WildStar - Das transmutierte Endgame im Test

The first major WildStar patch has been on the live servers for almost two weeks now, and it’s time to evaluate this mini-expansion and take a closer look at the overall endgame of Carbine’s MMORPG.

The Endgame – Adventures, Dungeons, and Lots of Death

For the last three weeks, I’ve been happily battling through the adventures and dungeons in veteran mode, desperately trying to keep my group members alive. Sometimes I succeeded. While the adventures are still nearly all doable, and even as a newbie, one could easily achieve a gold rating if at least the other four group members know what they are doing, it’s quite different in dungeons. With my Esper, I felt relatively secure; I could easily heal all adventures and – depending on the tank’s equipment – also bring out damage abilities at times to speed things up. But in dungeons? No chance!

The dungeons play on a completely different level, and before almost every boss fight, you are forced to adjust and adapt your abilities. What sounds annoying when reading about it is surprisingly fun in practice. There isn’t just one immutable build that works effectively everywhere. Since distributing ability points is free, there are no annoying costs involved.

But be warned: You should not attempt your first experiences with random groups, as the majority of players there know very well what they are doing and only have eyes for the gold reward, which is usually no longer achievable after a death. I really like this system, even though it does force you to organize a group of friends to truly enjoy these contents – at least for the first few rounds.

WildStar Adventure Crimelords of Whitevale

Unfortunately, especially the veteran adventures also have some negative points. The choices are good and enhance the game feel because no visit feels the same as the previous one if you wish, but here lies the problem: Some routes are just completely unfair or poorly balanced. In the adventure “The Malgrave Trail,” for example, some of the selectable routes can directly lead to failure and ruin the gold medal because you cannot prevent something negative from happening – completely independent of how good the group is. In “Crimelords of Whitevale,” it is also not advisable to deviate from the “most popular” path, as the adventure often tends to stall – even after the patch, there is still room for improvement here.

PvP – Battlegrounds: Short, Snappy, and Brutal

I also took a detailed look at the PvP as a healer – and it was immensely fun. The two battlegrounds never last longer than half an hour and provide fun for many, many matches. I especially like that the equipment seems to make only a small difference and the individual player’s skill is what really matters – those who master their class better tend to emerge victorious.

However, there are the most weaknesses of the game to be lamented in PvP: Bots make many battlegrounds unsafe and run through the map on predetermined paths. It even becomes so absurd that these bots from both teams meet at specific points and beat each other up. Occasionally, real players from both teams sit peacefully on the sidelines and place bets on which bot will win.

But the PvP values in WildStar also need urgent adjustments! The attributes “PvP Offensive” and “PvP Defensive” do have the desired effect; however, they are also gained far too easily. You only need 3 PvP items to reach the limit of these attributes – after that, their usefulness drops significantly. Currently, a pure PvP set is not the most effective, but a mix of PvP and PvE gear, which ultimately gives raiders and dungeon runners the better starting chances. That is absurd and fortunately, this will be addressed in the next major patch.

The Rotting Refuge – The Story Moves Forward, At Least a Bit…

The story of Drusera, the Eldan, and the Transmutation was unfortunately not brought to a satisfactory conclusion during the main game – too many questions remained unanswered, and this was supposed to change with the new zone. Did it succeed? No.

Don’t get me wrong, the new zone in WildStar is great and at least from the perspective of the Exiles, there is much new lore (especially for the Mordesh), and some riddles are solved – but definitely too little. After facing off against the monstrous Globellum and having helped the friendly Pell, you can finally enter the “public dungeon,” which, to put it harshly, is nothing more than a larger linear level with elite opponents. Although there are a few terminals in between that reveal interesting details of the story, in the end, you feel just as unsatisfied as you did with the last area. The big revelations are missing.

However, this is just a minor negative point, as overall the zone is excellently made. Serious and funny quests balance each other out, and especially the Drusera soundtrack, which plays during the building event, brings me to the brink of tears every time. The atmosphere is wonderful, and the area is exceedingly coherent – unfortunately, it is also not very long. If patches like this actually come monthly, then that is more than one could ever dream of!

Of Phoenixes and Trolls

Two new daily missions have also found their way into the game, which are fundamentally different from the two “Daily Areas” as they require nearly 20 players to tackle.

The first quest is relatively straightforward – you just need to send a big bird back into the sky, and it requires no tactics at all. The good old “Tank&Spank” works wonderfully here, and even with just one tank and one healer, it can be done easily.

It’s different with the second task, “Guardians of the Grove”: Here, a central point must be protected while enemies attack from all directions – a good group with at least 4 tanks, 4 healers, and 12 damage dealers is essential. In the style of well-known “Tower Defense” games, the battle group can also build various towers that assist in the endeavor. You can choose between offensive (which deal damage) or defensive (which slow down enemies) towers. However, if one wants to achieve a silver or gold medal in the event, they must forgo the towers and build “special” towers that have no use in combat but increase loot at the end if they survive.

Unfortunately, currently all players can place these towers, regardless of who starts the event, making gold and silver medals almost impossible to achieve, as particularly unfriendly players from the opposing faction can simply place defensive towers and ruin the 30-minute event for the opposing faction – it remains to be hoped that measures will be taken against this kind of trolling and that hard account penalties will be imposed.

The Northern Wastes – More Dailies, But Unfortunately Without Love

Unfortunately, I was most disappointed by the northern wastes, the new “daily quest area” in WildStar. On one hand, it’s great that an old starting area is progressing in the story and now populated by new enemies, but on the other hand, the implementation feels a bit lackluster when I compare the zone with others. The missions there are all designed for solo players, which I generally appreciate – as I usually undertake these tasks anyway when waiting for someone or something.

While the quests themselves are engaging on the island and fun, it seems that they have neglected the whole “surroundings” a bit. In the wastes, there are only three measly challenges, and they all only involve “kill as many of them as you can!”, while in the blood-red hinterlands, there was a larger selection and more enjoyable variations. Even a big event like “Aggregor” is nowhere to be found here. Particularly negative is that some of the daily missions do not even grant reputation for the faction – why is that? Did no one notice this beforehand?

Bug Fixes – A Wash and Polish, Please!

WildStar had very few bugs at launch, but a few minor issues were bothersome: Some VIPs had no effect at all, and some abilities were bugged. Particularly frustrating was that certain professions could not reach their full potential because some recipes simply weren’t implemented in the game yet.

In summary, however, one can say: Most errors have been fixed, and the performance of the game is better. Although I made no changes, I now have an average of around 10 more FPS, even in particularly demanding areas. The only frustrating thing is that the patch also introduced some new bugs: Particularly twinks are upset that some quests in the low-level areas can no longer be completed and must be skipped – a hotfix for these tasks is still pending.

Conclusion – Great Endgame, Great Patch, and a Little Doubt

The endgame is tremendously fun, and the patch has introduced the new daily area and the two 20-person missions, providing even more activities, most of which are pure joy. However, there’s a slight aftertaste because the new areas could largely have been tested during the closed beta of the game; whether we can really call this a “major content patch” or merely “adding already promised content” depends on whether one is pro or con WildStar.

[intense_blockquote color=”#ffffff” border_color=”#fa2f2f” width=”40%” rightalign=”1″]Have you read my review of WildStar?[/intense_blockquote]

Unfortunately, the patch does not lead to a reassessment of our initial rating, because a few small details have still disappointed me significantly. However, there is also no reduction in the rating because I am again complaining at a high level and still log into WildStar just as much as in the previous weeks.

The patch is solid and enjoyable – more of it, but perhaps a little more thorough testing!