I’ve put about 5 hours into this beta, played most of the content a few times and I think I have a decent idea of what’s going on. Some feedback:
Information, Information, Information
There is nowhere NEAR enough information. I was trying to turn my casino tokens in for the event, went from the vendor to the spot where the trouble makers were attacking, trying to contribute to the event, I had enough to make it a success, couldn’t find it! I know, this will be obvious a few weeks after the xpac comes out, but for people new to this, it’s annoying. Most events like this have a basket where the turn in NPC is, this event was lacking it, which was INCREDIBLY odd. Put that in!
The bosses: Everything except the Legendary Chua had mechanics that weren’t explained. The Legendary Chua explained all the mechanics, but you had to mouse over it’s buff bar to see it, which is above and beyond most members of this community. The other bosses? Nowhere NEAR enough explanation. One boss had a rotating damage location. This was obvious for people that moused over the buff bar but again, most people don’t do that, so people would be trying to damage her to no avail because they were too dumb to read the buff bar, which is to be expected (people still don’t understand break bars ffs). Then the target mechanic. This doesn’t have nearly enough information. Targets people for a one shot… Ok, is this unavoidable? If not, how do we avoid this? Can we block it? Does Aegis affect it? If it’s unavoidable how is this a good mechanic if she’s constantly doing it? People are instant downing and having NO IDEA what is killing them. The bombs: Are we supposed to AVOID attacking them or attack them? I’ve had them explode if I attack them, and explode if I don’t. Which is it? There is no information explaining this. The finding a weak spot… Does this just mean we have to get close before we can attack from a far? Do we do extra damage? Is it a buff? Is it something we can strip? Again, no information describing this. There are quite a few mechanics and nothing explaining them. we need a livestream explaining these mechanics. Hell, if you don’t have time explain them to Woodenpotatoes and have him make a video! Everyone in map chat was clueless. INFORMATION! We need more of it!
The bounties are pretty awesome, but again, there isn’t enough information. I thought I had to return to the board for a reward, like every other MMO, but no. I thought I had to be in a party and change my target, like in every other mmo, but no. It seems (and I could be wrong, but again, no information) that the board only exists to allow you to know where one of the bounties are. I don’t know if this resets it’s timer or what because this isn’t explained very well. Also, some of the bounties were literally in the city… I don’t know if this is intended or because they moved em from unreachable parts of the map or what. I kind of like it tho.
The TL;DR of this part is simple: Information! We need more of it, either a livestream explaining ALL the new mechanics or better explanations in game.
Some events/mobs are too close together.
I was tagged up for a bounty, we had a fair number of people fighting the jackal dude when a group of sand sharks with a vet wandered over AND a balthazar event AND a Hydra, ALL at the same time. I’m sorry, but that’s too much too close together, we got demolished because we were getting attacked from all sides! People were trying to avoid hydra attacks and were pulling sandshark packs. People were trying to kill the bounty but were getting knocked around by balthazaar dudes. Too much, too close together! Spread these event mobs out!
Mastery XP seems too small
I’m hoping this is just to allow people to get both of the masteries rather easily for the demo but the amount of xp needed for the masteries is pathetic, to the point that I don’t understand the point of having it at all, especially since it’s account bound. It’s so low I almost think they are switching to a per character basis. It was as low as the new masteries, which is tiny! And the number of required points is really low as well. Again, I’m hoping this is just for the demo. If this is a permanent change, I see most of the community being mastery capped on day 1.
You might be wondering why I’m saying nothing positive. That’s because this isn’t the time. I’ll be positive after launch, because they are doing a lot of things right, but during betas/demos they need to be told what is off. I don’t have issues with unidentified gear like the rest of the community seems to, mostly because I don’t think we fully understand it, which goes back to information. Anet, you NEED to give us more information. I get it, you want to ship not talk about what’s going to be shipped, but some things need explained. if you don’t want to do it out of game before launch FINE, but you need to explain the new mechanics and what not IN game. I’m not a designer so I can’t tell you how, but it needs done. Maybe that first boss in the story could have all the new mechanics and the lionguard lieutenant can be explaining how to beat it or something. I personally think it’d be easier to just sit down and explain everything instead of trying to make it lore friendly but thats just me. Mounts are awesome, most of the events are fun and the bounty system is good. So far, my impression for this is way better than VB, even tho that could just be because VB was hopelessly broken.
TL;DR Anet, spread out event mobs so we don’t pull 5 events at once and give more information. You are introducing a ton of new mechanics but have explained none of them. Also, the casino event had no indicator on where to turn stuff in. That needs fixed.
