Guildwars 2 Beta Thread

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NoSoup4You

Golden Member
Feb 12, 2007
1,253
6
81
I found the bank in Hoelbrak, it's top level of the Trade Commons.

Really loving this game finally, it took the fourth time playing it before I actually got a lag free experience but it's been worth it.

On a side note, I have a Ranger and Thief to full completion of the initial Norn starting area and am getting close to complete with a Warrior. So I've had enough time now to get a feel for all three, and the Thief class is... and this isn't an exaggeration... about five times more difficult to play than either Ranger or Warrior. You spend a lot of time in the downed state, and even despite the incredibly awesome downed stealth skill you will get killed often which forces you to spend money on spawning at waypoints and then even more money to repair your broken armor from dying. So you'll be pretty much broke throughout the entire early parts of the game.

Frustrating... and I'm not against the idea of certain classes being more difficult to play... but Thieves need a little love. Or maybe the other classes I played are incredibly OP (they might be)...
 

NeoV

Diamond Member
Apr 18, 2000
9,504
2
81
very impressive thus far

no lag

amazing graphics - playing at 5760x1200, it's pretty
 

Merad

Platinum Member
May 31, 2010
2,586
19
81
Well I dropped my guard and leveled a ranger to 19 this weekend. I still have kind of a love/hate relationship with the combat system. Sometimes it's good, other times it's really, really bad. It seems like all of the ranged classes are pretty OP compared to melee, especially in the champion/boss fights.

Unfortunately based on the state of the game this weekend I'd say with 99% certainty that the end of June launch date we'd seen mention before will not happen. Honestly, I think the game will be doing will to make a holiday 2012 release date. It's not in bad shape by any means, but there is a lot of work to be done. The combat system needs a lot of tweaking. Combat difficulty is a bit on the high side, IMO. Spawn rates are still beyond ludicrous. Lots of potential, I just hope they don't do a half assed job and release it in its current condition.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,143
30,099
146
I found the bank in Hoelbrak, it's top level of the Trade Commons.

Really loving this game finally, it took the fourth time playing it before I actually got a lag free experience but it's been worth it.

On a side note, I have a Ranger and Thief to full completion of the initial Norn starting area and am getting close to complete with a Warrior. So I've had enough time now to get a feel for all three, and the Thief class is... and this isn't an exaggeration... about five times more difficult to play than either Ranger or Warrior. You spend a lot of time in the downed state, and even despite the incredibly awesome downed stealth skill you will get killed often which forces you to spend money on spawning at waypoints and then even more money to repair your broken armor from dying. So you'll be pretty much broke throughout the entire early parts of the game.

Frustrating... and I'm not against the idea of certain classes being more difficult to play... but Thieves need a little love. Or maybe the other classes I played are incredibly OP (they might be)...


Glad to hear it has warmed up for you. Took me about 12 levels of my Mes to finally get a feel and appreciation for this game. She is now at level 27--kinda wish I could play some more, but happy that I am on vacation.

I feel the same about thief--and these were my two most-anticipated classes coming in to the game. Thief is tough. And one of the primary complaints coming out of Beta Weekend 1, was that mele is a bit of a joke in this game. At least, very, very early on.

I played thief to level 6, Nec to level 7, then just went back to Mes and never looked back. (they did some evil things to Mes this go-round--illusions are completely nerfed. 0 damage from all of them but the dualist-- and that little bastard will carve out a chunk from a boss in about 2 seconds. this makes no sense)

But yeah, the game mechanics in general seem to disfavor mele be default--necessary dodge mechanic, everyone has a bit of squishiness, etc.
In Beta 1, a dual-dagger Nec seemed to come out as the best mele/tank. BY FAR. lol.

Regardless, I found myself proclaiming to a buddy as we played through the stress test, that this game is just absolute, balls-to-the-wall--FUN! And I've yet to see anyone complain, or fail to praise in g chat or elsewhere while playing.

Simply put--the events mechanic keeps you wanting to play. You can camp the same event for a few rounds, follow through, try to get it to reset, and still want to drive out those centaurs again. it's just damn FUN.



Unfortunately based on the state of the game this weekend I'd say with 99% certainty that the end of June launch date we'd seen mention before will not happen. Honestly, I think the game will be doing will to make a holiday 2012 release date. It's not in bad shape by any means, but there is a lot of work to be done. The combat system needs a lot of tweaking. Combat difficulty is a bit on the high side, IMO. Spawn rates are still beyond ludicrous. Lots of potential, I just hope they don't do a half assed job and release it in its current condition.

June i definitely not happening--but Holiday season? that's crazy talk. At least, I cant' see any major flaws outside of mechanic bugs (again--I have no idea how long it takes to fix some of these bugs--and I do hope they do it right and get the serious infrastructure--market, combat, story, questing, overflow designation--fixed before any attempt to release.), and I'd be surprised if this game waits until after September.

Honestly, though--it might help to release all that they actually have (all races, movies--everything) over a protracted Beta, to see how things truly work.

I think it feels so incomplete to people--because they simply aren't testing everything. Maybe more people are focusing on the story missions than I assume? (the Works in Progress screen would make this game seem to be in alpha stage--but I can't imagine that this isn't done by now). funny--GW has generally sucked for story, so I just ignore it and play everything else. --that being said, I finally went back and played my level 11ish quest story the other day--at level 27--and almost got my ass handed to me!

This game is seriously difficult--absolutely. Spawn needs to be fixed--but I've also noticed that aggros will not chase you far. It's pretty easy to lose a mob if you need to.

I hope, at least, they add the aggro bubble and NPC blips on the minimap like in GW1. This, alone, would go a long way to fix the spawn issue. ...but they do need to reduce that. I'd hate the game to be too easy--but it needs to be fun early on, otherwise players feel that they are being punished.

Once you can effectively learn dodge and get into the trait system with your class, and comfortable with at least 2 weapon sets, the game becomes easier, though the difficulty remains. It simply becomes a pleasure to play.
 

zokudu

Diamond Member
Nov 11, 2009
4,364
1
81
I got to 30 this weekend and did the Ascalon Catacombs dungeon. Really enjoyed it, reminded me a lot of the start of Cata with heroics. Tough difficulty but doable with good team work and practice. I'm kind of glad at this point that they did not add the auto level to 30 NPC. My PuG team was at least 4000 times better than any Press run I've seen of that place.
 

GaiaHunter

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2008
3,650
218
106
I was able to squeeze a few minutes here and there, mostly on my girl Phenom II X4 3.2 GHz with a 4890.

It runs quite smoothly (30-40 fps) on her PC with mostly everything maxed with the exception of shadows, FXAA and DoF.

Was a bit surprising to me since previously my Phenom II 3.6 GHz and FX6100@4.4GHz with a 6850 were running it crap.

When I returned home I could verify that my FX6100+6850 was running much better, in some zones50-60fps, although in some other zones like just outside divinity's reach (probably due to all players around).

Guess it will be time to either add a second card or just upgrade.

The game itself is just really good - still wandering around and adventure happens.

It is still a unique experience bumping in another player and just start playing together. And then another person joins. And suddenly there is 10 people helping defending this poor farm from bandits onslaught.

I haven't played my warrior that much this weekend, but I don't share the same concerns of other posters about melee, at least not against regular mobs.

You just have to remember - if you are getting hit, get out, don't stay there.
 

Punter

Senior member
Jul 21, 2006
318
1
81
I would not upgrade your system in response to beta performance. The game is not optimized to use the hardware you have. Performance should improve when/if Arenanet gets around to properly programming the game.

For me the new trait system has been a major let-down. All of a sudden the game feels like it is making me grind to get good traits. Having to take 5 tier one traits is really a drag since 4 of them I will likely never use anyway. I thought GW2 was supposed to be different than other mmo's but these changes seem very familiar.
 

GaiaHunter

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2008
3,650
218
106
For me the new trait system has been a major let-down. All of a sudden the game feels like it is making me grind to get good traits. Having to take 5 tier one traits is really a drag since 4 of them I will likely never use anyway. I thought GW2 was supposed to be different than other mmo's but these changes seem very familiar.

I think you are talking about skills, not traits.

I don't agree with you.

Why is a thumper turret better than a rifle turret?
Why is Flesh Wurm better than Shadow Fiend?

It is annoying if you want a skill that is higher tier now, but I don't find the higher tier skills any better or worse than the lower tier skills.

And the only reason you won't use the skills is because you don't want to, because all the skills are certainly useful.

In GW1, skills were dispersed over the game, so to acquire them you had to progress. In GW2, Anet decided to "give them all" up front.

But some skills cost more points than others, clearly with the objective of players to acquire the low points ones first, since they are mostly more straight forward, like the rifle turret compared to the thumper or net turret.

But people saw higher costs and equate those to more powerful and/or better, so they were amassing points and running without utility skills.

I think this an ok way of hand holding since the skills aren't less powerful, just less complex.

It also avoids people spending a ton of points in a skill and then realizing they dislike it and being stuck with it.

This way everyone has a variety of skills for cheap, still has choice and this system encourages people to try different skills and builds.

Otherwise, a person could feasible play all game with the same build - not exactly a bad thing, but it does mean you learn less about the game, especially considering GW2 skills are really well designed.
 
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VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
3,119
966
136
Performance seemed better for me this time around, when I would get into fights with event bosses with 10-15 people all attacking him I was still pulling fps in the 30s instead of it turning into a slideshow like the last weekend. Also the lag was pretty much gone for me by Friday night, I played most of the day Sunday without many lag problems at all.

I decided to start a thief this time, they're a lot more fun than I thought they would be. I was trying a lot more to evade attacks in this beta as well and it makes a huge difference in fights. Next beta weekend I plan on trying out an engineer, watching one use a flamethrower made me kinda jealous...lol.

Edit: another thing to add is about the storyline, I've leveled two norn up to 12 and my storyline was completely different for both of them which is pretty cool. I'm not sure if they changed it at all from the last beta or if it's based on the choices you make but I was pleasantly surprised that my second playthrough on the same race wasn't exactly the same as my first time.
 
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GaiaHunter

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2008
3,650
218
106
Performance seemed better for me this time around, when I would get into fights with event bosses with 10-15 people all attacking him I was still pulling fps in the 30s instead of it turning into a slideshow like the last weekend. Also the lag was pretty much gone for me by Friday night, I played most of the day Sunday without many lag problems at all.

I decided to start a thief this time, they're a lot more fun than I thought they would be. I was trying a lot more to evade attacks in this beta as well and it makes a huge difference in fights. Next beta weekend I plan on trying out an engineer, watching one use a flamethrower made me kinda jealous...lol.

Edit: another thing to add is about the storyline, I've leveled two norn up to 12 and my storyline was completely different for both of them which is pretty cool. I'm not sure if they changed it at all from the last beta or if it's based on the choices you make but I was pleasantly surprised that my second playthrough on the same race wasn't exactly the same as my first time.

My performance went up as well, in some zones more than others.

If it slows down for you with a GTX680... although now that I have a motherboard CF and SLi capable, I'm qite tempted to add a second cheap 6850 or 6870 to my 6850 to toy a bit with multi GPU.

Although to be realistic, other than GW2, nothing else that I play really needs more power, so I'll just wait until GW2 releases and maybe then the 7850 or NVIDIA alternatives are closer/under €200 mark and that would allow me to pass the 6850 to my GF to replace the 4890.
 

VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
3,119
966
136
Yeah some other people were saying the game is CPU bound right now, I'm hoping they end up moving more of the load to the GPU as time progresses. If they manage to keep making improvements like they did this past weekend I think the game will run great at launch.
 

NoSoup4You

Golden Member
Feb 12, 2007
1,253
6
81
Don't expect much, if any, improvement from a gpu upgrade.

The cold hard technical speak is: we need to fix the main CPU thread getting stalled on occlusion queries to the GPU; we need to fix driver compatibility issues; we'll continue offloading work to other threads. - Mike O'Brien, founder of Arenanet

As others have said, the game is definitely still in a beta stage even though in many ways it almost seems ready for public consumption. As for an actual release date, my bet is that we're still about three, maybe four months away. I would love to be more optimistic but considering the Asura and Plant Elves still aren't playable it's a little concerning, especially since they are definitely making small changes to the starting area's based on player feedback yet they haven't gotten any on those two starting areas.
 
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VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
3,119
966
136
Don't expect much, if any, improvement from a gpu upgrade.

The cold hard technical speak is: we need to fix the main CPU thread getting stalled on occlusion queries to the GPU; we need to fix driver compatibility issues; we'll continue offloading work to other threads. - Mike O'Brien, founder of Arenanet

As others have said, the game is definitely still in a beta stage even though in many ways it almost seems ready for public consumption. As for an actual release date, my bet is that we're still about three, maybe four months away. I would love to be more optimistic but considering the Asura and Plant Elves still aren't playable it's a little concerning, especially since they are definitely making small changes to the starting area's based on player feedback yet they haven't gotten any on those two starting areas.

Yeah I agree about the other 2 starting areas, I hope they don't release the game with those being a lot weaker than the 3 we have seen so far. Hopefully they can take what they're learning from the current feedback and apply it to those areas, but there is only so much you can do without people actually testing the content. Has anyone heard anything about whether or not the sylvari and asura areas will be playable before launch?
 

GaiaHunter

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2008
3,650
218
106
Yeah I agree about the other 2 starting areas, I hope they don't release the game with those being a lot weaker than the 3 we have seen so far. Hopefully they can take what they're learning from the current feedback and apply it to those areas, but there is only so much you can do without people actually testing the content. Has anyone heard anything about whether or not the sylvari and asura areas will be playable before launch?

First, they have a closed beta running as well.

Second, most of the changes are generic tweaks that can be done to all areas-

Third, the devs clearly left open the chance that not all the races will be played during beta.
 

VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
3,119
966
136
First, they have a closed beta running as well.

Second, most of the changes are generic tweaks that can be done to all areas-

Third, the devs clearly left open the chance that not all the races will be played during beta.

Yeah I forgot they have a closed beta going, I'm not that worried about how those areas will turn out since I think they've done a really good job with the three we've seen. Personally I don't think we'll see the other races much during the beta if at all, maybe a one time event at the end to let people see the starting area.

What's everyone's favorite class/build type so far?

My favorite right now is thief, I was using pistol/pistol or pistol/dagger and sword/pistol for my two load-outs. Pistol/dagger is good for kiting stuff, pistol/pistol is awesome for ranged fighting and I was using sword/pistol for some melee. I was really digging sword and pistol because you can use smokescreen to blind and then it combos with heartseeker to make you stealth and then you get the bonus damage out of stealth, plus you have a stun and an interrupt. I was able to make it out of most fights without getting hit using that.
 

GaiaHunter

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2008
3,650
218
106
I've only really played Warrior and Engineer, and I enjoyed them both.
Warrior I enjoyed all the weapons.
Engineer I really like the rifle - haven't messed with all the kits yet.
 

Merad

Platinum Member
May 31, 2010
2,586
19
81
The only classes I've played beyond the first few levels so far are Ranger and Guardian. Between them I prefer Ranger.
 

VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
3,119
966
136
I saw they posted an opening for a graphics artist over the weekend, I found that kind of weird since they're so far long in development but maybe they need extra help finishing some stuff off or maybe someone left.
 
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