Guild Wars 2

Yeah same here, I do both PvE and PvP, and enjoy both in this game. What’s all the fuss about?

Jae.5138:

Do majority of gamers want to hit the highest level in the game, only to go back to helping farmers collect bunnies?

You might be surprised.

I like the way GW2 does it. I go back to low level zones and they are noticeably easier without being able to faceroll them, which means that even if I’m in a low level zone, it’s still a bit of an adventure. My sense of progression really comes from mastering the fairly intricate play of my class (Mesmer). There’s a lot of depth to the game that only becomes apparent the more you master your class. There’s always a way of building better, being more efficient, and tailoring your build ever more finely to your own playstyle, and playing more effectively (throwing neater shapes).

As said above, be prepared for a bit of a slog till you get to the higher levels with a Mesmer. Also, if you don’t like switching weapons frequently, don’t play a Mesmer. Later Mesmer can be spectacular, but mainly it’s a “busy” playstyle, so if you don’t like “busy” you won’t like it. In esssence, it’s a CC/damage class.

If you like pets, play a Necro rather than a Mesmer. The Mesmer “pets” (illusions) aren’t really pets, but more like distractions combined with grenades, including CC grenades.

I find the classes very distinctly defined and enjoyable. In fact, I think Anet must have spent a good deal of time on this. My Warrior plays TOTALLY differently from my Mesmer, and my Mesmer has several possibilities within itself, each quite distinct (e.g. shatter vs. phantasms build). But also, an Elementalist playst totally differently from a Mesmer, and differently yet again from a Necromancer or an Engineer.

The game may yet eventually turn into mush over the years, like WoW, but at the moment it seems pretty balanced to me. All the class forums kitten about equally, which seems about right.

All MMOs are broken. It’s impossible to balance so many combat themes, it’s even difficult to understand what balance is, in that situation.

OTOH you can have a perfectly balanced game, but then you lose the colour and variety of what people make up for themselves.

Some of the classes in the game are late bloomers, you just have to grit your teeth and get on with it or give up the class.

http://tinyurl.com/cqz5xa8

Is my build as I’ve just reached 80. Basically shatter-oriented, but with a few tricks and a bit of variety vis a vis group vs. solo by switching a few Traits around.

Not really sure about gear. I’ve got Berserkers gear with Earth runes atm, as toughness is a good stat for me since it adds to condition damage, especially with Apprentice Tuning and Sigil of Domination.

I’ve given all the weapons a good shot, and they all have point and purpose, but my favourite to play with are Staff, Sword/Focus, and occasionally Greatsword instead of Staff, for soloing/exploration.

Very survivable good all-rounder, but dependent on good timing.

I loved both the Ele and Necro, they’re fine classes. But the Mesmer stole my heart because the theme fit in with my character very well.

The Mesmer is a fun, active playstyle, which I would characterize by the word “mercurial”. That’s how I feel while playing it. If you can handle an Engineer then you can easily handle a Mesmer (and you should also be able to handle an Elementalist). It requires lots of keypresses to do things that other classes can do with one keypress, but the subjective “feel” of the fun of using the combinations of keypresses and getting them down pat, easily makes up for it.

It is squishy, so timing is everything. It’s not the class to play if you just want to relax and kill things – but I always like to have 2 or 3 classes on the go to get that contrast (e.g. my second main is a Hunter so that gives me a bit of a break if I want one).

Timing is important for many other classes like the Ele too, but it’s more in a strategic rather than a tactical sense like the Mesmer. With the Mesmer you have to concentrate moment by moment and change tactics quickly – mercurial, as I said.

You just have to think of them not as pets, but as more like grenades, debuff grenades, or as grenades with a bit of upfront burst damage (phantasms).

I think it’s more a question of the person who has fields to lay down laying them down so that people who aren’t thinking about it will be able to fire through them just in the course of their natural play.

“Hardcore” is just a polite, gamer’s way of saying “heavily addicted”.

But is it necessary, for an MMO to be a success, to have (what is always only going to be a relatively) small number of people heavily addicted?

Can’t an MMO be a success with a bunch of people just enjoying the game and being mildly addicted for periods, picking it up and putting it down whenever they fancy?

The argument about “stickiness” only works with subscription games – the whole point of the addictive grind was that it attracted a bunch of people who were likely to stick with the game and keep paying a monthly subscription, and that formed the core playerbase. That logic doesn’t have any meaning with B2P. All you need with B2P is to have enough players around to create a background buzz for casual players, to have enough in the cash shop to let casual players get a boost now and then, and to engender enough enjoyment for casual players so that they’ll pony up for the next expansion. Naturally, it’s nice if some hardcore players stick around too, but it’s not as CRUCIAL for the game’s life and longevity as it would be for a subscription MMO.

There’s a different kind of “stickiness” that comes from the virtual world aspect (people like hanging out in this particular virtual place), and that’s what ANet are aiming for with the “living world” idea.

There’s a different kind of “stickiness” again that comes from hardcore PvP players. The PvP scene in GW2 is pretty healthy so far as I can see.

At the end of the day, basing your income on players who are liable to become heavily addicted was never a good idea. It led to a hardcore sticky playerbase, true, and that hardcore playerbase created good viral marketing for the game, true; but the bulk of subscribers was always casual anyway (check the stats for WoW) and there was always a high churn rate of casual players anyway. ANet have just gone with the flow of that and reversed the design emphasis from hardcore > casual to casual > hardcore.

So all that happens is that the game has some hardcore features but maybe not enough to satisfy some hardcore players, and instead of creating a positive buzz for the game, those players bellyache and create a slight negative buzz. But my impression from around the net is that most players who play GW2 absolutely love it to bits precisely BECAUSE it’s a game they can easily pick up and put down, and with the living world content, it is sufficiently interesting and different each time you pick it up.

“Hardcore” is just a polite way of saying “heavily addicted”.

They’re just much prettier to look at than men.

Kso.6458:

To the dude that said having limited abilities makes you think more, thanks, I had a nice laugh about that.

It makes you think more in the sense that rather than having all abilities “on tap” all the time, you have to think and choose before an encounter (i.e. you have to actually con the mobs, or have some idea of the encounter, so you know what you’re getting into), and then switch out weapons, utilities, heal and elite, to suit (i.e. to min-max your ability to get through that particular encounter).

Ofc you can spam the same 5 abilities, and you’ll probably do ok, and that’s WAI, because some people just like to spam a few abilities. But if you do like to cut the most elegant swathe through the mobs with most effect and least effort, then you can use the ability to swap weapons, utilities, heals and elites on the fly (out of combat, i.e. before encounters).

Really, the only functional difference between GW2 and the other games mentioned is that with one type of game you have instant access to all the abilities, and with GW2 you have to choose your loadout prior to encounters. There are easily enough abilities in GW2 to make for interesting gameplay, just as with any other MMO. (And as with other MMOs, some abilities are just fluff and some are highly situational.)

For myself, on each toon, I usually have 3 or 4 “neat tricks” on each Profession – some combination of weapons, utilities, heals and elites, that do something cool that I build around and gear around. Each “neat trick” will involve several keypresses and some weapon swapping.

It’s not really any better or worse than having all abilities on tap, it’s just different. Some people will prefer one style, others the other, but most people (I’ll wager) are comfortable with either.

Having listened to Colin Johanson’s interview, I think I’m beginning to “get” where they’re going with GW2. The three options above are not the only ones for PvE endgame – the option everyone is missing, and that Anet are into, is that the game world should change and evolve fairly rapidly through time.

I’m guessing they have developed some tools that enable the team to change the game world more easily than has been possible in MMOs before, and that what we’re going to see is something that’s a bit more like DM-generated dynamic content as in tabletop games, but on a larger, slower scale (with new “things to do” being opened up every few weeks, every few months, etc.)

The original idea for Everquest was meant to have 2 quest types: “Dynamic” quests which would be DM-led, and “Static” quests (question-mark-above-NPC) quests. Unfortunately, at the time the technology wasn’t up to it, and Sony were never able to fulfil the idea that “Dynamic” quests should be the main part of the quest system (hence the title “Everquest”), so “Static” quests took up the slack, and that’s what Blizz and other developers turned into the common quest model.

I think Anet are returning a little bit to the older idea that the world should change around you and be more interactive – full-on DM-led questing is still a bit too hard to implement in large-scalle MMOs, but what Anet are going for is something that’s inbetween that and the “Static” quest model – i.e. they are going to update the game world constantly so that the “Static” quests (Hearts) and DEs change over time.

IOW, the game world a couple of years from now will be different from how it is now, in a way that will make it interesting for returning players – i.e. the game world will be somewhat unfamiliar enough for returning players to keep them interested and keep them returning.

This is, I think, the alternative to the “carrots” that sub/gear grind models have used so far – rather than adding more static content on top of a static world, the whole world itself will have shifting content over time. The major additions of chunks of world (new big zones proper) will then come with the paid-for updates.

Or, to put it another way, where with most MMOs “new content” generally means “new zones”, Anet have found a way internally of changing existing content more easily, more regularly, and for free.

So that’s the answer: not so much character progression (because of the “level playing field/no gear grind” ethos), as world progression (because there has to be some change and evolution to keep things fresh). If you think about it, there’s no essential difference between challenging content being added at level cap by changing the game world, and the WoW-style stat inflation and gear grind. You’re still getting fresh challenging gameplay that’s on or just above your level, it’s just that with stat inflation and gear grind you have an illusion of “character progression” but it’s really just a hamster wheel. Being linear, that kind of stat inflation is unsustainable beyond a certain point in terms of any kind of “realism” (you’re a hero, then you’re super-hero, then you’re a super-duper-hero, etc. – why not just be a hero, but with the content shifting and remaining challenging?)

The gist of it, I thought, was that Anet really want the world itself to be dynamic – DEs on a large scale, as it were. As Johanson says, the team have always intended the Live part of the game to be the most important – i.e. that the game world constantly changes and evolves.

Things in the world will gradually change over time, there will be regular big events of the scale of the Halloween event, which change the world in some ways, and also leave behind new things in the world. Their main focus going forward is content, content and more content, especially for those at level cap; also adequate reward for challenging content.

QOL issues (such as DF tools, etc.) are in their minds, but on the back burner for the moment.

It seems to me that they’re aware that, without a sub and gear grind, the game will have people dipping in and out of it, and they want the content to be a bit fresh each time you dip into it. They want to produce for free an amount of content that will amaze and gratify returning players.

It all sounds great, and given what they’ve delivered so far, I’m fairly confident that they’ll deliver.

SkyCakeLight.3750:

Agreed. This is something SWTOR actually did kind of right. Giving us options! Some people don’t like choices however out of fear of missing “something” for saying “something.” I’m assuming this was Anet’s thought process on this subject.

It would be great if all MMOs could be as fully voiced with as many choices as SWTOR (and have the grouped dialogues too!), but that was a kind of one-off, and it nearly ruined the game (as in, it’s possible they spent so much money on the voice-overs that some other parts of the game suffered).

I’m in the camp who could happily have text-only for some kinds of dialogues, and some dialogue choices of one’s own.

It could be done like this:- you have the standard voiced-over stuff as is, but you have a “Lore” button you could press that would unfold more in-depth text, and text choices of one’s own, to add to the conversation.

Good interview, very encouraging! I like the emphasis on the world being dynamic. I have some QOL preferences myself, but I understand that the main priority must be to fill out content at this stage.

Just as politics is all about the economy stupid, MMOs are all about the content stupid, and I’m glad Anet are on the ball. Keep up the good work guys and gals!

I think this is an excellent idea!

Personally, I’ve always found skill bloat to be a PITA. Eventually, the skills just get so pathetic and situational they’re only good for very occasional use.

I’d agree with those who say that if you are only using 5 skills you are playing wrong – pretty much with any Profession, there are lots and lots of combinations between the weapon skills, the utilities (which you can switch on the fly inbetween combat, in case you didn’t realise) and the elite skills (which, again, can be changed inbetween combats).

So there are easily enough skills to play with. If it’s just down to wanting all the skills available on hotbars, yeah, I can understand that in a sense, but I think the idea of having to think before a combat which weps, utilities and elites to switch out for certain mob types or encounters, adds another interesting layer of choice and forethought.

Player created content is what players make of it. Zergs are fun for a while, but as people get to know their toons better and better the gameplay styles will change and become more refined.

I’m pretty sure that Anet will introduce some more styles of PvP as well, over time. They already stated that the sPvP arenas are just a start, and that they intend to expand on that. I think the same will happen with the WvW type of idea (e.g. a realm that has more of a “permanent” struggle between factions that are not-server-based, but based on some kind of elective affiliation, would be a nice addition, once things have settled down a bit).

I’m in the “it’s a PITA now” camp. It’s rather downgraded Staff play for me.

I’m sort of inbetween the two camps.

Functionally, mounts wouldn’t really add anything to the run+waypoint system.

Immersion-wise, it’s split – mounts are immersive in one sense (it makes sense to ride a horse, etc., to get somewhere). On the other hand, mounts can be very immersion-breaking too, when you can just pull them out of your kitten and people use them indoors, etc. It just looks stupid.

On the whole, I like the system where you have waypoints if you need to get somewhere fast, and running (or even walking – I often walk) if you just want to smell the roses.

However, if mounts had to be tetherable (not useable indoors or in cities, only on outdoor terrain) and you couldn’t just whisk them out of your kitten then I’d be in favour.

I don’t think there are any “bad” combinations really, it all totally depends on your playstyle, on how you like to play. The build system is incredibly flexible that way. Any combination of weapons can be supported by some combination of Utilities and Traits, or you can build the other way round (building your weapon choices around your choice of Utilities and Traits).

There are some combos that are more optimal min-max wise (in terms of the raw numbers) in certain areas, but no combination is absolutely useless, and what one person considers useless might be optimal for another, if they can’t play, or don’t enjoy playing, in the style that the optimal combination requires.

I tried Scepter+Shield for a while, and enjoyed it, but found that ultimately Scepter+Torch is more fun for me, while Mace+Shield work better together. But that’s just me, YMMV, and if you enjoy Scepter+Shield, go for it – build around it, choose your Utilities and Traits to enhance that combo!

Azthioth.9682:

Anyone that says I play this game because it is fun and I hate competition is a liar. No one plays an MMO without a sense of competition. If it is not beating other players, then it is beating yourself or the AI or the TP.

I really, really don’t play MMOs competitively much. I play them to relax and goof off pretending I’m adventuring in a fantasy world. “Competition” to me stretches no further than beating the AI in the fights I come across, or the individual players I’m playing against. I have no “meta” sense of competition (i.e. that I’m competing with other players in general, as in it being a reason for me playing). I like the gear progression while levelling, but I also like sPvP because of the level playing field.

I’m actually very relieved to find an MMO that doesn’t cater as much to the Achiever mentality as most games do. I think MMOs have been skewed far too much towards the Achiever mentality in recent years. I suspect this is because Achievers are more easily addicted to ladders of achievement, and therefore more willing to pay subscriptions.

GW2 being B2P frees ANET up to return the MMO concept somewhat more to its roots, with more of a balance between different playstyles, rather than a lop-sided emphasis on Achievement.

This frees GW2 up to find its own audience – and to have more of a balance of Explorers, Socializers and Player Killers, as well as Achievers. (Using the Bartle Types as a rough guide, of course it’s more complex than that, and most of us are a mix of the “types” – e.g. I’m mostly an Explorer, but I have some Socializer and Player Killer, but very little Achiever.)

Only the “shrinkage” of the 2H weapons when stowed on the back really bothers me. I don’t mind about smaller weapons in general, just that “elastic” quality of the size of 2H-ers. I wouldn’t mind a bit of shrinkage, but it’s just too much, it’s disconcerting.

I fairly quickly settled on GS/Scepter + Torch as my favourite combination so far (lvl 13 atm). It’s a pretty flexible set – you can pull, kite, or stand toe-to-toe. So far, it’s great for levelling.

Yes it’s a Profession for those who like to micro-manage. Why do stuff with one button when you can do it with 3?

And if you think the Mesmer is micro-management hell, wait till you try the Engineer

I think the Asurans basically just squeak over the line to being a “good” race; but they are dangerous and have to be watched.

The Inquest is what the Asura in general would be like with the brakes off. Fortunately the bulk of Asurans aren’t like that, and most of them can understand compassion; but their xenophobia and nerdy hunger for knowledge are always potentially dangerous to everyone else, if not tempered by compassion.

Chaos Storm + Phase Retreat means you get “free” Chaos Sphere protection without having to use the Chaos Sphere power.

However, since Phase Retreat was changed recently, this combo has become less reliable and less fun to use because while formerly you retreated in the opposite direction to which you were facing, now, the way you are facing seems to be random where you end up, so it’s always a bit disorienting; plus you go further back than before. Actually a bit of an overall downgrade IMHO.

I absolutely love the fact that while the Asurans certainly are gosh-darned cute, and on the whole a “good” race, there’s also something slightly sinister about them (those little shark-like TEETH; plus, as outlined in the intro for Asuran chars, their race also has a sense of “manifest destiny” that may have to be watched out for).

Eugenics.6953:

What about Puff the magic dragon?
Battle music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wik2uc69WbU

Oh don’t, that song always brings a little tear to my eye. I used to weep buckets whenever I heard it as a kid

I agree that this is a minor PITA. Or to put it another way, it’s a PITA, but it’s a pretty minor PITA.

Of course it would be absolutely horrendous if you couldn’t also re-assign the keys (e.g. I always have autoattack powers on Mouse4, I’m used to that from other MMOs I’ve played). However, as you can re-assign the keys, it’s not too bad that you can’t also re-assign relative positions of abilities.

However, I do think it’s something that ANET will get round to eventually.

My feeling is that they’ve done it this way because they don’t want people to get into “rotation” thinking too early. For example, many times a weapon will have a combo field on 4 and another weapon will have the combo field on 3 or something. Or there will be a leap on 2 on one weapon, and a leap on 3 on the other weapon. I think this was probably deliberate, to get you to have to think a little bit about possible synergies other than the obvious, and don’t just stick all your fields on 1, leaps on 2 and finishers on 3 (for example). It’s to keep you on your toes.

Also, another advantage the system has is that it’s oddly convenient to refer to “Sword 1, Scepter 3” etc, etc., when talking about builds. You don’t have to type the name of the ability or make up some shorthand or acroynym, and anyone who uses the weapon will instantly understand what you mean. This wouldn’t be possible if you could re-assign the relative positions of the skills. I’m not sure if this was deliberate, but it’s a little thing on the benefits side of the balance.

Either that, or it’s just an oversight that they’ll eventually get around to remedying

Piken Square is heavily English-speaking, perhaps because it’s the “unofficial RP server” for EU English speakers – so ever furriners speak English on it

It’s really amusing to me how people talk about limited build options. As far as I’m concerned, this game is absolutely incredible in the number of build options available for each Profession, and all of them are effective, depending on your playstyle.

IOW, there are many possible things to build around. You can build around:- single weapon synergies, cross-weapon synergies, either of these combined with various utilities, certain utility combinations alone, utility combinations in combination with traits, traits only, traits in combination with single weapon synergies, traits in combination with cross-weapon synergies, traits in combination with utilities, in combination with single-weapon synergies, traits in combination with utilities in combination with cross-weapon synergies.

Now I’m not saying that all combinations are equally effective in min-max terms for any given playstyle, but there are easily enough possible combinations such that anybody can fine-tune a few builds to their playstyle that are effective enough to be fun to play.

The game isn’t exactly impoverished wrt build choices, there’s no LACK of abilities/skills. Perhaps in contrast with GW1, but as someone said above, it took GW1 a wee while to get there. In contrast with most other games out there’s an incredible number of possible effective (not just “flavour” but actually effective) builds in each Profession, right out the gate. (And part of the “incredibleness” of it is that it’s all pretty well balanced.)

And just to keep perspective on this, I say this as a convert to the game. I had little interest in the game and tried it sheerly out of curiosity. I’ve been won over by precisely the variety of builds possible.

I must admit I’m quite enjoying the SweetFX look (Timebomb’s latest settings, up in the thread), although I do also like the vanilla look too.

It’s like, the vanilla look is like a pastel or watercolour painting, slightly washed-out, and dreamlike. With SweetFX the game looks more like a standard modern high-quality videogame, less impressionistic, but crisper with more standout bump-mapping and stuff.

It just depends on what kind of look you prefer really. There’s absolutely nothing wrong intrinsically with the vanilla look, but if you’d prefer a slightly different, more “realistic” look, SweetFX will give you that.

I’m not sure where the idea comes from that “realistic” melee fights would be long.

Judging from attempts to reconstruct mediaeval fighting styles from the European martial arts books from the 15th and 16th century, most mediaeval melee fights were probably pretty quick. Blades, maces, etc., even knives, are absolutely deadly, and it only takes a tiny mistake to open a combatant up to severe damage or incapacitation.

I guess it depends on what you mean by realistic- “realistic according to how mediaeval fighting actually was” or “realistic according to how mediaeval fighting is portrayed in the movies or in recreational mediaevalism”. The latter would make fights longer, because it’s more fun to watch and participate in. The former would make fights short, because they most likely were short, unless the participants were exactly evenly matched in terms of skill (a condition difficult to ensure on the battlefield).

Great to see a dev response on this. Over 10k is an impressive number, but it’s a big game, so keep up the good work! I think I can speak for many players when I say we’re rooting for you guys to get on top of this problem.

I like that it’s less buggy wrt teleporting into the ground, but I hate, hate, hate the loss of utility in not knowing where you’re going to be facing at the end of the teleport any more. They should have just changed the tooltip.

It’s nice that it no longer teleports you into the ground as much. That’s a definite plus. But:-

I much preferred the old Phase Retreat, where I teleported me backwards; the new Phase Retreat is too random.

I hate this change, and it’s considerably diminished my pleasure in using the Staff.

I would rather they’d implemented the change of not teleporting into the ground as much, but just changed the tooltip to represent the “teleports you backwards from the direction you’re facing” behaviour.

Cristina P.6241:

I really dislike the class Mesmer , Everyone knows they are to Overpowerd, And they can confuse you like nothing and just walk away. I think ArenaNet, Should NERF these characters abilitys because it is unfair. None of my characters can kill them…? I GUESS WE, ARE ALL GONNA BECOME A MESMER. You guys mest up there ArenaNet.

Yet, on the last count (graph shown by economics guy several weeks ago), Mesmer was the least-played class, along with Engineer.

The most powerful class for any given player is that class the mechanics of which suit that player’s playstyle and capabilities.

Red Falcon.8257:

My best moment was during a DE chain, where Asuras as usual do experiments on Ettins.
This time things go wrong and the Ettin becomes more intelligent than the Asura after the experiment, completely owning the rat with superior intellect and then turning into a super Ettin and mauling his face into the ground.

You get the event to kill the Ettin but I refused to.
The Ettin was right. They were doing nothing wrong, Asuras did experiments on them and it backfired on them.
Well served!

Yeah this is one of my favourite moments too. I just noticed the conversation peripherally at first, then as it got more and more interesting I had to go over and consciously listen. Great little mini-event.

But the game is so full of such amazing attention to detail, there are cool little touches everywhere, and they don’t even get thinner as the game progresses, the “cool little touches” factor seems to remain even in the later zones.

Yeah, I’ve got 6 Profs on the go, and they are very well differentiated. Some are easy mode, some are harder. That is good. Why? Because sometimes I like to concentrate and sometimes I just want to goof off. It’s good to have Professions that serve either playstyle.

If they were all ez mode or all hard, something would be wrong.

And generally, class forums in MMOs are usually cesspits of pointless whining anyway, devs should never, ever listen to them. (Well, maybe only very occasionally, to those serious posters who can back up what they say with good arguments and some numbers; such posters are always few, and always stand out above the godawful whining noise.)

Yeah, the effects are fantastic when there’s only one or two players and mobs, but it gets a bit ridiculous in mass fights. One does get used to it over time, but some of the suggestions here would be worth looking at. One doesn’t want to lose the spectacular quality when one is soloing or in small groups, because the spectacle is fun, but one does want some means of making the graphics more practical in larger fights.

Yeah, it’s a criminal outrage that guns basically just shoot things and swords basically just slash and poke things. They should be more imaginative, like, if you fire a gun an elephant comes out of your kitten

Good suggestions. I’d agree that it would be nice if there were some more incentive to re-visit your home towns, or more ease (“hearthstone”) of travelling between them, or some chat connection. I was reminded of this when visiting the Grove recently – it’s such a beautiful place, but very few players there.

I’ve had a lot of fun with Elementalist and Engineer, they’re both at least as complex as the Mesmer, probably more so.

But yeah, I do keep coming back to my Mesmer, and she’s the most satisfying of my toons to play. I guess I’m just in love with exploding crystal purple butterflies