Guild Wars 2

Okay, so I know that beta tests are primarily for the purpose of gathering feedback from the players. My concern is this: is Anet only interested in feedback regarding balancing and functionality or will they be gauging visual/audio feedback as well?

Balance issues are most important, of that I’m well aware and I agree, but I do feel that there are some aesthetic issues that need to be addressed as well. The most prevalent one to me right now is the charr reaper’s greatsword auto-attack animation; it looks absolutely horrid, clunky, jerky, and just downright sloppy. I haven’t looked at it on the other races, but I intend to, and I’ll probably come back and post any comments I have about them afterwords. Another issue that I haven’t considered until someone else brought it up is the dragonhunter’s bow sounds; it recycles the same sounds as the regular bow despite being a magically infused weapon. On the flipside, I think the chronomancer’s audio and visuals are absolutely gorgeous, especially the wells. Really awesome to look at and listen to! Great theme overall!

Both of the issues I pointed out have their own threads in their respective sub-forums, but I thought I’d create a thread here for anyone else who has any feedback/suggestions regarding the visual and audio aspects of the beta.

I’m not Arenanet, but I’m pretty confident they welcome all feedback

This seems like a good spot to mention something I noted yesterday. I did an in-game bug report (though I think I failed to use the Beta part of the report feature, at least on the first report I filed, oops).

I was north of the Itzel village at a mithril node when the two leader Itzels did their conversation about the low food supplies. I could just barely hear them, and likely shouldn’t have been able to given my distance from their hut. But my character spoke back out loud to them like she was standing right there. It happened again a bit later when I was even further away. That converted the immersive nature of the character talking out loud to an immersion breaking chuckle

So looking at the other races, I’m sad to say that the charr seem to have the worst animations for the readper greatsword auto-attack. The other humanoid races (Human, Norn, Sylvari) all look very fluid performing the chain, which is nice, but also emphasizes the point that charr just look really bad. Asura don’t look that good either, but not to the degree that the charr suffer.

Again, I know balancing is priority, but please have a look at this and consider revamping the charr reaper greatsword auto-attack animation, Anet. It’s hard to get immersed in the profession when the chain attack just looks so… sloppy (I’d even say it looks glitchy, in fact).

Seabreeze.8437:

Another issue that I haven’t considered until someone else brought it up is the dragonhunter’s bow sounds; it recycles the same sounds as the regular bow despite being a magically infused weapon. On the flipside, I think the chronomancer’s audio and visuals are absolutely gorgeous, especially the wells. Really awesome to look at and listen to! Great theme overall!

You know, it’s probably my thread you’re talking about, Seabreeze. I made a thread like that focusing on the lackluster sound effects for the dragon hunter’s longbow. I posted that specifically on the Guardians section, though. Check it out HERE.

I’ll probably just copy/paste some of my posts from there onto here, anyway. The more exposure the better. I know a lot of people are probably more concerned with the technical stuff and balancing issues, and rightfully so. Those things are extremely important. But that doesn’t mean the aesthetics should be completely overlooked. The audio/visual aspects are what helps to make these elite specializations more dynamic, unique, and just all-around fun to experience!

The fact that the dragon hunter uses the same boring ol’ bow sound effects makes it feel a little mundane, especially when you take into consideration that they fire of what appear to be magic arrows, so they should be more akin to the magick archer of Dragon’s Dogma’s lore. The sound effects from a dragon hunter’s longbow should be distinguishable from a standard bow wielder.

I liked how Anet didn’t use Shiro’s old VA from Factions :P I also liked how he basically starts off hating the idea of being called on (“I demand you release me!”) to start digging the idea that he’s basically one half of an unstoppable killing machine (“Together, we are without equal.”)

Foefaller.1082:

I liked how Anet didn’t use Shiro’s old VA from Factions :P I also liked how he basically starts off hating the idea of being called on (“I demand you release me!”) to start digging the idea that he’s basically one half of an unstoppable killing machine (“Together, we are without equal.”)

You know, I noticed that, too. I just totally forgot about that, lol. That is kinda silly when you think about it. “I hate you! But man do we rock!”

Don’t know how hard it would be to get the original VA for him, though. So that part might not happen. Other than that, I think the revenant has some pretty cool audio/visual effects!

Seabreeze.8437:

Okay, so I know that beta tests are primarily for the purpose of gathering feedback from the players. My concern is this: is Anet only interested in feedback regarding balancing and functionality or will they be gauging visual/audio feedback as well?

Balance issues are most important, of that I’m well aware and I agree, but I do feel that there are some aesthetic issues that need to be addressed as well. The most prevalent one to me right now is the charr reaper’s greatsword auto-attack animation; it looks absolutely horrid, clunky, jerky, and just downright sloppy. I haven’t looked at it on the other races, but I intend to, and I’ll probably come back and post any comments I have about them afterwords. Another issue that I haven’t considered until someone else brought it up is the dragonhunter’s bow sounds; it recycles the same sounds as the regular bow despite being a magically infused weapon. On the flipside, I think the chronomancer’s audio and visuals are absolutely gorgeous, especially the wells. Really awesome to look at and listen to! Great theme overall!

Both of the issues I pointed out have their own threads in their respective sub-forums, but I thought I’d create a thread here for anyone else who has any feedback/suggestions regarding the visual and audio aspects of the beta.

i will bring this up again because i do feel this is important. and i totally agree with you the charr reaper’s auto attack with the greatsword animation. the first two hits are just recycled animations from the guardian greatsword auto attack, just slowed down. but instead of it looking more powerful and hard-hitting, it just looks like they’re moving in slow motion or under water. then the last overhead swing just looks downright awful. it does not transition smoothly at all. very sloppy work that i hope anet will polish up before release