Guild Wars 2

This is just my experience of playing the first beta weekend and just now playing for about thirty minutes in the second.

I think I’ve decided I’m not going to test for betas anymore because it feels so grindy, and if I’m going to have to grind, I might as well wait until the actual release.

The map is convoluted and hard to navigate (and the color scheme is harsh on the eyes—can you get some softening light or not have the green/orange be so garish?). I realize this is to make the experience of exploring the map challenging and perhaps make it feel rewarding to get to new places, but right now it just feels like the design is to make it take a long time because there may not be that much content.

Wherever I want to go, I either need to glide or to use a jumping mushroom. This is an exercise in frustration because I’m always missing events. I’m either arriving just a little too late, or there just doesn’t seem to be any going on nearby—that I can figure out how to get to—which means my best means of advancing my masteries seems to be plugging away at enemies. Which is tedious. I’m not the kind of player who wants to stand around in an area while waiting for something to happen.

I don’t find the system of switching between mastery tracks and advancing them to be particularly intuitive or transparent, and they feel slow. This is because I’d like to see the content, not stand around in an area grinding away on it before I can see the rest of it.

Maybe I need to talk to more NPC’s or this is because I’m always missing the events, but I don’t have a sense of the story the map is telling. It might be a little too chaotic when the events are going on to really track the ideas behind the content. I have a vague sense that the story of the map is just “hang on, we’re in a tough spot,” but that kind of feels like it lacks some direction. Perhaps this is because I have no idea what the personal story is or would be or if there is one.

The enemies are dense. Which is fine if you’re going for “hard” content, but kind of just feels like work and not play. I mean, I can still run through stuff, that’s not really the issue, but it’s kind of taken the joy out of exploring the map for the map’s sake. I’ve always been one of those PvE-ers that liked going through each map to see what it looks like and see what each little pocket of story is, but this is like enemy, enemy enemy without history, context, meaning. It looks like there should be some meaning, but I’m not finding it. I’d like to know where the centaurs went, where the druids are, are there pockets of White Mantle running around? I know this is supposed to be enemy territory, but where are the handfuls of asura studying dangerous things? What do the old strange buildings mean? Where are some of the old ruins? So much of GW2 maps were satisfying to GW1 players because of the layer of history and story that ran through them all, plus hints of new things to come. Here…well, maybe there is that stuff, but I’ve got too many enemies in my aggro bubble to pay attention to it if there is. And I think maybe there isn’t.

I’ve just played mesmer so far, and I like the chronomancer spec, though.

I guess that about covers my reactions. Do with it what you will.

I literally agree with every word you said, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. Sums up my feelings exactly.

I also stopped playing the beta for the same reasons. I’ve seen the map, and the events themselves are not fun enough to play without having a reason to do so. After 3 years of iterating dynamic events, we are still basically getting ‘defend this post’ and ‘escort this person’.

Not to mention while playing a Tempest, I basically had to avoid every difficult fight. and honestly felt no different than playing with the base ele (except more difficult). Playing with a Reaper was at least more enjoyable.

I miss the ‘brand new campaign’ feeling of the GW1 expansions. Those gave us brand new worlds to explore. This doesn’t feel like that at all.

You are giving your opinion after playing for 30 min. Day lasts about 1-2 hours and night last 45 min, so you have not seen any of them. Play them and then you will understand how it works and why you are late. You don’t need gliding or mushrooms to reach events.

I like the Mastery system. First you unlock them and then you use mastery points to train them and the best part. To unlock them you need experience so there will always be people doing events because they need experience.

The map has stories. Every outpost is telling a story about those pact members. In one of them you have a group of nobles that want to be rescued and in the other one you have a group of pact members that fight against mordrem and create a safe perimeter.

If you just assume things after playing for 30 min instead of understanding the events and discover what is happening it is not Anet fault, it is your fault.

Bridget Morrigan.1752:

The enemies are dense. Which is fine if you’re going for “hard” content, but kind of just feels like work and not play. I mean, I can still run through stuff, that’s not really the issue, but it’s kind of taken the joy out of exploring the map for the map’s sake. I’ve always been one of those PvE-ers that liked going through each map to see what it looks like and see what each little pocket of story is, but this is like enemy, enemy enemy without history, context, meaning. It looks like there should be some meaning, but I’m not finding it. I’d like to know where the centaurs went, where the druids are, are there pockets of White Mantle running around? I know this is supposed to be enemy territory, but where are the handfuls of asura studying dangerous things? What do the old strange buildings mean? Where are some of the old ruins? So much of GW2 maps were satisfying to GW1 players because of the layer of history and story that ran through them all, plus hints of new things to come. Here…well, maybe there is that stuff, but I’ve got too many enemies in my aggro bubble to pay attention to it if there is. And I think maybe there isn’t.

THIS. EXACTLY THIS. You explained my dissatisfaction with this map beautifully. It’s a lovely shell filled with movement and noise, but no depth, no soul. Previous areas of GW2 (prior to Dry Top & Silverwastes, that is) always felt very realistic to me, because there were those layers of history, and lots of renown hearts, events & just NPC’s to give you a sense of all the personal details that add up to a world that feels like it’s alive.

Verdant Brink is vibrant, but it’s not alive.

@Draigo: I’m giving my opinion after playing for the entire first BWE, and now 30 minutes into the second, I’m expressing why I personally have a lack of interest in continuing. This was information contained in my first two sentences. Catch up if you’re going to comment.

@ everyone else

I did, however, continue to play for a while after making this post, and I thought I would clarify my statements somewhat.

There does seem to be some story with the hylek, but I can’t confess that that’s super interesting to me, compared to the older stories in the game, and I can’t seem to access much of it right now, with the way the map is segregated.

I think some of the story issue may be story design at a very base level. If dragons are forces of nature and lack sentience as we know it (I’m not sure if they’re supposed to evoke forces of nature or Eldritch abominations, tbh, which is something the story team really needs to work out), they don’t seem to come with much story of their own. Because Orr had miles of history of its own and ghosts, the fact that the dragon had minions were all around did not, in itself, prevent these stories from feeling fully fleshed out, no pun intended. In HoT’s case, the story seems to be coming from the inherent sylvari internal and external conflict: okay, I’m with you there. But it’s all very recent. What story actually seems to be in the map itself seems to consist of Pact forces going “kitten kitten kitten kitten it’s getting dark” and “omg it’s dark” and “why did I come here???” As a story, there’s not much to it.

I ran through a loooong area of Mordrem, without seeing much to do in there except fight.

The events last a long time, especially at night. Part of my feel of grind is that I just spent I don’t know how long defending a Pact rally point, with minimal award, just to have to turn around and spend I don’t know how long defending it again. The same with the escort missions. Because the map is difficult to navigate, if there’s something extra special going on somewhere, it’s hard to find, and the meta event text doesn’t give any direction except run around to protect rally points and find supplies, and then refers to places such as the main rally point, and I’m not sure which one that is.

By contrast, in the Silverwastes, the same cycle of defend and escort is used with a sense of it leading to the Breach event: you know exactly what to do when the Breach happens, and it’s entirely obvious what to do when the VW event then happens, and then with map directions when Hidden Depths opens. It cycles through four different and interesting stages, not just two, and it’s completely intuitive. This map is a little more Dry Top-ish in that you’re kind of left to scramble once the meta event gets going (I can’t remember if there’s a visible and audible transition from day to night as there is from no sandstorm to sandstorm, but there should be). I don’t think the beta weekend achievements really quite put a sufficient bandaid on that.

I think the conclusion that I’m coming to is that the map feels busy, but not focused. Which maybe is what it’s going for, I don’t know, but I do feel like the systems are just busy enough—dense enemies, not enough time to talk to NPC’s (NPC’s you can talk to walking away while you’re talking to them), long events, sparse events, few places in map to stop and just look around, a slow progression to the minimal tiers of the navigational masteries—that it doesn’t feel rewarding to play. I, personally, could be rewarded with more depth to the story (and a more attractive map—where are the amazing vistas??? why are elite zones just not as pretty as low level zones?), but the beta experience, with its segregation of the zone and too much work to do, has not led me to those rewards. Maybe the game itself would, with more freedom and time, but it’s a bit of a hurdle.

I also felt this was just mindless running around with no clear sense of where things were going.I played the original GW2 betas and there was much more sense of the personal story in those and much more fun I agree entirely with the comment about GW1 expansions.For me the difficulty level is a bit too high . I would rate myself as average or a bit below( most players are average its what it means)but as soon as I get separated from a group its a die respawn die sequence. As by preference and necessity I’m a solo player—and there are if you read the posts quite a lot of us— I already regret purchasing the expansion I will try the full version when it arrives but whereas after playing the original GW2 betas the full version couldn’t arrive soon enough now its very much a case of wait and see