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synaesthetic · **03-22-2014, 04:58 AM**

Wildstar's pretty cool except for Carbine's unfortunate and mind-boggling desire to focus endgame raiding on... 40-player raids...

Why.

WHY.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS. Undecided

N'taeyl · **03-22-2014, 08:35 AM**

(03-21-2014, 04:24 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: LotA/CT is so incredibly herpderp loltastic that it basically rendered 2.1 a non-patch.

I believe Crystal Tower was meant to be available on release of 2.0, wasn't it?Â For whatever reason it was delayed.Â But given that notion, I don't think it was intended to be difficult, which it still is if people don't do their roles properly.Â Even without bikini snowmen, it is possible to wipe on the Bone Dragon three consecutive times.Â That many randomly grouped people are bound not to communicate well, and they already bitch at each other defensively if someone messes up.Â Making tougher fights would make it unenjoyable for me personally.Â CT is currently meant to be a gear bridge between Darklight and Coil, even if CT can't even compare to Coil difficulty.

Now, would I enjoy tougher fights?Â Absolutely, but NOT with 24 random people.Â If I could make a full alliance of people I'm at least familiar with from my server, that'd be fun.Â I refer to Dynamis from FFXI because it's all I'm familiar with, and other 18 man fights in that game.

Clover · **03-22-2014, 08:50 AM**

(03-22-2014, 08:35 AM)Saikoray Wrote: I believe Crystal Tower was meant to be available on release of 2.0, wasn't it?Â For whatever reason it was delayed.Â But given that notion, I don't think it was intended to be difficult, which it still is if people don't do their roles properly.Â Even without bikini snowmen, it is possible to wipe on the Bone Dragon three consecutive times.Â That many randomly grouped people are bound not to communicate well, and they already bitch at each other defensively if someone messes up.Â Making tougher fights would make it unenjoyable for me personally.Â CT is currently meant to be a gear bridge between Darklight and Coil, even if CT can't even compare to Coil difficulty.

Haha, all that sounds like my CT run yesterday. I lost count on how many times we wiped.
Also, I had seen some bikini snowmen before, but I didn't know that was a common practice @_@

I wouldn't enjoy it if CT was more difficult either, since you're forced to play with randoms there. Granted, I don't particularly enjoy a high difficulty anywhere, but playing with randoms is a whole new story. I had enough with Titan HM parties back in the day, which sadly happened before I got into a friendly LS I can actually play with ;

Lost River · **03-22-2014, 10:09 AM**

(03-22-2014, 04:58 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: Wildstar's pretty cool except for Carbine's unfortunate and mind-boggling desire to focus endgame raiding on... 40-player raids...

Why.

WHY.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS.

They'll add smaller raids too; but this is from the EverQuest people that are in Carbine. They love massive everything.

synaesthetic · **03-22-2014, 01:23 PM**

(03-22-2014, 08:35 AM)Saikoray Wrote:
(03-21-2014, 04:24 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: LotA/CT is so incredibly herpderp loltastic that it basically rendered 2.1 a non-patch.

I believe Crystal Tower was meant to be available on release of 2.0, wasn't it?Â For whatever reason it was delayed.Â But given that notion, I don't think it was intended to be difficult, which it still is if people don't do their roles properly.Â Even without bikini snowmen, it is possible to wipe on the Bone Dragon three consecutive times.Â That many randomly grouped people are bound not to communicate well, and they already bitch at each other defensively if someone messes up.Â Making tougher fights would make it unenjoyable for me personally.Â CT is currently meant to be a gear bridge between Darklight and Coil, even if CT can't even compare to Coil difficulty.

Now, would I enjoy tougher fights?Â Absolutely, but NOT with 24 random people.Â If I could make a full alliance of people I'm at least familiar with from my server, that'd be fun.Â I refer to Dynamis from FFXI because it's all I'm familiar with, and other 18 man fights in that game.

The primary reason CT is so filled with derpherpblurp is because it's so easy. Compare Ultima HM, which is a relatively simple encounter but still much more challenging than anything in CT. I queue for Ultima HM in the duty finder quite often simply because I find the fight enjoyable and I have never once gotten a group containing trolls.

CT attracts trolls, failures at life and wastes of oxygen because it's so incredibly faceroll. If it were tougher, if the bosses were more on par with the hard mode primals, with Acheron being around the level of Titan HM/Ultima HM, then CT would be a far, far cleaner and more enjoyable place to run. It'd also have a smoother difficulty curve sweeping into Coil.

synaesthetic · **03-22-2014, 01:25 PM**

(03-22-2014, 10:09 AM)Lost River Wrote: They'll add smaller raids too; but this is from the EverQuest people that are in Carbine. They love massive everything.

They must also apparently love losing money, too.

Exantra · **03-22-2014, 02:36 PM**

Crystal Tower is always going to be a gamble given how much of a pain in the arse it is to co-ordinate up to 23 random people. At the very least, most people seem to understand how the fights are conducted, but you still tend to find those who struggle on very basic mechanics. In its current state, I think the difficulty is right where it should be, especially when it was created with an average item level of 50 as a minimum. Whether or not people take it easy in Crystal Tower, that's an individual by individual basis. Twats, however, will always be twats. The kind of people I would not want in a 24 random player dungeon with increased difficulty.

Now, if we were to reach the point where we could create 24 player groups beforehand, then I might be more open to the idea of a hard mode option for the tower.

Lost River · **03-22-2014, 03:27 PM**

(03-22-2014, 01:25 PM)synaesthetic Wrote:
(03-22-2014, 10:09 AM)Lost River Wrote: They'll add smaller raids too; but this is from the EverQuest people that are in Carbine. They love massive everything.

They must also apparently love losing money, too.

They only have 1 40 man raid done, they'll be making more based on how this one does. Its an experiment because some people (a vocal few actually) want large scale raids coupled with smaller raids as well. Carbine is just trying to cater to those who want. They are also very close with the RP community too; they added the RP button and other things of the like as well as a toggle for those who don't care about RP too.

So we'll see how it all is!

synaesthetic · **03-22-2014, 05:48 PM**

I hope they don't neglect smaller raid sizes. Sad

Dealing with forty raiders is like herding cats.

TheLastCandle · **03-24-2014, 07:43 AM**

Everything I've seen about Wildstar from aesthetics to playable races to lore only elicits a giant "MEH" from me. Maybe getting into the beta and trying it for myself will change my mind from a gameplay standpoint, but literally nothing about it looks compelling to me in the slightest.

synaesthetic · **03-25-2014, 03:27 AM**

Spent a few hours with the Wildstar beta.

Verdict: it's fun as hell.

The combat has been tightened up extensively, it's fast-paced and twitchy, but you aren't made of wet tissue paper like in GW2--you can actually take a few hits, even as a DPS class. XIV feels slower than a molasses glacier in comparison.

The game is gorgeous. It's like playing a Don Bluth film, only much more hilariously violent and gory. The character models aren't nearly as good as the scenery, but they're not bad either, especially since they seemed to fix the weirdness from earlier betas.

The humor and the setting is pretty much great. My only real problems with Wildstar are: 40-player raiding (yuck) and NCsoft (yuck).

I will probably play this alongside XIV to get my PvP fix, because XIV's PvP is incredibly lol.

Alanth · **03-25-2014, 05:49 PM**

I was in Wildstar all the way back in CBT2 and it's come a long way since then. Â I'm not the most partial critic as I have a friend from vanilla WoW on the dev team but from that insight I can say this at the very least: Carbine gets it. Â They get it hard. Â

They understand PvP. Â They understand RP and for as much complaining about the 40 man raids they understand PvE and how it should function. Â To be honest? Â I miss 40 man raiding. Â You can make the argument that 25 man raids were more accessible (End game shouldn't be Wal-Mart imo. Â Not everyone should get a ticket to ride.) and easier to manage. Â The only valid point I'll cede is the second. Â It's harder to manage 40 people. Â But I think the scale of the encounter more than makes up for it. Â The only boss after Vanilla WoW that I cared about downing was Lich King, the smaller scale simply robbed most others of the epic feeling.

The art style isn't for everyone, not gonna argue that point. Â But from a gameplay point of view you aren't going to do better than Wildstar.

By contrast from being in the ESO beta I think it's a gigantic crap fest that will cost people their jobs.

Lizzo · **03-25-2014, 10:55 PM**

[quote pid=81378 dateline=1395516465]
[quote pid=81368 dateline=1395509101]
They only have 1 40 man raid done, they'll be making more based on how this one does. Its an experiment because some people (a vocal few actually) want large scale raids coupled with smaller raids as well. Carbine is just trying to cater to those who want. They are also very close with the RP community too; they added the RP button and other things of the like as well as a toggle for those who don't care about RP too.
[/quote]

So we'll see how it all is!

[/quote]
I played the Wildstar beta this past weekend, and apart from the really nifty costume mechanic, I couldn't really find a lot of "RPness" to the game. While in FFXIV your character's head tilts to look at people when you click on them, there's the emote for talking and the basic list of emotes are themselves seemingly more fluid. Now, I really enjoyed my time in Wildstar, and am considering getting it, but could you please tell me more of this RP button and other additional RP features you know of?

Zyrusticae · **03-25-2014, 11:57 PM**

So I suppose this thread is as good a place as any to explain where I've been and why I've been absent from the game since a little past a month from launch (with particular apologies to my LS for just disappearing for awhile).

So what have I been playing since I dropped FFXIV from my repertoire?

Weellll... I've been playing a lot of stuff, but most of that time's been dominated by a single game:

Blade & Soul
Yes, that's right, the Chinese version. Now, I apologize if I sound like a complete, unabashed fanboy/girl in this post, but bear with me, for I am being entirely genuine here: [fanboymode] This is the best MMORPG I have ever played, and I've played tons. Everquest, Everquest II, City of Heroes/Villains, Champions Online, EVE Online, Aion, TERA, APB, Vanguard, Guild Wars 2, and tons of others that I can't be bothered to remember for obvious reasons.

Mind you, it has yet to eclipse my highest playtime-of-all-time game, Aion (clocking at over 2000 hours to date), but I still feel that from a standpoint of sheer quality, nothing touches Blade & Soul. The whole game simply reeks of polish - EVERYTHING has had excessive amounts of attention laid on it, from the sound effects to the animation the the character models to the combat system to the environments, you name it, it's had some work done. It's extremely obvious where all that time (8 years! 8 years of development!) and money went to, unlike other games I can name where I can't for the life of me understand where all the money disappeared to.

In fact, it's pretty much the sole reason I dropped FFXIV even after paying for 3 months of subscription of time (lolwut). The game just grabbed me, hook and sinker, and pulled me along with it, despite the fact that, goddammit, playing with a bunch of Chinese people when you don't know a lick of Chinese and dealing with the latency of connecting to a server on the other side of the goddamn planet is painful. If that's not a strong indicator of quality, I don't know what is.

You may be even more shocked to learn that the story is actually really good. No, it's not particularly innovative or challenging, but it is incredibly fun and well-executed in a manner that eclipses pretty much all other MMOs - and yes, I'm including SWTOR in that count. The thing is, while SWTOR gives you the illusion of choice, the actual story itself is bland and uninteresting, and was not anywhere near strong enough to get me to overlook the game's many, many faults. Speaking of SWTOR, Blade & Soul is also the only other MMO I know of besides SWTOR to have full voice over for every NPC (minus a few minor ones, probably for scheduling or budget reasons). The story itself is quite engaging and, most importantly, is full of memorable characters who you can cheer for or want to see get their comeuppance, in stark contrast to SWTOR or, gods forbid, Guild Wars 2 (where I literally could not possibly care any less about any of the NPCs involved - the writing just failed to make any of them seem genuine).

And the combat! My gawd, the combat. There is literally no other MMORPG on the market that can hold a candle to it. TERA is fun but dreadfully slow-paced in comparison. GW2 tries but completely fails to get rid of the trinity even half as well as B&S does. The feedback is perfect. The animation is gorgeous and over-the-top. It's so damn good that it makes it difficult for me to play other games that aren't Platinum games.

And then there's the character creation. Like they say... a picture is worth a thousand words. (And that's just one race! Of four!)

Now, mind you, for all that I love about it, it obviously has some issues of its own. It IS a theme park MMO, with all that entails, so you should expect you're going to run the same dungeons many times over when you hit the level cap (same as every other theme park MMO including FFXIV), so nothing shocking there. The PvP balance is kind of shoddy for a game with so much emphasis on one-on-one combat - but to be fair, I don't know a single MMORPG with good 1v1 balance. Despite letting you wear whatever costume you want with no penalty to stats, for some reason weapon skinning is completely omitted from the game.

Despite these quibbles, however, the game itself is ridiculously solid, and it's a crying shame that they still haven't come out with an NA/EU version after all this time (BUT, to be fair again, even the Japanese haven't received their version yet, despite being a big, big market for this kind of game). I'm certain that many people - at least, those who manage to get past the stylized visuals and eastern oriental setting - will find plenty of entertainment when this game reaches our shores. In the meantime, I'm going to keep dealing with the language barrier and the lag because it's just that damn fun.
[/fanboymode]

So. In case anyone's still reading this runaway monstrosity of a post, here's what I think about what's coming up:

The Elder Scrolls Online
Garbage.

I could probably just leave it at that, but that would be mean and unprofessional. Simply put, I feel that it is one of the blandest, most soulless, designed-by-committee cynical corporate cash-grabs I have ever played. There is literally nothing that I could say is a redeeming feature. Even the character creation is marred by the character models being ugly as sin half the time (and merely adequate the other half). And what the hell is with this industry's obsession with boob plate?!

I really wanted to like it, I really hoped my first impressions were wrong and that the game would actually at least play well, but no, none of that. It's just bad. I'm afraid I'm just going to have to pass on it entirely. Not my thing.

Wildstar
I have been so completely disinterested in this game that I haven't even signed up for the beta (yes, even when I managed to at least muster up enough will to sign up for TESO). The reason for that is simple: the art is atrocious. I can't stand it. It would be nice if it were at least visually attractive the way Blade & Soul is but instead they go for this ridiculous Saturday-morning-cartoon look that absolutely repulses me.

Oh, and the character creation is horrible. No body sliders? IN 2014?! It's like I took a time machine back to 2006, except Blizzard decided to make a sci-fantasy game with a new IP instead of a Warcraft or Starcraft spin-off. Thanks, guys, but no thanks. I have standards. At least try to meet them, yeah?

And of course, of the footage I've seen absolutely nothing else actually screams "PLAY ME! PLAY MEEEE!", which is highly unfortunate. The combat is playing catch-up with its Eastern contemporaries, though it at least admittedly looks better than TESO's absolute joke for "combat". The questing is also shallow and lacks the kind of direction or overarching story it needs to actually be interesting.

Anyway, yeah. That's the deal. Apologies to those who are actually looking forward to those games, but you can still enjoy them without me. These are just my feelings on them. I wish I had more games to actually look forward to on the horizon, but right now I'm just sticking with more Blade & Soul.

Goddamn I want an NA release right about now...

Ignacius · **03-26-2014, 08:24 AM**

Oddly enough, the MMO I would be most looking forward to in a perfect world would be Monster Hunter Online. Â However, it's being developed in China for a Chinese audience by a Chinese company (Tencent). Â No word yet on whether we'll get a North American release.

Suffice it to say, if either Tencent or parent company CAPCOM ever decides to make a decent Monster Hunter MMO, none of you will ever see me again until you all inevitably end up playing it. Â It would be the best game that has ever been made.

Unfortunately, CAPCOM doesn't think very highly of the western market. Â They've got it in their heads that the only things we like are zombies, guns, and quick time events, and if they can get them all in together at the same time, we'll like it the best.

It is the one reason I really despise the rest of the western market. Â We get Resident Evil and Dead Rising, while Japan is awash in Monster Hunter.

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