Away On Training

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This week is training week.  It’s also work-is-going-crazy week too, since a new cabinet is about to be named and that has a rather significant impact.  I’m not quite sure how I got nominated as the “he can fix it” guy, but I’m certainly the key point on a few of these things.

Ok, I’m lying.  I know exactly how I got here.

The training I’m on is about developing management skills.  One of the first topics is personality profiles, and this course focuses on the DISC model.  There’s a self-assessment as part of the course and it provides 2 results – one for “environment” and the other for “baseline”.  The former is how you are at work, the latter for general cases.

My baseline is an even D/C.  I like to analyse (duh!) and make decisions.  I’m not terribly concerned about what people think of me.

At work though, I am a solid D.  Everything else drops off the map.

So, given that I project an air of dominance, to a massive degree, I get the fun problem cases.  There’s a saying that goes “if you want something done, give it to the busy person”, so my plate seems to get bigger every year.

And while that’s manageable for pieces of time, there’s a point where the return on personal investment goes away.  There’s only so long you can juggle all those issues, manage that stress.  The whole idea of work/life balance is a very hard thing to manage when you’re tasked with making firm decisions, constantly.

So while I’ve been managing for some time and these personality profiles aren’t exactly news to me, I’m more in this for selfish reasons.  How do I personally manage all these various issues without going off the deep end.  And training, especially group training, is awesome for that.

I get to bounce ideas off other members, see their own experiences, relate to mine and work on refining my skills and style.  It isn’t so much about finding a true balance for myself, I know that isn’t possible, or even likely.  I will always be an outlier, and I’ve accepted that.  What I can do is find additional coping mechanisms, different communication tools to relate with other personality types.  Find a way to delegate some of these files, and do it in such a way that I feel comfortable having it leave my desk and that the person feels capable and supported while working on it.

I know it sounds pie in the sky, wishy-washy.  And truth be told, it is for a large part.  But when you get put into a position where people report to you, where you have authority, building a trusting relationship where all parties benefit (and you stay sane) is really the entire point.

I’ve already gotten a lot of useful info, looking forward to the remainder of the week.

Finances Are Important

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Cottage Time

After having run countless budget exercises, having met our financial advisor and talked to our broker, it looks like we’ll be moving ahead with the cottage purchase.  My wife can attest that my level of anxiety this week has been through the roof, though the last 12 hours or so have been much better.  As is clear with all of my posts, I’m a numbers guy, and I love analytics.  So when a large purchase like this comes around, not only do I get excited, I start going all over the place in terms of options/scenarios.

I remember on Sunday talking with my wife about the absolute need to take those three steps (budget, advisor, broker) in order to come to a conclusion.  I’m not buying a damn coat here, I’m buying property that I need to pay for the next 20+ years.  She isn’t as well versed in all this financial stuff as I am, which to be honest, ignorance is clearly bliss in this case.  Still, she knew it meant a lot to me and suffered through my protestations to get this going.  After it all being complete (well, the paperwork is next) she’s certainly more appreciative of the nuances within.  We spent more than a few hours looking over the budget spreadsheet, so I’m slowly converting her!

Which brings up an interesting topic, one that the advisor brings up from time to time – people do not know how to budget.  I don’t mean worry about every penny but I do mean understanding where the heck your money is going.  I don’t get how budgeting 101 isn’t mandatory in high school.  I remember helping out my brother a few years ago with his budget.  What he thought he was spending was actually less than half of what he actually was spending – and that was just fixed costs.  Brining those numbers to the front really shocks people into action.

Not everyone needs an official financial advisor, but everyone should have a friend who’s really good at accounting.  Everyone needs a budget.  There are plenty of sites for it too.  And evaluating your spending based on your budget is super important, so that you modify it as need be.  Heck, most banks will offer the service for free, then set up extra bank accounts and automated transfers between them.  As an aside, no one should ever pay banking fees – if you are, change banks.

All of that to say that a solid budget makes life so much easier, since you’d then have the basic tools to manage your money.  Heck, you might even realize that you have way more freedom than you thought.

Tablet Woes

The tablet fix still isn’t working.  I can read the device through USB but the screen (not the digitizer) will simply not work.  Next step is to try a HDMI output and see which component is faulty.  I was really hoping it was just a loose cable, but it wasn’t any of the obvious ones.  The sort of good news is that I’m realizing that I don’t need the tablet to get work done.  It’s incredibly practical, but not essential.

Wildstar Runes

By far the #1 page on my site these last few days has been my rune guide.  I’ve updated it with an example near the bottom, on an ilvl90 weapon for my engineer.  I used service tokens to re-roll the slot (all the tokens were from the daily login bonus) and it’s in pretty good shape.  It went from 315 secondary stats to 1115, plus set bonuses that come out to an extra 150 points or so.

It’s a very noticeable boost, though there’s more tweaking I need to do on other pieces.  I took my engineer to the Badlands and the 2man bosses within (bone dog and spider queen) dropped down much faster.  Even the regular enemies now fall down with a single electrocute channel.

I am surprised/disappointed as to how much runes are a major factor in end game now and as to how little NCsoft explains this to the player base.  It would be an easy argument to make that someone in fully runed ilvl60 gear would be more powerful than someone in un-runed pre-raid gear.  It’s why gating content behind ilvl is so tricky, you can’t really measure rune power with it.  And even some runes are very expensive for little benefit.  The raid level runes (ilvl 100) are cheaper than the dungeon runes (ilvl80), and by a wide margin.

I guess that’s why the guide is so popular.  People are starting to figure out how important runes are.

Rare Isn’t Always Good

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About a month ago, my youngest dropped my tablet and the screen cracked.  Then she did it again.  Truth be told, she’s dropped it more times than I could count… oddly uncoordinated child.  Anyhow, that made the device mostly unusable, since it detected touches all the time.  I did what any self-respecting IT guy would do – I went a-googling.

First hurdle, I have a TF701.  This is one of those Asus transformer tablets that works with android.  It’s a great tablet, quite powerful, good disk space, came with a keyboard that physically connected… all great.  But it was also one of those limited edition doohickeys, or at least you’d think so based on the google results.  I had replaced my wife’s Samsung screen (digitizer) a few years ago, so I knew that it was possible.  Sadly, there are no screens for sale in North America, so eBay it is!

80$ later (free shipping) and 30 days later, I received the digitizer.  No instructions, no tools.  Back to google.  I crap you not, there is 1 single video on how it’s done and it’s in Russian.  There are T700t videos, but they are not the same form factor passed step 1.  There are hidden screws (the extra tiny ones that require special tools), extra tape and removing the digitizer is a massive pain.

2 hours later, many 4 letter words later, I had the digitizer off and was ready to rebuild.  That part was faster but much less fun.  The power is back but the screen doesn’t display anything, so more troubleshooting is needed.  I know the thing works though, since the alarm went off this morning and I was unable to do anything but snooze it.  Ugh.

After 30 minutes of fiddling, I had to stop it.  I was ready to just throw it in the trash at that point.  Deep breath.  It’s going to be ok.

Engineer

My engineer has a fair bit less plat than my esper.  An order of magnitude in fact, so, time to see what I can do about that.

Making money typically comes in three main forms.  First is maxing out experience for the week, then completing quests for cash.  Each daily hub generally awards 10-15% of the bar.   So if you’re only running dailies, it’s 2-3 days’ worth to cap out.

Second is repeatedly running an expedition like M-13.  You usually end up with 1-2 purples, ok gold rewards and a token for more cash.  It takes a bit over 10 minutes to run the easy ones, so you can make a few plat an hour.  PvP is an option too, about 20g per win, though you really should be in a pre-made to make this work faster than expeditions.

Lastly is working the AH.  I have a post about that!  The real flips occur on the commodity exchange, as you can set buy and sell orders.  The problem with that system is that it’s even more based on volume than a more standard AH (buy/sell only), meaning massive price fluctuations.  I’ve had to install a mod to keep track of all the various price points and I’ll be waiting a few days to find some trends.  I think my main focus will be on Runes.  Not only the base price points but also in terms of selling completed high quality Runes as well.  There’s a noticeable markup in that field, if I can get superb components at a low enough price.

Aside from that, I’m re-learning the limitations of the engineer.  I find action combat very key heavy, almost a button masher.  Engineers don’t have much of that, what with Electrocute being a channelled ability and the rest being mostly based on cooldowns.  There’s a whole lot of waiting, then a frantic smash of many buttons, then waiting again.  It’s an odd pace and really hard to find the right rhythm.  It’ll come though.

#Wildstar – PvE Gearing Guide

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So you’re a fresh 50.   Problem is that the level 50 content is using you as a treadmill.  Wildstar is an MMORPG like the others, and getting better gear makes a world of difference.  This guide is based on the following reddit post, with my own additions.

First off, you need to know that items are clearly marked in power level, called item level (or ilvl for short).  For the most part, an increase in ilvl is an increase in power.  There are slight variations mind you, in that you want assault power for DPS and support power for Heals/Tank.  Mixing them is a bad call.

In terms of item power level, it generally goes like this (items with an * require a group to complete):

Quest Gear –> Challenge Gear  –> Expedition Gear –>  PvP Gear –> Contract Gear –> Adventure Gear –> *Dungeon Gear –> *Raid Gear

Finally, items have rune slots.  You can buy a bunch from the AH for pretty cheap.  I personally wouldn’t spend more than 10g per rune until you reach Expedition level gear. These have a dramatic impact on item power.  A fully runed item can double in power, and it doesn’t have to be expensive runes either!  See my rune guide for more info.  The general rule of thumb is “rune for groups”.

First Things First

I suggest you visit the Auction House and scan for gear upgrades.  You want to buy anything under 10g that’s also an upgrade.  This is likely to replace most of your quest gear.  Filter by item level, and sort Buy Now: Low to High.  *as of this posting, the default AH only filters up to ilvl 60.  Download the following fix to address this.  You want to filter for items above ilvl 61.

Challenge Gear (ilvl 50)

When you complete challenges in a level 50 zone, you get points that fill a progress bar (press “L” and look at the challenges tab).  The reward for completing the bar is a random item.  This should be done fairly naturally during your play.  I wouldn’t chase this gear, simply keep it in mind when playing.

Expeditions (ilvl 60)

Press N, look at the expeditions tab.  You can solo all of these at 50, though some are a bit harder than others.  There are item drops within, but what you’re looking for is 2 things.  Completing an expedition rewards Renown, used to buy PvE gear.  Getting a gold rating on each (completing all optional objectives) unlocks the ability to purchase an AMP upgrade.  Expeditions are the best way to generate money in PvE – M-13 and Infestation are my favorites.

PvP Gear (ilvl65)

Find the PvP season 2 vendor and buy whatever is an upgrade.  The PvP stat isn’t great mind you, but it’s likely better than the other gear you have so far, excepting AH gear.  Yes, this means you can skip all the gear before this.

Contracts (ilvl 57 to 80)

In the capital city you can find the contract board.  The level 2 contracts are easy enough to solo, regardless of your gear level.  The level 3 contracts are a pain, unless you find someone advertising in general (exception is the Star Comm Basin event, which is every 2 hours).  Getting to rank 5 of the contract rewards gives an ilvl80 item.  The rest are randomly selected and of lower quality.  It’ll take a couple weeks to complete a single pass through to rank 5 rewards.

Adventures (ilvl 68)

Press N, look at the adventures tab.  It takes 5 folk to complete, takes 20-45 minutes per and the loot rewards are decent enough.  Use the Glory you get as a reward to buy even more pieces from the vendor in the capital city.  Gold on everyone gets an Ability Point unlock.

Dungeons (ilvl 78)

Press N, look at the dungeons tab.  All dungeons are not created equal.  You want to be around ilvl 60 to do the basic ones.  Do not enter a dungeon unless you have put in runes inside your existing gear.  You should leave here with ilvl 80 gear on average, allowing you to enter raids.  The general consensus on difficulty is Stormtalon’s Lair (STL) –> Kel Vorath (KV) –> Skullcano –> Shield of the Sword Maiden (SSM).  Though in truth, if KV isn’t a rather easy pass, the last 2 are going to eat you up.

AMPs and Ability Point Unlocks

When you hit 50, you’re given 41 Ability Points and 47 AMPs to spread around.  Through various items, you can unlock an additional 7 Ability Points (48 total) and 10 AMPs (57 total).  There are quite a few ways to do this:

  • Complete your Path quests to the maximum level.  You’ll get 1 of each. One time only.
  • Complete every Expedition to Gold, that gives an AMP. One time only.
  • Complete every Adventure to Gold, that gives an Ability. One time only.
  • Each Dungeon has a chance to drop one or the other.
  • Complete Blighthaven or Defile to maximum rep gives 1 Ability each.  Takes about a week or so to max. One time only.
  • Complete Crimson Badlands, Malgrave, Northern Wastes or StarComm Basin for an extra AMP each, but that will take a few weeks. One time only.
  • PvP sells Ability and AMPs for Prestige.  4/5K for the first one, then 8/10K for every additional one.
  • Elder Gems sell Ability and AMPs for 300-450 each.  Unlimited.
  • Open World combat and PvP sometimes reward them as loot, though this is pretty rare
  • You can buy them on the AH, though unlikely to be cheap enough for a fresh 50.

I’d suggest you focus on Ability points first, since the tier unlocks are generally more powerful than an AMP upgrade.  Having 3 skills at T8 is a pretty big deal.

It’s So Quiet…

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This weekend was the first in some time where we didn’t have some engagement, so it was quite relaxing.  Still had some errands to do, but there’s certainly something to be said about enjoying the simple things.  The slight blip to our bliss was an unexpected offer to purchase a cottage.  My wife and I are cottage people, so by ancient rites, our children must be as well, or be cast out forever.  We knew the offer was in the works but not for a few more years.  After crunching some numbers, it looks like it’s workable today and will slack off in a couple years.  I get quite antsy when it comes to finance, and it’s not like you buy real estate on regular basis.

Oh, and Star Wars.  If you didn’t have a chance to watch the recent trailer because that cave-in kept you busy, here you go:

A few notes about the trailer:

  • Contrary to most trailers, there’s no plot given away
  • I have no idea what relation exists between the characters as there’s next to no dialogue
  • I dislike JJ’s scores but this one is Williams 100%. The tugs.
  • Han and Leia deliver some awesome lines. You realize that the characters in this movie know less about Star Wars than the audience.
  • Only 1 lens flare (red lasers)! Lots of saturation though
  • Fingers crossed on no stupid steamy sexy scenes that are jammed in for no reason. (Super 8 the exception to the JJ rule)
  • $50 bet that Chewie dies. Too bad cause he’s badass in the EU (though still dead there too).

Bang, Bang, Flop

I’ve been playing my Esper a fair chunk lately, focusing almost entirely on the Quiet Downs instance.  I think I can do it blindfolded now, with an average run time of 13:30 for gold.  I’m sitting on slightly over 2000 currency, and already have the hoverboard mount.  Not so lucky in the costume drops though…  I’ve re-runed a few things, knowing that some pieces of gear will never be updated unless I start raiding.  Quite a difference to be honest, giving me a fair chunk more power and survivability. It’s had an impact on my plat making mind you, since Quiet Downs provides no loot, outside of a bag with mostly decorations inside.  Stretching a little thing on that class, I decided to get back to my Engineer tank.

First to note, he has 5 pieces at ilvl90, so arguably better than the Esper, if you ignore the crap gear in the other slots.  Both are holding great weapons, so that certainly helps.  I’ve runed him for damage and it’s been ok so far.  His output is certainly higher than the Esper’s but his survival is in the pits.  Engineer’s are the only class that cannot self heal (outside of a T8 skill), which makes some content surprisingly difficult.

Expeditions with my Esper are usually cake walks.  Gauntlet is a good example, in particular the middle portion where you need to avoid exploding rats.  I can put on a passive heal that allows me to make mistakes during that 90s portion.  The engineer has to take that T8 skill PDU, that heals for around 4000 damage every 30 seconds.  The hits taken are between 5000 and 6000, so not exactly useful.  I missed completing Fragment Zero on gold due to 2 deaths due to combat sessions that lasted 2 minutes, since the entire zone is littered with tiny critters (quite a litteral Zerg fest).

Typical solo work isn’t bad.  The damage output is good, the defenses aren’t crippling.  The issue as I see it is that with my current ilvl, I’m just at the edge of reasonable.  I can’t see how a fresh 50 would have fun, when compared to other classes’ solo-viability. I know that giving Engineer’s a self-heal would homogenize the classes, but it would also increase the “fun” aspect of the class at lower ilevels.  And let’s be clear, a support-specced Engineer is a beast.  They hit like a mouse but take it on the chin like a champ.

So I think that’s where I’m going to end up, turning this Engineer into a tank-only monster for group content.  It’ll be a pretty big hit to his solo-ability but it’ll be a different content package than my Esper is running, which should help avoid any burnout.

MMO Gaming Gluttony

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Free health care, one of the best things about being a Canadian (they give you free maple syrup, dontchaknow).  I cut open my elbow playing hockey the other night (bunch of hosers) and after 2 days, my wife had enough of looking at it and sent me to the clinic.  Cold season is in full swing up here, lasting the traditional 11.5 months of the year, so the office was slam packed.  I put my name in the hat, got called 2.5 hours later, with a dead cell phone no less, and after less than 10 minutes of consultation, they gave me a prescription for anti-biotics.

So, the good part of this is that the doctor who saw me was upbeat after a clearly grueling day.  I guess you have to be in order to not go over the deep end…Anyhow, she looked at my elbow, made funny faces, insulted my hockey abilities (touché), googled (or webMD, who knows) the exact dosage needed and agreed I should take care of it.  She also politely explained how the pills can bring on diarrhea and I should stay away from white pants.  Noted.  Perhaps I’m just lucky in that regard but I’m batting near 50% in the serious/clown doctor business.  It doesn’t make the wait any less annoying, but you leave with a smile, so there’s that.

Well, that and not having a $1,000 bill helps too.

Options

The October/November time of the year is like Christmas for gamers.  Back when consoles were the king of the hill, you’d have near half of the games released in that part of the year – enough to get people going crazy just before Black Friday.  Now with the interwebs and Steam sales, it’s certainly less impactful but still noticeable.

There are MMO expansions afoot.  Wildstar is my drug of choice currently, but SWTOR’s early access for their expansion is out.  GW2’s expansion is this week if I recall, Overwatch Beta next week, Devilian closed beta, FF14’s patch 3.1 is soon, Neverwinter had one a few weeks back, EQ2 has a ToT expansion… just tons of options.  Consoles too mind you, with Assassin’s Creed 72 (Syndicate) coming out and Fallout 4 in a couple weeks.

I still play Black Flag from time to time, for the pirate ships.  I’m rather done with the “follow him for 5 minutes, get caught once and start all over” gameplay.  Funny how Ubisoft has taken up EA’s old mantle of worst company in the world.  I guess people need someone to dislike.

I know Bethesda, so I know Fallout 4 on release is going to be a buggy mess combined with tons of joy.  I think I’m going to wait a few weeks after release to pick it up, enough for a kitchen sink patch to be deployed. (It’s a sad statement of the gaming world, where the above previous statement can be applied to 90% of games.)

So for now, it’s Wildstar or bust.  Maybe, just maybe, I’ll dip my toes back into SWTOR once the general release of KotFE comes out.  Who can say no to lightsabers?

Cash Stops Can Be Confusing

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Conversions of business models seem to be a complicated matter.  SWTORs hot bars, EQ2’s well, everything, LOTROs descent into madness – all show that it’s a hard thing to figure out how to make a buck.  I’ll give Rift and TSW a thumb’s up mind you, those were pretty good at the start.  Wildstar, while probably one of the most forgiving F2P games out there, is a true headscratcher in terms of trying to make money.  The devs are learning though, so that’s good – the Shade’s Eve fabkit is no longer single use, flair is dropping in game, so there’s some progress.

Aside from costumes, items in the cash stop are nearly all single use, single character – mounts, pets, consumables and service tokens (I’ll get to these in a minute).  I don’t mind that so much, since you want repeat purchases.  What I do mind is the price point against repeat purchases.  See, Wildstar allows you to create a lot of alts.  I think my account, since I bought a box a while back, allows for 14 characters.  Mounts and pets don’t cross the character line, so if I want the same mount I need to buy it multiple times.  At $15-$20 a purchase, I don’t see how this makes any lick of sense.  I’d gladly pay it for the entire account, for sure!  A month’s subscription cost for a mount ain’t a bad deal at all.  There are plenty of posts on reddit and on the official forums about this topic alone, I’d expect some movement eventually.  I’m in a pickle mind you, since there are limited time mounts (for Shade’s Eve and zPrix) that will go poof soon, and they are neato.

Service tokens are the solution to the game’s gold sink.  Sure, they let you teleport a 2nd time across the world but aside from leveling, I don’t know anyone who would actually use them for that purpose.   They are really meant to bypass RNGsus when re-rolling runes.  When that starts costing a plat or so per re-roll, service tokens are looking pretty tempting.  They are decently priced but nearly directly tied to power increases.  For at most 35 tokens, you can get the best rune slot setup possible, with a further max of 5 for every new piece of gear.  You still need the runes to insert, and those can’t be bought from the store, so there’s some fancy wall there.

The game also has a variant on lockboxes, with some fortune coins to gamble with.  There is so little push on this, I’m curious if people are even aware that it exists.  It’s quite different that other F2P games.

The real kicker for me though is the subscription option.  There are benefits, sure, but they are so weak I don’t see why anyone would be subbed more than a month.  Getting MORE rep or cash/credits just means you hit the cap faster.  I hit the elder gem and omnibits cap weekly already, so there isn’t exactly an incentive there.  For those that don’t, even that isn’t really motivating.  You don’t get a discount in the shop, you don’t get any NCoin either.  You actually seem to get more benefit from buying directly from the shop, in terms of that progress bar at the top, than you do from subscribing.  So, I’m not quite sure why it’s even an option.  I’d be curious as to what the beancounters are saying though.

EDIT: Syp has a post similar in tone.

I’m kinda hoping they tweak it a bit more, because the stuff in that store is making me feel like

frymoney

zPrix

Yesterday’s patch added the zPrix event to the game.  It’s a set of 3 hoverboard races, with 4 options for rewards each.  There’s also a hoverboard mount in the store (with the above issues) and it looks super cool.  That’s right, super.  The races themselves come with a teleport button to the starting line.  Each one is just around a minute, minute-and-a-half long.  You win by finishing, not by getting an amazing time.  Rewards are a title, costume pieces and housing items.  I ran all 3 on 2 characters, so the costume is fully unlocked and I have a burning wall of fire on my housing plot as well.

The races themselves are quite a lot of fun.  Trying them the 2nd time had me looking for shortcuts, or better lines through to make better time.  Quick, easy, fun.  Nothing wrong with that!

The patch also applied some changes to the Quiet Downs instance for Shade’s Eve, or at least did so for me. The starting point is random now, though the map is the same.  (For those struggling to get through the maze in time, the end goal is the ? in the middle of the map.  Just south of that is the graveyard, which is really quite easy to spot from a distance.  In that graveyard are two tombs with a wall at the back – the wall has a fence on top – the goal is behind that fence.  I’ve been unable to jump that fence so I instead take the a different path.  The right most tomb is surrounded by a gate.  One of the corner posts of that gate allows you to jump to the higher wall (east side).  I jump up there, and head north to the end point.  I can clear with about 90 seconds to spare.  Also, you can miss 2 objectives and still get a gold medal for 50 Shades, it that matters to you.)

Jack Shade has also been tweaked.  He has many more attacks, summons jabbits, has pretty nasty AE and is actually a fight I need to move around in now.  I’m hoping this was just me hitting a simple bug, but the previous fights were just DPS runs, with an interrupt every so often.  Every run ends with a loot bag, so I’m stocking up on housing decorations.

Two events at once, both are quite fun.

The Benefits of Gating

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I’ve long said that gearscore is one of the worst methods of determining a player’s value.  It just happens to be the easiest.  Playing in Wildstar after having done a fair chunk of FF14 sure does make you think.

When the family went to the zoo this summer, there was a section that had a height limitation, 48 inches.  My 5 year old was just under that.  She’s a giant (both are) but it still was’t tall enough.  Which is good, since the section had a clear strength requirement as well – I’d guess 7-8 year olds were the target demo.  What kind of test do they use then?  Pull ups and push ups?

Gaming isn’t much different.  Activities require 2 things, in varying amounts – skill and power.  FF14 takes a relaxed approach to this, with a 2.5s global timer in combat.  This slows everything down and the skill bar therefore drops down a lot in turn.  It then turns into a power game, where it’s slightly easier to balance.  FF14’s LFG system has a gear level requirement for some content – in order that you apply some meaningful benefit to random groups.

The question is always, what if I’m 1ilvl below?  Am I really that bad?  No, since in FF14 the gear level is so easily acquired.  You could certainly try the content at a lower level but a tank/healer that’s undergeared is a risk.  DPS… well that can be managed.

WoW has a gearscore requirement, that’s really more of a joke right now.  The only thing it prevents is alts joining top tier LFR 3 patches late.  Gear is like candy in WoW.  WoD forced people to go through proving grounds, which is great.  Probably #2 in my quality of life changes the game has applied after flex raids.

TSW has gear and skills, though only a single gate.  The Gatekeeper battles are what keeps you from top-tier content – ensuring that not only do you have the gear but also the skills and understanding to use them.  A fresh player will have a lot of trouble the first time in, though it does get better.

Wildstar though, that’s a different one.  Combat is extremely hectic, what with telegraphs all over the place.  The skill level is quite high, compared to what players learn while leveling.  What’s the last MMO you played where you needed to stun an enemy?  I mean to complete the content, not to get some sort of achievement.  Where did you need to coordinate interrupts in 5 group content? Most fresh level 50s don’t even have an interrupt slotted.  That means that skill level is super important.  Aside from raid attunement, there’s no content gating aside from level.

Some folks are pushing for an ilvl gate for dungeons.  While PvP gear can get you to ilvl70 for just a few gold, it’s not like ilvl alone allows you to complete content.  People still stand in the red.  People don’t slot runes, or amps, or use a mixture of support and assault gear.  There’s just a whole pack of variables well beyond ilvl that impact play.  And it’s those variables that are causing some frustration in the game today.  People are simply not used to the mechanics and admittedly, they are quite a bit more complicated that other games out on the market.

So my suggestion to Wildstar is the following:

  • A veteran dungeon has a pre-requisite that the Protostar dungeons be completed first
    • This ensures that the player has an understanding of group mechanics
  • A veteran dungeon has an ilvl requirement of 70 and that half the runes have to be filled
    • 70 is actually quite low, PvP gear can be bought at that level.
    • People need to rune their gear.  Not all slots are equal though and to save rerolls, only half need them.  That gives about 7 runes, which is about 1000 stat points or so.
    • Even at this ilvl, it’s should only be Stormtalon to start.
    • This ilvl requires a good amount of skill.

Anecdote quickly.  When my Esper was a fresh 50, I had a really, really hard time with the daily quest hubs, especially the 2man missions (spider queen is a good example).  It required a specific build to complete.  Now, with an ilvl in the mid 80s, it’s actually quite simple.  As if I had an additional 10 levels to the character.  The ilvl power curve in Wildstar is significant.

If the skill level in Wildstar was lower, then the ilvl itself could drop a fair chunk too.  It’s not, and unless there’s some sort of mandatory training (which any veteran player could do with ease), it’s a massive wall of hurt for new players.  The Protostar dungeons are a quick and easy way for people to learn the group mechanics, test out builds and ensure they can do group content.  It would be even better if they could be soloed (like proving grounds and the gatekeeper) in order to save time in a queue.  Keeping people playing is important and continual failure without feedback/practice does the opposite.

Unexpected Change

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Alrighty then.  It would seem I’ve woken up to a new government.  I did my duty and voted last night, bringing the little squirts along.  We were going to “hide behind the boxes” as my youngest put it.  And it would seem that I was not alone.  Canada rarely has large sweeps in office, unless there are mitigating factors – mainly an economy in the toilet.  We have one of the highest GDPs, 7% unemployment and a nomial inflation rate – so all quite good.  We’re not at war, inside or out the country.  Even the governing party was only in a majority for 4 years, finishing off a 9 year term.  No, this was an election that was won on ideals.  It was eerily similar to the Obama campaign.

Our previous PM did a lot of good; got through a recession, cut back on government spending, made significant trade agreements (though not all are ratified). Unfortunately, that office also applied some of the most divisive wedge politics ever seen in our country. If you’re at all familiar with the US style attack ads, those were pretty much non-existent in Canada up until a few years ago.  Most candidates focused on themselves, what they could do.  The party line however… not so much.  There were dozens of new and modified laws that brought us back 50 years in social liberties, many of which were overturned by the Supreme Court.  For all the good that was done, there was always that tinge of horrible right next to it.

It would seem that Canadians as a whole had enough of that.  From 35 seats to 184 is unheard of in our country’s history.  From a distant third to a majority.  Even the other parties who didn’t make out as well (Green and NDP) were happy it was anything but the old guard.  Heck, here’s Paul Dewar’s concession speech, after having lost one of the only seats the NDP thought they had no chance of losing.

“In fact, let’s celebrate tonight, because it’s the end of cynicism, it’s the end of Harper, it’s a joyous occasion,” he added.

It’s abundantly clear that it was less about who to vote for as much as it was “how do we get rid of these folks?”  Now it’s time for the new crew to step up and follow through with their promises.  Fingers crossed.

Shade’s Eve

I ran Wildstar’s event quests last night, and was neatly impressed.  There are some basic quests in town to complete, nothing terribly complex.  Then there’s a Trick or Treat quest that has you visit 8 different housing plots.  That one is neat since it has you see other plots but actually finding plots with the specific candy you need is a major pain (thanks Reddit!).  Plus, you’re not actually tracking the candy, just a %, so that needs a little tweak methinks.

The neato quest is an expedition-like zone called Quiet Downs.  There are 3 parts to it, with varying levels of success.  The first is a maze-like portion where you’re given a flashlight and instructions to find a fountain.  Little critters can come around and knock you out, but you can also outrun them.  You’re timed here, and my first run through I failed this portion.  I personally find this portion of the zone too long, though the suspense portion is cool.  The 2nd part is more an interactive play, with no real impact other than to the story.  The 3rd part is a mini dungeon, similar to the Gauntlet ship layout.  Kill some ooze, baddies and then the big boss.  I will say that Jack Shade looks amazing, and the voice acting is tops.

All those quests give event currency, used to buy housing items, pets, costumes or a hoverboard.  I’m pretty sure I can unlock most everything with daily logins.  There are 2 items in the cash stop, a fabkit for the house (single use) and a mount (single character) that are drawing some ire.  Each is about $20 and since it can only be used once… that’s ticking a lot of people off.  Issue 1 with the fabkit (which admittedly is pretty neat) is that you can’t remove it, or you lose it.  Issue 2 is that you can only use the items once.  Carbine is working on making more things go across the entire account though, so for the meantime I’m just stacking everything on my Esper.  I’ll pick up the mount, since it comes out to being the cost of a monthly sub – plus who doesn’t want to ride a flaming ghost/skeleton warpig?

I like this event because it doesn’t make you run all over the darn world, or force you to do PvP.  It’s contained, it looks good, the story is ok and the prices (outside cash stop) are more than reasonable.

Go Out and Vote

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In this lovely part of the country I call home, last weekend was the weekend for fall colors.  At least in terms of leaves still being on the trees and not in your yard.  The downside to last weekend is that it was bloody cold and we had quite a few snow flurries.  Not exactly pleasing.  Still, from the car it was quite a sight.  And there’s nothing like a cold day that makes you want to stick yourself under a blanket and not move for a year.

Get Out and Vote, Eh

Today is Election Day in Canada, where we vote for our next Space Olympian (Prime Minister).  It was the longest official campaign since the 1880s, though in reality it has nothing to compare to the US preparing 4 years ahead of time.  We have 3 official large parties, 2 small ones (Green and BQ) and then a bunch of fringe ones. Choice is good, though 4 of those options are all left leaning.  Canada is an interesting country, with fiscal conservatives and social liberals, by and large.  Aside from the past 8 years, it’s been a rather centrist country, without too many wild swings in either direction.

This campaign hasn’t been much fun, with a rather ridiculous amount of vitriol and rhetoric going around.  Apparently I have to worry about brothels popping up next to my house if I vote a certain way.  I’m really curious as to who actually believes that’s a possibility – and then shake their hand.  As with many large countries, we use a first-past-the-post electorate system.  The main flaw with that system is that over time it reduces options to just 2 (as occurred in the US) – which generally means much wider swings from one party to the next.  There are better systems out there…but they cost more money.  Who knows where we’ll end up.

All that to say that I’m voting today.  Every able Canadian should vote.  People have died for that privilege.  It’s a duty I’ll be certain to instill in my children because every single vote counts.

Wildstar

This weekend was double PvP currency weekend.  I’m clearly not the intended audience, as PvP as a whole turns me off quite a bit – stat based PvP even more so.  Still, I gave it a few runs since the queues were instant.  I played once as a DPS and the rest of the time as a healer.  Context though, I’ve healed in PvE content.  The gear isn’t the best, only around ilvl 80, but it gets the job done.  With one exception, I was outhealed by a factor of 2:1.  On a PvP bonus weekend, that’s not a big deal to me.  It does however, pretty much ensure that I won’t be PvPing in the future as it’s a stat wall I have no intention of climbing.  The maps are neat, and the objectives short enough but it still doesn’t scratch any itch that I have.

I’ve been reading on the Wildstar economy, primarily from the Reddit forum.  Either Entity is immune to pricing fluctuations or I am missing a 0 on some item prices.  I find it absolutely hilarious to see people posting about making #plat on rune fragments when they haven’t sold for over a gold in a long time.  I’ve been back about 2 weeks, I’ve made about 30 plat so far, which was ok enough.  I’ve put my foot back into the flipping business, with moderate results.  I’m sure I could park a mule there and just flip like crazy but that’s not much fun is it?  I do know that it costs about 100p to unlock all the ability/amp slots if I bought them on the AH, but since there are other paths, I’ll try that out instead.

Final note, I haven’t really found any big limitations being a F2P player who had a box copy – or at least, not enough to motivate me to become a signature member. I appreciate not being nickel and dimed or get spammed (NW I’m looking at you) for sure, but at the same time, I’m curious as to where I should spend my money.  TSW, Marvel Heroes and Path of Exile had ways for me to drop coin.  I guess the store is just a little too young at the moment.  There are a lot of people playing, word of mouth is great, so hopefully that translates into some forward movement on income.