Guild Wars 2

[ilya]

Originally Posted by thorn

I think it was fairly obvious that the 'unique' storylines wouldn't be that unique since that are 5 races x 6 classes. I didn't expect them to come up with 30 stories, I figured 1 per class.

There are also multiple individual personality traits, attunements, and upbringing stories available, so technically there are thousands of potential "unique" stories. Which means each character is going to be "unique," but each one of these stories will be pretty predictable. It's a great concept, but they worked so hard at implementing it that they defeated their original purpose.

[JJThomp]

Originally Posted by ilya

3 game breakers for me so far:

They messed with the interface way too much, and you can't customize it like you could in GW1. Very disorienting and unintuitive.

By trying to simplify the combat system to be more new player friendly, they've made it a lot harder to play with skill. It's easy to button mash and win, but nearly impossible to use all your different utility skills effectively and skillfully. Even when you do, it only presents a minor advantage.

They spent so much time trying to increase replay value that they screwed themselves over. The "unique" stories are basically reskinned versions of a handful of stories, once you figure out a few of the story formulae.

Dude you can't button mash and win the game... the UI is good and not clunky at all. I think you were expecting guild wars 1 rehashed and that is not what GW2 is.

[thorn]

Forgot about the traits, doesn't change the fact that you shouldn't expect "unlimited" unique stories.

I am a little disappointed that you can't tweak your UI, but with the exception of the minimap and conditions/buffs it isn't that different from the setup I had in GW.

At this point my only real issue and imo it is pretty significant is partying. If one person is in the overflow and the other in the normal map you can't play together even if you try and enter an instance. Hopefully the overflow is just a temporary thing due to the large quantity of players in the beta.

[ilya]

Originally Posted by JJThomp

Dude you can't button mash and win the game... the UI is good and not clunky at all. I think you were expecting guild wars 1 rehashed and that is not what GW2 is.

I went into PvP without knowing what half the skills in my 20 skill pool did. I just mashed the skills until most of them were recharging and swapped weapons. Rinse and repeat while running around for cap points. I ended up winning the majority of my matches while consistently finishing as the top score. (to my surprise) Reminds me a lot of button mash arcade fighting games where mashing will get you almost as far as skilled play, but skilled play is 100x harder to do. Great for the casual audience, but not something that will get people to come back to the game for years like in GW1.

They worked really hard at making the combat system new player friendly, but like the "unique" stories they ended up shooting themselves in the foot by overdoing things.

As for the UI, I guess it's hit and miss for different people, which is why I think GW1 was so much better. I could customize virtually every detail of the interface to my liking.

But if the development cycle is going to be anything like GW1, there's still plenty of hope for this game. (although it probably won't be released this year)

[rommelrommel]

Originally Posted by omgwtf

Another useless POV.

Don't like it don't play it.

Anyone has a beta key?

Oh god, time for a douche I think. If you haven't noticed that the average vocal MMO player always consider the game they used to play to be the best ever, the game they're currently playing to be incredibly buggy and broken, and the game that's coming to be even better than their old favorite you must not play MMO's.

[JJThomp]

Originally Posted by ilya

I went into PvP without knowing what half the skills in my 20 skill pool did. I just mashed the skills until most of them were recharging and swapped weapons. Rinse and repeat while running around for cap points. I ended up winning the majority of my matches while consistently finishing as the top score. (to my surprise) Reminds me a lot of button mash arcade fighting games where mashing will get you almost as far as skilled play, but skilled play is 100x harder to do. Great for the casual audience, but not something that will get people to come back to the game for years like in GW1.

They worked really hard at making the combat system new player friendly, but like the "unique" stories they ended up shooting themselves in the foot by overdoing things.

As for the UI, I guess it's hit and miss for different people, which is why I think GW1 was so much better. I could customize virtually every detail of the interface to my liking.

But if the development cycle is going to be anything like GW1, there's still plenty of hope for this game. (although it probably won't be released this year)

You mashed skills against a bunch of other people who only knew how to mash skills... You can mash skills in Dota but you aren't going to do well against people who aren't mashing. Honestly until about 11:00 I was just, mashing skills as a thief and I was getting killed. Now I can pretty much 2 shot people because I looked at my skills and figured out some sweet combos.

[thorn]

Tried some WvW earlier today; was defending a keep from another server, quite chaotic. I haven't tried any structured PvP yet but it seems ranged has a fairly big advantage over melee (in other words it is far easier to kite melee than ranged).

[Philth]

I like where this game is headed. The combat system is a pretty huge departure from the original GW1. I feel like it definitely lacks the customization (not just in UI, but in the seemingly more open-ended skill system GW1 employed), but, that being said, there is still work to be done and it is none the less a refreshing experience which is different but not "bad".

Unique stories: I don't know how anyone can complain about this or I'm frankly just curious as to what kind of expectations you had. I find that it's a good compromise, and there are lots of interesting character choices to make at the beginning; it's hard to say how much of impact these will have later on considering it's only a BWE.

Art style is top notch, which I expected. GW1 was pretty impressive when it was first released, and I feel like this is a great evolution.

All in all I find this is a very fitting sequel to the original. You can tell there has been a lot of thought and time put into not just rehashing the original with better graphics and more skills, but laying out a logical evolution of the game from character creation to combat to storytelling. It's hard to make a complete verdict based on one weekend and fairly limited play time, but this is definitely one of the best game sequels I've played, and considering the source material, that says alot about this game.

Anyone who is even considering buying this game should just do themselves a favor and jump on it. I can't see you being disappointed in the product.

[JJThomp]

Originally Posted by thorn

Tried some WvW earlier today; was defending a keep from another server, quite chaotic. I haven't tried any structured PvP yet but it seems ranged has a fairly big advantage over melee (in other words it is far easier to kite melee than ranged).

I have never been kited nor have I been able to successfully kite someone, maybe it is just because I am a thief but I can't kill anyone with a ranged weapon because it does no damage. I also never got just straight up killed by someone with a ranged weapon, they always had a couple melee's to do all he damage.

I feel as though I got a really good look at GW2, I played 42 hours and about 30% of that was in WvW. The game for me felt balanced, the only thing I would change is the burning oil being so strong, does about 15k damage which was enough to 1 hit most people if they were not quick enough to heal. That is why ranged has an advantage when seiging a tower. What people forget is (or just don't know) is that melee attacking the door stops people on the other side from repairing it because they will die. The people standing in the back auto-attacking too scared to jump in are doing a dis-service to their team. My team was seiging a castle and then all of the sudden everyone backed off the gate. As soon as we backed off they repaired the door to full and we had to start all over again.

Also there are situations when you do need that range, like when you are sitting on top of a wall shooting down and that is why every class can use a ranged weapon so you can swap for it when you need it.

One final note is that game balance seems pretty good, a couple people were complaining but before I reached level 30+ everyone in PVP was capable of killing me and I was capable of killing everyone else. Although after I hit lvl 30 I went on a vicious 3 hour streak where I was just wrecking people and I didn't die but I'm going to chalk that up to my level and experience because after that I went back to normal.

P.S I was a Norn thief and if you were against Yak's bend in WvW I probably killed you a couple times and vice versa. I got up to level 33 in the end, dual daggers all the way.

Edit: P.P.S nothing more satisfying than juking out 10 people with stealth... 10 people chasing you, use heal go stealth and run back into them save dodge for when you unstealth. I have no idea how many times I ran into the other team by myself assassinated someone and then walked out because a ton of people were chasing me the wrong direction. Pro tip if a theif stealths to get away from you stand in one spot and just look around, it he will only be gone for 3 or 4 seconds which is not long enough to make up much distance.

[ilya]

You clearly haven't come across a decent staff mesmer or longbow ranger if you haven't gotten owned by range. A ranged weapon set is critical for all classes but the thief. (especially warrior/guardian/ranger) Even then a pistol offhand is pretty beneficial for the extra teleport.