Guild Wars 2 Roll Call

[katmai]

Thanks Frunk, I have lvl 1 Mesmer, Elementalist and Warrior, my Norn Ranger is only thing played really.

[Martinus]

Yeah, a necro is a lot of fun. Right now my trinity is a guardian, a necro and an engineer.

I think from what I played so far, an elementalist and a thief have the most counter-intuitive mechanics, so it makes them rather hard to get into. This is because most other professions operate within the mindset of having a limited number of weapon skills with varying cooldowns, so this makes "rotation" easy to get into - i.e. as a rule of thumb you press whatever is not on cooldown and only when everything is on cooldown, you press auto-attack. You also rarely switch weapons during a single fight (e.g. you have one weapon set for melee single target combat and the other for long range kiting, so you probably only switch when after initiating a fight with a single enemy you get jumped by a patrol).

An elementalist confounds that by having four different weapon sets (one for each attunement) where you are expected to switch during a single fight, sometimes several times.

A thief confounds that by having no cooldowns but a sort of energy bar so it's much harder to come up with a decent rotation. 

[Martinus]

On reflection, you could say I dislike classes that have too many options to choose from during a fight - I tend to panic in fights so the less choices I have the better. Me playing an elementalist involved pretty much randomly mashing 1-5 and F1-F4 buttons.

Consider that as an elementalist you have 1 land two-hand, 2 water two-hands, two main-hands and two off-hands, which gives a total of 100 weapon skills to learn (out of which you can access 20 in a single fight).

A mesmer has 2 land two-hands, 2 water two-hands, two main-hands and four off-hands, which gives only 34 weapon skills to learn (out of which you can access at most 10 in a single fight).

[Grallon]

I'm getting the hang of the crafting system - now over 100 in both Artificier and Tailor.  But I bought a lot of mats rather than collecting.  What's the fastest way to make money?  I mean I bought for 100$ worth of gems to expand the bank slots and I converted perhaps 3000 into gold - still only have 2 gold to my name - after the crafting spree.  I've noticed the rewards for helping people have increased but it is still only 1.5 - 1.6 silver...  you don't get rich that way.  I'm guessing by lvl 80 the rewards will be substantial?  And of course, like in WoW - the best rewards come from PvP or group instances yes?

In any case here's Soren Thorinsson - currently haunting the Lornar Pass.  Just for these breathtaking views the game is worth playing.



G.

[frunk]

I'm getting the hang of the crafting system - now over 100 in both Artificier and Tailor.  But I bought a lot of mats rather than collecting.  What's the fastest way to make money?  I mean I bought for 100$ worth of gems to expand the bank slots and I converted perhaps 3000 into gold - still only have 2 gold to my name - after the crafting spree.  I've noticed the rewards for helping people have increased but it is still only 1.5 - 1.6 silver...  you don't get rich that way.  I'm guessing by lvl 80 the rewards will be substantial?  And of course, like in WoW - the best rewards come from PvP or group instances yes?

In any case here's Soren Thorinsson - currently haunting the Lornar Pass.  Just for these breathtaking views the game is worth playing.



G.

PvP rewards are entirely cosmetic and have no bearing on PvE (and in fact aren't transferable).  WvW rewards are roughly equivalent (or slightly lower) than PvE for a player of the same unaugmented level.

[Grallon]

Oh and the guy himself - gorgeous isn't he? 



G.

[crazy canuck]

Wait a minute - you spent 100 bucks in gems on a game you dont like?

[Grallon]

I have been trying for *days* to do the lvl 33 personal story quest 'Blood Sword' and I cannot for the life of me cross that windy bridge: either I get gusted away into the chasm or I lose footing and plunge down on my own...   Now Im using my last speed boost to try to make it but today it's been 30-40 times now? 




G.

[Richard Hakluyt]

A quick update.........I'm not playing the game atm as I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand 

Needless to say this sort of game is the very worst to play if you have that problem. In any event I'm hoping to see a specialist soon; my preferred solution is an enormous cortisone injection that makes it go away........but surgery may well be required.

meh.

[Martinus]

A quick update.........I'm not playing the game atm as I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand 

Needless to say this sort of game is the very worst to play if you have that problem. In any event I'm hoping to see a specialist soon; my preferred solution is an enormous cortisone injection that makes it go away........but surgery may well be required.

meh.

Aww, that sucks. Hope you get better soon.

[sbr]

Just finished my first run through Ascalonian Catacombs.  It was hard as shit.  I knew it was supposed to be hard and it was way harder than I expected.  It's very possible I was the worst player in the group, but at 36 I was also the lowest level.  The members of my party, all randoms, were not impressed with the loot and rewards for the effort; I thought it was fun and will be doing the exploration mode runs over the weekend.

[Martinus]

Just finished my first run through Ascalonian Catacombs.  It was hard as shit.  I knew it was supposed to be hard and it was way harder than I expected.  It's very possible I was the worst player in the group, but at 36 I was also the lowest level.  The members of my party, all randoms, were not impressed with the loot and rewards for the effort; I thought it was fun and will be doing the exploration mode runs over the weekend.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. When I went there on my guardian I was completely unprepared/didn't know the fights so if I go again with him, I would switch my skills every fight, to adjust to the bosses - my necro is also level 27 already so can't wait for going there with him, too. Probably will have a heavy wells build and a lot anti-condition stuff.

As for rewards, yeah, the dungeons are not the best investment for xp and loot "per hour" - but I think that's the idea behind the design - you do not *have* to go there to progress (except for a story). I like it, myself, as the game does not force you into the loot progression grind, familiar from WoW.

[Martinus]

Incidentally, here are some interesting thoughts on the end game in GW2 from one of the devs:

In the past, we've talked about how in Guild Wars 2 we designed the game to avoid a common problem in many MMOs: grinding through chunks of boring, repetitive content to get to the occasional pockets of fun. With Guild Wars 2, we wanted the entire gameplay experience to be something that players enjoyed, regardless of how much time they could dedicate.

When we looked at the concept of "endgame" for Guild Wars 2, we designed it the same way. We didn't want the endgame to be something you could only experience after a hundred hours of gameplay or after you reached some arbitrary number. We wanted it to be something that players got to experience every step along the way, spread out across the entire world of Tyria, so we've introduced game elements that you'd normally associate with "endgame" at every level and every possible opportunity.

Starting with each player's first introductory adventure, we pit them against large-scale boss encounters—one for each race—just to whet their appetites and give them a taste of the boss battles to come. We wanted to show players that this really is just the beginning. We want the experiences that players will have while progressing through the game to be a journey that they take with their character, something that they will remember and cherish.



Sure, once your character reaches max level, we've created new and interesting ways to challenge you as a player, but we didn't want to force you to master an entirely new subset of the game.

Our goal with Guild Wars 2 was to continue to build upon what we've shown you before while finding new and interesting ways to engage you as a player, regardless of your level. Each new experience, new dungeon, and new giant boss is a chance for us to layer on more difficulty, or teach you an interesting aspect about your profession and what you can do when you combine forces with other players. Guild Wars 2 is a game about banding together with friends and complete strangers to accomplish great things in a world ruled by uncertainty and challenge.

For people who love structured and difficult content, we developed the explorable mode for our eight dungeons. A dungeon's explorable mode has at least three different paths that players can choose to conquer—and each path is a five-character delve into tough content that we designed to push the limits of teamwork and communication.

For people who enjoy massive encounters where large numbers of players band together to take down epic monsters, we created our giant bosses, which are scattered throughout the world. These massive dynamic events usually come at the end of one of our meta-event chains, and they reward players with a challenging encounter and a loot chest for their accomplishments. You've already seen a few of these behemoths in our intro story, but later in the game, these giant bosses really come at you with gloves off.



But the concept of "endgame" isn't restricted to a few specific encounters and monsters; we have multiple paths and a variety of different content for players of all kinds. For people who enjoy crafting, we added legendary weapons that use rare components gathered from multiple game types—they're created using the Mystic Forge. The final reward at the end of this epic crafting path is a visual masterpiece: a weapon with a unique appearance and special effects that are sure to make you stand out in a crowd.

For explorers and completionists, we added the idea of "world completion," which involves completing renown regions, Vistas, skill challenges, waypoints, and points of interest for each of the maps in Tyria. We keep each map interesting thanks to the level adjustment system, which removes the ability for higher-level characters to enter lower-level maps and trivialize the content. You'll still be more powerful in lower-level zones because you have more traits, skills, and gear, but the level adjustment system will insure that the monsters give you a proper fight.

With all the branches in the personal storylines and the sheer number of different stories available to players of each race, Guild Wars 2 has a lot of replayability for those looking to explore Tyria from a different perspective or experience new stories.

As players reach the max level of 80, the dynamic events become larger, the battles more spectacular, the circumstances more dire. Each of the high-level maps in the corrupted land of Orr contain battles on a grand scale against Zhaitan's forces, an epic war with shifting fortunes and frontlines.



As you can see, we've taken the idea of "endgame" content beyond the traditional model and have infused it in all levels of the game, while adding enough variety to keep players with a wide array of interests engaged.

The launch of Guild Wars 2 is just the start. With the game now out in the hands of the players, we can focus our efforts to adding new types of events, new dungeons, new bosses, new rewards, and new places for players to explore. Together, our journey is just now beginning, and I hope to see you in-game.

[sbr]

And no matter how hard I try I cannot use a staff with my Elementalist; part of it is not being familiar enough with the skill, part of it is muscle memory, but I can't kill anything when I solo with a staff.  I do better in a party or a group event but not enough.  That and I enjoy the sceptre/dagger combo more.

[Martinus]

And no matter how hard I try I cannot use a staff with my Elementalist; part of it is not being familiar enough with the skill, part of it is muscle memory, but I can't kill anything when I solo with a staff.  I do better in a party or a group event but not enough.  That and I enjoy the sceptre/dagger combo more.

The elementalist is tough. Period. After playing one, a necro feels like a piece of cake. I can solo with pretty much every weapon combo (hell, I'm now playing mainly with dual daggers, even though it is considered an inferior pairing - I just love to stab stuff ). And I don't even use pets that much any more - usually bring them forth only when I am trying to solo an event or doing my personal quests.

Speaking of which, there is a patch coming today which fixes a lot of stuck bugs in the personal quests, including Brute Force grallon mentioned.