First Impressions

[Lantyssa]

How is the response of the character's actions to keypushin' on a scale of instant and awesome (WoW) to eh it's ok (SWTOR) to this is kinda mushy (CoH) to hey I told you to do something are you going to do it today (WAR)?

Instant.

(Pet special abilities felt slow, though.)

[Numtini]

There's a casting time though. I certainly cursed that more than once as I died watching the little icon on my heal animate.

[Lucida]

I found that almost every spell will cast while you are running, even if it has a cast time. Dodging will interrupt it.

[kildorn]

The pet abilities seemed to have a long cast time that wasn't displayed anywhere. I'd press the wolf howl buff and nothing would happen. But out of combat if I watched, it just took him like 3 seconds to finish casting it.

The melee channels/cast abilities seemed fine or painful depending on the class. Some of the guardian ones with the starter mace were crazy long animations (the third swing of their spammable, their #3 AE), while the mesmer blurred strike was a long channel, but did damage through the whole thing. I never felt like anything but the pet was unresponsive though.

I'll hunt down some fun screenshots other people took of WvW (which I couldn't zone into without crashing :( ), saw one showing that yes, a barely visible keep next door can shell you with Trebs. They have an absolutely crazy range.

[Lantyssa]

I'm naturally an explorer so I really liked GW2.  There were all kinds of nooks and crannies to investigate, at least in the lowbie areas.

I also really liked how emergent working together was.  Oh, look a new event pop-up and a circle on the map -> everyone runs to check it out, lots of mayhem ensues, awards are given and then everyone goes on about their business.  Also, not once did I have to respawn, someone always gave me a hand up, I think mostly because it's so prominent on the mini-map when someone is down.

This game focuses on Explorer and Socializer to a much greater extent than most other games have.  I can see it having a huge draw for folks like us.

[kildorn]

I do love that the rez mechanic is very visible on the map, and used for all NPCs and ranger pets as well. Which just trains players from a low level to always rez anything they see. It gives XP!

[Crumbs]

I had a great time.  Spent the most time on an Engineer.

--Combat is FAST.  This is a good thing.  It felt weird to stop in the middle of battles to see what the abilities were, but once we all know what the abilities are this should only add to the fast pace.  There is also extra skill involved with moves that "leap" you to the enemy.  You don't automatically jump to your target; if you're too far away you'll fall short.   You have to be familiar with the distance of the move you're choosing and actually aim yourself.

--Intuitiveness:  While I found combat intuitive, I didn't have the same experience with knowing what the heck to do.  It was more like:  Event Nearby...holycrapwavesofmobs...you win!  Quest is happening...did you know you had this quest?  Go to these 8 places and do quests!  RUN!  SHOOT!  But I imagine that over time it will make more sense.  I'm slow anyway  

--PVP:  I tried some battlegrounds.  Being bumped to max level with all of the abilities was daunting at first, but overall it's so very nice.  As someone who has been consistently behind the gear curve for most of my MMO career, this is sweet revenge.  Even fighting against obvious premades wasn't an automatic lose.  Skill finally has weight in MMO pvp.  If you're like me and you've been figuring out how to fight people with better gear than you, your persistence and ingenuity will pay off in GW2.

--WvW:  couldn't figure out how to get into this.  Is it a zone you have to travel to on foot?  The pvp buttons on my character sheet only got me to the battlegrounds or, strangely, the training areas.  After trying several different zoning options, I ended up in an overflow.  

--Overflow and misc server stuff:  After release and the initial crush subsides, I would think this becomes less of an issue.  However my initial impression is that is is kind of clusterfucky and there is high clusterfuck potential down the line with server hopping.  I can't imagine that everyone won't want to get off a low rated server and get on a higher one, and I would hate to think this is a strategy for RMT.

--Customization:  Excellent choices and variety.  But I'm wondering, can we change our toons around a-la barbershop once they're made?  Or will this cost RMT.....

--Story:  I really don't need to watch a story every time I pick up a quest...thank god for "skip to end."  The stories that I've come up with for my own characters on games throughout the years were more interesting to me than anything SWTOR had to offer.  Stopping to hear a canned story only detracts from immersion imo.  Yes, SWTOR had high quality acting, but not everyone wants that.  

--XP gain:  seems like a really small amount of xp for mobs but large amounts for quest completion, which is fine by me.   I will be interested to see what kind of xp we get in WvW

--Performance:  laggy at times but I would say it's on their end, as my machine ran SWTOR at ultra with no lag whatsoever.  Character's physical movement does seem a little unnatural but I got used to it.  

A note on the "personality choices" at character creation:  It seemed that I got dialog choices with npc's that related to my personality choice, and I got some kind of social or karma points for it.  

[murdoc]

Game ran really smooth for me, even larger scale WvW battles - much better than SWtOR does.

Spent a lot of time in WvW, but with melee I died a LOT and EVERY death resulted in me having to repair. Repairs after every death and not much cash or items in the way of drops in PvP made me a little behind the curve I think. I know I missed a lot of looting in the zerg battles, either from dying or just flat out missing that there was something to loot.

Tried a warrior (liked), Engineer (hated) and Ranger (loved). Best part was how easily it was to run around with friends, no matter what level we were.

[murdoc]

--PVP:  I tried some battlegrounds.  Being bumped to max level with all of the abilities was daunting at first, but overall it's so very nice.  As someone who has been consistently behind the gear curve for most of my MMO career, this is sweet revenge.  Even fighting against obvious premades wasn't an automatic lose.  Skill finally has weight in MMO pvp.  If you're like me and you've been figuring out how to fight people with better gear than you, your persistence and ingenuity will pay off in GW2.

For the life of us, we couldn't figure out how to queue as a group. It just randomly sorted us, us being 5, onto different sides - not sure how a team of premades would work.

--WvW:  couldn't figure out how to get into this.  Is it a zone you have to travel to on foot?  The pvp buttons on my character sheet only got me to the battlegrounds or, strangely, the training areas.  After trying several different zoning options, I ended up in an overflow.  

From the training areas there was an Asura gate that takes you to WvW.

[tazelbain]

I was very impressed how fundamentally co-op the pve is.  It is revolutionary.

The queue is awesome. When guesting comes in it'll be revolutionary.

My biggest gripe is that the story line is worth so much xp its hard to ignore it.

Solid game, a few months of polish and another pass over the UI will really make it shine.

[Spiff]

I do love that the rez mechanic is very visible on the map, and used for all NPCs and ranger pets as well. Which just trains players from a low level to always rez anything they see. It gives XP!

And more importantly: achievements! I do love feeling like I'm achieving something in my online gaming  .

I'm a bit torn on the dodging; I'm not a real fan of the trend to speed up MMO combat in general, but it does gel well with the emphasis on positioning here and the fact you have fewer skills makes more reactive combat plausible.
That said I got one/two-shot by bossmobs at events on my guardian a lot, like "finish the fight half-dressed because of armour breakage" lot.
And as a guardian you even get the option of blocking or dodging (a bunch of skills grant aegis: a buff that blocks 1-3 attacks fully afaik).

In part that seems due to the fact the event scaling seems to go nuts when 20+ people show up (level 14 boss in a level 9-11 area?), which mostly acts like a big 'fuck you' to melee people.

Also: combat needs to run smooth as a 50 year old whiskey or the whole system falls to pieces (meaning I'll have to finally upgrade my 4 year old rig, unless they tweak performance a lot).

Still pretty excited about it though, at times I almost felt the rush I got when I was just starting out in MMO's.
They're actually making an MMO, not just a lobby or a single-player with some shit tacked on to justify a sub. It's been a while since I've seen one of those.

[Tmon]

I made it to 16 only doing up to the level 8 part the story quest , so it's not a huge problem  and the gear rewards don't seem any better than the stuff that dropped or I bought off Karma vendors.  

One problem I had with combat in general was getting used to the soft target system.  I died a lot trying to target things rather than just firing off the ability.  Then once I finally got used to it I got into a PVE castle seige and died because the soft target kept locking on destructable objects instead of the ogres that were killing me.  My pet seemed especially prone to doing this, but at least when he did it I could hit f1 to have him switch to my target.  Speaking of pets it looks like you can have them on or off, there's no guard me mode which was a little annoying when forgot to turn aggro back on after we bailed on the dungeon run.  I used a bear in PvP and he was actually fairly survivable and has a handy AoE debuff.

[kildorn]

There are daily and monthly rewards for "do N encounters" and "kill Y variety of mobs today" which should drive people's OCD up a wall. I liked the idea of just giving me 80 different ways to gain karma and letting me pick which one I felt like chasing after.

I kept getting bonus xp randomly as well, but I have no earthly idea why.

[Threash]

Every point of interest, respawn location and i think quest area gave bonus exp for discovering it.

[kildorn]

I mean from mobs. I'd kill a random mob in the middle of nowhere (for the variety quest!) and get 80 xp/20 bonus.

[Tmon]

It might have been due to WvW bonus. 

[Crumbs]

From the training areas there was an Asura gate that takes you to WvW.

Aha!  Thank you.  Next chance we get I'll be jumping in. 

[Ingmar]

So is the dodge thing basically the block mechanic from Champions Online?

[kildorn]

Not sure, don't remember Champ O.

Dodge is an endurance bar, you roll out of the way and have immunity frames during the roll. There's also channeled block skills that have various effects if they eat an attack during the duration, and the aegis buff that is basically Blade Turn from daoc.

[Zetor]

Yeah, it's not like the champo block at all. The main difference is that champo's block mechanic is terrible and GW2's dodge is not

In more detail: in CO I needed to basically block all the time with enough time to use a taunt / aggro ability once every 4-5 sec... otherwise I'd die. In GW2 I typically use my abilities as active defense (either self-buffs like aegis or debuffs like blind) and dodge maybe once every 2-3 seconds. Timing dodge is important for big nasty abilities -- and yes, they aren't always telegraphed adequately. Can't dodge more often than that since the dodge bar dries up really quick and recharges slowly (unless you have the vigor buff, but even then you can't keep dodging constantly).

Dodge is pretty important in pvp, since you're basically invincible for the 1-2 seconds you're in the dodge animations. You can dodge some seriously nasty stuff that way like the warrior adrenaline dump skill that crits for over 9000 (eviscerate), the mesmer elite that turns you into a moa bird for a time, etc etc.

edit: words are hard

[Draegan]

I mean from mobs. I'd kill a random mob in the middle of nowhere (for the variety quest!) and get 80 xp/20 bonus.

There are daily achievements that you can do everyday.  Kill 10 different mobs, kill 10 imps, kill 15 different mobs etc.  You get bonus xp for doing this. 

[Lantyssa]

That's not what he means.  Or you're not explaining the why of it.

You see it with mobs, but save up some crafting materials.  Leather or Jute Scraps.  Queue them up.  Not only does the xp value go down, but the initial ones will go (numbers made up) 145 + 45, 145 + 40, 145 + 35, ... 125... 110...

I noticed this yesterday on a new character.  Some of that is due to the crafting skill leveling up, but he is asking what all that +xp is from.  Is that part of the daily bonus?  Does it decrease with each one, but once you reach the limit you get a completion bonus?

[kildorn]

Yeah, lanty gets it. There's just occasionally a bonus +__XP under the XP popup that's completely unexplained. It would just be nice to know what I'm doing that makes the game's reward system happy, so I can keep doing it.

It doesn't seem to be "Kill X fozzles" daily related, since I'll kill 20 centaurs with no +XP, then kill 2 centaurs with +20XP. It's almost like a group contribution bonus, but I wasn't at an event at the time. That or rested type XP is accumulating while simply not in combat, instead of sitting in town.

[Lantyssa]

Or it's the first craft/kill of that mob/item for the day?  WHO KNOWS!?!

[Mosesandstick]

I remember it popping up whenever I did something the first time in a while.

[Segoris]

It almost sounds as if it's similar to the old DAoC camp bonus, only on a more personal level. If so, that is pretty awesome.

[Draegan]

Oh THAT mechanic.

You get bonus xp if a mob has been in the world for a while unkilled.  It prevents people from grinding in an area for a long period of time.  It motivates you to explore and kill things off the beaten path.  You might of seen that a lot of the servers kept crashing due it being reset a lot.

[murdoc]

From the training areas there was an Asura gate that takes you to WvW.

Aha!  Thank you.  Next chance we get I'll be jumping in. 

Here's specifically how you can do it.

Option 1: Go to Lion’s arch by using an Asura Gate in one of the main cities. Once in Lion’s Arch head to Fort Mariner where you will find an Asura gate to the Eternal Battlegrounds, which is the center WvW map.
Option 2: Open your Hero Panel by pressing H, click the crossed swords on the left of the window to open the PvP tab, click the “Be in the Mists” button to enter the structured PvP lobby area. There’s an asura gate there (to the left of the one that leads out of the mists) which takes you to WvW.

Voila!

[Threash]

Wish i had tried the wvwvw, i loved the mesmer in battleground type pvp but i'm not sure how the class will fare in mass pvp.  The illusion thing is a great class dynamic.

[Phred]

I do love that the rez mechanic is very visible on the map, and used for all NPCs and ranger pets as well. Which just trains players from a low level to always rez anything they see. It gives XP!

I wish they'd take it off pets frankly. It's a pita with all the dead ranger pets running around getting in your way when you try to rez a real player or npc or loot. Maybe if the damn rangers noticed their pets were dead occasionally it wouldnt be so annoying.

[Nevermore]

I do love that the rez mechanic is very visible on the map, and used for all NPCs and ranger pets as well. Which just trains players from a low level to always rez anything they see. It gives XP!

I wish they'd take it off pets frankly. It's a pita with all the dead ranger pets running around getting in your way when you try to rez a real player or npc or loot. Maybe if the damn rangers noticed their pets were dead occasionally it wouldnt be so annoying.

Maybe if the ranger pets didn't die in literally two hits, they'd care if the pet was dead or not.

[Phred]

I do love that the rez mechanic is very visible on the map, and used for all NPCs and ranger pets as well. Which just trains players from a low level to always rez anything they see. It gives XP!

I wish they'd take it off pets frankly. It's a pita with all the dead ranger pets running around getting in your way when you try to rez a real player or npc or loot. Maybe if the damn rangers noticed their pets were dead occasionally it wouldnt be so annoying.

Maybe if the ranger pets didn't die in literally two hits, they'd care if the pet was dead or not.

Maybe they will eventually figure out that swapping their pets rezzes the one swapped out painlessly.

[kildorn]

You lack a second pet at low levels (or even knowledge of how to tame more..). The basic problem is that pets are built around normal pet AI (run in, spam attack) but the rest of the game is built around dodging and evading incoming damage. Pets don't die faster than players, pets simply NEVER DODGE. Which means they die as fast as a player who just stood there.

They need something to help them out, right now the pet AI is not compatible with the combat dynamic they're going for.

[Hutch]

I bet they'll end up doing something for pets like we have in WoW, i.e. the 90% reduction to AoE damage taken.

So as long as your pet doesn't get aggro, they'll survive most boss fights.

They might cloak it with a name like "Feral Alacrity" or some other fancyness, but the mechanic will be the same. And so much easier to implement than actually programming the pet AI to actually dodge.

(edited to clarify something)

[Kageru]

Or they'll let pets die and consider them more as "attack spells" with a limited life expectancy and where selecting the right pet (like a ranged or tank pet), using it's mitigation skills and tactical switching is important. Which lets them keep most of the class power in the hands of the player rather than his automatons. Certainly that seems to be the design intent from what I've seen.