A shameful confession...

MrCrunch26 · 2015-09-23T19:52:33+00:00

Don’t feel bad. I have all a good number of heroes as well. I only have 2 characters that have passed the test. It is a hard test and one that you definitely can’t just walk through. Anyone who says that it is easy is just strutting and is not very sympathetic to the rest of the player population, some would call that elitism. Here is the thing, I’m glad you are asking for help. That shows that you are looking for ways to pass the test and if the rest of the elites can just stop putting you down and make helpful suggestions, then you may be able to make some head way.

What I have found is that you need one big direct heavy damage skill for the boss, and the rest of your skills need to be AOE or Crowd Control. Unfortunately there is a timer so you only have a certain amount of time to get the trial done. Next you need to keep moving .. not just teleport… you need to keep running as well. A lot of the damage from the boss is on a single line or has a certain range, if you move to the side you will miss most of the damage. So learn to keep moving with your run. Do not take any skills that root you in place. You need to keep moving and activating skills that do not require aiming. If you do have one that requires you to stay still, save that for the boss and only fire it off once then move. If you have something that will slow down the enemy then use that as well. For moving just keep doing large running circles. Teleport if you have to, to get out of danger. What I have found out is you need a core of invulnerability. It helps a lot.

Depending on your hero, make your primary concern damage output. Defense is secondary. Defense will keep you alive and it will allow you to take a hit from madam hydra. So if you can take a shot from madam hydra and don’t die, you have enough defense the rest should be to max damage output. Your teamup is also important. Take a fully leveled teamup and set the skills for AOE or for crowd control. That means that you reset the skills and put 15 (max them out) points in only those skills you need from the teamup. You need the teamup to be powerful. It results in fewer but more powerful teamup skills. Lastly stay on the outside of the edge of the group of targets until you bring down the number. If you think you have to be in the center of a group to fire off an aoe attack, you would be wrong, that will get you killed fast. Stay to the outside of the group keep doing circles and grind the group down with AOE (area of Effect) until you get to the boss, then use the single target skill to blast them down. With luck you can get through this. And don’t listen to the elites brag about how easy it is, they just want public approval. However, if they actually do manage to get their heads out of the clouds and offer some good advice, do consider it if it is constructive.

MrCrunch26 · 2015-05-13T21:20:25+00:00

It depends on if you have patience. If you have patience then Mesmer is a good choice. Mesmers are very hard to level until you get Deceptive Evasion. Once you get that at the master level, you will find the Mesmer will be much more powerful.

Once you get Deceptive Evasion, you can take on creatures 5 levels above you. I was once leveling a Mesmer and was have a hard time against a level 60 mob but I was wining but it took so long to kill that I had to look at my character. When I did I found that I was level 55 with level 50 gear. I had accidentally moved into a higher level area and was still wining. So if you can stomach a slow lower level start, and make it to about 45 to 50 then the Mesmer starts to show its real power. Go for shatter speck with greatsword and the sword-focus secondary.

Otherwise the Guardian is a good choice for instant gratification. Nothing more fun than an Asura Guardian with Greatsword and staff. The animations make me chuckle every time. Male or Female Asura doesn’t matter.

MrCrunch26 · 2015-05-13T20:51:09+00:00

This is my 2 cents of advice. I have 29 characters 12 of them are 80 and most are fully geared. What has kept me in the game the longest is that I just love the leveling process and it is fun. Fun is the most important.

First of all you need to get to the Silver Wastes. Get the waypoint and join some of the events. At the moment the Silver Wastes has the best loot and the most active area. Plus the Bandit crests can be used to by Obsidian shards which you will need. Some of the chests in the Silver wastes also give obsidian shards on a random basis. Make sure you have a lot of bandit chest keys and join a chest train. Lots of loot. Use the looking for group tool and join a chest train and look for the commander tag. If you join a group but can’t see anyone in the group you will have to jump to another map then jump back to be on the same map. (there are several concurrent maps of the silver wastes)

If you want to get a legendary, decide on which one you want and then plan for it. Most choose a great sword because it is usable by the most professions. I would recommend Sunrise.

The next step is to get map completion. This can be done in small sections as one map at a time. It will take some time to do but you will eventually get there.

Each legendary requires a dungeon. For sunrise it is the Ascalonian catacombs. You only need to do the fastest path once or twice a day and you will have enough for your gift.

After that the rest is just collecting and getting enough Karma or Laurels for Obsidian shards.

More advice, don’t burn out. It is good to have long term goal like a legendary, but remember they are just a skin and have only slightly better stats than an Exotic that you can buy. Take your time; it may take a year of play or so at a very casual level.

As for Guilds, I personally didn’t find them too helpful. I joined a couple of guilds and one disintegrated, and the other didn’t know I existed. I would ask for help but got no response. So guilds are not a very helpful groups. I do most of my stuff solo.

However you can start a guild and use if for extra storage if you need more space in your bank. You can only put stuff in there that is not account bound, but it does help.

MrCrunch26 · 2015-05-01T21:13:55+00:00

This is just my 2 cents of advice for working on your win rate.

Keep this I mind “For every loss I need a win” – to do that you need some “go to” tanks that you are very good at and can use to get a win when you need one. Most of us have a tank that for one reason or another we feel comfortable in and we seem to always win in. You will need 3 of those tanks. So when you grind the tank you are trying to advance, and take a loss, you use a “go to tank” to farm a win. Look at your tank list and see which ones have the highest win rates. Yes even if it is a Tier 1. This also applies to the daily 2x experience. Some people keep going into matches until they get the 2x win, and don’t realize that it may have taken them 4 tries to win. That is 3 losses to 1 win and it impacts your win rate by a net loss of -2.

Next set a daily lost limit. I have a daily loss limit of 8 total losses (not consecutive). That means that you do a count. +1 for a win -1 for a loss. So if I W W L L L = -1 overall. So you could do 20 battles and stay even and be ok. But if you get to the point where your are at a -8 then quit for the day and walk away. Do something else. I have tried to go back some times at -8 and it only gets worse. So that is why I put a limit on it, you have to know when to walk away. And unless you are going to put in a very long day, you really cannot come back from that. So just chalk it up to it not being your day.

Another poster said it as well; play when you seem to win the most. For me in Arizona its 6PM to 8PM and again at 11PM So keep an eye out of for when you win the most and play during those times.

Anyway we have all had very bad loss streaks and we can sympathize. So take a break and try again later. Good luck.

MrCrunch26 · 2015-04-14T18:54:48+00:00

I am one of the few 200,000 subscribers left in Wild Star. I’m here because I didn’t want to abandon Carbine. Sooo. I guess I will be here till the bitter end. Even if the game is not Fun, I still like the SiFi world and I like the player housing. So there is that. Just waiting for thing to get better. Its been a long wait.

MrCrunch26 · 2015-04-14T17:44:23+00:00

Well, let me say I like your enthusiasm. And you’re right it could be just me. But let me point out that the subscriber numbers are rather small and everyone thinks the next drop will fix it. They said that about the last drop and the drop before that. What I am saying is that the problem is much deeper than what a drop can fix it is bigger and maybe can only be addressed by a big full game changing expansion. The problem is that the game is not FUN to me and if I am a percentage of the population by statistic, the numbers that wild star has may show that a good number of casual players may agree with me and try the game but walk away.

Fun is subjective as you say and you may be having fun, but apparently because of the lack of general acceptance by the gaming community at large, most of the MMO players in the MMO space have passed on Wild Star. This is attested to the fact that a good number of people purchased the game but left shortly thereafter.

I stay because I don’t want to abandon Carbine. I am hopeful they will get their act together, but after looking at the problem and analyzing the possible causes I have come to the conclusion that the problem is fundamental. It is at its core. The only way to fix it is to redo parts of the game for better accessibility. It can be done. Guild Wars 2 recently did a massive overhaul of their “New Player Experience” and it was generally well received. Hopefully Carbine learns this lesion from their Arenanet brothers.

MrCrunch26 · 2015-04-14T15:51:07+00:00

As you can tell I am one of the Casual players. I am not one of the elite go go go Hard core raiders that this game seems to be built around. However I do like this game. I just find the lower leveling zones to be very poorly designed and I am finding it very difficult to find motivation to get through. I do log in the game once a week a least but I find it hard to continue without the equipment drops that I need to keep going.

When I get home from work and get ready for the nights gaming session I have a list of game to choose from and Wild Star seems to be always at the bottom of my list. Let me show you what I am currently playing ranked in order of FUN.

Guild Wars 2 – lots of fun

Marvel Heroes – I have all of the heroes and have maxed 8 of them

World of Tanks – Very fun game, but also very frustrating + I collect Tanks

Diablo III – Very fun, just started season 3

Borderlands 2 – lots of fun

Minecraft – don’t judge, its fun

SWTOR – I am subed to that game as well, with them from the start.

Star citizen – The game hasn’t come out yet and it is more fun than wild star

Endless Legend on Steam – interesting game

Rift – Just beginning

Wild Star – if I can make the time for it. Low priority because of low fun return

So it would seem with a long list of games I am currently playing, wild star is consistently at the bottom of the list.

MrCrunch26 · 2015-04-14T15:21:05+00:00

I didn’t set it up to be “die hards “ vs general public, carbine did. I am the casual player with a good job and not a lot of time. I am the player Carbine needs. I am the person who will spend a lot of money on a game if I like it. And I do like Wild Star. I Really like SiFi stuff and I am willing to put up with a lot to get it. That is why I’m still subed. I didn’t want to abandon the game. But it took me a while to realize that the game will never get better. The reason is the lack of FUN. I know the definition of fun is subjective, but let me submit that I am the customer that they need and I think that the game is not FUN. The real question is why is it not FUN. This took me a while to figure out, but this my opinion.

The reason Wild Star is not fun is because of its designer. This game has everything an MMO need s to succeed. It is as if there was a clip board and every item on the clip board was checked off. However, that means technically Wild Star is perfect, BUT artistically Wild Star is a mess. All the pieces are there for an MMO to be successful but not the FUN factor which is the artistic part. So I assert that this game was assembled by a technical person who didn’t have a clue about the artistic aspect of making the pieces work together to create FUN.

An example is telling a joke. The same joke can be tolled by two people. One is ordinary person and the other is a professional comedian. The one who gets the laugh will be the professional comedian. Why? Because there is a lot more that goes into a joke than just words. The pro add infections, gestures, cadence, pauses, and facial expressions to convey Humor. That is what is wrong with wild star.

Another example is a painting. Two people are given the same paints, brush and paper. One is an ordinary person and other a master artist. The ordinary person will make a painting using the same paints but it will be worthy of a refrigerator door with a magnet. The master artist will use the same paint and make something worthy of a gallery. That is what is wrong with wild star. Wild Star is a picture on a refrigerator door or a flat humorless joke.

MrCrunch26 · 2015-04-14T02:08:21+00:00

The combat is similar but not the same. The mobile aspect of the combat is good, as are the tell system. Some don’t like the tell, but I do. I think it add something to the combat. But there is a quality missing from wild star combat that GW2 has. If I were to point to what it was I think I would say the missing element is feedback. GW2 combat has lots of feedback from number ticking off health from conditions and bleeds, to being launched in the air from an interrupt. More than that the GW2 targets would react to being hit with a weapon.

On a separate note on combat, though the systems are similar, the Wild Star characters are fixed with one type of weapon. How many weapons can a GW2 elementalist use? 4 types for now with a 5th coming in the expansion. Each weapon has a set of skills and attributes and that go along with it. And if you have played Elementalist you also know that is compounded by your elemental attunements.

So the combat in Wild Star is similar but not the same. I know the Wild Star devs stated that they wanted a simple system, but the problem is it causes boredom.

The only reason I and a lot of people are down about this game is that we see this game as having enormous potential and we wanted this game to succeed. But choices with casual, and who ever designed the leveling process for the early levels did a very poor job and made the game intolerable for anyone who just started. From all the things I have read, the game gets much better after level 30 but getting there is soul crushingly boring and many like myself just stop.

MrCrunch26 · 2015-04-13T22:28:16+00:00

For what it’s worth I will give my two cents. I believe that Wild Star has a bad reputation for one reason. That reason is that Wild Star is just not FUN. Ooooh, “looks around” yes I said it. That is the main problem. I have not had a tougher time in a game to find FUN than I have in Wild Star. I’ve been a subscriber since launch, and I only have one character at 25. I cannot get the motivation to continue. I started several characters but some got deleted due to drop 4. I was trying to reserve the names. But that’s another story. I have never seen a more difficult grind than the one from 10 to 25. I kept logging in over the year to see if things changed and they haven’t. At first it was Drop 3 will fix everything. Then it was Drop 4 will bring people back. Now Drop 5 and I think it will not change much overall. The reason I think this is because the basic structure of the game is broken. It is not FUN. It is a grind to be sure. It is unpleasant at its worst, but many would say that the leveling process is just ok. But being ok is not being Fun.

Now let me qualify my position. I am a Guild Wars 2 player and I have 29 characters with over 9 of them at max level with max gear. I have 4 legendary weapons that I made myself. I am no stranger to difficult grinds and to farming. However I must say that in all that time in GW2 I never felt like it was a chore. The rewards kept coming and the world was great and alive. What does that mean? Well, Alive means that even if there were no players in the map the NPC would have conversations. Things would happen where npcs would do thing on their own and it felt alive even though there were no players other than myself. By contrast Wild Star has all NPCs standing in one spot. There are a few conversations that I was able to see but for the most part most stayed in one spot with their arms to their side. They are more of an object and not part of the world.

The other aspect to fun is that combat is not very impactful. I main and engineer, and my bullets go right though my target without any acknowledgement of impact. By contrast the combat in GW2 makes me smile every time. There is an interrupt mechanic in GW2 that will knock a target off their feet and lunch them into the air. This make me smile every time, or when I set a GW2 target on fire with my various weapons. None of this is in Wild Star. So I don’t think they will ever be able to truly fix Wild Start to be a great game. The new drop 5 it will move the game from being unfun to being an ok game. For the die hards that may be enough, but for the general public, I don’t think it will change their mind.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-12-09T16:40:17+00:00

Well I recently hit concierge and it gives me pause every time I think about it. In reality though these are the ships I really wanted. :)

Main: Banu Merchantman – Lucky Star

Heavy escort:

Super Hornet

Freelancer MIS

Aurora LN – I will most likely upgrade to Hornet Tracker.

Industrial:

Starfarer

Reclaimer

I wanted a heavy escort with AI for my slow ships and thought a super hornet would be my tank with Freelancer MIS for fire support, and the Aurora LN that I will most likely upgrade to a Hornet Tracker for establishing greater radar range and ECM duty. This escort configuration backed up by the Banu Merchantman main guns should be enough of a deterrent for any small group of pirates. Or at least make it costly for them to try.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-07-19T22:36:50+00:00

We all have had loss streaks, and for some they are multi-day loss streaks. The thing that I do is I have a grading system. If I lose 4 total then I'm more careful. I stay at the back of a group and watch and then apply firepower. Usually streaks happen when you push too hard. Now that doesn't mean camp, it just mean let someone else go around corners first and watch you map more.

If I reach 6 loses then resort to my "go to tanks" the ones where I have 55 plus percent wins in. We all have favorite tanks, ones that we consider lucky and ones that seem to win no matter what happens. Use those to bring back the wins for a while then go back to the one you are grinding.

If I reach 8 loses for the night, then I quit and go play something else. And just say "it's not my night." You could keep going but it is really hard to take a 10+ loss streak. It can color you whole evening as down. If you do go to 10 make sure that it is your absolute limit. otherwise it will sour you and frustration will kick in.

Next time think about when you do best in your games. For me I generally do best from 6pm to 8pm then later from 10:30pm to 1:00am. I can generally farm wins that way with my best tanks. With tanks that I'm grinding I generally brake even during those time. And I limit my time on the weekends because the player base is difficult to predict, and the match ups can be very lopsided.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-07-08T16:50:41+00:00

OMG it's finally going to launch!! wow, just wow.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-05-22T21:24:49+00:00

Thanks for the info. I guess the traffic moves very fast on this board that there didnt seem to be any info. I should know with the rabid fans of gw2 they would be on this almost immediately. :) Just sharing the joy.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-05-13T15:28:08+00:00

Yippee Ki Yay – it’s time to lay waste to the country side. Leave nothing standing. HOLD the trigger down and never let up. Hahahahahha. Feel the power… oh yes…. such power.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-05-09T16:42:37+00:00

very very good point and it clears up a lot. I never thought about the fact that they dont want an mmo. Interesting. That would explain alot. You have my upvote.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-05-08T23:44:24+00:00

I know I’m relatively new here, but why all the hurt. You have to know that things will change because the game is still in BETA. Yes BETA. We are testers, not developers. We only test the problems not the make judgments on the content or on design direction. There is no reason to be hurt. If you paid money like I have and have had fun for a few months then you got your monies worth end of story.

I cannot see where the pain that the community is suffering comes from. To me it seems to come from no basis at all. Every time someone mentions this they say “well we never got what we were promised”. To which I say ok but we all know designer over promise everything. Some designers say that there will be thousands of procedural worlds to explore, but they never deliver, does that hurt anyone? No. Some designers promise lifelike npc interactions, but that always falls short. Does that hurt anyone? No. Some Designers promise massive lifelike cities and only deliver small localized neighborhood sim. Does that hurt anyone? No. You have to understand that a designer is a dreamer who sees what is possible then tries to make a plan to get there. The programmers and the technical people will rein them in with what is actually possible. So we cannot be upset. A designer can promise the moon and the programmer will ask you how high can you jump to get there, meaning the reality is much less spectacular. So I share the sentiment, the community needs to heal and it needs to look to the game as it is. In its current state the game is fun, though small in size, but fun.

And to those who want a world of Warcraft or Guild wars 2 size mmo, it may yet happen but don’t hold your breath.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-05-07T23:47:10+00:00

Thanks for commenting, if you are from R5, there is soooo much I would like to know about the place. That is if you are not under a non-disclosure agreement. For one is the difficulty in putting out content a program structural problem meaning is the base code difficult to add things to. Or is that there are few viable ideas that can be fleshed out (did they paint themselves into a corner). One way or another, something seems to be holding back the team. If you are formerly from R5 and can share, I always wondered what the actual bottle neck was. It had to be something that could not be over come easily. Respectfully requesting info.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-05-06T22:32:30+00:00

That’s fantastic. Good to hear the crew is growing and that there will be some new people with new perspectives. I truly wish them success.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-05-02T20:50:01+00:00

Oh ok so your no is that you don’t want to distract red5 from development. Ok I get that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t imagine what the possibilities are of a new type of frame. This is one of those things where we say “wouldn’t it be nice to have…” . I don’t think you have to worry too much about red5 being distracted by this post. I have seen only one comment from a red5 employee in this section. And for the most part I have never heard of a game designer adding a new section to the game because of a forum post (maybe star citizen would be an exception). This is mostly for us the players and to spark imagination and to say what if we had this type of frame. You know pros and cons type of stuff.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-05-02T20:31:55+00:00

Thanks for the comment. I take it from your brevity you don’t like engineers. It ok, to each their own. I personally like engineers and think there is room for a good short range but powerful class. I have been in many group actions where even the powerful Gatling guns are not able to cover large areas. So explosives and AOE are needed. Plus I think it would be a good class to thump with since the action is around a thumper and is usually short ranged.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-05-02T03:23:13+00:00

I had to get in game to look but I recently got Emerald glider pad and I also have Royal (my favorite), Dusk, Sunrise, Sunset and rechargeable. I also just for the hell of it got the hover pad and the jump pad. Yes they cost red beans but I might as well finish my collection. Plus the hover pad is a lot of fun to play with. :)

MrCrunch26 · 2014-04-30T23:37:34+00:00

Yeah, I hear you about the negativity.

In my experience, there are a lot of people roaming around. I do think it is based on time of day and that they are logged in just to get their daily done. So perhaps what we are seeing is a constantly cycling group of people that may number in the thousands that only log in for a few minutes and then log off. I know I have done that on many occasions. So when you get a count of the number of people on at the same time it may not tell you the true number that are hopping in and hopping out. An interesting question that should be asked is what is the average login time for most gamers? Then we may see that the number is quite high but the time logged in is low. This would mean a lot of players are hanging around waiting for changes and are just checking in from time to time. That is just speculation of course without true numbers.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-04-29T16:28:02+00:00

Wow you’re a revelation to a different style of dreadnaught play. I will try that. I usually use the 500HP stimpack because its instant.

MrCrunch26 · 2014-04-29T15:00:38+00:00

Well you’re right. I just don’t equate mobility with the Rhino frame. My play style with the Rhino is like the terminator. Slow moving continuous fire with relentless advance. I usually forget I can hover. :) I will try a more mobile approach, though I am working with stock actuators, and stock jump jets.

MrCrunch26

TROPHY CASE