Guild Wars 2?

[tomchick]

Wait, so if we ask you to stop posting, you’ll stop posting? Does that apply to this thread, or all threads? Because I’ll gladly take you up on that offer!

-Tom

[DKDArtagnan]

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!

I’d tend to agree with that.

I love a beautiful imaginary world - but it has to FEEL real, and not be blatantly artificial.

[DKDArtagnan]

Wait, so if we ask you to stop posting, you’ll stop posting? Does that apply to this thread, or all threads? Because I’ll gladly take you up on that offer!

-Tom

I was asked a question, and I answered it.

AFAIK, you’re sort of “in charge” of this site - so if you want me to stop posting here, I’ll respect that.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to post against the wishes of the people operating the site.

So, I’ll stop posting when people stop asking me stuff in this thread.

I hope that will work for you?

[tomchick]

AFAIK, you’re sort of “in charge” of this site - so if you want me to stop posting here, I’ll respect that.

Okay, I’ll bite, but only from the perspective of someone who has to read your posts instead of in any official capacity. If you’re offering to leave, then please do. For someone who sucks at having discussions with people online, you try to do it far too much. Please go away.

I hope that will work for you?

-Tom

[DKDArtagnan]

Okay, I’ll bite. If you’re offering to leave, then please do. For someone who sucks at having discussions with people online, you try to do it far too much. Please go away.

I hope that will work for you?

-Tom

Didn’t I just make that clear?

I’ll leave very soon, so no worries.

[tomchick]

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.

Mr. Rock, have you jumped into the World vs World yet, or the arena PvP? I think you’ll find they each offer completely different kinds of experiences.

-Tom

[mrcjhicks]

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

I’ve been fiddling off and on with an Asura thief. I was bouncing around and thinking this is what Yoda is like in the star wars prequels. If Yoda was a horrible toothsome monster.

[TheRock]

Mr. Rock, have you jumped into the World vs World yet, or the arena PvP? I think you’ll find they each offer completely different kinds of experiences.
-Tom

I will definitely try arena with my Mesmer and some WvW with my Engineer. And even when I stop playing for a few days and think “no more”, I start missing it and get back in again. It’s got that “hook”

[Murbella]

Giving up mesmer. Just doesn’t seem that fun to me.

Greatsword mesmer does look impressive as hell, but kind of a pain to use. The problem is the clones/images disappear when your target dies. It seems like a poor choice to wed the clone to the target in the first place. So when i am doing any sort of group event, often the target dies before i get more than one (AT THE MOST) clones on it. This means i have to micromanage what i set clones on to instead of just having fun with them.

And if the group event is against a single boss… forget about it because it probably has pbaoe “FUCK YOU MÊLÉE” abilities which my clone won’t get out of. I don’t know what kills them exactly, but i do know that playing my mesmer, if i leave clones up for more than a few seconds against a boss, they end up dropping like flies.

I’ve been enjoying my engineer and ranger a lot.

Ran in to a great deal of difficulty with my ranger earlier. My ranger is a flame thrower build focused on high crit, high condition damage and throwing up tons of dots and crap. The problem is that my quest was for an area where everything was immune to burning, so i had a hell of a time with anything.

Then to top it off, my little group, taking heavy losses along the way found some flying demon boss girl in this cavern, and while she seemed really hard, we are slowly doing it until… she does some attack which causes rocks to fall from the ceiling and lava to come from the ground, killing my entire group of 8ish people in seconds and then final killing them from the lava. I guess we needed fire resist or something as this was a HUGE radius attacked that killed the entire spread out party.

I also foolishly noticed that she wasn’t immune to burning, unlike everything else, so i was flame throwing her, which didn’t help my situation a ton.

Ranger is fun too. I’m hoping to do some sort of bastardized greatsword spirits build like i saw in beta videos, but i think they nerfed it so i will probably end up being some other sort of great sworder. I am however focused on the greatsword.

[Hanacker]

Giving up mesmer. Just doesn’t seem that fun to me.

Greatsword mesmer does look impressive as hell, but kind of a pain to use. The problem is the clones/images disappear when your target dies. It seems like a poor choice to wed the clone to the target in the first place. So when i am doing any sort of group event, often the target dies before i get more than one (AT THE MOST) clones on it. This means i have to micromanage what i set clones on to instead of just having fun with them.

And if the group event is against a single boss… forget about it because it probably has pbaoe “FUCK YOU MÊLÉE” abilities which my clone won’t get out of. I don’t know what kills them exactly, but i do know that playing my mesmer, if i leave clones up for more than a few seconds against a boss, they end up dropping like flies.

Pistol, staff, scepter, and torch all have abilities that make ranged illusions. So use one of those if you’re having problems. Against a lot of bosses it ends up being me and three staff buddies shooting the big dude.

But I don’t see how anyone could dislike the greatsword’s phantasmal berserker. Summon a dude who shows up and spins for a ton of damage on everything in the area? Yes, please. If you think he’s going to die quickly, just blow him up after he does his initial spin for more damage.

But yeah, if you don’t think micromanaging clones is fun, this might not be the class for you.

[krayzkrok]

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.

I got a glimpse into this psychology yesterday around the “Tail of a Dying Star” where you’re transformed into a raven for a while. This thing kicks grawl butt! Seeing my tiny little bird character walking around like he owned the place, smacking grawl around was enormously satisfying. Such a tiny little thing, such a massive punch. Pity I had to change back really.

[Sean_Tudor]

Anyway, carry on.

Thanks for your comments and see you later. Please close the door on your way out.

[Sean_Tudor]

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.

I’ve managed to solo some of the smaller elite events. I’ve pretty much had to use all of my skills and constantly switch my abilities and weapons kits to stay alive. The elite skills are a big help. It is very challenging but immensely satisfying when successful.

[Murbella]

Pistol, staff, scepter, and torch all have abilities that make ranged illusions. So use one of those if you’re having problems. Against a lot of bosses it ends up being me and three staff buddies shooting the big dude.

But I don’t see how anyone could dislike the greatsword’s phantasmal berserker. Summon a dude who shows up and spins for a ton of damage on everything in the area? Yes, please. If you think he’s going to die quickly, just blow him up after he does his initial spin for more damage.

But yeah, if you don’t think micromanaging clones is fun, this might not be the class for you.

I like pet classes (engineer, ranger and necromancer are my current active characters), but with mesmer they are more annoying dots than pets.

The problem with phantasmal berserker is it takes too long to summon and takes too long to be effective after summoning (because it has to run up and with greatsword i stay at max range), so it seems basically useless in general fighting and it seems to die against bosses that do stay up long enough.

Aoe damage also seems lacking as well. Yes, i acn summon some clones and explode them in a group, but this brings us back to linking clone life to the target. What are the chances if i summon a couple clones against a one guy in a group that he dies before they can explode the group? What about the chances of some of my clones dying before i get 3 up for the big boom? Even if i do explode them, i’m now left with my explode on cooldown and then what? yes, greatsword has an aoe attack but it seemed very disappointing to me. Slow, low radius and low to medium damage.

The class just doesn’t seem active enough for me and maybe that is because they don’t have any fun abilities at low levels.

I think i would love the class if i could clone myself and then order my clone army around, or if i didn’t have to worry about losing all of my clones because their target died.

[Fishbreath]

Having only two weapon sets its something like a tragedy for mesmer, at least as far as I can tell. I’m finally settling in on something like a groove, after having tried pretty much every weapon by level 12. Scepter/pistol is a good combination for everyday use, giving me range, a block/counter, a hefty Confuse nuke, and easy illusion creation (I’m using utility skills to maintain range when I need to). Staff as a backup provides lots of AoE condition support, and decent single-target damage with Phantasmal Warlock.

[Sean_Tudor]

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.

Different aspects appeal to different players. There are people in my guild who are only interested in how their online avatar looks. Others are only interested in PvP. Players like myself tend to look at the game as a whole. I’ve never been a big PvP’er in any MMO and tend to avoid it. In GW2 I’ve been playing WvW constantly. I think GW2 has done a good job of catering to a wide variety of interests and removing a lot of the shitty MMO paradigms that have plagued the genre over the last 10 years.

I also believe the fun of GW2 is the combat. It’s such a big part of the game and ArenaNet has gone the extra mile to make the combat visceral and varied.

[Murbella]

I still feel like there is too much beyond my control as a player in gw2.

I like that i can dodge things, but a lot of bosses seem to have instant debuffs that do heavy damage. The fire boss i fought earlier was doing some instant fire dot on me from time to time that did massive damage. I fought some mermaid witch raid boss earlier that had a similar thing except it was a bleed.

Gw2 combat may be more active than wow, but i’ve played DC online and gw2 is no DC online.

Also gw2 is basically a semi evolved form of the two largest MMO paradigms (and likely among the most reviled) there is, kill quests and rep grinds. My daily life in gw2 is basically wandering around doing these.

[Hanacker]

The problem with phantasmal berserker is it takes too long to summon and takes too long to be effective after summoning (because it has to run up and with greatsword i stay at max range), so it seems basically useless in general fighting and it seems to die against bosses that do stay up long enough.

No, he gets summoned on your target and starts spinning almost immediately. It takes a while for his second spin to go off, but the initial damage is pretty nice.

Aoe damage also seems lacking as well.

Yeah, there’s some but it’s mostly on big cooldowns.

The class just doesn’t seem active enough for me and maybe that is because they don’t have any fun abilities at low levels.

I think i would love the class if i could clone myself and then order my clone army around, or if i didn’t have to worry about losing all of my clones because their target died.

Maybe the problem is that you’re thinking of it too much like a pet class. I don’t know how you could possibly not find it active enough while simultaneously complaining that it requires too much micromanagement. Have you tried 1H sword? It’s a lot of fun popping in and out of melee range and swapping to ranged weapons when things start getting too hairy.

[TheWombat]

Mesmer is definitely not a pet class. Think of the clones/phantasms as smart bombs or missiles, with limited autonomy. It’s like taking ye olde fireball and splitting its damage up into a clone or three, delivered via phantasmal sword whacking or whatever. I like my little (15) Mesmer, especially with a two-handed sword. Pretty cool stuff, and being able to switch to another load out with defensive abilities when necessary is nice, too.

[Kyle700]

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.

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.

I have found the exploration in this game a lot more fun then Skyrim. It is so much more active and large scale. That being said, I never got past level 15 in Skyrim, but that is because it couldn’t see the appeal.

I don’t understand all this “what do you do at the level cap” talk. If you just look at guild wars 2 like a single player game, you"ll realize there doesn’t even need to be an end game (there is). Like, the only 2 end game options in any mmo seems to be either athstetic, or getting bigger swords. In guild wars, you can go for 100% map completion, sPvP (which is fantastic) and WvW, which gives you an incentive to go back to PvE. Then there’s dungeons.

The amount of stuff you can do in this game is astounding. At least for me.

I only worry about the larger group bosses for each zone. Most of the smaller events seem soloable unless they are a single boss fight. At least with my thief. It is kind of easy as a thief when my ult is off cooldown though.