Guild Wars 2 Preview
- Thread starter Slycne
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I'd like to clarify that buying gems with real money is not the only way to attain them. Gems are integral to the economy in that other players buy them off you for gold. On this basis, it's simply a matter of time versus convenience. Since some people don't play as often as others, and might be able to afford putting in that extra dollar or two, they might get more incentive for providing the gem vendors while raking in the gold from players who prefer to spend time in-game to earn their gems.
I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the beta. Got to level 20 with my Thief and have never had so much fun in MMO combat before. Everything about it is challenging, exciting and active. You really need to concentrate, and you feel like a badass when you pull off a hard encounter.
If you're interested how the combat feels and operates (when not a giant clusterf*ck), read on, but I expect lots of tl;drs.
The best example is probably in the personal story. For my human female thief, I was attempting to gather information from a captain at a brewing monastery (they literally worship mead), when centaurs try raiding the place. Dual daggers and shortbow in hand, I had to fight back wave after wave, dodging arrows and avoiding slashes with my eyes fixed to the screen. Eventually, the centaurs' leader turns up at the front gate and starts shouting to see the "hero". The captain looks at me disconcertingly and says I should probably see what he wants. I step outside the front gate to see the leader, and he starts screaming about how I think I'm better than he is, and challenges me to a one-on-one duel, immediately charging at me. This is where skill and forethought comes in to play, unlike other MMOs where I would just hit 12341111234231:
The moment he puts that sword ahead towards me, I throw down Caltrops (mini-spikes scattered all over the ground). I jump back as his hooves land on them, and he immediately groans and limps, a lot slower than before (condition applied). Taking advantage, I pounce forward and use Leaping Death Blossom (basically a front-flip over the opponent while striking with both daggers). He's now bleeding rapidly (condition applied). He turns around as I throw a knife at him to cripple him even further (condition applied?). He suddenly raises his shield and the knife comes flying right back at me. Somehow, my immediate reflex is to hit Shift, which luckily was my custom dodge button. I roll out of the way as the knife skims exactly where my face had been. He keeps the shield raised and remains still. Smiling to myself, I switch to my shortbow and fire. Obviously, he still thinks his defence will work, but I had actually fired an AoE arrow, cluster bomb. It sails overhead and I detonate it, raining loads of explosives over the top of him. He starts limping away to get some distance, and I leap forward with Heartseeker (a dagger pounce that does more damage the less the enemy's HP is). It connects directly and he falls dead. His friends immediately make a run for it as I turn around.
I've never had a fight like that in any MMO. Ever. It's just incredible.
I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the beta. Got to level 20 with my Thief and have never had so much fun in MMO combat before. Everything about it is challenging, exciting and active. You really need to concentrate, and you feel like a badass when you pull off a hard encounter.
If you're interested how the combat feels and operates (when not a giant clusterf*ck), read on, but I expect lots of tl;drs.
The best example is probably in the personal story. For my human female thief, I was attempting to gather information from a captain at a brewing monastery (they literally worship mead), when centaurs try raiding the place. Dual daggers and shortbow in hand, I had to fight back wave after wave, dodging arrows and avoiding slashes with my eyes fixed to the screen. Eventually, the centaurs' leader turns up at the front gate and starts shouting to see the "hero". The captain looks at me disconcertingly and says I should probably see what he wants. I step outside the front gate to see the leader, and he starts screaming about how I think I'm better than he is, and challenges me to a one-on-one duel, immediately charging at me. This is where skill and forethought comes in to play, unlike other MMOs where I would just hit 12341111234231:
The moment he puts that sword ahead towards me, I throw down Caltrops (mini-spikes scattered all over the ground). I jump back as his hooves land on them, and he immediately groans and limps, a lot slower than before (condition applied). Taking advantage, I pounce forward and use Leaping Death Blossom (basically a front-flip over the opponent while striking with both daggers). He's now bleeding rapidly (condition applied). He turns around as I throw a knife at him to cripple him even further (condition applied?). He suddenly raises his shield and the knife comes flying right back at me. Somehow, my immediate reflex is to hit Shift, which luckily was my custom dodge button. I roll out of the way as the knife skims exactly where my face had been. He keeps the shield raised and remains still. Smiling to myself, I switch to my shortbow and fire. Obviously, he still thinks his defence will work, but I had actually fired an AoE arrow, cluster bomb. It sails overhead and I detonate it, raining loads of explosives over the top of him. He starts limping away to get some distance, and I leap forward with Heartseeker (a dagger pounce that does more damage the less the enemy's HP is). It connects directly and he falls dead. His friends immediately make a run for it as I turn around.
I've never had a fight like that in any MMO. Ever. It's just incredible.
I had a blast playing the beta weekend.
One of my absolutely favorite features is: You're downleveled in low-level areas, but the rewards you get for doing events and hearts is not. This means that the game only gets bigger as you level up: Your character never misses out on a zone because he's too overpowered for it. Level 30 in a level 5 zone? Still better be careful pulling more than a few mobs, or you're going to die horribly.
I died often, and horribly.
I loved it.
One of my absolutely favorite features is: You're downleveled in low-level areas, but the rewards you get for doing events and hearts is not. This means that the game only gets bigger as you level up: Your character never misses out on a zone because he's too overpowered for it. Level 30 in a level 5 zone? Still better be careful pulling more than a few mobs, or you're going to die horribly.
I died often, and horribly.
I loved it.
It helps if you think of GW2 as a separate game entirely from GW1.Gardenia said:
Honestly, I think calling it "Guild Wars 2" might hurt their sales more than if they had called it almost anything else. Too many GW1 fans will dislike that it's different from GW1, too many GW1 haters will assume it's just more of the stuff they hated from the first game, and too many people who never cared about GW1 won't even pay attention to it because they'll assume it was made for people who played the first game.
*Edit: there is still a lot of choice in this game. You'll want to select your last 5 skills and your traits based on what you're going up against. (Your last 5 skills and all the Major Traits can be swapped around at will, just not in combat.) And even the different weapon types have different feels to them; some are more supportive, some are more condition-centric, etc.
There are also other things people can do, like an elementalist can swap between attunements (water being more supportive, fire being more AoE, etc.) depending on the situation, or an engineer might swap to a close-range flamethrower if he gets pulled toward an enemy.
You will also have different individual weapons that have different effects, like ones that can apply burning and ones that have different stats at night, and you can choose from those based on the situation.
And that's not even touching on the cross-profession combos. If a warrior sees an elementalist freeze the ground, he can run over to the frozen patch, stomp on it, and give everyone nearby some Frost Armor. Just for one example. You are still paying a lot of attention to what's going on in GW2 and trying to react to it.
All in all, it's less about preparation and more about reaction. But it's still complex.
I'd have to disagree about it being shallow and simplistic. This may be more about the Elementalist's gameplay, as it was the only class I played during the beta weekend, but I found that I needed to take diversity in my skillsets seriously. I was expecting to build up on Fire and Air for power attacks, ignoring water and earth, but had a number of times when I'd need to switch out gain the effects of other elements when the situation changed on me. I'm used to mage classes needing to specialize, but GW2 seems to require you to mix it up.Gardenia said:
One of the personal story missions put in in a one-on-one boss fight. I quickly learned that one element won't cut it. You have to use all your class's abilities to be effective. You can plan ahead, but you have to be ready to change. I think it makes combat more complex as you can't create a winning situation by picking just the right items beforehand.
So im definately looking to get guild wars 2 now. Where as before i wasn't at all.
Big question though, is it going to be subscription based like other MMO's or keep the smart idea of Guild wars 1 and only have an upfront cost?
That's the deciding factor for me.
Big question though, is it going to be subscription based like other MMO's or keep the smart idea of Guild wars 1 and only have an upfront cost?
That's the deciding factor for me.
Forgot to mention this. The side-kick mechanic, as they call it, is really cool too. You will be able to enjoy all areas regardless of your level, all encounters will be challenging, and you will get rewards according to your actual level. Pretty cool, this is a selling point for me.knhirt said:
I played an elementalist a lot over the beta as well and had a very similar experience. (Its also worth noting that with 4 power sets to choose from, the 5 weapon skills is actually 20 when its all trained). During PVP, id go from AOE fire damage, to throwing down water heals, using air to run away, and throwing earth stalls behind me. Every skill had a time that it was useful, and learning how best to use the skills was fun too. There is one air skill that makes you evade backwards and grants you a speed boost. Using this while running away was fun, trying to do a quick 180, roll backwards, then another 180 to keep running away... fun stuff.Jonci said:
Cool, your options were head on attack or get them drunk... I had the options of get them drunk, or sneak in while shapeshifted into a minotaur myself. I am really curious to see what other differences were put in to the story quests.if_then_else said:
During character creation, one of my options was that I lost an heirloom. I loved that a few quests later I found out the bad guy was using said heirloom to cause trouble.
Yeah, I chose the lost heirloom thing too, and the last personal story chapter I finished was the encounter with that guy that summons enemies with the horn, I absolutely loved too.Kordie said:
Also, now that you mention it, I too had the option to turn into a minotaur during that quests, but I think it was to stanpeed through the camp and rescue the minotaurs, I don't remember about sneaking (that's why I said attack them all in). I wasn't aware the options also changed regarding your choices through the game. Another selling point.
This, i was pleased by the PvE gameplay but not blown away, the structured PvP is nice and still i was unimpressed (you can describe it as a capture based Blood Champions, or a balanced focus Arathi Basin and be almost right on money).Slycne said:
The two things I loved about GW 2 are the near perfect implementation of DaoC RvR (i would very much like you to do an extensive article about this next time) and the level designers, the architecture of even the most modest of the capital cities is just amazing, and the human capital city? A work of art.
Sadly, your WvW experience depends a lot on your server.... try to pick a server good at PvP or it might be misserable, Sorrow's Furnace seems to be the DaoC veterans server of choice, sadly i was unable to get into that one last weekend, but mine still kicked ass sunday on the eternal battlegrounds.
Yeap, just like in DaoC. Also... maybe I am biased, but don't think this weeked balance was horrible, we needed to have a golem and use almost all our gold in siege to have a chance against the green and blue keeps; there was also a big ass guild leading the charge and even then we barely took blue.Berenzen said:
Now... if you were to say "the first few weeks are going to be zergy in terms of WvW", that i can get behind.
A few things.Gardenia said:
First: Build Wars was terrible for most players, particularly new players, or players who insisted on playing a unique snowflake build even if it was a bad build. How often did you ask a player to ping their build, and it was some horrific Mo/R beastmaster with healing prayers and a bow? Choice is great, but when the vast majority of skill combinations are objectively terrible, why even have them? Particularly in an open-world game like GW2, I don't want an event to scale up as a result of some guy bringing the aforementioned terrible Mo/R build, dying or being useless, but making the event more challenging for me. The fixed weapon skills ensure that, at bare minimum, every player has 5 skills on their bar that work well together and focus them on at least one role.
Second: You're being incredibly simplistic when it comes to describing your choices prior to combat. You have your weapon selection (which makes an enormous difference in your playstyle), your secondary weapon, your heal, 3 utilities, and elite. Then, you have traits; if you've read through the trait list (which you probably haven't), you'd see that traits can dramatically change your build. A thief that drops a crippling caltrops every time they dodge is going to play differently than a thief who doesn't have that trait, for example. Then there are sigils and insignias, which offer plain stat bonuses or additional effects (like a % chance to summon a golem pet on critical hit).
Third: Combat is not just pushing buttons anymore. PvE in particular in GW1 was pretty darn similar to PvE in most other MMOs; you walk up to a group, aggro the group, and push your buttons in a rotation until all the red dots are dead. There are skill combos, yes, but there's really little else to worry about beyond "don't step in the fire"-style movement. GW2 PvE demands so much more than that, I assure you. You HAVE to dodge to stay alive. Players who stand there taking hits die quickly, particularly once you leave the beginner area. So while you may have more options in GW1 for ways in which you arrange your bar, once you get in combat you're not going to be doing pretty much the same thing for every mob.
TL;DR: there are far more choices in GW2 than there appear on paper, and you have far more MEANINGFUL choices in terms of how you build and play your character than you had in GW1, because the majority of choices you made in determining your build in GW1 were obvious once you understood the game. YMMV, but I really think you should take another look; the game is not nearly as simple as you think it is.
I was on the fence about GW2 and this review went a long way to helping me decide that it is worth the price since there are no pesky sub fees.