I don't think I've ever been so conflicted with a game than I've been with Wildstar.
The good aspects of the game are very very good indeed, but likewise the negative parts are very off-putting and enough to turn a lot of people off. I've decided to stick with the game and give it a try as the positivity just about outweighs the negativity, and future patches could really make this game fantastic.
The potential is there for a really great experience but there's quite a way to go before that happens...
So let's start with the bad and get it out of the way.
The game has some serious optimisation issues. The game is running very poorly on a large number of systems, which should not be happening given the graphical nature of the game. It's not a very good looking game but it still struggles to reach 60fps on a GTX 660ti with CPU load reaching only 30% and GPU load at a similar number, looking like the game simply isn't being allowed to push the machine further.
For people with substandard machines and low spec machines, this is therefore quite an unfriendly game.
Carbine have acknowledged these optimisation issues and temporarily added a 'Render resolution' option which allows you to undersample the display, leaving it looking horribly blurry and muddy but resolving any performance issues you might encounter. So you can certainly play it, it just looks like you needs some seriously strong glasses to see what's happening.
Early levelling is extremely slow, with a large amount of quests that give very little in the way of experience.
The tutorial is awful, hardly telling you what to do, and the user interface draws your attention absolutely everywhere. Random text and important quest text / storyline text get often muddled, with prompts on the screen appearing all over the place in sometimes nonsensical locations to click areas which do nothing, etc etc. It's seriously lacking polish.
There's no guidance on where you should be going. Often you'll have to stop and follow a guide because you'll have ran out of storyline quests to do, leaving you with just optionals, and absolutely no single clue where you should be heading before your next quest triggers. Thankfully, there are third party guides with levels and zones to travel to. These are absolutely necessary for your progression.
And now for the good side...
Difficulty. The game is HARD, and for people fed up of themepark MMOs that you can just walk through until endgame, this is more than welcome. At around level 15, normal mobs will require thought and tactics to start taking down, and your first dungeon at level 20 is met with tactics equivalent to Heroic endgame WoW such as interrupt stacking.
You have to be on the ball at all times, dodging telegraphs that can take out 80% of your health in a single mistake. This goes for standard world questing as well as dungeons.
Combat is actually amazing right from early levels. If you've played FFXIV and you're familiar with how some boss attacks are telegraphed, the entire game is based around this premise. Even your own attacks are telegraphed blue so you know where they hit.
You're given a dodge meter that fills up over time, with all major enemy attacks shown in telegraph form that you need to dodge out of. It gives the game a very action-RPG feel.
There's full addon support exactly the same as WoW, and there's a HUGE amount of addons. This is emphasised in the way that every single Carbine element, such as UI, control etc, are all recognised as preinstalled addons that can be enabled, disabled etc. This means you can change nameplates, control methods, almost the entire UI, install quest trackers, rare mob trackers, gathering node trackers...
LockDown and KeybindFreedom are two perfect addons for Wildstar. Lockdown enables full mouselook like Tera without having to hold in the right mouse button, and KeybindFreedom allows you to bind the LMB and RMB buttons, giving you 100% full action RPG controls. Playing it like this is seriously the way it's meant to be and changes the experience completely for the better.
Guild Wars 1 style Limited Action Set means you have to predefine your build out of a list of many, many skills, so you can play how you want to play and come up with some really interesting skill builds. There's some good choice as to how you actually play your character, and customisation in general is top tier.
Housing system is early at level 14, and there's a huge incentive to go ahead with it. Each piece of furniture that increases your ambience, mood etc, will give you a rested EXP bonus if you log out in your house. You can also install crafting utilities in your garden, mining nodes for easy resource gathering, etc.
There's a MASSIVE variety in the way to play. As well as choosing your character and your class, you're given the choice of a 'Path' that give you optional missions on your way through the game.
Soldier path gives you holdout missions, assassination missions and other combat optional missions that you can complete that increase your path level. As you go through your path level, you unlock path only skills, titles and cosmetics.
Scientist path is for the lore fiends. I know very little about this, but for people interested in lore, you can analyse and learn a lot with this that you can't do with other paths.
Settler path is VERY interesting, and allows you to build utilities and buildings throughout the land. You can build a buff utility that increases people's defense for half an hour, or build a sanctuary point in the wilderness for people to use as a safe spot, seems very interesting!
Explorer path is for those that like to explore every single inch of the world map, with access to hidden little switches and areas that no other path can get to. Secret areas and secret items and buffs to be found for exploration.
The good aspects of the game are very very good indeed, but likewise the negative parts are very off-putting and enough to turn a lot of people off. I've decided to stick with the game and give it a try as the positivity just about outweighs the negativity, and future patches could really make this game fantastic.
The potential is there for a really great experience but there's quite a way to go before that happens...
So let's start with the bad and get it out of the way.
The game has some serious optimisation issues. The game is running very poorly on a large number of systems, which should not be happening given the graphical nature of the game. It's not a very good looking game but it still struggles to reach 60fps on a GTX 660ti with CPU load reaching only 30% and GPU load at a similar number, looking like the game simply isn't being allowed to push the machine further.
For people with substandard machines and low spec machines, this is therefore quite an unfriendly game.
Carbine have acknowledged these optimisation issues and temporarily added a 'Render resolution' option which allows you to undersample the display, leaving it looking horribly blurry and muddy but resolving any performance issues you might encounter. So you can certainly play it, it just looks like you needs some seriously strong glasses to see what's happening.
Early levelling is extremely slow, with a large amount of quests that give very little in the way of experience.
The tutorial is awful, hardly telling you what to do, and the user interface draws your attention absolutely everywhere. Random text and important quest text / storyline text get often muddled, with prompts on the screen appearing all over the place in sometimes nonsensical locations to click areas which do nothing, etc etc. It's seriously lacking polish.
There's no guidance on where you should be going. Often you'll have to stop and follow a guide because you'll have ran out of storyline quests to do, leaving you with just optionals, and absolutely no single clue where you should be heading before your next quest triggers. Thankfully, there are third party guides with levels and zones to travel to. These are absolutely necessary for your progression.
And now for the good side...
Difficulty. The game is HARD, and for people fed up of themepark MMOs that you can just walk through until endgame, this is more than welcome. At around level 15, normal mobs will require thought and tactics to start taking down, and your first dungeon at level 20 is met with tactics equivalent to Heroic endgame WoW such as interrupt stacking.
You have to be on the ball at all times, dodging telegraphs that can take out 80% of your health in a single mistake. This goes for standard world questing as well as dungeons.
Combat is actually amazing right from early levels. If you've played FFXIV and you're familiar with how some boss attacks are telegraphed, the entire game is based around this premise. Even your own attacks are telegraphed blue so you know where they hit.
You're given a dodge meter that fills up over time, with all major enemy attacks shown in telegraph form that you need to dodge out of. It gives the game a very action-RPG feel.
There's full addon support exactly the same as WoW, and there's a HUGE amount of addons. This is emphasised in the way that every single Carbine element, such as UI, control etc, are all recognised as preinstalled addons that can be enabled, disabled etc. This means you can change nameplates, control methods, almost the entire UI, install quest trackers, rare mob trackers, gathering node trackers...
LockDown and KeybindFreedom are two perfect addons for Wildstar. Lockdown enables full mouselook like Tera without having to hold in the right mouse button, and KeybindFreedom allows you to bind the LMB and RMB buttons, giving you 100% full action RPG controls. Playing it like this is seriously the way it's meant to be and changes the experience completely for the better.
Guild Wars 1 style Limited Action Set means you have to predefine your build out of a list of many, many skills, so you can play how you want to play and come up with some really interesting skill builds. There's some good choice as to how you actually play your character, and customisation in general is top tier.
Housing system is early at level 14, and there's a huge incentive to go ahead with it. Each piece of furniture that increases your ambience, mood etc, will give you a rested EXP bonus if you log out in your house. You can also install crafting utilities in your garden, mining nodes for easy resource gathering, etc.
There's a MASSIVE variety in the way to play. As well as choosing your character and your class, you're given the choice of a 'Path' that give you optional missions on your way through the game.
Soldier path gives you holdout missions, assassination missions and other combat optional missions that you can complete that increase your path level. As you go through your path level, you unlock path only skills, titles and cosmetics.
Scientist path is for the lore fiends. I know very little about this, but for people interested in lore, you can analyse and learn a lot with this that you can't do with other paths.
Settler path is VERY interesting, and allows you to build utilities and buildings throughout the land. You can build a buff utility that increases people's defense for half an hour, or build a sanctuary point in the wilderness for people to use as a safe spot, seems very interesting!
Explorer path is for those that like to explore every single inch of the world map, with access to hidden little switches and areas that no other path can get to. Secret areas and secret items and buffs to be found for exploration.
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