Guild Wars 2?

[Derbain]

Also, I’d advise anyone against creating a large character model. It leads to some frustrating camera problems in tight spaces and around vegetation. It makes some of the jumping puzzles in caverns a lot harder than they should be. On the upside, you look intimidating to Asura.

On the flip side, I play the smallest of Asura and I’m constantly kicking myself for creating a character so small as anytime there are more than half a dozen people on screen, I seem to lose track of myself!

[Derbain]

And, as a side note, Quaraline just maxed out her Weaponcrafting skill, so if anyone needs anything just give me a shout in game.

[Daagar]

Ditto. Maybe I’m just not seeing/hearing the chatter, but is BFF doing any organized WvW? I’m in the ET zone. How about you?

I’m actually Central, but chatter has been very minimal. I finally represented QTT the past couple of nights and the difference in general chatter was pretty amazing (ie., there was some). As a WoW player, I love guild chat even if it is just random crap. Now, this could purely be the times I’m on and who happens to be around.

I haven’t seen any organized W3 stuff, but that could be a matter of no one being able to actually get in…

[Murbella]

That’s what I like about GW2 though. Even melee classes typically have ranged options available. While you may not be cranking out top DPS on a melee-unfriendly boss as a result, you can take that time to fill a support/ranged role instead and show off your melee DPS greatness another time.

I’m wandering the wilds, as is the normal activity in gw2 and i come across a big dynamic event trying to kill some boss in a multi step event. How am i supposed to know he is an anti mêlée boss before dying to him?

Agreed - Every class has tools to be either ranged or melee and I am sure thats why you can swap weapons like that. Ranged and mobility is a MUST against some bosses, and as a ranger you are very well suited for that.
Nothing wrong with making bosses you dont just stand in front and hit 2 buttons.

Oh i am extremely mobile generally and i do weapon weapon switch a lot, but i am focused on greatsword so unless i’m dodging something at range or there is some special attack or i’m nearly dead and trying to hold on, i’m going to be in mêlée.

Also, as noted, myself and everyone else were behind the boss. I’ve played WoW for WAY too long to ever stand in front of a boss.

I am willing to bet that there ARE visual cues in the monster you were talking about. There has been in every other boss I’ve seen so far in GW2. Also, you can be revived by team members so its not like its game over when it happens. You learn a bit more about the boss and know how to approach it next time, which is a fine mechanic.

As for ranged - My other main(haha, yeah, I suffer from Altholism) is a hunter, and I certainly cannot stand still and let my pet tank in most cases. If I do that, I get hit and die.

Edit: Also, some monsters are either less resistant to, or return ranged attacks of various kinds.

It isn’t impossible that there are visual queues i missed. The attack’s radius could have been beyond my visual area, in which case i wouldn’t have seen anything, but not terribly likely. The attack almost looks like it would have been a frontal cone from the graphic, but then every mêlée surrounding him dies instantly. It happened twice in a row too so i assume it wasn’t just a fluke.

Still we’re talking about 5-6 people mêléeing behind the boss (and probably some on the sides) that dies instantly to this attack twice in a row. You’d think if it had some big obvious “HEY MOVE OUT OF THE WAY OR DIE INSTANTLY FOR A SECOND TIME” sign at least someone would have moved?

[Razgon]

Oh, it wouldn’t happen to be the Giant Champion in the second charr area, would it? I was just part of a huge 20 minute fight against it as it attacked a town and I died twice because I was too close to it when it stomped. That one definitely has a wide white circle that shows before an attack - it also throws boulders you need to dodge.

Thankfully there are usually a lot of people near such a place that getting raised from dead isnt a big issue.

[Murbella]

Nope, it was in the norn area.

There is some huge event where the sons of s…something are trying to do some ritual, so you stop them and fight the uber shaman.

He does other aoe attacks that i was able to dodge. Not to mention none of these attacks were anywhere near damaging. The anti mêlée one i encountered earlier one hit my range and other warriors/classes. Now, my ranger isn’t some power house defender, but still this is a lot more damage than the average aoe attack.

The second time i died to him, he did the anti mêlée aoe and then he summoned some huge storm immediately afterward, so like 8 people go to “fight for your life” mode instantly and then immediately after they are hit by this storm that blows them away and instantly final kills them. Thus i couldn’t revive the second time.

[Razgon]

ohh - thats the “End event” for the zone as I remember it - He’s the guy who’s trying to summon the icedragon, right? I fought him a few times and died there as well but dont remember any signs of him going nova before it happens though.

I cant figure out if its a good or bad mechanic. I have a feeling these guys strength is based on the amount of people being near him (At least its so when its percentage of enemies left) so that means lots of people if his attacks are strong, thus you should be revived pretty easily.
On the other hand,its annoying to die just like that.

That said, he IS the end boss of the area and you get a HUGE chest of items afterwards when he’s slain.

[Murbella]

Not sure. I was just exploring and ran in to a HUGE group of people fighting him. So of course i joined in.

If it does scale on numbers, that could have had an effect since there were a TON of people fighting him.

[DKDArtagnan]

Well… I lasted until level 33.

The world is beautiful and the game is truly impressive in technical terms, but I just don’t see any point in going on. There’s nothing at cap that excites me - and there’s a distinct lack of toys to look forward to.

sPvP doesn’t interest me - and doesn’t seem to give incentive beyond simply winning. WvW is elaborate - but will never allow the individual to stand out in a meaningful way, and I’m afraid my ego is such that it needs to be able to stand out to invest what it takes to succeed.

I realise that I’m not a popular person around here, especially based on my opinions and my way of expressing them - and I expect nothing but contempt for what I think about GW2 - but I had to let it out anyway. Call it a compulsion worthy of loathing :)

Well… At least the investment was small and I definitely got a decent return, even at this /age. The shark cavern thingy in Lion’s Arch was fantastic and almost worth the price of admission in itself.

I feel like the genre is all but dead to me at this point. I hold little hope that it will be restored to something that I can appreciate in the long-term, but maybe ArcheAge will change my mind.

Anyway, carry on.

[triggercut]

[Wolff]

I feel like the genre is all but dead to me at this point.

I only really like pvp that lets me roflstomp undergeared players. I convinently ignore all the cosmetic upgrades that show off your accomplishments. Oh I also have no interest in that commander thing.

Anyway, carry on.

Does this mean you won’t post in the thread anymore?

[DKDArtagnan]

Does this mean you won’t post in the thread anymore?

Sure, if you want me to stop - I’ll stop.

[tomchick]

What am i even supposed to do against this crap? Just used range attacks all of the time?

As others have noted, you probably just missed the cue for the attack. I almost guarantee there was something either in the animation or a big circle drawn on the ground to let you know that you needed to get out of the way.

-Tom

[tomchick]

I wonder how well-balanced some of the events are? I did one tonight that was a skill point event and I don’t think there’s any way I could have soloed it. I had to defeat a veteran NPC and his 3-4 henchmen.

Events are scaled based on local population. That said, I suspect some of them intentionally can’t be soloed. The idea is probably that you do something else until a few people coalesce around the event.

But, yeah, what’s going to happen if the population thins out? I remember jumping back into Rift and being pretty much helpless to participate in what made it special because there were times no one else was around. I think Guild Wars 2 has a better handle on this, but I still wonder about the longer term prospects for some of these cool events.

-Tom

[JPR]

And it’s those situations where it is hardest to recognize, too. All of the people and all of the particle effects can cover up the ground markers. And there is often at least a little bit of lag during those events, and even a tiny delay there will get you killed.

[tomchick]

Also, I’d advise anyone against creating a large character model. It leads to some frustrating camera problems in tight spaces and around vegetation. It makes some of the jumping puzzles in caverns a lot harder than they should be. On the upside, you look intimidating to Asura.

As a big fella myself, I haven’t really had that many problems with my fat butt getting in the way. But you’re right that we sometimes have to be more involved with camera management. In the long run, however, I like being able to pick myself out of a crowd by my height, stance, and royal red bathrobe.

I do love the teensy little asura running around and I’m curious to see the world from their perspective, but don’t they worry about getting stepped on? And it’s really endearing to see an asura “brute”. Awwww, really, that tiny and you think you’re a “brute”? How adorable.

-Tom

[Knightsaber]

Well… I lasted until level 33.

The world is beautiful and the game is truly impressive in technical terms, but I just don’t see any point in going on. There’s nothing at cap that excites me - and there’s a distinct lack of toys to look forward to.

sPvP doesn’t interest me - and doesn’t seem to give incentive beyond simply winning. WvW is elaborate - but will never allow the individual to stand out in a meaningful way, and I’m afraid my ego is such that it needs to be able to stand out to invest what it takes to succeed.

I realise that I’m not a popular person around here, especially based on my opinions and my way of expressing them - and I expect nothing but contempt for what I think about GW2 - but I had to let it out anyway. Call it a compulsion worthy of loathing :)

Well… At least the investment was small and I definitely got a decent return, even at this /age. The shark cavern thingy in Lion’s Arch was fantastic and almost worth the price of admission in itself.

I feel like the genre is all but dead to me at this point. I hold little hope that it will be restored to something that I can appreciate in the long-term, but maybe ArcheAge will change my mind.

Anyway, carry on.

I’m beginning to agree, but I think I should stick it out further than the whole level 19 I’m at.

[Daagar]

Out of curiosity - what would you want at the end? Other MMO’s, the ‘endgame’ is running the same raid over and over to get incrementally better gear so you can… run the same raid over and over. GW2 instead seem to focus on the pretty princess simulator, so you farm/do whatever to get karma/gold to dress up your character and dominate WvWvW with your FABULOUSNESS. I’m wondering if it is a psychological thing, where some people respond better to seeing numbers go up while other respond better to visual changes.

[TheRock]

I always feel the same way about MMO"s. I get excited to play them, play them for a few weeks, get up a ways with 2-3 characters, and then wonder why I’m playing.

I used to love games where I could explore a new beautiful imaginary world but after so many of them, it’s just the same old thing…I’d much rather have a hard core PVP MMO then something like most games anymore.

I guess that’s why I enjoy FPS’s so much.

I keep playing this and enjoy the variety but at the end of the day, I feel I just wasted 2 hours on something which just does not mean much to my real life. Guess I’m just getting old!

[DKDArtagnan]

Out of curiosity - what would you want at the end? Other MMO’s, the ‘endgame’ is running the same raid over and over to get incrementally better gear so you can… run the same raid over and over. GW2 instead seem to focus on the pretty princess simulator, so you farm/do whatever to get karma/gold to dress up your character and dominate WvWvW with your FABULOUSNESS. I’m wondering if it is a psychological thing, where some people respond better to seeing numbers go up while other respond better to visual changes.

You seem to be talking about modern themepark design, which is not my cup of tea.

What I’d want is to have my actions affect the open world - and for PvP, I’d like my objectives to exist in the actual world - and not an instanced area that will just reset every 2 weeks.

I hate the gear grind as much as most people do - but I don’t think removing it and replacing it with cosmetic gear grind is much of an improvement.

Now, I think the GW2 idea of having all content be relevant by downscaling is pretty cool - except that it’s a very lazy way of handling downscaling. It’s too artificial and makes you almost forget that you’re progressing. I would probably prefer having higher level enemies appear on certain areas of the map as you get back to them, and have exploration stay rewarding as it is now. To have even the beginner areas scale you down at high level - makes for a very poor sense of power progression.

I understand that they want to give players most of their power in the early stages - so as to not feel like they have to grind to be competitive - but that also removes the basic power-progression carrot that has been a part of RPGs since their inception.

I’m not talking about MMO treadmill grind here, but the basic RPG power trip that is inherent to most other examples of the genre.

They’re not only giving you most of the toys by level 30 - they’re also taking away any longterm perspective at cap that would inspire you to get there.

But don’t get me wrong here. The basic activities are fun - and the exploration is strong for an MMO. Of course, it’s absolutely nothing compared to a strong singleplayer exploration game (Skyrim is a good example) - but it’s better than almost all other MMOs for map exploration.

The problem, for me, is that I can’t ignore that there’s no meaningful cap game while I journey towards level 80. If I could do that, I’d probably enjoy the game until that point.

I’m curious to see how popular the game will be once most people are at cap and have exhausted the content within 2-3 months.