Yeah, I have to admit - I was hoping the combat would be a bit deeper than what I've seen. So far, it feels like my best way to avoid attacks in PvE is to constantly circle-strafe. Even then, I only avoid about half of them because latency is so high right now (hoping that gets better out of the beta).
I really like the art direction in this game though.
i read something like this a while ago, in a blog post someone made back when the closed betas first started, and i kinda agree with it
i'm not sure what they could do to fix it, i don't know enough about game design. it just seems like i don't really have any motivation to dodge or use defensive movement-based abilities when holding down my strafe key and mashing out my skills works just as well
Yeah, I have to admit - I was hoping the combat would be a bit deeper than what I've seen. So far, it feels like my best way to avoid attacks in PvE is to constantly circle-strafe. Even then, I only avoid about half of them because latency is so high right now (hoping that gets better out of the beta).
I really like the art direction in this game though.
Agreed, this was one aspect after watching numerous videos on I was genuinely worried about getting overhyped. I mean, it's no Dark Souls, but at least the combat is a step above the generic mmo combat formula.
If video games like Skyrim and Fallout have taught me anything, it's that dodging and crap is only until you min-max your character into a walking tank with cannons for arms.
Then you just headbutt everything to death while laughing.
I realize it doesn't translate EXACTLY into MMO gameplay, but I've found in many instances (in several mmos I've played) that unless the thing you are dodging is a one-shot kill, it's often better to just stand there soaking it up with pride and a good healer, because "dodging" screws up the party strategy more often than not. Somebody runs off a rock and gets LOS'd at the wrong time, or lags a bit and gets hit without the healer ready, ect ect. Having the entire party facetank crap is usally the easiest way to go if it's allowed whatsoever, and I say that as the healer in most of those instances.
Really there is nothing more /facepalm worthy than have a party leader yell because doing it the "right" way has failed a dozen times in a row, only to beat the fight when the dps just decide to "stand in the fire" and heal through it to win (because the dps do twice as much when they aren't running around like loons trying to dodge the fire).
So can you queue for structured pvp as a group? My friends and I have been rampaging around in PvE and in WvW so far, but we'd like to try out the structured too. Just not sure how to go about it.
I really want to like this game, but there's a really disconnected feel to the combat that I can't pin down.
I agree, and the performance issues are certainly making it worse. I also think I have been spoiled by TERA's combat, which is, at least at the low levels I've played of both games, considerably better IMO. So far this game has been a disappointment, but I see that most people are enjoying it, so something is just not clicking with my personal taste I guess.
Yeah, I have to admit - I was hoping the combat would be a bit deeper than what I've seen. So far, it feels like my best way to avoid attacks in PvE is to constantly circle-strafe. Even then, I only avoid about half of them because latency is so high right now (hoping that gets better out of the beta).
I really like the art direction in this game though.
It felt like it got a bit better once I got into the mid to high teens. There seems to be a bit of a lull around 10 or so where it felt like the enemies and the combat had plateaued. And then it started changing again a few levels later.
The enemies start hitting harder and have nastier abilities and you end up needing to interupt and doge ALOT to survive. I found after a bit of boredom and a bit of frustration, I became REALLY good at kiting on my mesmer with the Greatsword.
Now I get why A.net likes the clone thing. Those Phantasmal Berserkers are incredible at kitting huge packs once you get the hang of it.
But yeah, lots of circle strafing in the end. But more then that too. I think as I get more traits, the combat will get even more involved.
I really want to like this game, but there's a really disconnected feel to the combat that I can't pin down. I'm not sure if it's just the classes I'm playing, but it seems like the best strategy so far is to just wildly mash all the buttons while running around like a crazy person and then good things happen? I'll probably take another shot at it tomorrow and see if the area I'm in has somewhat less than a trillion people in it.
Its when you go toe to toe with one enemy that things tend to get more interesting, I find. When zerg rushes occur, enemies are overwhelmed and if you get hit, it might be once the entire fight, so you arent as concerned with advanced tactics (though honestly its still fun, at least for me, to simply participate in such large crazy battles). When you are by yourself in a room full of danger... well, then things get a little more complicated.
The game really does work best in small groups or solo. The PvE especially is very much at it's best in a small group. Solo some of the events are too hard or impossible and in a group it's just a mindless zergfest. In a group of like 2-5 though, it's amazing.
One thing to note about button-mashing, it's what I was talking about in the above post. At lower levels it feels very dull because you don't have teh tools and the enemies aren't hard enough that you need to do anything crazy. Once you get to fighting harder shit, you will be agonizing over some of those cooldowns. (you can simulate this a bit fighting things a couple of levels higher then you. In this game, 1 or 2 levels makes a HUGE difference in my experience)
Although, again, lolBeta so not all classes and weapons may be equally well done.
Wuvwuv is a lot of fun. And not just because we were completely stomping the other two servers. It was best when Blue gave a strong fight on this field between our two camps and we kept going back and forth while stupid moas ran rampant through the lines.
That said, being on the other side of a stomping would give me another opinion probably. I look forward to the realm matching on live.
My favorite thing right now is using the ranger war horn ability (5) to speed/might/fury large groups of people then run riot.
I really want to like this game, but there's a really disconnected feel to the combat that I can't pin down.
I agree, and the performance issues are certainly making it worse. I also think I have been spoiled by TERA's combat, which is, at least at the low levels I've played of both games, considerably better IMO. So far this game has been a disappointment, but I see that most people are enjoying it, so something is just not clicking with my personal taste I guess.
Now go play TOR and get spoiled on writing as well.
If, after that, we can find a way to spoil you on mindnumbing grinds, you'll never feel the urge to play an MMO again!
Well, that, or we combine them all into some form of digital super-crack and everyone dies from starvation sitting in their computer chair.
Keep getting "Unable to complete operation. Please try again in a few minutes."
Then when I try again I get "Unable to connect to a login server. This could be caused by an Internet routing issue."
My net is fine as I am using the forums, have tried TS, Steam, and GW1 with no problem.
I was still having this issue this morning but managed to fix it. So if others are suffering the same make sure your GW2 folder and it's contents are NOT read only.
I noticed that they were marked as "read only" so I unchecked it then ran GW2.exe again and HAPPY FUN TIMES I can log in
I really want to like this game, but there's a really disconnected feel to the combat that I can't pin down.
I can pin it down. Combat doesn't feel "heavy". Mobs just run into the middle of battle, and everyone else just run around, and since mobs and players all run at the same speed, regardless of size, it feels comical almost. This is emphasized by the fact that everyone can run through everyone else, making it feel very flimsy. Then throw all spell effects on top of that and you just have a chaotic mess.
The only battles I've found interesting so far were a 2 on 1 with ents. They move slow and do feel heavy.
Centaurs, by contrast, feel and behave like they were made out of paper.
eobet on
Heard the proposition that RIAA and MPAA should join forces and form "Music And Film Industry Association"?
On a side note, thief is pretty much exactly as fun as I was hoping. In a shocking turn of events, I find that I'm sticking with the shortbow rather than dual pistols (I actually have one of everything, but it's a bit of a hassle skilling it all up). The 3 skill is pretty much disengage from WoW but with 0 cooldown, so I'm having a lot of fun stealthing in for the bonus hit then kiting things around. Underwater seems pretty good too, if only because I don't need to worry about drowning at all.
Got a little more time in getting 3 characters to level 5. Engineer is easily my favorite so far and humans aren't as boring as I thought they might be. I liked the Char story and starting area a lot and Elementist is fun if you have someone else taking the blows. Super squishy at low levels. The Norn story I thought was kinda weak at first, but got better with the different animal shaman, but I don't like Ranger so far. As others have said, the pets are lame sauce early on.
I was planning on Mesmer and Thief for my two mains, but will now have to add Engineer into the mix somehow!
Isn't the commerce working? I clicked "buy" on several crafting materials and money was deducted, but the items never appeared. Neither in my inventory nor in the bank.
(Also, I always get an error when I try to sell anything using that tab...)
And as a side note to that, where the heck do you find crafting materials? I've seen ore, but I need logs and weirdly enough, I've seen nothing in the forests I've been in.
EDIT: Ok, found a really thing young tree now which I apparently can log from... (how? it's so thin!) but I need tools... which I don't know where to buy.
EDIT 2: Nevermind, found a merchant which sold the tools. (I'm so used to everything being clearly marked, that when something isn't, I'm sort of thrown off.)
eobet on
Heard the proposition that RIAA and MPAA should join forces and form "Music And Film Industry Association"?
And as a side note to that, where the heck do you find crafting materials? I've seen ore, but I need logs and weirdly enough, I've seen nothing in the forests I've been in.
Plenty of trees in the norn area, at least. They're skinnier than the usual forest tree in the area, generally called saplings of some sort. They show up as logs on your compass.
Edit: I've been pleasantly surprised by my pets as a ranger. I have three now, and am having a blast swapping them out when they're dead or near death and my Heal as One is on cooldown. They're pretty good at staying alive so far, though (level 11 at the moment). I've also not had the problems others have reported of their not being responsive, as they are generally on-point and even disengage when I command them to. I haven't lost one yet to wandering off picking daisies. I wonder what I'm doing wrong/right, but I could *almost* see myself rolling a ranger at launch.... if necromancers weren't in the game.
sidhaethe on
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
Isn't the commerce working? I clicked "buy" on several crafting materials and money was deducted, but the items never appeared. Neither in my inventory nor in the bank.
Of you are buying things through commerce, they get mailed to you via the in-game mail system.
Isn't the commerce working? I clicked "buy" on several crafting materials and money was deducted, but the items never appeared. Neither in my inventory nor in the bank.
Of you are buying things through commerce, they get mailed to you via the in-game mail system.
I have nothing in the mail either.
Heard the proposition that RIAA and MPAA should join forces and form "Music And Film Industry Association"?
Holy shit, is playing a mesmer hard in PVP. Which is exactly as it should be, but... still. Some day I will be there.
Meanwhile, my theorycrafted attunement swap-spamming elementalist is exactly as hilarious and is even more awesome than I'd hoped it would be. I'm swapping attunements roughly every couple of seconds, and spamming hard-hitting dual daggers attacks, along with healthy doses of Arcane shit. I can burn enemies down so fast that it's ridiculous, but I go down like paper if I'm not careful.
"Why, yes, I WOULD like to get every boon AND give you every condition in the game! 8D Have fun!" It's like there was a threeway between an ele, a necro, and a mesmer, and this character was birthed as a result.
EDIT: The best part about my ele is that people will see me casting spells and they'll run up into melee expecting an easy kill... melee is exactly where I want them.
Amusingly, I got into Kessex Hills earlier tonight... saw the guards were 23 and got the hell out of there.
Game is pretty neat, got my elementalist human to 11 and have trained every weapon type/element combination of spells except the underwater ones so far.
The more I've seen though, the more I really need to try out a mesmer... especially with a greatsword.
Thief was kind of a surprise for me. I picked it because I wanted to play a class I was almost certainly not going to play on release but I don't know anymore.
I've also not had any of the problems discussed here with the combat. I find that I have to use all of my skills effectively to not die
Watching some streams and I just want to clarify for myself, the current WvWvW maps are placeholders correct? they will all be different by launch?
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
edited April 2012
In lower levels, when the whole thing is a single-digit FPS zerg rush, it's that button-mashing that people are talking about, mainly because everyone's also trying to unlock skills so they don't really stop to think about how they're USING those skills.
But as you level up and go to areas and zones that are slightly less populated, skill begins to matter. You become more aware of your weapon-sets and what you can and can't outfight, and in smaller groups of 2-5 as previously mentioned, it can actually become challenging, too, in thanks mainly to the sidekicking system.
I actually look forward to NOT joining in on the big lagfest fights because it's just too hard to see what you're doing and skill matters less because you get hit less with fewer enemies around. Sure the boss takes more hits, but you also take fewer ones, so you don't always think of survivability. And with so many other people around you killing things, when you are downed you usually pop right back up anyway!
But if it's just a few people running through an event, it becomes fun, challenging, and interesting.
The side-strafing thing I totally agree with; I can dodge shit like a boss but why bother when all I have to do is circle-strafe, particularly when wielding magic?
I saw on twitter that there's a bug with Kessex Hills, it's bugged like that. They're trying to fix it.
Thank you, time traveling forum shaman.
EDIT: Looked it up as well now, and seems I need to create a new character. Poo. I should get back to work anyway (real work, that is... not the grind.)
EDIT 2: Looked some more, and if you transfer to US servers the problem will go away. Damn... where did my work go?
EDIT 3: Also, I forgot a question from earlier... I finally managed to gather wood... but where the heck do they go? Is there a special crafting inventory I don't know about? How can I find it? I really haven't seen such a poor UI in a long, long time. I mean, this is way behind even World of Warcraft when it was just released. Even they had the items zooming/fading into the box where you can find them, so you understand where everything goes.
If I were a Guild Wars producer, I'd have the entire UI team start from scratch, because this is piss poor work.
EDIT: *WARNING* *WARNING* When transfering back to EU servers, I chose Istan and now I can't log in OR transfer away! A friend of mine tried to start a character on that same server yesterday and he wasn't able to log in either, so I think that entire servers is borked. Stay away from it!
The upside is that now I really can get back to work.
eobet on
Heard the proposition that RIAA and MPAA should join forces and form "Music And Film Industry Association"?
what stands out to me the most is how good the music is in this game
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Woots! Killed that fucking portal summoning shaman asshole near Fusenfall Creek or whatever. That asshole hits way too hard, couldn't melee him at all without going down in one hit. But we got him, half of us in our underpants, but we got him.
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i read something like this a while ago, in a blog post someone made back when the closed betas first started, and i kinda agree with it
i'm not sure what they could do to fix it, i don't know enough about game design. it just seems like i don't really have any motivation to dodge or use defensive movement-based abilities when holding down my strafe key and mashing out my skills works just as well
you're right though, game IS gorgeous
tumblr | instagram | twitter | steam
Agreed, this was one aspect after watching numerous videos on I was genuinely worried about getting overhyped. I mean, it's no Dark Souls, but at least the combat is a step above the generic mmo combat formula.
Then you just headbutt everything to death while laughing.
I realize it doesn't translate EXACTLY into MMO gameplay, but I've found in many instances (in several mmos I've played) that unless the thing you are dodging is a one-shot kill, it's often better to just stand there soaking it up with pride and a good healer, because "dodging" screws up the party strategy more often than not. Somebody runs off a rock and gets LOS'd at the wrong time, or lags a bit and gets hit without the healer ready, ect ect. Having the entire party facetank crap is usally the easiest way to go if it's allowed whatsoever, and I say that as the healer in most of those instances.
Really there is nothing more /facepalm worthy than have a party leader yell because doing it the "right" way has failed a dozen times in a row, only to beat the fight when the dps just decide to "stand in the fire" and heal through it to win (because the dps do twice as much when they aren't running around like loons trying to dodge the fire).
I agree, and the performance issues are certainly making it worse. I also think I have been spoiled by TERA's combat, which is, at least at the low levels I've played of both games, considerably better IMO. So far this game has been a disappointment, but I see that most people are enjoying it, so something is just not clicking with my personal taste I guess.
It felt like it got a bit better once I got into the mid to high teens. There seems to be a bit of a lull around 10 or so where it felt like the enemies and the combat had plateaued. And then it started changing again a few levels later.
The enemies start hitting harder and have nastier abilities and you end up needing to interupt and doge ALOT to survive. I found after a bit of boredom and a bit of frustration, I became REALLY good at kiting on my mesmer with the Greatsword.
Now I get why A.net likes the clone thing. Those Phantasmal Berserkers are incredible at kitting huge packs once you get the hang of it.
But yeah, lots of circle strafing in the end. But more then that too. I think as I get more traits, the combat will get even more involved.
The game really does work best in small groups or solo. The PvE especially is very much at it's best in a small group. Solo some of the events are too hard or impossible and in a group it's just a mindless zergfest. In a group of like 2-5 though, it's amazing.
One thing to note about button-mashing, it's what I was talking about in the above post. At lower levels it feels very dull because you don't have teh tools and the enemies aren't hard enough that you need to do anything crazy. Once you get to fighting harder shit, you will be agonizing over some of those cooldowns. (you can simulate this a bit fighting things a couple of levels higher then you. In this game, 1 or 2 levels makes a HUGE difference in my experience)
Although, again, lolBeta so not all classes and weapons may be equally well done.
That said, being on the other side of a stomping would give me another opinion probably. I look forward to the realm matching on live.
My favorite thing right now is using the ranger war horn ability (5) to speed/might/fury large groups of people then run riot.
Now go play TOR and get spoiled on writing as well.
If, after that, we can find a way to spoil you on mindnumbing grinds, you'll never feel the urge to play an MMO again!
Well, that, or we combine them all into some form of digital super-crack and everyone dies from starvation sitting in their computer chair.
Either way it's a win-win.
I was still having this issue this morning but managed to fix it. So if others are suffering the same make sure your GW2 folder and it's contents are NOT read only.
I noticed that they were marked as "read only" so I unchecked it then ran GW2.exe again and HAPPY FUN TIMES I can log in
GW2: Tavalisk.9463
I can pin it down. Combat doesn't feel "heavy". Mobs just run into the middle of battle, and everyone else just run around, and since mobs and players all run at the same speed, regardless of size, it feels comical almost. This is emphasized by the fact that everyone can run through everyone else, making it feel very flimsy. Then throw all spell effects on top of that and you just have a chaotic mess.
The only battles I've found interesting so far were a 2 on 1 with ents. They move slow and do feel heavy.
Centaurs, by contrast, feel and behave like they were made out of paper.
I seemed to be lagging a bit yesterday and was thinking on moving to an EU one to see if it's better.
I was planning on Mesmer and Thief for my two mains, but will now have to add Engineer into the mix somehow!
Yeah, still on Aspenwood. But I was just thinking about moving to an EU server.
(Also, I always get an error when I try to sell anything using that tab...)
And as a side note to that, where the heck do you find crafting materials? I've seen ore, but I need logs and weirdly enough, I've seen nothing in the forests I've been in.
EDIT: Ok, found a really thing young tree now which I apparently can log from... (how? it's so thin!) but I need tools... which I don't know where to buy.
EDIT 2: Nevermind, found a merchant which sold the tools. (I'm so used to everything being clearly marked, that when something isn't, I'm sort of thrown off.)
Plenty of trees in the norn area, at least. They're skinnier than the usual forest tree in the area, generally called saplings of some sort. They show up as logs on your compass.
Edit: I've been pleasantly surprised by my pets as a ranger. I have three now, and am having a blast swapping them out when they're dead or near death and my Heal as One is on cooldown. They're pretty good at staying alive so far, though (level 11 at the moment). I've also not had the problems others have reported of their not being responsive, as they are generally on-point and even disengage when I command them to. I haven't lost one yet to wandering off picking daisies. I wonder what I'm doing wrong/right, but I could *almost* see myself rolling a ranger at launch.... if necromancers weren't in the game.
Of you are buying things through commerce, they get mailed to you via the in-game mail system.
I have nothing in the mail either.
Meanwhile, my theorycrafted attunement swap-spamming elementalist is exactly as hilarious and is even more awesome than I'd hoped it would be. I'm swapping attunements roughly every couple of seconds, and spamming hard-hitting dual daggers attacks, along with healthy doses of Arcane shit. I can burn enemies down so fast that it's ridiculous, but I go down like paper if I'm not careful.
"Why, yes, I WOULD like to get every boon AND give you every condition in the game! 8D Have fun!" It's like there was a threeway between an ele, a necro, and a mesmer, and this character was birthed as a result.
EDIT: The best part about my ele is that people will see me casting spells and they'll run up into melee expecting an easy kill... melee is exactly where I want them.
The game is awesome. Love it. Putting aside beta/polish/lag issues, it has definitely met my hype expectations. 8-)
Spent several hours with a friend as a duo doing hearts and events. Very, very fun.
As expected, Thief is my favorite class, although my weapon choice is different than my theorycrafting thought.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Game is pretty neat, got my elementalist human to 11 and have trained every weapon type/element combination of spells except the underwater ones so far.
The more I've seen though, the more I really need to try out a mesmer... especially with a greatsword.
I've also not had any of the problems discussed here with the combat. I find that I have to use all of my skills effectively to not die
We're on Desolation. Seemed good last night. Will be logging back on shortly when I grind out this last 200 words.
What's wrong with the US server? Latency gone to shit?
everything is better now
tumblr | instagram | twitter | steam
But as you level up and go to areas and zones that are slightly less populated, skill begins to matter. You become more aware of your weapon-sets and what you can and can't outfight, and in smaller groups of 2-5 as previously mentioned, it can actually become challenging, too, in thanks mainly to the sidekicking system.
I actually look forward to NOT joining in on the big lagfest fights because it's just too hard to see what you're doing and skill matters less because you get hit less with fewer enemies around. Sure the boss takes more hits, but you also take fewer ones, so you don't always think of survivability. And with so many other people around you killing things, when you are downed you usually pop right back up anyway!
But if it's just a few people running through an event, it becomes fun, challenging, and interesting.
The side-strafing thing I totally agree with; I can dodge shit like a boss but why bother when all I have to do is circle-strafe, particularly when wielding magic?
Thank you, time traveling forum shaman.
EDIT: Looked it up as well now, and seems I need to create a new character. Poo. I should get back to work anyway (real work, that is... not the grind.)
EDIT 2: Looked some more, and if you transfer to US servers the problem will go away. Damn... where did my work go?
EDIT 3: Also, I forgot a question from earlier... I finally managed to gather wood... but where the heck do they go? Is there a special crafting inventory I don't know about? How can I find it? I really haven't seen such a poor UI in a long, long time. I mean, this is way behind even World of Warcraft when it was just released. Even they had the items zooming/fading into the box where you can find them, so you understand where everything goes.
If I were a Guild Wars producer, I'd have the entire UI team start from scratch, because this is piss poor work.
EDIT: *WARNING* *WARNING* When transfering back to EU servers, I chose Istan and now I can't log in OR transfer away! A friend of mine tried to start a character on that same server yesterday and he wasn't able to log in either, so I think that entire servers is borked. Stay away from it!
The upside is that now I really can get back to work.
Twitter - discolouie PSN - Loupa Steam - Loupa
EU or NA?
Oh you said it. Add Dedryk, and I will add you when I log shortly.