147944-why-im-struggling-to-log-in-in-anymore

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Heya, I thought I'd just post a topic about the problems I have with this game, and why it's getting really hard to summon any motivation to actually login and play. I'll also mention parts I enjoy so it's not just a wall of hate, hah.
 
Questing:
 
The Good
 
I actually really enjoyed the questing experience in this game. Most zones have decent pacing, and you can usually complete multiple quests at once. They're also decently interesting to actually do, which many MMOs struggle with. I loved Drusera's solo-instance quests and they were a lovely way to tell the story, and Grimvault was simply amazing to play when the story hit it's climax.
 
The Bad
 
Unfortunatly, after hitting max level on my main, it quickly becomes boring to level any alts. While you have a choice of levelling zone for a short while, once you reach your capital city it's the same exact quests all the way to max level, which is simply a slog, even after having taken a long break from the game. Levelling on the other faction helps slightly, but many of the quest chains are 'neutral' and so are identical, or are just carbon copies of what the other faction has to do, Western Blighthaven is particularly blatent about this.
 
 
Shiphands/Adventures/Dungeons:
 
The Good
 
It's cool they added a variety of different types of instanced content, especially Shiphands being completely soloable. Adventures have a good deal of potential replayability with their different path choices.
 
The Bad
 
A big problem is the lack of people who actually queue for these before max level. I found myself waiting for ages to find a group for Adventurers in particular, and this was shortly after the f2p launch, a few weeks later it seemed impossible.
 
Another issue I had was the massive jump in difficuty that Veteran Shiphands seemed to be. The normal versions are easily soloable, and most of them aren't challenging in the slightest. After spending ages getting good, max-level gear on my Spellslinger, I quickly found that soloing Veteran Shiphands was -not- something I could do, with how long it took to kill anything.
 
Dungeons seemed tuned a bit high, mainly 'Normal' ones. After getting into the very first dungeon, The Protogames Academy, I found that the very first encounter was wipe, wipe, wipe if the group didn't use their interupts at all the right time. Now, using interupts is an important part of this game, I get that, and I know it's pretty easy to do, but PuGs can be absolutely terrible at the best of times, and this was the -first- dungeon content anyone gets to see. Needless to say I was quickly turned off dungeons, even after eventually clearing the place, and decided to just stick to Shiphands/Adventures.
 
Though I quickly found that Adventures aren't as replayable as I first thought, since in the vast majority of my runs in them, everyone just auto-picks the first option every time. I also found The Highcrest Inssurection to be pretty darn brutal in terms of difficulty, especially for the first Exile Adventure, the Dominion one was -much- easier.
 
Shiphands were also a bit underwhelming when I found that they all seemed really similar. You always seem to be doing them on behalf of the same people, and they're all set in similar-looking spaceships.
 
 
Max Level Content:
 
The Good
 
Elder Gems are pretty interesting, and they're really quick to get. The rewards they offer seem pretty good too, got two new hoverboards in only a couple weeks.
 
The Daily Zones are actually much more bearable than daily zones tend to be in other MMOs, and the rewards are good too. Awesome idea letting you get Dyes from dailys.
 
The Bad
 
After a while it really feels like there's not much to do. After finishing all the story quests, gearing up in epics, buying the stuff I really wanted for Elder Gems, and doing each of the daily zones a bunch for dyes, gold and contracts, I was left feeling a bit bored. Having found the group content to be lacking, outdoor bosses and events are just boring zerg-fests, and I've never liked PvP, all I can really do is level alts or continue doing dailies, both of which don't say fun forever.
 
Also, pets and mounts not being account-bound does kill a lot of the urge to collect them.
 
 
I really loved this game at first, and spent a decent bit in the shop, but after a couple of months there's just not enough different types of content for me maybe, or maybe it's just that the content there is has some issues, I don't know.	
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I do want to add that veteran shiphands are easily soloable the moment you hit 50 - just grab the ilevel 65 gear from the pvp vendor for just over a plat (this is also good gear to get you into the vet adventures which will lead toward vet dungeons).
 
I feel you on lower level queue times though - if you want to do pre-50 content you almost need to have friends that are willing to run it with you.
			
				
	Edited December 8, 2015 by Frosthaven	
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			I thought you kept forgetting your password!	
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			Housing fixes everything. A house is never truly done. 	
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			You know while I am having fun with my return; the OP does bring up at least one very valid point on Queue times for lower level content. They are ridiculous, this isn't enough to deter me from having fun yet, but it does take a tiny bit of wind out of the sails.	
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I have noticed the lower level queues can be a bit long. But I'm curious how many people are just queuing in their DPS set up for them? 
When I queue as a tank with a DPS friend my queue times seem to be under 20 minutes , sometimes faster. While not ideal it is bearable.
But I'm curious if people are just queuing as DPS ( like in every other MMO ever) instead of using their support specs. I mean I've been playing MMOs since the days of EQ 1 and I'm hard pressed to think of times when any group was waiting for a DPS to join. 	
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I have noticed the lower level queues can be a bit long. But I'm curious how many people are just queuing in their DPS set up for them? 
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Unfortunatly, after hitting max level on my main, it quickly becomes boring to level any alts. While you have a choice of levelling zone for a short while, once you reach your capital city it's the same exact quests all the way to max level, which is simply a slog, even after having taken a long break from the game. Levelling on the other faction helps slightly, but many of the quest chains are 'neutral' and so are identical, or are just carbon copies of what the other faction has to do, Western Blighthaven is particularly blatent about this.
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I have noticed the lower level queues can be a bit long. But I'm curious how many people are just queuing in their DPS set up for them? 
When I queue as a tank with a DPS friend my queue times seem to be under 20 minutes , sometimes faster. While not ideal it is bearable.
But I'm curious if people are just queuing as DPS ( like in every other MMO ever) instead of using their support specs. I mean I've been playing MMOs since the days of EQ 1 and I'm hard pressed to think of times when any group was waiting for a DPS to join. 
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I have noticed the lower level queues can be a bit long. But I'm curious how many people are just queuing in their DPS set up for them? 
When I queue as a tank with a DPS friend my queue times seem to be under 20 minutes , sometimes faster. While not ideal it is bearable.
But I'm curious if people are just queuing as DPS ( like in every other MMO ever) instead of using their support specs. I mean I've been playing MMOs since the days of EQ 1 and I'm hard pressed to think of times when any group was waiting for a DPS to join. 
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Oh hey I'm not casting aspersions on peoples gear/ spec choices. Just seems that usually the bottleneck in any sort of LFG tool is either heals or tanks . I did read your other post about strictly leveling a tank by dungeons and I have to say , you are a glutton for punishment lol. I mean I like dungeons, I even like chain running them on the weekend but you my friend took it to a whole nother level. I'm envisioning it to be similar to Dante's 10th ring of hell (thats the one no one talks about) .  
 
All joking aside I wonder if its the healer role that is gumming up the works, and I do agree that carrying 2 sets of gear with the limited bag space is not a good idea. I tried it for awhile and just disenchanted ( probably not the right word for it in game but you know what I mean) my DPS gear. So I do my questing in full support gear. Slower than I could in DPS gear yes but really its not a huge difference just gotta run with 2 IA's and use MOO's to kill faster. Also tried leveling as a support medic but that character is stuck at 16 so tells you how well that's working out for me. 	
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Oh hey I'm not casting aspersions on peoples gear/ spec choices. Just seems that usually the bottleneck in any sort of LFG tool is either heals or tanks . I did read your other post about strictly leveling a tank by dungeons and I have to say , you are a glutton for punishment lol. I mean I like dungeons, I even like chain running them on the weekend but you my friend took it to a whole nother level. I'm envisioning it to be similar to Dante's 10th ring of hell (thats the one no one talks about) .  
 
All joking aside I wonder if its the healer role that is gumming up the works, and I do agree that carrying 2 sets of gear with the limited bag space is not a good idea. I tried it for awhile and just disenchanted ( probably not the right word for it in game but you know what I mean) my DPS gear. So I do my questing in full support gear. Slower than I could in DPS gear yes but really its not a huge difference just gotta run with 2 IA's and use MOO's to kill faster. Also tried leveling as a support medic but that character is stuck at 16 so tells you how well that's working out for me. 
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Just wanted to say great post OP, and...
 
+1
 
I'm right there with you.	
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The Bad
 
Unfortunatly, after hitting max level on my main, it quickly becomes boring to level any alts. While you have a choice of levelling zone for a short while, once you reach your capital city it's the same exact quests all the way to max level, which is simply a slog, even after having taken a long break from the game. Levelling on the other faction helps slightly, but many of the quest chains are 'neutral' and so are identical, or are just carbon copies of what the other faction has to do, Western Blighthaven is particularly blatent about this.
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			Just because you can skip quests, that doesn't mean the leveling gets very monotonous after you've leveled one Exile and one Dominion. There's no variety in path. You see the same locations, do the same quests, fight the same bad guys. Over and over again. >_< Wish there were at least two full alternate leveling paths for each faction.	
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I'm always completely flabbergasted by statements like these. It always looks to me like this is either someone who has not played the game lately, as in post-2014, or does absolutely zero explorations in any of the zones.
 
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I'm sure the company wouldn't agree, but OP, there's nothing really wrong with taking a break for awhile. As long as the game is here you can always log back in when you have the itch to start playing again. I know back during my decade of WoW I took breaks from time to time. I'd keep going back and I'd have fun for awhile, and when I was no longer having fun I'd stop playing. A couple days, a week, a month, I think my longest was six months there near the end. 
 
Basically, take a break if you feel like it. Maybe when you feel like playing again there'll even be new content. 
 
 
 
My only concern is if too many people take a break before there's new content...	
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I am always completely flabbergasted by statements like yours, because it seems like you have leveled up exactly one character and skipped a lot of the quests. The problem with the ONE LEVELLING PATH TO RULE THEM ALL because painfully evident on your third alt. 
 
1) You can skip certain quests for 'future playthroughs', sure, but you will still end up doing all the same Story quests in the same order, visit the same places in the same order and fight the same things in the same order. 
 
2) All those quests that you can skip are inconsecuential. They don't add enough to make up for skipping the ones that actually give important ammounts of XP. Which agravates the previous point.
 
And there's still the 'Whitevale>Farside>Wilderrun>Malgrave>Grimvault>Blighthaven>Defile' path that is always the same, no matter the faction, race, player preference or path of the character. 
 
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			You are ignoring the fact that you are still going through the same zones every time. Skipping doesn't change the fact that you're still seeing the same zones. (It also means you're going to be no where close to rep capped with your faction when you're 50.)	
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*snip*
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			There are definitely NOT multiple levelling areas after level 20...	
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@fantasticcupcake
 
Yeah tried again today just leaving queue up while cleaning the house. It was better 2 weeks ago but now its impossible at certain times to get in as a tank for anything pre-50
 
As for the making friends bit, I have plenty of friends offering to run me if I really cared that much. If it were unsurmountable I'd probably just quit, but I'm still here chugging along.
 
I'd rather meet and help newer players than be run through the content tbh. That's where I get my joy.	
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There are multiple leveling areas & leveling paths.  XP gain is so fast now that you can skip entire sections of content and just go back later to redo them on an alt.
 
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My my, people who don't understand sometimes.
Ok, let me break it down then.
 
Unless the leveling zones have changed in a year, that info should still be good.
As I said earlier with XP gains as fast as they are you can leave zones incomplete or skip entire zones if you like.
 
1 - Levian Bay OR Crimson Isle // EverStar Grove OR Northern Wilds
2 - Deredun OR Elevar // Algeroc OR Celestion
3 - Auroria // Galeras (doesn't need to be done 100%, you can experience other parts of the same zone via alts)
4 - Whitevale OR Farside
5 - Wilderrun OR Malgrave
6 - Western OR Southern Grimvault
7 - Elder Game stuff.
 
As stated earlier, unless you feel the need to 100% the zones or need to do ALL the story/zone quests along the way, then getting to 50 is super easy to do.
If you level up enough to skip a zone (which isn't difficult) then you can avoid entire zones and have that 25+ experience of different leveling paths if you desire.
Should it really be expected for a game to have enough diversity in starting zones that are skipped/ignored anyways?
Should it really be necessary to worry about content that most people will just blaze through and ignore?
Should it really be necessary to worry about having tons of leveling zones for people on alts who will just take the most-efficient path anyways?
 
The main point is that leveling is so fast that there's no point in adding in any additional leveling content now.  It should all be stuff for the 'Elder Game'.
			
				
	Edited December 11, 2015 by FantasticCupcake	
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Um no, it's whitevale THEN farside. Wilderunne THEN malgrave.
 
What planet are you on?	
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If....I'm understanding correctly Fantasticcupcake isn't refering to alternate leveling paths in the same way that most people would refer to it. To most folks it would be two entire zones that are at the same level range(Such as Deradune vs Ellevar) or choices that have subtle or major effects on the story(like GW2 personal story). 
 
What Fantastic is expressing comes off more like what my circle refers to as "level bleeding" , in which the amount of experience you gain can thrust you high enough that the next zone in the chain you can just hop into when you feel like it vs "omg im out of quests i guess i need to go to the next place". This also results in possibility of not seeing all of the quests in a zone as some episodes do not auto call the player and require you to hitch off a breadcrumb if you do not know the exact NPC location. However I wouldn't refer to this as "alternate leveling path in the full sense.
 
Personally even though I just stick to doing story/region/zone quests only with very few or no tasks I always fall short 1-2 levels once I finish up and have to hop into the daily zones for the last 2 levels.
 
Regardless though there isn't an intended "alternate" leveling path design and usually once you land in the capital city the chain goes City>*insert exile or dominionzone right after*>whitevale>farside>wilderrun>malgrave>grimvault>lvl 50 zones
 
With that said, I guess we'll see where places like Murkmire and such will land?	
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Levelling an alt is by nature going to be repetative. Knowing the zones to level efficiently, having been there before, is a benefit not a hinderence, although I completely agree its dull none-the-less.
 
I like how positive you are in your post about your initial experience levelling despite what may have been lengthy queue times for the various pve content. I'm always interested in ideas to make a game seem fresh to experienced players and I saw a post suggesting different quest paths which sounds interesting but I worry that grouping up would take longer than it does atm if that were the case.
 
I know some mmos have tried so-called "dynamic" events with limited success and while this may not be a solution (in its current form), the upscaling/downscaling of gear and level with appropriate xp gains or currency rewards in relation to level could provide a distraction if they escalated into a kind of world boss spawn or area that needed to be kept "on-side" either for questing or just bragging rights even. Objective based with level appropriate rewards for your efforts. If not dealt with then a debuff affecting all in the zone reducing xp or currency gain could encourage everyone to rally to kick its ass and remove the debuff and reclaim the taken areas etc...
 
These are the mindless ramblings that cross my mind at crazy oclock in the morning lol
			
				
	Edited December 11, 2015 by zagzig	
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You are ignoring the fact that you are still going through the same zones every time. Skipping doesn't change the fact that you're still seeing the same zones. (It also means you're going to be no where close to rep capped with your faction when you're 50.)
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Um no, it's whitevale THEN farside. Wilderunne THEN malgrave.
 
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stuff
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Next complaint is that "it's all taking place on Nexus all the time, why can't we go to another planet to level?!"? Yes, it's Whitevale, Whitevale all over again, same snow as yesterday. 
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(It also means you're going to be no where close to rep capped with your faction when you're 50.)
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*words*
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			The problem is with the entire experience. I'm usually loathe to make internet analogies, but Ildur's is a fairly good one. If there is a single road I must take to get to work, it doesn't matter if I walk, bike, or drive, or if I stop in the cafe halfway. It's still a single path and essentially the same experience. It doesn't matter if one skips quests - you're still getting the same general experience, because there is only a single leveling path.	
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Well, having level up 5 different characters on Exile side (and 2 on Dominion) to level 50, I don't particularly think there's an issue with the current leveling routes. Would it be better if there were more? Sure. But the amount of resources doesn't really seem justified when end-game suffers from its own wall issues atm and may just split people out more imo. Of course I did a LOT of instancing on all characters and probably only did (most) of the quests on my first character, but I've never found the questing process to be too monotonous when there are things to break it up.
 
A problem that does emerge since F2P died down is finding new groups to instance with however. BGs were a huge chunk of my experience "skipping" leveling and from what I've heard they aren't as common in the lower levels anymore. Even for my later characters they suffered extensively due to the bot population ruining low-level pvp.	
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I think most of it boils down to knowing what's around the corner. When you know what's coming next, you are less enthusiastic about doing it than if it were full of wonder and questions. Extra questing zones would in fact alleviate this pain point for a 3rd and maybe 4th alt, but you'd be right back in the same boat for the 5th alt having done every route. At that point you might even be the type to just speed level whatever mathematically calculates out to a faster 50 too, though.
 
Some people are okay with sameness, while others crave the unexplored. I definitely fall into the second category, as even money runs don't really keep me going back to vet shiphands as much as they used to. I'd love an extra leveling continent, but I think I'd prefer that dev time be put to use elsewhere all the same.	
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I think most of it boils down to knowing what's around the corner. When you know what's coming next, you are less enthusiastic about doing it than if it were full of wonder and questions. Extra questing zones would in fact alleviate this pain point for a 3rd and maybe 4th alt, but you'd be right back in the same boat for the 5th alt having done every route. At that point you might even be the type to just speed level whatever mathematically calculates out to a faster 50 too, though.
 
Some people are okay with sameness, while others crave the unexplored. I definitely fall into the second category, as even money runs don't really keep me going back to vet shiphands as much as they used to. I'd love an extra leveling continent, but I think I'd prefer that dev time be put to use elsewhere all the same.
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I agree with the sentiment that resources are better spent elsewhere.  I did have a little birdie tell me that new content may arrive before May of 2016.  It is something, at least better than 'December 2016'.  So there is hope.  Codenamed 'Redmoon' so keep an eye out and be sure to watch their Friday livestreams on Twitch on the official WildStar Twitch channel.
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This point in particular.  The old Azeroth (pre-Cataclysm) had absolute gobs of leveling content and entire alternate leveling zones/paths for easily doing on multiple alts.
But what happened?  People zoomed past and skipped the stuff that wasn't the most efficient and quickest leveling route.
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So when I do login, costume changes (with dye costs) and LAS/AMP changes made LAST NIGHT are completely gone and I'm standing there in default pvp gear. How embarrassing! The costume/dye issue existed for me for several weeks at f2p launch, and eventually was corrected. To see it return randomly is...disheartening.
 
Well, I go ahead and redo my LAS/AMPs and queue up for an Expedition (y'know to try out my new setup)...Disconnected From Server
 
Aside from the levelling issues people are bringing up ITT, the above scenario is the type of thing that makes me go play some other game that doesn't actively discourage me from playing. It may seem to be small issues, but imo it is the numerous small irritations in total that encourage people away from the game. Even the leveling grind will not put me off if the process is smooth, and I can have fun with what I'm doing. But when that process is disrupted by bugged quests or other mechanics issue, or if the game frustrates me with non-gameplay mechanics/issues, I'm not going to continue being aggravated, but will simply do something else.
 
Just another point to consider in this discussion.	
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For me, it doesn't have to be new zones. In GW2, I leveled 3 characters with 100% map completion by doing the same zones over and over. It was the Personal Story that encouraged me to experience all the storylines. Unfortunately, WS has nothing like this. The solo instances are nice but they are still the same thing over and over. New leveling zones would really help, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon since it's all about the endgame (which is also about doing the same stuff over and over ~cringe~). New daily zones mean I'll just do them on my main.
 
If the  paths had more mission variety (or even a higher level cap), I might be encouraged to make more alts. I think that would be a great way to add more variety without adding new zones.	
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For me, it doesn't have to be new zones. In GW2, I leveled 3 characters with 100% map completion by doing the same zones over and over. It was the Personal Story that encouraged me to experience all the storylines. Unfortunately, WS has nothing like this. The solo instances are nice but they are still the same thing over and over. New leveling zones would really help, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon since it's all about the endgame (which is also about doing the same stuff over and over ~cringe~). New daily zones mean I'll just do them on my main.
 
If the  paths had more mission variety (or even a higher level cap), I might be encouraged to make more alts. I think that would be a great way to add more variety without adding new zones.
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The different paths system was supposed to help encourage making alts (at least 4 of them).
You get one of each class and make sure they have different paths and make sure one of them is on the opposite faction.
So that's what, 6 classes and 4 different paths and one with completely different starting zones and storyline?
 
Well let's wait till the Redmoon drop in *removed by Protostar* of 2016.
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