Showing Posts For discosoc.6510:
Just a funny side comment here, but I appear to actually do more damage when I’m in a downed state. It’s like a DPS cooldown.
Not kidding either.
Is this something that’s being looked at by ANet, or is it ‘working as intended’? Sure doesn’t sound like good game design to me.
Don’t judge the class as you level up. Mesmer does a lot of damage at level 80.
Isn’t the process of leveling supposed to be the time to judge a class? If not, why does GW2 even have levels? I guess your response is about what I expected though.
In theory, yes. In practice, leveling a mesmer is an incredibly awful experience that should be rushed through and avoided at all costs. It didn’t used to be this way, but anet made a lot of mistakes and caused it.
What changed?
Don’t judge the class as you level up. Mesmer does a lot of damage at level 80.
Isn’t the process of leveling supposed to be the time to judge a class? If not, why does GW2 even have levels? I guess your response is about what I expected though.
Mesmer is a thief with longer range . Your main defence is not getting hit (stealth, blink etc etc) and you do a lot of damage.
I’m not seeing the ‘do a lot of damage’ part. I feel like I’m doing average damage with 2 or 3 phantoms out, but getting to that point before the mob dies or aoe’s them is kind of rare as I level up.
I’m not a hardcore player, but looking to give the game another shot in preparation for the expansion (if I stick with it). One of the problems I’ve had with the game is not really identifying or “connecting” with any of the classes. I typically play heavy melee tank types, but GW2 doesn’t really have tanks and the “heavy melee” builds seem kind of boring.
So this time around, I started scoping out other options, which led me to the Mesmer: a class I’ve never really cared for in terms of ‘look and feel.’ I saw they can dual-wield swords, which is cool, so figured I’d give one a try.
First impression: This is actually kind of fun! Feels more like a rogue/thief character than the actual thief does, IMO.
Second impression: I’m definitely feeling a lot weaker than I’d like… My first special skill (aoe illusions) seems to be useless in terms of damage, and my phantoms (illusions?) don’t seem to switch targets with me. Not to mention getting phantoms out is a slow process in the first place.
Final impression: Looks like my phantom/illusion things only have one hp, so fighting anything with a cleave/aoe ability means I’m just autoattacking for crappy damage. Considering how common aoe seems to be in this game…
So what’s the deal? What role is this class supposed to fill? I can’t do damage. I can’t solo anything for crap. I can’t do much in PvP because my core feature (phantoms) don’t last more than a few seconds. I can’t even zerg PvE stuff very effectively because it all dies before my abilities connect half the time.
Are dual swords just broken? Are these known issues getting fixed in the expansion? Is this something that will “get better” at max level? Are mesmer players just masochists?
Hi All,
I am up to date with the conversation. We are discussing your thoughts internally and continuing to work on the story steps. Once I have some more new I will update the thread.
Meanwhile I just want to communicate with certainty that NPE was not implemented in order to increase monetization from the BLT. It was designed for brand new players to the game. And it is for that reason that we are working with you to understand how to better refine the system.
Chris
It kind of feels like you guys are just throwing darts at a board to see where to take the game next. On one hand you keep stating how you won’t discuss work in progress, or even thoughts about the direction to take certain things. And on the other hand you keep releasing patches and then immediately having to backtrack/change/justify/scrap/etc half of what you did because no one likes it.
Either stop making bad design decisions, or be more willing to communicate with the playerbase about them before they go live. Alternatively, if you really think your designs are great and it’s just bad luck that the game population kind of sucks, at least be clear about it so that people don’t around for several months hoping that your claims of “listening to feedback” and “making some changes” pan out the way they hope, and instead can just go play other games. At least then you won’t have to constantly defend and/or justify your designs and changes.
I started playing within a month or so of release, but could never really stay interested for much longer than about level 20-25, for a variety of reasons.
- bland voice acting and writing
- limited character customization
- combat felt very repetitive
- lack of Trinity limits PvE to zerging
- PvP is setup to encourage zerging
- Story never feels cohesive, partly because you spend 90% of your time doing random crap like feeding cows or whatever, for people you don’t know, don’t care about, and will never see again.
- The 10% of the time that you’re doing your personal story (or whatever it’s called), felt disjointed because you have to constantly put them on hold while you gain levels.
Despite that very broad set of complaints, I’ve kept coming back every 3 or 4 months to give the game another try, because I really want to like the game. I did so again this weekend, before realizing there was a major patch that just went live. Having started a new character and played to about 16 or 17, I wanted to take a moment to let people and/or devs know what my impression is. Mostly because I feel like I’m exactly the kind of player that they are trying to retain (maybe I’m wrong though).
First Impressions
I’ll be honest, and just say up front that I very nearly uninstalled as soon as I left the intro map. I immediately went looking for an AH guy, only to find out they are no longer on the 1-15 map. Thinking that was strange, I ran into the city and loaded up the AH. I was immediately struck by how *un*intuitive that interface has become. I don’t know if it was changed in this last patch, or earlier this year or what. But I managed to somehow accidentally purchase 48 bags when I only intended to purchase 5. So I spent the next several minutes figuring out how to relist the 43 bags that I didn’t need, and finally purchased the off hand weapon I came for in the first place.
And then I found out that I can’t even use off hand weapons until level 7. After asking around in chat again, people mentioned that ANet wrecked the whole early level experience because it was somehow too complicated. I then poke around on the forums to see what’s going on and read through the patch notes, usually dumbfounded by what I saw.
So basically, ANet managed take a game that was already too simplistic and found ways to make it ever less complicated in an effort to appeal to… I don’t know, 7 year olds or something. There aren’t enough abilities in the game to begin with (especially when you consider stuff with long cooldowns), yet they felt like offering even fewer abilities would better retain people? I still don’t understand the level gating thing, but it’s their game.
The single bright spot in all this, and the one reason why I might possibly manage to last longer than level 25 this time, is how the personal story is now paced. When I finally hit level 10 (after doing several hours of the same crap for the same people that I don’t know or care about, mind you), I was able to push through the first major story line without having to constantly stop and go level a few times before picking it up again. That was a huge improvement. My understanding these story sections will come up about every ten levels, which should be fine as long as the later levels don’t move too slowly. Even if the pacing does slow down at later levels, at least I’m not inexplicably holding off on something major like rescuing someone because I need to go kill grubs until another farmer is happy with me.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. I really want to like the game, and I’m hoping that ANet can introduce some complexity at some point, rather than focusing solely on lowering the barrier of entry. Complexity is what will keep players playing.
Side note to ANet: despite what you may think, getting a notification every level about stats gained, or stuff unlocked, doesn’t actually make the level up process any more special because the stats/features/etc have no context. I gained a level and my stats increased by 20? I don’t even know what that means or how it helps my character, much less why I should feel accomplished.
I was disappointed to see that even with the new faces, Human males still have only 1 real option that doesn’t look like a 15 year old boy :/