A lot of early game event boss were brokenly difficult (charr flame shaman and that dang asura flame elemental come to mind) which I personally think should be toned down for the level 1-15 zone and some people complained about specific personal early game story mission bosses were too difficult on their own which I agree with.
Unfortunately Anet seemed to nerf a lot of them too much which they have addressed and say they'll try fix it before release (proof will be in the pudding but usually if Anet says they're going to do something they'll do it).
In terms of later game difficultly one developer said something along the lines: "I create bosses that eat button spammers and spit them out... and I mean that literally" and given Anet's track record with GW1 (does anyone else remember prenerf thunderhead keep andgates of madness?)
As for the OP, the other posts have covered it better than me, if your on the fence I'd personally suggested waiting till AFTER the giant ball of people rushing to play passes as honestly Guild wars 2 is at it's worst when zones are overcrowded and events become laughably easy even with scaling (I mean like 30+ people in one event).
Having played the beta and every subsequent stress test, the game is pretty delightful given the fact that it's buy to play. Walking around the starter zone (Queensdale) and the following zone (Kessex Hills) as a human, one of the things I kept asking was why the hell I was paying a subscription for something like TOR when this game's world design was leaps and bounds better. It even has a bit of a Skyrim feel to it in the realm of exploration simply because the game gives you the highly controlled, explosive tutorial with all the fireworks and big enemies we need to interest the ADD generation, but after porting you over to Queensdale, the game basically pats you on the back, tells you to visit your personal story NPC if you want, and otherwise sends you off to find random dynamic events and to help out.
A couple of problems I had with it are meager, but they're still there. The game feels too easy, ESPECIALLY as a ranged. Using something like a rifle warrior, you can basically kite the hell out of just about anything until the cows come home. Comparatively, going melee means that one screwed up dodge roll or out of time block has you get annihilated by something like a champion rune troll or some of the other champion-class mobs that spawn for certain events.
I can't really say much about the late game, but the starting zones for the humans were pretty solid and enjoyable. And I mean, there's no sub, so worst case scenario, you're out $60 with no bonus sub tacked on. Compared to TOR, where I played that from the October beta until June as I watched a game I waited years for wither and die in months, which was depressing as hell, GW2 looks and feels nicer in the graphics/aesthetics department, and the combat is a lot more involving. I won't say better, but definitely more involving. I'd say buy it, if only because it did a good job so far of keeping me interested, and these small stress tests hardly satiate my hunger for wanting to play the game, but if you're hesitant, wait until launch passes, let the game cool off, and see what people are saying.
After doing my own research I bit the bullet and preordered the game. Playing it on the beta weekends (some of them that is, I missed the last one) I found the game to be very enjoyable and engaging; not perfect, but then again nothing is. The fighting was a bit more frantic than anticipated, but overall there was some strategy to be found. I -loved- the dynamic events and the way you could drop into anything going on at the time. One of my favorite battles during the first beta weekend was when a watchtower was under attack by centaurs. Myself and three or four others were on hand, but the centaurs overran us and took the hill, wrecking the tower and driving us back to a nearby fort. But they didn't stop there, and took the fort as well. By now I'd been defeated twice and had to respawn each time, but I wasn't beating-my-keyboard-with-my-fists frustrated because as far as I could tell I wasn't the only one getting trampled like that. After the centaurs took the fort, we finally got enough players together that we pushed forward in a mass attack, retook the fort, drove the centaurs off the watch tower hill, and held it long enough for NPC's to rebuild the tower.
The fighting in this game, even against NPC's, has some genuine challenge to it, as opposed to the, as Yahtzee once put it, taking-turns-kicking-each-other-in-the-shins style you see in most other MMOs. It mixes gameplay seen in several other games, like the downed state you see in games like Borderlands and Left 4 Dead, the mobile combat seen in Champions Online, to give a couple examples. The drop-in events are a welcome change from the standard npc-with-exclamation-points-overhead fare. There aren't nearly as many kill-10-rats sort of quests, plus you don't have to squabble with other players over getting credit for kills, either, if you're tasked with hunting down a specific monster/criminal/etc. If you land a blow on it, even if another player engaged it first, you still get credit.
Graphically, musically and sound-wise, you probably couldn't do much better. It's very impressive how well the game looks without having to strain a decent processor and/or graphics card. Story-wise, the game has as much to offer as WoW in the overarching plot for the entire setting and adds a personal touch by giving you a (somewhat) customized personal story. I say somewhat because it's inevitable that there are going to be others out there with similar ones to yours, but the way you're engaged by the personal story with the voice-acted cut scenes quickly overshadows that.
Crafting is both quick to learn once you've grasped the basics and offers a lot of creativity. You don't (to my knowledge) buy new recipes or find them in scrolls, you discover them through experimenting. Transmutation is easily performed once you get the hang of it, which is great for keeping that perfect look to your character (until you find a better one, if you do).
As others have said, this game comes with no subscription fee, so you don't have to worry about having wasted a lot of money if you eventually decide you're not satisfied with it. Overall I'd say you wouldn't go wrong with pre-ordering it (of course I'm biased in the game's favor), though if you're still hesitant, you can go with the basic game rather than a deluxe or collector's edition; that way you'd be out no more than anyone who bought it retail on release day.
Using something like a rifle warrior, you can basically kite the hell out of just about anything until the cows come home. Comparatively, going melee means that one screwed up dodge roll or out of time block has you get annihilated by something like a champion rune troll or some of the other champion-class mobs that spawn for certain events.
Yeah, I've played since closed beta and that's a criticism that existed even then. Some fights are just not meant for melee. But then there's not really such thing as a melee class. Like you mentioned, the Warrior is just as effective at range as anybody else, e.g. using a Rifle [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNd7_6z2kCo]. I don't think there's anything wrong with that per say, but many people will get into the game hoping to play as a melee, and might be disappointed when they realise that's not always going to be possible. I know a few people who were dead set on playing a Thief and were disheartened when they found they were restricted to ranged weapons in a lot of content. The Warrior on the other hand seemed fine up close for most things, and it's only really the champion events that force you to stay back.
What I never managed to try out properly (due to character wipes between events) was the dungeon. I tried it once, but half the group were under-levelled and we didn't get to complete it. So it's going to be interesting to see how melee copes in that situation, whether or not there's some strategy that allows people to play a consistent melee role or not.
Overall thoughts... I think GW2 goes in all the right directions. I've played a lot of MMOs in the past, and it's always been a genre that I've felt could be improved on a lot. GW2 isn't perfect by any means, but it stresses all the right things. It greatly simplifies cooperation; it makes taking part and contributing very very easy, and rewards you for doing so. It also emphasises the combat and the persistency of the world, which just seems "correct" to me in a multiplayer game. The way SW:TOR emphasised the story was a neat idea, and it's not like they did a bad job of it, but I don't think it's the right thing to stress in an MMO. Story is for the most part a single player experience (I think it's very fair to say SW:TOR had the best single player experience so far in an MMO). But the "multiplayer" in "MMO" is ultimately in the combat, IMO. Whether it's the cooperative side of PvE or the competitive nature of PvP, the interactions with other players are for the most part taking place inside the combat engine.
Well, first off, if this friend of yours was recommending GW2 to you last month, and lived anywhere close, he should have let you try the game at his house for an hour or two during one of the beta weekends. That's how I made my decision to pre-purchase the game, trying it out made me see that GW2 lets you get to the good parts of its gameplay rather quickly
Secondly, the game requires no subscription fee, so unlike many other MMOs, you're not forced to commit. You'll get your money's worth by playing it like a console game
Thirdly, pre-purchase gets you 3-day headstart and pre-order gets you 1 day. Most of the pre-purchase incentive has mostly been used up already in the 3 beta weekends and numerous stress-tests. So it's your call really, when do you want to start playing?
Fourth point, the game is worth the hype. The WvWvW is fun, PvP is great like it was in the original Guild Wars, and they've really beefed up the PvE content from last game
Posted again as those are very good valid points. I would recommend watching this video for a bit more information as well, it does a pretty good job of going through a lot of the game without heading into over hype land. Honestly, I think the biggest obstacle to GW2 right now is the hype. If you are still on the fence, I say wait. I have suffered pre-order burn as well, and this game won't be for everyone. Give it a week after launch and see what people are saying, that will probably also avoid dealing with those pesky week 1 MMO problems that crop up.
It was only until I saw this linked video I knew which game everyone was on about, curse you abbreviations.
But anyhoo, to me it looks very typical of the MMO (MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE) genre and contains the same fighting style etc, at least to an outsider (of which I am) so i'm immediately prone to distance myself from it. However out of the ones I've seen it does look a lot more polished and style wise I can't complain but I assume as ever in this market if your already on a MMO you tend to not want to leave for another game as you'd have to start everything over again.
Still, if I was ever tempted to throw myself into an MMO this looks like a promising candidate.
preordered it sometime ago.. old guild mates got me convinced from SWTOR... so.. yeaaah.. damn them.. xD naah. super psyched for it! need a free to play mmo so i can take it casually and not be fully commited ^^
Of course it won't be as good as the hype, nothing hyped up ever is, especially on the level that guild wars 2 has been hyped. If it does, it would mean every other game would instantly die.
That doesn't mean it's going to be bad though, it's probably going to be really good. I haven't had a chance to play it myself, as I haven't preordered because my internet's shit. I'm getting new internet next month, so if that's actually good, then I'll buy it.
Massive thanks for the post. I'm still unsure what to think of the game (and whether to buy it or not), but at least now I know that the things I have been hearing here and there are pretty much true. The level downscaling for lower level content is something that really annoys me, since it's barely any different from something like an Oblivion conceptually, and I have this really downer feeling that I'm going to drop the game in two weeks and never pick it up again, but all the events and the lack of the holy trinity sound massively appealing.
Not to pester you, but since you seem open to questions, what can you tell me about character development? How much wiggle room is there for any given class, whether it comes from the actual character development systems in place or the items they wear? I know I could probably find this in some GW2 wiki but hey, where's the fun in that. I'm an asshole.
The downscaling sounded weird to me when I first heard about it, too. My reaction was something along the lines of "Huh...that's...interesting. I guess." I loathed the level scaling in Oblivion and found it world breaking. So far, though, I'm surprised to find I'm quite impressed with it in GW2. I'm still slightly more powerful, so there IS a sense of advancement, if slight compared to most MMOs. And it does a very elegant job of solving the problem of the content pyramid and content obsolescence. You're never really "done" with a zone. You can always go back there to see more events, tag all the points of interest, gather, and do content while receiving xp and loot rewards appropriate to your level.
Class balancing is still very much in flux, but here's what's in place in terms of systems...
1. Your choice of weapon, either mainhand/offhand or two handed. This affects skills 1-5. A sword with shield will have different skills for 4/5 than a sword with a torch, for instance. Starting at level 7 you can have two weapon sets you swap between with a key stroke.
2. Your choice of heal skill for slot 6. Each class has 3 options, almost all of them self heals of different variety.
3. Your choice of any three of roughly 20-25 utility skills, which tend to be grouped into 5 different types depending on class choice.
4. Your choice of 1 elite skill from 3 choices. There are also racial options for the elite/heal skill but they tend to be slightly weaker.
5. Trait points. Every level past 10 you get 1 trait point to assign to one of five trait lines. These give a passive boost to particular stats depending on the trait line, and at intervals of 5 and 10 give you a talent not unlike what you'd find in a WoW talent tree. The ones at 5, 15, and 25 are fixed. The ones at 10, 20 and 30 are optional, and chosen from a pool of 6, 10 and 12 respectively (there are 12 for each line, the first 6 of which are available at 10 and so on).
6. Each class has a class mechanic, available through the F1-F4 keys. Ranger pets, Thief stealing, Warrior Adrenalin, etc.
7. Then of course you have your gear, which has its base stats, plus sockets for adding gems/runes with additional stats/effects of your choice.
Note I chose those skills/traits totally at random, I do not recommend that as a build.
So there's actually a large range of possible builds/approaches to setting up a character. As always, some will be more optimal than others. In a hyper competitive environment such as tournament PvP, you'll likely see them whittled down to a small handful of truly viable builds, but in PvE and WvWvW you have enormous flexibility. Your PvP and PvE builds are separate from one another, and in structured PvP everyone is scaled to 80 and everyone wears identical gear. WvWvW is more everything goes. You can swap utilities and talents on the fly, but trait points require a respec to change.
Of course it won't be as good as the hype, nothing hyped up ever is, especially on the level that guild wars 2 has been hyped. If it does, it would mean every other game would instantly die.
Nah, you understood it perfectly well. The layout of the character management doesn't look appealing to me, at a glance at least, but I'll find out if it's actually good or not when the game's released. ArenaNet owes you 10 bucks.
I played it for one beta weekend and honestly just didn't enjoy it. I can see why a lot of people are liking it though. Just for me it didn't click. I didn't like the skill/trait system, I didn't like the "quest"/leveling system (found I had to "grind" the same events over and over to keep my level high enough to continue the "quest progression" at a number of locations, even just in the human starting zone.) Tried 3 different races/classes and didn't find any sort of story to get interested in at all. And I've never, ever, been a fan of pvp, in any mmo.
I did like the combat, but imo Vindictus does that style of combat much better than GW2 did. And some of the exploration was kinda cool, but again, there are games that do it better. Overall, I've been sucked into accepting the hype before and ending up with a terrible game (I'm looking at you SWTOR, and Age of Conan, and Tera) Having tried and not enjoyed this beta, I can personally say I almost certainly won't be buying it. But again, this is just my opinion, and yes, I can still certainly see why some people would enjoy it, its just not something I feel I can enjoy.
Of course it won't be as good as the hype, nothing hyped up ever is, especially on the level that guild wars 2 has been hyped. If it does, it would mean every other game would instantly die.
I'm really glad that the headstart is landing on a weekend, and that the next weekend is labour day, so I can get an extra day there! Really tempted to get up at 3:00 just to play on the saturday.
If you wish, you can elaborate more on what it was that disappointed you about TOR and other MMOs, and I can try and tell you whether I think GW2 will deliver in those regards.
Well, I sometimes have difficulty pinpointing exactly what it is about TOR that bored me. It probably had something to do with the grind. I cannot stand grinding, or at least as much as I had to in TOR. While the story was interesting, it was one of the few things that kept me playing. The combat and character leveling/progression bored me, and I only had fun if I was doing quests that were actually interesting, which were few and far between. (By that, I mean the actual quest. The story was good, but the quests were still pretty much "kill that get this" and doing that wasn't fun.
I also wasn't a fan of the style of the game and also the graphics weren't that good, but that doesn't matter that much.
Well, I sometimes have difficulty pinpointing exactly what it is about TOR that bored me. It probably had something to do with the grind. I cannot stand grinding, or at least as much as I had to in TOR. While the story was interesting, it was one of the few things that kept me playing. The combat and character leveling/progression bored me, and I only had fun if I was doing quests that were actually interesting, which were few and far between. (By that, I mean the actual quest. The story was good, but the quests were still pretty much "kill that get this" and doing that wasn't fun.
I also wasn't a fan of the style of the game and also the graphics weren't that good, but that doesn't matter that much.
Well, the word "grind" has become terribly diluted in the last decade or so. It once meant harsh, almost punitive repetition forced on you by circumstance. In a game like EQ, where there was no quests to speak of, "grinding" might mean sitting on a hillside for 8 hours killing Rhinos to level up. Now, it's come to mean "anything I don't like doing", so when you say you didn't like the grind, I have a hard time knowing precisely what that means. I didn't find TOR to be a remotely grinding game. If anything, it was silly easy to level up in, which was catastrophic because they had very little end game in place at launch.
What I do get from this is that you didn't much care for TOR's game play aside from the story, and thus found it grindy. GW2's combat is a bit more mobile and a bit faster paced, and the traditional questing model has been largely ditched, so those are deviations. But if you hate pressing hotkeys, say, or monitoring ability cooldowns, you're going to find that in GW2 the same as TOR.
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and some people complained about specific personal early game story mission bosses were too difficult on their own which I agree with.
