Guildwars 2 Beta Thread

[zokudu]

I think you're misunderstanding me. First of all I am thinking from the side of PvE viability and you' seem to be thinking from a PvP side but either way I don't think you're grasping my point.

I am going to use the Hunter vs caster with legendary example from wow again. The problem is that Blizzard put out a staff that is worth an obscene amount of DPS. The way they implemented it makes it so all you need is time to aquire it. Run firelands x number of times and get staff. The problem lies in how do you balance around this staff?

Do you balance for casters who have the staff? That makes hunters extremely overpowered in guilds with ranged dps without the staff. Do you balance around casters without the staff? Then when a guilds casters get the staff the hunter is left in the dust with no recourse and guild casters will get the staff its just a matter of time for them.

They shouldn't be balancing around gear. In your example of caster beating hunter and balancing by putting in a magic resistance armor, you're balancing around that magic res armor which is flat out bad game design. Should the game not be fun for hunters without this magic res armor? Arenanet removed that discussion by removing extreme
variations in stats at max level. All they really took out of the game is a grind and a carrot on a stick.

Also your talk about class x beating class y completely. First of all I support hard counters 1v1 in mmos. Why should PvP be balanced around 1v1 instead of the group based pvp that is intended for the game. Second of all classes are built to be extremely versitile in GW2. Every class has a viable ranged and melee based damage setup as well as support and control options. Just arbitrarily lets say that thiefs are really tearing up this patch due to mobility. As a warrior I could counter by using a dual wield sword setup (swords are focused on bleeds and criple effects for warriors) with mobile utilities or I could focus on a ranged build with a rifle and control utilities, A Hammer (heavy damage and control) could be used to repeatedly knock the thief down and burst through his relatively low health.

The versatility is the counter if a certain class is beating you one way find what counters that one way.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I played Allods... a free2play mmo.
In that, all the items had the same amount of stats in just various differnt configourations.

And the builds you could make with each class, ended up being the "optimal" builds quick.

Since everyone was useing the same "best" builds, with each class, and had the same items, you knew that:

Class X ALWAYS beats Class Y.... and there was nothing you could do to change it (extremly sucky feeling).

(atleast with items, you can hope your better equipted than the other player, and its enough to make a differnce)

I just view itemisation as a way to balance classes, its another tool, in the toolbox for devs that make the games to add balance in pve and pvp between classes.

Ive seen games without itemisation... its not a good thing, from my perspective.

So class X beat class Y, unless you have Z item and he doesn't have R item.

Fascinating gameplay.

In GW PvP is 8vs8 and you have to fight as a team, filling your specific roles (yes, several roles), be it keeping people alive, dealing damage, strip defence, disable frontliners, keep frontliners operational, etc.

Unfortunately, GvG is demanding and GW evolved from a game with an initial PvE but where end-game was PvP to a game with where PvE became the central role and co-existed with PvP.

1vs1 isn't part of Guild Wars.

Better items and levels are just a cheap way of increasing game length - you are still doing the same, but now you have 4 times as much health and a weapon that deals 2000 damage instead of 10 and the level 80 mobs do exactly the same as the level 3 mobs.

Guild Wars 2 is going for a more dynamic combat system, where movement, dodging, positioning makes the difference, instead of a game where people take turns at bashing each other.

 

[Arkadrel]

Better items and levels are just a cheap way of increasing game length

Yes but its better than the alternative.... max level, gear doesnt matter = nothing to do, but pvp.

I wouldnt want to do raids, just to get a differnt looking armor with same stats.
And pvp gets tireing if thats all you do all day long.

Diablo II.... look how long that ran for, and its based around itemisation and rare drops... and it works. Same with every other MMO.... I feel like removeing itemisation turns it into something more akin to playing Teamfortress, where is the RPG elements (if everyone ends up with "optimal build" and everyone has same gear)?

being able to use gear stategically (ei. various differnt gears = differnt out-comes for each pvp match, means you wont run into X class always beats Y class, because you dont know what gears are doing for each person = more fun)

basically.... rock - papir -scissors for pvp sucks.

gear is one way around it... but not for GW2 it seems = bad.

(to be honest I watched the videos for GW2, and was really impressed.... but when I heard about the itemisation, I kept thinking about how badly that worked out for Allods online..... its almost made me not want to bother giveing the game a try).

 

[zokudu]

Yes but its better than the alternative.... max level, gear doesnt matter = nothing to do, but pvp.

I wouldnt want to do raids, just to get a differnt looking armor with same stats.
And pvp gets tireing if thats all you do all day long.

Diablo II.... look how long that ran for, and its based around itemisation and rare drops... and it works. Same with every other MMO.... I feel like removeing itemisation turns it into something more akin to playing Teamfortress, where is the RPG elements (if everyone ends up with "optimal build" and everyone has same gear)?

being able to use gear stategically (ei. various differnt gears = differnt out-comes for each pvp match, means you wont run into X class always beats Y class, because you dont know what gears are doing for each person = more fun)

basically.... rock - papir -scissors for pvp sucks.

gear is one way around it... but not for GW2 it seems = bad.

(to be honest I watched the videos for GW2, and was really impressed.... but when I heard about the itemisation, I kept thinking about how badly that worked out for Allods online..... its almost made me not want to bother giveing the game a try).

rock paper scissor for 1v1 pvp is unavoidable if you go swinging an axe at an elementalist focusing on ranged snares you''re done for. There is no rock paper scissor in team pvp which is what GW2 has.

 

[NoSoup4You]

Yes but its better than the alternative.... max level, gear doesnt matter = nothing to do, but pvp.

You're basing your assumptions on the pve content of existing mmo's, the pve in GW2 is aiming to be completely different. You can visit an area and complete some quests, but you can then revisit that same area two weeks later and there could be a completely different set of quests available. If you've followed the info Arenanet has been releasing then you're already familiar with the "a group of Centaurs are invading a village" scenario.

You show up on Tuesday and help defend the village fight back the Centaurs to their base where you cut off their supply lines and then lay seige to their fort.

Great, that was fun.

You show up to the exact same place two weeks later and the Centaurs have returned, built up their base, attacked the village, killed all the merchants, and are moving towards the next neighboring village.

The content changes, it's fluid. You don't get the same experience everytime. Exploration should actually be fun in this game, it's not all just "look at your minimap for the red dots and go fight them". The pve in this game isn't designed to just be played once. Or that's the idea anyway...

And there are dungeons available to do "raids" in. They're limited to I think four or maybe five players, and they are designed to test your skills hardcore.

This isn't going to be like anything you've already played.

 

[zerocool84]

I really enjoyed the first so I'm going to check out this one.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Yes but its better than the alternative.... max level, gear doesnt matter = nothing to do, but pvp.

I wouldnt want to do raids, just to get a differnt looking armor with same stats.
And pvp gets tireing if thats all you do all day long.

Diablo II.... look how long that ran for, and its based around itemisation and rare drops... and it works. Same with every other MMO.... I feel like removeing itemisation turns it into something more akin to playing Teamfortress, where is the RPG elements (if everyone ends up with "optimal build" and everyone has same gear)?

being able to use gear stategically (ei. various differnt gears = differnt out-comes for each pvp match, means you wont run into X class always beats Y class, because you dont know what gears are doing for each person = more fun)

basically.... rock - papir -scissors for pvp sucks.

gear is one way around it... but not for GW2 it seems = bad.

(to be honest I watched the videos for GW2, and was really impressed.... but when I heard about the itemisation, I kept thinking about how badly that worked out for Allods online..... its almost made me not want to bother giveing the game a try).

Guild Wars aim wasn't to keep you playing 24/7.

You logged in, played how long you liked it and logged off.

3 months latter you come in and you can play with your friends and/or other players. Try that in a game where you need to keep in the same level range and/or item range.

Additionally Guild Wars encourage you much more to go play all the available profession (GW1 designation for what traditional RPGs call classes).

There is no raids in the traditional sense - you have some dungeons and some elite areas that take more time, but still most are completed in no more than a couple of hours.

Additional pretty much all content is still of interest to all level players - no this area is only for a certain level range.

Of course, Guild Wars was all instanced and max level was 20 (easy to get, bit harder on prophecies).

The end game for GW was either PvP or collecting stuff on PvE, skins to pimp your chat, titles, skills (to increase your choices), mini pets, fill the HoM, etc. All fluf stuff, that doesn't make you any stronger than the next player.

Guild Wars 2 is going to be a bit different with the dynamic event system, where you go out exploring and stuff just happens that you can jump in, instead of picking some quest to direct you to a certain area (although it is possible to pick bread crumb quests if you prefer it).

In traditional MMORPGs it doesn't matter if you understand the game mechanics better than that other guy, because if he is 10 levels higher than you and has a weapon that deals 5 times the damage, he will be stronger than you. In Guild Wars your knowledge of the game mechanics, timing and resource management, make the difference.

Ask Zudoku here how is energy was down to 0 after using a couple of skills with his ritualist. And these days resource management is much easier due to focus of guild wars on PvE.

And it isn't true you can't use items strategically - you can have shields with different mods - for example +10 armor vs fire or +10 armor vs piercing. Or your armor can have an insignia that gives +health instead of an insignia that gives you +armor while you are in a stance. Or your weapon can have -energy modes so you can hide energy so it cannot be burnt and then you can swap weapons to get the energy back and cast a critical spell.

Additionally you can only bring a limited number skills (8 in guild wars) that cannot be changed unless you are in a outpost - so that is a main strategic point.

Now in Guild Wars 2 things are a bit different.

Weapons determine some of your skills, and they can be swapped to obtain different skills. There are also difference between classes - for example elementalists can swap attunments to change half of their skills with different functions, the engineer have tool kits and backpack kits that can give him new attacks and skills, etc.

Guild Wars 2 will be much more determined by the way you use the stuff you have than by the fact the stuff you have has inferior or superior stats. Basically it is about individual skill instead of time and/or luck spent farming and/or trading.

It isn't the same type of game as WoW or Diablo II.

 

[JTsyo]

GW2 has a feature called WvWvW where your world (server) competes against 2 other servers. There's not a ton of details on it at the moment but the idea is that you compete to keep certain things unlocked on your server but not on the others. Its very similar to DaoCs system and Warhammers System. In fact I believe there are a couple quotes stating Arenanet was inspired by Daoc. I also remember reading something like a designer from daoc works on the arenanet team but I can't find the article or confirmation for it.

They had that in GW: Factions. Your access to the end game dungeons was controlled by the PvP in the game.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Attractive points for GW2 is really the more skill based combat, needing to aim spells and being able to move and cast and whatnot, physical dodging actually mattering, no auto attack etc.

However the rest looks like a typical WoW clone to be honest and the heavy use of instancing doesn't appeal to me at all.

 

[VashHT]

Attractive points for GW2 is really the more skill based combat, needing to aim spells and being able to move and cast and whatnot, physical dodging actually mattering, no auto attack etc.

However the rest looks like a typical WoW clone to be honest and the heavy use of instancing doesn't appeal to me at all.

I don't see how it looks anything like a WoW clone...in fact that's why I want it because it looks like the first MMORPG in a long time that's trying to break the WoW mold. Also GW2 won't be heavily instanced, it's an open world.

 

[GaiaHunter]

They had that in GW: Factions. Your access to the end game dungeons was controlled by the PvP in the game.

Not exactly.

1st) Long time ago the servers were separate by regions - America, Europe, Japan, etc, and you had a limited jump between them.

To access Underworld and Fissure of Woe (which are core elite areas) your region had to have favour - that was obtained in the PvP zone Hall of Heroes, where teams from al the regions competed and so the winning teams would grant favour to their region (to take it from another region, a team or various teams from a given region had to win 5 times in a row without any other region team win.

This restriction has long be removed and favour is controlled by all regions getting PvE titles (they don't compete anymore and players are now free to change region as many times as they want).

2) Long time ago the kurzick alliance that had more kurzick points controlled House Zu Heltzer and the highest Luxon alliance controlled Cavalon. Only players from those alliances could take a party in to the elite areas Urgoz Warren and The Deep, respectively. The way to win Kurzick/Luxon points was Alliance Battles (a form of PvP, 3 teams of 4 players vs 3 teams of 4 players), some non-repeatable quest and some repeatable quests.

Once a character you had was parked at those elite areas, you could actually ferry people that had been there previously from the Guild Hall.

Again, this restriction has been lifted - anyone can trade the appropriate faction for scrolls to Urgoz and the Deep (alliance members that control these outposts can still go there for free) and you can gain faction in several different ways, PvE bounties and PvE vanquishes).

 

[Worthington]

GW was one of the few games I've ever played where the PvP cry "let PVP really effect world events" was in use... as GaiaHunter listed above.

and guess what, it sucked. The people in HoH couldn't give a rats ass about getting favor, they were in there to rack up Fame and loot the PvP chest. And the PvE'ers, the ones that wanted to be in UW and FoW were at the mercy of their regions PvP'ers actually winning. It was a crap system. Nothing like having 2 hours to game, logging in with your friends to farm some UW and finding out that you didn't have Favor, and probably weren't going to get it any time soon. Which is why they changed it and allowed other means of access.

 

[tedrodai]

I hope this game turns out to be as good as all the koolaid drinkers say it will. Don't get me wrong...I've got high hopes and I'd actually be surprised if it wasn't an awesome game, but it's not like we've played it yet.

 

[VashHT]

Arguments aside what classes do people think look like they'd want to play in this one? IMO I'm liking the thief the most right now and their special ability sounds pretty cool. I also want to check out warriors since I played them the most in the first game.

 

[zinfamous]

My only worry is the itemisation for the game.

Apperntly all the items for each race, has the same stats totals, just in differnt configourations. Where is the incentive to do endgame stuff, if the drop from a crazy tough ah heck isnt any better than the random drop off a max level normal monster?

That and them doing away with raids, there wont be pve to challenge players, it ll all be open world, world bosses, where everyone can jump in and parttake of the loot.

The reason raid system work, is because it limits the amount of players vs tough ah heck boss, makeing it challengeing (or atleast if pve is done right in the game its that way). Haveing only open world bosses, where anyone and everyone will join is gonna kinda ruin the pve aspect of the game (endgame wise).

I think guildwars2 ends up heavly pvp oriented, so I hope they get that stuff right.

well, if the loot remains similar in style to GW, then the incentive will be for grabbing unique skins. Either for personal taste or economy reasons. And so, the stuff dropping from bosses probably won't be as desireable as some ultra rare-skinned item with good stats that drops from a random type of mob.

While I hope it's centered around PvP, there needs to be some PvE enjoyment for the carebears or else there will be no sheep for the wolves to slaughter.

PvP is garbage.

 

[zokudu]

Arguments aside what classes do people think look like they'd want to play in this one? IMO I'm liking the thief the most right now and their special ability sounds pretty cool. I also want to check out warriors since I played them the most in the first game.

Charr Warrior here. I like the axe wielding barbarian type characters as well as longbows. Seems to fit well. I like weapons over magic in general.

 

[zinfamous]

Not interested. I have the collectors edition of the first one (was dirt cheap at the time) and I played for a bit, getting two characters up to about level 11. Got tired. Eventually hit a point where I cant do anything with just the in game companions. You really cant grind for levels in that game, enemy XP drops off sharply with each level you get.
Could never organize a group of high level friends to help me beat any more quests, which is the only way to get decent XP which is the only way to level up.

Also, I dont like the fact that I'm challenged by enemies who only give me 1 XP. If they give me trouble they should be worth a hell of a lot more.

So yeah, gave up. In fact last time I redid my gaming system I didnt even bother reinstalling the game. Dont see the purpose in going to a sequel. In that time a bunch of really awesome Bethesda games have come out and I'd rather play those two or three times each.

You can do all of those things in Factions and Nightfall. Max level is 20, so there is very little level grinding, anyway. By the time you finish noob island in Factions/NF, you should already be ~level 15-17 or so.

GW isn't about levels. it's about skill hunting and making effective builds from those skills.

 

[zinfamous]

Attractive points for GW2 is really the more skill based combat, needing to aim spells and being able to move and cast and whatnot, physical dodging actually mattering, no auto attack etc.

However the rest looks like a typical WoW clone to be honest and the heavy use of instancing doesn't appeal to me at all.

GW2 appears to be the least-instanced MMO for some time.

And I'm one of those that much preferred the instancing of GW1.

 

[zinfamous]

Not exactly.

1st) Long time ago the servers were separate by regions - America, Europe, Japan, etc, and you had a limited jump between them.

To access Underworld and Fissure of Woe (which are core elite areas) your region had to have favour - that was obtained in the PvP zone Hall of Heroes, where teams from al the regions competed and so the winning teams would grant favour to their region (to take it from another region, a team or various teams from a given region had to win 5 times in a row without any other region team win.

This restriction has long be removed and favour is controlled by all regions getting PvE titles (they don't compete anymore and players are now free to change region as many times as they want).

2) Long time ago the kurzick alliance that had more kurzick points controlled House Zu Heltzer and the highest Luxon alliance controlled Cavalon. Only players from those alliances could take a party in to the elite areas Urgoz Warren and The Deep, respectively. The way to win Kurzick/Luxon points was Alliance Battles (a form of PvP, 3 teams of 4 players vs 3 teams of 4 players), some non-repeatable quest and some repeatable quests.

Once a character you had was parked at those elite areas, you could actually ferry people that had been there previously from the Guild Hall.

Again, this restriction has been lifted - anyone can trade the appropriate faction for scrolls to Urgoz and the Deep (alliance members that control these outposts can still go there for free) and you can gain faction in several different ways, PvE bounties and PvE vanquishes).

GW was one of the few games I've ever played where the PvP cry "let PVP really effect world events" was in use... as GaiaHunter listed above.

and guess what, it sucked. The people in HoH couldn't give a rats ass about getting favor, they were in there to rack up Fame and loot the PvP chest. And the PvE'ers, the ones that wanted to be in UW and FoW were at the mercy of their regions PvP'ers actually winning. It was a crap system. Nothing like having 2 hours to game, logging in with your friends to farm some UW and finding out that you didn't have Favor, and probably weren't going to get it any time soon. Which is why they changed it and allowed other means of access.

yep. PvP very much effected PvE for quite some time. You'd hang out at the UW or FoW just waiting for the Hall of Heroes updates to see who was winning, then you'd get access for whatever amount of time.

What sucked, is that the UK is perpetual PvP homers, so they pretty much had exclusive access most reasonable hours of every day. The US would start winning only in the late hours--maybe 10:30-1am CST, and so one's time in the elite dungeons was quite precious. On top of that, you still had to pay to enter each time (not that it was expensive).

Once they removed this, the ecto market tanked.

 

[VashHT]

Charr Warrior here. I like the axe wielding barbarian type characters as well as longbows. Seems to fit well. I like weapons over magic in general.

Yeah same here, the only mage I really liked a lot in GW1 was the mesmer, and part of that is because they were heavily anti magic. I had a really fun mind wrack build for mine that I would play in random arenas, it was hilarious because it focused around energy denial so when people would come after me they would be stuck auto-attacking because I could drain down their energy so fast.

 

[zinfamous]

Arguments aside what classes do people think look like they'd want to play in this one? IMO I'm liking the thief the most right now and their special ability sounds pretty cool. I also want to check out warriors since I played them the most in the first game.

Mes then Thief.

I was very high on the Thief class, until they recently released the new Mes video. That looks tits. I loved the Mesmer class in GW1, even before they became the OP class that they are now. It took the longest to figure out, and it's use was sketchy for several years, but it was always fun to play. Of course, if you know what you were doing, it was always an extremely useful class.

Of course, I'll eventually play all classes, as with GW1. Probably focus on the casters, because their system was just so fun in GW1. Mhy favorite mele ended up being Assassin, which is why i suppose I will favor the Thief.

 

[zinfamous]

Charr Warrior here. I like the axe wielding barbarian type characters as well as longbows. Seems to fit well. I like weapons over magic in general.

I always defaulted to weapons first, until playing GW. my first two classes were Warrior (Still my main, I guess--the title-loaded character) then Ranger, but then I started an ele.

I never really wanted to play anything other than ele or mes. Monk can be a blast, too. (wait...I think Monk was my 2nd character. :hmm

Anyway, I still like the mele characteristics from time to time, but I'll probably go tank-types last with GW2. The thief looks like tons of fun.

Plus, the casters in GW2 seem to be very weapon friendly, so I wonder how that will play out. That Mes just looks too damn badass. Assuming the majority of people playing will be GW1 fans, I'm thinking GW2 and the Mesmer class will be like any new Star Wars game, where you have 90% Jedis in the world.

 

[Blueychan]

So many mis-informed information in this thread...smh...

 

[zokudu]

Anyone watching guildcast on gamebreaker.tv tonight?

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/live/

Over for tonight. Still worth checking out the replays.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I'll probably be rolling a necromancer or an engineer first. Then warrior.

Not sure about races, probably human to start with.