WildStar Stat Changes: What We Know
This was originally posted on QueueTimes on 2 July 2015. It is being re-posted here to archive the work I have done in case the original website ever shuts down.
After the “Road to Free-to-Play II” Live Stream on Wednesday, July 1st, Steven Engle (aka Meerkat), sat down for a Reddit AMA about the WildStar stat changes that have been discussed. While the information given to us is not the final word, nor the end-all-be-all on what will be implemented, it gave us, the players, a more detailed idea of what will be happening prior to Deep Dive articles.
You can find the original Reddit AMA here, but I will be summarizing questions and answers below. There were some questions answered in the AMA not related to stat changes that may be of interest to you, so don’t write-off the thread completely.
So, why is Carbine revamping the stat system? According to Steven, the current stat system is not intuitive, and has been considered a barrier of entry to many entry-level players. Aside from the unconventional naming conventions (Moxie), stats weren’t relative to the players from class to class. The team working with Steven had initially thought to just rename things to your typical Intelligence, Dexterity, etc., however they would then still have to change the relationships each stat had to each class. (For instance, again, Moxie.)
When asked why they couldn’t just tweak current diminishing returns (DR) and make Critical Severity worth taking instead of completely overhauling, Steven replied that tweaking DR would still allowing for Primary stats that affect balancing the classes overall, which is one of the other main issues they are looking to address with these changes.
The new stats we can look forward to seeing include: Multi-Hit, Glance, Critical Mitigation, Reflect, Intensity, and Vigor. Engle described them as the following:
Multi-Hit: The chance to deal an additional damage or heal hit at a percentage of the ability damage dealt or healing given.
Glance: The chance to reduce the hit by X% (No information on how X is determined provided). This is a tank-specific stat.
Critical Mitigation: Reduces the amount of bonus damage from incoming Critical Hits. This is coupled with a change to the combat formula and Deflect Critical, which will be discussed at a later date in a Deep Dive. This is a tank-specific stat.
Reflect: Return a percentage of the damage received to the target that dealt it.
Intensity: Increases outgoing healing, but also increases focus cost. For this reason, it will be primarily offered on gear at level 50.
Vigor: Increases outgoing damage that scales based on your current Health percentage. The scaling of Vigor is still to be determined, as the team will be looking for feedback once this goes to Beta.
There is no official word yet which stats currently in the game are making the cut and which aren’t. There is mention to stats like strikethrough and critical hit that may not be going away.
Those already runed at the time of the changes will be receiving tokens in the mail to purchase new runes through a vendor in the capital city. Engle mentioned that there will be a Deep Dive regarding this in the future.
There were also questions regarding “power creep”, which makes parts of the content trivial with the differences between gear of a fresh fifty versus someone in orange-quality raid gear. The team has been working to smooth out the power creep, and has been working with Timetravel to make sure that end-game content feels good, and that the curve doesn’t trivialize previous raid content as quickly. There will, however, be a tad of power creep for those in Datascape (DS) gear that seems inescapable for the current tier of content.
If you’re one of those heavy-armor wearers currently wearing some lighter armor based on the stats, you’re no longer going to be able to do this. Armor types are now going to be restricted to their respective classes (Heavy can only wear heavy, medium only medium, etc.), as the current stat changes will more than likely lead to increased gear competition, and the team didn’t want to leave any sort of imbalance or start extra competition. It was mentioned that for those currently wearing lower-armor tiers, the pieces will be converted into an appropriate raid-level item useable by the class. What this means in the fine print, however, has not been specified.
They are, however, giving “avenues” to some classes that will play well with some of the new stat abilities and AMPs, so that some classes may favor multi-hit, while others may want strikethrough or critical as a stat instead.
As for PvP gear, more information will be given when the team sends out other updates regarding itemization, crafting, runecrafting, etc.
Just starting a new toon, or having fun with an alt at the time of these changes? You’ll be happy to know that all items in the game will be transitioning over to the new stat system, so to coincide with the changes, the team has spent a great deal of time revising all of the gear offerings from quests, instances, vendors, and more to better cater to all of the class/role combinations there are.
So while we got a bunch of specifics, there are still a bunch of things up in the air, it seems. What’s the best way to deal with this? By constructively giving your feedback to Carbine as we follow the road to free-to-play, and participating in the Beta.