Wildstar has a lot to offer players that are familiar with MMORPGs as well as those who aren't. If you're familiar with MMORPGs though, the first thing you're probably going to notice is that leveling in Wildstar isn't as easy as it is in other more recent MMORPGs. The leveling experience doesn't have to be a series of corpse runs with brief intermittent streaks of survival though. Leveling and succeeding in Wildstar is both possible and very rewarding, but it's going to take some effort on your end. Here are some tips you should utilize to make leveling in Wildstar faster and more enjoyable.

In WildStar, you level up by gaining experience points, or XP. Experience can be gained in several ways:

Completing quests
Killing mobs, also known as "grinding"
Competing in a player-vs-player battleground
Completing a dungeon or adventure

In early levels, you will primarily gain XP through quests and grinding. You can enter the PvP battleground at level six, and it's possible to level up through PvP alone, but this method is much slower and not recommended. Not only will you take longer to level, you'll also miss out on the storyline offered by completing quests.

Ultimately, the best way to level up in WildStar is to complete the quests as efficiently as possible, grinding mobs on the way to your next objective. If you get lost on your way to a quest objective, you can consult your minimap in the upper righthand side of your screen. Quest objectives will be clearly marked on the map. Left-clicking the name of a quest in your quest log, on the bottom right corner of the screen, will create an arrow that will point you in the right direction.

As you level up, some of your abilities will automatically be added to your bar, but others must be added manually. After each level-up, be sure to check your talents by pressing "B" on your keyboard and assigning your new abilities to hotkeys.

In the cities and towns, be sure to look out for buff stations built by settlers. Some of these include experience boosts, basic stat increases and speed boosts. All will help you quest more efficiently.

Work your way across the map in sections, killing enemies as you travel from one quest hub to the next. This makes your travels more efficient and reduces your odds of getting lost.

Get Familiar With Your Class

For some people, this is going to seem obvious. The problem is that there are some people who are used to jumping into a similar game, mashing a few key abilities, and being receiving success. That's really not the case in Wildstar. Learning how your class works and how playing it feels is very important.

Every class has its limitations as well as things it excels at. For example, the engineer is very durable. If you manage all of their abilities and volatility well, you might be able to complete some group quests by yourself. It's not going to as simple as burn the enemy down as fast as possible though. You have to use your bot's abilities whenever they're off cool down and make sure that you're constantly using all of your built up volatility. You also have to avoid the enemy's attacks.

By comparison, an Esper would find it nearly impossible to complete group quests alone. It doesn't mean that the Esper is underpowered. Just that the Esper doesn't have same kit that the Engineer has.

Make sure that you experiment when you're playing your class. Don't be afraid to change around your skills and try something new. Doing so will help increase your understanding of your class and make you better at the game.

Try To Learn The Abilities of the Mobs

The mobs in the game are more difficult to defeat overall than in other games. Mobs are enemy non-player characters. They have the ability to deal a lot of damage, and you'll frequently get disabled by them. There are definitely going to be mobs that you dread encountering. The key to dealing with any mob though is to learn its behaviors.

Wildstar does an excellent job of showing you what is happening on screen. If a mob is about to do a high damage attack, an on screen telegraph will appear with the ground highlighted where the attack is going to occur. All you have to do is move out of the telegraph to avoid the attack.

The best way to learn the timings of a mob's telegraph is to fight one, and be passive during the fight. Just watch the mob's behaviors carefully for one or two fights and look for patterns. Most of the mob's abilities that are giving you trouble will have telegraphs. You can figure out how to best deal with the mob's abilities after you know everything it does.

Pay Attention To Your Surroundings

It's easy to get overwhelmed by enemies in Wildstar. There are plenty of mobs in the environment, and there are also zones where environmental damage can occur. For example, there's a zone for the Dominion faction that has constant explosions going off in the background that do a fair amount of damage if they hit you. The locations where explosions are going to occur are marked with telegraphs, so they can be avoided.

Often when a player is struggling with a particular mob, it is because they get crowd controlled by it, and the crowd control lasts long enough for the player to get aggro from another mob that is walking around nearby. Paying attention to your surroundings and looking out for where nearby mob's paths are will prevent that from happening. The more you observe and pay attention in Wildstar, the better off you will be.

Questing vs. PvP for Leveling

Similar to other MMORPGs, NC Software's latest game is like WoW's leveling, Wildstar has a questing system. The quest system operates the same way others do. NPCs gives you tasks. If you complete them, you get rewarded with experience. Most quests have some story to go with it, and you receive loot from them as well. Many players enjoy questing.

There are plenty of people who find PvE content to be lackluster though. Even though Wildstar has mobs that are ramped up in difficulty compared to other MMORPGs, they still don't enjoy defeating AI. There's good news for those players though. You can level your character entirely through battlegrounds to max level. It isn't the fastest method of leveling, but it is comparable to questing.

You receive more experience for winning the battleground you're in. You also receive items for playing in battlegrounds, which are similar in power to quest rewards at your level. Carbine wanted PvP leveling available as an alternative for players who enjoy it more than PvE leveling. Even if you want to level mainly through PVE content, it can be a refreshing change to do some PvP if you've previously only spent time questing.

Instance Grinding

If you and four others become very experienced at a particular instance, you can do something called instance grinding. Instance grinding is doing the same instance repeatedly for the experience and loot that it gives. The idea is to clear the instance as fast as possible repeatedly. If you have a skilled group, then you can usually get more experience doing that than you would if you had spent the time questing alone.

The most important thing you can do in Wildstar is to try and learn from your mistakes and improve as a player. Observe your surroundings and mob behavior whenever possible. Test all of your abilities when you first receive them. Leveling will become easier as you play the game more. While Wildstar is very difficult compared to other modern MMORPGs, succeeding at it is extremely rewarding.