, you can pre-order WildStar here. Launch is June 3rd.

edit: to include quote

[Signe]

Open Beta starts in about 45 minutes.

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

And no one here seems to care...sign of the times?

I care.   

[01101010]

I sorta care... at work though. Not much I can do till I get home.

[Ghambit]

I think a lot of you are burnt out on trying each and every last MMO that releases come release day.  I gave up on that a few years back, so I'm a bit more wanting then most... building up a cache of interest for this particular release really.  Let us see how long it sustains me.

[Rasix]

Keep talking yourself into believing this is going to be "just average enough to sustain my interest".  The hype train is real.

[Hoax]

Fuck this silly game for having warplots which almost sounded like a really fun pvp idea.

Its really not fun to play at all. Combat just sucks plain and simple. Too much ground clutter or clutter in general. Generic looking everything. Its one of those video games that are impossible to not feel like you are playing a video game. Which for a MMO I think is especially poor.

[Paelos]

I didn't think the combat was that horrible, it was just spammy and repetitive. Dodging and cone attacks got really old to me very quickly.

[Hoax]

How is that not horrible?

Using my abilities was boring. "Dodging" things was so easy and boring the most interesting part of combat was seeing if I could not bother with it because who cares. Progression in terms of ability unlocks is pretty glacial. The abilities you unlock are fucking zzzz.

If you are going to use a deck/moba style limited number of abilities at a time it wouldn't hurt if they were actually interesting in some way. The abilities in WildStar I've seen and the descriptions I've read are definitely not Dota or GuildWars level of complex in any way.

I am a combat first person. The combat was spammy and repetitive in boring and obnoxious ways. It doesn't even have the zen slowness of a FF11 or EQ1 era MMO where your long cooldowns and what not are just part of the pacing of the game. Instead Wildstar wants to be WoW on Monster Energy but plays just as clunky as NWNO with less cool looking abilities and more ground clutter. That counts as sucking in my book.

[Ghambit]

You touch on why I liked playing Slinger.  That class avoids the clutter of the melee/close-in classes and standard repetition of the other ranged classes... not as apparent at lower levels, but as the game progresses the need for skillshots, straf and strat., and so forth increases.

If you dont want clutter, definitely don't choose Medic or Engi.  The rest are pretty much like every other MMO with a bunch of addons running - shit all over the screen.  Cant avoid it even when they design a clean interface; by endgame your screen is a hot mess regardless.

[Rokal]

You touch on why I liked player Slinger.  That class avoids the clutter of the melee/close-in classes and standard repetition of the other ranged classes... not as apparent at lower levels, but as the game progresses the need for skillshots, straf and strat., and so forth increases.

Yep. The combat at low levels isn't really a great representation of how it works for most of the game. Avoiding telegraphs and landing your attacks will become much more important. That may either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your perspective. I started to enjoy the combat on each class I played around level 8.

Dungeons are supposed to be comparable to Vanilla WoW or TBC in difficulty according to players that have tested them, so most of this forum is destined to dislike the game for being unfriendly to PuGs in any case.

[Draegan]

How is that not horrible?

Using my abilities was boring. "Dodging" things was so easy and boring the most interesting part of combat was seeing if I could not bother with it because who cares. Progression in terms of ability unlocks is pretty glacial. The abilities you unlock are fucking zzzz.

If you are going to use a deck/moba style limited number of abilities at a time it wouldn't hurt if they were actually interesting in some way. The abilities in WildStar I've seen and the descriptions I've read are definitely not Dota or GuildWars level of complex in any way.

I am a combat first person. The combat was spammy and repetitive in boring and obnoxious ways. It doesn't even have the zen slowness of a FF11 or EQ1 era MMO where your long cooldowns and what not are just part of the pacing of the game. Instead Wildstar wants to be WoW on Monster Energy but plays just as clunky as NWNO with less cool looking abilities and more ground clutter. That counts as sucking in my book.

This is 100% my opinion and thoughts as well.

[Paelos]

Okay the combat is horrible. I was being generous.

[tmp]

Is open beta going to run constantly or only weekends?

It's supposed to run constantly until 18/19th May or something like that, if I'm not mistaken.

The open beta finally gave me opportunity to check it out, and... welp, if you make dodging telegraphed attacks a big deal in your combat, it'd be nice if moving out of the marked area long before they supposedly trigger actually resulted in avoiding the damage, instead of getting hit anyway 1-2 seconds after you're in the clear. I don't think it's the lag because everything else functions fast enough as expected, so it's some pretty large clownshoes.

[Paelos]

Yeah I forgot about that. It's a big problem when they have ground markers and you get hit anyway.

[Signe]

There's lots of addons for this game.  Do they help?  I didn't use addons when I played and I pretty much loathed the UI.  Especially that giant action bar and the horrible round map.  And where the quest list is stuck.

[Rokal]

The UI is getting better with each patch, fortunately. Quest list as of the OB patch seems like it doesn't get buried beneath other UI options or break anymore, hotbars take up less space as of a patch or 2 ago, etc. One suggestion I've seen tossed around if you think the UI is too busy is lowering the UI scale via the options menu.

[Miasma]

I was reading elsewhere that the Steer addon is very popular, it turns on/off mouselook when you are moving or in combat so you don't have to constantly be holding down the right mouse button.  KeyBindFreedom lets you bind left/right mouse clicks.  CustomFoV lets you change the really small field of view.

You also have to turn off the archaic default keybinding that A and D are turn instead of strafe.

[Nija]

MMO tutorials are the worst.

If you count Darksun Online and Meridian 59 I've almost been doing this shit for 20 years.

I couldn't make it more than 15 mintues in Wildstar open beta.

Why do you have a skill on the 1 button that you have to spam so much that it should be a left mouse click ability? What exactly are they aiming for with this system? Do I need to get a naga mouse and get thumb arthritis clicking the 1 button 3 times a second for hours and hours each game session?

This is just stupid. I don't care how good it gets later.

[Venkman]

Open Beta starts in about 45 minutes.

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

And no one here seems to care...sign of the times?

I care. But not until the 31st. No sense wasting time on learning things I'll need to repeat, except maybe to optimize my speedrun through the Arkship. When will games go live with the ability to skip the tutorial levels after your first character gets past it? I do not need to relearn that, there's no choices that matter, and the class differences are not nearly pronounced until well after Arkship.

[tmp]

You know what's even better in a game with exploration "challenges" and floaty controls than having your character helplessly slide down every other cartoony exaggerated slope?

Making sure sliding down these slopes deals enough damage to you that it kills you. Because just climbing back up after you fail to predict whether you slide down or not wouldn't take enough time; let's throw in extra run from the spawn point, too.

Ran out of hands to facepalm.

[Rokal]

I care. But not until the 31st. No sense wasting time on learning things I'll need to repeat, except maybe to optimize my speedrun through the Arkship. When will games go live with the ability to skip the tutorial levels after your first character gets past it? I do not need to relearn that, there's no choices that matter, and the class differences are not nearly pronounced until well after Arkship.

They've said they're working on letting players skip the Arkship/tutorial after completing it on any character but the feature may not be in for launch.

[glennshin]

a couple of the addons makes it feel action-y by having auto mouselook & rebind M1 & M2 to the spammy skills.

if they could just add block/actual deflect to these types of games alreadly...

so that it feels like Link to the Past fun

[Tannhauser]

Just played about two hours.  The game is improved, but the combat doesn't resonate with me still.  I feel like I'm floating above the ground when I move, the enemy aoe's are too telegraphed and my skills are unexciting.  At least I can two or three-shot mobs now.

I was standing still at a quest hub and the music kicked into heavy drums like I was storming the Normandy beaches.  Heh.  That's when I logged.

[Draegan]

The reason why you feel floaty is because this game is attempting to put some action-based combat (like TERA) into what was a standard hotbar/tab target combat system. You can move and perform attacks at the same time thus you float. There is not animation lock or movement associated with each move. So it feels like they have no weight.