Guild Wars 2

[IzzehO]

Originally Posted by Stevros

The biggest disappointment for me by far is the pvp.

I've never cared for PvP much. The only MMO I've ever enjoyed the PvP in was Conquer Online, because it had a LOT more action, just the shear amount happening and how competitive the guild wars were.

Ragnarok was OK for pvp, but everything since has been downhill imo.

[Pinkeh]

Ragnarok had some epic PVP/WoE fights especially private shards. The advanced classes made it go downhill due to the sheer number of problems caused by total utter one-class domination of everything else (Assassin Cross).

[IzzehO]

Originally Posted by Pinkeh

total utter one-class domination of everything else (Assassin Cross).

That was what I enjoyed most about Conquer: everything was simple enough that everyone (almost..) knew their role. You had 4 classes: offensive magic, defensive magic (revive dead, heal, +dmg/acc/def), offensive ranged, high damage melee and reasonable damage/decent hp melee. And the speed/skill (i.e. 1 shot kills if you could land it on melee) involved made it challenging, not the number/quality of players/equipment.

[Stevros]

The pvp mainly sucks because the combat/skill system is so shallow. Combat is simply just hitting the skills that arent on a cooldown, and the fact that you are stuck with your first 5 skills for whatever weapons you chose makes it utterly mind numbing, the 5 skills you do get to choose for the most part you wont really use, only every now and then. The elite skills that i used just gave me a complete unfair advantage and ruined the flow of play. A smart guy runs away, a guy who doesnt understand just stands there confused getting his ass whopped.

If i was to sum up what i thought of the game i would say:

The graphics are pretty damn good, Divinity's Reach(main city) is absolutely incredible and a pleasure to run around, its seriously massive as well.

The world also looks great, farms, rivers, mountains, hills, lakes, waterfalls, windmills. Really high attention to detail, everywhere you look there is something nice to look at. The world never has that empty space feel that you get sometimes in between outposts in other mmo's.

Dynamic questing is just streamlined questing, it eliminates the need for quest givers and quest logs. You will never stand around trying to sort out the best way to run around to do multiple missions - its already clearly layed out for you.
There are also mini events that take place like centaurs(you will be sick of centaurs by about level 12) taking holds. You will come across the quest area and either have to a) take back the hold or b) defend the hold. Once youve done either one either a or b will just repeat itself in an infinite loop.
It was funny in the beta after you did most quests a little survey popped up asking you to rate different elements of the quest. One of which was "how did it effect the world" I answers "not at all" for pretty much every one, because they dont. You will see other people doing the exact same quests that you have already done as you run around, its just that they are not available to you anymore. Some are repeatable however.

Some info on how they work:
The quests themselves usually consist of multiple things to do, like stomp wasp nests, kill wasps, collect apples. When you are in the area of this quest there will be a progression bar on your screen and everything you do to help makes the bar fill up, but everyone else in the areas actions make it fill up as well, so you have to make sure you do enough to get the maximum quest reward based on you your participation(gold, silver or bronze).

The skill system is at this stage very disappointing, rest assured that there are a fair few threads (one of which is growing to a large size) of people complaining about the combat and skill system. Alot of people whinging about not being able to select your first five skills and having them bound to certain weapons. I can tell you it sucks, you will find the skills you like best, then get bored with them, then switch to something else and get bored with that or just not like it. It sucks even worse for classes like the guardian who may wish to have a weapon + shield combo, but not like the skill set.
The scary thing is that the fanboism is strong with this one, with people running around just jizzing their pants thinking everything is great and carrying on like they are completely hypnotized by the game.

The game currently consists of huge positives, and huge negatives in my opinion. They did say they were aiming the game at the "casual" market. For some reason i didnt think it meant the derpa derp market. I dont think it has to be this way for it to be succesful. They need to understand that customization brings depth and fun. I have made my views fairly clear on the beta forums as have heaps of others, so let hope they make some changes to the skill system because this could really be a great game!

[IzzehO]

Originally Posted by Stevros

The pvp mainly sucks because the combat/skill system is so shallow. Combat is simply just hitting the skills that arent on a cooldown, and the fact that you are stuck with your first 5 skills for whatever weapons you chose makes it utterly mind numbing, the 5 skills you do get to choose for the most part you wont really use, only every now and then. The elite skills that i used just gave me a complete unfair advantage and ruined the flow of play. A smart guy runs away, a guy who doesnt understand just stands there confused getting his ass whopped.

I didn't get a chance to try the PvP, but this is the problem with all WoW style games is it not (i.e. wasd walking, long vision open maps etc)? Just a button mash. Strategy and/or quick thinking need to come into it some where, it's why MOBA's have become so very popular.

I really don't think basing it off what we've seen isn't fair though as no one really knew what they were doing.

The graphics are pretty damn good, Divinity's Reach(main city) is absolutely incredible and a pleasure to run around, its seriously massive as well.

Agreed, its fantastically pretty, probably beyond Rift graphically (and obliterating it in sheer scale).

Dynamic questing is just streamlined questing, it eliminates the need for quest givers and quest logs. You will never stand around trying to sort out the best way to run around to do multiple missions - its already clearly layed out for you.

This was my sentiments as well, but I'm not going to pass judgement on it yet as its a beta and for all we know the quests are set into overtime (i.e. trigger constantly instead of every few hours/days). That said, I remember their claim, "you don't just go and kill 10 chickens.. and then 10 dogs and then 10..." ... but some of them, you do just that... it just isn't worded that way. Alot of the time, when it wasn't, it just felt gimmicky. Again, however, I won't pass judgement on that as its still a beta and I only got up to level 10 on 3 characters (didn't have enough time to go higher).

There were some really fun quests though. And some really grand battles, especially the introductory fight for each race (i.e. a giant ice worm for Norn, giant stone gargoyle of some sort for human). Fighting charr/iron legion storyline was rather enjoyable, as were some of the side quests I stumbled upon.

The skill system is at this stage very disappointing, rest assured that there are a fair few threads (one of which is growing to a large size) of people complaining about the combat and skill system. Alot of people whinging about not being able to select your first five skills and having them bound to certain weapons. I can tell you it sucks, you will find the skills you like best, then get bored with them, then switch to something else and get bored with that or just not like it. It sucks even worse for classes like the guardian who may wish to have a weapon + shield combo, but not like the skill set.

I'd agree to this to some extent, but I think what they've done is reasonably clever. I found myself planning my battles with two weapon sets, switching when necessary. Unfortunately the skills are just far too gimmicky: they are either gimped and underpowered in PvE as they would be too strong in PvP (thief's invis skills, mesmer illusion etc) or their usage is so glaringly obvious it and doesn't mesh with other skills, its just dull (i.e. a "hit 3 targets at once" skill).

I should mention though, it really isn't so flash because I had higher expectations of it compared to other MMO's. Comparing directly to others though, I'd say it was a vast improvement over mmo's.

I was more disappointed in the class specific skills. There's like 15? skills to choose from (but you can only choose 3 at any time), you can't 'level' them and they are almost all underwhelming. I spent the time searching for one I would actually USE (not the opposite). The annoying bit was they all were active skills, you couldn't just build up passive skills, so at some point you get more skills than you can use and that seems silly?

I did, however, much enjoy the fact you can easily dodge and escape dangerous situations (for the most part). I had a great deal of fun trying to escape in slow motion from two dozen stone elementals that kept throwing rocks and crippling me. Just as I've thought I was doomed I've summoned one last leap to get around a corner: finding half a dozen players there to save me.

The scary thing is that the fanboism is strong with this one, with people running around just jizzing their pants thinking everything is great and carrying on like they are completely hypnotized by the game.

Yep. I was half expecting a huge fanboi response here, but there hasn't been. Whirlpool on the other hand, has some massive fanboiism going on. I have no problem with posting the positives of a game, but people far to often just hype it up so much it can never live up to expectations (duke nukem, starcraft 2, SW:TOR). Sequels seem to be far more vulnerable too it. I honestly think a lot of people will really enjoy this game, but I'd rather keep the expectations a bit more down to earth, so people aren't disappointed.

Disclaimer: Just to say it one last time. I only played 3 races (engineer, thief and ranger) and only up to level 10 on each. Didn't get to unlock any of the more 'advanced' skills. Didn't play PvP. And didn't try very much of the team PvE (although I did fight a few 'final bosses'). I feel rather guilty trying to put any sort of review up of the game as I think I only scratched the surface.

[Pinkeh]

I like to know what you thought about the engineering specific skills, granting you only took it to level 10 - Did you get a chance to take a look at any turrets, bombs or aoe skills?

This is the reason i was considering the engineer. It sounded like a mix of TF2 Medic and Engineer
But it could be some horrible experiment gone wrong.

My default characters would likely be ranger or necromancer. I loved my minion master far too much.

[Stevros]

Originally Posted by Pinkeh

My default characters would likely be ranger or necromancer. I loved my minion master far too much.

My goal was to mostly play as minion master, and that i did. Its probably the class that limits your skills the most though because out of the 5 skills you CAN choose, 3 of those skills will be taken up by pet summon spells. You dont summon minions from dead bodies, you can only summon 1 or 2 (mostly 1)pets of each type, there is some stuff in the traits that gains a chance to summon small minions off enemies you kill, but i didnt take much notice for some reason. I wish i had more time to get higher through the levels to see if it got better, i only got to level 18 on my necro.

Alot of people were QQing in pvp at necros with minions because they were "too hard to target" lol

[Pinkeh]

Ah what a shame. Were you around when MM's could raise as many corpses as you want? One MM walking around with 47 minions was a 1-man army literally.

[Silent Remorse]

I'll have an article up on my impressions soon.

I was lucky enough to have access to the developer guild, vent chat and a personal guide through a dungeon, was awesome.

[IzzehO]

Originally Posted by Pinkeh

I like to know what you thought about the engineering specific skills, granting you only took it to level 10 - Did you get a chance to take a look at any turrets, bombs or aoe skills?

This is the reason i was considering the engineer. It sounded like a mix of TF2 Medic and Engineer
But it could be some horrible experiment gone wrong.

My default characters would likely be ranger or necromancer. I loved my minion master far too much.

Engineer was really dull. Turret was auto and, while useful, didn't do anything too exciting. There were a lot of components of it I didn't unlock though.

Ranger was probably my favourites of the 3 as I've always liked micromanaging and his skills were reasonably diverse. I look forward to another weekend so I can get higher on the accounts to make a better judgement.

[2SHY]

Originally Posted by Pinkeh

Ah what a shame. Were you around when MM's could raise as many corpses as you want? One MM walking around with 47 minions was a 1-man army literally.

You could then reroll to a pretty standard SS build or SV build along with some Mesmer domination magic.

[IzzehO]

I feel totalbiscuit is a far better judge of a game than I, and he played it a lot more and seemed to enjoy it. There is a lot more content in that video than I managed to see.



And these are some of the things I never managed to get up to:

[Stevros]

Originally Posted by Pinkeh

Ah what a shame. Were you around when MM's could raise as many corpses as you want? One MM walking around with 47 minions was a 1-man army literally.

Yeah i remember teams playing the minion factory build in hoh, it was crazy starting the game and coming up against a shitload of minions before anyone has even died(kinda)

[6wolfy9]

yep, Conquer online was great for the pvp, and despite the aged graphics was good fun and had a great social element (seriously!)

too bad when they started pulling the cps and stuff...it was bad enough with the dbs, they got way to greedy with the people who were willing to fork out cash.

[moist.au]

Fuck the PVP in GW2 looks shitty.

Makes me sad.

It's just an absolute shitfest, those siege World vs World vs World things. Where is the fun in it when all you're doing is spamming buttons? There's no team coordination involved in it really.

As for the gameplay it actually looks alright, movement seems fluid and abilities seem responsive. If they add in an arena/battleground style scenario I think I will be satisfied - that siege stuff looks like crap though.