Guild Wars 2

I’ve not been very active on Guild Wars 2 for the past few months, mainly from not being “good” at the game to warrant a party request from others. Being a recluse doesn’t help either after trying to help new folks get attuned to the game’s basic mechanics, and having others shout me down because I don’t understand them perfectly myself. I get the gist of things, and learn by experience, but when I can’t properly experience something to its fullest content, I get frustrated very quickly at myself. I feel like I’ve missed out; I haven’t done it right. I will be the first one to say I am terrible at games, not from being a poor player, but by focusing on the wrong things, or to the little details of things that I am told do not matter.

Maybe it’s just my own fault, but I had work all the live long weekend; that might have shorted my ability to get the most out of the event. When I was finally able to get on for the few hours I had before sleep overtook me, I noticed very, very few people in the map, and all events were active and failing. I had attempted numerous times to switch the map to hopefully a more populated one, only to get stuck on the same empty map with, at most, 5 other people. We’ve all been in that instance of Sparkfly Fen when Tequatl pops and only 10 people are there. The whole event chain is a downright mess and unable to complete, almost laughably.

Almost all of the events took more than a handful of people to pass it, and just about each day it seemed no one was interested in helping out. I never bothered to check out any of the other classes, because I already have all the classes in one form or another, (And half of them level 80 and never a piece of exotic armor to their names.) I couldn’t bring my already worked on and hashed out characters to the beta, and was not going to attempt to recreate it from beta scraps. It’d take too long for the little time I had.

No events and no participation ability made for no Mastery. No mastery meant I couldn’t even use a glider, what purportedly some folks say they got in less than 30 minutes. Didn’t know the elite specializations; didn’t know where to find them or how to unlock them, if they were unlocked they were literally jumping out of the screen saying “Right here~” and I simply missed them.

It’s great that ArenaNet allows people to enjoy the beginnings of the fruits of their labors by offering Beta Weekends. I personally have been playing Guild Wars 2 since Beta Weekend 1, and pre-purchased the Collector’s edition only 2 hours after it became available. Those weekends were great – I could play because I didn’t have -as much- a grueling schedule at my job, and could learn about the new style of gameplay GW2 offered. This time, it didn’t offer me that same impact, because I was only able to play less of it. Much less. I suppose, after reading all these “Ooh and Ahh” type posts, I might have enjoyed it more had I been able to play for a longer period of time. Guess that it’s all about life and what you can do with it. Hopefully for the next Beta Weekend, I will be able to take some time for myself and properly enjoy it.

Cheers, all.

If you feel out of place, try to join a guild that advertises for new or inexperienced players. I understand if you feel reclusive, but by putting yourself out there, even the slightest bit of joining a potentially friendly guild, beats the hell out of hot joining with gear checking elitists.

I agree the beta wasn’t quite clear on the new specs, but if you made a beta character of a profession spec that has been released, you had access to the new trait line, weapon and skills. That was the most enjoyable aspect of this beta for me.

I agree completely about the dead maps. Unfortunately two of the major event chains had severe bugs that would halt completion making the day events worthless, and people would just bail. For me Verdant Brink felt like a huge let down, but I won’t judge until it’s fixed, I can see the potential.

Due to the bugged nature of events, it took longer than it should have to unlock masteries; however, I did want to grind at least to get my glider. It was pretty fun, albeit slow…but exciting that it might be fun with the additional gliding masteries to make it more dynamic.

For those saying they unlocked it in half an hour, they could have been on a bug free map, or rerolling beta characters and completing the first story mission, as from my understanding that was the quickest “exploit” to raise the masteries.

Either way, I agree with some of your points, but am anxious to play the final product, one in which I can keep my progress! On a side note, the revenant is feeling better and better after each beta event. The feedback is working tremendously for that character, Anet seems to be listening.

Hello, friend. Im sorry to hear your beta experience wasnt the best, but concerning all the bugs you have encountered, this is something to be expected in a beta. Lets hope all of will be polished on the release date. I remember quite a few times getting stucked in a wall, when i used certain Revenant Shiro legend skill The mastery leveling was quite slow, yes. I too didnt get to try out the gliding or any other masteries, since i was trying the specs at PvP or WvW but its not a big deal for me, as everyone will be able to try them out when the expansion releases soon.

Creating a beta character, actually took around 1 minute, and they were starting at lvl 80, with a few chests with exotic gear in your inventory, so players could try the new profession and elite specs right out of the door. Thats actually how any beta works, because you cant test and give constructive feedback, if half of the things you are supposed to test are locked away for you.

As for not being very good at the game, and not able to join many parties, type me into the game, and i can invite you to my guild. We’re always looking to help out new players, or old ones in your case who arent that experienced. Send me a message and you can join our nice and friendly community.

Cheers!

This was a much larger BWE then last time I was in this BWE (where I did get to try out Revenant for my first time). The time to create a new character from scratch can be a bit more time consuming then just only one minute as you will need to make sure that your gear will have the right stats (you will be given three chests with armour, trinkets and weapon [no backpack]; you did also get food/tools, sigils and runes) where you need to select stats (standard equipped gear are celestial) for each piece and add runes to armour and sigils to weapon. We did also get UW headgear and weapons, so it was needed to put runes and sigils there too to avoid losing stacks and the sixth effects from runes while in water.

This can be a time consuming process, if you aren’t sure what kind of play style (condi vs power) would fit your new character and for where you will be going (open world Verdan Brink/Silver Waste) or to Borderland in WvW (where you either can be in zerg, run in PUGs or soloing).

When I went to VB i felt it to be a confusion place as there where now also Masteries (which many other player on chat also asked about how it worked) to get anything done there. I went to SW and played my Chronomancer (new trait and shield for Mesmer), which worked pretty well.

My first beta character for this event was to re-create Revenant and try it out for a second time. It was a bit different from last time I had the opportunity to play it in WvW and SW. Next was to create my Chronomancer which I spent most of this weekend time with where I tried to learn how the new skills worked and too see what kind of gear and weapons I should craft in the future for it. My impression of Chronomancer (as beta profession) was very positive. Revenant are also fun and have had large changes in both weapon (skills) and the way you now can play, but for now I did stay with Chronomancer.

I think, you Skielsthear, should be aware that this Beta had much more things going on then last time we had a BWE, so it is more or less impossible to go in depth in each new profession (played an ele as my first GW2 character which I didn’t even try to try out the new Tempest) and try it out in each possible situation (PvE open (incl the new VB map), dungeons or fractals; WvW (Zerg, PUGs, Raids, GvG, soloing) sPvP (different Strongholds etc)). Also add to that the limited map of Verdan Brink where you suddenly got a new tab on your Hero panel (only when you where in that zone) with Masteries Point to deal with and the usual exploring to find out how things work and where things are while not getting one shot from snipers and other swarming nasty creatures.

In Beta testing you should (it is only a suggestion from my side to you) try to keep the baseline from what you know as profession and the game modes you play most often when you create a new beta character. That way you will need less of time to learn the new stuff and still be able to enjoy playing the game in environment(s) where you still know how to use your character where you will have both old and new skills to be able to see if there are something different.

The definition of what beta is supposed to mean can be very different, but from a players PoW it is probably safe to assume that you will compare what you know with how something (new) is working in a Beta version.

I didn’t spend that much time in this beta as I did the first time I had a chance, but what I did get out of it was enough too feel that focus one aspect of this game are probably better, then to try out too many things at once. I made only two character out of four possible beta slots (I have standard version of HoT), continued to play in SW and Borderland (WvW) where I capped camps and some EoTM. The last couple of hours I tried to get Mastery in Gliding, but failed due too little time and getting killed to many times to get it anyway. In the End I had fun and learned more about the possibilities in how the new trait and skills for Chronomancer work during play.
With Revenent I had a short visit to see how Malyx/Jalis had changed since last time, but as time is limited to only a weekend. I had to focus on what I main as a Mesmer and learn more about how this new added feature are supposed to work in game.

Skielsthear.6913:

I noticed very, very few people in the map, and all events were active and failing. I had attempted numerous times to switch the map to hopefully a more populated one, only to get stuck on the same empty map with, at most, 5 other people.

Both of the major event chains in Verdant Brink in the beta were broken the entire weekend. After a few hours of frustration, most people went to try out the new elite specializations (available from your Hero Build menu) in other areas of the game. I don’t think you really missed much this beta, hopefully you can make the next beta event and it will be less buggy (normally you only need 3-5 people to complete an event).

Life gets in the way sometimes; I don’t think you missed out in this beta weekend. Hopefully the next beta (which I’m guessing will be the 28th) will be less buggy and you have a bit more time.

To clarify, not only did you have access to the elite specs through your Build tab on your Hero Panel, you started with the elite spec equipped by default and with the elite weapon equipped.

The time consuming part lay in reading through all the skill and trait tool tips, selecting that which seemed most of interest, deciding what stats would matter most and picking those stats on each piece of armor and weapon from the first box, remembering one needed runes and sigils and opening that box and picking out good ones …. and then, if you were me, putting together a look from the wardrobe and dyeing it nicely. That was at least 20 minutes for each of the four slots for me. Then I ran around the starter area testing the skill and utility cast times and effects and then I could head off to the story. (Oh, and of course I spent some time before all that just designing the alt’s appearance in creation).

Anyway, hopefully you’ll have more time in BWE2. But as long as you make a profession with a testable elite, you should be automatically in that elite at the start.

I am surprised by the empty maps you encountered. I spent most of my weekend in Verdant Brink and there were people everywhere. Thanks to bugged events I never even saw the Itzel get fed, let alone the rest of the chain heading to the wyvern, and only got one shot at each side of the southern chain going to the wurm. I also only ever found one operational activity, the salvage pit, and managed to do it exactly once. But I wasn’t alone at anything I did, even nighttime soldier escorts attracted others to help.

I am not sure I understand what you actually want to bring across. You did not have enough time to explore everyting possible in the beta weekend? Well…

Why some people like playing beta and it certainly is more fun having fun while doing it than not, in the end, beta play is not for people to “enjoy it to its fullest”. It is, as the term beta testing seems to imply, mainly for testing things.

I don’t think anyone enjoyed the beta to it’s fullest, far too many bugs.

The Revenant still seemed too squishy for my play style so switched to ranger…

…then found that they hadn’t finished it yet.

Not being able to keep the drops was a bummer too. To be honest there has to be a better way.

I spent most of the weekend on verdant brink playing a tempest and while I didn’t mind the class changes, the amount of defects in the map events were unacceptable. None of the major events worked. Makes me wonder why the developers didn’t spend an additional week fixing the map before exposing it to the public. Beta shouldn’t mean “stuff that doesn’t work at all”. It should mean “stuff that may have defects”.

Hoping that the next public beta will be better.

While a lot of other classes were better off, the rev was fairly lacking in terms of what they gave you in beta, i don’t know if it was still like that in the most recent one (honestly i care less than 0% about the revinant) but when i did play it because it was the only thing avalible on the beta weekend it didn’t have underwater skills, was missing a trait line, and if i had to guess i’d say a few weapons weren’t there.
Even if they did update it a bit the saying still holds true that beta is beta and some things are going to be less than awesome. The unfortunate truth of playing beta is that it’s not always going to be fun, ofcourse that’s the idea but there are bugs and balance issues and sometimes things just don’t make sense.

TL;DR- it’s not your fault, maybe just try playing when you’ve got a little more time and energy to put into deciphering it all.