First Impressions

[KallDrexx]

So while this game has so much polished, I'm just not feeling it.  Maybe it's because I'm probably not a standard MMO player (I've played most of them, the only ones that I played for more than 6 months were DAOC and GW1, both played for well over 2 years).  I think they decided to turn around and make a pure MMO instead of something more unique like they did in GW1.

I'm not a fan of the world pvp.  While I don't remember what made me like it in DAOC (it's been a good 10 years) I don't find it fun here.  I don't feel like I'm actually contributing to battle and it just seems like as the opposing force gets more forces they win, then we win as we get more forces, but what I'm actually doing doesn't *feel* like it's contributing.  Even when sneaking behind to flank I didn't feel like I could do enough damage quick enough (on my theif or mesmer) to make a difference before the zerg noticed me.  I miss the 12v12 alliance battles of gw1.  They felt like they had more interesting objectives and the 24 person cap helped keep things under control so people could feel like they were contributing.

While PvE is leagues above what other MMOs have, I find it a step down from GW1.  Granted gw1 pve was more of an action-rpg than straight MMO but I liked it and it gave a lot more interesting objectives that aren't really possible in a fully persistent / open to everyone world.  I also feel like once I get most of the hearts in the area I get stuck between levels, where I'm too low level for the next open heart and my personal story.  I then end up running around aimlessly trying to find a dynamic event going on since that seems to be the core way to level (grinding mobs doesn't give much).

I'm also not a fan of the skill system.  10 skills seems too much, not necessarily because of the strict amount but the strict placing of them.  The main problem is that  I can't easily reach the 7, 8, 9 and 10 keys on the keyboard while moving with WASD, so in combat I forget to use those because I have to click on them with my mouse.  In GW1 this wasn't and issue because you had 8 skills and I could rebind 7 and 8  to Q and E.  In other MMOs it's not an issue because I can have multiple hotbars, so all other abilities I can do Ctrl+(1-6) to click them.  I don't seem to have either of these capabilities in GW2.  Also I don't like how I can't change what skill is 2, 3, 4, and 5.  This causes a lot of issue in frantic combat because I can't organize my abilities so all my teleport abilities are towards the end, my passives (and low usage abilities) towards the end and have my common thief main skills (like my poison buff) towards the middle.

[Modern Angel]

You can remap keys 6-0 to anything you want.

[kildorn]

  I also feel like once I get most of the hearts in the area I get stuck between levels, where I'm too low level for the next open heart and my personal story.  I then end up running around aimlessly trying to find a dynamic event going on since that seems to be the core way to level (grinding mobs doesn't give much).

I agree this is a bit of an issue, but the trick seems to be to wander to another zone in the same level range and do all those hearts and events as well. Remember, going to a lower level event helps you, as you gain XP as if it was even level, and about half your loot drops will be on-level as well. I still don't think they explain their intended gameplay flow well at all.

[Amaron]

So while this game has so much polished, I'm just not feeling it.  Maybe it's because I'm probably not a standard MMO player (I've played most of them, the only ones that I played for more than 6 months were DAOC and GW1, both played for well over 2 years).  I think they decided to turn around and make a pure MMO instead of something more unique like they did in GW1.

I feel like they just hid a lot of the stuff that made GW1 unique.  It's still all there though.  There's no ilvl gear grind for starters.  The combat is clearly not the holy trinity either.  They still have the instant max level pvp chars.  The one thing I feel is sorely missing is the hero companions.   It's the same engine though I wouldn't rule them out in the future.

[KallDrexx]

I agree this is a bit of an issue, but the trick seems to be to wander to another zone in the same level range and do all those hearts and events as well. Remember, going to a lower level event helps you, as you gain XP as if it was even level, and about half your loot drops will be on-level as well. I still don't think they explain their intended gameplay flow well at all.

I was in Queensdale and I had done all the lower level hearts there.  Since this was my first time playing I don't even know where other low level zones are, so I can't just wander around to an uncompleted heart (as I do't know where any are that are lower level than me).  So it just felt like the only way to progress was to randomly run around until I find a random event going on, and one that can actually be completed if there aren't many people around.  I do agree they need to explain the intended gameplay flow better. 

Sometimes the only place you can find that you know will have action are waypoints that are contested, but you can't get there quickly because they are contested and thus non-portable to them.  You don't know if the event will still be going on by the time you get there.  The NPCs pointing out dynamic events are good, but they are only in town.

You can remap keys 6-0 to anything you want.

Hrm if I can remap them to ctrl+(1-5) then that may make it better. 

[Lantyssa]

The pacing in Queensdale is possibly the worst of all starting areas.  It has a couple of dead spots.

[ezrast]

I'm not a fan of the world pvp.  While I don't remember what made me like it in DAOC (it's been a good 10 years) I don't find it fun here.  I don't feel like I'm actually contributing to battle and it just seems like as the opposing force gets more forces they win, then we win as we get more forces, but what I'm actually doing doesn't *feel* like it's contributing.  Even when sneaking behind to flank I didn't feel like I could do enough damage quick enough (on my theif or mesmer) to make a difference before the zerg noticed me.  I miss the 12v12 alliance battles of gw1.  They felt like they had more interesting objectives and the 24 person cap helped keep things under control so people could feel like they were contributing.

I agree. The skillsets feel like they were made for small group battles but zergs seem to mostly just require range and AoE. Especially since even if you do catch someone and beat them in a duel, their team can just resurrect them once they push back.

I can't speak for DAoC, but in WAR I felt like my Blackguard had the capability to handle those sorts of situations well. With a dedicated healer I could survive running headlong into a zerg, putting out some aoe harrassment, debuffing a healer or two, punting a squishy towards my group, and gtfo before my defensive CDs run out. I made a sword/shield Guardian to try to do something similar, and it sort of works, but my aoe and knockback aren't great, it's harder to catch people, and I have to blow all my CDs just to have a chance at feeling useful meaning I can't do much for the next 30-45 seconds.

[HaemishM]

I FINALLY got into the World PVP today since it was completely full all last night (and WTF is that? Not being able to try out WvW because of queues almost cost them my potential purchase). Since I couldn't get into it last night, I tried the Hearts of Mist small-scale PVP. I didn't like it at all. Like enough that I really wasn't going to buy the game at all.

World PVP has changed that stance. I'm still undecided, but I really like the World PVP with the different objectives. It definitely scratches that Eman Gate itch. I still think footspeed is WAY too slow, but I started to get used to it (and I found out I could unlock a skill that increased footspeed a bit). The footspeed thing is really close to being a dealbreaker though. It means that I will absolutely HAVE to use one skill slot for the footspeed signet, no questions asked, which could limit my skills. I also have to echo Kall's problems with the 6-0 skills - I have a real problem getting to those numbers without looking in the heat of the battle when I'm using WASD for movement.

[Evildrider]

Not being able to queue with friends for non tournament pvp matches is stupid.  It's a pain in the ass to get into the same games as your friends and even then you may not be on the same side.  I actually prefer ToR warzones over their structured pvp here.

WvWvW... after finally being able to get into it after waiting like an hour, I was pretty unimpressed.  Overall it wasn't horrid, but I found myself missing WHO more than I did liking this.  Door hit points are too high and having to spend 5-10 minutes just running back from mid map is bs as well. 

[Falconeer]

Skills and keys can be remapped though, and if you choose 5 easily reachable keys for the first 5 skills, and then ALT+them all for the other 5 skills it gets all very easy to control.

[Falconeer]

Also, queueing for WvW? Are you sure you aren't queueing for the Eternal Battleground? That has queues, but you can and should attack the external three worlds too (Blue, Green and Red) for they are pretty much the same thing. Am I missing something? Did they have a queue too?

[Zetor]

For keybindings I use 1-5 for weapon skills, z for heal, qex for utilities, c for elite, r for weapon switch, mouse3 for dodging. Standard WASD for strafe/move/backpedal (I should really stop backpedaling, but meh it's still useful for pve tanking), turn with the mouse. They FINALLY made it possible to use alt-ctrl modifiers if you like that stuff - it only took them what, 7 years since GW1 launch? 

Not being able to queue with friends for non tournament pvp matches is stupid.  It's a pain in the ass to get into the same games as your friends and even then you may not be on the same side. I actually prefer ToR warzones over their structured pvp here.

WvWvW... after finally being able to get into it after waiting like an hour, I was pretty unimpressed.  Overall it wasn't horrid, but I found myself missing WHO more than I did liking this.  Door hit points are too high and having to spend 5-10 minutes just running back from mid map is bs as well.  

I'll just say that my experience differs from yours... a lot. I'd rank warzone/structured pvp 'at max level' like this: GW2 > GW1 >>>>> Rift > WOW ~ TOR ~ WAR >>> COH (I put Rift above the standard DIKU fare because they at least try to do some gear/stat equalizing) IMO having more than two people queue together for a PUG v PUG warzone is also a very bad idea (even two is a bad idea, but people play in duos often, so meh), since it just leads to lopsided pugstomping snorefests (except when the premade is so bad that they manage to lose vs a pug, but that doesn't happen THAT often :P).

About beating on the door: what siege engines was your team using? I don't remember them taking too long to break down at all with a few catapults and a treb. I've actually had more fun/success doing things like intercepting supply runners instead of running with the siege group/zerg, though.

[ezrast]

I do think part of it is just that the game is still filled with people like me who have no idea what they're doing. It took me quite a while to figure out how supply worked, and that I should pick some up before running to siege anywhere. Hopefully mindless zerging will decrease and fights will get better as people figure out exactly what is necessary to capture/defend each of the objective types.

[Modern Angel]

Also, queueing for WvW? Are you sure you aren't queueing for the Eternal Battleground? That has queues, but you can and should attack the external three worlds too (Blue, Green and Red) for they are pretty much the same thing. Am I missing something? Did they have a queue too?

Yeah, this. You can funnel right the fuck in to the other fronts in W3 without queuing. Also, the issues last night weren't related to extended queues. They were fixing lag problems.

On the door thing, gotta use siege engines to make it quick. Which is a good thing. But it also illustrates what ezrast is saying: lots of folks doing the world pvp without knowing the full range of stuff you can or should do. Siege engines are important. Supply is hella important. You can pick off important supply stuff solo or in a small group away from the zerg.

[Dark_MadMax]

Was very impressed with their patch system - logs you out , auto patches and all done in 5 minutes. TSW for example goes down for 4 hours .... Yah GW2 is light years ahead in this department


Also very unimpressed with WWW queues. I cant get in at all, 3-5 hours wait - still not in. Only time I was able to get in was right after patch. They seem to have improved performance . It was smoother than BWE2. Also I played some organized world-pvp wiht teamspeak etc - and its effing amazing. Real tactics come into play and you suddenly not playing "gate bashing" anymore....  well there is gate bashing still  , but there is a lot of direction and more action involved. We managed to take entire keep with 10 man team by sneaking trough 3 enemy posts and  ninja placing  4 catas near wall ,taking it down in 5 minutes. Then we rushed the defenders arrow carts and took em down clearing path to inner keep

 Get into good www guild - it is light and day from the random running in www  The game revolves around siege weapons and supplies, placing siege weapons ,getting supplies to them,  storming enemy defences and defending yours - it is a lot more fun when organized.

[ezrast]

I'm pretty sure queues are just completely broken right now. I've queued up, managed to get in a few minutes later by spamming join on all the WvW areas, and then had a queue pop a few minutes later. Your best bet is to just try to manually join every couple minutes.

[kildorn]

There was a bug with the queues yesterday per the forums, if that is when you were having issues. Something was keeping the player cap crazy low.

[Threash]

Apart from the bugged queues i feel it would be a good idea not to pick a server that is going to be packed all the time.

[Tmon]

Someone on the dev team really loves jumping puzzles. 

[Secundo]

Besides the effing jump puzzles(which I sofar manage to do but still hate) I like it.. The only thing that could kill this game for me would be pay to win.

[ezrast]

People in chat are talking about how great they are and how they want more difficult ones. The one in Morgan's Spiral in the Sylvari area should be enough to last me the whole game, I think.

[Tmon]

What is making me a little nutzo at the moment is that I have everything unlocked in the Asura starting area except for one POI that I can't find.  My fear is that it's at the top of a truly painful jumping puzzle that starts in a cave and seems to lead to an asura gate floating in the sky.  Since you get high enough to die when you miss that jump I gave up on it.  I had the same problem in the Char starter area.  I'm not really a completest but having everything unlocked on the map but one, not at all obvious point is bugging me for some reason.  I don't mind that there are jumping puzzles in the game, but making them mandatory for an achievement that isn't labeled jumping master or something is just annoying.

[01101010]

Yeah, but these super mario achievements are way better and easier than SWTOR's, by leaps and bounds. 

[Tmon]

One thing I do like a lot is bank access from the crafting stations.  I'm pretty sure that's new with this round. 

[Kageru]

GW1 PvE was an abomination, slow moving and repetitive, this is much better. Especially because I hate shepherding dumb NPC's.

The bank access from the crafting tables was a massive convenience advance. An obvious one but I'm glad they did that. The jumping puzzles, sigh, but giving the explorers more carrots is fine.

Any open PvP is going to be about dealing with the Zerg, it's basically inherent in the game style.

The wife really took to the game. Which I think is partly because the Asura are really cute but also because the whole approach is really casual friendly. Skills evolve naturally, there's not too many to keep track of and you can just wander round the map and get dragged into things. It's still a refreshing change from a quest driven system. I'm still fighting with the lack of role on the characters, I can't really tell if there are deep skill and class synergies waiting to be unlocked or it's just a lot of cleverness in the skills with little coherence (mostly did necro this weekend). That's probably only going to come out once you hit dungeons though or do dynamic events with a small group. I think I would have preferred a more soft role model than this mish-mash of skills, and balance is going to be interesting.

The structured PvP guys are already hitting it though, so most of the balance discussions are strongly PvP slanted.

[ffc]

-mesmer  -pretty damn fun and has a lot of tricks.  (mesmer actually has better stealth than thief  :) )

I don't understand the Mesmer illusions that automatically pop up after a few attacks with the scepter.  They do 0 damage, literally, and just stand around lobbing purple balls at my target.  In PvE, the enemies never attack them so they can't tank, and in PvP nobody confuses them for me.  What's the point?  The best I have done is after an illusion appears I use it as a sort of bomb with F1/2/3/4 and that's it.  But the illusion has to run up to my target and if it gets caught in an AoE then it just melts.  Am I doing it wrong?

[Shatter]

I love the battlegrounds, I could do this shit all day.  I will be glory 80 and still level 1 :P

[Kageru]

The pacing in Queensdale is possibly the worst of all starting areas.  It has a couple of dead spots.

It has lots of events and too few hearts, so people miss the events. This is especially true for the various events up near the water supply.

[Dark_MadMax]

I don't understand the Mesmer illusions that automatically pop up after a few attacks with the scepter.  They do 0 damage, literally, and just stand around lobbing purple balls at my target.  In PvE, the enemies never attack them so they can't tank, and in PvP nobody confuses them for me.  What's the point?  The best I have done is after an illusion appears I use it as a sort of bomb with F1/2/3/4 and that's it.  But the illusion has to run up to my target and if it gets caught in an AoE then it just melts.  Am I doing it wrong?

Illusions are free and they are sometimes nice decoy ,especially considering that you can stealth and/or blink. Basically you want them for healing and shatter . Phantasms have some health and deal damage, they also do not die instantly in aoe so you can shatter them more reliably. Strength of mesmer is in his elusiveness - blinks ,stealh, evades , healing and condition removal. He also deals nice damage if specced.

[Furiously]

If they had weapon switching for elementalists, I would be all over the class. Ride the lightning is probably the most fun skill (dagger spec), but the staff utility and range is so much nicer.

[Zetor]

I'd like it too, but elementalists are already the most versatile class in the game - being able to hotswap to a completely different set of 4 bars would put them way over the top.

Anyway, I use staff 90% of the time and keep a dagger/focus set in my inventory for versatility... I switch out of combat if necessary. Of course that's pve and wvw only - I don't think you can manipulate your gear setup during sPVP matches. (yea, I know this wasn't entirely the case this BWE, but devs have stated that they really don't want in-game gear switching to become a thing).

[01101010]

I don't understand the Mesmer illusions that automatically pop up after a few attacks with the scepter.  They do 0 damage, literally, and just stand around lobbing purple balls at my target.  In PvE, the enemies never attack them so they can't tank, and in PvP nobody confuses them for me.  What's the point?  The best I have done is after an illusion appears I use it as a sort of bomb with F1/2/3/4 and that's it.  But the illusion has to run up to my target and if it gets caught in an AoE then it just melts.  Am I doing it wrong?

The clone spawns on the third scepter auto-attack - basically a shadow. Phantasms are slightly better... but their attacks are way too slow.  The only part I really dislike is the fact that both clones and phantasms disappear once your target dies... quite shitty if PvE when you have a pack of mobs. A timer on them would be a bit better.

I'd guess mesmer is all about the boons and conditions.

Overall, I'd like to see boons and conditions last a bit longer. 7s buffs seem a bit too low- 10s-12s might feel a bit better. Getting a nice buff like chaos armor, only to watch it be utterly useless because it is gone by the time the mob catches up to you is just disappointing.

[Kageru]

Necromancer is similar. Lot's of conditions and buffs with really short durations. Though some of them stack duration (unlike WoW they actually considered DoT stacking properly) or are affected by talents. But so far it feels really frantic. The extensive use of ground symbols (necro and guardian) combined with highly mobile combat is also an uncomfortable mix.

It didn't seem like that much had changed between the beta tests in terms of skills. Numbers were being changed (the Necro alternate form definitely got a solid nerfing) but not mechanics.

[Tyrnan]

Well the Engineer seemed to have gotten a fairly hefty balance pass from the last time I played it. Both Pistol and Rifle actually seemed to be doing decent damage now and the new grenade kit was pretty awesome. But still too much randomness in the utility skills and turrets still suck from what I've read.

I'm hoping they have a similar look at Mesmers before launch too. Jon Peters has more or less said that the scepter sucks (which is really unfortunate as it's the first weapon you get) and they'll look at it. If they did that and made the illusions stick around after the target died for even a few seconds so we could engage another target with them it would help a lot. I've also seen it suggested numerous times on the forums that they separate clones from phantasms and let us have 3 clones and 1 phantasm out at a time. This would prevent phantasms getting used in shatters or being overwritten by clones like the scepter auto-attack one.

[Chimpy]

I liked the ranger a lot better once I got a bow, starting with a throwing axe just seems odd to me, though the warhorn offhand was kinda cool.

Game was somewhat fun, but probably not enough for me to purchase right away. Might pick it up when I leave the second job and have more free time, but that won't be until late October at the earliest.