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#Wildstar – Esper Healing Guide

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Updated for Drop 6

Syl has a good post detailing her healing experiences in Wildstar thusfar.  The main point is that it’s incredibly hectic but at the same time, extremely rewarding.  I had started a comment but realized it was getting too verbose, hence this post.

The following is my perspective on healing as an Esper.  They are more akin to the traditional healer in MMOs, when compared to Medics (mid-range, shield and AE focused) and Spellslingers (long range, Spellsurge dependent, absorb focused).

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 for about 10 seconds in combat.

Our main healing resource is Focus, analogous to Mana from other games.  You have a decent amount, it regenerates over time and there are a few skills that can boost it.  In drop 6, focus management took a rather significant turn – spells cost about 3x more than before.  This means that focus management became really important and also changed the value of healing skills in terms of cost/benefit.

It should be noted that the largest challenge for healers in Wildstar is paying attention.  DPS need to focus on avoiding the red stuff, interrupting and then doing some damage with their skills.  Tanks need to figure out what red stuff they can stand in, interrupt enemies and then gently poke the bad guys.  Healers need to avoid the red stuff, stay in range of the moving DPS/Tanks, aim their healing skills at their party, and interrupt enemies.  The days of Clique/Grid are gone in Wildstar.

Skills

This section will give you an overview of all the healing skills and their value.  While Esper healing is somewhat simple (builder + finisher), 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 cast Reverie to maybe save a few folk.

Soothe

One of the most powerful skills we have, it heals for about 75% of Mind over Body and is a great group heal.  You need to target it in a wide beam, so the group needs to work together. There’s a question of casting it at C2 or C3.  I prefer C3 but your mana pool will dictate which is best.  My personal go-to heal, in all situations.  Of all abilities, this one should be maxed to T8 as it applies a HoT.

Mind over Body

While I have this slotted, it has very limited use for 2 reasons.  First, it requires a lot of focus and can drain you quick.  Second, it’s the only ability that the Esper needs to stand still to cast.  There are very few times where you can use this outside of some raids and dead spots during boss events.  Even then, the ramp up time for point generation is rather slow.  I sometimes use this on heavy boss fights on the tank, if we’ve wiped previously.  If you’re a dedicated tank healer, then slot this to T8 as it increases future heals by 15%.

Reverie

Super group AE heal, massive space but you still need to make sure everyone is in range.  T8 increases future healing by 10%, which makes this thing an awesome chain heal in big AE battles (which is nearly all bosses).

Mending Banner

Single target mega heal.  A good “oh crap” skill that has to be T4 to get the armor buff on the tank.  T8 gives a chain heal but only 10m.  Costs a variable amount of focus, slightly more than Reverie.

Phantasmal Armor

I use this to start the fight and then when the tank is dipping a little low.  It’s a great damage shield.  Never found a reason to upgrade it mind you.

Pyrokinetic Flame

It’s a raid buff, plain and simple.  The heal is minor but the 5% increase to attack/support power is amazing with more than 5 players, at T4.  Otherwise, I leave it off.

Warden

A stationary AE Heal over Time.  Really low output that doesn’t scale very well and has a high focus cost. This changes at T8, due to the absorb and buffs.  It’s likely to be your go-to heal for tanks. Very useful now.

Bolster

This is simply a way to generate 2 charge PP near instantly.  Sadly, pretty much required.  If you can, target the tank, otherwise it’s a self-cast.  Costs 13 focus.

Mental Boon

Very similar to Warden but has no focus cost because it’s centered on you. The range is so small, you need to be in melee range to hit the tank.  The benefit is with the Guardian rune set, in that it continually applies a shield to affected members, for extremely low focus costs.  Keeping 100% uptime is key to get the most out of it.

Crush / Incapacitate

For when you need to break armor and interrupt.  Depends highly on your group composition and your level of trust.

Catharsis

A cleanse ability that can be upgraded to a purge but that needs a T8 investment, way too much.  It’s very situational and will only be used on a few bosses.

Meditate

Takes 5s to cast and regenerates focus, 1 more per tier.  T4 gives you 2 PP.  You also can’t move while casting, which is a massive downside.  At low focus regen levels, it has uses on long fights but I prefer Fixation.

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 more of a DPS skill, in my opinion, to keep a gap on the enemy.  Rather slow too.  In high movement fights, where a double dash + sprint is not enough, then this has some value.  But you probably made a bunch of mistakes for this to be useful.

Concentrated Blades

If for some reason you still have room on your bar, CB will give you 2 PP after they hit and deal some minor damage.  It’s been a while since I’ve played with it active but it certainly has uses.

Fixation

At T4, it gives a focus regen on top of giving you 3 PP.  Very powerful and I use it pretty much on cooldown.  Scorchwing with 2 healers is possible with this skill.  If your regen gets high enough, then I can see you dropping it.  If you’re reading this guide though, your regen isn’t high enough.

AMPs

There aren’t many bad choices, outside of perhaps Companion and Mirage, which need some rework.  AMPs that trigger on crits are useful, or that add extra shield/healing power.  If you don’t get Fixation, then you can fill out all of the T2 support skills.

Build Suggestions

There are 2 core builds, an AE focused and a tank focused, which prescribe 3 main skills per.

AE – Soothe + Reverie + Bolster (My Base Build)

Tank – MoB + MB + Bolster (My Base Build)

The rest of the skills are highly dependent on your preferences and the actual event.  Fixation should be on the bar if you have the AMP.  Phantasmal Armor is always useful.  Crush or Incapacitate (I like the latter) will save your bacon and help the team.

Stat Priority

  • There are new stats in Drop 6
    • Intensity – increases healing inputs by a percentage but also increases the focus cost. This second part actually makes it a poor stat choice.
    • Focus Pool increases the total amount of focus you can have.
    • Focus Recovery increases the percentage of focus you get per second.
  • Stat priority is simple enough to start, get focus regen to ~20 per second. This depends on your focus pool and recovery stat, so some juggling may be required.  You’ll get a feel for the size of the focus pool as you play.  Raiding is around 1700 or so.
  • From that point, it’s Multi-Hit > Critical Hit Chance > Critical Hit Severity > Intensity

Focus Management

  • Not all skills require focus and those that do often have varying amounts required.
  • You want to start your gearing with a fair chunk of Focus Recovery, try aiming for 20 FR/s
  • It’s a good idea to have more recovery than increasing your focus pool to start. Once recovery is in a good spot, then gradually raise the pool to a 1:1 ratio
  • For any non-boss fight, focus isn’t an issue. For bosses, if you’re spamming MoB + MB, you’re going to run dry in a flash. You can practically chain Soothe + Reverie forever.  Think about what you’re casting.

 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 Hardened (ilvl 120) or Guardian (ilvl100)
  • Regular sets should be either Cynosure or Resurgence.  They also have ilvl requirements.
  • Fusion runes are gear specific, can fit into any rune type slot, and provides an AMP-like effect:
    • Weapon: Exuberance
    • Gloves: Soothing Light
    • Head: Heavenly Echoes
    • Chest: Virtuous Circle
  • 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.

Learning to Heal

My suggestion for this has always been the same, regardless of the game.  Learn to heal in PvP first.  Start with single target healing – find a tank and shadow them.  Figure out what skills work best for you.  Move on to group heals so you learn to aim the darn telegraphs.  Once you’re comfortable, move to open-world group content – in particular Scorchwing for 5+ group quests to learn the ropes.  Following that, move onto Adventures, then dungeons.  You’ll learn all about situational abilities, how to manage focus, what rhythm works best for you.

WS is hard enough to require triage but forgiving enough to let a few things slide.  If you’re at 50%, then you’re going to live – if you’re not the tank.  And if things are really going wrong, in 99% of the cases, your group is not using interrupts properly. Smart play is very well rewarded.

There is little pity for DPS in this game.  They can die in 2 hits if they are not paying attention and should learn to interrupt when needed.  Combat damage was changed somewhat in drop 6, with a bit less focus on the constant damage and more on telepgraphs, which mean damage is going to come in spikes.  The focus should always be keeping yourself above 50%, the tank above 50% and then the rest as you see fit.

#I’ll keep this as up to date as I can…

WoW – 10 Years Leading the Pack

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Bhagpuss found a neat idea from Atl:ernative Chat, that came up with a neat way to recognize WoW’s personal impact.  Reading through his post, I found a fair bit in common and a fair bit of nostalgia as well.  So here goes.

1. Why did you start playing WoW?

I was a pretty big W3 player, was deep into EQ/UO and found the MMO concept pretty decent.  I somehow got into the very early beta and fell aback at the sheer quality compared to what was available.  Interestingly, I found a website about the game (WoW.net I think it was) and wrote some guides for the beta.  Someone found them, offered me a job writing more guides and that sort of cemented me into the game.

It also helped that I had a dozen or sort friends that I converted to play with me.

2. What was your first character?

Dwarf rogue.  I was active with him until MoP too.  I loved Rogues, always have.  They were pretty darn solid DPS class, and at the start weren’t all that glass canon.  I think the best part was stealthing dungeons with a couple other rogues, clearing it out.  BC was prime-time for Rogues.

3. What factors determined your faction choice?

Barrens decided it for me.  I think for quite a few years the starting area for the Horde was horrible.  Westfall and Dun Murogh were amazing in comparison.  I liked the Horde concept and the characters, but the actual gameplay was not fun.

4. What was your most memorable moment?

Good question, hard to think of one off hand.  Clearing MC in vanilla was up top, chess event in Kara too.  My healing shaman ruling AV for a few months is also top of pile.  Hmm, the most memorable are likely the two massive guild implosions I experienced.  One where logistics of MC destroyed us.  A guild of 60 people, we had a bench for raiding and still couldn’t get everyone to show on time.  The other one was related to DKP drama.  Oh the days of loot ninjas!

5. What is your favorite aspect of the game, and is it still the case?

Originally, it was the ease of access along with system integration.  Everything seemed to interconnect with everything else.  Plus the game had a low skill level for entry but a relatively high skill cap.  The first one is gone, completely obliterated through iterative design focused on the second.  I think the game is much, much to simple today and has trained too many people to just faceroll and expected purples.

6. Do you have an area of the game you always return to?

The auction house.  I’ve never found the art in-game to be particularly attractive, just average.  I like the concepts of the zones just not a big fan of the implementation.  I will say that every expansion has been drastically better than the last.  Cata certainly showed that clearly by re-jigging the starter world and making Draenor look like poop.

7. How long have you /played and has it been continuous?

I started at launch, played consistently until a few months into BC.  Since then, I play 2 months starting the expansion then 1 month after the last expansion patch.  That’s a fair amount of time and I’ve enjoyed most of it.

8. Do you read quest text or not?

I do on the first play through.  Blizzard has very good writers and some pretty memorable characters.  It’s really impressive what they are able to communicate without voice.  While over the years there have been MANY conflicts within the lore, overall the quality of the text and stories has been solid.  I think this is the most consistent part of the game.

9. Are there any regrets about the time in game?

I think I played too much at the start but over the years the play time has been sensible.  I rather enjoyed the single player aspect and the “live world” aspect.  I do regret most of my time “farming” gear though and ignoring the social aspects.

10. What effect has WoW had on your outside life?

A lot.  Much more than I would have thought.  I met people through WoW, made a ton of money (off the guides), applied learning to the game, developed a better understanding of system complexities, improved leadership skills.  WoW taking the forefront of my gaming plate for so long gave me an outlet, as an introvert, to try new things without long term consequences.  I’m a firm believer that gaming can provide some significant real world benefits.

MMOs – Where are they now?

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Nosy Gamer’s recent MMO roundup from XFire shows some interesting developments when looking at Wildstar and ESO.  Wildstar launched at the start of June while ESO was start of April, so 2 months and 4 months respectively at this point.  They are slotted at 8 and 12 on the list.  WoW rounds out the top, even though it lost 800,000 players.  EvE and FF14 are the other 2 subscription-based games on the list.  Everything else is FTP, which makes for some interesting metrics.

I do agree that the sample is flawed and isn’t a direct representation of the population.  I mean, I can’t think of anyone who actively installs XFIRE today, so newer games are at a distinct disadvantage.  Heck, Raptr only shows WoW, WS, FF14 and ESO in their top 20. That said, XFIRE does a great job at showing patterns over time and for that I think the discussion is very relevant in that both WS and ESO are down.

While I can attribute a fair amount of that to the 60 day drop (people play box + 1 month), rather than the 3-monther Keen professes, there are certainly some additional factors at play.  We can’t just assume that the summer provides a dip here, because it should affect all the games rather equally.  The factors have to be game-specific.

ESO first.  The VR wall was my “I win” bucket.  The fact that the game was anti-social certainly didn’t help.  Mind you, recent reports say they are trying to fix both issues, among a pile of kitchen sink additions.  I do think that once VRs are gone, the game will be in “ready to launch” state, some 5 months after actual launch.  I think of this compared to Marvel Heroes, or Neverwinter’s “beta phase” but both of those had no price point for entry.  It will have cost box + $60 to get to launch with ESO and that’s a price point people can find more value elsewhere.  In particular GW2 from a FTP perspective or FF14 from a subscription perspective. There’s certainly a chance it comes back up to the top, what with WoW likely not launching ‘til December.

Wildstar next.  While I am still enjoying my stay, I do know a lot of people who have left due to lack of progress past 50 – or heck, even mid-game.  Wildstar’s approach to combat is extremely divisive, and scales at an inappropriate pace.  There’s very little transition for people entering group content, just a wall of bodies at 20.  There are very few reports of successful PUGs anywhere, to the point where Carbine had to make change to the rewards system, in order to avoid group crumbling after 5 minutes.  And this doesn’t even get into the craziness of level 50 and raiding.  Sure, you could do the attunement and farm gear in dungeons/adventures but there ain’t no way you’re going to raid.  Everything up until that point can either be accomplished solo, with 5 people or with random PUGs in a zone.  The dungeon medal requirement is crazy, to boot.  But the cherry is getting 40 people to do it and then getting them to raid with you.  Bluntly put, the investment requirement for raiding has either been accomplished already by those with a want to invest or never will be.  That means two distinct parts at issue.  First, you need to accept the combat structure (difficulty + pacing) which is not going to change, outside of adding some “learning” zones.  Second, you need to accept that you’re likely never going to raid.  This part has been beaten to death on many blogs and I would like to think that Carbine, like Bethesda, is actually paying attention.

I do have to say that I’m less surprised with ESO’s tumble than Wildstar’s.  The ESO beta was not kind, and there were significant rumblings before launch about readiness.  It’s clearly still popular if it’s on lists though, so that’s good.  And there is active development, also very good.  Wildstar’s issues seem to be more condemning.  It had a relatively clean beta and had significant groundswell at launch.  Many people have issues finding a flaw with the game outside of the inability to find attachment to justify investment.  That is a massive problem for MMOs in general and one that doesn’t bode well for the future.

DPS Meters and the Problem with E-Peen

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If the game is an MMO, I’ve likely played it at some time.  If it had high-end PvE, then I did that too.  If it allowed modifications, I used them, liberally.  Wildstar is no different.

While stock UI and tools are fine and dandy for leveling, in today’s more aggressive top tier content, additional UI modifications are near required.  If you were to compare WoW at launch to today’s version, you’d find dozens of UI mods from the public that were incorporated.  The stuff that isn’t in base package today deals mostly with two ultra competitive things – the market and raiding.  By and large, this applies to other MMOs as well, where the top tier players end up with mods because they care about being the best, while those who don’t have mods care about having fun.   Most MMOs were pretty good at allowing the right amount of mods.  SWTOR, not so much.  ESO, they were put in to fix design issues.  Wildstar is just a set of mods to start off with!

I’ve been adding and removing mods for some time now.  Discussions always come about where mods are a form of cheating and I can’t disagree with that statement.  But I also think that mods allow you to move above the routine and focus on the big picture.  I often refer to the mission on Farside with the “simon says” minigame.  You need to remember a 16 color pattern and replay it.  Once I completed this mission, I told myself I had beaten it forever and installed a mod to auto-complete from that point forward.  I did the same with the “tap/hold/dance F” to complete missions as well, after having done all the possible permutations.  I’ve got market mods to help with inputs, price points, value calculations and a few others.  I have a UI mod to make raiding easier (grid-like) as the default mod is crud.  I have a mod that draws lines to resources because the default map view is awkward.  What I didn’t have, up until yesterday, was a DPS meter.

I hate DPS meters as a meter of power.  One of their sole purposes is to make people feel bad.  “Oh look, I did 50% more than you, you’re cut”.  Until we had gearscore (which is akin to linking car types with driving ability), DPS was the go-to stat for PvE.  If you didn’t do X DPS, then you were garbage.  I know as a Rogue I was often times at top of chart but I took some DPS loss to help increase overall raid damage.  A buff/debuffer with decent DPS is a common role I take in MMOs.  Espers in Wildstar are in that bucket today.  But then you get someone else staring at their numbers and actively trying to beat everyone else rather than trying to get the group through content.  Or a “leader” complaining that your DPS is too low without understanding why.  There’s certainly more value in raising everyone’s damage by 4% than raising your own by 10%.  Yet that is a concept few people seem to get in an age of “me me me” and “go go go”.

I think Wildstar is forcing a change though, in particular due to how interrupts and moments of opportunity (MoO) work.  It is often times more effective to interrupt an ability to reduce the need to move, than it is to use a high DPS ability and risk missing or getting hit. It is even more effective to stun an enemy as they take a near 50% increase in damage taken MoO state.  Getting a MoO often means improving a stun ability while reducing the damage of another skill.  It’s counter-intuitive to the WoW-masses but anyone who steps into group content without at least 1 stun on their bar, shouldn’t be doing group content.

But I put in a DPS meter for one main reason – combat logs.  I am an avid analyst and numbers are my crack.  Seeing the detailed breakdown of my skills, timing and cross-buffs allows me to tweak a few things here and there.  Set ability priorities.  Time buffs/debuffs for the right mix of other skills.  I’ve built damage calculators/models in the past, and meters + dummies are a huge part of that.  So last night I started to put theory to practice and on the minimal boss fights we did have, I realized my patterns needed work.  An immovable dummy vs. running around like a headless chicken are quite different affairs.  A few tweaks here and there, improving some skills, realizing that others on paper look good but are impractical in practice is forward movement.

I think with the advent of shared raid logs taking up a larger portion of the discussion that DPS meters become a bit less relevant.  They make great subjective tools, or indicators, but as an objective measure of player aptitudes, they are sorely lacking.

#Wildstar – Class Design Interview

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Oddly enough, TenTonHammer is one of my go-to places for Wildstar news.  Massively’s staff cuts have cut that bugger off my reading list.  Recently, TTH had the chance to interview the lead class designer, as well as the Medic and Esper leads.  There are three main things I get from this interview.

  1. Carbine is being rather forthright and honest about their design intentions.
  2. There are fundamental issues with balance that need to be sorted before they look at skills
  3. TTH’s interview skills are “unique”

For 1, this is somewhat novel to me. I know Blizzard is seen as open about their design intents but that took 4 years to start. And the tenure/legacy of GC is always a debated topic. Compared to other MMOs mind you, ESO, TSW, FF14, SWTOR and RIFT, this is a drastically different approach. Now the flipside to honesty is that people are going to dissect every word. A 2 month lock on class design before launch may seem crazy to some but from my experience, that’s a rather short lock on release windows outside of bug fixes. Plus, if you look at the patch notes WS puts out, Carbine is putting a ridiculous amount of effort in fixing their game.

For 2, this is disconcerting while at the same time NORMAL. When you build operational models, you use normalized data. So assume everyone is at the same power level, and what do you get – that’s the baseline of testing. Sure, you can test some outliers but core builds are based around design principles you need to adhere. And as with all massively multiplayer games, people will find optimizations that the developers did not consider. Absolute scaling is tough to predict.

If you play WS, you’ll notice that the tank players have lower Assault Power compared to the healing players, assuming the same item level. It’s rather drastic actually, where a level 30 tank weapon as 200 AP and a level 30 healing weapon has 350 AP. Now, for a level 30 tank and healer to have parity, it means that damage has to scale differently between the classes.   Let’s say they each need 1000 power. A tank would scale at 5 power / AP and a healer would scale a 2.85 power /AP. Good so far?

Well once you reach max level and start optimizing, those options are class agnostic. While your equipment may be optimized for tanks (lower stats, better scaling) runes and imbuements are not. A 50 AP rune can be used by anyone. So what you have is players stacking AP runes (and imbuements) in parallel with healing classes, but they scale at a much better rate, giving them a very aggressive power curve.

There are a few fixes for this but it’s really a core design flaw that needs to be addressed. Either you change base scaling of the class, or you apply the scale to all stat inputs. And that’s aside from skill/AMP balancing.

Skill/AMP balancing is an interesting topic since Carbine can clearly analyze existing patterns. Some classes have decent diversity, others less so – Espers in particular, with only 2 skills per role that matter. Nice to see they’re trying to fix that.

Finally for 3, TTH’s rather aggressive and subjective interview style comes off as being childish. Or perhaps extremely passionate about the topic rather than objective. There were no softballs in the interview – again, a significant difference when compared to Massively. It’s fresh but at the same time dangerous.

Overall, I’m happy with the interview. The lead designer is clearly a lead (correcting a class designer in an interview is rare) and the class designers have a solid plan to resolve issues they freely admit exist. And if we follow the current patch timeline, most of the changes should be in September/October, which is a very acceptable timeframe for a big rebalance. WoW didn’t touch Rogues at all until BC, if you recall. It’s encouraging to see that type of attitude.

#Wildstar – Engineer vs Esper

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I have a 50 Esper and a 42 Engineer.  I’ve played both rather extensively, both in the DPS and alternate stances (healer and tank respectively).  I’ve read about the classes and messed around with them.  Only things I haven’t done are raiding and PvP.  Though I do read that logs put the engineer at top level for DPS (all melee are in the top 3) and Esper just above the Medic in the bottom (the ranged are all drastically lower than the top 3).  While there will always be a gap, and I am more than comfortable, the mean average should not have such significant deviation.

Engineers are heavy armor, mid range attackers with quite a bit of variety.  While their Bot (combat pets) AI is junk they do however provide an extra target to soak a hit or two. More or less HP shields.  Their cooldowns are mostly defensive and their skills have tremendous synergy and a rather simple rotation.  They are somewhat simple to play, can take a beating, and dish out a lot of damage.  Tanking is also quite easy.

Espers are light armor, long range attackers with little variety.  The fact that their main builder “roots” you in place for the cast duration (the only ability I know of in the game that does that) it makes for a very immobile play style.  Their cooldowns are offensive but they have alternate healing skills to keep them alive.  That said, due to low armor, any focus attack or boss attack is usually a 1 shot (or dead in under 2 seconds).  There is a high skill level required to play one.  In terms of DPS role, they are essentially debuffers at this point.  Healing is quite powerful but there are bugs with the way focus (mana) works on some skills.  Very effective mind you and a lot of fun to play.  The most fun healing I’ve had in a long time as keeping everyone topped is HARD.

I do know Espers are being tweaked in Drop #2, where their main builder is(?) becoming mobile.  I also know that by Drop #3/4, the core stats should be tweaked which will change the way the power curve works.  And there’s always class balance.

I kind of see this as the difference between Hunters and Rogues/Warlocks from WoW.  Where a rather low skill level and pets to absorb damage we got many derogatory terms for Hunter players.  Warlocks were either amazeballs or the worst players ever.  You also never saw a Warlock due to the difficulty.

While in past MMOs, in particular WoW, ranged attackers have always been out of harms reach compared to melee, Wildstar is not like that.  With few exceptions, melee (not tank) and ranged suffer the same vulnerabilities due to the telegraph system.  Inversely, due to the telegraph system it’s harder for range to hit their target while moving.  I mean, I don’t think an engineer can actually ever miss an attack.

There’s a perception, based on some amount of fact, that Engineers are simpler, easier to master, mobile, higher damage and higher survivability than Espers.  Engineers are also seen as great tanks too.  Espers are top of the healing pile.  That isn’t the sort of view that goes away quickly as it becomes near cultural after a few months.

Oddly enough, I still prefer my Esper due to the skill level but have fingers crossed that with a few tweaks they can be made a bit more manageable.  Either by taking advantage of that skill set (similar to old “stance dancing” in other games), by increasing the telegraph damage based on distance (less on accuracy), or by simply increasing overall survivability.

Wildstar One Month Review

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Ok, so we’re more than a month in.  I was on vacation!

I am a firm believer that an MMO should be judged past the 1 month marker and your decision to be made after 2 months of play.  Outside of MMOs, I can’t think of another type of game I pay full price for anymore mind you.  The timing has less to do with the game and more about the nature of the game – multiplayer.  After 2 months, the zeitgeist passes and you get into the player plateau.  Still, onto my thoughts.

Starting Off

I have never been a big fan of character creators in MMOs, unless the game was mostly helmet-less.  I like having different character models for silhouettes but if everyone is the same (SWTOR and RIFT come to mind) then what’s the point?  Wildstar gives me enough variety in sizes and art to make me happy.  I have a tremendous dislike with race-restricted classes mind you and Wildstar applies that to Espers more than other classes for some reason.  So I created a grumpy ol’ human esper and a granok engineer.

The tutorial zone is decently done.  You can zip through it under 5 minutes if you want.  I feel bad that the zone is never visited again mind you – wasted assets.  The starter zone follows and you get 2 choices per faction and those choices link to the first “starter zone”.  There’s a gradual build up of skills for your character and there was clearly some thought behind it all.  By and large, the “power path” is similar between all classes.  They get a stun at the same time, a builder, a finisher, flavor, etc…

You get access to costumes early on, which is on-par with RIFT in terms of customization, very good.  Housing at 15, nearly fully featured, which is amazeballs.  Mounts too, which makes travel a whole lot easier (mounts are different enough too!)  I’d say from 1-20, the progress is really well thought out.

Mid game

This is the 20-49 game and by and large, we’re talking about PvE content.  PvP is there and certainly the most fun pre-50, but the game is built on something else.  So from 20 on, you get a zone per ~7 levels.  Whitevale – a frozen tundra which starts off cool and ends on a whiper.  Farside – probably the most fun I’ve had leveling in years, certainly with the moon sub-zone where gravity is weak.  It’s well designed.  Wilderrun – your typical jungle level, which we’ve seen a thousand times.  The story is kind of cool but anything after Farside feels meh.  Malgrave – a western themed zone which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  There are some neat parts but you’re happy to leave.  You finish with Grimvault – a plague filled area with few redeeming qualities.  Western Grimvault in particular is just horrible making the trek from 47-50 feel longer than 20-47.

Questing is decent enough, with traditional kill X, deliver X or press X quests.  There are varied questing interfaces mind you – a simon says  game, a mash the button game, a button timing game.  There are zone defense sub quests, public tagging (so you can share quest progress with non-group members), smart drops and quite a few quality of life PvE boons.  Group quests are present, with ~5 per zone and still at this point people are grouping up.  In fact, grouping with people rewards you with reknown, a currency for non-combat items.  There’s even guild credit too.  Everywhere you go, Wildstar rewards you for grouping.

Paths are less fun, as a “side” leveling exercise.  Each gives you 3 skills to use and bluntly, the only ones worth mentioning are scientist with a group summon and portal to the capital and settlers with mailboxes and vending machines to repair gear.  I expected more.  There was more in early beta.  A lot was cut back.  It’s more than any other game on the market mind you but once you unlock the skills, there’s no reason to keep going, other than being a completionist (which all scientists are I suppose).

Crafting makes sense and provides gear at or above your level, better than quest and drop rewards.  I think it’s the first time where crafting is a viable alternative rather than an end-game activity.  There are crafting daily quest (used to get credits for top level recipes), talents to customize your skill set and only 5 tiers to progress though, so you’re rarely stuck in some grey zone.  Customizing gear, including rune crafting, is rather well thought out in terms of mechanics.  What isn’t though out are actual stat numbers and I’ll get to that.

“Elder” game

Wildstar’s term for what to do at max level.  PvP, dungeons, veteran dungeons, crafting, daily quests, raiding, adventures and ship hand missions are all options.  Solo, you can do most of it.  Majority of groups will do everything but raiding.  Raiding requirements are simply too high for the average skill set and the logistics of getting 40 people together means every server is going to have 2-3 raiding squads, at most.  I expect this to change in a future patch.  Still, there’s a whole lot to do without raiding.  Housing has private/group instances (dungeons) which is something you could spend a week doing.

Combat

Limited action bars are the future, plain and simple.  WoW has always been a poster child for skill bloat and SWTOR exemplifies that further.  Wildstar gives you a limited slot to put in what you want.  You can customize those skills as well, for various buffs.  Sometimes you need more AE attacks, sometimes a super interrupt.  It’s smooth and forward, a step forward compared to TSW’s decks – at least to me.  AMPs (or talents) work ok as well, with a lot of simple passives and flexibility.  I think the fact that there are no existing cookie-cutter builds as a good thing, as each build is based on a set of circumstances.

What doesn’t work so well are stats.  DPS players value attack power above absolutely everything.  Healers need focus (mana) regeneration to a breakpoint, then support power above all else.  Tanks are slightly different with 2-3 rather even weights, after deflection.  Carbine has said this is a problem and they are going to make changes.  It’s not to say there are BAD stats, just less optimal ones.  We’re not talking about SWTOR’s haste issues (it actually made you worse) or those that scale wrong (armor penetration in WoW).  This further affects rune slots, as some are worthless and others worth gold.  It’s a fair amount of balance needed and that’s due in the fall as my guess.  Overall, the largest impact on stats is on raiders, most people won’t notice it that much.

Actual combat, what with the telegraphs and all, is very hectic.  It is very easy to die in this game.  As a healer, I’ve been conditioned to think it was my fault but in fact, 95% of the time, it’s the other player who stood in the bad stuff.  Solo play, it isn’t so apparent mind you, though some areas with tight enemy patterns are hard.  Group play though, wowza.  If it’s red, get out.  If there’s a cast bar, interrupt.  You need a mouse to move, not be a keyboard turner.  I think the group content is paced at such a rhythm that you don’t grow tired (sword maiden excepted).  It’s challenging and fair, therefore extremely rewarding to complete something.  I’ve been in random groups wiping on a boss for 30 minutes.  When you get through, it just feels great.  There’s still some need for skill balance mind you.  Like Medics are horribad at DPS, Engineers are way too strong on DPS and so on.  But again, these are tail end metrics as while you’re leveling, it is rarely apparent.

Style

This one is its own section because it’s very polarizing.  Wildstar is very B-movie in approach.  Everything is an exaggeration of the industry, with rather wild (pardon the pun) flair.  Character models are distinct.  Enemy types are varied.  People look different from each other and are recognizable.  Music is pretty kick arse.  Dungeons have good art style and the bosses are more than just giant humanoids.  Heck, the first end boss in a dungeon is a dragon that hatches from the ceiling.

What also works incredibly well is the lore.  There is a very interesting story to be had here and it is subtle.  You can read books, you can read text, NPCs jabber on while you’re about (“oh the hero!)” and Drusera’s reveal is well written.  You knew Blighthaven was coming and the story told there is well done.  For a game without an established IP to work off, I have to say that there are years of work put into it and very little of it conflicts.  Incredibly well done.

Economy

Wildstar uses a standard auction house and a commodity one.  You can only list 25 items per AH, which drastically reduces the number of bots/market barons.  I remember in WoW I would have 300 postings at once, RIFT wasn’t far behind.  The commodity one has buy and sell orders, which makes for a more interesting market.  Sure, you can game the thing if you wanted to but overall, the system works fairly well, especially with the floor being high vendor prices.  In fact, you can afford pretty much anything in the game at level 50, as part of your core.  Money is used for customization by and large, which is smart.  There are very few taps as well, so inflation isn’t crazy.  There are no Caturdays here.

Summary

Now is Wildstar the next best thing since sliced bread?  No, not so much.  It is a fantasy themepark with all the pits therein.  It is a fine evolution on WoW, SWTOR, FF14 and RIFT.  There are things on those games I’d like to see here (FF14 and RIFT’s open zone content for one) but by and large, there’s little to complain about.  The pacing is well done; you’re not flying through levels hitting a cap in a day.  There’s plenty of side activities to do.  There’s challenging content without the need for facerolls or the “go go go” attitude.  Grouping is pushed early on and social interaction.  There are a few bugs but none that are gamebreaking.  I think I found 3 that I needed to re-log for in my run from 1-50.  It’s very well polished.

I do expect there to continue to be progress on content as the days go by.  There are some needed tweaks here and there, in particular around the raiding aspect.  If given the choice between FF14 (which is also difficult) and Wildstar, you’re in for a rather even fight as I consider those 2 MMOs to be the only ones worth any subscription.  The biggest benefit to Wildstar is the sheer variety of content on offer and things to do.  I personally am enjoying my time and my subscription is continuing for the foreseeable future.

 

 

Back From Vacation

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3 weeks away and I back, is I.

It was an interesting vacation this year for a few reasons. Prime is that I lost my phone the first week (though got it back) and didn’t have any reception for the 3rd week. I was interweb-less! I spend a lot of time reading on-line, way more than most people. Without that outlet, it was a little rough at times. I did get some fishing in but with a 2 and 4 year old, it’s not the easiest thing to plan out. Second interesting factoid was that it either rained or was cold (~15C/60F) for nearly every day but 3. I don’t personally mind the rain so much but after a while, you start to get cabin fever. Third, I got the stomach flu – actually everyone did. Not fun.

I do wish it was more of a vacation to recoup, as was my cruise in the spring. Ehh, still was fun spending time with the family.

Wildstar

I am still subscribed and see myself doing so for quite a while. There are good reasons, and the guild is one of them. But after a month, I think I can put out a decent summary of the game, as I did with ESO. The next post will focus on that. Suffice to say, I’m having fun.

Other

I’ve touched on this in the past, where I have a passion for social analysis and a near fatal attraction to analytics as a whole. Recent conversations have provided me with a more vocabulary to properly explain what that actually means. This goes to an old issue where someone asks another person to “prove” that they love someone – in other words provide evidence on a non-physical item. I think I’ve found adequate wording to assist with that, and as to how my brain works. That’s also a future post.

All told, glad to be back at the writing desk.

Lessons Learned From Gaming

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Working like crazy, Wildstar is the only sanity break I have. Need to write more. Here’s an idea that is top of mind of late, because of work.

While gaming still has yet to pierce the “accepted for adults” social bubble, there are many recorded benefits from gaming that translate to the real world.

One of the more common things heard of late is putting raiding on your resume, in particular if you’re achieving something unique. Now, the item on paper means nothing other than a conversation starter, sort of like past job experiences, unless you can provide a reference. That is really hard to do in the virtual world.

Still, the experience gained from raiding, and I select raiding purely for the logistical and skill difficulty factors, translates extremely well to real life activities. For example. I’ve had my share of complex problems to solve in my career, each with seemingly unique variables. In reality, those complex variables are based on a set of rules (mechanics) that can be seen if you look hard enough. The thing is, if you can raid at a high level, and high is whatever you want it to mean, then you likely have the skill set required to absorb an issue, compare it to other issues you’ve seen, apply basic rules to it, and formulate a response. You also have the ability to execute that response.

I know that seems pretty high level but I can assure you that being able to handle complex issues in a timely fashion is NOT a common skill. It’s also mainly why high level raiding is such a small drop in the bucket but the most prominent. Now, they aren’t directly linked for the main reason of time. If the RL is taking a lot out of you, you likely don’t want games to do the same. The inverse though, crappy job and you want a challenge does apply.

And that’s just raiding. I love playing markets in games, what with a love of spreadsheets. Analytics is a very important skill to have. Housing decoration. This allows creativity, communication skills, branding and a whole pile more. Achievements, the hard ones now, are almost OCD in their dedication to complete. Sticking to a goal and getting there, even through piles of muck, is something we all need to do at some point. 

I could go on about even more systems (RTS, FPS, puzzles, etc…) but it should be evident by now that what we play affects how we live in other aspects of our lives. Gaming today provides so much simulated complexity that it would be crazy to ignore the long term benefits.

Happy gaming all.

#Wildstar – Zone Transition

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In architecture frameworks, we find a few levels of detail.  Conceptual, Logical, Physical are the most common.  Concepts are arts styles and a few words to describe.  In games this is the sketch work you see on most sites and what kickstarter usually has with.  A picture of a house is a solid example too.  These are guided by principles.  This place is red, this place is in the sky, etc…

Logical models are a bit more in-depth.  They show how things interact with each other but don’t go down to the detail level.  So for a game, it would be where the main hubs are, the general sub-zone themes and what-have-you.  This side of the map has tunnels, this side rivers, that sort of thing.  An architecture blueprint for a house has this level of detail.  It has to make sense, so that you don’t build a river system above a volcano and that your windows aren’t all on one side of the house, basic rules for the system to work.

Physical models are where the objects are built and placed.  Mob placement and pathing.  Aggro chains.  Key NPCs.  Where harvesting materials spawn.  Zone elevation.  That sort of thing.  In a house design this usually goes down to the exact measurements of the door, or the electrical wiring in the house.  These models are highly restricted, either by law or by design. I mean, you can’t have an ocean in the sky (well maybe?) and you can’t put an outlet in the bathtub.  Breaking these rules means bugs/breakdowns/fire.

And that’s just what the zone LOOKS like, how is actually PLAYS is another layer on top of it.  Quality games design the story (the playing part) before the actual visual (the looking part).  Zones that are designed on looks before the story give you a fractured and disjointed feeling. Sort of like Wilhelm’s recent post.  I found that ESO suffered from this too, and J3w3l has some explanation of that too.  By and large, the zone quests in Wildstar are strongly linked and make a lot of sense.  The tasks are mostly one-offs.  They fit into the story but don’t bog it down with at ton of exposition.  You can read the lore as an option (and you should) but it doesn’t interfere with the game – it augments it.

One of the odd little wrinkles in Wildstar is Farside.  This is the belly button of the game, for levels 25-35, ish.  Rather than a single zone, it’s actually a bunch of smaller distinct zones.  A jungle, a desert mesa, a moon and a support base.  They have their own story that makes sense but given the concentrated design elements, it seems to resonate better with people.  I mean, I loved that moon level, with 1/3 of the gravity.  Robot suits, laser beams hitting big ships, aliens all over the place.  Awesome.  Farside, I will posit, is going to be the favorite zone for the majority of players.

And then you hit Wilderrun, a proto-typical jungle zone.  Very reminiscent of STV back in the old WoW days.  The story isn’t too bad, wild amazonians protecting the water of eternal youth.  It’s just that the zone is massive, uses a lot of vertical space and it the type of zone people are used to seeing.  It’s a bit like having a bite of the absolute best piece of homemade designer cake one day and the next, you get a grocery store frozen cake.  I mean, the other cake is OK, but compared to the one before it takes like dirt.

As I play and enjoy Wildstar, I do see my designer hat come on from time to time and look at the meta of it all. By and large, the core design decisions taken here are ones that I questioned originally but end up working extremely well in practice.  It’s a themepark, fine.  But rather than have a single ride from start to finish, it’s a bunch of rides, interconnected, thematically linked.  It’s like the difference between 6 Flags (just a bunch of stuff) and Disney World (same stuff but all under the same theme).  It’s pretty neat.