While the difficulty on some of the scaling didn't bother me too much when I got used to it I certainly think it needs to be turned down a ton. In the starting zones there were mobs that would scale up to one shot groups of people. I like a challenge and I play challenging games sometimes but I can realize that that kind of balance in starter areas will do nothing but turn a lot of players off.
I'm a bit concerned about my wife and this game at this point. She loved GW1 and is super excited about GW2 she kept coming in to ohh and ahh at the game and was giddy when I explored Lions Arch. But if this difficulty level remains this way in the opening zones she'll get frustrated and quit. A ramp up of difficulty is fine but if she makes a charr and meets that shaman she'll be done. At least as it stands in the last BWE.
Understand, I think there should be hard areas of the game but it should ramp up. To me it felt like it asked you to be competent right out the gate and I know more people than my wife who I won't be able to get to play the game because of that. I mean if they want to go for the hardcore market I suppose that's OK but GW1 wasn't like that. It had it's hard parts but they weren't the area right outside the tutorial.
This being said what I think happened was so many people complained about it being too easy in the last BWE that Jon Peters put on his monicle and said aloud "They want hard? We'll show them hard!"
Mostly just huntin' monsters.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
I'm not a whole lot of worried only a little bit and just wanted to put it out there. I'm not trying to forsee doom here only articulating a small niggling thing that has me concerned. I'll post it over on the forums too soon but we are seeing what the official forum community thinks of people who aren't as good as them at video games so I don't expect a warm welcome for that bit of feedback.
I think it'll be fine I just had to say it outloud. I had the time of my life over the weekend and that one thing would make me sad if my wife couldn't share in it with me because she got frustrated and quit something she's been looking forward to. It'd harsh my game buzz a bit.
Seidkona on
Mostly just huntin' monsters.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Regarding race sizes, the real problem is that there's nothing to differentiate Norn characters from Human characters, physiologically or by profile, except for size.
(And if it the race is going to look that close to human, they can't change certain ratios like hip:shoulder,height:width without everyone unconsciously freaking out about it and not playing Norns because they will feel ugly.)
The real fix would be to give them a non-human shape like the Charr or Asura but the game's lore/history probably prevents that. Maybe Arena.net can have one of the dragons curse the entire race with wings or ice skates or something and then shrink them down a bit.
They need to tone down size differences a bit. My female human mesmer was somewhere near the middle of the slider, but standing next to this random Norn NPC is just silly.
Norn are supposed to be actual, serious giants.
Regarding scaling encounters, I'm still a bit worried. Most of the content is going to be zerged on release. After that, there'll often be areas that have almost no one in them. The sweet spot for public content seems to be 2-10 people, and I foresee most things being done by either 50 people at release or one person after.
i'm still not seeing a problem! it's a race of big people, why does it have to be more complicated than that
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
Norn are not anatomically identical to human beings. I'm not sure about the females but if you look at a male without any clothes their physiology is distinctly different.
I must say, after playing WvW, I just couldn't find myself doing anything else during the event. I ended up getting most of my levels simply off nonstop PVP.
I didn't get too many screenshots (only when I remembered to) but probably like a few others, when I saw this mass of [GOON] and other random invaders that last night, I couldn't help but take a quick picture before turning and running for my life. Didn't help much that I turned around, and the other half of their swarm was right there.
Excuse me good sir, but that is a mass of [GOON] surrounding one bad ass norn. It really was a blast running with all you guys in WuvWuv.
Norn are not anatomically identical to human beings. I'm not sure about the females but if you look at a male without any clothes their physiology is distinctly different.
For females it's only different because it's impossible to make a female human in the game that is anything but a willowy anime character.
Humans and norn physiology are only distinguished by two facts:
The Norn have physique and appearance options that the humans should have.
and the humans have no options when it comes to physique or appearance.
i'm still not seeing a problem! it's a race of big people, why does it have to be more complicated than that
I wasn't saying there was a problem. They're just supposed to be a giant, super-human race. In all physical respects they are supposed to be better than humans. They're gods and heroes of the north. They just aren't as organized and committed to cooperation/kindoms, etc. as humans.
i'm still not seeing a problem! it's a race of big people, why does it have to be more complicated than that
I wasn't saying there was a problem. They're just supposed to be a giant, super-human race. In all physical respects they are supposed to be better than humans. They're gods and heroes of the north. They just aren't as organized and committed to cooperation/kindoms, etc. as humans.
oh, that wasn't directed at you, i meant it to echo and mazlo
The female norn are a little too...feminine.... I can't believe I'm saying that, but they really look far too dainty in the head/face (especially face) for basically giant warrior women.
The Great DAMNED STEAM SALES AND WII/U Backlog Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4 Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
Ok. After getting back to reality and that weird thing called sleep, I feel I should post the moment that made this game for me:
In the norn starting area, after the ridiculously hard Fire Shaman battle, I (Beast McMuscles) decided to wander through the cave complex near there. It brought me to a little village where, lo and behold, the event was to have a snowball fight with a bunch of kids to keep their parents happy. Cue 3-4 minutes of pegging little annoying children with snowballs and dodging the ones they threw back. That was it. Xp and money got, and I was on my way in search of adventure. That single moment is what sticks out of the entire experience for me.
Edit: Basically, play a norn warrior with the voice of youtu.be/uhBiNx749Zw in your head. It makes the experience much much better
They need to tone down size differences a bit. My female human mesmer was somewhere near the middle of the slider, but standing next to this random Norn NPC is just silly.
Norn are supposed to be actual, serious giants.
Regarding scaling encounters, I'm still a bit worried. Most of the content is going to be zerged on release. After that, there'll often be areas that have almost no one in them. The sweet spot for public content seems to be 2-10 people, and I foresee most things being done by either 50 people at release or one person after.
Depends. Are those places going to stop being fun? Is there going the be the usual migration towards end zones that other MMOs have? Aside from numbers, what'll drive it? After we hit 80 and get our gear maxed, what would be wrong with revisiting those low level zones? What do we lose by not constantly grinding max level areas, aside from subjective stuff?
Not saying it'll absolutely be the case, but I think with less incentive to grind stuff at the end, people will spread out more. You'll certainly find less popular spots, but those won't necessarily be the starting areas. Hell, you'll probably find even more people in starting spots, since it's the easiest spot for folks to flex their unlocked-elite-and-utility-skill muscles. Hopefully some of that will rub off on new players, who'll then find the incentive to learn the game and adapt to avoiding trouble spots. And, of course, hopefully Arena Net will find those trouble spots and make 'em more fun to play in. Like, actually more fun, not just "you get more points here now" but like "we added charr motorcycle segments to this area" fun.
EDIT: Or everyone will just PvP and get their levels there.
The female norn are a little too...feminine.... I can't believe I'm saying that, but they really look far too dainty in the head/face (especially face) for basically giant warrior women.
@Caedere It was a lot of fun when me and Ansa (I've since learned it was @Enig) randomly ran you into at that waypoint being overrun by ogres. Things got intense.
Edit: Also, did anybody get a picture of us charr on top of the globe in the fountain shooting fire everywhere?
I will admit that WvW was where a majority of my levels came from during the beta. I probably should have PvE'd a little more to get weapon skills, but I still had a lot of fun nonetheless.
* There is one human female body that doesn't have super-huge breasts; it's coincidentally also the "heaviest" body type (which I think of as just "athletic"; you can see a hint of a 6-pack on her stomach).
* There is one norn female body that doesn't have super-huge breasts; alas, she is also one of the skinnier bodies.
* There is one norn female body that is what I would consider borderline "chunky" but by that I mean a size 14 in US clothing sizing. The boobs are huge though.
I rolled a female human necromancer and by level 9 I had a high-collared, long-sleeved jacket and leggings with a knee-length skirt on top. You don't have to be dressed skimpily for long if you don't want to.
Everyone who has concerns with the body shapes of females needs to just roll a charr, because they have a perfect variety of awesome body types. See, this is just ArenaNet's way of telling you that charr are the superior race.
I do hope they end up putting in more options for other races, because it's always awesome to see a cool variety.
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
Seeing as a handful of body type options for both Norn and Human females were identical, I can only assume they must have been placeholders for more variety
KlykaDO you have anySPARE BATTERIES?Registered Userregular
Every single female thing in this game needs to have huge, jiggling breasts or I will cancel my pre-purchase through dark magic rituals.
@WaM you better tell your company to set the boob sliders to 9000, OR ELSE!
SC2 EU ID Klyka.110
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
The body types that were close were slightly different. It always seems that companies are very conservative with character creation builds.
I went through all the sizes comparing them to see what I was actually choosing, and human females have a good set. Only one of them is really overweight, the rest go from really skinny to only kinda skinny and vary in the big and small boob variety.
i just went with whatever the randomizer gave me whenever i made a new character because i was jonesing to actually play the game
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
edited May 2012
I am too addicted to character creation to skip by it without caring.
If there is a visual representation of my character, I would be embaressed for it to not look like how I envision it.
Also, I am so fucking excited with pride over the ranger build I had made. But I am scared it will not be the same next time we play or at launch due to balancing. This always seemed to happen in WoW when I figured out something neat. So its just a fear I have.
Also, it was slightly disappointing to make two Iron Legion Charr of different classes and find both of them following, essentially, the same story. It was enjoyable and the different routes you could take certainly made them feel a little different, but having my Engineer make a gun is one thing, having my Elementalist, who can't even use a gun normally, make a gun felt like a "Wait...what?" moment,
Your profession has absolutely no effect on your personal story at all. This is by design. Your profession choice is purely about what playstyle you want.
Race and the other choices during character creation are what determines your personal story at the start.
So. I recorded about an hour and a half total of gameplay. Would there any interest in having me compile these into proper videos, and if so, what type of videos would you guys prefer? Commentary, music, gameplay highlights, what?
CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
I'm not exactly sure how best to sum up my experience of the game after playing it for around about 48 hours over the course of the weekend. The best I can think of is to try positive and negatives in bullet points.
Positives
First off, the game is worth every bit of 60 dollars and more, and almost everything I wanted turned out to be true and amazingly fun:
- Combat is fluid, movements feel natural, dodging took a couple hours to get into but ultimately felt useful when framerates were good, weapon swaps and skill/trait selection was a great way to manage the combat UI and provide minimalist versatility and flexibility of tactical considerations when selecting the best way to kill dudes.
- Personal story felt like a good way to get gear, learn about your character and their attachment to their race, their friends and heroes and the overarching story of the Elder Dragons as well as get that GW campaign story feel.
- Dynamic events, though a bit more frequent then I'd like, are genuinely fun and group friendly, and you can kill hours starting with a goal and never finishing it until later because you get swept up in the moment with things happening in the world around you. It's an amazing experience; something Mythic probably had in mind for Warhammer before EA got stupid on their timetable. Thankfully ArenaNet can play with this crucial shift in MMO PvE design to make it work and make it something special. There needs to be more dynamic events, with more spread out timetables. I want to see the fire shaman or the wasp queen appear less often. When those Lionguards go on patrol and you aid them, I want there to be other dynamic events happening nearby, and more of them, in between the times they patrol. The heart filling is good way to guide people around a zone and get them working towards goals, getting gear, and discovering the real events, but there needs to be more events in general, with as much variety as can be mustered.
- Music was awesome. Can't wait to hear more and make use of the music mixer.
- Graphics are great, want to see the finished product with full graphics to be sure.
- Exploration is rewarding and free ranging, you can do what you want and feel like you accomplished something, or that you didn't waste time when you find a hidden gem beyond that hill or in that cave.
- There were countless little things too, like city design and ambiance, NPC help and depth, the general lore, the UI, the guild tab, the economy infrastructure, the in game gem store being devoid of game breaker advantage goods, the dye system and the transmute system, even though it was non functional in beta, and of course, the fast travel and crafting systems for convenience.
Negatives
Now, and this may just be me, but I found:
- The combination of combat being very much in an odd middle area between WoW stand and deliver and Darkfall move and aim or die style;
- Added onto a PvE experience that has you running around all over filling heart quest things (which, lets be honest, are very much the traditional quest done better with multi objectives, no quest NPC needed and more subtle) and finding dynamic events (which are more fun and which there should be even more of) to be quite disorienting and mentally exhausting at times. I felt like I needed to always be doing something to not die regardless of level, to contribute regardless of what it was I was doing when I ran into something, to fill my bars, etc.
- And that was genuinely fun most of the time, when you run into things happening and do them, but after some hours of this you feel the need to stop and breathe and take account of what you did. Perhaps it's because it's more involved then WoW. Perhaps it's because it's the hectic pace of a weekend beta. I'm not sure if it's me or the game or if it's even a negative, it's just what I experienced from the weekend.
- Optimization, latency, lack of multiple core use, no DX11 support, some minor stuff like that which is beta stuff naturally and can be, for the most part, easily fixed. My GPU wants you to use more of it GW2!
- As many have stated, Overflow needs to be fixed so you can select which overflow or instance of the open world area your in so you can party with others without hinderance.
- There were a few minor bugs (like in the Ruins of Rin, sound effects were mono and sounded distant, and some skill point locations in Ashford malfunctioned a couple times) but it's a lot more stable in that regard then other MMO betas I've been in.
- A beta issue, I'd like to see more mid to end game content testing later in the beta cycle, and the chance to see Orr. No spoilers for release, just a taste of what craziness can happen at later levels.
- I was sad guesting was not in and server transfers were wonky throughout as it prevented me from playing with my GF this weekend (Aspenwood filled up before she could get time to log in) or visiting the Brits on their servers. That would be a big thing to get working ASAP for ease of settling pops and linking with friends in beta as it will be in release.
WvW as it stands cannot be accurately assessed until months into release when servers settle and people get the chance to set up guilds for PvP and get strats going, etc. I see a very good framework there and had fun with it when I did play it, and managed to struggle through the lag to kill 12 players. It's going to be better when we can play it out over weeks and months with less zergs and rotations of server matchups and can afford squad formation costs. My only problem with it atm independent of that is that some of the larger keeps (primarily Stonemist) feel like they would be almost impossible to take when the above is met and a faction holds one, simply because of their enormous size and defences. A few tweaks to map design in their regard might be better for attackers. But that's more of a suggestion. Structured PvP appears fine as is, though I played little of it in the beta.
It was good fun and I'm glad I have early access to my copy and can help test the weekend betas further with the great community we have building around the game. Between this, Planetside 2 (whenever that comes out) and perhaps some future sandboxy MMO like Pathfinder or CCP's World of Darkness, I'll be set for MMOs and can forget WoW and it's lesser themepark progeny. Guild Wars 2 follows in their vein, but it brings themeparks into the middle between the brutal realities of a sandbox unrestricted from baser human instinct and the boredom of a grindy themepark slog that's fun once and never again. I want that compromise to work, and it may very well be possible here.
Major issues:
Renown hearts: "you guys, go gather 100 x" where x is non-stackable is the worst quest ever, in any rpg. In general they are pretty boring. The ones that aren't just "kill dudes" are great for the most part.
Not enough enemy feedback, particularly when your character blocks your view.
Certain pvp builds(warrior instagibs scholars, thief 3-shot and cloak, etc)
Minor issues:
Inventory auto-sorting
Hearts mailing you money that you have to individually accept
No convenient area with all crafters, bank, and trading post except wvwvw lobby, which can fill
Inability to navigate conversations with keyboard
Crafting listed alphabetically, putting the most important bits at the bottom
I would like player-set waypoints to help your group not get distracted
Issues that will certainly be fixed:
Optimization
Struc. PvP grouping
(Overflow) server info
Posts
I'm a bit concerned about my wife and this game at this point. She loved GW1 and is super excited about GW2 she kept coming in to ohh and ahh at the game and was giddy when I explored Lions Arch. But if this difficulty level remains this way in the opening zones she'll get frustrated and quit. A ramp up of difficulty is fine but if she makes a charr and meets that shaman she'll be done. At least as it stands in the last BWE.
Understand, I think there should be hard areas of the game but it should ramp up. To me it felt like it asked you to be competent right out the gate and I know more people than my wife who I won't be able to get to play the game because of that. I mean if they want to go for the hardcore market I suppose that's OK but GW1 wasn't like that. It had it's hard parts but they weren't the area right outside the tutorial.
This being said what I think happened was so many people complained about it being too easy in the last BWE that Jon Peters put on his monicle and said aloud "They want hard? We'll show them hard!"
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
and i think that they will find a way to make bosses scale up with nearby players that isn't "the bosses one shot you and take no damage ever"
I think it'll be fine I just had to say it outloud. I had the time of my life over the weekend and that one thing would make me sad if my wife couldn't share in it with me because she got frustrated and quit something she's been looking forward to. It'd harsh my game buzz a bit.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
(And if it the race is going to look that close to human, they can't change certain ratios like hip:shoulder,height:width without everyone unconsciously freaking out about it and not playing Norns because they will feel ugly.)
The real fix would be to give them a non-human shape like the Charr or Asura but the game's lore/history probably prevents that. Maybe Arena.net can have one of the dragons curse the entire race with wings or ice skates or something and then shrink them down a bit.
Norn are supposed to be actual, serious giants.
Regarding scaling encounters, I'm still a bit worried. Most of the content is going to be zerged on release. After that, there'll often be areas that have almost no one in them. The sweet spot for public content seems to be 2-10 people, and I foresee most things being done by either 50 people at release or one person after.
Battle.net: IronSquirrel#1462
For females it's only different because it's impossible to make a female human in the game that is anything but a willowy anime character.
Humans and norn physiology are only distinguished by two facts:
The Norn have physique and appearance options that the humans should have.
and the humans have no options when it comes to physique or appearance.
I wasn't saying there was a problem. They're just supposed to be a giant, super-human race. In all physical respects they are supposed to be better than humans. They're gods and heroes of the north. They just aren't as organized and committed to cooperation/kindoms, etc. as humans.
oh, that wasn't directed at you, i meant it to echo and mazlo
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
I was able to do that no problem. The character I was running around in the beta, was quite normal.
In the norn starting area, after the ridiculously hard Fire Shaman battle, I (Beast McMuscles) decided to wander through the cave complex near there. It brought me to a little village where, lo and behold, the event was to have a snowball fight with a bunch of kids to keep their parents happy. Cue 3-4 minutes of pegging little annoying children with snowballs and dodging the ones they threw back. That was it. Xp and money got, and I was on my way in search of adventure. That single moment is what sticks out of the entire experience for me.
Edit: Basically, play a norn warrior with the voice of youtu.be/uhBiNx749Zw in your head. It makes the experience much much better
Depends. Are those places going to stop being fun? Is there going the be the usual migration towards end zones that other MMOs have? Aside from numbers, what'll drive it? After we hit 80 and get our gear maxed, what would be wrong with revisiting those low level zones? What do we lose by not constantly grinding max level areas, aside from subjective stuff?
Not saying it'll absolutely be the case, but I think with less incentive to grind stuff at the end, people will spread out more. You'll certainly find less popular spots, but those won't necessarily be the starting areas. Hell, you'll probably find even more people in starting spots, since it's the easiest spot for folks to flex their unlocked-elite-and-utility-skill muscles. Hopefully some of that will rub off on new players, who'll then find the incentive to learn the game and adapt to avoiding trouble spots. And, of course, hopefully Arena Net will find those trouble spots and make 'em more fun to play in. Like, actually more fun, not just "you get more points here now" but like "we added charr motorcycle segments to this area" fun.
EDIT: Or everyone will just PvP and get their levels there.
WUVWUV PEEPS
I would be interested in having a human female caster that doesn't look like she's about to go clubbing.
That's probably okay for a mesmer though.
One thing I found interesting, is that if i really wanted to. I could level all the way to 80 never leaving Divinity's Reach or Queensdale.
Yeah they need to be.. uh... stouter?
Also their faces don't really match a giant
Second thought, I dont think a lot of people picked the option of not so large breasts. It was there.
one thing I found a bit interesting is that my hands didnt seem to clip into my greatsword as I go through all these screenshots of various poses.
You would get a Legendary Defender of Queensdale title.
Oh man, if they did that, I could finally get Legendary Defender of Ascalon!
...dead Ascalon. Charr ruled Ascalon. Not the pre-Searing Prophecies one that you used to need to death level to progress in.
AWESOME
Edit: Also, did anybody get a picture of us charr on top of the globe in the fountain shooting fire everywhere?
* There is one norn female body that doesn't have super-huge breasts; alas, she is also one of the skinnier bodies.
* There is one norn female body that is what I would consider borderline "chunky" but by that I mean a size 14 in US clothing sizing. The boobs are huge though.
I rolled a female human necromancer and by level 9 I had a high-collared, long-sleeved jacket and leggings with a knee-length skirt on top. You don't have to be dressed skimpily for long if you don't want to.
With themselves, if nothing else.
@WaM you better tell your company to set the boob sliders to 9000, OR ELSE!
I went through all the sizes comparing them to see what I was actually choosing, and human females have a good set. Only one of them is really overweight, the rest go from really skinny to only kinda skinny and vary in the big and small boob variety.
If there is a visual representation of my character, I would be embaressed for it to not look like how I envision it.
Also, I am so fucking excited with pride over the ranger build I had made. But I am scared it will not be the same next time we play or at launch due to balancing. This always seemed to happen in WoW when I figured out something neat. So its just a fear I have.
Your profession has absolutely no effect on your personal story at all. This is by design. Your profession choice is purely about what playstyle you want.
Race and the other choices during character creation are what determines your personal story at the start.
With less buckteeth...
(am I the only one who noticed her huge teeth??)
Positives
First off, the game is worth every bit of 60 dollars and more, and almost everything I wanted turned out to be true and amazingly fun:
- Combat is fluid, movements feel natural, dodging took a couple hours to get into but ultimately felt useful when framerates were good, weapon swaps and skill/trait selection was a great way to manage the combat UI and provide minimalist versatility and flexibility of tactical considerations when selecting the best way to kill dudes.
- Personal story felt like a good way to get gear, learn about your character and their attachment to their race, their friends and heroes and the overarching story of the Elder Dragons as well as get that GW campaign story feel.
- Dynamic events, though a bit more frequent then I'd like, are genuinely fun and group friendly, and you can kill hours starting with a goal and never finishing it until later because you get swept up in the moment with things happening in the world around you. It's an amazing experience; something Mythic probably had in mind for Warhammer before EA got stupid on their timetable. Thankfully ArenaNet can play with this crucial shift in MMO PvE design to make it work and make it something special. There needs to be more dynamic events, with more spread out timetables. I want to see the fire shaman or the wasp queen appear less often. When those Lionguards go on patrol and you aid them, I want there to be other dynamic events happening nearby, and more of them, in between the times they patrol. The heart filling is good way to guide people around a zone and get them working towards goals, getting gear, and discovering the real events, but there needs to be more events in general, with as much variety as can be mustered.
- Music was awesome. Can't wait to hear more and make use of the music mixer.
- Graphics are great, want to see the finished product with full graphics to be sure.
- Exploration is rewarding and free ranging, you can do what you want and feel like you accomplished something, or that you didn't waste time when you find a hidden gem beyond that hill or in that cave.
- There were countless little things too, like city design and ambiance, NPC help and depth, the general lore, the UI, the guild tab, the economy infrastructure, the in game gem store being devoid of game breaker advantage goods, the dye system and the transmute system, even though it was non functional in beta, and of course, the fast travel and crafting systems for convenience.
Negatives
Now, and this may just be me, but I found:
- The combination of combat being very much in an odd middle area between WoW stand and deliver and Darkfall move and aim or die style;
- Added onto a PvE experience that has you running around all over filling heart quest things (which, lets be honest, are very much the traditional quest done better with multi objectives, no quest NPC needed and more subtle) and finding dynamic events (which are more fun and which there should be even more of) to be quite disorienting and mentally exhausting at times. I felt like I needed to always be doing something to not die regardless of level, to contribute regardless of what it was I was doing when I ran into something, to fill my bars, etc.
- And that was genuinely fun most of the time, when you run into things happening and do them, but after some hours of this you feel the need to stop and breathe and take account of what you did. Perhaps it's because it's more involved then WoW. Perhaps it's because it's the hectic pace of a weekend beta. I'm not sure if it's me or the game or if it's even a negative, it's just what I experienced from the weekend.
- Optimization, latency, lack of multiple core use, no DX11 support, some minor stuff like that which is beta stuff naturally and can be, for the most part, easily fixed. My GPU wants you to use more of it GW2!
- As many have stated, Overflow needs to be fixed so you can select which overflow or instance of the open world area your in so you can party with others without hinderance.
- There were a few minor bugs (like in the Ruins of Rin, sound effects were mono and sounded distant, and some skill point locations in Ashford malfunctioned a couple times) but it's a lot more stable in that regard then other MMO betas I've been in.
- A beta issue, I'd like to see more mid to end game content testing later in the beta cycle, and the chance to see Orr. No spoilers for release, just a taste of what craziness can happen at later levels.
- I was sad guesting was not in and server transfers were wonky throughout as it prevented me from playing with my GF this weekend (Aspenwood filled up before she could get time to log in) or visiting the Brits on their servers. That would be a big thing to get working ASAP for ease of settling pops and linking with friends in beta as it will be in release.
WvW as it stands cannot be accurately assessed until months into release when servers settle and people get the chance to set up guilds for PvP and get strats going, etc. I see a very good framework there and had fun with it when I did play it, and managed to struggle through the lag to kill 12 players. It's going to be better when we can play it out over weeks and months with less zergs and rotations of server matchups and can afford squad formation costs. My only problem with it atm independent of that is that some of the larger keeps (primarily Stonemist) feel like they would be almost impossible to take when the above is met and a faction holds one, simply because of their enormous size and defences. A few tweaks to map design in their regard might be better for attackers. But that's more of a suggestion. Structured PvP appears fine as is, though I played little of it in the beta.
It was good fun and I'm glad I have early access to my copy and can help test the weekend betas further with the great community we have building around the game. Between this, Planetside 2 (whenever that comes out) and perhaps some future sandboxy MMO like Pathfinder or CCP's World of Darkness, I'll be set for MMOs and can forget WoW and it's lesser themepark progeny. Guild Wars 2 follows in their vein, but it brings themeparks into the middle between the brutal realities of a sandbox unrestricted from baser human instinct and the boredom of a grindy themepark slog that's fun once and never again. I want that compromise to work, and it may very well be possible here.
Major issues:
Renown hearts: "you guys, go gather 100 x" where x is non-stackable is the worst quest ever, in any rpg. In general they are pretty boring. The ones that aren't just "kill dudes" are great for the most part.
Not enough enemy feedback, particularly when your character blocks your view.
Certain pvp builds(warrior instagibs scholars, thief 3-shot and cloak, etc)
Minor issues:
Inventory auto-sorting
Hearts mailing you money that you have to individually accept
No convenient area with all crafters, bank, and trading post except wvwvw lobby, which can fill
Inability to navigate conversations with keyboard
Crafting listed alphabetically, putting the most important bits at the bottom
I would like player-set waypoints to help your group not get distracted
Issues that will certainly be fixed:
Optimization
Struc. PvP grouping
(Overflow) server info