Combat: How it Feels
World of Warcraft‘s tab-targeting style of combat has proliferated the MMO space over the past decade. We’ve seen games like Warhammer Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and more try to duplicate it without ever reaching its level of satisfaction. Really, World of Warcraft is the epitome of smooth, reliable MMO combat with a very defined level of feedback. Even then, it’s beginning to feel a bit dated.
Action-oriented MMO combat is certainly the future, and WildStar executes it in a desirable way. Its telegraphed aim-and-attack style of combat is something that will become much more mainstream during the next few years, because frankly it’s great.
WildStar‘s combat might have dodging and the action style that many are looking for, but it isn’t perfect. There are many times that server/client delay result in well-aimed attacks completely missing, something that just doesn’t happen in World of Warcraft where you target enemies. This makes for an experience that isn’t completely reliable and causes frustration. Also, its abilities are a lot more limited. You can only equip eight class abilities at a time, making DPS and tanking rotations very simple, and PvP scenarios much more predictable.
Yes, WildStar has some serious telegraph play that makes for a more modern experience, but it doesn’t stray far from its heritage. Mobility is required in World of Warcraft to champion many of its difficult encounters, although very little of it is telegraphed in the same way as its competitor.
WildStar does manage to stand out when platforming, where double jumping is fully employed, is made part of combat scenarios. It’s frantic, and gives WildStar some memorable moments rarely found anywhere else.
WildStar is a joy to play, but its combat doesn’t offer as much dependability or feedback as World of Warcraft. As such, neither wins in this category.
Winner: Tie
Leveling: The Journey to Level Cap
When World of Warcraft was released, its design was quite revolutionary, taking cues from games like EverQuest and then making it more attractive to a general audience. However, it hasn’t come very far since 2004. There are some memorable quests, and then an abundance of content that simply appears to exist to make being at level cap an accomplishment.
There are times during WildStar‘s leveling path that you’re introduced to some extraordinary scenarios, especially when platforming is employed. When these happen, the benefit of WildStar‘s action-oriented gameplay and newer engine are seen in full force. However, there are a lot of kill quests that are unnecessarily grindy. Made worse, even a month after release there are still some critical World and Region Quests that are bugged.
If you enjoy MMOs for the leveling experience, you can safely avoid both of these games without missing much. Neither has a particularly good leveling experience.
Winner: Tie
Group PvE: The ‘Point’ of an MMO
WildStar has been touted as a game aimed toward vanilla World of Warcraft fans, with a stressed difficulty. It lives up to its reputation.
The dungeons, adventures, and raiding in WildStar are immensely difficult. They require each individual player to have high awareness in order to dodge telegraphs. Rotations are less emphasized, and instead players have to always be on their toes to avoid unnecessary damage. Even in the earliest areas, players who aren’t attentive are slaughtered. As such, WildStar is not a game for casual players, or at least not if they plan to do any group content.
World of Warcraft has evolved to be much more welcoming to play over the years, earning it some hostility from hardcore MMO players. There’s certainly content for these players, but so much development has gone into making endgame inviting for everyone that it’s turned away a good handful of fans.
The raiding scene is very important for an MMO, and both do it well. Once again, difficulty is the big difference maker here. If you want to be able to play at your own pace and enjoy raids with a flexible amount of members, World of Warcraft is an easy recommendation. WildStar‘s high level of difficulty might be a nice change of pace for gamers tired of feeling like their accomplishments are watered down, though.
Each of these games manage to feel great in their execution of group PvE content, requiring a lot of teamwork and practice. Which you prefer comes down to how seriously you take your MMOs.
Winner: Tie
PvP: Can’t We All Just Get Along?
PvP is an interesting area in MMOs. It’s rarely an emphasis, and in the case of WildStar and World of Warcraft it’s definitely not the highlight of the show. Despite this, both have fun PvP combat.
Both have some great PvP content to enjoy, including battlegrounds and arenas. WildStar has Warplots, which are a great take on large scale combat with the ability to customize a defensive structure in 40v40 combat. It’s very innovative and sets it apart from others in the class. However, it only has two battlegrounds leading to quite a bit of repetition.
World of Warcraft competes with way more quantity, a more thoroughly designed arena system, and some moderately well implemented outdoor PvP areas.
Unfortunately, neither game manages to strike a proper balance between classes, making both a poor choice for anyone who wants to play a game with a big eSports presence. If you’re looking for an MMO to be competitive in, look elsewhere. If you like to dabble in killing opposing players, both do an equally good job of providing a playground for you to do so.
Winner: Tie
<< On the next page we wrap things up! >>
