First Impressions

[Ingmar]

These totally sound like the people who are encouraging devs to put out more WoW clones. Just tell them it's not for them and get new friends. And lol at killstealed. My friend Crowen had some guy bitching him out for kill stealing as well as someone racing for a resource node.

Get over yourself.

I can accept that some games weren't targetted to my playstyle. What's your problem?

Probably your tone.

[Phred]

These totally sound like the people who are encouraging devs to put out more WoW clones. Just tell them it's not for them and get new friends. And lol at killstealed. My friend Crowen had some guy bitching him out for kill stealing as well as someone racing for a resource node.

Get over yourself.

I can accept that some games weren't targetted to my playstyle. What's your problem?

Probably your tone.

He told me to get over myself when I used a joking tone so he started it.

[Tyrnan]

All the intro bosses have an instant kill move they use randomly, that usually spawns an add.

The point of it (which isn't really explained enough) is to teach you the downed mechanic.

I still think they should add your downed skills to the tab with your weapon skills on the Hero panel so you can see what they do before you're frantically fighting for your life. And the second and third parts of chain skills as well.

[Kageru]

If they want to teach players that (and they should), then it needs to be in such a way as to not make the player feel like she failed for no discernible reason.  Going back to Factions, there's one spot where your instructor dude basically says 'I'm going to kill you now so you can see what happens' and he does, and then explains the resurrection shrine thing and the death debuff penalty and all that jazz.  You know what's going to happen and you know why it's happening.

I think game designers in general don't believe, possibly correctly, that the attention span of that era still exists. CoH did the same when they re-designed their tutorial, if you're not smacking dudes in 2 minutes after the game starts it's "boring".

[Lantyssa]

To you people loving on Rangers, do the pets ever reach a point that they don't die to a stiff breeze?  Bad enough that the pathing is shit, but pet death is by far the most annoying thing about the class and the reason I totally gave up on playing one.  At least on the Necro they are designed to be expendable.

Yes, they do.

[kildorn]

All the intro bosses have an instant kill move they use randomly, that usually spawns an add.

The point of it (which isn't really explained enough) is to teach you the downed mechanic.

I still think they should add your downed skills to the tab with your weapon skills on the Hero panel so you can see what they do before you're frantically fighting for your life. And the second and third parts of chain skills as well.

That and explain why some are on various cooldowns when you die, and other such things. The game leaves a lot of stuff completely unexplained, which is a shame. The more I play it, the more I love the mechanics. But the mechanics are hilariously poorly explained at times.

[Crumbs]

The one thing I couldn't figure out was:  can we move the buttons around?  I was able to rebind, but was looking for some sort of "unlock toolbar" thing.  If I rebind something to the '1' key, I want to see it there in the first slot. 

Everything else I can deal with.  I actually like not knowing wtf is going on, it adds to the mystery and makes discovering stuff all the more fun.

[tmp]

People are so used to doing things differently there there is no amount of tutorial one can give to show how to "play it right".  The only way is to play until it clicks, which is something I've heard over and over.

(Not that it can't use some better tutorials.)

But then there's this ridiculous concept new kids continue to grow up and get to try things for the first time ever. Some of them maybe didn't even play what's soon to be 10 year old game for now 20-30-something old farts, that is WoW. Or X hopeful WoW clones that followed, failed and died without much splash.

So decent tutorials explaining things with focus on first-timers like those definitely wouldn't go amiss. And if they can help some of those old WoW farts too, then all the better.

[Threash]

The one thing I couldn't figure out was:  can we move the buttons around?  I was able to rebind, but was looking for some sort of "unlock toolbar" thing.  If I rebind something to the '1' key, I want to see it there in the first slot. 

I'm fairly certain that you can't.

[statisticalfool]

Yeah, I mean, it's obvious how to do the "death mechanic" better. Before the first boss, have a quest to go up to a training bot. You hit interact, you get a little bit of text about how when you run out of health, you get defeated until you a) bandage yourself or b) defeat any creature. You hit "OK", and it wallops you for 2000, and then you have to either throw rocks at it, or bandage, to survive.

The end.

[kildorn]

I think they were trying to make it non-"game"y in the intro, but it makes for a shit tutorial.

[Threash]

Yeah they went for immersion and ended up with wtf just happened.

[Crumbs]

The one thing I couldn't figure out was:  can we move the buttons around?  I was able to rebind, but was looking for some sort of "unlock toolbar" thing.  If I rebind something to the '1' key, I want to see it there in the first slot. 

I'm fairly certain that you can't.

Oh wells.  I'll get used to it.

[Amaron]

The "Wtf is going on?" is compounded a lot by letting you do too many things too quick.  I found it disconcerting at first but after playing MMO's for over a decade I still had all the tools to pick it up quickly.   That's not going to work for people who've only played WoW/WoW clones.

[ffc]

I first thought the heart quests were required in order to trigger events.  Felt like the typical MMO grind and I hated it.  Then I was exploring another area and heard a farmer complaining.  Talked to him and triggered a group boss event.  No heart grinding required.

This is important and needs to be flashed across the screen at start-up.  I later read that the original plan did not include hearts at all, but were added because testers wanted something more familiar.  I also read that later zones don't have hearts, just events.

[Tmon]

I first thought the heart quests were required in order to trigger events.  Felt like the typical MMO grind and I hated it.  Then I was exploring another area and heard a farmer complaining.  Talked to him and triggered a group boss event.  No heart grinding required.

This is important and needs to be flashed across the screen at start-up.  I later read that the original plan did not include hearts at all, but were added because testers wanted something more familiar.  I also read that later zones don't have hearts, just events.

One of the map options is to turn off completion markers by clicking the little eye in the lower left.  I clicked it and I was surprised to see the hearts disapear along with the POIs and vistas.  This explains why that happens, it took some getting used to at first but I actually found the game more fun when I just wandered around and stumbled across things.  It may be part of the reason that I liked my Norn warrior so much since I didn't try it out until I made him on the last day.  It also means that you aren't hit with the map completion % every time you open the map which is nice since I like to wander around checking things out but hate being reminded that I missed out on completing a map because I'm not going to spend an hour on jumping puzzle.

[Sky]

That's cool, I'll be turning off the icons. I can always pop them back on if I'm curious about something.

[Severian]

One of the map options is to turn off completion markers by clicking the little eye in the lower left.  I clicked it and I was surprised to see the hearts disapear along with the POIs and vistas.

That's great to know!

What happens to the heart NPCs, do they still have an indicator when you see them in person? Or do you need to strike up a conversation with everyone EQ-style to find those eventual karma vendors?

[Tmon]

I'm not sure if they do or not but you get an email from them as soon as you complete the heart so you will know their name.

[Draegan]

They should still have a Heart/Karma icon above their head.

Also, KallDrexx's friend sucks at video games.

[Miasma]

I played for less than an hour and had no idea what the hell was going on.  It doesn't really seem like you have to know what to do though so it's not a huge issue.  Pretty sure I'm supposed to stumble around from place to place without any cohesion or explanation and do little things until a big thing happens.

I'm going to have to read a wiki or something on character building before the game launches though.  Logged into their forums to search for commonly asked questions I have like "what's best for solo" etc only to find they had wiped and locked the forums the day before.

So can a gw2 expert tell me "what's best for solo" and also "what's best/most useful for pvp".  Is necro the "healiest" type class given there are no pure healers?  That class looks daunting with all the weapons and different forms changing the action bar so often, of course most of them do.

[UnsGub]

So can a gw2 expert tell me "what's best for solo" and also "what's best/most useful for pvp".  Is necro the "healiest" type class given there are no pure healers?

No one knows.  That is the joy of learning a new system.  The conversations are underway on many forums.

Expect it to change during the life of the game with additions and subtractions.

All classes can do it.

The question for me is what class do I enjoy playing and can play reasonably well?

[01101010]

Engineer looks extreme in the avenues it can pursue. Granted, they only get two weapon choices, but toolkits are extensive. I like what it has to offer, but not sure if I like it more than thf and war.

[Lantyssa]

Thankfully we start with (probably) five slots!

[Nevermore]

So can a gw2 expert tell me "what's best for solo" and also "what's best/most useful for pvp".  Is necro the "healiest" type class given there are no pure healers?  That class looks daunting with all the weapons and different forms changing the action bar so often, of course most of them do.

From my limited experience, Necromancers had few if any 'healing' stuff.  Elementalists (specifically in their water attunment or whatever) seemed to have the most heal-type stuff.

[01101010]

So can a gw2 expert tell me "what's best for solo" and also "what's best/most useful for pvp".  Is necro the "healiest" type class given there are no pure healers?  That class looks daunting with all the weapons and different forms changing the action bar so often, of course most of them do.

From my limited experience, Necromancers had few if any 'healing' stuff.  Elementalists (specifically in their water attunment or whatever) seemed to have the most heal-type stuff.

Thought that would have been Guardian.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_guardian_skills vs http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills

[Nevermore]

I didn't play a Guardian so I wouldn't know.  All I remember is Necro = no or almost no healing, Elementalist = had some healing spells.  Ranger had a healing spring iirc, but that was it.  Warrior might have had a shout?

[Kageru]

Necro, Elementalist and Guardian all have some area heals. Engineer too I think. The Ranger one is self only.

They're all pretty weak, either low amounts, long cooldowns and limited area or all of the above, so while you can assist the party that way you are not a "healer". Pretty much all classes can solo well, though I can see a speed advantage for direct damage classes but not enough I'd consider it a factor. Mob XP is low anyway so most of your experience is exploring and events.

[Amaron]

From everything I've seen this game just doesn't have traditional healing?  Pretty amusing coming from the company that gave us Monks in GW1.

[Evildrider]

From everything I've seen this game just doesn't have traditional healing?  Pretty amusing coming from the company that gave us Monks in GW1.

Every healer I currently play with hated the fact that they couldn't be dedicted healers in GW2.

[Tmon]

I'm glad that there aren't dedicated healers.  People who like to play that role are rare and people who are good at it are even rarer

[Amaron]

I'm glad that there aren't dedicated healers.  People who like to play that role are rare and people who are good at it are even rarer

I'm very excited to see how it goes in PvP.  High level PvP has always revolved around having enough healing to basically shut down the other teams damage.  It's a mechanic that makes the PvP extremely unfun if you're just trying to get better.  GW1 was probably the best example of that in fact.

[Nebu]

DPS battles get pretty dull, pretty quickly.  I think that dedicated healers and debuffers bring flavor to pvp.  Without them, the whole thing devolves into a dps race.  I think that healers, debuffers, interrupters, etc all add tactical elements that make pvp interesting.  I have concerns that the homogenization introduced in GW2 will make it more approachable, but also make it less interesting. 

[Dark_MadMax]

From everything I've seen this game just doesn't have traditional healing?  Pretty amusing coming from the company that gave us Monks in GW1.

Well every class can heal himself for huge chunks .And many classes when specced can heal group around them (ranger, ele , engi - the ones I know off) .Ele is probably closes to dedicated healer if needed be

[Arinon]

DPS battles get pretty dull, pretty quickly.  I think that dedicated healers and debuffers bring flavor to pvp.  Without them, the whole thing devolves into a dps race.  I think that healers, debuffers, interrupters, etc all add tactical elements that make pvp interesting.  I have concerns that the homogenization introduced in GW2 will make it more approachable, but also make it less interesting. 

I agree 100%.  Given the choice I'd rather have fights hinge on the strength of healing and control than on the ability to rapidly assist your DPS train.  Siege weaponry is already in place as an answer to any healing stalemates that might arise.  Revoming dedicated healers also tends to focus your game around ranged at the expense of melee, probably why just about all the classes have a suite of ranged skills.