Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Blznsmri]

Having played GW for far too long, talked with the developers (or not talked to them, as the case sometimes was), and done more than a little observation on ANet's habits and patterns, I'm giving GW2 the same respect I'm giving Aion. That is to say, I want to like it, and it has some cool features, but I really don't think it's going to end well.

Can you explain your thoughts? I'm not trying to bash you or anything I'm genuinely interested in why you think like that I guess. I've never played Aion and I've never looked too much into it, aside from making sure that NCSoft was the developer and not ANet.

[Armond]

Can you explain your thoughts? I'm not trying to bash you or anything I'm genuinely interested in why you think like that I guess. I've never played Aion and I've never looked too much into it, aside from making sure that NCSoft was the developer and not ANet.

I am quite grumpy from a long and annoying day, so I don't want to get too into it as I'll be quite biased. However, the short version is this: Based on their performance with Guild Wars, I do not believe that ANet can make a fun and balanced PvP game or MMO. A short list of problems: Power creep, shadow stepping (and the failure to handle it in an appropriate manner), inability or unwillingness to listen to the community, inappropriate nerfs (for example, nerfing Flail to balance turret rangers or Burst of Aggression to balance every Nightfall or EotN assassin build, when the problems are far deeper than those two skills and said nerfs affect far more than just those builds), inability or unwillingness to address core problems with the game (see also ritspike and each non-core profession, plus rangers and necromancers), power creep, inability to admit failures (when Blizzard fucks up, they say "hey, we fucked up, sorry, we're gonna fix it by doing this"; when ANet blows an entire monthly tournament by scheduling it to coincide with Hero Battles weekend - a move anyone could have predicted would have exponentially increased the number of players for the weekend and thus the lag, though I doubt anyone predicted that games would devolve into a russian roulette of who loads more people [one on one games happened, no lie] - they pretend nothing went wrong, don't redo the tournament, ignore the outcry from players, and essentially award a gold cape to the winner of the four random teams that made it to the semifinals before the lag ended), and CR failures.

I'm not mentioning the horrendous bugginess of updates because that - for the most part - started after they took all but a dozen people off GW (tops - it's really more like four people dedicated to GW live servers plus whoever they can borrow off the GW2 team).

Also, Izzy's an idiot. I have unfathomably huge doubts about the quality of GW2 as long as he's on the balancing team.

...wow, I'm grumpier than I thought. I'm going to let my other contributions speak for themselves for now.

[Deleted]

We are most likely seeing the next class released this thursday. Mesmer/Illusionist probably.

But who cares about those noobs, right? Ranger all the way.

[Valeron]

Pirate class for sure. No Mesmers, a little birdie told me.

[Armond]

Pirate class for sure. No Mesmers, a little birdie told me.

This would make me so happy and so sad at the same time.

[Blznsmri]

Surprisingly well informed rant.

Oh alright. I was still in middle school when I first started playing Guild Wars and pretty much stopped when my guilld all quit for Conan and Aion so I never really paid too much attention to the tournaments thing (I've only done GvG and HA a couple times) but I do admit that Perma Sins and Touch Rangers really fucked me up in RA and MM Necros raped me sideways in AB's.

I think that their massive issue in terms of balance was the whole Dual Proffing. In Prophecies most class combos didn't mesh too well in my opinion. (I rolled R/W and had fun with Riposte builds in the beginning but hey, that's a niche play style.) Assassins and Paragons get the most flak for being extremely unbalanced and I completely understand that (took part in it even) so I understand that there were some bad balance issues and shitty patches to fix them, in fact I was surprised at how much certain abilities changed when I started playing again.

I think that with the removal of Dual professions balancing Guild Wars 2 will be much much easier and more doable, even if they add more classes with expansions because there wont be too many issues with proff's meshing too well. That's just how I see it.

I personally have a lot of bias towards Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 because GW was my first top end (I guess that's the phrase I'm looking for) Online RPG and I really don't have many negative experiences with it. Could just be nostalgia though...

---------- Post added 2011-05-16 at 12:18 AM ----------

This would make me so happy and so sad at the same time.

Same for me as well. I usually got wrecked by mesmers in PvP, but when I think "What's the most unique thing about Guild Wars" I think of Mesmers, I haven't come across another game or mmo with anything like it.

[Deleted]

Pirate class for sure. No Mesmers, a little birdie told me.

Yeah Arenanet has said that Mesmers wont be returning (if i recall correctly, nvm otherwise) but there is nothing stopping them from changing them slightly and calling them Illusionist. Pull another Assassin -> Thief. I too have mixed feelings about Mesmers.

[Edge-]

NCSoft conference call this Tueday, maybe we will hear some news. They did say that the Beta and end of development would be in 2010 during one of them, so may not be very reliable.

I'm assuming this is with the Korean head honcho's. If it is, I wouldn't expect ANY reliable info concerning GW2. They know absolutely nothing about the game other than the fact that ArenaNet makes them money. I'm not saying this in a "NCsoft is evil" way, I'm simply stating that from discussions I've had with people who work with/for them, that NCsoft isn't well informed on GW2 info (and ArenaNet won't give any concrete answers).

We are most likely seeing the next class released this thursday. Mesmer/Illusionist probably.

But who cares about those noobs, right? Ranger all the way.

I wouldn't bet on either the class reveal or the Mesmer being the next class revealed :P

[Armond]

Oh alright. I was still in middle school when I first started playing Guild Wars and pretty much stopped when my guilld all quit for Conan and Aion so I never really paid too much attention to the tournaments thing (I've only done GvG and HA a couple times) but I do admit that Perma Sins and Touch Rangers really fucked me up in RA and MM Necros raped me sideways in AB's.

I think that their massive issue in terms of balance was the whole Dual Proffing. In Prophecies most class combos didn't mesh too well in my opinion. (I rolled R/W and had fun with Riposte builds in the beginning but hey, that's a niche play style.) Assassins and Paragons get the most flak for being extremely unbalanced and I completely understand that (took part in it even) so I understand that there were some bad balance issues and shitty patches to fix them, in fact I was surprised at how much certain abilities changed when I started playing again.

I think that with the removal of Dual professions balancing Guild Wars 2 will be much much easier and more doable, even if they add more classes with expansions because there wont be too many issues with proff's meshing too well. That's just how I see it.

Secondary professions were a pretty big issue. All the post-Prophesies professions had issues in general, but the bigger problem was that there was no incentive not to take the best of a primary attribute and combine it with amazing skills from other classes. Basically, primary attributes are requirements, not bonuses as originally intended. This lead to cases such as mesmers with all elementalist skills (or on some memorable occasions all monk skills) being completely uninterruptable, rangers trivializing energy costs from other classes (touchers were honestly a terrible build, but they're a prime example of this), elementalists and especially necromancers trivializing energy costs of various skills, etc. The opposites are true, as well - because rangers and elementalists have such strong inherent energy management, their skills are too expensive for most other professions to use. The same goes for mesmer skills having ridiculous cast times on other primaries, monk skills healing for comparatively little on other casters, etc.

I once proposed a fix for all the secondary profession crap, but between ANet being ANet and Armond being Armond, I was completely ignored.

I personally have a lot of bias towards Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 because GW was my first top end (I guess that's the phrase I'm looking for) Online RPG and I really don't have many negative experiences with it. Could just be nostalgia though...

The nostalgia is pretty strong. I returned to GW for a while and got FoW armor for my paragon just because of nostalgia.

Same for me as well. I usually got wrecked by mesmers in PvP, but when I think "What's the most unique thing about Guild Wars" I think of Mesmers, I haven't come across another game or mmo with anything like it.

I love mesmers. I can't play one worth crap - never could - but the original intent behind them was simply amazing. They're best defined as "the PvP class", and a good mesmer will wreck you six ways past Sunday. I just have problems with the way ANet's power creeped them past that fine line of "good when used skillfully" to "ridiculous mechanics everywhere oh god what is happening to my team". Also, I'm a ninja guy at heart, but fuck yeah pirate class.

[Blznsmri]

Massive post once more

I recently made a new mesmer (deleted my old one because pretty much the only thing I was able to do is stack Illusion hexes and get up to 22 pips of health degen on them) and they changed Fast Casting for secondary prophs so that it only lowers the cast time for non-mesmer skills with cast times of more than 2 seconds, though still, that makes a number of abilities still overpowered, at least for Nuker builds.

Necros still have shit ridiculous energy management because with the death of one hostile target you still get back a third of your energy back. As a Blood necro I can't spend energy fast enough because virtually none of their skills cause exhaustion and the cool downs on most spells give you back your lost energy.

My Ele is currently just an Air Spiker of sorts and if you don't have any ability that causes exhaustion you seriously have no energy issues and that's kind of ridiculous.

Mesmers are probably the hardest class for me to play, aside from Monk (I've never liked healing in GW and Smiting at low levels just doesn't work.) Because it's either interrupt dependent or debuff dependent in a PvE invironment.

Rangers and Sin's I've pretty much got down pat, I just need to get another Zealous weapon for my Sin because I got hacked, (even with Lotus abilities, I can't seem to be able to play it with out a zealous weapon)

Rangers are by far my favorite because I was always a Nuker/ interrupter with Barrage and a number of other abilities. So. Much. Fun.

Dervishes and Rits are just weiiiiiirdddd...

[Armond]

http://www.halolz.com/2008/09/12/pirate-ninja/

I love it. In fairness, however, steps three and five are wrong.

Text

The Fast Casting change makes kappa spike not work, and is overall helpful, but the problem is still that primary attributes are requirements, not bonuses. Same applies to necromaners - they can afford expensive spells like Spiteful Spirit and three cover hexes because lol energy!

The best way to make an elementalist bleed energy: strip his attunement. In PvP, it's not hard to have Rending Touch on a frontliner. It was more ridiculous before semi-recent updates, but 12s cd verses an attunement's 30s cd (previously 8s vs 45s) is always going to make the elementalist cry, especially since attunements are so damn powerful.

Interrupts are hard. I've almost never been able to play with less than 300 ping, either due to my own internet being bad or ANet's servers being bad, and that makes me not a great mesmer. What makes me a bad mesmer is my inability to read my opponents - my friends have said I focus too much on mechanics and I don't have "a gamer's instincts", and it's true. I learned monk when I learned PvP, and while I didn't suck at it (for having just picked it up, that is), I've... moved on. Used to like it, don't anymore, and that makes me bad at it. In fairness, though, prot is about five times as powerful as healing.

You're supposed to have a ton of weapon sets for most characters. Sins are supposed to have a vampiric set (for increased dps), an elemental set (for attacking warriors, who have +20 AL vs physical damage), a zealous set (for energy management, obviously), and a shield/spear set (for adrenaline and "oh shit I'm being attacked"), but honestly, I sit on my zealous set 90% of the time. Sometimes I get un-lazy and switch to an elemental set (because a kill on a warrior is generally worth at least 10 seconds of getting back energy), but eh, zealous is good enough for the vast majority of circumstances.

Rangers aren't a DPS class. Just sayin'. In addition to sucking at it (as they should - ranged DPS is a terrible idea in a competitive game), it's so much more fun to pewpew interrupts and make the other team cry. If you dshot a sin's lead, he's basically dead weight for a good 20-30 seconds.

Dervishes and Rits are just weiiiiiirdddd...

QFT. I've not touched dervishes since the latest update, but even before then, they were the "run in and blow everything up" class, and while that was fun from time to time, they were just so... one-sided. Fragile, too. Rits... Well, we won't go there.

I'm gonna actually go to bed this time. >___>

[Blznsmri]

Rangers aren't a DPS class. Just sayin'. In addition to sucking at it (as they should - ranged DPS is a terrible idea in a competitive game), it's so much more fun to pewpew interrupts and make the other team cry. If you dshot a sin's lead, he's basically dead weight for a good 20-30 seconds.

Splinter Weapon + Barrage say, no scream, Hi! It's my understanding that Barrage is the reason for the Splinter Weapon nerf. And if anything, a Ranger was able to spike people. At least I was. Barrage was nice for most missions that had a lot of grouped up enemies.

Also, farming UW as an R/Me famine trapper was fun. Had to dual it but it was cool.

QFT. I've not touched dervishes since the latest update, but even before then, they were the "run in and blow everything up" class, and while that was fun from time to time, they were just so... one-sided. Fragile, too. Rits... Well, we won't go there.

I'm gonna actually go to bed this time. >___>

I'm leveling a Dervish now and I'm basically a juggernaut. Run in. Get hit. Not die. Kill stuff. The base AoE for Scythes just rapes too hard. However they recently changed a number of abilities to require Adrenaline now. Atleast from how I remember Derv's at NF release.

[Deleted]

Yeah Arenanet has said that Mesmers wont be returning (if i recall correctly, nvm otherwise) but there is nothing stopping them from changing them slightly and calling them Illusionist. Pull another Assassin -> Thief. I too have mixed feelings about Mesmers.

I'm pretty sure Anet hasn't confirmed or denied the mesmer's return. If I'm wrong, I'd like to see a source

You should have seen the character models at the early stages, like alpha stuff for GW1. Not quite an afterthought but I will give you that the running animation is weird... Like they're boxes...

Hey kids, you up for a flashback? Here's the GW1 alpha trailer, showed at E3 in 2003. Be careful, it might hurt your eyes (and ears, and brain, and everything): link.

[Armond]

Splinter Weapon + Barrage say, no scream, Hi! It's my understanding that Barrage is the reason for the Splinter Weapon nerf. And if anything, a Ranger was able to spike people. At least I was. Barrage was nice for most missions that had a lot of grouped up enemies.

Splinter-barrage DPS has always been a good few steps below what a good hammer warrior can do, much less a scythe. Splinter was nerfed because it was massively overpowered at Victory or Death. It was also ridiculously overpowered in general. If you want fun with Barrage, try Great Dwarf Weapon.

Rangers are unfortunately good at spiking. The fortunate side is, the spike is reasonably easy to counter - because they can't fake spike, all you have to do is infuse/prot the guy whose health starts going down.

Also what Armond says sounds like he's a grumpy PvP'er, I know there are a few like him but still it's only his opinions not facts about the game.

I hear this a lot, but I can never understand it. Sure, it's an opinion that Regina, Gaile, and Izzy are terrible at their jobs, but I back that up with the fact that they would have been fired by any serious development company long ago. It's also opinion that the power creep introduced since Nightfall is bad for the game, but it's fact that said power creep has made melee too powerful and anti-melee too good at its job (blind is almost an exception, as its effect has always been too strong - but NF made it too readily available). I guess calling Izzy an idiot is an opinion, but I think anyone who's looked into it will agree with me. I don't think anything else I've said is opinion - it's certainly fact that the April mAT of yore was a horrendous CR failure by any standard, that non-core professions have been problematic since their inception, and that primary attributes have been out of hand for quite some time (I remind you that the original intention of the secondary profession was to tweak your build and get you a few cool tricks, not to provide all the skills on your bar).

If you want to say I'm wrong, say I'm wrong - don't lie and say I'm giving out opinions instead of facts. I'm a big boy, I can take it.

[HellfireWarlocks]

ArenaNet has said that Mesmer will not return as the classical Mesmer, because of how the combat works, a lot of the original design cannot exist in GW2.

guess we will find out soon enough, the 7th profession is due to be released this month
rumor has it this thursday there will be a major release so my guess is that it will be the profession release

[Underskilled]

guess we will find out soon enough, the 7th profession is due to be released this month
rumor has it this thursday there will be a major release so my guess is that it will be the profession release

One can only hope, since they have another profession to release after that, which makes me sad that GW2 still has a long way to go. I suppose on the positive side, they planned on their beta being incredibly short, only to confirm everything works before releasing.

[Valeron]

One can only hope, since they have another profession to release after that, which makes me sad that GW2 still has a long way to go. I suppose on the positive side, they planned on their beta being incredibly short, only to confirm everything works before releasing.

Their open beta at any rate. The closed beta I'm sure will last a bit of time.

[Blznsmri]

Dude you should really read up on it before trying to make builds like that, you can't make a something have 22 pips degen because there is a cap of 10, so anything beyond that won't do anything.

Mesmers were ALWAYS good for PvP they used to be pretty bad for PvE.

Also what Armond says sounds like he's a grumpy PvP'er, I know there are a few like him but still it's only his opinions not facts about the game.

Yes, I know that there is a 10pip cap, but say unless the person had more than 12pips of regen on them, I would still be dropping their health by 20 per second.

Its essentially overkill and always making sure that my opponent, npc or player character, is getting hurt.

[Blznsmri]

But you only really need like a couple of spells to max it, having overkill will just ruin your utility/damage.

I don't care! It was fun!

That mesmer didn't even make it to Naphui Quarter so whateves.

Ranger for teh lifes

[Deleted]

I used to run a mesmer in Jade Quarry Kurzick side. Damage, interrupts, enchantment stripping and a self-heal or two; I could counter pretty much everything and still kill turtles and have reasonable survivability. Ah, good times And while I enjoyed playing the class (a LOT - they had better be back!), it wasn't my favorite PvE class.