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Xavier434
Dec 4, 2002

Flesh Forge posted:

And none of it can be traded or converted to anything else if you weren't interested in the small number of things each currency is restricted to pay for, it's just a bunch of poo poo in a table forever.

Yeah, this is lame and stresses the importance of keeping your MMO's economy healthy. With a healthy economy, there is always the option of providing players with a path which converts XYZ currency into gold or whatever the game chooses to call their in game "money".

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Morglon
Jan 13, 2010

Safe and sound, detached from reality.
Just like your posting.

Xavier434 posted:

Yeah, this is lame and stresses the importance of keeping your MMO's economy healthy. With a healthy economy, there is always the option of providing players with a path which converts XYZ currency into gold or whatever the game chooses to call their in game "money".

Oh please, Neverwinter was never gonna have a good economy, there were three separate game and economy breaking bugs during early access they had known about for a year and a half because they popped up and were reported in Star Trek but still went live in Neverwinter and they refused to do a roll back and just banned a couple of people but everybody even remotely clever had at the very least a few accounts to launder that poo poo through so you pretty much ended up with people having tens of millions of a currency that runs the game and can be exchanged for the real money currency and it only got worse from there.

The Moon Monster
Dec 30, 2005

30.5 Days posted:

Anything real cool?

Nothing that jumped out at me as "real cool", but they're making dungeons easier, the sword maiden dungeon shorter, and cut everything but bronzing the 4 dungeons out of the achievement chain. It's more stuff that they should have done from the beginning than shiny new cool stuff.

opulent fountain
Aug 13, 2007

They're also redoing the stats so you're not stacking something stupid like Moxie.

DapperDraculaDeer
Aug 4, 2007

Shut up, Nick! You're not Twilight.
Didnt they triple or quadruple the number of stats? So now instead of doing something stupid like stacking moxie, you do something stupid like stack shield max.

Pesterchum
Nov 8, 2009

clown car to hell choo choo

CoffeeBooze posted:

Didnt they triple or quadruple the number of stats? So now instead of doing something stupid like stacking moxie, you do something stupid like stack shield max.

Mormon Star Wars posted:

Some good Wildstar news!
--------------------------------

Hey, everybody! I’m Steven Engle, Lead Combat Designer on WildStar, and I’m here to talk about upcoming updates to player combat stats. They're some pretty big changes and we're all very excited about it here at Carbine. In this Deep Dive I'll go over most of the changes and some of the reasoning behind them.
What is Moxie?

Our stat system, while full of its own charm, is not easy to understand at a simple glance. The core problem? The primary combat stats make use of identifying terms that obfuscate the purpose of the stat itself. All of which brings us to the question: What is Moxie?

Anyone can log into an Esper and develop an association of the Moxie stat to Assault Power, but to a Warrior, Moxie means Critical Hit and Critical Severity Ratings.. We believe our players should be able to understand the purpose of a stat on first glance, and that purpose should remain consistent between all classes.

While the primary combat stat terminology has been confusing, it’s not the only issue involved in the decision. Current stat imbalances cause uninteresting gearing choices, and we also have power creep at end game that becomes unmaintainable by the time we release our next raid. So, after careful consideration of all of the issues, we chose to make the following changes.

Removal of primary combat stats and those stats deriving into secondary stats.
Players will no longer be able to increase Assault or Support power through Runes. In addition, all stats are going through a balance pass to make their power relative with each other.
Re-adjusting the power curve and adjustment of levels. While overall power should be relatively the same at Datascape from Live to 1.4.0, some other areas of the leveling curve might feel a slight difference.

So rest in peace, Brutality, Finesse, Insight, Tech, Grit, and Moxie. Some day you might find Heart and form a really cool super hero... but not in WildStar.

The Stats are Dead! Long Live the Stats!

We've established that the current primary stats, and how they worked, were not as successful as we would have liked but we still wanted a core group of stats that provide the player with a solid base. The best way to do this was to adjust the core stats to serve a clear purpose, to be consistent regardless of class, and granted with most visually customizable gear pieces.

Below are the core stats and their meaning in the updated stat system:

Assault/Support Power

This is given out via Assault or Support Rating and is then converted into Power. Almost all damage in the game scales off of either Assault or Support Power.

Armor

Armor determines the player’s base ability to reduce incoming damage of all damage types.

Health

This value determines the amount of damage the player can receive before death.

Shield Max

This value determines amount of damage a player's shield can absorb (extending health).

For those more interested in PvP, check out the core stats:

PvP Power

This is derived from the PvP Power Rating and is converted into PvP Power or PvP Healing. All damage and healing in PvP combat is scaled by this stat.

PvP Defense

This is derived from the PvP Defense Rating and converted into PvP Defense. All defense in PvP is scaled by this stat.

What About the Secondary Stats?

We no longer derive secondary stats from a primary source. They are now just considered combat stats. One thing that we really wanted to tackle during this update is improving stat balance and player choice. For example, DPS classes will no longer be able to increase Assault Power through the Rune system. This will allow us to better balance stats without having to keep their effectiveness relative to raw Power.

Here is a look into the non-Core stats, functionality updates, and new stats coming in the Beta:

Stats with no functional change:

Critical Hit Chance


Critical Hit Severity

Armor Pierce


Deflect Chance

Deflect Critical Hit Chance


Physical Resistance

Technology Resistance


Magic Resistance

Cooldown Reduction


Focus Cost Reduction

Stats that can now be gained through Rating:

Lifesteal


CC Reduction

Stats that are new to WildStar or that have function updates:

Strikethrough

This stat will directly counter an opponent’s deflect rate just as it would in the Live game. The improvement to function is that if a player's Strikethrough exceeds their opponent's Deflect rate, it is then converted into Armor Piercing.

Multi-Hit Chance

This is a new stat for all roles. Each time players deal damage or heal an ally, they have a chance to apply it an additional time. The value of the additional hit is determined by the effect that triggered it multiplied by the Multi-Hit Severity percentage.

Multi-Hit Severity

This is a new stat for all roles. This stat determines the magnitude of Multi-Hits.

Vigor

This is a new stat for DPS roles. Player damage is increased by this percentage, which is based on the player's current health. It is optimal at 100% health and as health goes down, so does the bonus.

Critical Mitigation

This stat will directly counter an opponent’s Critical Hit Severity.

Intensity

This is a new stat for healing classes and it is targeted for end-game players. This will increase outgoing healing, while also increasing the Focus cost of heals.

Glance Chance

This is a new stat for tanks. This stat grants a chance to reduce an incoming damage attack by the percentage defined by Glance Mitigation.

Glance Mitigation

This is a new stat for tanks. Each time players trigger a Glance, the incoming damage is reduced by this percentage.

Reflect Chance

This is a new stat for all roles. Each time players receive damage, they have a chance to deal a percentage of that damage back to the attacker. The damage dealt is determined by the Reflect Damage stat.

Reflect Damage

This is a new stat for all roles. Each time players trigger a Reflect, it deals this percentage of the damage received back to that attacker.

Focus Recovery Rate

The functionality of this stat has changed. Players now recover a percentage of their Focus Pool every second while in combat. This stat can now be attained through gear as a Rating.

Focus Pool

The functionality did not change for Focus Pool. The change is that it is no longer a stat with a set amount. Players can now add to their Focus Pool with gear.

Why Use Critical Mitigation When There's Deflect Critical Hit?

We aren’t going to give out Deflect Critical HitRating through gear anymore - it caused a struggle between player choice and design choice that did not improve the game. Players were stuck between having AMP and ability choices that required getting critically hit, and improving Deflect Critical Hit which devalued those choices. We caused unnecessary conflicts of interest which limited our ability to provide fun and engaging mechanics in some cases.

We wanted a tank stat that did not limit our ability to provide choice and did not introduce conflicts of interest with the player. We came up with Critical Mitigation, which grants the player the ability to deal with critical damage without losing those interesting gameplay triggers along the way.

The philosophy change outlined above is one of the bigger interaction and design changes. We wanted to give everyone a greater understanding of why it happened. There are many smaller changes to stat interactions that will be further discussing in Beta on the forums.
The Conclusion!

We want to give players more ways to play and interesting stats to build around, and we are working to make the combat stat system more intuitive and clear. It all relies on improving the overall clarity of our stats and making sure they feel balanced and fun. This means we will be relying on player feedback once this goes up to Beta (which you can sign up for here).

I did not go into great detail about the changes to Itemization, Runecrafting, or Tradeskills. Fear not, my friends! We will be releasing information on those topics in the coming weeks.

For even more answers to your class stat questions please check out the AMA we did on Reddit. You can also leave us feedback and questions by going to the WildStar forums and following us on Twitter.

Mercury_Storm
Jun 12, 2003

*chomp chomp chomp*

quote:

The philosophy change outlined above is one of the bigger interaction and design changes. We wanted to give everyone a greater understanding of why it happened. There are many smaller changes to stat interactions that will be further discussing in Beta on the forums.

The Conclusion!

This is a bunch of dumb crap and the game will be dead within a year or so. Have fun players!

opulent fountain
Aug 13, 2007

The new core stats are Power (Assault or Support), Armor, Health, Shield Max, and then PvP Power and PvP Defense.

The big point of the change was to make the core stats directly useful instead of being tied to various secondary stats, and then they separated all the secondary stats into their own thing. Now you will gain secondary stats directly from gear. The problem is that they have a million loving secondary stats.

Critical Hit Chance
Critical Hit Severity
Armor Pierce
Deflect Chance
Deflect Critical Hit Chance
Physical Resistance
Technology Resistance
Magic Resistance
Cooldown Reduction
Focus Cost Reduction
Lifesteal
CC Reduction
Strikethrough
Multi-Hit Chance
Multi-Hit Severity
Vigor
Critical Mitigation
Intensity
Glance Chance
Glance Mitigation
Reflect Chance
Reflect Damage
Focus Recovery Rate
Focus Pool

That's 24. 4 core stats and 24 secondary stats. It's so unnecessary. The only game I can think of with a similar amount of stats is Diablo 3, and it intentionally has less-useless stats to make random rolls more interesting. Also, Diablo 3 has more interesting stats that actually affect the way you play. The two big problems with Wildstar's new system is that the stats are boring and, in some cases, downright stupid (Vigor makes you do more damage the higher % life you have left). Not every stat needs to be separated into Chance and Effectiveness. Not every stat needs a counter stat. Not every action you can do in the game needs a variable weight tied to it.

I don't actually mind having a million dumb stats cause it's all the same in the end when you're collecting meatpads that give you +45 Mysticality. But that's also the problem with these stats! Look at this:

quote:

We want to give players more ways to play and interesting stats to build around, and we are working to make the combat stat system more intuitive and clear. It all relies on improving the overall clarity of our stats and making sure they feel balanced and fun.

Their stats are so boring and convoluted that one stat's entire goal is to be high enough to beat one stat so that it can convert itself into another stat. Some of their stats are so redundant that they literally had a 3-paragraph section in their Combat Stat blogpost about it. And they feel like this is intuitive, clear, or interesting?

Kuai
May 25, 2004
Pretty sure you could divide MMO stats into TOUGH HURT and HEAL at this point.

John Dyne
Jul 3, 2005

Well, fuck. Really?
Seriously I can get the trilogy of resistances but most of that can be simplified down to less than HALF that. I mean, one stat (Intensity) is directly countered by ANOTHER stat (Focus Cost Reduction) and it isn't even like player against player, it's the player trying to keep their own loving bloat down!

Intensity increases the output of healing (like support power does) but also increases the focus cost, so.. I get that it's power at a price but that's just pointless. This is just going to result in some stats being outright shunned or ignored.

I do love that they're adding a stat that WoW loving dropped because no one gave a poo poo about it and it turned out to be pretty pointless. Great job, guys!

opulent fountain
Aug 13, 2007

WoW has made it so that the attributes you get from your gear are just determined by your class past level 90. Strength, Agility, and Intellect are nothing more than flavor words at this point.

Diablo 3 really does boil everything down into damage, toughness, and recovery. It's still all there though for the purposes build interaction. It has its own problems, but the way it presents its stats to the user is something all RPGs should be trying to copy. Even GW2 cut that poo poo out and named their few stats after exactly what they are.

Xavier434
Dec 4, 2002

Morglon posted:

Oh please, Neverwinter was never gonna have a good economy, there were three separate game and economy breaking bugs during early access they had known about for a year and a half because they popped up and were reported in Star Trek but still went live in Neverwinter and they refused to do a roll back and just banned a couple of people but everybody even remotely clever had at the very least a few accounts to launder that poo poo through so you pretty much ended up with people having tens of millions of a currency that runs the game and can be exchanged for the real money currency and it only got worse from there.

I am not sure how this information relates to my point other than showing that it is possible for an MMO to lose control of its economy. What I said only stressed why it is important to dedicate time and resources in order to avoid that situation. GW2 is doing quite well in this regard.

Morglon
Jan 13, 2010

Safe and sound, detached from reality.
Just like your posting.
It's a bit of background information because of that image on the last page and I guess commentary on how most developers simple don't give two shits about their economy.

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."

Morglon posted:

It's a bit of background information because of that image on the last page and I guess commentary on how most developers simple don't give two shits about their economy.

In beta they claimed they had an economist on staff.:mmmhmm: He was probably one of the first to get the boot.

Pants Donkey
Nov 13, 2011

Wildstar's thing is loving crap (seriously gently caress a stat that demands healers keep everyone topped off), but I can see why they're doing it since WoW has had this long-running problem where no matter how they revamp their stat system it always boils down to a fairly strict hierarchy of stuff for your spec. Choice was such an illusion that they basically removed sockets from gear since it really wasn't about tailoring your gear to your tastes, but rather just another expense and stat juggling headache. Tertiary stats don't really solve this since they aren't reliable enough to build around, but then again I think the point of them was to make your 50th Kargath kill slightly more interesting since his boots may have +lifesteal or something.

Smart Car
Mar 31, 2011

That's not a solvable issue really. You're better off simplifying things because no matter how complicated you make your stats, there'll always be optimal stats for various specs in games. Making it complicated just serves to make it more frustrating to queue with random people since it just generates more friction between min-maxers and non-min-maxers.

Pierson
Oct 31, 2004



College Slice

Xavier434 posted:

When only considering that comparison, yes. It is much better.

However, there are weaknesses to it even in a well designed game. There was a point in GW2 where everything you did felt like it only amounted to how much gold you earned. Players discovered that while there are a number of nice benefits to that type of system it is still really valuable to have more clear and narrow paths to certain objectives. Players wanted more compelling reasons to go out and do specific activities even if the gold based ROI was low. They wanted that as an addition to that sense of freedom you feel when you can "do anything you want to for any reward you want". Not as a replacement. As such, ANET added more currencies that were rewarded for doing a variety of specific activites that were much narrower in scope than those that earned you gold or karma but still offered a sense of choice and variety. Meanwhile, gold still maintains its role in the game just as it did on day 1 of release.

In other words, a nice balance of both types of currency is the most fun as long as the activities that the player engages in are enjoyable. The actual number of currencies matters far less at that point.

A big problem I had with Guild Wars 2 at endgame was that it felt aimless and weird and by what you just posted they fixed that somehow.

Stop making me want to reinstall Guild Wars 2.

DapperDraculaDeer
Aug 4, 2007

Shut up, Nick! You're not Twilight.

Pierson posted:

A big problem I had with Guild Wars 2 at endgame was that it felt aimless and weird and by what you just posted they fixed that somehow.

Stop making me want to reinstall Guild Wars 2.

Don't worry. It still feels aimless and weird.

randombattle
Oct 16, 2008

This hand of mine shines and roars! It's bright cry tells me to grasp victory!

Rorus Raz posted:

Wildstar's thing is loving crap (seriously gently caress a stat that demands healers keep everyone topped off), but I can see why they're doing it since WoW has had this long-running problem where no matter how they revamp their stat system it always boils down to a fairly strict hierarchy of stuff for your spec. Choice was such an illusion that they basically removed sockets from gear since it really wasn't about tailoring your gear to your tastes, but rather just another expense and stat juggling headache. Tertiary stats don't really solve this since they aren't reliable enough to build around, but then again I think the point of them was to make your 50th Kargath kill slightly more interesting since his boots may have +lifesteal or something.

The people do less damage at less health makes no sense to me on a design level. Especially for something claiming to be so skill based wouldn't people doing more damage as their health gets low make more sense. You'd create another layer for healers that have to focus on healing so they don't die but allowing for dips when they need to do more damage.

Wildstar is just plagued with these kinds of awful decisions.

Cao Ni Ma
May 25, 2010



I can understand why they would add it but its terribly short sighted. Like sure it encourages dps to not take damage but just about every instance relies on some form of AoE damage thats usually unavoidable just so that healers get more engagement. This is just gonna make it so healers get more flack, and healers already get the most flack out of anyone in the party.

Pants Donkey
Nov 13, 2011

Damage changing with HP is just not good design because you don't want to encourage players to sit at critically low HP and then yell at the healer for healing them.

The reverse is bad because the game goes into this state of "HP bars must be full" which, as Wrath of the Lich King showed, was super stressful and burned out healers.

Xavier434
Dec 4, 2002

I have seen games that add class build characteristics which state things like "Do 30% more damage when using [insert skill name here] if attacking while behind your target". I think that is kinda neat from a class build perspective sometimes but as some form of universal game mechanic I think that it is pretty dumb.

Cao Ni Ma
May 25, 2010



General MMO guideline usually has dps behind or to the side of the mobs anyways because cleaves are a thing so thats not much of an issue.

Xavier434
Dec 4, 2002

Cao Ni Ma posted:

General MMO guideline usually has dps behind or to the side of the mobs anyways because cleaves are a thing so thats not much of an issue.

Distance from your target is another one. Using a skill B within a few seconds after using B is another.

Honestly though, most of the common ones like that are not super interesting. The ones that I really like but are not found in many MMOs are the skills which are given an incentive to use after your enemy does something specific. Mostly, I am talking well timed counter attacks, damage mitigation, and evasion skills. Anything that makes you react more based on what your situation is throwing at you and less on what the recommended meta rotation is currently is all good in my book.

Flesh Forge
Jan 31, 2011

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY DOG
Game designer epiphany: OH HEY DPS PEOPLE NEED SOME MECHANIC TO REMIND THEM THEY SHOULD AVOID DAMAGE

John Dyne
Jul 3, 2005

Well, fuck. Really?
Oh boy, I got a closed beta key! And then I try to go to Wildstar.com and find out that for whatever reason it's free and fuckin' Carbine hasn't snatched it up, which is beyond weird.

Cuntellectual
Aug 6, 2010

Tenzarin posted:

POE is not good no matter what the forum post says.

What's wrong with PoE? I keep hear it and Torchlight 2 are the BEST THING EVER or WORST THING EVER.

Diablo 3 I've played, and Marvel Heroes whole f2p system turns me off, but no idea about those other two.

DapperDraculaDeer
Aug 4, 2007

Shut up, Nick! You're not Twilight.
I havent played PoE in a while, but when I did it also suffered from "SUPER HARDCORE PUNISH THE PLAYER" syndrome. Respecing for example is incredibly difficult and can only be done one point at a time, using an item that is not a very common drop. If you have seen PoE's talent tree you probably can understand why this is very punishing to new players.

The game also did a whole lot right. If they were to add a reasonable respec system to the game I would definitely play it again. As is, your options are to either use a cookie cutter build made by another player, or prepare yourself to spend a ton of time grinding and trading for respec token.

Saxophone
Sep 19, 2006


Eh, kind of. PoE is set up a lot like D2 was, in that while you could just make one character and stick to it, more realistically you create a character and then find neat items and decide to build a different kind of character around that and on and on. I get where the turn off there is, but I honestly don't mind it.

D3 feels better as a whole and rewards you with more gear, but you only need to ever level one of any given class and max level is the endgame. You wind up not attached to the character so much as the random gear you find.

PoE isn't as graphically pleasing and lacks that "punch" that D3 has when you hit something, but you wind up more connected to your character through skill-point decisions and such. Plus, for as insane as it can get, PoE definitely brings back the trading element from D2 and that hits me right in the nostalgia.

Both are good games, both attract equal hate and love. Though, for whatever reason, people love to just vehemently poo poo all over PoE.

screech on the beach
Mar 9, 2004
nm im dumb

John Dyne
Jul 3, 2005

Well, fuck. Really?

LoG posted:

I hate that I know this but it's wildstar-online.com

Yeah I know. It's just weird they don't have Wildstar.com.

e:

LoG posted:

nm im dumb

lol

screech on the beach
Mar 9, 2004
You caught me quick draw mcgraw. It's late and I'm tired.

John Dyne
Jul 3, 2005

Well, fuck. Really?

LoG posted:

You caught me quick draw mcgraw. It's late and I'm tired.

I'm downloading and installing the Wildstar closed beta client. I think we both know who is coming out better in all of this.

e: Hahaha the link they give just downloads the WildstarPTR client without a file extension. It won't run automatically in the state it's downloaded in.



You literally have to add the .exe at the end to get it to work.

John Dyne fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Aug 15, 2015

screech on the beach
Mar 9, 2004

John Dyne posted:

I'm downloading and installing the Wildstar closed beta client. I think we both know who is coming out better in all of this.

e: Hahaha the link they give just downloads the WildstarPTR client without a file extension. It won't run automatically in the state it's downloaded in.



You literally have to add the .exe at the end to get it to work.

haha that's classic

opulent fountain
Aug 13, 2007

That's really weird and dumb, BUT my PTR client downloaded, installed, and works fine. I wonder if they just linked you to a hosed up version.

Gildiss
Aug 24, 2010

Grimey Drawer

a harpy posted:

That's really weird and dumb, BUT my PTR client downloaded, installed, and works fine. I wonder if they just linked you to a hosed up version.

The live tutorial on installing. We don't have wizards for that poo poo! This is scifi cupcakes!

John Dyne
Jul 3, 2005

Well, fuck. Really?

a harpy posted:

That's really weird and dumb, BUT my PTR client downloaded, installed, and works fine. I wonder what happened to yours.



I'm not sure if it's just me even though it does it every time and other files download fine, but if someone wants to confirm the patcher file they emailed me is here.

Might just be a weird interaction with Internet Explorer, since Outlook tried it through there first. I'll try it in other browsers, but it'd be funny if it was just IE.

Gildiss
Aug 24, 2010

Grimey Drawer
Jesus, Wildstar and IE? You need to be put down for your own good.

John Dyne
Jul 3, 2005

Well, fuck. Really?

Gildiss posted:

Jesus, Wildstar and IE? You need to be put down for your own good.

It's required for work. IE, not Wildstar. God forbid I get a job that requires I interact with Wildstar.

It worked fine in every other browser I have, though it did initially lock up Firefox and Chrome, so it looks like it's just a dumb interaction with IE. Other installers worked when I tried them from IE, so who knows.

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opulent fountain
Aug 13, 2007

John Dyne posted:



I'm not sure if it's just me even though it does it every time and other files download fine, but if someone wants to confirm the patcher file they emailed me is here.

Might just be a weird interaction with Internet Explorer, since Outlook tried it through there first. I'll try it in other browsers, but it'd be funny if it was just IE.

Opens fine in Chrome and Firefox. Looks like it's a problem with IE.

edit: you literally just said that. sorry

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