WildStar: Guide to the Path System .

WildStar is an experiment in MMO gaming that seeks to play certain elements completely straight and abandon or reinvent others. Possibly the most important aspect of innovation that Carbine came up with is the unique Path system that drives the gameplay, a system we need to explore in depth if you want to get the most out of your WildStar experience.

The Bartle Test

We can’t fully understand the Path System without looking into the idea behind it. The inspiration the developers used was a little thing called the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology. The short version of the story goes that one of the original architects of MMOs wrote a paper (back in the 90s), then two other guys decided to turn it into a personality test to determine what type of gamer you are.

Now MMOGames has recently taken our own look at gamer archetypes, with our own test, but Bartle’s theory distills players down to a strict four categories. Four kinds of people based on what they enjoy most in a game: fighting enemies, socializing with people, exploring the world, or completing goals.
WildStar has taken these motivations and constructed unique gameplay based on what play-style you get the most enjoyment out of. More on that in a bit.

How it works

Let’s back up a second. In most MMOs, creating your character mostly just involves choosing a class and a race for your character. The races are usually limited by faction, although there will sometimes be overlap (the classes might also be limited in this way in some games where the good/evil faction dichotomy is overt).
Any other decisions made at creation are usually just cosmetic, but your race and class effect your future path significantly. Classes not only usually offer occasional unique quest-lines and story arcs, they also pigeonhole you into one or a few possible roles in a team. Race also tends to affect your starting story and in most games also provides a bonus skill or two and/or adjusts your stat progression.

In WildStar, however, both of these wind up largely unimportant. There may be a limited combination of races and classes, but other than that the only real difference your race makes is in how you look. And while your class choice does dictate your attack powers, each class in the game offers a wide array of skill options to make the full range of potential team roles available to everyone. Everyone can have either a high-DPS build or focus on a support position.

Instead, the Path system provides all those unique experiences. Your chosen path gives you a few bonus powers (which some people will use at every opportunity and others will never even notice), distinct quest lines (supposedly at least 20% of the missions offered at any moment), and a particular function in the imaginary world. And this experience is tailored to change the gameplay of the game to what you like.

The Choices

When you take the Bartle Test, you are crystallizing what you enjoy getting out of games. There are two spectrums: whether you prefer action or interaction, and whether you are more interested in the players or the game world.

The Killer archetype is in the player/action quadrant of the continuum. For these players, WildStar offers the Soldier path.

Player/interactive types, or Socializers according to Bartle, will be drawn to the Settler path.

People who love exploring the artificial environments and seeing every aspect are in the world/interactive area, and WildStar has put more effort into offering Explorers the opportunity to wander and see than any MMO I know.

And finally the world/active combination, the Achievers, which are represented by the Scientist path, get a deeper connection to the game by accomplishing goals to unlock the hidden nuances that went into the story and setting.

Soldiers

Open this to fight a hundred alien crabs.

Put simply, this is the choice if you want to kill and kill and kill. The path for predators, if you like fighting more than anything else (and everything else is kind of lame) then this is for you. Your bonus powers grant you an emergency heal, and emergency group teleport, and an occasional supply drop. Missions are short but full of action; most of them will involve coming across a special beacon that will spawn a swarm of extra enemies for you to fight, or finding and murdering a specific special enemy/group. So it’s basically the one thing you already know you’ll be doing, but more of it.

Settlers

Fill this with rubble and make a soda fountain.

Build me a buffing device. No, for the whole community. The path for social butterflies, Settlers essentially get an extra tradeskill that benefits everyone around them. They spend their time acquiring materials and building the infrastructure of the new planetary colony, making (usually temporary) upgrades to the towns that offer other players special buffs or taxi service. Bonus abilities are used to summon portable shops and crafting stations without requiring a trip back to town.

Explorers

I only have to place 700 more of these.

Not everyone enjoys walking around quiet areas of the game, seeing which mountains can be scaled and which can’t, and just generally appreciating landscape scenes. But a lot of people do. If you’ve ever just lost track of the quest you were on because you were wandering and checking things out, now you can earn special rewards for it. Climb, spelunk, unlock exclusive areas and uncover every inch of the map. The missions are long and provide tons of content that most other players will never see. You even get some powers to help you avoid massive falling damage because you just couldn’t help finding out what was hiding somewhere.

Scientists

Scanbot, away!

Lastly, a career specifically for the people obsessed with lore. Scientists get an extra little pet (can’t fight but can die) in the form of a robot drone that scans various objects for additional game information. Your missions will be to seek out and scan as many things as possible, collecting tidbits of story that flesh out the immersive role-play experience and gives the developers a chance to show off all that extra work that they had to do (that the majority of gamers brush off without a second thought).

If you are the type of player that actually reads the quest text and likes it, here’s a chance to know more about Nexus than anyone else. Also, scientists can summon large groups of teammates to their location or open portals to a city.

Now go use it

We hope that this information helps you to select the WildStar path that you will enjoy most. Now get out there and conquer the planet!