Combat
Continuing the trend of limiting players to a smaller number of active abilities, WildStar features what Carbine calls the “Limited Action Set” or LAS for short. Each class will have a total of 30 unique abilities (aside from their Innate, Path, or Gadget abilities) they can unlock and they will be able to place eight of those abilities on their bar at any given time. You’ll be able to store multiple different action sets (loadouts, essentially), so if you’re playing an Esper, for example, you could have an entirely separate loadout saved for healing or nuking. As long as you’re out of combat and not in an arena you’ll be able to switch freely between your limited action sets.
You’ll also earn points that can be spent to level up the tiers of a particular ability and these points can be switched out freely without a respec cost. There are minor and major tiers for each ability, with minor tier ranks improving an ability in a straightforward way, such as improving damage or duration. Each ability will also have two major tiers, which are intended to change up your playstyle a bit. At launch, you’ll earn enough points to tier up two abilities to max (rank 8) simply through leveling up, but WildStar’s elder game will allow you to earn enough points to potentially max out a third ability. Carbine is also taking a fairly unique approach here with plans to increase the amount of additional points players can earn via post-launch updates. Perhaps an action set that doesn’t work with enough points to max three abilities will suddenly become viable when more points are available. It’s easy to see how adding more points over time could really shake things up and open up new build possibilities for players.
AMPs add another layer onto combat customization. The AMP grid is similar to a talent tree in that there are multiple paths, but there are a number of key differences. You’ll have Assault, Support, Utility, and Hybrid trees available to you. Assault is DPS related, Support will either be tank or healing related depending on your class, and Utility, which pertains to things like crowd control or other longer cooldown abilities. In between each major tree will also be a Hybrid tree, which requires you to spend a certain amount of points in two trees at a time in order to unlock later ranks (for example Assault/Utility Hybrid). Cheaper AMPs will offer smaller, more straightforward bonuses, while more expensive AMPs will unlock proc event effects, such as causing your shield to explode when depleted. Each major tree will also feature a strong signature ability that will be available for unlocking by spending a significant amount of points in its respective tree.
You’ll start earning AMP points at level six and earn one point per level for every level after that, but some AMPs will require more points than others to unlock, so you’ll have to choose between saving up points or paying to respec later. You will be able to save a separate AMP loadout for your different action sets, however.
Character Customization, Crafting, and Warplots
Unfortunately, we ran out of time before we could discuss these features in depth, but we’ll break down these goodies from the latest DevSpeak for those of you who can’t watch the video. In addition to the fairly extensive character creation customization in the game, WildStar will also allow you to dye your gear in what looks to be a huge variety of colors and also put together entire costume sets.
I’m not entirely sure if the costume sets feature allows you to put together a set of existing gear as a vanity outfit or if these are distinct all-in-one outfits that can be unlocked for vanity purposes, but the DevSpeak does show off a variety of costumes, including a hazmat suit, so between dyes and costumes there should be a bevy of options available to express yourself visually in WildStar.
I haven’t messed around with crafting just yet in the beta, but from giving crafting a cursory glance in the past it looked to be quite in depth, and this latest DevSpeak certainly seems to reinforce that with the depth and breadth of crafting related progression that appears to be available. You’ll even be able to customize any item above level 15 with stat upgrades to fine tune it to your character’s specific needs.
Finally, there are Warplots. Carbine’s been pretty mum about this 40v40 PvP mode, but we got another tease in this latest DevSpeak. There wasn’t really anything here we didn’t know before, but for a recap, groups of players that join together in a “Warparty” will be able to customize a massive plot of land for the explicit purpose of dealing death to an attacking force. Similar to housing, there appears to be a whole host of customizations available here and I’m personally looking forward to more information on Warplots more than anything else.
We’d like to thank the folks at Carbine for taking the time to discuss the various means of customization in WildStar.
Michael Bitton / Michael began his career at the WarCry Network in 2005 as the site manager for several different WarCry fansite portals. In 2008, Michael worked for the startup magazine Massive Gamer as a columnist and online news editor. In June of 2009, Michael joined MMORPG.com as the site's Community Manager. Follow him on Twitter @eMikeB
