126927-new-player-leveling-feedback

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Hello all,
I have tried almost every MMORPG released in the past ten years, as i am a huge fan of the genre. 
 
Wanted to give my feedback so far on my leveling experience in wildstar.
 
First of all, this game is beautiful, engaging, and most of all pure fun! I enjoy the combat style, as well as the class system. The artwork/zones are very well done, and the game seems very stable. The quests have a decent variety and there are lots of options for content to do while leveling (If there was actually people).
 
 
Then there are the glaring issues... most of which are caused by the lack of population.
 
- Lack of experience from "Tasks" and other types of quests.
         - This becomes an issue because it feels like the experience gain is tuned under the assumption you are doing adventures/pvp/shiphands/dungeons. But of course after being in a Q for 65+ Minutes you couldn't do one of those if you tried. There is just no one to do them with. This forces you to get all your experience through quests, and of course the only ones that feel worth doing are the story quests because everything else gives next to no experience. 
 
- Dungeons are very frustrating right now
         - The reason i say this is so far my experience goes as following: I que for a dungeon... wait over an hour for it to pop... clear trash with ease.. then wipe on the first boss once or twice as the difficulty is way harder than the previous trash... 2-3 people leave and now you must wait another hour to fill again...
         - I have never played a MMO in which the very first dungeons are that demoralizing. I have raided Heroic/Mythic in WoW, as well as top tier in Rift so i have seen my share of harder content. These dungeons didn't seem so bad to me... but for being a level 20 dungeon filled with the few PUGs in North America who actually Qued for the thing, it was just a sad experience.
         - Needless to say i have not tried to do a dungeon since.
 
-Lack of PvP is very disappointing
        - This is completely due to the low population of course, however it may also have to do with the level segregating put in place. I know a lot of other MMO's solved this by scaling everyone from level say 10-48 up to 49 so there is a much larger player pool to fill matches with. Either way i'm just giving my honest experience of the game thus far and this was a big disappointment as i love to PvP while i level. Im level 23 so far and yet to play a single match of PvP.
 
These were just a few of many things that have put a bad taste in my mouth so far while leveling. It just feels like if I could actually do the things the game has available the experience would be so much better than it currently is. Im only level 23 and already I feel like the road ahead is very daunting as i must continue to do a million quests even though the majority of them give me so little experience. If i don't do them all i end up getting too far ahead in the story quests my only option is to grind mobs.
I understand the game was designed so you could do the odd pvp match or dungeon etc for experience, but in it's current state that is just not an option.
 
I would love to see the experience increased on some of the "tasks" and side quests as some of them take just as long as the Story quests. Yet reward very little for your efforts.
 
TDLR: Due to very low population you are not able to PvP/Dungeon etc, which forces you to do the majority of the quests in every area. Of those quests the majority give very little experience, which makes the game feel very much grindy and linear.
 	
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As a new player who just started playing the game themselves, I'd like to offer some responses to your feedback.
 
As far as questing goes, the quests give great experience, if you avoid the meaningless tasks abounding. They region, zone, and world quests are the core of the leveling experience, and they will keep you leveling in 1-2 hours per level up into your 40s. 
 
The lack of players in queue is a population problem, but not one that's unique to this game. Even WoW has suffered from notoriously long low level dungeon queues. It's just the nature of a game at this stage of it's lifecycle. I'd expect it to get much better for a short time, at least, and maybe long-term, once the game goes free to play.
 
As for the dungeon difficulty, I'm torn. I have failed many dungeons so far, but when I complete them, it feels very rewarding. I like the fact that they are hard, and you can wipe if people don't pay attention. That said, It would be nice if they toned down the difficulty a small amount (though I'm expecting major nerfs come free to play, to be friendly to the casual player base that kind of payment model draws). I'd especially like to see a bit more forgiveness in reaction time for boss abilities at low levels.
 
PvP is really not in the best place right now, mostly I think because of the hardcore PvE nature of the game that has appealed to the current player base. I'm hoping that f2p will draw a larger crowd of pvp players, especially since the PvP in this game is actually quite fun.	
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Very first dungeon being protostar? If you haven't done the training dungeon you really should. It prepares you for mechanics in all future dungeons.
 
White damage for leveling dungeons is being nerfed (soon) and other small tweaks are coming for leveling dungeons as well, but overall red = bad. (Or whatever color your telegraph is set too)
 
This is just the wildstar way. If you don't enjoy the dodge dip duck dive difficulty of wildstar dungeons, then they might not be for you. (And interrupts! Never underestimate interrupts)
 
I'm not trying to say "git gud or go home" but more... This is an aspect that Wildstars current core community loves. I don't raid, but I still get to be challenged by dungeons. Leveling isn't allowed to be afk to xp. just because I'm pre 50 doesn't mean I lack challenging stuff to do.
 
The important thing is to start your pug off positively. If you get the mood going from the get go people stick around and work together for victory. If you are silent or negative you create an atmosphere of strangers or worse enemies. But both atmospheres in that scenario are more likely to leave after a wipe.
 
Edit to add:
 
Regarding queue times. Make groups the old fashioned way! The difficulty of the dungeons combined with lack of low level population has turned people away from the queue system. Ask in zone chat or your servers player made global channel.
 
Information on chat channels and more found here:
 
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/125295-faq-for-new-players-new-nexian-you-should-read-this/	
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I suggest always queuing in as both possible roles for your class.
Maintain viable gear for both roles, and an action set for each.
 
I can say from experience in other MMOs that knowing the other roles helps a lot in performing the role you take on in raiding... so even if you plan to ONLY DPS in raids... you will be a better DPS if you know what the tanks and healers SHOULD be doing from actual experience rather than from armchair-driving-other-people's-toons-in-forums-arguments.  :ph34r:
- And the goes for people who plan to only tank or only heal too. My tanking in WoW got a lot better after I leveled a DPS toon, and in so doing, learned how as a tank, to set up fights for positions that were better for my DPSers, as well as what to look out for to help them avoid panicking on adds or mobile fights...
 
In a low population game, you're going need all the edge you can get to try and shorten that queue.
 
I've queued twice since trying the game again. The fact that it made me healer on one and tank on the other suggests that the long queue is partly driven by so few people doing this...
 
That said both of my queues were long. On my healer I think it was over 35 minutes. On my tank it was over 10 minutes. In a low level dungeon in WoW I can instant to at most 5 minute pop a tank at any level, and about twice this time for a healer. But WoW has somewhere between 7 to 10 million players... so there is that.
 
I don't have good advice on the questing because I've not been around enough to know what rewards better. But I do notice that with this long of dungeon queues, one might as well perma-stay in queue and just quest until the queue pops.
 
If my social media is any indication, the game is about to get an influx of returning and some new players... once F2P hits.
 
 
If you are a social person, and an organizer sort... I suggest kicking off a levelers guild. In WoW I see this a lot during the year long luls between content drops - guilds for lowbies and alts to level together and thereby speed up their dungeon queues...
 
If I had the time, I'd start one. The person who starts it tends to get the group invites the most... :)	
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I agree with a LOT of what you said. I posted feedback almost exactly to the tune of this. You are absolutely not alone in feeling this way.
 
- I've been doing a lot of tasks to capture as many pieces of lore that I can but after a while of the same types of quests, it becomes very unfulfilling. Getting quest 6,7,8 in a row gets very repetitive. Tasks are optional quests while the main story quests are the ones that give substantial amounts of exp. I don't feel the grind when the tasks are either humorous or done in a different fashion. There are a few of these thrown in that you would have to look for.
 
- I 100% agree on dungeons. I find them punishing and just not very fun. There are channel chats that people use to group but they're not officially run by Carbine. Even with 3 of my friends, we've had a hard time finding a 5th for queues to the point we had to dungeon with just 4 of us or wait a long time. The difficulty is supposed to go Shiphands > Adventures > Dungeons > Raids but Shiphands is the only type of instance where having a different number of people than suggested will not result in massive deaths, meaning you can solo Shiphands if you want. I would recommend running Shiphands more as they can be very fun!  I have also not entered a dungeon since then. Just unlocked the two 20 dungeons and I'm going to be holding off and leveling more before even attempting them.
 
- I can't say anything on PvP because I haven't done it myself but it seems to be in a bad spot in the game. :/
 
I also feel like everything is becoming daunting that I've actually try slowing down my leveling experience so I'm not thrown into that. I think there is a lack of journey elements in the game and such as feels very linear. My biggest concern, especially for the F2P conversion, is the difficulty curve. It is going to be an issue for incoming players such as yourself who are used to other MMOs and I'm very fearful that people will come, find the gameplay punishing, and leave again. They said they're going to start making tweaks so I would stick around and see what happens!  :D	
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- I 100% agree on dungeons. I find them punishing and just not very fun. There are channel chats that people use to group but they're not officially run by Carbine. 
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Where can one find out about these channels?
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			the thing for dungeons is get an experienced player, the dungeons are really easy if someone coordinate the team, every dungeon i tanked with the engi im leveling now its been a sucess just because of that, if you are on entity exile we could make some pve content and you shall get more fun with it	
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Kezra posted it above  :D
 
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/125295-faq-for-new-players-new-nexian-you-should-read-this/
 
This is a new player guide and it has the information listed here. I quoted the chat part below. You type it into your chat when you log in. Hope this helps!
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Just to answer a few people.
 
I did the proto games but didnt count that as a dungeon, i was referring to the two level 20 dungeons.
 
I do Que as both tank and dps, doesn't really matter though because nothing ever pops anyways.
 
It's not that "I" have a problem with the difficulty, its the fact others in the group do and just quit... Which after waiting over an hour for the Que just feels like a complete waste of time. As i said, ive done the hardest content MMO's have to offer, so i didn't have any trouble with the mechanics etc. The problem is that when the people who couldn't handle the dungeon leave, there isn't any people waiting in Que to fill there spot. So it gets to the point where you literally cant complete a dungeon unless you have a premade or something. Which for basically the first dungeon in the game... seems a little overkill.
 
In 23 hours of gameplay i have always been Que'd for something and i have had 1 Shiphand and 2 dungeons pop (didn't get past 1st boss) 0 PvP. Thats it.
 
In regards to the person saying the zone/world story missions will get you leveling 1-2 hours per level... they don't, believe me i tried. You eventually get ahead in them to the point you can't complete them because they are 3 levels ahead of you. So your forced to do the "tasks" which give very little experience. This is why i was saying the game feels tuned around getting experience from other sources... which you can't because they don't ever pop up, or you can never complete them because people fail and leave.	
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In regards to the person saying the zone/world story missions will get you leveling 1-2 hours per level... they don't, believe me i tried. You eventually get ahead in them to the point you can't complete them because they are 3 levels ahead of you. So your forced to do the "tasks" which give very little experience. This is why i was saying the game feels tuned around getting experience from other sources... which you can't because they don't ever pop up, or you can never complete them because people fail and leave.
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the fact that before drop 4 a guild made a stream called failures to fifty in what they leveled a char in like 20 hours means that the system of doing  zone/regional7world works, maybe you are just missing hubs. and that was before drop 4 when they lowered the quantity of mobs in quests, streamlined the questing experience and added +15% experience in all quests.
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Since the population is low right now, I suspect it will be very important for new people and returning people to both get into guilds AND join those zone / LFG channels mentioned up thread.
 
Try those two things, and see if that improves it.
 
I think if I go more active again, I will definitely sniff out a levelers guild to join. Until F2P changes things, that's going to be vital.	
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			Join the chat channels to ask for groups, as has been mentioned.  Dominion:  /chjoin EntityLFM   Exile:  /chjoin LFG  Outrageous queue times and experiences from using Group Finder isn't a lack of population issue, it's a lack of participation in Group Finder issue.	
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Since the population is low right now, I suspect it will be very important for new people and returning people to both get into guilds AND join those zone / LFG channels mentioned up thread.
 
Try those two things, and see if that improves it.
 
I think if I go more active again, I will definitely sniff out a levelers guild to join. Until F2P changes things, that's going to be vital.
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@Pipchi
 
I need to start copying the chat channel section specifically. I post on my phone a lot so it's hard to do easily.
 
but yay! :D
 
Also I'm Dominion. Kezra Shadowbound
 
If you ever want someone for leveling dungeons let me know! I love normal and vet since the scaling system works so well.	
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@Pipchi
 
I need to start copying the chat channel section specifically. I post on my phone a lot so it's hard to do easily.
 
but yay! :D
 
Also I'm Dominion. Kezra Shadowbound
 
If you ever want someone for leveling dungeons let me know! I love normal and vet since the scaling system works so well.
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