Official BWE Experience Thread

SpencerForHireSpencerForHire Clawson, MI
edited April 2012 in Gaming
Post your experiences good and bad here. I would love to hear what will keep you coming back or what will drive you away. Is there anything our organization as a playgroup can help with? Server thoughts? Anything? Do tell!

My personal experience that I found most refreshing was how I kept "accidenting" upon things. Outside of the "Heart" events there are NPCs all over the world. Many of these NPCs when talked to can start little games, mini-events and more. Just realizing that the map isn't going to show me the only points of interest really excited me.

Second, I love-love-love how difficult this game is. I am so sick and tired of gaming communities catering to the concept of "casual" where casual player actually means bad player. Having to try for a specific event or personal story event made it all the more rewarding when I finally completed it.

On the negative side of things, like many of you, I was very annoyed with the overflow map. There has been a lot of commentary from everyone who played the beta about it so I foresee a fix in the near future.

Comments

  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    My personal experience that I found most refreshing was how I kept "accidenting" upon things. Outside of the "Heart" events there are NPCs all over the world. Many of these NPCs when talked to can start little games, mini-events and more. Just realizing that the map isn't going to show me the only points of interest really excited me.
    Seriously? Dammmmnnnittttt

    Other than that, I enjoyed the classes I played (guardian up to 13, ranger up to 7 or 8, elementalist for a <10 mins but liked it) and look forward to the future beta weekends and fixes.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited April 2012
    I actually found the game to be quite easy and I didn't even play as a Guardian.

    I didn't try to do level 10 quests at character level 6, and there was always at least 15 people on dynamic events, so that may alter my opinion.

    Kite and cast/attack. Pretty much the mechanic

    I played as a Engineer, Thief, Ranger, Elementalist
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    GOOD:
    -Dynamic combat on par with a single-player RPG. I didn't think it was possible, but they've done it. Real-time dodging of attacks? WHATTHEFUCK

    -I don't have to compete with players for mobs or resources. The game doesn't make me actively hate humanity.

    -Stumbling upon things to do all over the world, seemingly no matter where I am, was awesome. I'm not sure how this will play out in the long run, but it's awesome for now.

    -Every class is entertaining. When I went into EverQuest and World of Warcraft, there was a definite feeling that classes were separated into "more fun" or "less fun" by virtue of their abilities and power vs. the game world. Some classes needed to rely on someone else at all times, and were totally hopeless to play by yourself. I went into GW2 wanting to whittle down my list of classes for Live, but I ended up having more questions than answers in many respects.

    -DAT ART DIRECTION. The game looks incredible. The art team did an absolutely wonderful job. It's beautiful.

    -The game "feels" good to play. This is impossible to fully articulate, but some games (coughquake3cough) just felt "wrong" compared to competitors or predecessors. From movement, to travel, to questing, this game feels awesome.

    -And the big numero uno: GW2 single-handedly shaves the rough edges off of every MMO that's come before it. By taking the best bits of its contemporaries and mixing in a huge dose of homegrown ingenuity, ArenaNet has created an MMO that neither annoys nor abuses the players with nonsensical restrictions: No inter-faction communication barriers. No Skinner Boxes. No laboriously repetitive quests. No feeling of "grinding" for levels. No nasty EXP curves. No daunting travel.

    -The rally and rez systems. Amazing.

    -PVP will prove to be the most fascinatingly complicated game of rock paper scissors ever played. The theorycrafters are going to spend the next 8 years arguing until their piss is bloody about which of the 20+ different weapon/combo chains are best in a match versus a given opponent, who also has 20+ different weapon/comb chains.

    -Unlocking all your abilities by level 10 or 11, which lets you get a feel for a class without sinking 50 levels into it (hello, WoW), is the greatest story ever told.

    BAD:
    -The dialog can be a little stilted or awkward. I don't know how to articulate it, but the script-writing just isn't all that convincing. It pulled me out of the gameworld on more than one occasion.

    -The voice acting needs some help. Actually, I don't care if the game has voice acting or not, but if you're going to put it there, I wanted it to be better.

    -Damage reduction via AC from non-plate classes is embarrassingly unbalanced. Whereas a level 10 Guardian can solo 4-5 level 10 mobs, a level 20 Thief could easily die to two of them if he's not careful.

    -With respect to world encounters, I'm not certain if dying is supposed to play as large a role that it does, but you die an awful lot. One of two things are possible here: 1) My view of survival is tainted by EQ and WoW, where living is the #1 objective. - OR - 2) Damage output is simply too high vs the healing you and other classes can supply, or vice versa, in that the healing isn't tuned to be high enough. Why does a 6-point skill only do 88 healing on the Guardian, with that being its only purpose? Some of these bosses contemplate a sneeze with more damage than that.

    -Targeted AOEs are an anachronistic and awkward spell mechanic that sucked in WoW, and they suck here. It's even worse when targeted AOEs are half your cast bar. The fast-cast ground targeting option should drop the AOE on your current target, rather than simply skipping the click at your cursor.

    -I was hoping for a few more quests. There are the world events and your character story, but the early game seemed very directionless to a new player. Sometimes the game would say that there's an event nearby, but wouldn't show up on your map until you got much closer. Sometimes the objectives weren't super clear. Having some way to guide newer players into the game--even if a tutorial system--would be a tremendous help.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    Bart Williams Experience Experience?
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    The biggest thing that turned me off was the miserable story I experienced, which is clearly a result of my character choices, but that's who I want to be. Having the first guy I meet go "I'm rich, you know" (and then a ton of other people after that) is just off-putting. I also felt that every single time I advanced my story, I needed to go grind another level or two before I was at the right level for my next one. The map is also not clearly delineated into level areas, so I spent a lot of time hunting around for hearts to figure out whose "please help me, the bandits!" quest I was at the right level for so I could... pass that level and go back to my story line.

    I'll contrast it with SWTOR, because it's the only other MMO I've really played: when progressing your story in SWTOR, there are other side missions right around that area, and that encourages you to do them. When you do, you level right alongside your story quests. In my time with GW2, I get thrown into a situation (the centaurs are attacking Shaemoor!) with no backstory or motivation to do anything about it, and I immediately get a quest that I'm not leveled for if I don't go around killing everything in sight (first quest post the "main event" is a level 3 event, and I don't think I was that after the earth hands). Everything continued from there - fill in a heart, go do a story quest, next story quest is 1-3 levels away. Go back out to the countryside, fill in some more hearts, continue story in the city. Go back out to the countryside, fill in more hearts, etc., etc., etc....

    It also feels somewhat troublesome to decide to try a new weapon combo mid-game. Example: I decided dual daggers was my primary combo (thief class), and rocked it. Later I got rewarded with a pistol, so made a secondary dagger + pistol combo - and was suddenly back to two attacks while I tried to get enough kills to unlock the dagger + pistol slots 3, 4, and 5. It really limited my options, and this was when I was level 8 or 9 (and still dying a ton, as has been mentioned).

    I like the group quest mechanic, and I like that you basically always end up in an arbitrary group, and I like that everybody gets XP from kills that occur around you, and spontaneous groups form around activities (I triggered a couple skill point quests that were above me, but 5 other people immediately jumped in). That kind of stuff is cool. I think, however, that I tend to play games for the story, and this is just not doing anything for me in the story department.
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited April 2012
    Does anyone have a comment on how this game would be for a group like The Mitey Worriers, who already know who they want to play through the game with, and are planning only to play with the specific 4-5 person group?

    A lot of what I've heard seems to indicate that there is a lot of 'random' sort of groupings of players when things are going down. Is one 'forced' to team up with strangers? Can a group create a party and leave it at that?

    I am totally uninterested in grouping up with strangers.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    From what I know, you can group up, but you won't be able to avoid other people - they will be able to, by virtue of being in the same area, help you with quests, attack your targets, etc. It's not intrusive in any way - there's no downside to it, it's essentially just extra help.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    I did not experience the under-leveling that some Icrontians and others on the server were having, but maybe my play style is different or I was lucking out by hitting group events with a ton of people.

    @CB: to echo what Snark said, you can group up with your 4-5 (not sure what max group size is) but I did all of it without a group and just jumped into the "events" with other people, rezzing when I could and being rezzed when I fell.
  • Similarly, if you have an identical story line and are at an identical step, you can select to all complete that step once in the instance and not have to repeat it for each player.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    you don't group up with strangers, just dynamic events happen in the area that everyone in area can participate in and receive XP from. Your group could also trigger a dynamic event that others would jump in and help on.

    never is anyone "forced" into your group during these events
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    Does anyone have a comment on how this game would be for a group like The Mitey Worriers, who already know who they want to play through the game with, and are planning only to play with the specific 4-5 person group?

    A lot of what I've heard seems to indicate that there is a lot of 'random' sort of groupings of players when things are going down. Is one 'forced' to team up with strangers? Can a group create a party and leave it at that?

    I am totally uninterested in grouping up with strangers.
    You don't group with strangers. By virtue of the game design, your group will be helping their group complete world events, and vice versa. Dungeons and instances are all you.
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited April 2012
    I loved how GW1 had community towns and fully instanced private adventure areas. I guess that's not the case in GW2? I am disappointed, and I'm not sure how much I want to play. I don't just not want to group with a stranger. I never want to see one outside of town. Me and my friends are the only heroes in this world, otherwise it's just silly to me.

    I really couldn't care less about the MMO part. I just want a fun co-op game to play with my friends, and GW1 was that for us, maybe GW2 has changed the formula enough that it can't fill that role for us...

    Edit: saw this after my above comment.

    You don't group with strangers. By virtue of the game design, your group will be helping their group complete world events, and vice versa. Dungeons and instances are all you.
    That sounds a little better. No one has even mentioned 'dungeons' yet, so I assumed that the game was played entirely in these 'events' instead, which sounded dumb.

    So, is there no way to play the world events without interacting with strangers? Is it possible to just not do the 'events'?

    And how does the story split up? Are we all going to have to make careful choices at the beginning in order to play together? I seriously long for the day an MMO comes out that doesn' make me play through a bunch of other crap before I'm allowed to join up with my friendss...
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    1) There's no way to play the game without interacting with strangers. But I use "interacting" in the loosest possible terms. Scattered all throughout every zone are a HUGE NUMBER of "mini-bosses," escort quest, defense quests, and a crapload of other content. It's the primary exp-giving mechanism in the game. Rather than tuning this content for 1-5 people, and making everyone fight one another for it (or be assholes and steal it), the content is tuned for MASSIVE amounts of people, with multiple groups working together towards a common objective. The content is not hard to complete, you don't have to talk to anyone, and you can benefit from other people being around.

    2) I don't know how it works across races, but across storylines for the same race, you play a few levels of your own content, and then the storylines converge.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited April 2012
    Gonna say your group CB will all have to be the same race, as the 5 races all have different starting areas. I'm not sure what level meet up. I got to level 6 and was still in my human starting area, nowhere near the Norn.

    As awesome as GW2 is, and listening to what you want, it might be better for your group to get Guild Wars: Nightfall and Eye of the North and play those (if you haven't already) for the "this is my world, get off my lawn" game play.

    There are instances/dungeons in GW2 like Thrax said, but the World AND Towns are populated with everyone.
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    We played out GW1. We were hoping GW2 would be the same thing but more of it.

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    GW2 is a completely different animal, I think.
  • GW2 is a completely different animal, I think.
    The similarities between the two games are there but minimal. Only the best things of the first game made it to the sequel.
  • timuchantimuchan Fishers, IN Icrontian
    edited May 2012
    Gonna say your group CB will all have to be the same race, as the 5 races all have different starting areas. I'm not sure what level meet up. I got to level 6 and was still in my human starting area, nowhere near the Norn.
    You can get to an Asura gate easily at nearly any level, there is one in each race home city. You probably need to finish your introductory story mission, but after that just check your map and walk to the nearest city (Divinity's Reach for human, Black Citidel for Charr, can't remember what the norn is but the entrance is right next to the mountain where you fight the big wurm). From there take the Asura gate. It will drop you in Lion's Arch where there is a gate hub to all major cities. ^_^

    There is some pretty awesome stuff in the water near the hub. I highly recommend exploring it! Some familiar ruins and some cute residents of a new race you'll be running into some.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    Oh I knew you could take portals to other starting areas, I just didn't know when "your" story ended since GW2 has 5 races and GW1 only had humans
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited May 2012
    Beta Weekend Event 2 will begin on Friday, June 8th, at noon PDT (GMT-7) and will run until Sunday, June 10th, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).

    Beta characters have not been deleted, so carry forth!

    http://www.arena.net/blog/announcing-the-next-guild-wars-2-beta-weekend
  • SpencerForHireSpencerForHire Clawson, MI
    A few things to point out: Key Bindings and Overflow movement have been worked on. SO EXCITED.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited May 2012
    want: other playable races

    which will probably not be in beta
  • SpencerForHireSpencerForHire Clawson, MI
    Confirmed to not be.
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