Guild Wars 2

InKursion said:
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Just for the record, I wasn't comparing to WoW directly, more the flood of clones that very obviously follow it's formula. :)

I don't know how other people are thinking of this game, but I'm thinking of it like an Elder Scrolls/Fallout type game. Yes, there's a main plot, but what happens if I wander over there...I assume there will be a bigger story. Remember the plot in GW1 doesn't really get going until halfway through the game, while it's considerably shorter than GW2 (I'm just thinking of vanilla GW btw) there's still plenty of time for there to be an intricate plot while we're all still under lvl20 out of 80 levels.

I disagree about the races not being distinct with their own stories. I've only mainly played humans so far but I know the lore is in place and full for all the races, they all have their own personality and back story. It's all explained in the starting areas too, even the feel of the starting areas seems to give a good feel for the races.

The dynamic events are just that, dynamic. Yes, there might be events that are "collect apples" but it's not just go there, do that. It's how many people are involved, how much you contribute, what happens if you succeed, what happens if you fail. If you go to a village and start helping someone, will you be able to go back after or will centuars have taken over, if you're spending 10 minutes defending somewhere from enemies, will you succeed or will you then have to take it back? If you drive back enemies, will they then send a huge boss that you have to kill? That's very different from static "go kill 10 boars" quests where you go do it and have no impact on the world.

I'm in game at the moment half afk to write this and while I'm doing it, centuars have attacked the cave outpost I'm stood in.

Bhavv, I think he means like in the first game where if you clicked a spot on the ground, your character would move there. I always turned that off anyway, I just found it annoying.

TheMeekon, that's to do with being bolstered, if your character was max level, you'd be using your own gear. :) If you do WvWvW you'll be using all your own stuff anyway, just your hp and power etc gets bolstered.
 
I've found that I'm quite a few levels below what the quests I'm doing are rated at. In fact, at level 14, I was mashing level 23s.

I think they need to increase the amount of exp from mobs, I'm getting paltry amounts like 15 (+23 bonus) exp for killing something 9 levels above me.

I hope they tweak exp gains - increase what you get from heart quests slightly and from mobs, and maybe reduce the personal story exp gains slightly?
 
I've only just noticed guild wars 2 is only using one of my cores, the first one.

Which is making my first core hit around 60 degrees while the others are hovering around 50, weird.
 
Gackt said:
I've found that I'm quite a few levels below what the quests I'm doing are rated at. In fact, at level 14, I was mashing level 23s.

I think they need to increase the amount of exp from mobs, I'm getting paltry amounts like 15 (+23 bonus) exp for killing something 9 levels above me.

I hope they tweak exp gains - increase what you get from heart quests slightly and from mobs, and maybe reduce the personal story exp gains slightly?
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Unfortunately I think they are keeping them how they curently are to encourage EXP boost items. I hope that there will be something similar to EXP scrolls available at merchants, and not just the cash store.

I've already obtained 50% EXP and magic find boosters that last for an hour through playing the game, so they are avialable in game, maybe they should make 10-20% increase boosters available from normal merchants.
 
Gackt said:
I've found that I'm quite a few levels below what the quests I'm doing are rated at. In fact, at level 14, I was mashing level 23s.

I think they need to increase the amount of exp from mobs, I'm getting paltry amounts like 15 (+23 bonus) exp for killing something 9 levels above me.

I hope they tweak exp gains - increase what you get from heart quests slightly and from mobs, and maybe reduce the personal story exp gains slightly?
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This is quite strange as well, because for a Thief such mob bashing would be impossible. It strikes me as odd that certain classes are reporting such leisurely ease with defeating 2-3 mobs and mobs far ahead of them level-wise, yet other classes have a really tough time. I didn't play enough classes this weekend to really get an idea of the balance, in this sense. It does strike me as odd, though. On my Thief character I would be suicidal to take on a mob 3-4 levels higher than me without some preparation.
 
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InKursion said:
This is quite strange as well, because for a Thief such mob bashing would be impossible. It strikes me as odd that certain classes are reporting such leisurely ease with defeating 2-3 mobs and mobs far ahead of them level-wise, yet other classes have a really tough time. I didn't play enough classes this weekend to really get an idea of the balance, in this sense. It does strike me as odd, though. On my Thief character I would be suicidal to take on a mob 3-4 levels higher than me without some preparation.
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I did notice a difference between the last 5 levels or so, I wonder if it fluctuates as you level up and the types of mobs you face.

My 2h Greatsword Guardian is significantly stronger than he was 5 levels ago when I had to keep switching to scepter/shield in order to survive (which isn't necessarily a bad thing from time to time and it's nice to have the versatility but I was relying on it for pretty much every mob). And I guess it does depend on what weapon you're using and the skills to go along with it.

Not only that but the Guardian has quite a few heals and buffs which increase it's survivability quite a lot compared with the Thief which I imagine doesn't have as much?
 
By about level 15 my Thief had several healing/utility skills that passively and actively increased my health. However none of them made my character any less squishy or precarious to play - you have to be pretty careful, and stacking 2-3 mobs with anything other than the Shortbow (which I am sure is not working as intended) is not wise. That's part of the reason why I felt the XP scaling could be tweaked a little: as a Thief, if you are not in an appropriate area for your level with something to do, you really notice it with how fast you get beat up!

An interesting question/consideration: based on your impression and feedback during this Beta event, how far away do you realistically and plausibly think this game is from a final release? Let's just assume they are going to give themselves enough time to get the game to their properly-intended 'finished' state in this, i.e. not pushed out for any strategic or business reasons. I am going to say 2-3 months more.
 
InKursion said:
By about level 15 my Thief had several healing/utility skills that passively and actively increased my health. However none of them made my character any less squishy or precarious to play - you have to be pretty careful, and stacking 2-3 mobs with anything other than the Shortbow (which I am sure is not working as intended) is not wise. That's part of the reason why I felt the XP scaling could be tweaked a little: as a Thief, if you are not in an appropriate area for your level with something to do, you really notice it with how fast you get beat up!

An interesting question/consideration: based on your impression and feedback during this Beta event, how far away do you realistically and plausibly think this game is from a final release? Let's just assume they are going to give themselves enough time to get the game to their properly-intended 'finished' state in this, i.e. not pushed out for any strategic or business reasons. I am going to say 2-3 months more.
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Indeed. I imagine that with your slightly 'squishier' classes, they're going to feel the heat a little quicker and as such exp should be scaled appropriately. That's not to say that non-squishy classes should have reduced exp gains, but I can see, and hope that with better gear and higher levels that they'll become very potent and it would offset any survivability gains that other classes might have over damage. (for example, now with traits, over 6 levels I've gained 600hp not including that from natural levelling and gear gains but I imagine the other class traits will offer a much higher damage/critical increase (plus gear/levels))

I'd say a couple of months at least, it still needs a bit of polishing, tweaking, optimising and such. Most of it's there, and I'm sure there'll be some more driven storyline and such later on (as essentially the personal story stops around level 19) and it'll be interesting to see how dungeons and later world events play out. They also have the basis and structure to do some really interesting things with game mechanics and the like.

So I'd say a couple of months at least. And I wouldn't balk at an early August release.
 
So far anyway it seems to be by far the most complete mmo to be released in a long time. The world is huge and yet really detailed, the classes all seem pretty fleshed out, and the RvR looks like it might actually deliver.

Stuff that should be in at release like guild progression and perks are all in place, and so far the only gripes I have a minor ones that will hopefully get fixed as a result of feedback - the horrible zoom distance for example.

Fingers crossed, but for once it looks like we might have an mmo that isn't being released six months before it's finished.
 
Melee is 100% broken.

TOTAL disadvantage in all situations seeing you using ranged 99% of the time to avoid being downed and killed every 5 seconds.

Died more times as a Thief in the STARTER Story mode up to level 3 than I have total on my mesmer in 17 levels.
 
Hmmmm anyone as a charr come up against the 10th quest in the story (if you happen to come up to the same one i do) where you have to fight some avatar of balthazzar? It's insanely difficult, the thing flattens me and my team within 2-3 hits, and once my team is down im stuck running in on my own with no chance at all :(
 
Just capped my warrior to 22, had my fill of this beta event now. Leveled up a guardian, elementalist, thief and now a warrior.

Notes:

Melee is terrible when events start to scale, enemies switch targets and kill you pretty much instantly.

Leveling was alright, mainly after rotating the 3 races zones to stay with content for my current level.

Warrior is pretty cool -- rifle has a lot of burst with its adrenaline move, decent mobility using 1h / warhorn. Lacking in aoe overall really, longbow isnt great imo. one of the traits lets rifle shots pierce which helps a lot, especially as your adranaline shot / other abilities will pierce also.

I think the environment design is pretty awesome, some parts can end up being pretty nostalgic, i.e. temple of ages and the ascalon walls.

A lot of the descriptive text on traits and skills is absolutely abysmal. "Increases precision" is really no help at all. The passive numbers need to be stated explicitly.

Weapon and armor skins in most cases were pretty plain and the choice was minimal, though, on occasion I saw a few people with some neat skins like the charr greatsword. No idea how they got those, pretty much every vendor had the same skins for me.

Biggest issue really is character progression. You essentially have all your weapon skills before level 10 and whatever utilities you want to fill the 3 slots for level 20. Elites will be a nice treat at 30, but then you have the next 50 levels with the same setup. I could really see it feeling samey.

The scaling is wacky at times, and can be pretty confusing for gauging your own power. At about lvl 15 on my warrior I went back to clear the charr starting zone. One part of it is full of lvl 9 earth elementals which sucked because I was scaled to lvl 6 in that particular zone.

Human personal story upto 20 was pretty horrible through and through.

Last thing that needs to be added imo is a drop target button (there may be one I didnt notice) really annoying when enemies use flame block and you cant stop tunneling auto attack into them without turning around.
 
ThomBassmonkey said:
Finally got Queensdale to 100% (I did a few bits in the next zone, not a lot though and I'm lvl16). There's some nice rewards, a mail through with a couple of green items and some crafting stuff. :)
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Interesting. I only have 1 skill to go, the one in Bettleton but the guy was dead. May have to try and revisit him.

At first I was planning on making an Elementalist when the game comes out, but I have changed my mind to making a Guardian instead, just so much more fun.

Don't really want to play much more though as these characters are going to get wiped.
 
Sin_Chase said:
Melee is 100% broken.

TOTAL disadvantage in all situations seeing you using ranged 99% of the time to avoid being downed and killed every 5 seconds.

Died more times as a Thief in the STARTER Story mode up to level 3 than I have total on my mesmer in 17 levels.
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How weird, you've played exactly the same characters in the same way I have.

I wouldn't call it broken though. Once weapon switching kicks in you're pretty much good to go and having the range + melee combo is definitely the best. A lot of the 2 discipline's skills complement each other, especially as a thief. Pulling off a weapon switch combo is pretty satisfying.

One thing I notice a lot of melees doing is not watching. They stand toe to toe with everything. Some strafe around things, which works for some enemies. Hardly anyone watches for the animations, and evades, which are critical now, more so for melee.
 
From what I played of the beta this weekend this game feels like a giant zerg fest. Didnt even bother playing after friday night. I've preordered anyway, good job there is no sub fee.
 
gord said:
One thing I notice a lot of melees doing is not watching. They stand toe to toe with everything. Some strafe around things, which works for some enemies. Hardly anyone watches for the animations, and evades, which are critical now, more so for melee.
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I've noticed this too, I seem to be the only one rolling away from attacks. To be fair though the game needs to explain dodging and fatigue better, people coming from just about any other mmo expect to be able to stand toe-to-toe and just mash their skills. Which leads to wild claims like "Melee is 100% broken!"
 
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