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Guild Wars 2 | Year One By The Numbers

I actually think the same weapon attacks is a genius move on their part, and it's to promote muscle memory. The more you remember what your weapons do, the less likely you're going to have to look at the bar to remember what they do. Everything becomes natural, like learning how to use a sword in real life. Once you know, you just go.

Well, having the same basic attacks for each weapon set isn't really any different from other action-RPGs like Monster Hunter or Demon's Souls. They're the basic tools that establish how your character fights, and they have different uses depending on your choice of glyphs, traits, and the other five skills.

I'm not saying its a bad system, I'm just saying I got bored, haha. Not getting enough new stuff along the way makes it a little less interesting to level. The combat was really good, it was more just a mental thing for me.

I was really hoping they would have 'legendary' or just relatively hard to get weapons in the game that would have even just 4 of the same attacks but then 1 new one thats exclusive to that weapon.

I will go back and play some more GW2 at some point, especially now that I know GAF still has a big group of people playing.
 

BrettWeir

Member
I, for one, am very happy that GW2 exists. I played it pretty hardcore from launch until around Xmas. Got pretty frustrated with WvW, as I thought it was going to be a lot more than it was....and stopped playing. I picked it back up again a few days ago, and am having fun again. It definitely itches the "MMO fever" I have, and will hopefully tide me over until 2015 when Camelot Unchained launches.

You guys had me curious about play time.....uh, yeah. I'm a tad embarrassed to say, but between launch and December 2012, I logged 999 hours 47 minutes. LOL. I couldn't imagine what my hours would be at, had I been playing since release to now.

I'm enjoying this Queen's Jubilee and look forward to the Anniversary event(s).
 
The first 20h were absolutely brilliant and totally in line with my expectations but it dropped off pretty quickly and pretty badly. Had a good time with it nevertheless though and don't regret purchasing it even though it wasn't quite as good as I hoped. However, it still was significantly better than Diablo 3.
 

Jindrax

Member
Ok please enlighten me GAF

I got this game at launch... I have over 4000 hours on GW1.
I played "till lvl 80. I absolutely hated EVERYTHING about gw2.

Can I just make a list of stuff and can one of the GW2 Gaffers tell me if it's been fixed.
If it is I can totally see myself getting back into it.
BTDUBS I stopped last september so if I seem ignorant it's because of that.
ok

1) END game there was nothing to do. You had those dungeons to grind to get armor... And that was it.
2) Guilds had no purpose, NO GUILD HALLS!!!!
3) world v world was a mess, no skill just like a bunch of dudes doing random crap on a large scale...
4) PvP was crap, no HA no GVG no TA no RA just this weird pvp system thing in the myst.
5) this bugged me a lot... Auction house was broken after legit 5 days. Everything in there was being sold at merchant price... In WoW even like lvl 25 items are sold for a actual good profit... in GW2 everything was being sold at 1 copper more than the merchant.
6) the game was a bit crappy optimized I had super hard fps drops
7)you lvled so fast that buying armor and weapons was useless... I bought that tear1 faction armor for my charr... after an hour I was dropping stuff worth 70 copper that had better stats...
8) the epic focus on builds that made gw1 unique and awesome has comepletely vanished...
9) big empty world... felt like gw1 after the released all the expantion packs... a lot of empty outposts.
10) this is the one that hurt the most...
Guild Wars1 had like atleast 150 skills per class... and you could combine 2. So 300 per character or something. I might be exaggerating but it was a lot.
Guild Wars 2... Has about 25 skills... This killed it for me hardcore... No more hours of thinking and calculating for a ultimate 8 skillbar of glory... Ok it's true if you switch weapons you have a bit more... but still WTF... I was so disappointed that they did that.
Ok now can anyone tell me if they fixed those 10 points?
 

Forkball

Member
Level 1-80 was a great gaming experience, especially at launch when there were a ton of people. I got bored at the endgame focus though and haven't touched it, but I might get the urge to jump in and play again. I feel that Guild Wars 2 does so many great things, but also so many things that I don't like. It's a weird mix of innovative MMORPG and the archaic styles of older games.
 

Ikuu

Had his dog run over by Blizzard's CEO
Thought the game was a huge disappointment, did get a good laugh when Moody made the OT and people lost their shit.
 
Ok please enlighten me GAF

I got this game at launch... I have over 4000 hours on GW1.
I played "till lvl 80. I absolutely hated EVERYTHING about gw2.

Can I just make a list of stuff and can one of the GW2 Gaffers tell me if it's been fixed.
If it is I can totally see myself getting back into it.
BTDUBS I stopped last september so if I seem ignorant it's because of that.
ok

1) END game there was nothing to do. You had those dungeons to grind to get armor... And that was it.
2) Guilds had no purpose, NO GUILD HALLS!!!!
3) world v world was a mess, no skill just like a bunch of dudes doing random crap on a large scale...
4) PvP was crap, no HA no GVG no TA no RA just this weird pvp system thing in the myst.
5) this bugged me a lot... Auction house was broken after legit 5 days. Everything in there was being sold at merchant price... In WoW even like lvl 25 items are sold for a actual good profit... in GW2 everything was being sold at 1 copper more than the merchant.
6) the game was a bit crappy optimized I had super hard fps drops
7)you lvled so fast that buying armor and weapons was useless... I bought that tear1 faction armor for my charr... after an hour I was dropping stuff worth 70 copper that had better stats...
8) the epic focus on builds that made gw1 unique and awesome has comepletely vanished...
9) big empty world... felt like gw1 after the released all the expantion packs... a lot of empty outposts.
10) this is the one that hurt the most...
Guild Wars1 had like atleast 150 skills per class... and you could combine 2. So 300 per character or something. I might be exaggerating but it was a lot.
Guild Wars 2... Has about 25 skills... This killed it for me hardcore... No more hours of thinking and calculating for a ultimate 8 skillbar of glory... Ok it's true if you switch weapons you have a bit more... but still WTF... I was so disappointed that they did that.
Ok now can anyone tell me if they fixed those 10 points?


You played this game to lvl 80, and ABSOLUTELY HATED everything about the game. Why would you do this? Also 4000 hours is serious time to spend on GW1. For someone who spend four thousand hours (which is over 166 days of your life just playing guild wars) I would imagine that your interest in the sequel would have dictated you towards knowing the common of knowledge, of that - Guild Wars 1 while great, had many problems, and secondly, they didn't wanted to make another guild wars with prettier graphics.
I question the legitimate statements posed in your post that you so clearly use to boost your expertise about the game, but more than that, I question your integrity. These problems don't seem like those of someone who got to lvl 80. The thing with the auction house(trading post) is not true. Racial tier 1 armor is for looks, which you transmute.



I disagree about the skill thing.
All it's intent and purposes, many skills in Guild Wars where near duplications of one another, lacking both visual prowess and a unique identifier. In other words, the skills where quantity over quality. Seeing other people on the battlefield you couldn't distinquish different skills from another, because you had very few animations, effects and models for that many skills. Some skills where completely copy pasted of one another, only differing in duration, type, energy cost or range. It was a theory FOTM system that became about the stats on the skills, and while it was fun to deck out your 8 skills, in the end it brought a lot of problems and balance issues with it.

GW2 packs fewer skills but of higher quality. visually identifiable in the game, more unique skills, more defining skills. instead of a dual class system, you have a dual weapon system, meaning both your weapons represent the mixing of roles you want. It's not as universally freeform and limitless as GW1 was, but it's pretty good, and the skills are a lot more fun to use. Combining that with a tighter balance, I completely understand why they did it.


Secondly, you are wrong, about not spending time making your build. And there are a lot more than 25 skills for each profession. Combining your traits, you also needs to apply sigils and runes that GREATLY enhance your characters abillities, further allowing you to combine a build. There are lots of discussions in theorycrafting about the best min/maxing of certain sigils with all the classes.
 

Jindrax

Member
You played this game to lvl 80, and ABSOLUTELY HATED everything about the game. Why would you do this? Also 4000 hours is serious time to spend on GW1. For someone who spend four thousand hours (which is over 166 days of your life just playing guild wars) I would imagine that your interest in the sequel would have dictated you towards knowing the common of knowledge, of that - Guild Wars 1 while great, had many problems, and secondly, they didn't wanted to make another guild wars with prettier graphics.
I question the legitimate statements posed in your post that you so clearly use to boost your expertise about the game, but more than that, I question your integrity. These problems don't seem like those of someone who got to lvl 80. The thing with the auction house(trading post) is not true. Racial tier 1 armor is for looks, which you transmute.



I disagree about the skill thing.
All it's intent and purposes, many skills in Guild Wars where near duplications of one another, lacking both visual prowess and a unique identifier. In other words, the skills where quantity over quality. Seeing other people on the battlefield you couldn't distinquish different skills from another, because you had very few animations, effects and models for that many skills. Some skills where completely copy pasted of one another, only differing in duration, type, energy cost or range. It was a theory FOTM system that became about the stats on the skills, and while it was fun to deck out your 8 skills, in the end it brought a lot of problems and balance issues with it.

GW2 packs fewer skills but of higher quality. visually identifiable in the game, more unique skills, more defining skills. instead of a dual class system, you have a dual weapon system, meaning both your weapons represent the mixing of roles you want. It's not as universally freeform and limitless as GW1 was, but it's pretty good, and the skills are a lot more fun to use. Combining that with a tighter balance, I completely understand why they did it.


Secondly, you are wrong, about not spending time making your build. And there are a lot more than 25 skills for each profession. Combining your traits, you also needs to apply sigils and runes that GREATLY enhance your characters abillities, further allowing you to combine a build. There are lots of discussions in theorycrafting about the best min/maxing of certain sigils with all the classes.

I am lvl 80 you can log in and check ---> Jindrax.9680
Secondly I played 'till lvl 80 because I was hoping I would discover that I'm an idiot and figure out that I was playing the game wrong, or I'll unlock something or w.e. You can't judge a game before you complete it. So I got to lvl 80 at I still didnt like it.

Now for the rest of your rebuttal.
My opinion on the auctionhouse I actualy got it from something I saw on Joystiq.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04/29/virtual-world-economist-says-guild-wars-2s-pre-endgame-economy/
So yeah... not inventing that.

And the whether the skills in guild wars one were slightly different of even duplicates of eichother is beside the point. You had the possibility of equiping two skills that did x dmg and costed 5 energy. Sometimes having dupes was handy. Of the top of my head the Savanah's heat build was based on that... And the Balanced stance Warrior too.
Both of these builds were the meta game at a point in HA. And about the " you couldn't tell the difference visualy which skills your enemy was using anyway ". Who cares? it was pvp. You could recognize the build he was using and counter it. As for the Runes. Yeah those were in gw1 too. And they were used better.
My point is they dumbed it down. A lot. I even remember reading an interview from one of the devs saying he wasnted it to appeal to new players. Because I do agree, you couldn't just jump in Guild Wars 1. You had to know what build, what armor, what weapons, which upgrades and runes or you basically played alone or with other noobs.

And just to make a point...
this is the list of guild wars 2 ranger skills. And note: the first 20 skills are based on which weapon you have in your hand... and you can equip a maximum of 2(as ranger) so that's a choice of 10 ( which you don't even choose they're assigned auto of you equip a longbow, sword, etc)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_ranger_skills
This on the other hand in the list of skills in Guild Wars1 regardless of which weapon you have equiped and you can choose ALL OF THEM
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_ranger_skills
 

Maledict

Member
Without wanting to sound rude, I would suggest you avoid using the phrase:

"My opinion on the AH I actually got from joystiq".

I'm sure you are not, but it just makes you look alike you don't play the game,have no idea what you are talking about and are just ranting based on what the Internet tells you which isn't a good way to present an arguement.
 

Maledict

Member
On a side note, as someone who plays casually - is it me or are warriors ludicrously overpowered in PvE? Every video I see of fast kills is 4 warriors plus a Mesmer whose role is to provide Time Warp, and they just seem to have a damage output in PvE that is ludicrously higher than other classes. Especially with my only level 80 being a Mesmer who definitely falls on the lower end of the damage output lists...
 

Jindrax

Member
Without wanting to sound rude, I would suggest you avoid using the phrase:

"My opinion on the AH I actually got from joystiq".

I'm sure you are not, but it just makes you look alike you don't play the game,have no idea what you are talking about and are just ranting based on what the Internet tells you which isn't a good way to present an arguement.

Yeah a dude in the GW2 OT adressed that, said they actually worked on it. But anything green and under still goes at vendor price...
 
Indeed, I absolutely cannot go back to KB+M. Or to be more specific, I'm not at all kidding when I say I am at a handicap using keyboard and mouse versus my 360 pad.

I'm interested in playing with a 360 pad, do I need Immersive Combat Mode to do that or does the controller work best with the default game setup?
 

Orayn

Member
I'm interested in playing with a 360 pad, do I need Immersive Combat Mode to do that or does the controller work best with the default game setup?

Hawkian's mod handles the control aspects of ICM on its own, though you could still use ICM to clean up the game's UI if you wanted to.
 

BigDes

Member
I bought this game at launch

Got my character to level 30 or so then ran into a bug where the quest giver i needed to progress never handed out the quest (so this was like really fucking early on, maybe a month and a half in?).

I still wonder if I should come back
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
I am lvl 80 you can log in and check ---> Jindrax.9680
Secondly I played 'till lvl 80 because I was hoping I would discover that I'm an idiot and figure out that I was playing the game wrong, or I'll unlock something or w.e. You can't judge a game before you complete it. So I got to lvl 80 at I still didnt like it.
This is sort of a shame because I feel like GW2 is:
a) A game you definitely can and should judge before reaching 80, and they've been really explicit about that in terms of marketing. "The whole game is endgame" is an exaggerated way of describing what I mean that is used to characterize this game frequently. There isn't anything that really significantly changes at level 80 compared to what you've been doing at that point, except that you're fully capable in terms of available options.
b) As of yet, you can't really "complete" Guild Wars 2 at all. The personal story, what some might consider the traditional "start to finish" campaign, is one of the game's weakest elements, while ongoing content rollouts are getting more and more compelling.

So generally speaking it just seems like you may have wasted your time. :( I loved Guild Wars 1 and had about 3000 hours myself, but this game has very little in common with it mechanically, and that was something I knew since long before release. It sounds like you thought it might start to become more like it at 80, and I can totally understand your severe disappointment in that regard.
Now for the rest of your rebuttal.
My opinion on the auctionhouse I actualy got it from something I saw on Joystiq.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04/29/virtual-world-economist-says-guild-wars-2s-pre-endgame-economy/
So yeah... not inventing that.
I take issue enormously with that article and its overarching premise, which sort of clouds the merit of any individual point he makes. The author has a very advanced understanding of real-world economics, but he's (almost directly) comparing GW2's economy to EVE's. While EVE's dramatic, realistic economy is massively impressive, that game is also a pure sandbox where player-driven trade and market fluctuation are crucial to the experience and, to read some accounts, almost a pillar of gameplay.

GW2 is nothing like that, and wouldn't be better for it. It's very open ended, and you set your own goals, but it isn't a sandbox. Being able to say, corner the market on selling blue items to level 40 characters for consistent profit is never something that was intended to any degree whatsoever. He entire analysis of why the low and mid level economy is "bad" hinges on how it feels to try and make money by selling armor and weapons at that level.

His conclusion, "with the exception of craft materials, [Guild Wars 2's] pre-endgame item economy is broken" is misleading to the point of misinterpreting the entire in-game purpose of the trading post. When he says the pre-endgame item market is "broken," what he means is that it wholly favors buyers. A green sword may be selling on the TP for 1 copper more than a vendor could pay for it, but someone who wants that sword for their character can't buy it from a vendor. The pre-endgame TP makes it completely trivial to gear up your characters as you level, which isn't a problem because gear honestly doesn't matter all that much in Guild Wars 2. You get decent gear easily throughout the game, and succeed or fail based on your skill with your class and your build. I contrast the TP with that of, say, Diablo III, a game in which gear is critical, and being able to rapidly and cheaply upgrade at every step along the way did break the experience for me.

Plus, he notes that there is still profit to be made in lower tier crafting materials, consumables, and jewelry, which is true, and has little negative to say about the endgame economy besides misinterpreting the value of Karma (which has enormous value as a non-tradable account-bound currency).

And the whether the skills in guild wars one were slightly different of even duplicates of eichother is beside the point.

My point is they dumbed it down. A lot.
I enjoyed the Build Wars aspect of GW1 a lot as well, but you must be willing to acknowledge that, especially as the expansion were added, the total number of skills didn't correlate with a massive and growing number of viable metagame builds. Tons of skills were universally written off as useless, others became permanent fixtures on the clearly optimum build for a specific purpose for a certain class to the point where it was a foregone conclusion what you should be running a lot of the time. GW2 definitely eschews that as much of the time as possible and makes mid-combat decisions as important as those you made before you started, putting it much closer than GW1 to an action or fighting game.

This on the other hand in the list of skills in Guild Wars1 regardless of which weapon you have equiped and you can choose ALL OF THEM
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_ranger_skills
Oh come now!

You can't use Poison Arrow, Body Shot, Pin Down, Barrage, etc. without a bow. You can't use Bestial Pounce, Ferocious Strike, Symbiotic Bond, etc. without a pet. And Flurry of Ice is a Wintersday skill. :p
 
I am lvl 80 you can log in and check ---> Jindrax.9680
Secondly I played 'till lvl 80 because I was hoping I would discover that I'm an idiot and figure out that I was playing the game wrong, or I'll unlock something or w.e. You can't judge a game before you complete it. So I got to lvl 80 at I still didnt like it.

I truly don't understand that. Getting to lvl 80 takes a long time, and if you ABSOLUTELY HATED EVERYTHING.

HATED EVERYTHING.

Then I don't understand why you would even stick with it, out of curiousity. Just smells weird to me.



Now for the rest of your rebuttal.
My opinion on the auctionhouse I actualy got it from something I saw on Joystiq.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04...dgame-economy/
So yeah... not inventing that.

I find it bizarre that you are using an article by an analyst saying its economy is broken. You wrote it like it was your own agenda, but it sounds like you have not used it a lot then.

Nope, it's true, if you sell a green item, it will be one more copper than selling to a vendor. Why does this mean that the economy is broken? The game has an absolute INSANE pre-fix abundance of loot drops. Pre-lvl 80 gear is so easily to come buy by just playing, that's is a pure fallacy to declare it broken just because nobody can sell such a common thing for not profit. It's not World of Warcraft, it doesn't try to be. This games end of all is not stats.

Instead it has a much deeper crafting system, and along with that comes the flipping of items. Buying materials, making something, exchanging things to something else, combining materials, then selling them. As well as playing the market.

Like a real world economy you cant find everyone to agree on what that should be. But there are lots of ways of making money by playing. Salaving your greens and blue items, then selling the materials you get along with upgrades, or building them into other items that have value.
The thing I don't understand is, that how can you have played this game to lvl 80 without realizing these things? It comes so intuitively that it should come as no surprise, yet you seem to not think so, as you are linking to external opinions.



And the whether the skills in guild wars one were slightly different of even duplicates of eichother is beside the point. You had the possibility of equiping two skills that did x dmg and costed 5 energy. Sometimes having dupes was handy. Of the top of my head the Savanah's heat build was based on that... And the Balanced stance Warrior too.
Both of these builds were the meta game at a point in HA. And about the " you couldn't tell the difference visualy which skills your enemy was using anyway ". Who cares? it was pvp. You could recognize the build he was using and counter it. As for the Runes. Yeah those were in gw1 too. And they were used better.
My point is they dumbed it down. A lot. I even remember reading an interview from one of the devs saying he wasnted it to appeal to new players. Because I do agree, you couldn't just jump in Guild Wars 1. You had to know what build, what armor, what weapons, which upgrades and runes or you basically played alone or with other noobs.

I think that last part is completely true, and it was one of the reasons why PvP in GW1 never became Starcraft-popular in Korea.
Barrier of entry was high. The game was complex, but mostly because of bloating, and IMO just adding filler is not a substitute for not having fewer skills that looks, feels and controls much better.
Plus with the inter-combos between skills, as well as the runes, which I completely disgress have been dumbed down in this game. The effects of the runes in this game completely ups the anty on everything. It's very very deep, and has lots of possibilities.

I do think it's an atricious mistake to have skills that look similar. When a skill looses it's uniqueness or ability to stand out or feel like it's own, the only identifier you have is looking at bars and icons under the HP of your enemy. And then you are not looking at the game. your not looking at the characters moves and animations.

And I say: SCREW THAT. I don't wanna look at a interface to tell me what is going on. I love the system in GW2, and while I am eagerly anticipating them adding more skills, I think Its a big improvement all together.

Combined with the active combat tools(dodging/rolling) a better line-of-sight system, I think you end up with a much more fulfilling combat system.


For me, the strangeness of GW2 revolves around the "downed state" skills, which I feel was added to the game (along with underwater skills) to simply increase the number of skills.
It's just like with a good first person shooter. They tend to have fewer weapons, yet feel much more satisfactory to shoot. Quality over quantity.




And just to make a point...
this is the list of guild wars 2 ranger skills. And note: the first 20 skills are based on which weapon you have in your hand... and you can equip a maximum of 2(as ranger) so that's a choice of 10 ( which you don't even choose they're assigned auto of you equip a longbow, sword, etc)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_ranger_skills
This on the other hand in the list of skills in Guild Wars1 regardless of which weapon you have equiped and you can choose ALL OF THEM
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_ranger_skills

I know. I have over 1K hours logged into GW1 myself.

However, I don't feel that much difference, as GW1 had lots of filler skills. Skills that had to specific or narrow focus, and many of the skills felt, looked and reacted the same, making the game boring to look at.


In GW2, they have made your skills count and work. Your weapon type describes your class focus. The skills on the longbow is a completely different feel of a class and role in a group compared to the skills of a shortbow.

And the skills of a longbow on a Warrior and the skills of a shortbow on the thief, spices up things as well, serving different roles. Then your other weapon dictates your secondary class.

Want the gap closer? Take the Sword! Want the AoE? take the off hand axe! Warhorn, torch, dagger all give you something different too.



Complexity for the sake of complexity is dumb. And GW1 was to convoluted for it's own good. It's a big misconception to run around and think = abundance of choice is just the 1337. Thats the biggest strawman of them all.

I say its much better to have a better designed system with more choice or possibility to roam withhin that realm.
 

Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
I bought this game at launch

Got my character to level 30 or so then ran into a bug where the quest giver i needed to progress never handed out the quest (so this was like really fucking early on, maybe a month and a half in?).

I still wonder if I should come back

Quests for the first 2 months were bugged, mostly in areas less populated.

Most people forget this, but I remember it being a mess and just sticking to grinding out the same dynamic events in popular areas.

But the game is far more polished now and can actually deliver on the promises it made at launch.
 

Fomalhaut

Neo Member
On a side note, as someone who plays casually - is it me or are warriors ludicrously overpowered in PvE? Every video I see of fast kills is 4 warriors plus a Mesmer whose role is to provide Time Warp, and they just seem to have a damage output in PvE that is ludicrously higher than other classes. Especially with my only level 80 being a Mesmer who definitely falls on the lower end of the damage output lists...

It's high, yes, but they're not the only class with a high damage output. Sword Rangers can deal 4-5k per auto-attack (not counting pet damage), Engies with a bomb kit ~8k per bomb.
 

KLonso

Member
I bought GW2 and played it with some friends for a month. We tried to have fun, but after that month we realized that we weren't having fun at all, so we quit. Maybe the game's just not for us.
 
Guild Wars 2 is why I've only bought one or two console games in the last year, and my 360 has been relegated to a YouTube/iPlayer device.

The content for solo PvE is constantly evolving. WvWvW is constantly demanding and engaging, and the brutally unpleasant gear treadmill of my previous MMOs is almost completely absent.

My gushing love for this game is covered pretty well here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=71277441&postcount=626

I now have 8 level 80s (one of each class).

It's a glorious triumph and I look forward to playing it for another fun and action-filled year.
 

SteveWD40

Member
GW2 has all the makings of the perfect MMO for me, it just...isn't:

1. UI, I love the UI
2. No Sub, box cost keeps away the ultra casual crowd
3. Amazing world design, stunning
4. Exploration > grinding the same zones
5. No trinity, no restrictions per se
6. Well supported by a good company

But something just feels off, lifeless, I can't say what but it never grabbed me the way WoW did. Maybe no MMO ever will.
 

SEGAvangelist

Gold Member
Is there a good PvE gear grind in this game yet? I love teamwork in dungeons and from what I've played, there isn't a lot of teamwork required in combat. Have things changed? Are there more defined character roles now?
 

schwupp

Member
there is a number missing:
0 attempts to bring pvp to its gw1 standard - let alone improve from that.

anet ... what are you doing ... wasting time on pve :(
 

Jindrax

Member
I truly don't understand that. Getting to lvl 80 takes a long time, and if you ABSOLUTELY HATED EVERYTHING.

The thing I don't understand is, that how can you have played this game to lvl 80 without realizing these things? It comes so intuitively that it should come as no surprise, yet you seem to not think so, as you are linking to external opinions.
...

For me, the strangeness of GW2 revolves around the "downed state" skills, which I feel was added to the game (along with underwater skills) to simply increase the number of skills.
It's just like with a good first person shooter. They tend to have fewer weapons, yet feel much more satisfactory to shoot. Quality over quantity.

I didn't realize those market strategies because, like I said in the first post, I played at launch, was 80 by September and stopped playing. I only played about 3 or maybe 4 weeks, the game was new and nobody knew anything xD.

And your view and the skills reminds me of this conference I watched on TED the other day. He was saying the reason we're so disappointed with everything nowadays is because we have an abundance of choice. But here in GW2 they took away my choice and it feels lame.
You played GW1. Remember these epic wacky builds which will never exist because of these skill limitations. Remember the Toucher build? R/N, max out expertise so your skills don't cost any energy nearly then use those necro blood magic touch skills that steal about 90HP ignoring all armor xD. I mean WTF was the dude thinking who decided to put that in a skill bar hahaha. Or the Bunny thumper? A ranger using a hammer with his pet and rampage as one to do crazy damage.
These things can't be done in GW2 because of the lack of skills and the way they locked it down. It's like they took away a lot of creative freedom.
IF they would bring the pvp back to the level of GW1 this game would be mint.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Is there a good PvE gear grind in this game yet?
Errrrrr no. If that's what you're looking for, it will never be a part of the game.

A mini-version of it is present in the isolated content type known as Fractals, which is a lot of fun, and you might well enjoy. But being free from a true gear grind/treadmill is crucial to the enjoyment of a lot of players.
I love teamwork in dungeons and from what I've played, there isn't a lot of teamwork required in combat. Have things changed? Are there more defined character roles now?
This depends a lot on the dungeon path and how coordinated your party is. Sometimes substantial teamwork is the difference between life and death, and it's critical if you're looking for maximum efficiency/speedruns/etc. Other times as long as everyone can hold their own and time isn't a concern, you can do fine. It depends on what you're attempting to a large extent.

There is never an outright need for a tank or healer or anything close, so if that's what you need in terms of defined roles it won't satisfy :(
 

JCizzle

Member
I can appreciate why people like it, but no threat mechanics ruined the chance I'd ever get too into the game. Dungeons sound like a game of pinball, not straight combat. I log in every once in awhile to play pvp since my friends really like it.
 

th4tguy

Member
I play these kind of games with my wife and she always ends up being a dedicated healer. It's what she loves to play as. It's her thing lol. She can't do that in this game. It forces everyone to be a dps type character. There also isn't any order to the fights. Just zerg the boss and hop out of attacks. Not really fun for us.
 

Rockandrollclown

lookwhatyou'vedone
I play these kind of games with my wife and she always ends up being a dedicated healer. It's what she loves to play as. It's her thing lol. She can't do that in this game. It forces everyone to be a dps type character. There also isn't any order to the fights. Just zerg the boss and hop out of attacks. Not really fun for us.

Yeah, for me, doing that first dungeon just completely killed the game for me. I just really don't like grouping mechanics (or lack thereof) for this game. I'm sure there is a way to make compelling PVE content without the trinity, but turning everyone into DPS was not it for me.
 

Discobird

Member
Everyone who has reservations about the combat in Guild Wars 2 needs to try it with Immersive Combat Mode. Basically, it adds crosshairs and gives you mouselook whenever a cursor isn't needed, and GW2's remarkably good auto-targeting takes care of the rest. Doesn't quite reach the level of TERA, but it's pretty damn close.

ICM works so well that I suspect the game was originally designed to work like this and ArenaNet got cold feet and switched back to tab targeting relatively large in development.

Whoa. Having to hold down RMB for mouselook was one of my biggest annoyances with the game and this might be enough to make me play again.
 

SEGAvangelist

Gold Member
Errrrrr no. If that's what you're looking for, it will never be a part of the game.

A mini-version of it is present in the isolated content type known as Fractals, which is a lot of fun, and you might well enjoy. But being free from a true gear grind/treadmill is crucial to the enjoyment of a lot of players.

This depends a lot on the dungeon path and how coordinated your party is. Sometimes substantial teamwork is the difference between life and death, and it's critical if you're looking for maximum efficiency/speedruns/etc. Other times as long as everyone can hold their own and time isn't a concern, you can do fine. It depends on what you're attempting to a large extent.

There is never an outright need for a tank or healer or anything close, so if that's what you need in terms of defined roles it won't satisfy :(

Well that settles it for me, I guess at least from the PvE side. Too bad as the world and music are awesome. I might try it again for the PvP, though.
 
Yeah, for me, doing that first dungeon just completely killed the game for me. I just really don't like grouping mechanics (or lack thereof) for this game. I'm sure there is a way to make compelling PVE content without the trinity, but turning everyone into DPS was not it for me.

I play these kind of games with my wife and she always ends up being a dedicated healer. It's what she loves to play as. It's her thing lol. She can't do that in this game. It forces everyone to be a dps type character. There also isn't any order to the fights. Just zerg the boss and hop out of attacks. Not really fun for us.


This is not really true though. Once you get into the game, it becomes clear that just DPSing through everything is no go. You need control, you need support, you need AoE, you need debuffs.

You make your build based on the weapons you like and then play those roles. If you like healing, you might want to get the Mace and the focus for example. And then you heal your friends on the battlefield by just playing.
If you like being ranged, you might make an elementalist and go into the Water atunement, and do healing AOE spring spells.

The game has healing, but it's not offset by forcing people into this by making the healing so extreme that people can't do anything else, or not progress through a dungeon because they didnt have specific character x.
Or all the people being alianted because they are told they are playing wrong. There is no "your a guardian, heal me b!tch!" in gw2.

Being a helping asset to other players is a big part of the game. I don't know why people don't feel that there are not any roles. the only difference is that it's your choice. you equip your character with gear that can heal other people when you use shouts, place banners. maybe have pets that heal allies. maybe you heal when you swap weapon. maybe you take skills that create healing AoE areas when you die. There are lots of choice. you are just not being a thats-all-you-do-now character, and I think thats a good thing.

You still do a lot of things, yet it doesn't excuse your own personal responsibility of healing yourself, and that's what I like.

I like that I don't need to have a dedicated healer to babysit me. For everyone to rez everyone gives the game a much friendlier and helping community.
 
I didn't realize those market strategies because, like I said in the first post, I played at launch, was 80 by September and stopped playing. I only played about 3 or maybe 4 weeks, the game was new and nobody knew anything xD.

And your view and the skills reminds me of this conference I watched on TED the other day. He was saying the reason we're so disappointed with everything nowadays is because we have an abundance of choice. But here in GW2 they took away my choice and it feels lame.
You played GW1. Remember these epic wacky builds which will never exist because of these skill limitations. Remember the Toucher build? R/N, max out expertise so your skills don't cost any energy nearly then use those necro blood magic touch skills that steal about 90HP ignoring all armor xD. I mean WTF was the dude thinking who decided to put that in a skill bar hahaha. Or the Bunny thumper? A ranger using a hammer with his pet and rampage as one to do crazy damage.
These things can't be done in GW2 because of the lack of skills and the way they locked it down. It's like they took away a lot of creative freedom.
IF they would bring the pvp back to the level of GW1 this game would be mint.


I too have seen Malcom Gladwells talk about Choice (others can see it here; http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html )

but you are wrong because you DO, have choice. And new builds do appear. Right now? A Ranger build that defys all conventional wisdom about "Rangers sucking". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bjq1vcnhpQ

here is a list of runes. All of these many many types of runes completely alter what you can do with any combination of class + weapons + utlity skills + traits for said class; http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune


So you have plenty of choice and possibility of making your own thing. Saying you don't is not right.
I do remember those cool builds in GW1, but I also remember all the fluff, alienation and the wasted potential of the high learning curve and all the unnecessarily complicated skills, descriptions and convolutedly little-difference between the many skills.
 

Nokagi

Unconfirmed Member
GW2 is still my biggest gaming disappointment ever. I spend thousands of hours in GW1, but GW2 seens to have removed everything that made the first game interesting (mission-based storyline, thousands of skills to select, dual-classing, energy system, class-specific armor, etc.). And besides that, the game uses the despicable system of lockboxes, for which reason alone I have to shun the game.

Yeah same here. I'd sit around for hours just trying out new build combinations in GW1. And don't forget heroes! Man I had so much fun with them! I recently started playing GW2 again and the living world stuff is pretty fun but once you finish them the game goes back to being rather boring again. The lack of a proper dungeon finder system doesn't help with this either and some of my friends quit because of it (sitting around spamming LFG is fun for absolutely no one). I love the combat system in the game and I want to love the game but it just doesn't feel very rewarding to play at 80.. there's not much there aside from skin grinds.
 

th4tguy

Member
Yeah, for me, doing that first dungeon just completely killed the game for me. I just really don't like grouping mechanics (or lack thereof) for this game. I'm sure there is a way to make compelling PVE content without the trinity, but turning everyone into DPS was not it for me.

I was super excited about Everquest Next until I read they were not going to have the "holy trinity". I'm sure someone one day will come up with a good replacement to the trinity but I haven't seen it yet. I doubt that new system will involve removing roles from classes and I'm not creative enough to think of a way that would not include some form of threat.
 

badb0y

Member
I am having problems running this game on anything above the lowest settings on any resolution.

My specs are:

i7 2600k
AMD 7970 (Latest Drivers)
8GB DDR - 1600 RAM
1 TB Samsung 7200 RPM HDD
Windows 7 (Latest build)

Anyone have any suggestions? My native resolution is 2560x1600 but even lowering that to 1600x1200 doesn't change anything.
 

th4tguy

Member
This is not really true though. Once you get into the game, it becomes clear that just DPSing through everything is no go. You need control, you need support, you need AoE, you need debuffs.

You make your build based on the weapons you like and then play those roles. If you like healing, you might want to get the Mace and the focus for example. And then you heal your friends on the battlefield by just playing.
If you like being ranged, you might make an elementalist and go into the Water atunement, and do healing AOE spring spells.

The game has healing, but it's not offset by forcing people into this by making the healing so extreme that people can't do anything else, or not progress through a dungeon because they didnt have specific character x.
Or all the people being alianted because they are told they are playing wrong. There is no "your a guardian, heal me b!tch!" in gw2.

Being a helping asset to other players is a big part of the game. I don't know why people don't feel that there are not any roles. the only difference is that it's your choice. you equip your character with gear that can heal other people when you use shouts, place banners. maybe have pets that heal allies. maybe you heal when you swap weapon. maybe you take skills that create healing AoE areas when you die. There are lots of choice. you are just not being a thats-all-you-do-now character, and I think thats a good thing.

You still do a lot of things, yet it doesn't excuse your own personal responsibility of healing yourself, and that's what I like.

I like that I don't need to have a dedicated healer to babysit me. For everyone to rez everyone gives the game a much friendlier and helping community.

With the system you are describing, you actually alienate the people who want to mainly heal or tank.
In GW2, there is no tanking because there is no aggro so that is just not a thing.
For healing, yes you can sort of be that support healer character but no one wants that's. You will actually be told to not do that because the group needs more dps than it needs you running around trying to heal on a system that wasn't ever meant to do that.

Working as a group doesn't just mean you get 5 good players together that know how to not die.
For me, it means strategy and assigning jobs to people who want to do those jobs. Each person is a single cog in a bigger machine and if you have any one person who isn't good at that job, the whole thing could come crumbling down. It's hard. It takes time to learn, but when it comes together just right ......there just isn't any comparison.

Nothing I've seen described or experienced in any of the MMOs that have gotten rid of roles/ jobs / trinity have even come close to providing the experience most of us have had when you down a hard boss for the first time after finally getting the strategy right. The cheering in vent. Grouping for screen shots. Whispers from people outside of the group giving their congrats.You feel like a real team. Anything that takes away from that just doesn't make sense to me.
 
I am having problems running this game on anything above the lowest settings on any resolution.

My specs are:

i7 2600k
AMD 7970 (Latest Drivers)
8GB DDR - 1600 RAM
1 TB Samsung 7200 RPM HDD
Windows 7 (Latest build)

Anyone have any suggestions? My native resolution is 2560x1600 but even lowering that to 1600x1200 doesn't change anything.

I have:
i5 2500k, 7950, 8g and windows 7 and it runs just fine at max settings.

Is the game not loading at all?
 

Vyrance

Member
Just came back a week ago or so after quitting in November. Loving the game again. They really have added a lot of stuff to it. And joined up with GAF guild of course.
 

Syril

Member
For healing, yes you can sort of be that support healer character but no one wants that's. You will actually be told to not do that because the group needs more dps than it needs you running around trying to heal on a system that wasn't ever meant to do that.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've never had any occasions of people telling to use or not use a given build. There have been some instances where I end up making a big difference having my warrior set up with a warhorn and healing shouts.
 

joeblow

Member
Tinkering in GW1 was one of my most favorite gaming experiences of all time. I had a narrow focus that brought me almost 1,300 hours of fun: designing and playing my builds in the Random and Team Arenas. Yeah, I completed the first to PvE adventures (though I bought all the packs for skills), but advennturing is kinda boring to me. PvP is where the thrill is at.

It was almost like playing a fighting game in the arcade.... go in with your character and face random foes in a small arena and battle it to the death. Synergizing my builds with three other team mates (sometimes random ones) was part of the fun. I made hundreds of different builds, some great, some average, some terrible, and had a blast posting and discussing them on GW forums with other players. Because I wasn't into Guild battles, I didn't have to worry too much about "the meta game". That allowed me a lot more freedom in coming up with new, effective creations.

I bought GW2 out of appreciation for Arena.net's incredible GW1, but from the previews through today I still have not had an urge to play it. A huge part of the experience with GW1 was the fact that you could go dual class, which was sadly taken away in GW2 for simplicity sake. I've read/watched many things about the new system with weapon and traits and stuff, but it is simply not the same.

There were some crazy things you could do with the old system, and it took time and effort to work with it well but the near infinite possibilities was sooooo exciting. I don't get that creative spark feeling from what I've seen in GW2. It is much more straight forward and predictable.

But that aside, my biggest gripe (unless it's changed) is that there is no Random Arena. That was my laboratory for experimenting with builds. 4v4 to the death. No gimmicks with side tasks and such. Like an arcade fighting game just go in there and fight to the death. If this issue were solved, I would at least install the game and give it an honest effort to see if I enjoyed making builds in GW2 as much as I did GW1, where even when I was away from the game I would be designing stuff on paper, eager to test it out later on.

I do like the fact that GW2 got trid of the Monk as an essential class for every party (even in Random Arenas the team with a decent Monk had a huge advantage). I also like that carrying a Rez skill is no longer a choice that takes up a slot. That's a huge buff to creative build making. So I am not only being negative on it. I just wish it gave me the same sense of awe that the first one did for so long (I only quit GW1 because the designers kept hard-nerfing skills for the metagame instead of striving for universal balance).
 

Lebron

Member
Was a decent game, but I got bored of it after playing through the Beta and early weeks during launch. Got too repetitive and I didn't care for them not using the holy trinity class route (like it at first somewhat, but changed my opinion after more playtime). Just wasn't my type of MMO.

It's nice they kept up with the updates and improving the game, though. Game was jank as all hell in the beginning.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
But that aside, my biggest gripe (unless it's changed) is that there is no Random Arena. That was my laboratory for experimenting with builds. 4v4 to the death. No gimmicks with side tasks and such. Like an arcade fighting game just go in there and fight to the death. If this issue were solved, I would at least install the game and give it an honest effort to see if I enjoyed making builds in GW2 as much as I did GW1, where even when I was away from the game I would be designing stuff on paper, eager to test it out later on.
Hm, while not a simple fight to the death, there is a Solo queue for PvP now which is certainly great for experimenting with builds.
 

joeblow

Member
Well, the purpose of trying new builds in GW1 for me was to see their effectiveness (or lack thereof) in a small, team battle to the death. Is there a Random 4v4 mode now?
 

Orayn

Member
Well, the purpose of trying new builds in GW1 for me was to see their effectiveness (or lack thereof) in a small, team battle to the death. Is there a Random 4v4 mode now?

5v5 solo queue, yeah. You sign up by yourself, get sorted into a team, and play a game against another random team. It's cross-server like all SPvP, you get glory and other rewards for it, can progress through a PvP ranking system, and there's even a set of daily achievements for it that can earn you laurels.
 

Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
Well, the purpose of trying new builds in GW1 for me was to see their effectiveness (or lack thereof) in a small, team battle to the death. Is there a Random 4v4 mode now?

So there are a list of servers you can choose from (4vs4, 5vs5, 8vs8, etc) similar to playing most multiplayer PC games, where you hop in and do your thing then do another round with same players, over and over. Then there is a queue you can join (either have your own team or be solo) for a random game. The latter is the closest thing to random arenas.

There is still a sense of wonder and variety in discovering and tweaking builds. While in PvE, encounters are decimated with a pure DPS team, in PVP, due to the nature of the game being king of the hill, there is far more variety. Do you want to kill opponents? Which opponents will you be weak to? Do you want to stand your ground and waste the other team's time as they try to take down your tank self on a capture point? Or maybe a certain map calls for a certain build. One new map has a cannon through a portal that a team can control, firing on the map. But it's on a narrow platform in the sky. A quick swap of skills prior to the match starting could lead to some hilarious deaths by falling.
 
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