Tag Archives: WildStar

Being Cosmic, is Rewarding!

WildStar’s new Loyalty Program, is officially called ‘Cosmic Rewards’ (just…ignore the labeling in the Beta currently..along with that UI… it’s not pretty).

Today, Carbine has given us a better breakdown on what you can earn, how you can earn it, and how past purchases will contribute to your Cosmic-ness!

There will be 6 Tiers of Rewards in the game at launch, but we’re only getting a sneak peak at 3 of them today.

Let’s look at the first tier, first:

Screen Shot 2015-08-19 at 07.59.15

Tier 1 is the ‘remove F2P restrictions’ tier.. for only 2,000 points you remove all the social restrictions for a free account.  Which, if you wanted to do it in a single purchase, the 4,000 NCoin package will give you 2,300 points (That’s $50, so..roughly the cost of having purchased the game initially).

The ** on the cooldown, and crafting bonuses, is because those stack with the bonuses for the same items granted by having Signature status.  Here’s what the Miner Hat, and Furrelope look like.

At Tier 2, we move from requiring only 1,000 points between levels of the tier, to 1,250 needed (expect this to continue to increase, to make the higher levels of Tier 6 (and beyond) take longer to get to).

Screen Shot 2015-08-19 at 08.08.06

This tier unlocks extra AH/CX slots, so you can try and Protostar your way to galactic riches…or, just pay for that latest costume change you want..  Off this tier, to me, the most beneficial is the rested XP bonus gaining..that combined with some of the daily login rewards, helps alleviate a little of the ‘alt-unfriendliness’ of WildStar.  Mount Customization image, Badlands Velocirex image.  While cool… the Velocirex will never get my off my hover boards… love being able to zip across the water!

Screen Shot 2015-08-19 at 08.12.50

And last, but not really last… is Tier 3!  This one gives what is possibly one of the coolest new Dyes in Drop 6, Northern Lights.  No really, it’s cool.. click that link and look at the picture Carbine has used.. They used one of the new metallic costume sets from the cash store, but those really highlight how cool that dye is.

Here are the images for the Costume, Pet: Li’l Beast, and Mount that you can get at this tier. All of which are well done.. who doesn’t want to have their WildStar character look like Fred Flintstone on his way to a meeting of the Loyal Order of Water Buffalo?

Carbine also threw a nice tease in, for a house we’ll be able to earn through Cosmic Points:

cosmic-rewards-article-osunhouse

Yeah… it’s an Osun House…and it’s pretty cool.

The important part of Cosmic Rewards, is… how do you earn them? Because.. it does no good to see all these rewards dangled in front of you…and no way to get them.  Feat not.. Carbine has unzipped their lips on how many points everything you’ve ever done (or, will do) is worth..

Cosmic points are earned by spending money on WildStar (Duh!).. Specifically, entering a code, making a purchase through the website, buying/redeeming C.R.E.D.D, or spending NCoin.  Fear not.. our subscriptions for the past year, have also been contributing to your upcoming Cosmic balance..

Here’s the full list of store, signature, box, etc.. purchases, and how many Cosmic Points you’re getting:

Store Purchase with NCoin 2 Cosmic Points per NCoin spent
400 NCoin Bundle 200 Cosmic Points
800 NCoin Bundle 420 Cosmic Points
1600 NCoin Bundle 880 Cosmic Points
4000 NCoin Bundle 2300 Cosmic Points
8000 NCoin Bundle 4800 Cosmic Points
WildStar Standard Edition 12000 Cosmic Points
WildStar Deluxe Edition 15000 Cosmic Points
15 Day Game Time Card 1800 Cosmic Points
30 Day Game Time Card 3000 Cosmic Points
60 Day Game Time Card 6000 Cosmic Points
C.R.E.D.D. purchase 4000 Cosmic Points
C.R.E.D.D. redemption 1000 Cosmic Points
Deluxe Upgrade 3000 Cosmic Points
Character Rename (paid) 4000 Cosmic Points
Paid Realm Transfer 4000 Cosmic Points
1-month Signature Plan 3000 Cosmic Points
3-month Signature Plan 9600 Cosmic Points
6-month Signature Plan 20400 Cosmic Points
12-month Signature Plan 45600 Cosmic Points

When it comes to Signature plans.. longer is better.. you get some bonus CP on everything EXCEPT the 1 month plan.. so, I’d suggest taking at least the 3 month plan.

I like the rewards.. I really, really, really hope the UI gets improved immensely from what is currently in Beta.. it’s confusing, and doesn’t look good.  Other than the UI.. I don’t really have any complaints about the Cosmic Rewards program, I think the tiers break down nicely, and provide some cool little ‘thank you’ gifts.

As if this wasn’t enough… Carbine is giving us sometime to digest all this Cosmic information…and then holding an AMA over on Reddit this coming Thursday (that’s..tomorrow) at 1:00pm PDT.

D-D-D-Double XP!!! (PTR)

As part of the ongoing CBT/PTR testing of the F2P/Drop 6 content.. Carbine is going to run Wildstar’s first ever Double XP Weekend!

Level up.....with extra quickness!

Level up…..with extra quickness!

Details were posted today, as part of the request for focused testing on the Double XP system.

On the PTR from Friday, August 21 at 2:01AM PDT, until Sunday August 23 at 11:59PM PDT, we’ll be turning on a new double XP bonus feature called “Double XP X-Plosion!”. This is one of a few different recurring events we’re working on that we can turn on and off to provide limited-time bonuses and rewards. The Double XP X-Plosion! event is pretty much what it sounds like: double XP earned from all sources*.

The little * by all sources, is because right now instances don’t count.  This is also only for leveling XP, not crafting or path XP.

I’m curious to see how well the UI displays your XP gaining %, especially if Carbine’s double XP stacks with Rested bonus, as well as the ‘boost’ flasks that are now available on the store (if it all stacks.. someone could do some serious leveling during a Double XP weekend.. possibly all the way to 50, if they don’t mind skipping path content).

Make sure you hop on the PTR this weekend, and test out the Double XP goodness..then, make sure you hit the forums up (here), and provide feedback about your weekend doubling times.  One of the feedback items Carbine is looking for, is what other type of events you’d like to see..so throw those suggestions at them!

 

And, as long as you’re providing some focused testing feedback, hit these other feedback solicitation threads up too:

Daily Login Rewards, Service Tokens, and Lockboxes.

If you do leave feedback, please remember to keep it civil.. if you don’t like an item… like, say… lockboxes.. calling the Devs nasty names, and being rude… really isn’t likely to be useful feedback – and won’t result in anything changes (except, possibly, your posting privileges on the forums being removed).  Polite, constructive feedback about what you don’t like, is more likely to be taken into account.

 

Upcoming WildStar Maintenance!

CRB_Sunshine has just posted over on the official forums, that there are a couple different maintenances about to hit WildStar, and/or it’s website.

Hello Everyone –

There will be a scheduled website maintenance period tomorrow, Monday/Tuesday, August 17/18, 2015 from 10:00 PM to 5:00 AM PDT. Website, new account creation, forums, store, and store purchases will be unavailable for 7 hours.

Game login will be affected and players will not be able to log into the game from 10:00 PM until 12:00 AM PDT.

Additionally, all megaservers will be down for maintenance from 12AM PDT until 3:45 PDT for hardware maintenance and no update will be deployed.

Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Thanks,
Team WildStar

So, hurry up and get your fix in now, since it looks like new game logins will be blocked a couple hours before the servers actually go down.  What are we supposed to do without the forums overnight though?!!?!?  Sleep?

 

 

Update:  Looks like there is some incoming PTR maintenance too:

Hello Everyone –

On Tuesday, August 18th, at 10:00AM PDT / 12:00PM CDT / 1:00PM EDT / 5:00PM UTC we are going to deploy a update to the test server.

This update includes the following fixes:

Classes
Combat

  • The diminishing returns constants on defensive stats have been adjusted. In general defensive stats were too potent and have had their return per rating reduced.
  • Armor now softcaps at 0%, this means it is always subject to diminishing returns, accordingly the return per rating has been increased.
  • Deflect Chance now softcaps at 30%, the return per rating has been reduced and the diminishing returns are now less steep.
  • Glance Chance now softcaps at 30%, the return per rating has been reduced and the diminishing returns are now less steep.
  • Glance Mitigation now softcaps at 75%, the return per rating has been reduced and the diminishing returns are now less steep.
  • Critical Mitigation now softcaps at 150%, the return per rating has been reduced and the diminishing returns are now less steep.
  • Creature Critical Severity now scales at a reduced rate accordingly.
  • CC Resilience now softcaps at 25%, the return per rating has been increased and the diminishing returns are now less steep.
  • The return per rating for Health has been reduced.
  • Creatures no longer have their damage mitigation split between Armor and Resist Ratings.
  • Creatures now gain all of their base mitigation from Armor Rating, similar to players.

Engineer

Feedback

  • T8 now correctly reduces all incoming damage types (was only reducing physical)

Stalker

Whiplash

  • Fixed an issue where the T8 Invigorate was lasting longer than intended.

Estimated downtime for this update will be 3hrs 45min, however, we will update this thread should it be longer.

Thanks,
Team WildStar

Deep Dive: Discoveries

This morning, Carbine released a nice little Deep Dive covering the changes to Discoveries as part of Drop 6.

The biggest changes to the Discoveries (besides there being a LOT more of them), are the pets, and costumes you can find.  Here’s the relevant snippets from Caydiem’s article:

 

If gameplay boosts aren’t motivation enough to chase down Discoveries, how about some exclusive companion pets?

Starting at level 6, each zone in the game will feature a unique pet that can only be found through Discoveries. Ever want a Red Garr, a Purple Ravenok, or a Strain-Corrupted Chompacabra? You can find them hiding in a Discovery! Only the most dedicated of pet lovers will collect them all.

Good-looking pets demand good-looking pet owners, so we added nine costumes you can find via Discoveries. Want to dress like a Bloodfire Draken or sport a classy space helmet? How about a full hazmat suit or a pair of sporty goggles? Citizens of Nexus, engage your style engines!

 

I’ve been playing on the PTR almost exclusively for the last week (minus a couple of veteran ship hands run with my son), and it’s easy to tell that the frequency of Discoveries has been cranked up to 11 on the dial.  In Algoroc, I could easily find 2 or 3 Discoveries over a 5 minute span – just while doing my normal questing, I wasn’t specifically going out and looking for them.

I’ve yet to find any of the pets or costumes, but, since I know they’re out there… I’m stopping at each, and every Discovery I find – and fully exploring every Zone’s map.  This is something I don’t currently do on live, where the Discoveries are there, and if it’s convenient (i.e, right next to another quest objective) I’ll grab the Discovery.

So, for me at least, the Discovery changes are having the desired effect.. I’m actively seeking them out.  I haven’t found a ‘bad’ buff yet, and it seems the frequency of ‘non-buff’ Discoveries has been upped as well, since I’ve ran into quite a few of those.  I’m a fan of the Discovery change..and I hope the current PTR version, is what makes it to live.

 

Head over to WildStar’s site, and read the full Deep Dive.  Don’t forget to sign up for the Beta while you’re there…and jump in and help test the new goodies in Drop 6!