Dodge works in beta?

[Jaerin]

Maybe I'm just getting a bunch of bad videos, but it seems like this dodge mechanic is pointless.

Once you get 2-3 people hitting the same mobs with abilities you can't even hardly see the model of the enemy anymore, how are you supposed to even know you are being targeted, let alone knowing that a big attack is coming that you should dodge? I'm just curious how its supposed to work....

Also I was seeing what I was afraid was going to happen with these dynamic events, they just end up being a big spam-fest with no one having a clue as to what's going on. Which means the mechanics are just being completely ignored. These things are great when the people can communicate with one another, but if you come up on a group of people attacking something, most people are just going to jump in and start whacking away without any regard for what's going on.

Rift had a few rifts that required pulling mobs into a light beam before killing it to get credit and trying to get the random masses to pay attention long enough for even something that simple was all but impossible.

[Edge-]

Dodging works very well. You can dodge player attacks and enemy attacks. The enemy attacks (big ones) are generally telegraphed beforehand, or you use dodge to get out of the red circles (where an AoE attack will hit), because many times simply running out in time isn't possible.

As for the dynamic events, which ones were you talking about? Especially at low levels, they're not going to require a ton of coordination, and many of these people are playing the game with little to no previous experience. There are a ton of different dynamic events, some of them are actually very challenging and require splitting dps and a concerted effort on the part of everyone to keep themselves alive and help out others.

[Fencers]

Keep in mind this overriding fact- most of the players in the recent press beta were not... good. One outlet had a panel of beta players and all but 1 said they weren't into MMOs. So that is the type that ended up playing this weekend- derps.

Rift had a few rifts that required pulling mobs into a light beam before killing it to get credit and trying to get the random masses to pay attention long enough for even something that simple was all but impossible.

ROFLMAO. This is one the most delicious events I have ever seen online. The comedy this caused for weeks, through two nerfs to make it easier on people, only inflated my sense of disrespect toward the average gamer.

Delicious.

[Jaerin]

Dodging works very well. You can dodge player attacks and enemy attacks. The enemy attacks (big ones) are generally telegraphed beforehand, or you use dodge to get out of the red circles (where an AoE attack will hit), because many times simply running out in time isn't possible.

As for the dynamic events, which ones were you talking about? Especially at low levels, they're not going to require a ton of coordination, and many of these people are playing the game with little to no previous experience. There are a ton of different dynamic events, some of them are actually very challenging and require splitting dps and a concerted effort on the part of everyone to keep themselves alive and help out others.

I've watched probably 5-6 different beta videos from different points of view and like I said I don't see ANY telegraphing of abilities from the mobs. Heck I couldn't see what the mob was a lot of the time simply because of all the spell effects. Is there a special symbol or something that appears when you are supposed to dodge? 1 on 1 PVP or something I don't think it would be a problem, but what I'm seeing PvE I'm not sure I can even tell what to look for when to dodge.

As for the dynamic events I'm sure I've only seen low level ones, they don't always say what they are working on in the video so I can't give them by name. What I've seen though is 1-2 people start attacking and then like a trickle of people slowly just coming in to kill the mob. The health drop doesn't seem to slow down as people join which means obviously the enemy is scaling, but it doesn't get anymore difficult either. Just a whole lot more spammy with spell effects. No one seemed to be doing anything other than what I would expect to see in WoW or other MMOs which is just poping CD's when they are up otherwise spamming their 1st ability.

[Larynx]

Watch the Yogscast videos. They were like level FOUR and having trouble.

So yeah, dodge is necessary. So is playing correctly. The majority of people will (if what I believe is true) find GW2 too difficult and quit. I never liked those kind of people anyway.

edit: and for the comment above, there's a level 13 norn mesmer videos doing what looks to be some sort of elite event. I'm sure you could find it in one of the compilation threads. It's not a good preview of the combat (since he just stands there like a professional), but it shows the dodge mechanic a bit for AoE.

Also Part 2 of the Yogscast video with them fighting that boss by the river (not the worm). he's around level 2 or 3, shows off why the dodge mechanic is useful. (mainly for his blue breath)

Normal mobs won't really require dodging all that much, but I'm sure it'll be much easier when you actually do.

[Fencers]

I've watched probably 5-6 different beta videos from different points of view and like I said I don't see ANY telegraphing of abilities from the mobs. Heck I couldn't see what the mob was a lot of the time simply because of all the spell effects. Is there a special symbol or something that appears when you are supposed to dodge? 1 on 1 PVP or something I don't think it would be a problem, but what I'm seeing PvE I'm not sure I can even tell what to look for when to dodge.

You can see the mobs attacks. Most mobs had indicators of their kit when targeted. They also had tells- such as a large drake convulsed, threw it's head back and spit fire. Took only seeing that tell once for me to begin shouting at my screen at the players too stupid to double tap the D key each time.

In the Ascalon dungeon as well, many of the bosses had a tell. Such as the two ghosts that got stronger when they were closer to each other. One emanated a void zone when his arms were raised, the other pointed to the area where she was casting AOE. Oh and the HUGE PINK HEARTS WHEN THE BOSSES GOT CLOSE.

Once again, most of these people were, ahem, fucking terrible players.

[Jaerin]

You can see the mobs attacks. Most mobs had indicators of their kit when targeted. They also had tells- such as a large drake convulsed, threw it's head back and spit fire. Took only seeing that tell once for me to begin shouting at my screen at the players too stupid to double tap the D key each time.

In the Ascalon dungeon as well, many of the bosses had a tell. Such as the two ghosts that got stronger when they were closer to each other. Once emanated a void zone when his arms were raised, the other pointed to the area where she was casting AOE. Oh and the HUGE PINK HEARTS WHEN THE BOSSES GOT CLOSE.

Once again, most of these people were, ahem, fucking terrible players.

I like how you fault the players for failing to understand the mechanics of the game...seems to me this is a failure in the game to help them understand how the mechanics work. If anything these videos are showing exactly what's going to happen to a vast majority of players and to me it doesn't look good.

[Edge-]

I like how you fault the players for failing to understand the mechanics of the game...seems to me this is a failure in the game to help them understand how the mechanics work. If anything these videos are showing exactly what's going to happen to a vast majority of players and to me it doesn't look good.

No, it's bad players from everything I've seen. There are tells for just about everything, and it only requires seeing them 1-2 times to be able to tell them. They're not telegraphed across your screen emote style like they are in WoW because that's actually pretty silly. Instead, they're obvious if you are paying attention to what is going on around you, something that is a pretty important part of the game that it reinforces through these mechanics.

[Lucky_]

Imho there's true in saying that a certain level of clarity was missing in the game. It's rather hard to dodge when your screen is filled with things other then the enemy doing attacks, and there didn't seem to be an enemy cast bar anywhere.

That said, this is only a beta, and people playing it were... lacking in skill department, and not only when it came to dodging. Also, AI seemed a bit wonky at times, not acting as it should (target nearest players), instead chasing people all over and over the place at times even when there's someone closer trying to take aggro. This is probably caused by the fact that AI "checks" for "who's closest to me" don't happen often enough, or something among these lines, and will probably be fixed by release.

[MissCleo]

I like how you fault the players for failing to understand the mechanics of the game...seems to me this is a failure in the game to help them understand how the mechanics work. If anything these videos are showing exactly what's going to happen to a vast majority of players and to me it doesn't look good.

So the game should be targeted to the lowest common denominator? Maybe if you fail to dodge X number of attacks in a row the game should take over for you and auto-dodge. Or maybe if you're standing in fire a huge window should pop up saying "YOU'RE STANDING IN FIRE!!! PRESS W TO RUN OUT OF THE FIRE!!!"

[BlairPhoenix]

I like how you fault the players for failing to understand the mechanics of the game...seems to me this is a failure in the game to help them understand how the mechanics work. If anything these videos are showing exactly what's going to happen to a vast majority of players and to me it doesn't look good.

I think most MMO players know to spam more than one button. And how much should a game hold a players hand exactly do you feel? There are a lot of players who are going to suck regardless of how much you try to help them. I recall a WotLK dungeon run in WoW, where I very politely told a DK that using both Blood Strike when you have Heart Strike available is redundant as they use the same resource, and he should just use Heart Strike, as it's the better attack. He agreed, and then continued to use both buttons. You can only do so much to fix stupid.

[Valeron]

There is a video of some French player actually dodging like you are how supposed to. Again, almost all of the press players shown just didn't know what they were doing.

[Zeek Daniels]

Yes lets all judge the game based on level 1-10ish content watching events that only have waves of mobs attacking and criticize it because players just ignore the mechanics. HELLO its low level content. You cant expect them to be fighting Giants, Undead ships, Dragons, and what ever else they are hiding from us.

Hey everyone heres a great model for the game, lets front load all the content with the most interesting stuff and save all the bad things for the end. My God ppl calm down. Did WoW have raids for lvl 20's? Does Rift do any non zergfest raiding at low levels? Does Swtor? Stop complaining about what was shown during the videos its starter areas.

[Fencers]

I like how you fault the players for failing to understand the mechanics of the game...seems to me this is a failure in the game to help them understand how the mechanics work. If anything these videos are showing exactly what's going to happen to a vast majority of players and to me it doesn't look good.

I am not sure what developers can do to show players they shouldn't stand in fire. Bad players will be bad players.

Anyone with any degree of thoughtfulness and seriousness about MMOs would have tab'd to the duo boss and known exactly how to fight them, for example. In the Gamebreaker video a dungeon party approached another boss later on atop a platform. The boss is holding a bow and can not be reached due to a broken walkway. Without any further explanation, based on the boss model and room layout one can easily discern how that encounter is designed.

Many people are bad at games.

[Eec003]

I like how you fault the players for failing to understand the mechanics of the game...seems to me this is a failure in the game to help them understand how the mechanics work. If anything these videos are showing exactly what's going to happen to a vast majority of players and to me it doesn't look good.

good, i dont want bad players in this good game. last thing i need is kids in this game qq'ing like they do in wow...you want wow in guild wars, i dont one damn bit.

[antonatsis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgRD3iHqibk

this is a video of a guy that actually uses dodge the right way
go to 3:20 and afterwards.

there are better quality videos from that one on youtube but i posted this one cause it was easy to find it in a glipmse

TO PEOPLE THAT CANT SEE THE VIDEO FOR WHAT EVER REASON
a guy kites and hit an elite boss like mob some levels higher than him and does not take any damage because of dodging.Also going around to big bad mobs and attack them to show how dodge works:P

[mistersister]

Is it just me, or is this a veiled "GW2 needs DBM style warnings" thread?

OP, this game is designed to actually require you to watch the game world. Stop staring at the UI and watch the enemy, you'll see when you need to dodge. I had no problem seeing when players should dodge, the people playing just seem to mostly suck.

I am alright if the game is too hard for them to play. I would rather have a game with 1 million decent players than end up with 10 million players demanding nerfs because they can't figure out how to move out boss attacks.

[zito]

I like how you fault the players for failing to understand the mechanics of the game...seems to me this is a failure in the game to help them understand how the mechanics work. If anything these videos are showing exactly what's going to happen to a vast majority of players and to me it doesn't look good.

So what you are saying is.... learning is bad.

[Deleted]

Having watched a few videos, I'd say they probably should tone down spell effects a bit, or better, make it similar to WoW where your spell effects are still awesome, but everyone elses are toned down a bit. On some of the fights i've seen, the mob in question has been just a big flashing light of spell effects.

[MissCleo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgRD3iHqibk

this is a video of a guy that actually uses dodge the right way
go to 3:20 and afterwards.

there are better quality videos from that one on youtube but i posted this one cause it was easy to find it in a glipmse

TO PEOPLE THAT CANT SEE THE VIDEO FOR WHAT EVER REASON
a guy kites and hit an elite boss like mob some levels higher than him and does not take any damage because of dodging.Also going around to big bad mobs and attack them to show how dodge works:P

Ahhh, that is refreshing to watch, especially after all these recent videos. Thank you!