147692-morning-coffee-121-the-explorers-union-edition

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Good morning, Coffee! Today, let's talk about:
 
 
Until this weekend, I had never made an Explorer past level 10 or so. It always seemed like trying to level this Path alongside actual leveling made everything 100 times slower. I chalked this up to "just not my style" for a long time and never really looked back ... until last night.
 
The Texarcana Kid is my Engineer/Explorer, and to be honest, I only chose that Path because I have all the other Path Costumes and kind of thought, hey, why not?
 
Now I remember why not.
 
Holy crap. I get it. I mean, I *get it* ... It's an EXPLORER. You're *supposed* to go all over the map, climb stuff, dig in tunnels ... but man, it's like an exercise in "how many times can I go over the same ground" combined with "how far off the beaten path do I really need to go."
 
I dunno. I didn't do any Path missions while I was leveling this weekend, so I last night that's all I did. Took off for Algoroc and jumped into the mass of missions. It took almost an hour and a half - and that was in a zone where I out-leveled the mobs by 20 levels. I can't imagine trying to actually do that mess while fighting for my life!
 
But dang it, I *really* want that costume ... so what to do?
 
Well, I think I'm going to do just what I am doing now. I'm gonna level 10-12 levels past the zone and then go back when I'm taking a break from questing. I'm also gonna do both Celestion *and* Algoroc since those zones stack, and maybe even go back to the Newblet Zones and do *those* missions. Really, anything I can do to get as far along the Path as possible, so at 50 all I have to do is the daily zone missions and never climb another damn rock tower again.
 
So, talk to me Nexus! Do you Explore? Is it for you? Or are you more a Soldier or Scientist? Maybe Settling is your thing?
 
Whatever you do, have a great day and I'll see y'all around!
 
(PS: Thanks to Fitchy for tipping me off to the Orange Carver giveaway. I was already in-game and away from the Forums last night when she pinged me about it. Thank you, m'dear!)
 	
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			Morning you lovely spaceheads!So last night was hangout with friends night so little WS got played. I did get my sweet orange carver mount though!Explorer! This is actually my favorite path in the game! I love the plat-former elements it brings, and I also love discovering hidden zones in the zones! Plus now that claiming stakes provide node rewards it's an amazing way to level gathering!Usually what I do, is I finish a zone quest wise, then comb back over it getting all the vista and claims I might have missed.I really enjoy going off the beaten path anyways and Explorer really lends to that playstyle!
			
				
	Edited December 1, 2015 by War Siren	
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Good morning/afternoon all, 
 
When starting Wildstar the first thing I done was create four toons each with a different path and started leveling them up to at least housing zone stage. I think I got to the second zone on my explorer character before I decided I had to delete him and start again with a different path. Im all for exploring and i love exploring but some of the path completions where just awful and it was nothing to do with exploring and more to do with speed trials and jumping puzzles and repetitive ones at that and im all for it if you feel like your getting rewarded but it doesn't feel anymore rewarding than running one of the other paths that are alot easier to do.
 
The only plus side I found to explorer was the path skill that reduces falling damage it was always handy to take shortcuts and leap off a cliff and hardly lose any health but that really is only a niche skill.
 
My fav path order is: Soldier, Settler, Scientist & Explorer
 
Soldier is really easy and alot of what you need to do as a Soldier does not take you off the beaten path and you do not have to spend any time gathering stuff and is generally quicker. Just do not do what I done and have your beam to safety skill set on a key that can accidentally be pressed.....I just fought my way into the bird zone up the winding hill about to take on the boss I needed to kill and accidentally hit that skill and whoosh I was back at a camp miles away....if you had a swear tin handy you would have earned a fortune that day. Needless to say I rebound my path ability key so that it never happens again. 
 
I also think Settler is fantastic and for me anything that feels like im helping others is always a plus, I just loved building up little area's with multiple buff stations and vendors and banks etc.  Like the picture below when I was leveling my Stalker during Halloween in Whitevale I came across this little bit of land that had nothing on it until I arrived and before you knew it, I had built it up to this.  
 
 
For me that sums up Settler but I did hate having to gather items every two seconds especially as they are not easily seen by party members and it can be frustrating for them running with you and your having to stop every two seconds to gather something.  
 
Scientist was really frustrating for me when I first started playing the game but I got the autoscan addon and although it does have its flaws generally its a set and forget addon that helps out a ton.  Once I figured out you could also rename your little bot....mine is called RustBucket and that you can add extra attachments onto it, I started coming around to Scientist plus the beam party members skill is just too good to pass up.
 
One of the better path ability skills out of all the paths but that then brings it back full circle to explorer.  It is the one path I feel that needs work done to because I really have no need to pick it and if I do pick that path the negatives far outway the positives and for me i find its better off picking one of the other paths as they are alot more useful. 	
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Morning all...I haven't been around...I know...RL always gets in the damned way.
 
I ripped out one of my favorite housing sites and am trying to rebuild but I have no idea what to do with it.  I want it to match the character who is a scientist stalker, so spooky is good.  Just how to do it is the problem.  I should probably give someone a CREDD to do it for me but then where is the fun in that.  Ah damn, I am a writer, not an artist.
 
Anyway, Tex, I love exploring.  It's my favorite thing to do in any game.  Most of my alts are explorers.  The one I despise is settler.  I can't get past level 3 on a settler.  I think it is incredibly boring.
 
I have come to the conclusion that engineer is my favorite class to play.  I love pets and robotic ones are the best.  Plus there is something about that big gun *wink*
 
This morning they actually had boiled eggs in the cafeteria so I could have it with my bagel and coffee.  Guess they're not worried about pigeon flu or whatever they were worried about....lol.  My ex who lives in Utah has been visiting our son.  Thank goodness he goes back tomorrow.  Now I know why I'm divorced.  Well...at least I did get a boiled egg for breakfast...lol
 
Do you all like settler?  I am wondering what is so great about it every time I even think about doing it.  Needless to say, my engineer is an explorer.	
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			I keep trying to get into Settler, and it just never clicks with me. I want to do it to unlock the outfit, but it just seems so cut and dry. Soldier is okay but same deal as Settler, it feels very cut and dry. I adore Scientist, because like Explorer it takes you off the beaten path and to discover secret chambers and stuff like that. I guess I just like discovering stuff.	
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My favorite is scientist, with explorer coming in a close second. They both pique my exploration interests in their own little ways - scientist getting me neat lore and access to some special rooms, while explorer getting me cool vistas and secret caves. Maybe it's because I make a poinht of completing all path missions while I level, but I never felt like explorer wanted to take me too far out of my way. Then again, "out of my way" doesn't really exist, because I consider completing the path missions just another part of questing. xD
 
Settler is okay. I do have this obsessive "must collect every shiny bit" thing in video games and have a supernatural ability to spot gathering nodes (even nodes that aren't part of my profession, when applicable xD - I'm constantly spotting things for my husband), so settler fits in well there. But building the little bases isn't really all that exciting. Soldier is just "Eh, more killing stuff", so it's at the bottom of my list.
 
And now I will take a moment to complain and mourn my former teaching schedule, as the school decided to dump two new students on me in the last two weeks of classes and now my glorious short tuesdays are a complete slog and my days are hours longer than they used to be. ;_; This is seriously stressing out my human interaction meter. One-on-one constant interaction for 5 straight hours a day with pretty much zero breaks (not even lunch break except on wednesday) is... more than I can handle and stay mentally healthy. Ugh.
			
				
	Edited December 1, 2015 by Naunet	
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Good morning coffee thread! 
 
 
I'm taking the opposite path here in that I've never really liked any path but explorer, but I also happen to love climbing things, exploring map edges, and speeding across the map at breakneck speeds. I also think paths really suffered with the increased XP and leveling speed. My explorer is the only path where I've completed all the path mission in every zone and didn't feel pressured to do it all in one shot, because I needed to complete all the zone missions for the levels anyway
 
Done with thanksgiving vacation and sitting at O'Hare waiting to get back home. Looking forward to playing some wildstar when I get home. Being away from the one's I love (my tower) and having to spend time with family instead is exhausting ; ) . Besides... must kill ... system daemons. 	
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/snip
 
 
(PS: Thanks to Fitchy for tipping me off to the Orange Carver giveaway. I was already in-game and away from the Forums last night when she pinged me about it. Thank you, m'dear!)
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			Yeah the explorer I made for my first character....I chose it because to put more of myself in the game and after power leveling my dominion gunslinger as a settler....I like explorer less. While explorer gets to access hidden spaces and get to access some sencery (if you can get to it), settlers literally settle into any space and can build anything for the journey and benefits everyone. One thing I do like about explorer is the recall ability; its very handy as long you don't leave the zone.	
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I've never been very impressed with the Path system in this game. When first joining I researched a bunch of stuff and thought they looked neat— a nice little gameplay bonus while you level in yet another MMO world (no insult to WS on that one, it's just become stale after a ton of WoW alts and over ten years of MMOing). However, when I actually started to play the game at launch, it quickly bored me and I started to wonder "Why?" at certain design aspects.
 
I can't comment with any depth on the rest, but take Settler. It's nothing but stop and click, stop and click. Get off your mount, click, get on your mount, get off your mount, click a station to build it, get on your mount. My brain has a hard time processing how that provides satisfaction of any kind for people. The idea of helping others is great, and is the reason I chose Settler for Proxima, but when I'm playing a video game I prefer the ways I help others to involve some kind of gameplay... and from my view, there is zero gameplay involved in Settler design. It has no challenge, no dynamics, and the reward is basically ephemeral as the job is often a thankless grind. It's not like players are going to stop and shout out gratitute in /zone every time they buff up (nor would I want them to).
 
The one aspect I did like was interaction between Paths, like Settlers constructing a robot that a Scientist could stumble across and activate. But then, I never once actually saw one activated, as it's not like I'm going to stand around and wait for the latter half to finish up... so that was basically a miss, too.
 
When I first took Scientist I was again struck by the monotony of clicking on various objects for analysis. This was made worse by the often troublesome endeavour of summoning my scanbot and then wondering if I had to stay close for the scan to complete. It just became a chore. I imagine scientists are the 'lore Path', which can be fun for some, but I would call those folks a niche and consequently am not convinced the design here works well in an MMO.
 
Soldier was neat at first because it seemed to be the only path to involve gameplay, but then it feels rather unsatisfying to be fighting battles in a smallish space with no XP or loot reward. I mean, fighting is fun for fighting's sake in WS (most of the time) but why would I bother with Soldier tasks when I can just do the same thing with standard quests and actually get substantial benefits from them? I was also disappointed with the abilities that Soldiers get— they all seemed pretty useless to me.
 
This brings me to Explorer, which I've had least exposure to. More recently I've been taking it to get the speed buffs from flags, but at the same time, I don't really like seeing those flags out in the world. They're immersion breakers. Would have much prefered if these buffs came from doing something particular; like instead of coasting over a series of flags on my way to an objective, it'd be cool if climbing a summit gave you a big speed buff for X amount of time, to kind of make up for the loss required to make that summit or explore that cave, etc. I know I'm not a platformer myself, so that there's evident bias in my opinion here, but I suspect that platforming isn't something most MMO players look for in an MMO world anyway.
 
 
Summary of my view on paths:  Each pretty much only targets a niche, none are very rewarding, managing the extra tasks is a hassle when there's already so much happening on a player's screen, and none of the options really offer satisfying gameplay value (which I generally treat as paramount in games). I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'd want to see them removed, they still add flavour and give WS some unique identity, but I feel like they were perhaps mishandled as a rather uninspiring part of the themepark. 
Adding to this, I wouldn't blame the folks who designed these paths, and am not claiming I could have done so much better. It's probably quite difficult to integrate something like this into an already complex game world. I guess in the end the two most important suggestions I could make for improvement are: More reward value, and less repetition involved with the tasks. Specifically addressing the former, I think it would have been nice to give something substantial to each path, maybe in the vein of:
 
Each path gets a unique currency and vendor
 
Soldier - Can buy ~useful~ armor and/or runes
Scientist - Can buy ~useful~ alchemy flasks
Settler - Can buy ~unique~ decor or FABs
Explorer - Can buy ~unique~ costume pieces
 
All of the above should have some leveling ~and~ endgame value. I also think it would be nice if all paths were available to each character, meaning I could spend some time doing bro-downs for Soldier and then switch to doing Settler stuff if that got boring. Eventually I'd be able to max out all paths on one character and get some meta achievement that gives a cool pet or mount or somesuch.
 
/two cents (more like a dollar with the length of this post :P )
			
				
	Edited December 1, 2015 by EsperXIV	
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Morning!
 
First, some belated pictures of my Medic- who I was playing over the bonus EXP weekend. Out of all the classes, Medic might actually be the one I find the most 'clunky' to play. I am sure many disagree, but that's just me. Still though, being Wildstar, 'clunky' is still 'wow this is super fun to play!'; 9 out of 10 instead of the usually 11 out of 10 I get when playing classes that 'fit' me better. ;) 
 
Anyways, super happy with his costume. It's rather plain, but smacks to me of 'space combat medic'. Sleek, clean lines, and just a little bit of snooty 'I went to med school' Cassian flair! (I swear to science I will make all my characters Draken if that ever becomes an option... PLS)
 
 
I personally really love path missions... I find myself doing them on all my alts. I know they are sometimes just shallow click, click pick up, or go here with or without the optional kill that, but it's kind of enjoyable.
 
The first character I finished the path level on was my warrior, and he was an explorer. It was loads of fun, tossed in with the occasional jump puzzle. For me, it was rare that I would have to double back and retrace my steps. I generally found the explorer missions to be laid out rather well with my general questing. Of course, I am strange in that I want to finish EVERY QUEST EVER ALWAYS so maybe that's why explorer wasn't so bad for me?
 
Settler I enjoy because it is a good mix of 'free buffs woo' and 'go kill boss mob' which is a nice mix. Buffs and small group content is really fun.
 
I actually have two scientists, my stalker (because... yeah party recall), and my engineer 'cuz moar botz. I enjoy reading the extra lore, scanning stuff, and having the data cubes marked on my map. Again, I haven't really found this to be frustrating because I am generally traipsing all over Nexus to finish all the task quests anyways, so I am generally in the area. In fact, more than explorer, I find I double back for scientist stuff, usually when the enemy I need to scan is tucked out of the way or has no real activity related to it.
 
Soldier is probably my least favourite; and oddly, my Medic (featured above!) is my only Soldier. I just don't feel that it really adds anything unique to my play time. Explorer gives me some fun jump puzzles and other neat hidden areas; scientist lets me see more lore and opens up hidden areas; settler gives me sweet buffs and synergy for extra bonuses with other paths; Soldier is just... more killing... in unique and exciting ways? Now don't get me wrong, this can be hilariously awesome. But Carbine did such a good job with non-path quests, that I have plenty of hilariously enjoyable ways to commit explosive murder at my fingertips without being a Solider! And, aside from the Shade's Eve transformation gun, I just haven't found the weapon caches to be all that helpful.
 
What I would like to see with the paths, is maybe some daily path quests that gives you an interesting activity to do to assist in whatever activity you've been selected to do on Nexus. It makes sense, to continue to get quests for this- especially at max level- and it could really add some interesting flair. Maybe even a solo quest and a joint path quest, where you need to team up with another path type to complete? That would be pretty cool and add some small group content!	
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So, all this "Path Talk" got me thinking (scary, I know) about potential NEW Paths for far future expansions.
 
The current Paths cover a good 90% of the "things to do that aren't actual quest and/or story-type missions" that exist in-game.
 
I can think of two "Types of Players" that don't come with a pre-made Path for them (Role-Players and Housing Fiends) - and it would be easy to lump them both into a new kind of Path: The Socialite.
 
The Socialite Path, would have to start small, since we don't get actual Housing until level 14. Prior to that, the missions would involve visiting a variety of structures, perhaps "scanning" the architecture like a Scientist, locating "prime spots" where NPC's have interesting discussions and you have to listen in. Maybe an Emote type of mission, where you have to track down individual NPC's and /bow, /hug or otherwise interact with them.
 
Other types of missions might include "collect a costume set from Discoveries (or whatever)." It could have Escort missions with combat (travel with Deadeye from Tremor Ridge to Gallow and don't die!). It could collect Lore and TALES for points the way a Settler has to kill Zone Bounties. Heck, the more I think about it, a Path like that could become a really cool deal.
 
CRABINE!
 
You have my permission to steal the crap out of that idea. No hard feelings. MAKE IT SO!	
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So, all this "Path Talk" got me thinking (scary, I know) about potential NEW Paths for far future expansions.
 
The current Paths cover a good 90% of the "things to do that aren't actual quest and/or story-type missions" that exist in-game.
 
I can think of two "Types of Players" that don't come with a pre-made Path for them (Role-Players and Housing Fiends) - and it would be easy to lump them both into a new kind of Path: The Socialite.
 
The Socialite Path, would have to start small, since we don't get actual Housing until level 14. Prior to that, the missions would involve visiting a variety of structures, perhaps "scanning" the architecture like a Scientist, locating "prime spots" where NPC's have interesting discussions and you have to listen in. Maybe an Emote type of mission, where you have to track down individual NPC's and /bow, /hug or otherwise interact with them.
 
Other types of missions might include "collect a costume set from Discoveries (or whatever)." It could have Escort missions with combat (travel with Deadeye from Tremor Ridge to Gallow and don't die!). It could collect Lore and TALES for points the way a Settler has to kill Zone Bounties. Heck, the more I think about it, a Path like that could become a really cool deal.
 
CRABINE!
 
You have my permission to steal the crap out of that idea. No hard feelings. MAKE IT SO!
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This would be a really interesting thing! It's also something very doable as we have the Celebrity Stalker achievement and some of the Shade's Eve dailies had emote fueled elements. I think this could be a fun way to breathe a bit more life into the world. Though, at that point I'd question why it's not in the game already  ...
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			Okay that path sounds awesome, add that to my "Secretly Wants" list with a Martial Arts/Brawler class!
			
				
	Edited December 1, 2015 by War Siren	
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Okay that path sounds awesome, add that to my "Secretly Wants" list with a Martial Arts/Brawler class!
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Dude, I am sitting here brainstorming out the entire Path. HAHAHAHA.
 
*sigh*
 
I dunno how much time I want to waste on it since I know that "fan-created stuff" is rarely ever used - but as a Dungeon Master with 35+ years of experience, I know a thing or two about game design and entertaining players.
 
I know I'd be entertained with a Path like this.  :D
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I too hated explorer, but the dominion explorer hat is too cute on a chua so I must have it. Lucikly the hat came early so I could forget the rest while I blaze through the double xp weekend. Eventually I'd like to go back and finish out all the path missions, and maybe all the lowbie quests to just for completion sake.
 
Eventually....
 
Maybe before 2019.	
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			Tex, I'm a role playing housing fiend who likes to explore.   Can I do both? lol	
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Scientist is my favorite path, I love lore stuff and the abilities are extremely useful (the costume stuff is nice, too!). I like some aspects of the Settler path but I hate seeing all of the resources everywhere and I don't like gathering stuff :P. Still, I'm glad I have one Settler because sometimes we can build really cool things! For example, I was helping my boyfriend level in one of the Farside biodomes and decided to do one of my path missions (I had skipped the biodomes completely when leveling that character, ha). I ended up building a tiki bar with a hot spring! It was really cute and there was even a little quest given out by the bartender :).
 
 
Explorer seems annoying and Soldier is boring to me (my boyfriend loves the Soldier missions, though).
 
In other news, I leveled an Esper to 50 over double XP weekend. I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm having fun, they have neat animations :).
			
				
	Edited December 1, 2015 by Reekah Taz	
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Tex, I'm a role playing housing fiend who likes to explore.   Can I do both? lol
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Maybe we should have a whole host of secondary paths! So you could do both things...what else would be good outside of the Socialite path to include there?
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