Guild Wars 2

I don’t give props often and I don’t post too much on the forums (99% of the time I’m just here to read), but:

I’m really loving this expansion. At first I was very skeptical and overwhelmed. After getting my elite specialization going and traveling around VB, I am totally enjoying this. The art department and the team who created this map should get some major props. I am dumbfounded on how they created this three dimensional space, made it work, and made it flow together with such detail. Even if I’m not doing the story or an event, I just like walking around it to see what I can find.

The mastery system is growing on me, and it doesn’t feel like a grind…but that’s because I’m just having a blast finding events and just discovering the map. The mastery’s themselves add another dimension to the game that I felt might have been missing before (although I did love vanilla GW2 also). The gliding mechanic is just so cool….plus it’s useful when you get into trouble in a fight and need a quick escape :-p

So, well done ANET. I thought I was crazy for dropping the cash for the ultimate edition for an expansion pack (you guys are the ONLY company I have ever pre-ordered anything from after my time in GW1), but my purchase has been justified this week.

Ok, after finally getting to this a second time (I failed earlier because had to do some errands), the hints are there but you have to pay attention because it’s really REALLY easy to get caught in the chaos of the moment.

I kept failing the 4th part of the fight. I assumed it was exactly like the second phase.
Something was putting out the fires. What you need to do is stated in this thread so I won’t repeat it.

I believe it’s Kasmeer that states something about the Shadow and it putting out the fires. I think it’s:

“I’m sensing something. the Shadow is being drawn to the divine fires”.

She only states it once however, and I think Anet should make her repeat it after the shadow respawns because it’s easy to miss the first time when you’re running around, dodging, keeping your health up, dodging….and dodging :-p

Here is my general feedback:

Pros

• Free content with a well designed (artistically, at least) zone
• Interesting take on a leveled dungeon with a somewhat randomized 3 mini dungeons per level
• Final event was nice and fun. Great rewards…I wasn’t expecting that.
• zone is challenging. Got my butt kicked at first, made a few tweaks to my build and skills, and it’s better now. This is good so the gameplay and builds doesn’t get too slate after a while.
• Did I mention this update was free? I’ve seen subscription games that couldn’t give this much content in their updates.

Cons

• Not a lot of lore surrounding this island, the Karka, and what their purpose is. Granted, there is some reference to DSD, but not a lot of it. No personal story relating to this zone kinda sucked.
• The leveling with the FoTM dungeon is already creating community division and problems.
• The one time finale presents a problem with players who couldn’t attend, and I agree with them. Why should I receive these incredible rewards while some players receive absolutely nothing because of real life responsibilities? I don’t really have a problem with the other events being 1 time only (although i would have liked to see them as well), but I would suggest making a finale like this available for 24-36 hours, 2-3 hour intervals, so the majority of players can attend.
• Lag, wasn’t a major issue for me, but other players had it pretty bad. May need to limit the amount of players in busy locations and overflow, and create more overflow locations to limit lag.

MAJOR CON (potentially game breaking)

• The new armor tier. Personally, I am so sick of gear grinding games (raiding, dungeons, etc). I hate this mechanic and everything about it and have totally stopped playing/investing any time in other MMO’s because of it. I really don’t understand why a certain portion of players want to torment themselves with this gear grind. I refuse to do this and if Anet continues down this path I will have to question how they marketed this game to players and perhaps write off this genre all together. A few simple fixes: (1) Allow other game modes (WvW, PvE, Karma, etc) to offer ascended gear if you must keep it in the game (I heard this is already being implemented, but seeing is believing). (2) Only make the infusion upgradable instead of introducing new gear tiers; then there is some progression but it’s not overkill.

As a GW 1 vet, this is a complete 180 for you guys and I don’t understand. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume NCsoft had something to do with this. >>>>$$$<<<<

Bad bad idea Arenanet. I played GW1 for 6 years without any need to chase a carrot on a stick. Why? BECAUSE I ENJOYED YOUR PVP SYSTEM! I got into your PvE system without a constant need for the carrot either. The dungeons in GW1 kept me playing for a chance at a rare skin and the challenge.

Ok, it’s true, I will not quit the game due to this patch since I want to see how Acended gear thing works. However, if dungeons are the only way to obtain this gear (sorry, I’m not running a dungeon 10-20 times, no way, not going to happen) and a power creep starts happening, I’m as good as gone since I’ve been through this before in games like LOTRO where I precious few seem to enjoy grinding 2400 medallions for a set of raid gear, which keeps increasing in power in every patch, while the rest are left with their crafted gear from a year ago with no other way to improve.

However, if there are other methods of obtaining ascended gear like it is now with exotics (WvW, Karma, whatever…), then perhaps this can slide, but other than the mystic forge I see no mention of obtaining this gear any other way (and who knows, the mystic forge may need an item only obtainable by the dungeon. That’s the same thing). Which is just lieing to your customers at this point.

Yeah yeah, I get it. You want the game to appeal to the intense daily gamers (I hate the word hardcore), but they will burn through this content in a fraction of the time compared to the obtaining legendaries and we will be left at square one! Only this time, you pissed of a decent amount of your returning customers and casual playerbase.

Seriously, rethink this and if you have to do it, think about your other players also. You know, the ones who might not enjoy running a dungeon 10×.

A definite yes, and I bought the C.E.

Outside of the trading post being down in the first week and a few minor issues, it has been one of my best gaming experiences since probably Unreal Tournament and GW 1.

noticeable bugs:

• One of my minions in particular, the Flesh Golum, auto attacks mobs that are not even within my aggro range. In other occasions, when I’ve aggroed a mob, the golum won’t attack (this happens on and off, the previous issue happens nearly all the time).

• Reanimator trait. I’m not sure if this is a bug or not but I’m going to assume it is since the Jagged horror often dies before he can lay a hit on a foe. Health degeneration is too fast and it ends up being kinda useless.

*Like previous posts have said, minion AI need work since several minions will periodically not attack near foes. I haven’t noticed this with the flesh worm minion though, just the others.