Guild Wars 2.

[Kaeb]

The curiosity bug has bitten me and infected me with the notion that buying this game might not be a bad idea. The Sylvari seems like a very aesthetically interesting race and I've always thought the lore was okay-ish as far as traditional fantasy is concerned, which is a genre I've progressively lost more and more interest in.

Anyway, has anybody tested it? Played the beta or even bought the game?

 

[Lavi]

I'm on the Borlis Pass server. Primary character is an Asura Engineer. Picked them because I love their movement animations.

 

[Kaeb]

So what do you make of the game?

Good/Bad?

Worthit/Stay away?

 

[Lavi]

It's definitely worth it if you play with others. "Solo" playing can be boring (find a fun guild and get involved, if so). My biggest gripes with gameplay are the queer auto target system changing your target in mid-combat (not a huge deal if your character is ground targeting or using AOE skills) and the quest descriptions can be fairly vague. I do love the weapon skill kits being different between classes (greatsword wielding warrior has different skills than greatsword wielding guardian, etc) and combat relies on hitboxes and skill cooldowns instead of autohit and mana, which makes combat quite involved at low levels. Also, your stats can be scaled down if you are a high level in a low level area to maintain a challenge. Though ANet says that rewards from low-leveled areas will scale to your actual level, I haven't really seen that happen except on the odd occasion. Underwater combat didn't appeal to me, to be honest, though there is thought put into tailoring underwater skills for the 3D space (it disappoints me that the genius asura have not invented an underwater golem :CFuu).

The game seems to be built the most towards the players who want a fresh experience in MMORPGs. It doesn't innovate as much as redesign what makes people love MMOs. No more killstealing, hoarding loot, and stuff like that. All participants get the full reward for jumping in, even if they only strike the boss monster once. The downed state keeps players involved too, since they can choose to keep fighting and try to rally (auto revive self when a monster you attacked dies), have someone who is not downed revive you (and be rewarded with exp), or revive yourself by channeling a self-heal skill.

All in all, it is something I recommend to MMO players.


From personal experience, the stories that you play through (there are three unique storylines for each race that you mix and match in character creation) are not amazing, but I deal with them primarily for the lore.

 

[Kaeb]

That actually sounds pretty nice, I spent my lunch break just watching Sylvari character creation videos on an iPad, the fact that Sylvari's skin can glow during the nighttime is pretty cool, and the fact you can customize that aspect is even cooler.

I'm thinking I'll nab it next summer to try it out, maybe roll a Male Sylvari Thief.

 

[Lavi]

The thieves are a nifty class primarily because they literally have no cooldowns on any of their weapon skills. They're only limited by the Initiative energy gauge. A friend of mine is playing one and his main frustration is that the thief is too squishy (and he plays squishy classes a lot). I keep telling him to build the thief as a tank (since you can through the trait system).

EDIT: Building tanky in this game makes me feel really powerful - I'm building my Sylvari Guardian with defensive traits and it could take on monsters several higher levels than it, when other characters cannot. Most toons have difficulties facing a single monster 2 levels higher than themselves, but my guardian can hold on to two monsters of that strength, with minor difficulties.

 

[Kaeb]

Is it possible to play a kind of Thief damage dealer? Maybe even specializing in long range weapons?

A DPS Thief I guess.

 

[Lavi]

Yeah, the dual-weapons system is fairly robust, so you can have a thief with a shortbow, or a combo of pistol-pistol, pistol-dagger, or dagger-pistol (this is mainly melee with some ranged options). The thief can also use a one-handed sword with pistol or dagger or dual-wield daggers. You don't have to decide on just one weapon set, since all classes except Engineer and Elementalist can swap between two possible weapon sets in the middle of combat. Engineers have utility skills that enables them to switch to a unique weapon and Elementalist can swap between four possible elemental skill sets for each of their weapon choices, so it's not a loss for them.

 

[Kaeb]

So classes and gameplay are pretty diverse as a result of that I would wager.

Cooool.

 

[Crosby]

There's no set role for any class its whatever you feel like doing.

 

[Kaeb]

So all classes are capable of healing?

Cool.

 

[Kaeb]

http://ie.ign.com/articles/2012/09/12/guild-wars-2-review?page=3

Best review for an MMO I've seen in a very long time.

 

[Lavi]

So all classes are capable of healing?

Cool.

Technically all classes can heal, but they're primarily self-healing or a limited ability to heal others. Part of the class design is to promote "active" defenses, such as shields and buffs (called boons in-game), to reduce the damage that one takes rather than to react to the damage that has been dealt to allies.

 

[Will]

How many people here play? I'm planning on picking it up in a week or 2, and I'd quite like to have people to roll around with. I had 1, factions, and nightfall, and it was fun, but I was on my own there, which was kinda dull.

 

[Kaeb]

I'm waiting till the summer to get it, that way all the updates that it currently needs will have been applied to the game and a lot of gitches will have been cleared up, including some complaints some players appear to be having.

It looks really great regardless and I too would love if a few people on this site were playing it too.

 

[Wing]

A friend just bought this for me, installing it now.

 

[Lavi]

I'm waiting till the summer to get it, that way all the updates that it currently needs will have been applied to the game and a lot of gitches will have been cleared up, including some complaints some players appear to be having.

It looks really great regardless and I too would love if a few people on this site were playing it too.

The primary bugs I've ran into were events that freeze but don't reset. There were some instances where an event begins after being completed like 10 seconds later (easy karma!), but most of those have been found and fixed.

A friend just bought this for me, installing it now.

Coolio. I play mainly on the weekends, since I'm busy all week with schoolwork.

 

[Bubbles]

Completely takes out a playstyle out of the game: healing. I'm not really interested. Except to spend 3 hours in character creation...

 

[Lavi]

Completely takes out a playstyle out of the game: healing. I'm not really interested. Except to spend 3 hours in character creation...

ANet describes healing as a mini-game of whack-a-mole. I have to agree with the analogy, since you end up so focused on health bars that you ignore people smacking your avatar in the face. Do note that your character can quite literally die in two hits if you're not paying attention in a dungeon. As I said earlier, the focus is less on reactive defenses (healing) and more on active defenses (damage mitigation). I actually liked this change since it promotes faster and more aggressive gameplay. You will have no time to watch other peoples' health bars, especially in PVP.

If you really want healing, run a Guardian. They focus on buffing and healing their allies moreso than any other class. Their Staff skillset includes a skill that is intended to AOE heal and provide a boon at the same time. They can even equip traits that gives them bonus defenses when reviving a fallen ally.

 

[Wing]

What class should I be?