On May 02 2012 01:58 Flicky wrote: So what server did TL end up on in the end?
I played with RL friends all weekend and had a blast. Going to use these beta weekends as planning sessions. Finding some early PvP builds and levelling routes etc.
But of course, nearly all my plans for race and class have been destroyed after playing some more.
Dang.
Whiteside Ridge but we may change servers for the next beta/before release.
Too bad I couldn't play with you guys this beta, I was temporarily banned for a bad joke and weren't able to find guildies online. Hopefully I can join in a bit next beta event.
As for the beta, I'm very conflicted. I played a Norn Guardian, got it to lvl 18 or such. I like the world and the exploration, but found the combat to be quite lacking. It felt very buttonmashy and dodging etc didn't matter much, you just autoattacked while strafing around enemies. Skills just didn't feel all that important, when you level up and get a new skill in wow, it's awesome... in GW2, you already had all the skills since they come from weapons, and the utility skills just didn't feel important or fun. It all just felt very simplistic. Maybe it's just guardian, but for some reason, I didn't feel like trying any other classes since from what I saw with my friend playing elementalist, it seems to be pretty equal of an experience, mostly dependant on which weapons you use.
I also hated how out of hand the difficulty could be... you could go from beating several enemies at once with just autoattack, to getting to a dynamic event with a ton of people and getting oneshotted... which you can't do much about if you're melee, you just run up to the enemy and it immediately kills you.
I look forward to playing the full game, but I expected myself to spend 100% of my weekend playing the beta, but instead I got quite bored of it and didn't play much at all on sunday.
On May 02 2012 02:41 Tobberoth wrote: Too bad I couldn't play with you guys this beta, I was temporarily banned for a bad joke and weren't able to find guildies online. Hopefully I can join in a bit next beta event.
As for the beta, I'm very conflicted. I played a Norn Guardian, got it to lvl 18 or such. I like the world and the exploration, but found the combat to be quite lacking. It felt very buttonmashy and dodging etc didn't matter much, you just autoattacked while strafing around enemies. Skills just didn't feel all that important, when you level up and get a new skill in wow, it's awesome... in GW2, you already had all the skills since they come from weapons, and the utility skills just didn't feel important or fun. It all just felt very simplistic. Maybe it's just guardian, but for some reason, I didn't feel like trying any other classes since from what I saw with my friend playing elementalist, it seems to be pretty equal of an experience, mostly dependant on which weapons you use.
I also hated how out of hand the difficulty could be... you could go from beating several enemies at once with just autoattack, to getting to a dynamic event with a ton of people and getting oneshotted... which you can't do much about if you're melee, you just run up to the enemy and it immediately kills you.
I look forward to playing the full game, but I expected myself to spend 100% of my weekend playing the beta, but instead I got quite bored of it and didn't play much at all on sunday.
That's a good point actually about leveling up. I definitely can't wait to reach lvl 10/20/30 for more skill slots and elite skills, but other than that there's no actual benefit to hitting the next level. Skill points aren't enough of an excitement. During the beta I didn't notice when I leveled up because I never even checked. I suppose having a fancy trait every 5 levels is nice but they're only really attractive for some classes.
I actually think traits are a very important aspect of the whole thing. They are pretty useful and make all the difference with all the different damage/defense/support specializations.
Happy b-day valshu, if that date is setup right
And I just read last 2 pages of this. WTF guys.. wtf. I don't really want to see any conflicts about pointless stuff. Mainly not in leadership. (Then again a leader should be able to control such things, right.) Pantythief isn't banned, right (I never know what the lock symbol means.)
Traits are definitely nice and very important but getting 1% in whatever attribute per level is not at all attractive when leveling. The added bonus you get every 5 levels is nice though.
I daresay I think Valashu and Pantythief have put this rubbish behind themselves. Pantythief is indeed banned but for a completely unrelated post in some Destiny thread, and those are ban traps anyway ~
Well if you compare it to e.g. WoW where you had talents that also increased your crit chance by 1% per talent.. that was fairly similar and still worth leveling for. You also level for ability to wear better equipment, more health, etc. Leveling up is always cool, and I found it kind of easy to level up without even caring about levels. I just suddenly found out I have 2 extra traits to spend.
In the big picture, when you invest 30 trait points into one tree and suddenly have 30% higher crit rate or 30% lower cooldowns for something, it is quite a big boost.
On May 02 2012 05:53 freestalker wrote: Well if you compare it to e.g. WoW where you had talents that also increased your crit chance by 1% per talent.. that was fairly similar and still worth leveling for. You also level for ability to wear better equipment, more health, etc. Leveling up is always cool, and I found it kind of easy to level up without even caring about levels. I just suddenly found out I have 2 extra traits to spend.
In the big picture, when you invest 30 trait points into one tree and suddenly have 30% higher crit rate or 30% lower cooldowns for something, it is quite a big boost.
In WoW, you also got new spells every other level or so. And even if you didn't get anything for one level, you'd almost certainly get something nice the next level that wasn't just 1% crit or whatever. With guild wars, once you hit lvl X0 or X5 you know it'll be another 5 levels of nothing but % attributes.
Obviously if you suddenly have 30 points to spend in traits then it'll be nice but the gradual step by step is very boring.
I also felt that the effects of dynamic events were way overhyped. Sure, the dynamic events are WAY better than the rift system in rift, this actually WORKS as the basis of the game. However, they said failing events would affect the area and that you would feel like you made an impact... but honestly, it just felt like "oh, it's this event again, i'll come back later and maybe it will be the funny one". It feels more like time-based quests than actual dynamic events... only at one event did I actually feel like failing it made a difference, because enemies invaded a city and took it over. That was pretty cool, but also quite annoying since there weren't enough people there to stop it and then it quickly became annoying.
I personally liked the "heart" quests the most since it felt like you explored and unlocked things... then again, most of the stuff they sell isn't attractive, and I ended the beta with a ton of karma left over.
I wouldn't call it new spells, since after certain level it was the same spell just increased level of it. I am not sure if the skill damage increases with level in gw2 (would make sense tho), but then again the whole skill system is different as we all know, so I don't really think we can apply the standard rules here. In here, +level = trait points, health, better items (->better stats). And a level also serves as a 'guide' as to which areas are suited for you so you don't run into enemies you just can't handle.
I mean, c'mon. You don't play PvE to gain levels, you play it to do the storyline, to see the epic places and do the world quests. Levels come by easily. People were what, level 25? 30? In 2 days of beta. And they were doing other shit in between.
I agree the change is not that big, but it makes some difference, and leveling is not the priority no1. At least not for me.
Yes I suppose you could look at this and say 'this puts the focus on storyline and experiencing the game while leveling' instead of 'leveling for the sake of leveling', which is what it turned into for many other MMOs. That may be what they are trying to achieve.
about traits: i spend at least 1h in the middle of the night reading through thief traits and what they enable you to do. in the end i played with a build i figured out for over 5h straight until like 7am in the morning and i have to say: my mind was TOTALY blown. the ammount of customisation you can achieve through traits is enourmous and a lot of fun. this single night playing a max lvl thief totaly changed my view on what i want to play on release.
to get deeper into what i did with traits: i maxed the artistics trait line which focus on survival and dodge. as a squishy melee this is very important. i found a way to regain an good chunk of endurance every time i dodged (basicly reducing cost of dodge) further i grained 10% dmg when my endurance was below max. the next thing i could ad to my build is that i get a speed bonus once i dodge and a stacking dmg bonus on dodge. last one, the icing on the cake was a trait that triggered caltrops every time i dodge. caltrops are little spikey metal things which basicly apply slow and bleed in their effective area. the exact build was: http://www.gw2tools.com/skills#t;kafpf;gXaaaagaaeYXfaa;cYbb;aaaaa played with sword/pistol and dagger/dagger.
i had so much fun in battlegrounds going around capping everything and beeing close to impossible to kill. i was able to hold down multiple enemies at a location and not die. given my damage output wasnt that great, it was great fun to take on every engagement and just beeing able to retreat if i see i cant win that fight. in pure 1vs1 power that build was a beast. i took me a while to down certain professions but with about 4 blink abilities, 3stealth and massive amount of dodge, i could fool with anyone most fun moment was when i was for about 1,5 hours on a certain server playing against mostly the same players each round and my enemies startet to turn around when they saw me, not even considering picking a fight because i was SOO anoying
all that happened because of traits. the whole playstyle was only possible because of the extra bits i could add through it. i plan to do that for extensive ammount of time on the next BWE with different classes and see how far i can drive the change on how the profession is played.
I started by playing a glass cannon ele and then got tired of dying so easy, so I went the other extreme, I maxed out survivability through traits and gear. Got my hp up to 22k, 2.3k armor and then an absolute crapton of abilities to remove conditions from me both passively and actively. Dagger dagger and just be annoying. So many chills, immobilize and survivability. I couldn't really kill anything, but I could easily disrupt any melee from ever closing in on ranged dudes on my team and if they focused me, free deeps time for my team while I soak crapton of damage only to heal it back up while being invulnerable ^_^
I get the feeling Whiteside is a bit on the higher population size as well... I saw its mirrors going above 50. Maybe a different server next beta will help with the lag/errors..(despite what anet claimed on the forums, I'm sure one of th login errors has to do with the server load) that is, if there are any servers that arn't dealing with that kind of load.
But oh well, we'll see. Next beta going norn, played mostly human, but norn is my perfered race, if I can ever make one that doesn't look brutish or stupid =P Probably sticking with mesmer, fun profession. Unless Sylvari is open, then I might make a sylvari thief
Tbh, afterthe first few dozen levels, wow rarely gave you a spell..maybe once every 3 to 5 levels? And if you played a hybred you'd be getting a spell that is directly useful to your favorite tree even less often. Getting heals as a ret/prot pally was really nice in the beginning, but it felt like every update nerfed the pally for a while. Here, they last too long in fights, lets increase mana costs! A bit later, those heals are still pretty wicked arn't they, lets ignore that to get a full heal a high level ret pally has to burn most if not all of his mana, (which also fuels his attacks) because he does not have a caster's pool, and halve his healing. *goes off mumbling about hating blizzard and such*
Thats why I like the cooldowns tbh, they are a lot easier to balance I can imagine that massive pools of mana like in wow (unless all spells have % costs, I remember some of um did, dunno if they all did..but then, whats the point of getting a bigger pool). Classes that arn't dedicated to healing being able to heal noticably is really fun as well imo.
Oh well..next beta (if its not during my exams) gunna try to hook up with you guys and pvp. I couldn't last weekend because my own computer wasn't happy, I think its just because my connection is so weak atm, that I was instant lagging out everytime someone walked close to me...
On May 07 2012 14:01 Morofang wrote: Breaks the silence
I get the feeling Whiteside is a bit on the higher population size as well... I saw its mirrors going above 50. Maybe a different server next beta will help with the lag/errors..(despite what anet claimed on the forums, I'm sure one of th login errors has to do with the server load) that is, if there are any servers that arn't dealing with that kind of load.
But oh well, we'll see. Next beta going norn, played mostly human, but norn is my perfered race, if I can ever make one that doesn't look brutish or stupid =P Probably sticking with mesmer, fun profession. Unless Sylvari is open, then I might make a sylvari thief
Tbh, afterthe first few dozen levels, wow rarely gave you a spell..maybe once every 3 to 5 levels? And if you played a hybred you'd be getting a spell that is directly useful to your favorite tree even less often. Getting heals as a ret/prot pally was really nice in the beginning, but it felt like every update nerfed the pally for a while. Here, they last too long in fights, lets increase mana costs! A bit later, those heals are still pretty wicked arn't they, lets ignore that to get a full heal a high level ret pally has to burn most if not all of his mana, (which also fuels his attacks) because he does not have a caster's pool, and halve his healing. *goes off mumbling about hating blizzard and such*
Thats why I like the cooldowns tbh, they are a lot easier to balance I can imagine that massive pools of mana like in wow (unless all spells have % costs, I remember some of um did, dunno if they all did..but then, whats the point of getting a bigger pool). Classes that arn't dedicated to healing being able to heal noticably is really fun as well imo.
Oh well..next beta (if its not during my exams) gunna try to hook up with you guys and pvp. I couldn't last weekend because my own computer wasn't happy, I think its just because my connection is so weak atm, that I was instant lagging out everytime someone walked close to me...
Well, i'd say you get a new spell every second level on average since you get several new spells each level in the first few levels, and you also get abilities from some talents. A big difference though is that in WoW, a new spell is generally immediately useful and worked into your rotation, it's very rare to get a new spell and not use it in pretty much every fight from then on... while in GW2, I felt like I used most utility spells in less than 1/10 fights because of long cooldowns and, countrary to the name, very little utility.
EPT
