The big new thing in MMOs these days is innovation. Guild Wars 2 was the big hitter last year, but it looks like WildStar is aiming to throw it out the park in 2014. The DevSpeak videos have shown all the ways Carbine Studios plan to make WildStar a fresh MMO experience, and today’s video looks at how the developer has made ability combat more reactive.
The video explains how traditional MMO combat relies on Instant Cast, Cast Time and Channel abilities, and that WildStar’s combat forgoes those traditions in order to create a much more fun, reactive experience. For example, abilities can be charged whilst moving rather than forcing you to be rooted to the spot, and even semi-charged abilities will cause damage. So if you’re charging up a super laser beam and an enemy is closing in, you can fire it off half-charged and still cause some pain, rather than waste it all together by evading and cancelling the attack.
The combination of reactive abilities and the move-and-aim principles of WildStar’s combat allows players of the game to become what Carbine enthusiastically call “spider monkey ninjas”. Which sounds awesome, naturally.