Oct 5, 2017
Carbine needs the next patch tested, and they’re giving away a blue Uniblade and the coveted Fancy Pants Hat for testing certain content during specific windows!
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Carbine needs the next patch tested, and they’re giving away a blue Uniblade and the coveted Fancy Pants Hat for testing certain content during specific windows!
Finally
Wildstar Primal Matrix PTR Stuff!
A quick post before work, here’s a few things involving the Primal Matrix PTR abilities update!
Assault / Support Spellslinger Abilities.
Assault / Support Warrior Abilities.
Assault / Support Esper Abilities.
Assault / Support Stalker Abilities.
Assault / Support Medic Abilities.
Assault / Support Engineer Abilities.
Tip: Go to the Primal Matrix option in your UI menu. Click the thumbtack (circled) to pin it to your visible UI options.
That’s all the time I have for now, as the real world calls! See you on Nexus!
The Primal Matrix: Quick Overview
So I did some screwing about on the PTR earlier and I brought back a quick report on the new system. Let’s break it down:
The Grid is divided into several hexes which consist of six nodes with bridges in between them. Right off the bat the closest thing I can compare this to is the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X.
Buckle up, boys and girls.
As you can probably guess from that comparison, progression through the Grid is based off of unlocks being available via proximity to other unlocked nodes. If you want to unlock specific things you have to build towards a specific progression path.
Unlocking a node requires Primal Essence. Essence comes in four flavors (Crimson, Blue, Green and Violet) and each type unlocks a specific type of node on the Grid.
Each node unlocks something specific. Green nodes are tied to the different Critical attributes, Crimson to Toughness and Tenacity, Blue to Multi-Hit and Glance. The Violet nodes are tied to AMP and Ability point unlocks as well as the new abilities.
As best as I can tell, unlocking the Matrix unlocks the new abilities. I’m gonna be honest here, I didn’t check to see if as a lvl 50 character I already had them, so I don’t know for sure, but either way you do not need to unlock the new class abilities on the Grid. So if I can dump essence points into these new abilities I already have, I can only speculate that putting points into them make them stronger. I can’t confirm that, but what else could it do?
And yes, you are reading that right, the Grid allows for an extra nine AMP points and Ability points.
Essence itself drops from end-game content, specifically Expeditions, Dungeons, Battlegrounds and Contracts. The Content Finder window how has an active Bonus Rewards tab that keeps track of what content is dropping what Essence, as well as showing that info on the actual content tabs.
A quick note: Expeditions are no longer classed as “Normal” and “Veteran”. Veteran Expeditions have been replaced with Prime Expeditions, with Prime 0 being equivalent to the original Vet difficulty. Some Instances do have other Prime Difficulties unlocked with greater rewards offered.
These Prime Instances do have a recommended Heroism Rating. Heroism appears to be a value based off of your progression through the Grid.
Essence can also be exchanged for service tokens. Real fast I want to point out that it’s an even exchange for every essence type except Violet, with 200 of every other essence being equivalent to only ten of the Violet. So that marks Violet as the “bullshit expensive” essence, which follows given that you need to unlock AMPs, Abilities, and progression to new Hexes.
Here’s some good news on the grinding front, though: anyone with Signature rewards gets massive bonus gains to Essence drops. A 25% increased drop rate. For every four essence you earn, you get a bonus one free.
To put that number to work, here’s an example. In the tutorial quest that Drusera gives you to introduce the Grid she gives you 5,000 Crimson Essence. That Signature drop rate gives you a bonus 1,250.
Like I said, massive bonus gains. That will add up, and quickly.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Let’s wait and see how this works out when it’s brought into the Live build.
“#Wildstar 1.7.3: Homecoming Now Available on PTR https://t.co/X1P5pLhYjl”
The Homecoming patch is on the PTR for one last test run! Once this patch launches, Prime Genetic Archives will go back to being the focus on the PTR.
Warm up that PTR launcher, there’s an update to test tomorrow!
Realm bank: Purchased from the store, the realm bank is shared between all characters on an account, and can be expanded like the character and guild banks can be. It only works for unbound and account-bound items, but that’s still pretty useful!
PvE leaderboards: This will show how you stack up against others in solo and group content.
More Prime content: Skullcano, Outpost M-13, and Rage Logic are the next in line to get Prime difficulty scaling.
Madame Fay’s Island Paradise Fortunes: A new set of island-themed loot from Madam Fay, including pets, a mount, costumes, and decor.
Note that Prime scaling for Initialization Core Y-83 is in the pipeline as the first scaling raid in update 1.7.2, but is not included in tomorrow’s PTR update.
@felroki and I ran Evil From the Ether on the PTR the other day. This Ravenous Mordesh has white hair and is named Kristof. We were alarmed. @pyra-mugetsu
On the PTR, scaling for low level dungeons has been changed drastically. Soloing isn’t really possible anymore. That’s a good thing in that it means people doing random normals for the violet essence bonus won’t be bored from being overpowered. But it also means you can’t farm drops as easily either.