[Teknoman]

Everytime I look at these shots...man I really like the draw distance afforded in this game. You can even spot the shield spell on the ground (i'm asleep on a really high point in Queensmoor, near the spot where that ratman who acts like Don Quixote is).

[Retro]

You could off-set this by rolling a Norn Warrior and getting the trait that allows you to run faster with melee weapons in hand. Of course as a Human Warrior you would feel even faster. :-P

That's actually not a bad idea, as I'm definitely leaning towards a Human Guardian and Norn Warrior. Dunno how much it would help, but it's worth a shot.

Are the Kodan those black winged elves that someone posted a screenshot of a couple weeks ago?

Nay, the Kodan are nature-balancing Polar Bears; http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kodan

[Jira]

Was there a way to "try on" armor to see the cosmetics before buying it?

The option was there for the Gem Store, I never bought anything so I can't say if it worked in Beta or not.

[Ferny]

Doubt it. Pretty sure there was talk to moving to a server where the WvW group was actually good. :lol

I was never aware of that. The whole point of WvW is that the server will be matched to what it's suppose to be over a two week period so during the beta it doesn't even really matter. I don't see us changing for any further BWEs but we'll discuss it at a later time.

[Thoraxes]

The option was there for the Gem Store, I never bought anything so I can't say if it worked in Beta or not.

No, you couldn't preview the items. I tried.

[Jira]

No, you couldn't preview the items. I tried.

Probably just not turned on then.

[Hawkian]

This is probably a stupid question but is there a way to use the gamepad + keyboard, mouse for the stuff that may be harder to use when out of combat (like crafting, chat window, other various options)? That would be my only issue. I can't see the gamepad being an efficient way to do all that stuff but I could be wrong. I also know if I use the gamepad, I'll be using voice chat for grouping and the like.

This will "just work"; nothing overrides anything about your mouse and keyboard, and in fact all Total Game Control is doing is allowing your pad to emulate the mouse and keyboard in the first place.

[Ashodin]

I'll be leading the defense keyboard force against Hawkian now... mwahahahaha!

Oh and that right click into your collectibles shit. HOLY FUCK WHAT!

How did I miss that shit!

[Jira]

I'll be leading the defense keyboard force against Hawkian now... mwahahahaha! Oh and that right click into your collectibles shit. HOLY FUCK WHAT! How did I miss that shit!

Yeah really...even though I right clicked a ton of leather to sell on the TP, I never once noticed it.

[Squall ASF]

While waiting for this game to come out im gonna say to have fun with that system you built! Play The Witcher 2 on the highest settings :P Hope that next beta event comes around soon to see ya in there with the rest of us! :D

Thanks man. I've always been a console gamer, Guild Wars is really my only PC game with some minor exceptions like the old point and click adventure games. GW2 will probably be the only game I play on PC but my roommate says I'll be so enraptured that I'll want to play everything on it haha He has shown me emulators for old systems like the N64 and that you can add high resolution packets to make them look amazing. That would be pretty neat, would beat hooking up the old things. Dolphin looks neat too. He constantly rubbed in my face how much better Skyward Sword looked on his PC vs my Wii :| I just realized I can finally play Broken Sword 4! Only entry that was PC exclusive.

Yeah man, can't wait for the BETA to come around and see you guys. One of my co-workers said he saw a bunch of people running around with GAF in brackets beside their name :)

You'll still have beta performance issues until they optimize it near retail though :/ But congrats on the new rig!

Thanks! It shipped today and in half an hour I'll be able to check the tracking number. It's coming from Cali and I'm in AZ so shouldn't take long :) As for performance issues, you guys don't even know what that means! You should have seen what happened when I tried to play it on my current system...

[Hawkian]

I'll be leading the defense keyboard force against Hawkian now... mwahahahaha! Oh and that right click into your collectibles shit. HOLY FUCK WHAT! How did I miss that shit!

Raise up arms against me if you will! Then while your arms are raised we'll beat you because you can reach your keyboard and mouse.

[Ashodin]

Raise up arms against me if you will! Then while your arms are raised we'll beat you because you can reach your keyboard and mouse.

Of course I can reach it, it's right in front of me! And I'll snap turn and destroy you with your slow camera skills!

JK

Seriously though, I honed my skills on a keyboard and mouse for MMOs. It would be monumentally difficult to change the way I play games.

[unluckyhat]

Keyboard and mouse all the way. My thief would not have it any other way!

[cartoon_soldier]

Keyboard and mouse all the way. My thief would not have it any other way!

Agreed!

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

Nay, the Kodan are nature-balancing Polar Bears; http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kodan

Is there a name for the elves yet then?

[Ferrio]

Anyone know if there's any type of bug/input form that Anet is offering right now? I wanna chime in about the mouse 3 button not bindable.... that would be the perfect steal button.

[RepairmanJack]

Wow, so I sort of rambled. Sorry for the wall of text, I meant to write my issues with the game so far and ended up going farther in depth than I meant to.

Main thing I took from the beta is that mostly everything needs a lot of tweaks. I think the game is there and it's fun as hell but there is at least one or two things that need tweaked on everything, some more than others.

Here is some of the things that I think need tweaked the most.

Difficulty-It's been talked about non stop and I agree there is just something off about the difficulty on almost all levels. This isn't coming from a perspective of some things were too hard and some were too easy, it's that one time you do it it kills you with nothing you can do, and the other time doing the same thing is easy as can be. This was mostly the case with the personal story, and it wasn't just one it was on different chapters in both human and Norn stories. On the very first mission on the human side I died instantly, I had no chance I just got bombarded with about 5 guys and was near one shot before I could even dodge. Then it restarts and it was almost too easy. The other was about the 4th mission into the Norn's story where there was about 6 enemies and more kept spawning, next time no more spawned and it was easy. Scaling is a whole other issue, but that is mostly what's been talked about.

Leveling-The progression through the zones seemed to be too slow. This could be just a simple xp boost, but I explored non stop did every heart experienced just about every event I could and still finally moved on to the next zone at level 12. This is also with PvP and WvW, which I assumed I got xp for I wasn't paying close enough attention. I enjoyed the time and I liked exploring, it's mostly what I did, but if someone isn't interested in that aspect or doesn't like that zone they are stuck going to another zone too early and possibly having a bad experience with harder mobs, or going to another starting zone. Also the amount of mobs may have a little to do with this. It seemed like there wasn't a steady progression on mobs, there would be a group of 11's and then you would suddenly run into level 13's or 14's. When I feel there should be more than just one group of level 10's and more mobs in general in some areas. It all just seemed like they were trying to fit too much leveling in the starting zone for the most part when that whole zone could have been 1-10 and then the extra stuff have as a reward to the people who want to explore, not have exploring as a requirement.

Combat-Solo, it's fun as hell. Sometimes the perfect amount of difficulty and kiting and just fun. Small group it's also a lot of fun, and can really encourage lot's of interesting teamwork. But the problem comes in the big groups, even with the particle effects down a lot from how it was in the first CBT it still just seemed like so much was going on. I think this could just be an issue of size of the mobs. On big end of zone events like the shadow behemoth everything went smoothly and was fun. But when it was on things like the giant wasp it was too much in a little area to keep track of and people seemed to just spam one or two spells and dodge occasionally. Definitely not fun at all. I like to think this is just because it was the smaller area and the bosses at the end of the zones were more of what to look forward to on later zones end of event mobs. Maybe someone else can comment on other zones as I only made it a little bit into the second zone for humans.

Going into that second zone was also a good thing to see before the end of the BWE as it showed later down the road mobs definitely get smarter. In the first zone stuff was pretty difficult from time to time and then you hit the second zone and mobs start actually avoiding your aoe's and switching weapons. It will be nice to see them also pick up dodge and other mechanics down the road.

Hearts-This was actually one of things I actually liked the most in the BWE. It wasn't perfect and was boring from time to time, but I like the idea of picking what you wanted to do for the quest and complete it how ever you want. My only complaint is sometimes the hearts weren't really varying enough. They seemed to have on or two things that would actually deal with the location and the other would be to kill some random thing. It would be cool if the choices dealt more with where you actually were. In the Human zone you go to a brewery and the only real thing dealing with the actual brew is tasting it which you can only do a couple times. It would be so much cooler and more fun if it actually gave you some way to help make the brew. Or in one you had to clean up the town of rats and graffiti, it would be nice if you could figure out why there is a rat infestation or catch the kid doing the graffiti. I don't I just feel they could do more with hearts than just gather this or kill this. Hope it gets more intricate down the road but this is one I actually really doubt.

Dynamic Events-There is the scaling issue that's been talked about non stop, but I think another issue is the contribution mechanic. There was times I would just be in the area and do nothing involving the event and I would get gold. Or times I would be there from start to finish and get silver. The only bad thing about this is going off the forums it seems like ANet is sticking firm to how the contribution aspect, but I hope that changes. Also it seems like scaling doesn't come into play how ANet previously said it did. It seems like the mobs ramp up if anyone is in the area, not just if they are actually doing something like they said. There would be times I was the only one on an event to keep off the centaurs and then a person or two would come into the area running by and it would get noticeably harder with more mobs. I had also had it the reverse where I would run through an area not realizing there was an event and I would get for instance rooted from a mob, or knocked down by something that seemed to not even be near me.

Sorry again for the wall of text, most if not all of these things were reported and commented on in the forums but thought I would throw some final impressions down here as well. Overall I had a freaking blast this weekend with the game and can't wait for the next beta. Hopefully some of these things are tweaked for us to try out again by then.

Anyone know if there's any type of bug/input form that Anet is offering right now? I wanna chime in about the mouse 3 button not bindable.... that would be the perfect steal button.

No, they took down the bug's and crashes section of the official forums. But if anything you can find another section to throw it in. I think that may have just been an issue with you as I had mine set to my heal button and I had 4 and 5 moust buttons set to roll and weapon swap. So not sure, I'd try to post that there.

[Jira]

I never noticed this:

[Piecake]

Combat-Solo, it's fun as hell. Sometimes the perfect amount of difficulty and kiting and just fun. Small group it's also a lot of fun, and can really encourage lot's of interesting teamwork. But the problem comes in the big groups, even with the particle effects down a lot from how it was in the first CBT it still just seemed like so much was going on. I think this could just be an issue of size of the mobs. On big end of zone events like the shadow behemoth everything went smoothly and was fun. But when it was on things like the giant wasp it was too much in a little area to keep track of and people seemed to just spam one or two spells and dodge occasionally. Definitely not fun at all. I like to think this is just because it was the smaller area and the bosses at the end of the zones were more of what to look forward to on later zones end of event mobs. Maybe someone else can comment on other zones as I only made it a little bit into the second zone for humans.

Based on all of these comments, im glad they limited the dungeon raids to only 5 people. Personally, i was never a fan of huge 10-25 man raids anyways, always wished they were smaller so that that it was easier to form a group. And i never really got the argument how having a gigantic raid improved the combat or fun besides making it feel more 'epic' to some people

[RepairmanJack]

I never noticed this:

Now if they could only match that with smooth turning and running. :lol You get used to it after a bit but it's still odd at first.

Based on all of these comments, im glad they limited the dungeon raids to only 5 people. Personally, i was never a fan of huge 10-25 man raids anyways, always wished they were smaller so that that it was easier to form a group. And i never really got the argument how having a gigantic raid improved the combat or fun besides making it feel more 'epic' to some people

That's one of the big things I actually look forward to on release. With a small group it seemed combat really shined, I can't wait to see the mechanics and teamwork that will be needed for some advanced stuff.

[Ashodin]

I can counter with MY DAMN FEET TOUCH THE GROUND:

[SDBurton]

I was never aware of that. The whole point of WvW is that the server will be matched to what it's suppose to be over a two week period so during the beta it doesn't even really matter. I don't see us changing for any further BWEs but we'll discuss it at a later time.

That's what was mentioned awhile back. I paid no mind to it really because of what you just mentioned.

[Retro]

Holy shit at them feet.

Is there a name for the elves yet then?

I dunno if we're thinking of the same thing, but do you mean the Sylvari? If so, they're called The Nightmare Court; http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Drea...ightmare_Court

[Ferrio]

I don't think it's a fact that we lost. I just don't wanna be stuck on a server where it ends up being a lot of people that are clueless. It's no fun losing cause your server is a clusterfuck, and it's no fun winning cause you're so bad the people you're up against are even worse.

[LumpOfCole]

Where I thought Nightfall and EotN messed up was keeping the 8 man balance in dungeons and instances. I think it should've dropped to 4 when heroes were introduced to give a less chaotic and more strategic mode of thought.

[RepairmanJack]

I don't think it's a fact that we lost. I just don't wanna be stuck on a server where it ends up being a lot of people that are clueless. It's no fun losing cause your server is a clustfuck, and it's no fun winning cause you're so bad the people you're up against are even worse.

It was a beta and it's already been stated a lot that there is a sever lack of tutorial for WvW. Most of the time you are seeing people jump in randomly to check it out and have no clue, and twice we were pitted against servers with large communities on those servers. You can hardly count the server at fault for any of that. I'm betting a lot of servers dealt with the same issues. It was a beta, people will learn and get used to it.

[Ferny]

I can counter with MY DAMN FEET TOUCH THE GROUND:

That's actually....wow. I'm impressed.

[Ferny]

It was a beta and it's already been stated a lot that there is a sever lack of tutorial for WvW. Most of the time you are seeing people jump in randomly to check it out and have no clue, and twice we were pitted against servers with large communities on those servers. You can hardly count the server at fault for any of that. I'm betting a lot of servers dealt with the same issues. It was a beta, people will learn and get used to it.

Yeah exactly. They we're switching servers quickly and after a first go around on a launch server, it'll match everyone up accordingly. Switching servers on beta won't really help any to be honest.

[Ashodin]

I don't think it's a fact that we lost. I just don't wanna be stuck on a server where it ends up being a lot of people that are clueless. It's no fun losing cause your server is a clustfuck, and it's no fun winning cause you're so bad the people you're up against are even worse.

Here's the other thing as well - the servers get matched up based on their performance every so often - so we will not be struggling against "hard" servers for very long. And there's no "reason" to be dominate over another server in the greater scheme of things - I'm not talking about the bonuses servers get for being on top, just the overall general reason - there's not one, which means fighting is more about trying to vy for those buffs and having a good time.

That's why I'm not sweating it and I vote we stay on Henge, I have sort of an identity with the server now, as I imagine does the Guild.

And we're probably one of if not the most populous Guild on the server. I saw GAF and GAFT tags EVERYWHERE.

[Grayman]

Where I thought Nightfall and EotN messed up was keeping the 8 man balance in dungeons and instances. I think it should've dropped to 4 when heroes were introduced to give a less chaotic and more strategic mode of thought.

I enjoyed the lower player counts in profecies a lot more than the 8 man stuff that came later. By the time heroes were introduced I found that the AI was doing too much of the work. For larger groups the battleground has to be made a lot larger and the sub groups focus on separate targets.

The advantage of larger groups is that they can be split up by the dungeon purposely. I haven't yet played a GW2 dungeon but I hope those are stepped up a notch from other games. In my limited experience Turbine is great at dungeon/quest design in MMOs so hopefully the GW team played some DDO or even Asheron's Call. GW2's engine being platforming capable is a huge start for cool dungeons.

[Jira]

When a group of 5 of us took a supply camp that had a Veteran mob and about 4 other normal guards and that was REALLY fun to do. So I'd agree that combat really shines with small group play. I was getting in and out of range, knocking back and stomping mobs to get them away from allies so it gave them more time for their heal to come off CD, I was dodging, etc. I also encountered the same kind of thing with this Guardian in the Human jumping puzzle.

[Jira]

Jon Peters just posted this on the forums:

Hey all. I wanted to talk about this a bit since it is a hot topic here and also on the internets. The intention is that both styles are viable. Certainly right now Melee is more difficult than ranged. There are some things we will try to do to address this, but I think the more you play you would find they are closer than you think. First what’s already there: 1) Melee does more damage. Melee damage is simply higher than ranged damage across the board. 2) Melee has more control. With a few intentional exception Melee has a lot more control than ranged. What Melee needs: 1) defensive tools on more weapons, particularly on lower armor professions. 2) ai needs to favor Melee a bit less than it currently does. What else: Finally because of the more action based nature of combat Melee needs to be taught better. Effective Melee requires skills that translate over from FPS games which are notoriously harder on casual players. You have to wasd to move, constantly aim with your mouse camera, and hit skills on 1-5. Some tips: If you have learned any good Melee tips that you think we should pass on to newer players feel free to post them here. I’ll start with a few tips of my own. - If you don’t have mouse look on when using a skill you will turn to face. I sometimes let go of mouse look as I activate to help me aim through the chaos and then click it back down in between attacks. - Melee has a lot of hard hitting skills and good setup. Utility skills Can really help set up big Melee attacks. Bulls charge on warrior, scorpion wire on thief, judges intervention on guardian. - know when to run. No matter what you are not a tank. You have to move in and out avoiding damage. If you have to soak damage try and bring boons like Protection and Regeneration or conditions like Blindness and the very undervalued Weakness. Thanks for reading this all. Rest assured we will keep working on this and just keep in mind the subtle differences in GW2 combat that take a while to sink in. Jon

[FutureZombie]

So who else was surprised to find that structured pvp was the highlight of their beta experience? The combat is just perfect for small group battles, and the 1v1s are super intense as well. The maps work great and I was able to find a ledge in one map where I could launch arrows without getting hit by anything. So your placement is very important, and there are some fun spots to find. Plus you get to use all of your skills.

[Grayman]

So who else was surprised to find that structured pvp was the highlight of their beta experience? The combat is just perfect for small group battles, and the 1v1s are super intense as well. The maps work great and I was able to find a ledge in one map where I could launch arrows without getting hit by anything. So your placement is very important, and there are some fun spots to find. Plus you get to use all of your skills.

I only briefly played it at the end of the weekend but next beta I am going to dive into that to test out some classes and skills.

[animlboogy]

I only briefly played it at the end of the weekend but next beta I am going to dive into that to test out some classes and skills.

Same. I really regret not spending a full day on it.

[JustProgress]

So who else was surprised to find that structured pvp was the highlight of their beta experience? The combat is just perfect for small group battles, and the 1v1s are super intense as well. The maps work great and I was able to find a ledge in one map where I could launch arrows without getting hit by anything. So your placement is very important, and there are some fun spots to find. Plus you get to use all of your skills.

Loved it except for downed state. Please delete, thanks.

[FutureZombie]

Same. I really regret not spending a full day on it.

It does seem to be the forgotten third of the game. My only complaint is with the setup. There's no time between matches, your skills don't reset for the beginning of a match, and sometimes you are automatically switched to the other team to balance the game.

[Ashodin]

My responses below:

Hey all. I wanted to talk about this a bit since it is a hot topic here and also on the internets. The intention is that both styles are viable. Certainly right now Melee is more difficult than ranged. There are some things we will try to do to address this, but I think the more you play you would find they are closer than you think.

Indeed, I did not have much trouble as most did.

First what’s already there: 1) Melee does more damage. Melee damage is simply higher than ranged damage across the board. 2) Melee has more control. With a few intentional exception Melee has a lot more control than ranged.

This is very true. Melee is much more damage than ranged. Much more. Ranged just has an easier time ATM to do more of it over time than melee can.

Melee does have a crazy amount of control. Locks, stuns, immobilize... death grip style stuff, it's all there.

What Melee needs: 1) defensive tools on more weapons, particularly on lower armor professions. 2) ai needs to favor Melee a bit less than it currently does.

What else: Finally because of the more action based nature of combat Melee needs to be taught better. Effective Melee requires skills that translate over from FPS games which are notoriously harder on casual players. You have to wasd to move, constantly aim with your mouse camera, and hit skills on 1-5.

This is why I think I do better with melee than most. I do everything he says here.

Some tips: If you have learned any good Melee tips that you think we should pass on to newer players feel free to post them here. I’ll start with a few tips of my own. - If you don’t have mouse look on when using a skill you will turn to face. I sometimes let go of mouse look as I activate to help me aim through the chaos and then click it back down in between attacks.

This I'm not so sure about. If you're good you should anticipate the direction your enemy is in and place your general camera angle where they would be. But I can see how this will help.

- Melee has a lot of hard hitting skills and good setup. Utility skills Can really help set up big Melee attacks. Bulls charge on warrior, scorpion wire on thief, judges intervention on guardian.

This. This so hard. It was often on my bar, but between Judge's Intervention, Flashing Blade, and Leap of Faith, I was never far behind ranged enemies. It would not be uncommon to watch me catch up to a running away enemy in PVP or WVW.

- know when to run. No matter what you are not a tank. You have to move in and out avoiding damage. If you have to soak damage try and bring boons like Protection and Regeneration or conditions like Blindness and the very undervalued Weakness.

This also so hard. You have no idea how much conditions fuck people over. Blindness means their next attack misses. Even if it's that really good one. Weakness means they take 33% more damage. 33% more damage! Protection is the opposite, you take 33% less! Regeneration is kinda meh, the regen is not very fast.

Thanks for reading this all. Rest assured we will keep working on this and just keep in mind the subtle differences in GW2 combat that take a while to sink in. Jon

Thanks bro!

[Jira]

Since there’s a lot of topics and discussions on this, I figured I’d make a post to let you guys know that we’re listening to your feedback on the matter, and there are valid points on both sides of the issue. In general, we’ve been fairly happy with the difficulty of the game in most places. However, we’re still in the process of working on PvE balance, so a lot of things will probably be adjusted and changed in the upcoming weeks. Here’s some of the areas we’re looking into updating: New-player experience: It often takes people a while to get used to GW2 combat and learn to avoid attacks and learn what their skills do and how they work. We’re looking at slowing down the rate in which we introduce different enemy mechanics so that new players have more of a chance to get accustomed to the game. Event scaling: We’re looking at ways to make the scaling on a lot of events work better for large amounts of players. Monster balance: Some enemies are significantly more difficult than others while others aren’t very threatening- we’re working on updating the balance for both of these categories so that there’s a more consistent difficulty level between various enemy types. Individual quest and event balance: Some events and personal story quests can be overly difficult, and we’re looking at identifying these places. Again, thanks a lot for all the feedback on this- we’re always trying to make the game a great experience, and feedback from you guys on what you’re enjoying and not enjoying helps us improve it.

.

[inky]

Well, I didn't find the melee does most damage entirely true, at least for Guardian hammer or Ranger 2hand sword, and while I did get 1-shot by bosses I didn't find it as frustrating as most people did, not even in WvW. What I did like about melee were some of the mobility skills. Guardian sword's blink is an awesome initiator, especially if you are carrying a torch and you set yourself on fire beforehand. Ranger's 2 hand sword jump skill was great as well, the one where you summon a bird. It is on a rather short cool down and the great thing about not having to target an enemy to use it is that you can pretty much all the time, offensively or defensively.

[FutureZombie]

I thought using WASD to move in an MMO made you a noob.

[cartoon_soldier]

Jon Peters just posted this on the forums:

I will wait for next BWE, but seems like he is somewhat saying l2p

And if the objective as a meele player is to run in, hit and run out...might has well play range and just keep running out if the mob moves towards you.

[Ferrio]

Jon Peters just posted this on the forums:

To me the trouble with melee wasn't it's difficulty. The trouble was you can't see shit in big fights, so even if you're a great player the visual cues to evade etc are lost in the storm.

Also why are some AOE markers white and some red? I'd think red was enemy, but that's not always the case since I've taken damage from stuff in white circles when I thought it was a friendly combo zone.

[Ashodin]

ArenaNet, you so awesome. They feedback this shit so fast and are like "yes sir, we know, we're on it".

And it's not using WASD to move makes you a noob, it's TURNING with the keyboard.

IE, using W and A to manually turn your player, whereas mouselook is MUCH faster and more orientating.

[cartoon_soldier]

ArenaNet, you so awesome. They feedback this shit so fast and are like "yes sir, we know, we're on it". And it's not using WASD to move makes you a noob, it's TURNING with the keyboard. IE, using W and A to manually turn your player, whereas mouselook is MUCH faster and more orientating.

But a PvE portion of a MMO shouldn't be balanced around whether you keyboard turn or not.

[Achtius]

To me the trouble with melee wasn't it's difficulty. The trouble was you can't see shit in big fights, so even if you're a great player the visual cues to evade etc are lost in the storm. Also why are some AOE markers white and some red? I'd think red was enemy, but that's not always the case since I've taken damage from stuff in white circles when I thought it was a friendly combo zone.

Yeah, that happened to me too. and the strangest thing is that I was using Whirling Defense, and I still got hurt from the AoE :(

[Ashodin]

But a PvE portion of a MMO shouldn't be balanced around whether you keyboard turn or not.

I'd say since the game is based on skills, it most definitely should, but should also teach players this tactic. We need some sort of "MMO bootcamp" or something, lol.

Also why are some AOE markers white and some red? I'd think red was enemy, but that's not always the case since I've taken damage from stuff in white circles when I thought it was a friendly combo zone.

This needs fixed. It's terribly hard to identify what was what. Colors AND maybe friendly ones are squiggly, and enemy ones are spiky?

[Grayman]

I never looked did mouse look have a toggle option? I used hold right click in some of my pve but not constantly. Tank controls with locked camera to movement if my favourite control that is not first person.

[inky]

Also why are some AOE markers white and some red? I'd think red was enemy, but that's not always the case since I've taken damage from stuff in white circles when I thought it was a friendly combo zone.

The stupid arrow carts from WvW had white AoE markers and do insane amounts of damage. I died a lot of times to those things thinking they were friendly arrow attacks.

[Jira]

It is likely that your will start fresh with the next Beta Weekend Event, including the friends list. That isn’t certain, though. The Dev Team will decide about this later.

.