As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
We're funding a new Acquisitions Incorporated series on Kickstarter right now! Check it out at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pennyarcade/acquisitions-incorporated-the-series-2

[Wildstar]Old Thread, go post in the new thread

1757678808199

Posts

  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    See you are mixing up what is better with what is action based. Mmos going in the direction of action games is going away from things like cast times, locked movement, and aoe zones. Action games run on moves being animated as they should realistically occur, having hit boxes, active frames, wind up and wind downs. To anyone who has ever broken down moves in fighting games, its based on that. That is what actiony is referring to. For mmos, its really getting rid of the standstill type of skill use (like espers complain about) and moving away from requiring a target for skills to be used (which allows them to hit nothing, or whiff)

    Ws was clever in how it made its combat feel like it was action based, but all they really did was make almost every move a frontal cone based aoe with markers on the ground. Think about the mage skill cone of cold in wow. Now just show where its going to hit on the ground during a cast time (i know it is instant though). This is ws combat.

    This doesn't mean its bad, but its not as involved as you think. Its just effective.

    Btw, that vid shows what i was talking about. None of the esper skills are telegraphs. Monster telegraphs have been around forever, and the least action combat game i have seen recently, ffxiv, even has them. They do not mean action combat.

    Kai_San on
    Kyanilis
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    I guess my dictionary must be out of date. Shall update it promptly.

  • ToothyToothy Registered User regular
    I think having a castbar is really just a more precise and measurable function of animation "wind up". I fail to see how it's any different than pulling back the curtain a little visually. You might say that it's more important for someone to learn the animations and timing to be an action game, but I don't necessarily agree with the amount of shit that normally goes on in an MMO. Information is important, and that's why BAMs are so successful in TERA. They're large enough to communicate the necessary information in a Monster Hunter fashion.

    Hit box differences in MMOs tend to murder PVP, so there's that one out of the window. The rest of your argument is well reasoned, but those things aren't as drastic of differences as you say.

    Beezel
  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    Oh hey, IGN Prime is giving away WS beta weekend keys for subscribers.

    PMAvers on
    persona4celestia.jpg
    COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
  • IshtaarIshtaar Fun is underrated. Registered User regular
    PMAvers wrote: »
    Oh hey, IGN Prime is giving away WS beta weekend keys for subscribers.
    It looks more like they're selling beta keys if you're not already a prime member.

    FFXIV: Sith Lord ~ D3: Ish ~ Steam:Ishie
  • DelphinidaesDelphinidaes FFXIV: Delphi Kisaragi Registered User regular
    Ishtaar wrote: »
    PMAvers wrote: »
    Oh hey, IGN Prime is giving away WS beta weekend keys for subscribers.
    It looks more like they're selling beta keys if you're not already a prime member.

    Eh same thing really. It's a perk of being a subscriber to a service, you get certain benefits and in this case a beta key is one of them. It's those benefits that give people incentives to become a subscriber in the first place, otherwise why would people pay money to subscribe?

    NNID: delphinidaes
    Official PA Forums FFXIV:ARR Free Company <GHOST> gitl.enjin.com Join us on Sargatanas!
    delphinidaes.png
    DemonStacey
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    There's a lot of polish in wow that doesn't seem to be present in the design of Wildstar, and it bugs me because it's fairly easy stuff to nick: like not having to go back to town and buy abilities. Or less obtuse, less time intensive questing.

    Kyanilis
  • NotoriusBENNotoriusBEN Registered User regular
    I like the Commlink that Wildstar has. I don't have to go back to town until I finish out a quest line in its entirety or my bags are full.
    Plus, when you hop into a new region in the map, sometimes an NPC will dial you up so you can zero in on where to go for the quest hub.

    a4irovn5uqjp.png
    Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    I think the training thing is a design decision, and not really polish. Good quests, well, valid -_-

  • VargVarg Registered User regular
    The training thing I don't get either, I mean I don't go back to the main town to get them instead I've basically just bought them when I get to a new zone due to the inconvenience.

  • cliffehcliffeh AustraliaRegistered User regular
    edited February 2014
    Yes! Grey items trash items and returning to town to pickup new abilities, I feel these are nothing but time-wasters.

    Though I was told by some RP'ers (or trolls, it was /advice chat) that they like running to town to get skills, it feels more of an accomplishment?

    cliffeh on
    origin: cliffehh | steam: cliffeh | 3DS: 1950 8733 7490
  • DissociaterDissociater Registered User regular
    Skill trainers/going back to town would be a lot cooler if you had your own trainer and some fluff/lore surrounding it the way WoW did. Having to trudge back to town to buy skills from literally a vending machine is boring.

  • GarthorGarthor Registered User regular
    I can see the concept of having to run back to town periodically as being valuable, in order to provide some amount of pacing. IE: most AAA single-player games aren't nothing but combat combat combat combat combat combat, they usually have some sort of downtime in between, whether they be cutscenes or dialogue or what-have-you. This doesn't exist solely to shoehorn story into the game, but also because it's a better experience when there's some lows to follow the highs. There's even some benefit from taking a break from one rollercoaster of highs and lows to a more prolonged, relaxed low, like returning to town to get skills would be.

    Of course, the important thing would then be to make sure a player feels like they want to return to town, that doing so was worth it, and provide more than just a forced menu interaction on them.

  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    Welp, I have met the requirements set forth by Carbine.

    Now, I can continue to test -_-

    BeezelHalfmex
  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
    Out Of Context
  • KyanilisKyanilis Bellevue, WARegistered User regular
    There's a lot of polish in wow that doesn't seem to be present in the design of Wildstar, and it bugs me because it's fairly easy stuff to nick: like not having to go back to town and buy abilities. Or less obtuse, less time intensive questing.

    The questing is probably my largest complaint. It's literally the most generic MMO quest system currently. It doesn't even attempt to have variety, it's literally like "oh hey, here's all these neat ideas we have for everything else...oh and you should feel like you're questing back in vanilla wow" ...what? There's no excuse for this now. I get it, not every new MMO will have every feature other MMOs have grown into, but I can't think of any other recent MMO that completely left their quest system behind since it's such a large part of the MMO experience.

    Darkewolfe
  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    Kyanilis wrote: »
    There's a lot of polish in wow that doesn't seem to be present in the design of Wildstar, and it bugs me because it's fairly easy stuff to nick: like not having to go back to town and buy abilities. Or less obtuse, less time intensive questing.

    The questing is probably my largest complaint. It's literally the most generic MMO quest system currently. It doesn't even attempt to have variety, it's literally like "oh hey, here's all these neat ideas we have for everything else...oh and you should feel like you're questing back in vanilla wow" ...what? There's no excuse for this now. I get it, not every new MMO will have every feature other MMOs have grown into, but I can't think of any other recent MMO that completely left their quest system behind since it's such a large part of the MMO experience.

    FFXIV. Which not only has a pretty bog standard questing system but actually locks non-gear game progression behind five man content (that is terrible BTW) And hell I still like that game.

    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
    aunsoph
  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    ugh, I can't edit with this new mobile layout. Anyway, what I'm getting at is I think quest system design a bit harder than people assume. I haven't seen an mmo yet that had "not shit questing" as a priority not end up majorly deficient in some other critical area. Or worse yet, poorly masking variation of what people consider bad questing to try and trick you into believing they were ever doing anything different.

    Edit: figured out editing but I had to tap all the way to the edge of the screen for some reason. Tablet biased garbage.

    Beezel on
    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
  • kafzielkafziel Registered User regular
    Depends how you define questing, really. Most things you do in any MMO will really be either killing people in a place or clicking on things in a place. The framing of the missions in term of context and storyline is a factor, and I'm enjoying how things are presented so far.

    I can't recall any game that actually innovated in basic quest structure except Guild Wars 2, and mostly that just let you kill people or click things in the place.

    Beezel
  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    Gw2 falls into that "cover it up" category. What they actually did that I didn't see anyone do before was eliminate the "talk to this dude" step in questing. They automated that entire step to mask quest chain progression which I thought was pretty cool. Ironically, that same decision and the player behavior that spawned from it is where you started seeing those "You play around, not with people" arguments crop up. So its like "damned if you do..."

    At this point I pretty much believe that "perfect" mmo is chasing a unicorn and boils down to what people value most out of their gameplay experiences.

    Beezel on
    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
  • dletodleto Registered User regular
    I couldn't wait any longer. I broke down and paid for a month of IGN premium just to try out the weekend beta. Hopefully it's $7 well spent.

  • ToothyToothy Registered User regular
    I think they could've done a lot with an address book like thing. You go to the zone, you put your first contact into your phone. You meet a new quest giver, they go into your phone. You keep dealing with these same NPCs over the course of the zone to create a coherent storyline. The quests are given out as you discover new areas by the people in your phonebook. Areas where you don't have X person are given breadcrumb quests to the relevant NPC to gather their phone number by other people in the area. This way, as an adventurer, you could deal with a variety of contacts: military, scientific, medical, social leaders, etc. They could even tie some of this into Paths, which you could share with your buddies--introducing them to the quest giver.

    Wildstar's main fuck up for questing for me is presentation. The actual quests themselves will never be anything too outside the box unless you start throwing a ton of minigames in like WoW has with the past two expansions. I don't need a ton of voice over work, but having the NPC pop up when they talk to you would be cool. They do it in some places, but it's always in the fucking middle of the screen. Put that shit in the codec, where it belongs. I want all the lore, quest, path, etc. shit to all come from that thing. That way I don't have a thousand windows open and it's all consolidated and easy to use.

    Give me a story synopsis when I finish a damn zone, too.

    *ahem* Rant over.

  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    A saints row/GTA style social network thing with the datachron actually sounds pretty badass

    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
  • KyanilisKyanilis Bellevue, WARegistered User regular
    Beezel wrote: »
    Kyanilis wrote: »
    There's a lot of polish in wow that doesn't seem to be present in the design of Wildstar, and it bugs me because it's fairly easy stuff to nick: like not having to go back to town and buy abilities. Or less obtuse, less time intensive questing.

    The questing is probably my largest complaint. It's literally the most generic MMO quest system currently. It doesn't even attempt to have variety, it's literally like "oh hey, here's all these neat ideas we have for everything else...oh and you should feel like you're questing back in vanilla wow" ...what? There's no excuse for this now. I get it, not every new MMO will have every feature other MMOs have grown into, but I can't think of any other recent MMO that completely left their quest system behind since it's such a large part of the MMO experience.

    FFXIV. Which not only has a pretty bog standard questing system but actually locks non-gear game progression behind five man content (that is terrible BTW) And hell I still like that game.

    While I'll agree that FFXIV's quest system is by no means a step outside the box, it is at least dressed up slightly. Most quests have some sort of presentation aspect to them, mostly through a cut scene. Some would argue that not just being able to click through a quest (which I mean, I guess you can, but it's harder to ignore a whole scene) is bad, but you can't please everyone. I have mixed feelings about the mandatory dungeons, on one hand I don't think it's a bad thing for players to go through those dungeons, on the other, as you said, completely locking you out of progression while you wait on a possibly lengthy queue is definitely pretty bad design.

    It feels like Wildstar tried to go the safest route by not doing anything with the quest system at all. I'm more likely to give credit when an attempt is made, even if I feel it falls waaay short of its goals (GW2, for example). I don't think this is a bad decision on their part, as a ton of people really enjoy that style of questing. What I am saying is that I wish they had done SOMETHING with it. I don't even ask for that much, at least just find a better way to present the quest information even if the quests themselves are generally the same type of activity. I mostly feel like the presentation is very poor.

    It's also not the only part of the game that feels completely uninspired. I would be willing to forgive one aspect if the others made up for it, but I don't think they do. The setting and overall design? I love it. I think it has a ton of character and I can totally dig the story. But when it comes down to the actual gameplay? I feel like they've dropped the ball in nearly every area. Of course, I won't rule out that maybe I'm just "over" the normal MMO experience and I'm just whining about how I wanted Wildstar to be something it's not. We'll see if sticking so true to the standard experience pays off.

  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    I think there's a lot of things you can say about Wildstar's actual gameplay but I don't think standard really applies. Revolutionary? Hardly. But its still a step away from stand here and mash out a rotation. Personally I think any mmo combat system is inferior to TERA regardless of what you set down in front of me. If you meant overall game flow? Ehhhhhhhh...I'm gonna file that one down under opinions. In my personal experience the game's been pretty good about breaking up what you've been doing and making sure the areas you're in don't overstay their welcome. And that's hard! The optional content like challenges I wish just unlocked in a menu instead of obnoxiously starting in the middle of an actual quest and treated it like a "do this. Or not. Whatever" approach they take to paths. Aside from that they're pretty good at giving you options without forcing them down your throat. I will agree that information from the datachron, from lore to quests to path missions is currently conveyed poorly. But I feel that is a UI problem and not necessarily a gameplay problem. I've stated previously that I'm not too big a fan of the right side of my screen turning into a blob of "shit to do" regardless of what game is doing it. I hope the UI overhaul at least addresses this.

    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    Kai_San wrote: »
    See you are mixing up what is better with what is action based. Mmos going in the direction of action games is going away from things like cast times, locked movement, and aoe zones. Action games run on moves being animated as they should realistically occur, having hit boxes, active frames, wind up and wind downs. To anyone who has ever broken down moves in fighting games, its based on that. That is what actiony is referring to. For mmos, its really getting rid of the standstill type of skill use (like espers complain about) and moving away from requiring a target for skills to be used (which allows them to hit nothing, or whiff)

    Ws was clever in how it made its combat feel like it was action based, but all they really did was make almost every move a frontal cone based aoe with markers on the ground. Think about the mage skill cone of cold in wow. Now just show where its going to hit on the ground during a cast time (i know it is instant though). This is ws combat.

    This doesn't mean its bad, but its not as involved as you think. Its just effective.

    Btw, that vid shows what i was talking about. None of the esper skills are telegraphs. Monster telegraphs have been around forever, and the least action combat game i have seen recently, ffxiv, even has them. They do not mean action combat.

    The reason TERA's combat model worked so well wasn't so much due to animation or frame measuring (though those are a part of it) and owes much of its effectiveness to the presence of actual model collision. There wasn't any guess work involved partly due to the boss sizes but because if a boss/monster whiffs on you it whiffed. There wasn't any need for any dice rolls or many invincibility frames (The warrior was the only one with an invincible evade as part of its original class mechanic) during an evade because hit boxes colliding. Instead they set down a bunch of conditionals in the defensive and offensive game of "if x then y" If you're knocked down you can use this. Etc.

    Neither WS nor GW2 are going to top this IMO. But I feel GW2 does a poorer job of conveying that visual information because

    1) most of what you fight throughout the leveling game isn't large enough to give you the kind of visual information you need on their large attacks (or at least that's how it was at launch. I have no clue what's going on with GW2 these days. The possibility exists that I just sucked at this game!)

    2) GW2's area telegraphs are imprecise, not accounting for latency. You're still going to eat damage a few meters outside that border if you're standing on the very visible edge of it.

    That's why the dodge rolls have that invincibility period I'm assuming. There'd be no other reason for that to be there otherwise.

    Latency aside, the problem with Wildstar telegraphs is that a few amongst the creature type permutations where the telegraph is way WAY faster than an average human can reliably react to. The kind that happen near instantly. There was nothing you could do and now a third of your life is gone if you are in heavy armor. Or almost dead if you are in light armor. That's poor design

    Latency factors aside I wouldn't bill either game as "True action combat" There's a reason only Tera can claim this with a straight face despite its other varied problems. But I feel WS is closer to an action game solely from how combat information is relayed to you based on how much you have to guess on whether you're fucking up or not.


    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    I don't have a problem with needing to go back to town to train myself, it breaks up the monotony of just powering through quests (which can easily leave me burned out after a while), enables me to sell, pick up the Settler buffs and hey look I have some mats let's do some crafting while we're here.

    And I'm not entirely convinced every single bit of streamlining is necessarily good (in case of needing to go to town to train it's YMMV), many of them can just kill the game for me. Cataclysm's "go to hub, do 10 quests, get sent to next hub" design was just terrible, despite theoretically making things easier. Or the Asian MMOs' tendency to allow you to click quest objectives to auto-route to them, which changes it from a game of exploration and heroic activity to "click quest, alt-tab out, alt-tab back to kill shit, click next objective, repeat". Making some things too convenient exposes the barebone mechanics and kills immersion... which is fine if you play these games for the mechanics alone, but that's not me.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Funny, I was judging Wildstar's quest system on the basis of JUST having done Cataclysm's questing and finding it far superior. I hate questing that repeatedly sends you out to the same place, or has you bouncing all over the map. I prefer the "Go to HUB A, grab 3 quests for Area 1, do quests; pop 2 more quests, go back to HUB A, grab 3 quests for Area 2, repeat until HUB A is exhausted, go to HUB B.)

    It makes me feel like I'm been as productive as possible, instead of constantly running around and backtracking or going all the way to one area of a map to do a single quest. I mean, is there a better use of my time than Cataclysm style questing? Probably. But I think Wildstar's questing is a worse use of my time at the moment.

  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    One of wildstar's general failings in how objectives are tracked is a lack of a way to separate which quests are from which hub. By design every quest you take is usually in the general vicinity of where you took the quest with a breadcrumb quest leading you ton the next hub. The problem with that is the breadcrumb quest can be picked up before you finish the previous hubs tasks. So if you go wandering....now you have a new bunch of stuff to do with no way to visibly sort it in a reliable way. The major quest chains are called "episodes" and every quest related to them fall under their own separate group in the log which can be collapsed or expanded. The current UI does nothing to even hint that you can do that to reduce your clutter. That shit needs to be fixed

    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Yeah, that happened to me.

    I went to a hub, got a bunch of quests ALL OVER THE MAP and decided to start on the left, and wound up stumbling onto ANOTHER quest hub.

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    That I'll agree with, at one point I stumbled through several quest hubs and ended up with almost everything turning into a disco light show of You Want This Yes.
    They could make the problem less pronounced by letting your quest tracker sort by vicinity. That way you can just look at the top quest and know it's not leading you half a map away (right now you need to open your map to see where it goes).

  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    Erm, it does sort by vicinity. At least its an option that i have on. Can't remember where the option is though. But is possible outside of a few blips here and there where something close randomly goes to the bottom.

    Anyone saying its the worst questing they have seen is either exaggerating or never got past level 10. While the latter is its own problem, it is true they improve later. The quests can be devoid of plot sometimes, and a little bit unorganized, but i have come across enough non 'collect 10 rat-bear ass-tails' to say the quests aren't the worst.

  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    Kai_San wrote: »
    Welp, I have met the requirements set forth by Carbine.

    Now, I can continue to test -_-

    ...

    Sorry, I just got the image of the Caretaker x GlaDOS stuck in my head, and now it won't leave.

    persona4celestia.jpg
    COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    burn it.......BURN IT

    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    Also, how many of us are back in this weekend?

  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    Only saw one mention of a guy getting a key. I think everyone is playing ESO open beta though so :P

    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    Have fun with this weekend, btw. The IGN player-base has made chat channels... as you can imagine.

    Trolls. Trolls EVERYWHERE.

    Also, is it just me, or is Shiphand: Salvage Rights bugged?

    PMAvers on
    persona4celestia.jpg
    COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    Salvage rights....refresh my memory which one that was?

    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    Beezel wrote: »
    Salvage rights....refresh my memory which one that was?

    The shipboard one dealing with the parasites, level 20ish?. Hull breaches, people exploding due to chestbursters, etc.

    There's one of those giant parasites sitting in the medbay you have to kill, but nothing you hit it with does damage, so the mission can't be completed.

    PMAvers on
    persona4celestia.jpg
    COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
  • BeezelBeezel There was no agreement little morsel..Registered User regular
    ahahaaa! yeah that one. That was a nice Alien reference with the NPCs saying "I think we should discuss the bonus situation"
    Yeah that might be bugged. A couple of them were bugged depending on which of the two starter zones you chose I remember that. Try dropping the quest and re-starting it or relogging. If that doesn't work then it's probably not being fixed til the march update, sadly

    PSN: Waybackkidd
    "...only mights and maybes."
This discussion has been closed.