Category Archives: Games

#Diablo3 – Progress Report – Level 70 Crusader

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So to my last post relating to the changes in Diablo3 indicated that I had spent some time there.  Well I did and in particular I decided to roll a Crusader in the softcore season.  I have never been a fan of the hardcore playstyle as an always-online game + 2 kids = you’re going to die.  Lag or framerate stutters are enough to snuff out the candle – in particular framerate issues where player optimization conflicts with game optimization (mostly movement speed issues).

A seasonal player acts like a fresh character as you don’t have access to previous paragon levels, crafting items or shared stash.  It’s like starting the game with nothing – other than the knowledge of previous plays.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  Since I had completed Act V with other characters, I had unlocked adventure mode without the need to do a full game run on the new character.  That saved ~6 hours or so I guess, given the odd balance sections in the game.

Adventure mode allows me to port all over the place and collect bounties, which award a cache with rift tokens and a chance at a legendary.  The legendary ring reward for Act 1, Ring of Royal Grandeur, gives a unique bonus of allowing set benefits with 1 less item (so a bonus of 3 if you only have 2). This allows you to stack multiple benefits with less items.  I did 1 through 70, exclusively on Act 1 bounties, and got 1 ring.  Each run was 2-5 levels worth of experience, depending on what I encountered.

Item collection is much different than before, at least while leveling.  Smart drops means that I had very few super-crap items.  Who needs an DEX sword as a crusader?  I’d guess that less than 20% of the items where things that I would never consider using.  Previously, I would only ever consider 10% of the items that dropped.  I remember my Wizard as the first one that leveled.  When he hit 60, I was still wearing items from level 20 due to poor drops.  When my Crusader hit 70, he has 1 item at 47 and the rest was mid-60s.  Big difference.

Bounties also awarded a bunch of blood shards, used for gambling.  Since I was accruing a decent stream of items while leveling, I played at Master difficulty after level 20 or so.  This gave me a boost to experience (100% I think) and double the blood shards.  I didn’t spend any of them until 70.  When I did hit 70, I gambled on each slot until I got an “optimal” piece per slot.  I think I was around 500 blood shards, so there was plenty of room to gamble and find decent stuff.  Each item costs 5 to gamble, so you can imagine the power jump I went through when I hit cap level.  My DPS went from ~40K to ~150K in 5 minutes.

Actually, this brings up the expansion power jump discussion.  From 1-60, the items are balanced decently enough and gems in particular have a nice scale of power.  61+ the items have a boost in power, significant at that.  Say from 250 stat to 500.  Gems that drop have 100 main stat boost instead of 40.  For example, my monk at 60 had ~200k DPS.  Just by upgrading gems and running blood shards, it went up to 500K.  That’s an insane power curve – (and likely why PvP will never go live).

So what do I do now at max level?  I ran a few rifts at normal, to see if I could get some decent drops.  I got a couple, in particular a nice flail that doubled the duration of my Steed skill (immune to movement control and deals damage).  With a bunch of cooldown reduction items I can use the steed ~50% of the time and kills most enemies in a single shot.  Easy farming for a bit.  Upgrades a couple more pieces then moved on to Torment 1.  Found some more items as pretty much completed all my crafting recipes.  I’m at a point now that there is absolutely nothing I can get that isn’t a set/legendary as an upgrade as I have “optimal” rolls for all my rare gear – you can say that the game is complete at this point.

Now I enter the true end-game, the gear farming space.  I know how this worked before RoS.  A future post will detail the progress.

Diablo 3 – Revisit

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I’ve written a fair bit about Diablo 3 in the past. The two main points were as follows:

  • Building an single Auction House for 3 million people in an RNG system means playing the actual game has little value.  Only playing the AH actually accrued any value.  Plus the whole “real money” aspect was flawed.  (Disclaimer – I made enough from the RMAH to buy D3 and a few expansions, so the game was more or less “free” to me)
  • Extreme randomness does not align with a a design that focuses on 2-3 optimal stats. A 75%+ perfect roll was needed to even compete at top tier, with a less than 0.01% chance of getting it.  Extreme randomness rarely works at all but for it to have a chance, you need rather exceptional balance to make as much viable as possible.  (e.g Intellect for a Monk is never viable)

So Jay Wilson left (was let go?), they dumped the idea of an Auction House, launched a console version with lessons learned and then released an expansion Reaper of Souls that took that and went a bit further.  Doone got me thinking about it with a recent post on the launch of seasons and I decided to give it a go after nearly a year away.

What’s changed?

Loot 2.0 for starters.  This is a massive design change, where the odds of drops are tipped in your class’ favor.  Monks get monk favored drops (Dex, Crit, uniques, etc…) with a few non-Monk items.  The stats on the drops have reasonable ranges (300-400 instead of 100-700).  The balance against the stats makes sense as well, where mid-difficulty content can be completed pretty soon after you hit level 70 and the gap between the difficulties is solid.  Oh, and there are legendaries all over the place, with unique abilities, and they are much better than other items.  The game still has random spots but it is so much less punishing than before, it’s barely recognizable.

Adventure mode.  Once you finish Act V, any other character can port to any waypoint in any act at any time.  There are still shitty spots in the game (bees in Act 2, goliaths in Act 4) and you can skip them completely!  Combined with bounties, which are 5 mini quests per act that reward gold/xp and blood shards, you have a reason to go all over the place and see things but with options.  Blood shards are used for gambling, which is a nice feature.

Customization.  Transmog is there and that’s fine but the ability to re-roll stats on items is even better.  Have an item that’s perfect except for one roll?  Re-roll it for a better item!  It’ll cost you a pretty penny but hey, good way to get some nice stuff.

Crafting overhaul.  Crafting now is useful.  Sets, uniques and what have you.  It makes sense to make items now and actually use this system.

Balance.  D3 at launch was notorious for cookie cutter builds, which are indicative of poor balance.  When you’re given the choice of ~150 skills and 75% of the population ends up with the same selection – you have a problem.  Today, each class has 4-5 viable builds for max level (Torment 6).  That’s a hell of an achievement.

Paragon.  This was before 2.0 but it’s now across all characters.  You get points for each level past 70 (horizontal progress) to assign to specific fields.  Allows you a level of customization you might not find on gear.  Applies to level 1 characters too!

Seasons.  Well, this is a 2.1 change.  Seasons and ladders allow you to make a single character, apart from the Paragon pool and level them up.  Slightly different rewards, titles, legendaries and what not.  Once the season is over, you go back into the general pool. A wonder why this wasn’t in earlier as there’s competition.

Should I play this?

Most games get better with expansions/DLC.  Few games can reverse massive suckage, or simply poor design.  Marvel Heroes is one.  FF14 is another.  D3 is now on that list.

I have no idea who they hired to do the system redesign.  Whoever it is deserves a medal though.  The game is ultra smooth, has a clear progression path and rewards investment.  It’s responsive, communicates a lot more in what you can do to get better (or compare) and has done significant re-balance.  I’d almost go so far as to call this Diablo 4 since aside from the art, story and classes, this plays like a different game.

Gaming Value

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Syp has an article in related to Collector Edition costs.  Syncaine has one related to FF14’s long term subscriber benefits.  I know UO for the longest time had veteran rewards.  And with all this talk about F2P, one has to wonder how much value you’re actually getting for your money.  And not just in the MMO space.

Value per hour

Let’s not kid ourselves.  Gaming is a very cheap hobby, assuming you have the console/PC to run it.  Let’s say you don’t though.  A console is $500 with enough controllers and cables and crap, then $15 a month for multiplayer.  A PC is about $1500.  Both get you a solid 5 years before needing replacement if you game heavily.  So let’s say it costs about $280 a year for a console and $300 for a PC (closer than you thought I bet!).  That’s less than a dollar a day.

Games run $60.  People play about 22 minute a day, 22 hours a week, for a core gamer.  Games run all over the place in terms of completion time.  Single player games are around 8 hours, RPGs run 20+, multiplayer is all over the place so let’s guess at 100 and MMOs are even larger so let’s say 200 (3 months @ 22 hours) – but they also cost ~$15 a month in subscriptions.

So a singe player game is $7.5/h, RPG is $3/h, multiplayer is $0.6/h and MMOs are $0.3/h for F2P and $0.5/h for a 3 month subscription.  That’s pretty cheap if you think about it.

Value per event

Single player events are contained – you finish the game and you’re done.  Only a few have replay value and the number of people who just complete a game are below the 25% mark.  Multiplayer games are different, each session can be a new event.  You can join a tournament.  You could be grinding like a maniac, and I consider that a single event.  MMOs are quite a bit different.  Sandboxes make their own events, though they do have patches.  Burn Jita is an event that has nothing to do with the developer.  And the value of a sandbox event is typically higher due to the player’s sense of involvement – mind you they are more spread out.  I mean, you hear about a capital ship battle once every 3-6 months.

Themeparks have a set number of events (or rides I guess), usually dictated by the patch/expansion cycle.  I will take an example that is not WoW, but instead a patch cycle of 3 months of content, 18 months for expansions.  So launch, patch, patch, patch, patch, patch, expansion.  Now, expansions shouldn’t ever cost more than half of a launch price – so $30.  95% of the content is already there and the development has been fairly well subsidized by your previous payments.  It’s not a new game, it’s a big DLC.  The patches, content patches mind you, should as a whole equal half the content of an expansion pack.   By that I mean, content patches should have new zones, new events, new items, new systems, etc…What an expansion provides is a vertical progress (new levels) and a LARGE package of content (zones, events, etc…)

Value for extra content

And that’s just baseline content.  The original CE issue is that the prices are all over the place.  Early access, beta access, a pinky ring, some scarf that no one can see.  All of that junk makes no sense to me.  But hey, people still believe buying lottery tickets is a smart move.  A CE should have actual value.  Physical items (like coins, statues, maps, books), digital non-game items (soundtracks, art), digital in-game items (mounts, re-usable dyes, titles, costumes).  Why would you ever pay for $30 more for an item that has 2 hours of use (such as a ring that grants extra experience for 10 levels).

Player value

And this gets me to my final point, you the player.  You pump in quarters to the machine and get to play.  The developer gets money.  You are content for other players (certainly in F2P games).  The deal can be broken at any time and the reason to keep paying is a personal/social one.  FF14 (and a few others) have tweaked that a bit.  Play for X amount of time and get this bonus item (a mount, a trophy, etc…).  Or if you are a subscriber, get a significant discount on future items, including expansions.  I mean, you’ve subsidized the game this far, why keep paying?  Certainly in this age of instant themeparks, if you can get 3 months out and there’s no new events, why keep paying (outside of social circles).  You can just hop into another themepark and drop 3 months of cash and cycle through.  Games that treat you with respect as a client earn more business in the real world.  It’s about time the virtual one caught up.

Skill vs Time – A Visual Aid

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After reading Isey’s post on How to Lose an MMO Gamer in 10 Ways, and after pondering a bit more my previous post on Wildstar, I decided to draw out what I think is one of the larger hurdles for games to succeed – at least on a “massive” scale.  And that’s player skill.

Good game design is a series of meaningful choices.  I don’t think there’s any debate on that.  Where I think the kink in that comes from is in the ability for a person to have a an actual choice and appreciate the results (i.e. the ability to apply a skill and learn a new one).  I’ll go back in time a bit to vanilla Naxx and Heigan the Unclean.  This is the famous “avoid the fire spouts and you can solo me” boss – a dance really.  This was a massive twist in the traditional RPG space, where you just stood there pressing buttons.  Now you actually had to pay attention to the play space and move.  You couldn’t just absorb the damage.  I do know that many guilds at the time used it as a triage for recruits (combined with Thaddius) and it formed a massive skill wall for it’s day.   You either performed it perfectly, or you died.  That model, tried with a slight twist in BC, got the Ol’ Yeller treatment.  For good reason too, it wasn’t a meaningful choice and other than memorization and “no keyboard turners” there was little skill exploited.  WoW since then (with a blip in Cataclysm that they want to forget) has been more and more accessible at the lower end, with harder content for those who want the option.

To me, player progress is important.  Not only improvement itself but the opportunity for improvement and the evidence of improvement.  Huge spikes in difficulty is bad.  Difficult just to be difficult is bad.  No difficulty is bad.  A gradual increase in difficulty, where your progress is both evident and rewarded is the optimal solution.

On to the visual aid I promised!

skillvstime

What I did here was map the player skill required to complete tasks, assuming a time investment.  The skill portion is relative between games, where EvE is certainly the most challenging.  The remaining themeparks are ranked in difficulty, based on my play.  Over each in particular now.

EvE

Everyone has seen the EvE difficulty curve.  The game is rather simple to start, assuming you stay in high-sec and follow the themepark crumbs.  Try to move off that path, either through null-sec or mastering a trade and boom, welcome to excel online.  If you make the transition, you’re gold.  If you don’t, then you’re dead.  EvE has been able to succeed with a supremely polished game after the transition.

Wildstar

No game starts off harder than Wildstar.  Then you start dungeons and the difficulty starts to climb.  Reach max level and the attunement begins, with a massive climb in difficulty. There’s no help to transition between the stages, the difficult is very binary (you die in 1 shot or you take no damage) and the climb at the end is like no other themepark.

FF14

A game with a very gradual increase in difficulty due to skill unlocks being limited and the presence of force grouping at an early stage to progress on the solo train.  You learn to tank, heal, pull, DPS, stun, craft… everything.  And the change at max level is more along the lines of perfecting skills you’ve already acquired.  It’s a very good experience.

ESO

This one is a little odd, in that challenge as you level has no training and very little feedback but the skill level required is pretty low.  Given that there are actual “bad choices” the game design allows you to have a couple and still succeed.  If you make good decisions, then it’s like cutting Jell-O.  That said, at launch the game had a veteran system at level 50 that was significantly harder than the first portion of the game and accounted for 60% of the content.  Bad choices meant you were going to do.  Good choices gave you a 25% chance to die.  That system was drastically changed after 3 months to a more similar difficulty curve.

WoW

I could have drawn 1 line per expansion here but the power curve line is pretty close to this.  Today’s experience from 1 to 89.9 is a joke.  I leveled a Monk to 90 in a week and only died from falling damage.  Dungeons & LFR can be AFKed by 20% of the group and you’re still going to win.  Normal raids have some challenge but the real difficulty is in the heroic raids.  And not heroic raids because of the mechanics but because of the stats the players have on the content.  Remember that power curve line?  The difference in power between expansion launch and 2 months is nearly 25%.  People were clearing MoP raids in Cataclysm raid gear.

Others

I could have added other games, like LoTRO, STO, DCUO, Rift, Neverwinter and DDO where I’ve done the high level stuff.  They are all pretty similar to WoW, with the final spike happening earlier.  I can’t think of one that plateaus before max level – though TSW might be a candidate as it doesn’t really have a max level, just limited action sets.

Summary

I think the comparison between all the games is important for discussion.  Certainly each has their own variables but of you were to look at where players quit the game, I’d bet dollars to donuts it’s where you see a shift in the curve (assuming they get past a trial phase).  Difficulty is good.  Shifts in difficulty must be moderate.  The benefit of that difficulty increase must be evident.  All of the games listed have made changes since launch to their curves (yes, even EvE) except for Wildstar – but it’s also the youngest.  Here’s hoping they get the hint.

#Wildstar – 3 Months In

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I want to talk about the negativity around Wildstar – which I guess is sort of a Streisand effect…

First off, Massively isn’t a gaming news site.  It’s an editorial/opinion/re-posting web service.  It’s one of the more prominent sites but to claim that it holds any journalistic merit, well you couldn’t be much further.  What it does, it does well – in that it generates buzz/comments.  So when you read an article stating that Wildstar isn’t doing well, take it with a grain of salt.  It should hold as much weight as when BoK posts something similar.

So let’s start with the facts.

Some Wildstar servers are ghost towns.  As with any MMO, once you can’t find anyone to play with, you stop playing, so this is really just like watching water leave a drain.  To combat this, Carbine will be implementing Megaservers (like every other MMO in the past 4 years – including WoW).

The game has a much harder difficulty curve than any other themepark.  The wall is early and it is high and it gets bigger over time.  I won’t say the game is complex, outside of coordinating interrupts, but it is very unforgiving of mistakes.  This by nature reduces your potential client base.  There are no planned changes for this outside of a “learner” dungeon in the next patch.  More tools to teach without changing the core system.

Itemization/Runes/Power distribution is not aligned.  Right now, the melee classes get a larger benefit from stats than ranged players, which is causing them to have ~50% more damage output.  They just scale like crazy.  Rune slots are also an issue, where “optimal” runes are 2-3x better than a normal rune.  What this means today is that there is little choice at max level, and making anything but the correct choice is a massive penalty. Both of these issues are going to be addressed by Carbine – the first part by normalizing power and stat gains and the latter by spreading out runes across more slots.

The next part is my observation.

The end game is forked into two parts – the solo side of dailies (that each take 30+ days to cap), customization (armor and housing) and farming/crafting and the group side of adventures/dungeons/raids.  Elder Gems are the max level currency and right now, it only has a use for the latter group.  Solo folk need more content and the next patch has some more dailies.  However the game needs more types – shiphand missions are an easy target – and a better use for Elder Gems.  Carbine has stated they are working on this but there are no timelines.

The group folk have a completely different problem, in two parts.  First is the attunement wall.  Unless you already have a raiding guild who wants to pull you through content, you’re not going to get through it – in particular because of the world raid bosses.  It took WoW multiple content patches to create this attunement wall (BWL and BT come to mind) and caused enough problems that the entire model was scrapped.  That Wildstar implemented this wall at launch…very odd choice.  Carbine is making changes to reduce the requirements of attunement but without Megaservers or an existing raid group, people are still out of luck.  The second part is the reward structure around group play, in that it’s “gold or bust”.  Given the above mentioned difficulty, and the fact that adventures/dungeons provide a significant boost in rewards if you achieve a gold medal, any failure is met with a group disband.  This causes an “elite” culture and provides absolutely zero learning curve for players.  Carbine has made some changes to the rewards structure in that now even a bronze gives something but there is still too large a gap between bronze and gold. (To compare, Gold runs in Wildstar are akin to Gold Challenge runs in WoW).

The good news is that I’m still playing and having fun.  It isn’t a daily thing mind you, but every couple days I log on and run a few things.  The group thing is an issue for my playstyle.

Is Wildstar in a rough spot?  Certainly.  At the very least, it will continue to hemorrhage players until they can implement Megaservers. There should be no larger priority.  Aside from that, there are plenty of balance changes on the way to address some of the concerns above – and soon too.  As for the group play at max level, that is going to require more time and more thought.  Had Megaservers been there at the start, perhaps the attunement issue would be smaller as there would be a larger player base to get through it.  My opinion (since beta) is that focusing solely on 20/40 person raids is a mistake.  Time will tell if Carbine feels the same way.

Your Voice Matters

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I have a personal rule in my line of work, if no one says anything, then it’s approved.  I tried forcing people to approve things and nothing moved, so now everything has a disclaimer.

You have x days to provide comments, otherwise you’re indicating approval for the content.

It took 2 or 3 passes before people realized I wasn’t messing around and now feedback is quite quick.  It’s also something I use when talking to friends and politics comes up.  “Did you vote?  No?  Then shut up.”

The link to gaming, and actually more like social studies, is as follows.  A lack of action is an approval of another action.  In much simpler terms, if you’re not calling an asshat out, then you’re ok with their actions.  If you’re not /reporting someone for clear harassment, then you’re supporting them.

Now, people can make all sorts of excuses around that and that’s all they are, excuses.  If you aren’t standing up for something, then you’re standing up for nothing.  Things don’t change by just sitting there and looking at them.  They need action, they need people.

Greifer – someone who through their actions, costs you more than they pay into the system

I could care LESS about what people think about the UO Trammel split.  It was the solution, at the time, that was meant to stop greifing.  There was such a furor on the forums and in-game, people were simply just abandoning completely that Origin needed to make a drastic change.  You can blame the “carebears” if you want but the cause was always the greifers.  The solution… we can talk about that another time.

I won’t be linking to any hashtags or websites about the garbage going on today.  It’s really not that complicated.  There are a bunch of people who would rather stroke themselves and put everyone else down rather than share the ball.  I get that.  We used to call them schoolyard bullies.  They all ended up pumping gas for a living.

The gaming industry is undergoing a revolution.  The old days of pumping out shareware crap at Radio Shack are long gone.  The old guard of online games has long since retired or morphed into today’s MMO/online presence.  Today’s gaming must be inclusive.  It’s beyond financially irresponsible to ignore 50% of your market – it’s ignorant.  Gaming is a business, it needs to make money.  Focusing solely on greifers as your target audience is stupid.  XBOX One even has a cesspool of players with low score to avoid this problem.  If you want to be an asshole, that’s fine.  Go circle jerk with the rest and leave us alone.

There is a massive storm of ideas and mandates going on today.  It will not get better in the short term.  This is what happens when you want a revolution, people will get hurt, business will suffer and after what seems like an eternity, the industry will come out stronger.

But the only way this thing will change is if you use your voice, because every single one matters.

#Wildstar – Megaservers

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Quick post as I’ve been out away from a computer (heck, an internet connection) for a while now. Seems while I was gone Wildstar announced that Megaservers were coming to the game.

If you’ve played GW2, then you know what these are.  I’ve always found it odd that NCSoft didn’t apply that tech to Wildstar at the start…Anyhoo.  Megaservers are going to provide 2 main server rules, PvE and PvP.  The RP stuff is going bye-bye.  This is similar to what SWTOR did, DCUO too.  WoW still has front end servers when picking a place to play but the backend has nearly every single server tied to another (or more) through “merging”.  It just doesn’t make sense to have actual server anymore as there’s no real win to be had.

The only kink I see here is the naming conflicts.  There are still plenty of players and servers and for the love of poop, I am not giving up Asmiroth to anyone.  I liked WoW’s implementation (with server name as last name) but I’m sure as the weeks go by and they test it out some we’ll see progress.

Overall, quite happy with the news.  And looking forward to 1.3 as well!

Gaming Questionnaire – Because, Yeah

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I’d really like to take the time to write more but I’ve been so rarely in the house lately that I’ve done very little blogging.  Can’t complain of late, given the (finally) nice weather.  Fall is approaching, so after the next 2 weekends, there should be some stability.

That said, late as always, I thought I’d give the Gaming Questionnaire from Cannot Be Tamed a shot.  Some part of this is for me, some part for you!  win/win

There are a lot of questions and after running through it, I get to realize that this is like asking me who my favorite child is.  They all are, for various reasons, at various times.  And I’m really glad I can say that.

1. When did you start playing video games?

A little squib, probably 5-6.  I’m 35 now, so that’s a fair amount of time.

2. What is the first game you remember playing?

I do remember playing Pong at my grandmothers and a fair chunk of early Atari.  My friend had a commodore.  A neighbor was always buying new Atari games, then selling them.  I bought what must seem like 30 games from him for a dollar each.  It was a lot of fun.

3. PC or Console?

I started on console, then moved to PC, then back to console, then back to PC.  I really don’t see the need for consoles today.  Steam + Big Screen + controller is the way forward.  I think the actual conversation today is PC or mobile.

4. XBOX, Playstation or Wii?

Today?  Playstation.  It’s a gamer focused device with a bunch of value services.  XBOX is a shell of what it was and Wii is in a really, really weird place right now.

5. What’s the best game you ever played?

That is a really, really good question.  How about I split that up a bit because a game today can’t really compare with one from 20 years ago.  Quest for Glory series has been on the list for a long time.  The original XCOM.  I prefer Civ 5 over the other ones in the series but 1/2 were amazing. Myst had me change the way I thought about games.  NHL 94 and Jeremy Roenick.  FF6 I’ve put hundreds of hours.  Ni No Kuni is the best RPG in the past 5 years.

How do you ever pick a single game?

6. What is the worst game you ever played?

I dunno, Enter the Matrix?  I tend to put in a good 5 hours into a game, even if I don’t like it.  Just to get a feel for it.  EtM was really quite bad.

7. Name a game that was popular/critically adored that you just didn’t like.

Call of Duty/Battlefield/FPS clones.  I just don’t see the point.

8. Name a game that was poorly received that you really like.

I’m going to say Hellgate.  PvE FPS MMOs are all pretty ugly today.  Hellgate did a TON of things wrong but also did a TON of things right.  There was next to no middle ground.

9. What are your favorite genres?

RPG, platformers, tactical/strategy games tend to be top of pile.  I prefer to think than to react.

10. Who is your favorite game protagonist?

This isn’t a fair question.  Protagonists today are clearly defined while 10 years ago you had to fill in the blanks.  Voice actors make or break it.  So old school, I’d say the hero from the QfG series.  Very flexible, you could act noble or not.  I thought it was solid and the story kept pace.  Today’s hero is Oliver from Ni No Kuni.  The character progresses drastically from start to finish, it’s really impressive what they did.

11. Describe your perfect video game

RPG with MMO elements, set in sci-fi, with PvE sandbox elements.  Solid replay value, with different branching stories.  I like the idea of playing the protagonist but even more so the strategist.  How about a combination of Minecraft, Overlord and Mass Effect.

12. What video game character do you have a crush on?

Hmm.  Female characters are so underdeveloped it’s really hard to go that route.  The new Lara Croft angle sounds promising, and FemShep had potential (but spoiled it in ME3).  I guess right now, Drusera in Wildstar is the one I’m most curious about.

Lightning from FF13 started out as a crush but then you learn more and go “oh”.  I would be curious to see Nathan Drake’s descent into madness.

13. What game has the best music?

FF6 is up there.  Eternal Sonata is highly noted.  Ni No Kuni has an amazing soundtrack.  Transistor was also quite good.

14. Most memorable moment in a game

Biggest plot twist is likely Aerith’s death given that no one liked to kill protagonists in the first 1/3rd of a game (outside of an intro).  I’ve had quite a few memorable moments, when I either get my wife to see it or my kids.  To pick one would be to deny all the amazing moments in great games.  By and large though, it has little to do with the climax of the game but more with the intertwining of the story.  Bioshock Infinite is less about the climax and more about the 2nd playthrough and seeing the game through a different set of lenses.

15. Scariest moment in a game

I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever been scared in a game before.  Never been my type of thing.

16. Most heart wrenching moment in a game

There have been plenty of self-sacrifices in games over the years.  Booker in Bioshock Infinite is the most recent memorable one.  I have great difficultly watching a parent lose their child, yet thankfully that is a rare occurrence in gaming.

17. What are your favorite websites/blogs about gaming?

See my blogroll 🙂  In addition, the official Reddit forums for a game are usually the best place for news.

18. What’s the last game you finished?

Transistor?  Devious Dungeon on Android might be more recent.  Does a replay of Quest for Glory count?  How many games today actually have endings?

19. What future release are you most excited about?

Today, Civilization: Beyond Earth and Wasteland 2.  I try not to look too far ahead.

20. Do you identify as a gamer?

Why yes, yes I do.  Anyone filling out this survey would be a gamer otherwise they couldn’t answer these questions.  Play games?  Gamer.

21. Why do you play video games?

I’ve answered this in the past.  I game for all sorts of reasons.  It’s my main hobby and allows me to decompress after a long day.  I enjoy nearly every aspect of gaming and find more pleasure from it than I think most do.  I am oddly concerned to meet someone my age or younger than doesn’t play games.  Outside of sports/crafting, an engrossing social life, or perhaps self-improvement activities, I’ve always been quite curious as to what people would rather do in their spare time.

#Wildstar – Veterans

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While I recently tagged 50 with my Engineer I was left with a conundrum.  What do I want to do now?  I mean, I have a healer and a tank, both of which are DPS as well.  I’ve done the paths that interest me (scientist and settler).  What’s next?

I opted to get my Engineer up to the first “hurdle” for attunement, getting enough reputation.  Well, the first step is getting 150 elder gems, that took a week+.  Then was killing Pyralos in Wilderrun.  I did this guy with my Esper, who had about 20K hit points.  That took about 3 hours of trouble and I was swearing something fierce.  My engineer had the hit points to be knocked down from the tower and survive with 300hp.  He could also stand in the fire without dying.  3 tries and he was down.  I can’t imagine how that would feel for a player with their first 50 – with such a large disparity between the classes.  Anyways, after that I hit the reputation wall – currently at 26K of 32K.  At that point it’s either daily grinds OR veteran content.

My Esper is at the “all adventures on veteran” stage and a class I tend to enjoy playing more, so I hopped back on.  I collected a Goldensun Essence (which is neato) first, then decided to run around a bit.  I collected a few bags (the 16 and 15 slot ones from challenges) as I seem to be perennially out of space.  The I looked at my housing plot, thought “It’s going to take days to make this look less like a trailer park” and moved on.  I do need to take a stab at it mind you, just not today.

First was re-gearing from the AH.  Esper had more cash and for 1.5p I was able to replace 4 pieces of gear and up my Moxie by nearly 200.  (note to others, look at level 49 gear).  I put in a few runes but it’s about 1p per right now, something for later gear I suppose.  Though from what I’ve read, this crafted gear I have is optimal well into the raiding sphere.

At this point I thought about getting into the veteran content outside of the guild, which meant the LFG tool.  I have a natural aversion to LFG tools for the first few months of a game.  Let’s just say that the people who are using it are in it for the end result rather than the actual content, locusts by and large.  Once you hit the end of month 3, the people left in the game are vastly different than before and quite enjoyable.

So I said, let’s do veteran ship hand missions – the button was there while leveling after all.  To my disappointment, the button doesn’t work.  Same with housing plot adventures.  I’d gladly do both on veteran.  Mind you, the housing ones do scale and the shiphands scale you down.  There’s a challenge, I just don’t want the gear.  I want the housing stuff!

I then decided to bite the bullet and opened the LFG tool.  I selected DPS and removed myself from the healer queue.  It’s always a good idea to do hard mode content as a DPS, where you can make mistakes and learn new patterns, and then graduate to healing.  Less than 2 minutes and I was into War in the Wilds.

This is the MOBA adventure and I’ve done it quite a few times on normal.  Capture flags, destroy enemies, check.  Very easy, very short.  Veteran started well enough as we captured 5 flags without incident.  Then things took a turn.

I don’t know if this is the core strategy or not but the tank decided to take on all 5 enemy heroes at once, in the middle of the enemy AI path for the moodies.  So there’s those 5 plus 5 more moodies and there’s red telegraphs everywhere.  I was doing my job, decently enough I might add, then the healer just ran out of focus.  We’re talking a solid 5 minutes of non-stop battling, which shouldn’t be a normal thing for a healer.  I died, the tank died, then it was a wipe.

You know what happened next? Full disband.  I’m used to gkicks in other games but just a full drop seems excessive. I know to get silver you need to have more kills than deaths, and we were WELL above that marker.  I just don’t get that mentality of failure and quitting.  I guess I need to run some more stuff with the guildies.

#Wildstar – Esper DPS Guide

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Updated for Drop 6

The following is my perspective on DPS as an Esper.  They are a long range attacker, with some survivability due to lifesteal and healing capabilities.  They are rather fragile though, so you want to stay out of the fray.  I’ve been able to solo 5 man bosses.

Espers work with Psi Points, obtained through builders.  They cap at 5 and unless you have a specific AMP, any gained past that point are wasted.  They last forever in combat, and about 10 seconds when out of combat.

Skills

This section will give you an overview of all the damage skills and their value.  While Esper damage is somewhat simple (2 builders + 2 finishers), there are many options depending on the event.

Spectral Form

30 second cooldown that gives you an absorb shield, increases output and gives you PP over time.  You want to use this at 4 PP, to get to 5 quickly then cast a finisher.  You’ll be back at 5 in a flash just afterwards.  Get used to using this often as it’s extremely powerful.

It can also be used for movement portions with low combat, such as dodging laser beams.  It will give you an absorb shield and enough PP to keep casting a finisher.  This skill is required for soloing 5 man bosses.

Telekinetic Strike (TK)

One of two builders and there’s absolutely no downside to using it.  T8 gives additional PP generation too, so max this and use it liberally. It gives slightly more damage than PF, though it requires much better aim.

Psychic Frenzy (PF)

The other builder with comparable damage to TK but you must be in melee range to use.  That puts you in harm’s way, which is a bad spot for a light armor player.  If you are using it, you must be at T4 to get the lifesteal, otherwise it’s not worth it.  Works the same as TK at T8.

Mindburst (MB)

One of two finishers, this one has a smaller telegraph at long range and is an instant attack.  T8 gives you a critical chance buff when used at 5PP.  Since this one is easier to aim, and isn’t AE, it’s very useful for targeted attacks.

Telekinetic Storm

This is a DoT attack that follows your target and hits nearby enemies.  At T4 it reduces armor (useful on bosses) and at T8 it debuffs the target’s deflect chance.  The damage is similar to Mindburst but I find that it doesn’t stack very well compared to MB.  Only 1 Esper should be casting this per encounter.  A small downside is that if you use Spectral Form, you’ll be recasting this spell faster than the DoT expires… this is a slight loss of damage. 

Blade Dance (BD)

Does OK damage but you can’t do anything else while it’s channelling.  The damage needs to scale a whole lot better for it to be anywhere close to useful, or apply a DoT instead of a channel.

Illusionary Blades (IB)

Deals more damage than other builders but has a cooldown and 3 charges.  If you use it on cooldown, at T4, it’s on-par with Spectral Swarm in terms of damage.  The T8 snare is useless due to the long cooldown.

Concentrated Blade (CB)

Minor DPS, off general cooldown, gives a PP on hit.  No reason at all to invest here, just baseline as a free PP generator.  This is the oddest skill, since it’s a set it and forget it kind of thing.

Bolster

Don’t invest, it’s just used for the passive healing.  Great for solo work but should be avoided in group settings.

Haunt

It’s a so-so skill, at T4 with a magic damage buff for yourself, T8 adds a magic DoT. Use it before a finisher for maximum damage.  It’s a decent self-buff and a good choice for a T8 ability.

Spectral Swarm (SS)

Only acquired through AMPs, this generates 2 bugs that attack the enemy.  T4 gives you lifesteal as well.  An AE boss will kill them quickly, which makes this more of a solo/situational ability. On par with IB in terms of damage output.

Reaper

Pure PvP skill that snares the target.  Horrible damage.  Skip it.

Geist

This is a decent leveling ability until you get SS, especially if you get it to T4 for the lifesteal.  Geist + SS + PF is a decent solo damage output with lifesteal, something to consider.  At T8 this sucker will peel off anything attacking you, which is absolutely critical if you want to solo any 5 man enemies.

Crush / Incapacitate

For when you need to break armor.  Depends highly on your group composition and your level of trust.  Crush at T4 takes 2 armor away.  No need to invest in Incapacitate.  Note that Incapacitate won’t interrupt, you need to use it first, then use Crush to knock the enemy down.

Shockwave / Restraint

Shockwave destroys 1 interrupt but also knocks the enemy back. Restraint applies an AE root.  I really like the way that Shockwave works and use it in solo quite a bit.

Fade Out

A “get out of crap” card that breaks stuns and roots and throws you backwards.  Situational but quite useful – aiming can be tricky.

Projected Spirit

Allows you to sprint forward and give a minor heal.  This is meant to put distance between you and the target, not anything else.  On high movement bosses, if you have the room on the LAS, this is a decent skill to have.

Soothe

A decent solo ability that can heal you on the move, or top you up after a fight.  Not useful for group content.  Spam it for decent healing without PP generation.

AMPs

Assault all the way, with a touch of strikethrough. BINGO is up in the air as it doesn’t work with all builders and if you’re already at 4+PP, the extra PP is wasted.

Build Suggestions

There are 2 core builds, a pure damage output and a sustainability option.

Pure Damage – TK + MB + IB + CB + Bolster (My Base Build)

Sustain – PF + MB + SS + CB + Bolster (My Base Build)

The rest of the skills are highly dependent on your preferences and the actual event.  Crush at T4 is very powerful, and combined with Incapacitate can make quick work of bosses.  Geist at T8 allows you to solo 5 man bosses.

Psi Point Management

  • This is where the real skill level cap is found, managing optimal PP.
  • You want to always use a finisher at 5 PP, for the damage buff.
  • You don’t want to overlap on PP generation as you can’t get more than 5PP (without an AMP).
  • Spectral Form gives you 1 PP instantly, the rest over time, so cast it at 4PP.
  • CB takes ~3 seconds to hit your target. Cast it at 3+PP so that they land AFTER your finisher
  • Haunt, Reap, Spectral Swarm, Spectral Form and your Gadget should be cast on cooldown.

 Runes

  • Runes were redone in Drop 6
  • You can only complete a run set in a single piece of gear (pants for example), so you’ll need high quality runes and at least 4 slots to complete a level 8 rune set
  • You can use the same regular set in other pieces (better stat optimization), but not class sets
  • Class sets require ilvl 100, which is raid quality gear.  Then you’ll look for Fiendish (ilvl 120) or Mental Prowess (ilvl100)
  • Regular sets should be either Devastation or Onslaught.  They also have ilvl requirements.
  • Fusion runes are gear specific, can fit into any rune type slot, and provides an AMP-like effect:
    • Weapon: Venom
    • Gloves: True Strike
    • Head: Barrage
    • Chest: Flurry
  • Until you’re in full dungeon gear, it’s not advisable to spend more than 50g per regular/set rune, and 2p for Fusion runes.
  • Class sets are on raid gear and you should know what’s going on by then.

Stat Priority

  • Stats were completely redone for Drop 6.
    • When I list a cap, it’s a soft cap. Meaning that past that point, the returns are drastically
    • Crit Hit Chance caps at 30%, Crit Hit Severity at 250%
    • Multi-Hit Chance (for 1 attack to hit again) caps at 60%
    • Strikethrough allows you to hit tougher enemies (12% needed for first raid)
    • Vigor (do more damage the more HP you have) caps at 30%
  • Stat priority gets a little wonky.
    • First you want to have enough strikethrough for the content (~5% for dungeons, 12%/16% for raids).
    • Crit Chance > Crit Severity > Vigor > Multi-Hit are a solid, if you can manage to stay healthy.

 

Learning to DPS

The first rule of DPS is that a dead player deals no damage.  Wildstar is especially unforgiving in this regard, so you need to learn to dodge, dip, dive, duck and dodge.  In all cases, you should move and re-cast rather than take the hit.  Thankfully the Esper is rather mobile class, so this shouldn’t have too large an impact

Next to learn is Moments of Opportunity (MoO).  When you see an enemy casting (a purple bar) and you are able to interrupt it when they have no armor, they get knocked down and take extra damage.  This bypasses all shields and increases damage by a solid 25%.  This is the key to beating veteran content.  A group should set up an A team and a B team, then rotate through.  Unless your attack can kill the enemy in 1 hit, a knockdown is always the best option.  If you are DPS, you must learn to interrupt.

Third is learning to circle strafe and attack.  You need to move around the target, in a circle, with mouse look (hold right mouse) and keep attacking.  Once you get that down, include some dodges in the attack pattern.  Learning to move and attack makes a huge difference.  Having the option to hold a button to continue attacking also improves quality of life.

Finally it’s about learning the attack dance.  Cooldowns are generally synchronized to patterns.  TK + TK + SS + CB x2 is sustainable for a long time.  It’s about practice to find the optimal sequence of button presses and practicing so that it becomes more natural.  Slotting those attacks in sequence in your LAS is a good bet too.  Getting a programmable mouse (or multi-button at least) is also a smart bet.

#I’ll try to keep this guide up to date.