Guild Wars 2

First off, the map is really intricate and really confusing…and that is a big positive to me. I found myself running into caves and through little passage ways only to find that I just ran in a big circle and ended up on the other side of the same little clearing I had left a few minutes before. This allows people to get to various points in the map from all different directions and is good design if you ask me.

Glider: I had a few bugs with the glider. We are able to deploy the glider much faster than in the earlier betas which is great, but now, sometimes if you are trying to jump and press space more than once you deploy your glider for a split second. This actually allowed you to get your skills back in the sparta pit tentacle adventure. I also had the “deploy glider” interact option sometimes after a dodgeroll as well as (if I am remembering the situation correctly) after being hit while jumping. The interact option would actually stay there while I was attacking until I hit the space bar. Perhaps a fix for this would be to only allow the glider to deploy if your character is farther above any point within a certain radius of your character than the character can jump. So, for instance, if I am on the ground with flat land all around me, and I jump, the glider will never have the option to deploy. if I am near a cliff and jump, then the glider has the option because there is something nearby that can be glided off. If I am on top of a rock and jump, then it has the option because when I jump, at the max height, I am higher above the rest of the ground then I could have jumped.

Jumping mushrooms: It wasnt clear that the mushrooms shot you to a certain point rather than simply straight up. This was something I had to figure out. Even though you are launched in the same manner standing anywhere on a given mushroom, a player will logically stand in the middle.

A couple of them (particularly one during the Nuhoch gathering wyvern eggs event) have a rock or some other collider outcropping above the mushroom and overlapping part of the character collider when it is launched. This causes the character to fly off in an unexpected direction. On the particular one I had an issue with, if I stood away from the wall on the very edge of the mushroom, my collider did not overlap during flight and I landed at the expected spot. In some of these mushrooms, the rocks should be trimmed to allow colliders to fly past given a starting point of the center of the mushroom.

Enemies: I didnt really have too big of an issue with any given mobs. However mounted zintel spawning in various ranks (regular, vet, elite and champ) were progressively larger, which was cool. but the higher the rank (the larger the model) the name above their head got progressively even higher above the head of the enemy to the point where the name above a champ with higher above the enemy’s head the the enemy was tall. I actually had to move my camera and look up in the air to see the name.

Day Events: some of these events were quite long and ran a group of players over a large area running through many different events. This is something I have wanted to see and hope to see more and longer event chains. I particularly liked the Nuhoch escort where we interrupted a zintel sermon, gathered wyvern eggs to use against them and then were attacked by a wyvern. Unfortunately, this wyvern despawned as soon as the day phase was over. In Drytop, these boss events coninue into the next phase which forces players to choose whether to finish or move on to a different event. I think these kinds of decisions are a better mechanic than a simple despawn. Of course, it would need to have some timer so it isnt indefinitely on the map but, if it is allowed to persist for a bit in a case like this, if there is a night phase event that passes through this area, it would then be harassed by the incomplete wyvern event.

There was an itzel hunting event which I did a couple times. The last event seemed to just sort of end after time ran out. I sort of expected a large legendary to come after us that we had to kill to end the event. not a bug, just an event comment.

There was an event in the southern portion of the map, though, where some snipers were attacking a troll perched up on a tower. The event description on the right (as I recall) sai something about defending them. however, there was nothing to defend against and the snipers dropped the troll to 0% life and then it promptly went back to 100% and the snipers continued. This didnt continue too much longer because the day phase ended.

Night events: The night events were not as clearly defined as the day events. When there was a defend at a particular supply, there was an orange circle, but with no defend, there was no familiar orange circles anywhere to indicate that we needed to save and escort pact soldiers to the supply outposts. Something that would also help is an audible (and chat bubble) message from the npcs to run out and save the soldiers.

Escorting these soldiers seemed to end after a certain time limit or when an outpost defense started (not sure which). This seemed awkward to me. The mobs and the soldier would just disappear. The soldiers could take a tank tons of damage which is good before players get to them but results in simply a timed escort. Perhaps, these npcs can begin taking damage when a player gets within a range of that soldier event (where it initially is started). The npc’s health or armor (whatever the case may be there) can be lowered and the npc given a downed state and smart reaction to its downed state. That is, have him target the mob with the lowest health, use an auto attack and allow the npc to rally like a player. This would put a bit more play into these escort events and require more attention from players. Along with this, these escorts should end on either success or death of the npc. This would mean that, if a defense starts, players must choose whether to continue their escort or rush back to the defense leaving the soldiers behind.

I know the events arent complete, but it wasnt clear (and still isnt to me anyway even after talking to the npcs) what the purpose of bringing supply to the area was as it didnt seem to actually accomplish anything. of course, the event description on the right of the screen showed how many outposts were held so it may have just been that there is a connection there and we didnt do well enough.

(opinion) the night seemed too bright. Out int he open, moonlight is one thing, but in the supply events in the southern area in the ruins, I would expect those little halls to be much darker than they were. An interesting mechanic might be having torches on the wall that you need to either keep lit or be attacked in the dark (not complete blackout, but dark enough that you cant see a terragriff start its rush animation unless the wall torches are kept lit (insert evil snicker)

Day/Night relation: Was there one? in the blog post some time ago, we got a description of fortifying defenses during the day and then defending at night. What I experienced was a supply gather(soldier escort)/defense rotation during the night and other unrelated events during the day. What I hoped to see (maybe a little over the top) was the supply escort style things during the day with some smaller mordrem attacks on the supply, players setting up and upgrading arrow carts and mortars and building blockades at choke points using that supply and things like that and then a heavier onslaught of mordrem at night with players bunkered in the little fort they just built. Perhaps a couple escorts at the beginning of the night cycle where you go out and “save” a mortar or arrow expert that increases your defense capabilities or extra engineers that just run supply to and from your defenses fixing them. Of course the defense setup wouldnt take the full 75 minutes of the day cycle so some groups might decide to spend the last 15 minutes of the day setting up their defenses doing all the other events the rest of the time while others could spend much longer. It could be designed in such a way that waves attack during the night that get progressively harder with one wave coming, say, 1-2 minutes after the last mob of the previous wave is killed. In this way, it would allow a little time for repairs (depending on your supply stockpile) and it would allow groups to see just how many waves they can get through during one night cycle since a wave will not come until the previous one has been killed and increase rewards from the night event for those who did more work on their little fort during the day (more/higher rank mobs = more goodies). I could see unofficial competitions to see how many waves you can get through.

Masteries: the process to progress was not entirely obvious either. To progress a track you click the checkbox at the top. Something that evokes a “training” or “activate” concept might be better whereas a check mark says “complete”.

A mastery track must be selected in order for gained exp to count towards anything. I understand this. However, if you have filled your track, you must either spend the mastery point to complete that track or change tracks to allow further gained xp points to not be wasted. I understand not allowing experience to accumulate into multiple filled bars. However, if you fill your bar in the middle of an event, the rest of the event and the experience gained on completion of the event is wasted. I could be changed so that actually clicking the gold, silver, or bronze medal is what actually gives you experience so that you have a chance to unlock a new xp bar or you could be given a small (say 5-10% of a level) buffer which can be progressed into and applied to whatever mastery line you choose next.