Gaming Value

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

Value per hour

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

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

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

Value per event

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

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

Value for extra content

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

Player value

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

Skill vs Time – A Visual Aid

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

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

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

On to the visual aid I promised!

skillvstime

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

EvE

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

Wildstar

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

FF14

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

ESO

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

WoW

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

Others

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

Summary

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

#Wildstar – 3 Months In

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

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

So let’s start with the facts.

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

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

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

The next part is my observation.

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

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

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

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

Your Voice Matters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#Wildstar – Megaservers

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

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

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

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

Gaming Questionnaire – Because, Yeah

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

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

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

1. When did you start playing video games?

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

2. What is the first game you remember playing?

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

3. PC or Console?

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

4. XBOX, Playstation or Wii?

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

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

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

How do you ever pick a single game?

6. What is the worst game you ever played?

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

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

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

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

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

9. What are your favorite genres?

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

10. Who is your favorite game protagonist?

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

11. Describe your perfect video game

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

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

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

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

13. What game has the best music?

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

14. Most memorable moment in a game

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

15. Scariest moment in a game

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

16. Most heart wrenching moment in a game

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

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

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

18. What’s the last game you finished?

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

19. What future release are you most excited about?

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

20. Do you identify as a gamer?

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

21. Why do you play video games?

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

#Wildstar – Veterans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#Wildstar – Esper DPS Guide

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Updated for Drop 6

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

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

Skills

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

Spectral Form

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

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

Telekinetic Strike (TK)

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

Psychic Frenzy (PF)

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

Mindburst (MB)

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

Telekinetic Storm

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

Blade Dance (BD)

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

Illusionary Blades (IB)

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

Concentrated Blade (CB)

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

Bolster

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

Haunt

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

Spectral Swarm (SS)

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

Reaper

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

Geist

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

Crush / Incapacitate

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

Shockwave / Restraint

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

Fade Out

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

Projected Spirit

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

Soothe

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

AMPs

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

Build Suggestions

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

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

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

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

Psi Point Management

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

 Runes

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

Stat Priority

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

 

Learning to DPS

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

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

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

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

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

#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.