Guild Wars 2

After playing three days in the BWE1 my final verdict of this Beta Weekend Event 1, (without going into much detail because there are a lot of other threads with that):

It’s a beta, of course there are bugs that need to be fixed, some things should change, but overall it was a great and fun experience and I have high hopes for the final and finished expansion.

What do you think?

I pretty much agree with the OP.

First I would like to say that Anet did an amazing job with the specializations. At first I had to get used to them all, especially the DH. But after a jerky start (Looking at you, Modrem snipers!) I slowly started to gain a better understanding of the class.

The same goes for Chrono, Reaper and Tempest. Although I have to mention that the Tempest was not my favorite. The Reaper and DH on the other hand were amazing!

The map was nice too. Though getting started and knowing where to go was a bit of a mess, I must say that it felt rather enjoyable to be led loose and just try to find your own path. Especially since a lot of people, including me, were so accustomed to the old days where there was little to no hand holding.

And finally I want to add that the story has taken me by surprise. I must admit that I expected less. But man, how was I wrong. Of course the voice acting wasn’t top notch, but it was good. Especially since there seems to be a destinction between playing a sylvari and another race, thank you ArenaNet!

I really enjoyed the map and the things I have experienced so far. I only got the chance to glide for a few moments, since I didn’t want to spoil the surprise and fun it may hold once the expansion launches.

Anyhow… I’d give it a 8/10 :-)

When the events in Verdant Brink were running and not broken I had a great time following the event chain.

I really enjoyed the gliders.

I really enjoyed the mobs and trying to figure out the best ways to kill them.

Not having guild chat seriously sucks.

I feel that if there are going to be so few waypoints on a map, especially a map that is difficult to maneuver, then they should never be contested.

Dragon Hunter (at least with a long bow) wasn’t as much fun as pure melee Guardian.

Chronomancer was a lot of fun. It felt sneaky.

Mushroom bouncers are dangerous and deadly if you don’t pay close attention and aim your bounce.

Moving from Bounce to Glider is great fun.

The day/night cycle added frustration with trying to spawn the Wyvern event. Then again, it should always be possible to fail. I am just sorry that I was never able to see the Wyvern event.

I absolutely loved the AI at the event where players are supposed to place bombs in a certain area. The mordrem would immediately train anyone picking up a bomb. That was fun.

Smokescales are ugly. I’ll figure it out eventually, just hope they aren’t nerfed in the meantime.

having done most of this in the previous beta, Iopted to try things out in tyria again. It seemed everytime i was in verdant brink, all the events were either bugged or not happening. I tried a mix of cele berserk gear in a multitude of combinations and determined that revenant is still to underpowered for a heavy class with only 1 ranged option. It still lacks dps in comparison to the ele and other refurbished classes that were with me in the map. Its pretty sad when an ele can sit and facetank a vet with minimal dodge, yet revenant gets spanked like a dog playing with a chew toy.

I feel the updated classes were better balanced to handle the mobs in VB, and after watching others play those roles in the map, it confirmed it for me. Yes there is a curve to learning the way mobs work, but players coming in with classes other then revenant seemed to be able to do more damage and take much less in the same time period.

I think more balancing needs to be done with revenant and definitely fix the events from not working. I would recommend dropping the xp required to level the masteries as well, as it was too difficult to test things when you are spending several hours just opening the first box of it. Testing would likely go a bit better if we could get into the masteries a little bit quicker. Maybe drop xp requirements, or issue a beggining number of points that can be spent right away? Im open for suggestions on this one.

I played thorough the weekend and it was fun.

- The history was pretty good and challenging, something that i feel was fresh and cool. Hearing Mordremoth's voice as a Sylvary blew my mind, thank you for that.
- The elite specialization was amazingly done, the classes i played(Chronomancer, Dragon Hunter, Tempest) retain the feels of the core class, but with the mechanics change make them distinct enough to be cool on its own.
- I LOVED the Chronomancer, it was so well done and it doesn’t feel utterly overpowered in PvP, the support it brings to the table make it cool and unique (like his parent, the Mesmer).
- The events when they werent bugged, feels cool too and refreshing.
- My friends and spend so much time gliding, it was ton of fun.
- The masteries leveling feels good, i wan’t able to unlock them all (like 2 or 3 maybe?). I will try to level more on the next BWE so i can see how it feels.
- I was confused on the Map Reward thing, but after doing a couple of events i got reward for several ones. My question on this one is, does all the events in the zone give that reward or does it have a change to give you those items?

All in all, the experience was pretty cool. Can’t wait to play the expansion

Zok.4956:

After playing three days in the BWE1 my final verdict of this Beta Weekend Event 1, (without going into much detail because there are a lot of other threads with that):

It’s a beta, of course there are bugs that need to be fixed, some things should change, but overall it was a great and fun experience and I have high hopes for the final and finished expansion.

What do you think?

Love
*Map design. Beautiful environments that look and play nothing like what we’ve seen before in GW2.

*Elite Specializations. The Elite Specializations are core to the expansion. I love that on the new map I’m immediately surrounded by Tempest, Reapers, Dragon Hunters and Revenants. It feels like an expansion should. I think the Elite Specializations should be unlocked during the tutorial or shortly after. Having these professions on the first map makes it really come alive and I like the way they are designed. Even the Tempest which isn’t getting much love feels new with the overloads.

*Depth of Instanced Story. From what little we saw, I would say it’s much better scripted than anything else I’ve played in the game. The only personal story chapter in GW2 that was well scripted and well designed was The Battle of Fort Trinity. It’s the ONLY one that left any lasting impression at all. The instanced story in HoT we got to play matched that in depth. Very happy.

Dislike
*Limited map points I think there needs to be one or two more travel points on the first map of HoT. The reason is the map is much larger than it looks due to the vertical aspect. Once you have the basic Glider you’re ok but until then it’s a living hell that could be made more tolerable with the addition of maybe one new travel point to the south of the map, I’d suggest right past the bridge between Dry Step Mesa and Shourded Ruins.

Hate
*Adventures
The ones available in beta are incredibly boring. I think the concept of putting a leaderboard on trivial repayable content is a HORRIBLE idea. Now if the Adventures were creatively designed and really felt like mini arcade games that would be different, but the ones available were not. It takes a great amount of planning and skill to create short challenging puzzles. When you can’t find the fun no one is going to care. Do you honestly think anyone is going to care about the names on the Adventure leaderboards anyway? Maybe they will, but I just don’t think so. It’s not like the WvW and sPvP leaderboards where it’s one location. It’s not the same level of gratification at all. Think about how many of these you’ll have. I think it’s just way too much. I think the Adventures presented were poorly designed. I think I would have rather seen Hearts return.

*Stronghold. Not sure where to start with this one. Everyone on my team was confused. At the very least it needs a better interactive tutorial. But the strategy overall was not fun. It’s possible it takes more plays to “get it” but I never had to do that with Conquest or WvW so I think Stronghold as designed will fail. You’re bringing Guild Halls back, please give us real GvG again.

*The apparent size of the expansion. From what’s been harvested from the binaries and posted on-line it appears we are only getting 4-5 maps and that they are all smaller maps focused on the vertical movement. The expansions of GW1 gave us entirely new continents. While expansions will, never give you a 100% of the content you recieved in the original, Factions and NIghtfall felt so much like new games they got us about 80% to being an entirely new game. HoT feels like it gets us about 25% there. There’s just this feeling that there needs to be A LOT more. Maybe there is and we just haven’t seen it yet? As it stands we don’t even know if new dungeons or world bosses are being added.

*The death of the living world? I don’t understand why ArenaNet refuses to comment on Living World plans post HoT release. Don’t you think people investing in this expansion have a right to know what’s planned beyond it? GW1’s business model was based on expansions, but up until now GW2’s model has been micro-transactions. Can we expect that Living World is just another failed GW2 design where the cost didn’t match the forecasted payoff?