The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[Angthoron]

Pretty much my impression. I tried it like years ago when it was new, got bored, lost account. When I heard about HoM, we tried it with GF, she got bored, I got bored; I tried it later on my own, even tried to play with Mangoose a little, but it was just such a fucking chore. Tried it with a friend, and after 2 hours he said he wants a nap and never tried to play again. I'm sure it improves but I just couldn't slog through the utter boredom.

Pray tell what it takes to make you interested? Crappy "personal" storyline that is just a few buttsex scenes short of Bioware? Being able to do quests as a freeloader because 30 people can show up and do all of the work for you? Being able to bunny hop across the map? Having ridiculously overdone graphical effects that obscure most of the screen? Having a map that tells you the location of every quest and every skill point and every other XP opportunity so that you don't have to explore to find them?

Dynamic combat that's at least somewhat different from the current stock MMO model; advanced player interactions (if you don't like them here, perhaps you should avoid MMOs in general, it only gets worse), being able to actually jump over a cliff than spend 30 minutes running around it (I liked jump/exploit-based exploration of forbidden spots in WoW before it was patched), the scaling events that can become infinitely more difficult with more people participating and upscaling them up to the point of one-shots; overall world design; lack of handholding on quests (you got a problem with being pointed to places? Don't fucking talk to scouts); jump puzzles; secret spot exploration - and yes - SURPRISE - there are many secret spots, you just kinda missed them all, because guess what, they're SECRET; event structure; end-chain miniraids, some with special objectives for extra complexity and loot; crafting system; WvW and PvP.

You don't like any of that? None of my care really. Just a bit baffled by how you seem to be getting it all wrong, but then again, like I admitted, I didn't like GW1 while many did, so, to each their own. Granted, there's still issues, and it sounds like much of what you complain about is actually based off the overloaded servers, but you're comparing an MMO to multiplayer hub-based game, so yeah, you'll find a lot of conflict with compare points. If you compare it to an MMO though, and if you're somewhat tired of WoW clones, then your perception may be different. And again, seems like many GW1 players actually like this, so, who knows, maybe it's actually a good game that you're not liking either due to something you aren't getting, or due to it just not being what you'd normally like. Either way, many of the things you've posted so far are simply misconceptions that you run into as new player.

pre-searing is a fucking disaster and prophecies in general is the worst and slowest of the three campaigns with the worst and rawest map design. the best way to play gw1 is to start a factions character, get it off the starter island, and move to nightfall, since that will skip the incredibly slow and boring pace of prophecies, the mandatory title grind nightfall natives go through, and give you the fastest leveling to 20 along with access to heroes and more interesting enemy group composition.

Thanks, I'll give that a try when I have some time. What level is Nightfall okay for, right as soon as tutorial is done, or? And what would you recommend as a class/hybrid?

 

[Average Manatee]

Leave it to a wowtard to define almost-wow combat and zerg rushing as good.

I agree that the secret area exploration are good. The problem is that the base game is always laid out for you. And even if you don't talk to scouts, skill point markers are on your map beforehand. GW1 had you exploring for elite skills, which had a lot more gameplay impact than exploring for secret areas with far less in them.

pre-searing is a fucking disaster and prophecies in general is the worst and slowest of the three campaigns with the worst and rawest map design. the best way to play gw1 is to start a factions character, get it off the starter island, and move to nightfall, since that will skip the incredibly slow and boring pace of prophecies, the mandatory title grind nightfall natives go through, and give you the fastest leveling to 20 along with access to heroes and more interesting enemy group composition.

Thanks, I'll give that a try when I have some time. What level is Nightfall okay for, right as soon as tutorial is done, or?

Prophecies/Factions/Nightfall are all independent starts with full level 1-20 and post level 20 content. You can switch between any of them once you get to the main cities, which you'll probably reach around level 10/15/5 respectively. Don't be fooled by that though, because Factions has insanely fast leveling (roughly 90% of the content is level 20+). Nightfall is very fast too but there is a specific point in the Nightfall storyline where characters have to grind a bit. Switching over from Factions to Nightfall gets you all of the Nightfall heroes and none of that extra grind. You'll enter into the storyline at about the 20% mark and be at about the right level or slightly overleveled depending on how fast you blazed through tutorial-island Factions.

More important than the level you enter a campaign at is the armor you have. You'll ideally want max armor from Kaineng, so start salvaging materials early. Heroes all have level-scaled armor, so no need to worry about them beyond equipping some cheap runes for attribute buffs.

And what would you recommend as a class/hybrid?

Got a style of play you specifically enjoy? You could probably just pick the equivalent of whatever you play in GW2, since the concepts transfer over fairly well for the most part. GW1 classes just don't have obvious awesome button gimmicks like GW2. Secondaries tend to not be useful until you get to a high level and at that point you are far enough in the storyline to swap them out, so don't worry too much about picking one of those.

Keep in mind that with heroes you will have access to lots of different classes and will be able to structure their skillbars as well, so you'll probably end up with a bit of experience with every character.

Prophecies is awesome, fuck the haters

Prophecies is pretty BSB until you get a skip to droknars. It does have a few really great areas though, like SF.

 

[Angthoron]

Leave it to a wowtard to define GW2 combat and zerg rushing as good.

I agree that the secret area exploration are good. The problem is that the base game is always laid out for you. And even if you don't talk to scouts, skill point markers are on your map beforehand.

Don't typecast me, bro. I'm not defined only by WoW.

And yeah, that's true, the skill markers and some other marking stuff does spoil the exploration somewhat. Of course, getting to some of the points is actually more complex than it looks on the map, but yeah. I should check if there's a way to turn that stuff off.

Prophecies/Factions/Nightfall are all independent starts with full level 1-20 and post level 20 content. You can switch between any of them once you get to the main cities, which you'll probably reach around level 10/15/5 respectively. Don't be fooled by that though, because Factions has insanely fast leveling. Nightfall is very fast too but there is a specific point in the Nightfall storyline where characters have to grind a bit. Switching over from Factions to Nightfall gets you all of the Nightfall heroes and none of that extra grind.

Guess I'll look into that, eventually. Like I said, the start felt like too much of a chore, so if I can skip the boredom that'd be grand.

And what would you recommend as a class/hybrid?

Got a style of play you specifically enjoy? Keep in mind that with heroes you will have access to lots of different classes and will be able to structure their skillbars as well, so you'll probably end up with a bit of experience with every character.

Melee damage-dealer usually. If that's not very exciting in GW1 I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Average Manatee]

Melee in GW1 PvE is mostly about using skills well and pain-training the enemy that most needs to be dead, along with a bit of aggro management. You might try an Assassin or even (contrary to my "don't worry about secondaries" speech) a Ranger/Assassin. Daggers are nice bursty combo weapons, and you'll only be medium armor so you'll be relying more on good (player/character) skills to survive.

Even if you want to make a new character to try a new profession, the speed at which you can blaze through Factions makes raising a new character a non-issue. We're talking no more than 3-5 hours to get a max level character once you know exactly where to go and what to do.

 

[Ulminati]

Melee damage-dealer usually. If that's not very exciting in GW1 I'm open to suggestions.

I found the assassin class in factions pretty lulzy back in the day. Usually comboed it with ranger since one of my favourite skills only worked if the target was poisoned.

 

[Average Manatee]

Got my 100% completion for the starter area in GW2. Still can't find an area that I'm supposed to go to, I'm only level 13 at this point. Are you seriously supposed to invade other starting areas just for the purpose of quests? That seems rather silly. And I'm certainly not doing the same crappy event I've done multiple times already. At least leveling seems to be faster than it was earlier on, which is contrary to what I expected since normally early levels are faster than later ones in these kinds of games.

The game is definitely significantly improved when you don't have a bunch of idiots running around, even though every enemy is a ridiculous damage sponge.

Questions (actually criticisms disguised as questions):
Is there no distinction between types of damage? No incentive to using ice damage vs fire elementals or vice versa? If there isn't then it would be pretty easy to simply work out the best way to chain elements that always gave max damage and then just continually spam that chain.
Is there anything to tell us how spells scale with stats? Are they all the same? %-based or linear? Do non-damage effects scale? And how do we figure out what combo effects are worth? Some spells don't even tell me what they do. Fire elemental: Deals Damage. GoEP: gain a chance to inflict a condition. Is this chance 99% or 1%?

 

[Mangoose]

Still can't find an area that I'm supposed to go to, I'm only level 13 at this point. Are you seriously supposed to invade other starting areas just for the purpose of quests? That seems rather silly. And I'm certainly not doing the same crappy event I've done multiple times already.

Are you fucking retarded?

You didn't do your personal story, did you?

The game is definitely significantly improved when you don't have a bunch of idiots running around, even though every enemy is a ridiculous damage sponge.

Lol, I want some of the drugs you're on if you think enemies are damage sponges in this game (outside of group content of course). I rarely use any skill more than once against a normal enemy (in other words I don't need to repeat a rotation).

 

[SerratedBiz]

The game is definitely significantly improved when you don't have a bunch of idiots running around, even though every enemy is a ridiculous damage sponge.

Lol, I want some of the drugs you're on if you think enemies are damage sponges in this game (outside of group content of course). I rarely use any skill more than once against a normal enemy (in other words I don't need to repeat a rotation).

(some of) The group event bosses are very bloated, though. They still need tweaking, me thinks, if all some of the fights consists of is spamming 2,3,4,5,etc while standing around and waiting for their HPs to come down.

 

[Average Manatee]

Still can't find an area that I'm supposed to go to, I'm only level 13 at this point. Are you seriously supposed to invade other starting areas just for the purpose of quests? That seems rather silly. And I'm certainly not doing the same crappy event I've done multiple times already.

Are you fucking retarded?

You didn't do your personal story, did you?

Are you fucking retarded? Of course I've done it. Have you read any of my posts? At the entrance to the next quest it marks in big red lettering: "warning: you should be level 16 for this quest". I'm trying it now at level 15 though, will see how it goes...

EDIT: Well it was piss-easy. 3 whole enemies I had to kill, and they could be fought 1v1.

EDIT2: well shit, did the lvl 19 one after it while still at level 15. It's like the designers had no idea how difficult their game was.

The game is definitely significantly improved when you don't have a bunch of idiots running around, even though every enemy is a ridiculous damage sponge.

Lol, I want some of the drugs you're on if you think enemies are damage sponges in this game (outside of group content of course). I rarely use any skill more than once against a normal enemy (in other words I don't need to repeat a rotation).

They're pretty big damage sponges when you are 3-4 levels below them. For me at the moment it's either that or beat up on event bosses with 100k health.

 

[Zed]

you should be able to handle quests up to 2 levels above your own.
if you run out of quests you can easily travel to another starting zone and do that. I did a third of norn starting zone after I was done with the sylvari one.

I just finished My Story. reminded me quite a bit of cataclysm's ending

 

[Angthoron]

I just finished My Story. reminded me quite a bit of cataclysm's ending

Mary Sue and Many Dragons? Eep?

 

[Metro]

GW2 = serious business.

 

[Angthoron]

So how to get into instances? We're trying to with guildies and first time, all got in, but into separate instances, and now, seems only 2 got in, but separate again. Any tricks here, or something's up?

 

[Kane]

it's bugged

 

[Average Manatee]

I'll ask again: is there an American GW2 guild? I promise to annoy everyone with constant observations about how GW1 was better

These storyline missions are seriously... something. Worse than retarded at times. Just did one where bandits decided to burn down an orphanage for shits and giggles. Pretty stupid, but w/e. The kicker is: they barricade the door. With themselves inside. It's not even an "haha I'm the evil boss who kills his own people", the leaders of the bandits are inside too. The building is burning. /facepalm. This isn't chaotic stupid, it's retarded stupid chaotic dumb moron level.

Sometimes you long for a generic fantasy story with the semi-obvious plot twists and no extra frills.

 

[Metro]

Sometimes you long for a generic fantasy story with the semi-obvious plot twists and no extra frills.

 

[Excidium]

The Charr and Norn stories for the backgrounds I've picked are p. good

Spoiler

in my opinion

 

[Average Manatee]

Sometimes you long for a generic fantasy story with the semi-obvious plot twists and no extra frills.

No thanks, but if you offered WC3 I'd take that.

 

[meh]

Ulminati, Zed and/or anyone else would you like to do a 30 and/or 40 level dungeons today?

 

[meh]

Oh shit, I just saw that Steel Ingot is made from Iron Ore and Lump of Coal I think yesterday I converted all my Iron Ore to Iron Ingot although I don't need Iron Ingot anymore Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

 

[Condiments]

Questions (actually criticisms disguised as questions):
Is there no distinction between types of damage? No incentive to using ice damage vs fire elementals or vice versa? If there isn't then it would be pretty easy to simply work out the best way to chain elements that always gave max damage and then just continually spam that chain.
Is there anything to tell us how spells scale with stats? Are they all the same? %-based or linear? Do non-damage effects scale? And how do we figure out what combo effects are worth? Some spells don't even tell me what they do. Fire elemental: Deals Damage. GoEP: gain a chance to inflict a condition. Is this chance 99% or 1%?

I guess it depends on what you need. My staff elementalist is focused down the arcane tree to reduce attunement slot cooldown reduction, and earth for additional condition damage and toughness. Summoning a certain elemental depends on the situation, but I like my ice elementals because of chill which reduces incoming damage and their skill usage. You might want to pick up arcane wave for a blast finisher, so you lay down geyser while in water attunement and get a nice AOE heal, or gain additional might while using fire.

Staff is a really solid choice for PvE for elementalist because all the skills are great IMO. I usually like to start in air attunement for speed and static field, then switch to earth to slow and set up bleeds, then switch fire or water to depending on the enemy type I'm facing.

 

[meh]

Is there no distinction between types of damage? No incentive to using ice damage vs fire elementals or vice versa? If there isn't then it would be pretty easy to simply work out the best way to chain elements that always gave max damage and then just continually spam that chain.

I've encountered some areas where for example enemies were immune to burning, blinding, vulnerability and so on, but it's pretty rare at least in lower levels.

 

[Zed]

I've done the 30, 40 and 80 story thingy. level to 50 and we can do that one

 

[Angthoron]

So with all the infrastructure overload at the moment, Guild Wars 2 has been a little underwhelming on the guild part of the title. We tried to go to a dungeon, no dice, queued for WvW, 2 guys got in instantly, 3 had to wait for nearly 2 hours. No proper way to queue up for team BG action also is a bit disappointing.

Not that I'm too upset about it, and I suppose this has only taught us to sign up for WvW as soon as we log on, and not to try to make plans for weekends until the game settles properly, but it still is a bit disappointing. Hopefully ANet figures out the stress points quickly and addresses them.

 

[Ulminati]

Ulminati, Zed and/or anyone else would you like to do a 30 and/or 40 level dungeons today?

I'm up for dungeons. Only one I've run so far is AC, so for CM onwards it'd have to be story