The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[Mangoose]

VARIATION IN SKILL BUILDS: Mos def. Just because your first 5 skills change based on what weapon you're holdingZ

And that's it? The first 5 skills will be the same based on the weapon you're holding and you can't change them? That's half of the skill-bar if my math is correct.

I'm hearing that Traits are pretty customizable, though, so you can make those 5 skills do different things. Kinda a guess here though.

Oh, great. Yelling 'LFP!!!!!!!' for 20 minutes and dealing with retards is something I'll definitely enjoy.

Well, remember that you can participate in any event without needing to be in a party to get loot. So you don't need to be in a party to coordinate with others.

 

[Ulminati]

So a bit like the Warhammer Online public quests? Those were brilliant when they worked, but equally fustrating when noone were around to help.

I'll probably be getting GW2 mainly to play with a couple of friends, so the lack of heroes is not that big an issue for me.

 

[Berekän]

VARIATION IN SKILL BUILDS: Mos def. Just because your first 5 skills change based on what weapon you're holding doesn't count out your Utility Skills (which you can slot with skills you want) and your Traits. It's fun-time-tasty-swaptimes!

No, it's not fun.

Part of the fun in GW (hell, MOST of the fun) was the building of the skill-bar. It's what made the game different from other MMO's and kept things interesting. It was great seeing how two or more completely different skills from two professions could sinergy and overcome the rest of the metagame.

Now you're removing the secondary profession, limiting the possible combinations to just the skills you want for that class, but you're also removing the option to choose all the skills from our build, yeah, we have five skills left, but as Black said, that's half of the bar, and the other half will be, for sure, just boring damage dealing skills.

It's not hard to see that you're doing this to make a more PUG-friendly game, making all classes self-sufficient, the event missions... there are some great ideas there, but by limiting our skill bar building possibilities you're not only removing the noob rangers with meteor storm, but also killing the interesting combinations that made the game great.

 

[Mangoose]

So a bit like the Warhammer Online public quests? Those were brilliant when they worked, but equally fustrating when noone were around to help.

I'll probably be getting GW2 mainly to play with a couple of friends, so the lack of heroes is not that big an issue for me.

Well the difference is that (A) There are no "regular" quests anymore, these public quests are all there is in the world, and (B) They do scale to player number, for better or worse.

 

[Ulminati]

But where will I go to turn in these 10 wolf spleens I just farmed?

 

[Hoaxmetal]

For those like DarthRoxor who haven't seen GW2 in action I recommend these three videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1kN4Bccx2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE5ZE4SebTk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STsjcWT4XSA
HD feed direct from the screen and developer commentary.

They show different aspects of their "open quests" and I like what I've seen. You can roam around and find these events on your own or talk to a NPC which adds nearest event waypoints to your map.

If event scaling works good enough then henchmen/heroes won't be needed anyway. GW was soloable but the encounters weren't that solo friendly - you still needed to have a full group, with npcs or not.

I'm hearing that Traits are pretty customizable, though, so you can make those 5 skills do different things. Kinda a guess here though.

That's what I'm thinking too. My guess would be that they're making one customizable skill instead of ten variations of it.

Edit:
Also good interview
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08 ... -interview

On pvp:

But what we can tell you now is that we will have two distinct modes of PvP. One will be the competitive PvP you are familiar with, where experience doesn’t matter and it’s purely down to player skill. And there’s the new element of PvP which we call “role versus role”, where one GW2 server will play against another GW2 server in something we call “the Myth”. It will be like a big RTS map with resource points and control points, and three servers will be going at it. Instead of units there will be players.

Seems that actual servers will be in, that's a bummer. In GW you can jump from european district to korean in a second, it sucks to be limited to one. Then again server vs. server wouldn't work since everyone would hop on one server and reap easy rewards.

 

[Darth Roxor]

This will blow, mark my words. A lot of what I've seen since Gamescom has 'streamlined' written all over it.

 

[Berekän]

This will blow, mark my words. A lot of what I've seen since Gamescom has 'streamlined' written all over it.

http://www.killtenrats.com/2010/08/27/g ... interview/

We wanted to streamline things for Guild Wars 2 and so we rolled all of our negative and positive buffs into our condition and boon systems.

 

[Darth Roxor]

...

MAIM, KILL, BURN

 

[Angthoron]

Um, sorry if this was already discussed, but is GW2 based on a subscription model, or on the F2P model?

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Um, sorry if this was already discussed, but is GW2 based on a subscription model, or on the F2P model?

Buy it once, no sub fees.

 

[Angthoron]

Awesome, thanks!

 

[Angthoron]

A question that doesn't seem to be fully resolved by google - will GW2 have "traditional" dungeon runs complimenting the open-world events? What I found off the top of the searches suggests that there is end-game stuff of the sort, but what about mid-game? Early game? Will there be places where a player could go exclusively with a bunch of friends, not worrying about anyone else running in and starting to "help"?

 

[Mangoose]

A question that doesn't seem to be fully resolved by google - will GW2 have "traditional" dungeon runs complimenting the open-world events? What I found off the top of the searches suggests that there is end-game stuff of the sort, but what about mid-game? Early game? Will there be places where a player could go exclusively with a bunch of friends, not worrying about anyone else running in and starting to "help"?

I believe so, but I don't remember where I read it.

 

[Shannow]

This will blow, mark my words. A lot of what I've seen since Gamescom has 'streamlined' written all over it.

It had streamlined written all over from the moment detailed information became available. No death penalty. No secondaries. Level Player scaling. Retard-friendly fixed skills. And so on.
BUT, it also has quite a few features that sound awesome.
In GW1 they changed a lot to make it more casual friendly after the start. All the stuff like constant skill-swapping that people here are jizzing about only became viable when the decided to allow players o re-allocate their skill points without any hassle in every outpost. And all in all I like the balance they've achieved. It's perhaps a little too easy in non-elite high end areas but otherwise it's good for me.
They might start off too casual-friendly in GW2 and then later realize that a game where you can't lose is even more boring than a game that's too difficult. Thus making it harder and again achieving a balance that I personally like...

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

The fact that it's F2P is good, I cannot shake the feeling of yet another grindy, boring, pile of mmo wank though...

To buy or not to buy? Probably not buy. MMOGs are so samey-samey now a days so it doesn't really matter which one you play. (That is to say if I wanted to subject myself to that kind of crap ever again.)

 

[Jaesun]

The fact that it's F2P is good, I cannot shake the feeling of yet another grindy, boring, pile of mmo wank though...

To buy or not to buy? Probably not buy. MMOGs are so samey-samey now a days so it doesn't really matter which one you play. (That is to say if I wanted to subject myself to that kind of crap ever again.)

I feel the same way. That trailer was... very impressive, however I doubt ANY MMOG developer will ever get rid of the the fucking boring grindy grind. There is just no way around it, and I doubt Arenanet can pull it off (neither can Blizzard).

 

[Kane]

The fact that it's F2P is good, I cannot shake the feeling of yet another grindy, boring, pile of mmo wank though...

To buy or not to buy? Probably not buy. MMOGs are so samey-samey now a days so it doesn't really matter which one you play. (That is to say if I wanted to subject myself to that kind of crap ever again.)

I feel the same way. That trailer was... very impressive, however I doubt ANY MMOG developer will ever get rid of the the fucking boring grindy grind. There is just no way around it, and I doubt Arenanet can pull it off (neither can Blizzard).

I really don't care as long as the PvP is good. This is where anets focus should lie. We got enough of the evil that you named and noone really cares for it.

 

[Jaesun]

I agree, a well done PvP can very much help alleviate some of the the grindy grind. I've never played GW, so I don't know much about them.

 

[Kane]

I agree, a well done PvP can very much help alleviate some of the the grindy grind. I've never played GW, so I don't know much about them.

It was nothing short of awesome. I just hope they didn't water down the tactical side of combat with their 4 is given, 4 you take skillbar and the lack of a second class.

But I actually can see more streamlined classes a benefactor to GW2 since the lack of streamlining is essentially the reason the first one "died" (talking strictly about competitive pvp).

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

That trailer was... very impressive...

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Were this released back in 2006 before I got sick and tired of boring grind fests I'd surely purchase it and play it gleefully, however... with age comes the realization that games which do not provide you with an experience and just waste time are not worth bothering with.

Guild wars 2 is a step in the right direction, but the step doesn't take it very far away from WoW, and that is a bloody shame.

 

[Mangoose]

Yeah there is definitely some streamlining going on.

Some bit of streamlining is "necessary" in order to get a wider audience, as GW2 is less the Diablo-ish pseudo-MMO of GW1 and more a regular MMORPG with a persistent world.

However, yes, there are notable elements that I don't think needed to be "streamlined" in order for mass appeal. I think the general audience would be fine with choosable skills, potion-less combat, etc.

But also note that they are adding complexity, too, in making positioning matter and having skill combinations (that hopefully aren't as crap as DA:O's), and other stuff.

I don't think it will be as nearly dumbed down as WoW. Exactly how far away, though, will be seen on implementation.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I doubt ANY MMOG developer will ever get rid of the the fucking boring grindy grind. There is just no way around it, and I doubt Arenanet can pull it off (neither can Blizzard).

They already pulled it off in GW1.

Some bit of streamlining is "necessary"

I can't fucking believe I'm reading this on the Codex of all places.

But also note that they are adding complexity, too, in making positioning matter and having skill combinations

Adding? Funny thing. High ground, hiding behind walls, scattering (or mobbing, depends on teambuild), clever high ground hit and run where you can reach the enemy in 5 seconds and get away while he needs to run a long distance to get you were all already present. Skill combinations? Let me tell you about skill combinations. Searing flames + glowing gaze. Sever artery + gash. Dismember + axe twist + axe rake. Backfire + wastrel's worry. And the list goes on.

Man, it's good that they're all adding those things.

 

[Shannow]

OT:

Some bit of streamlining is "necessary"

I can't fucking believe I'm reading this on the Codex of all places.

Ah, my pet peeve. KotC was a lot more streamlined in inventory, character sheet, crafting, etc than NWN2. It also was way better than NWN2 in those aspects. (And many others )

"Streamlining" isn't automatically a bad thing. It can simply mean that you need less clicks, get more information while doing the same thing as before.
If you want to bitch, you always need to go into specifics. /OT

Annie, will there be respawning? I hate enemies respawning around me 50 seconds after I killed them off...

 

[Darth Roxor]

Ah, my pet peeve. KotC was a lot more streamlined in inventory, character sheet, crafting, etc than NWN2. It also was way better than NWN2 in those aspects. (And many others )

No, it wasn't way better than nwn2 in those aspects. Crafting was just as (if not even more) broken, lack of skills points bothered me due to the lack of disable device, mainly, because all the others wouldn't really be utilised anywhere and the inventory had no encumbrance probably so you could lift all those hundreds of plate armours the enemies were dropping.

Among many other things, I love, for example, how in that Gamescom presentation vid, the guy talks about 'positioning being very important!!!!'. What does the character on the screen do? Yup, dodge around like a retard. Pro positioning right there. Not to mention 'we wanted to make combat more immediate and actiony'. Yeah, right. Or that interview Berekan posted - 'Well, uh, we still have hexes but they're not quite hexes because, you see, they work like hexes but are not hexes because players felt confused when using hexes!!!'.

Derp is written all over this game.