Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Chrno]

YOU DON'T HAVE A SUP VIGOR RUNE?! YOU'RE NOT IN FULL OBSIDIAN/ UW/ PRIMEVAL ARMOR! YOU'RE A FUCKING NOOB!

^ Shit seriously happens... And it's depressing when it does.

when i played noone was in full Obsidian gear but yea i do remember people being rude ofc, never said noone was

[Snowy]

YOU DON'T HAVE A SUP VIGOR RUNE?! YOU'RE NOT IN FULL OBSIDIAN/ UW/ PRIMEVAL ARMOR! YOU'RE A FUCKING NOOB!

^ Shit seriously happens... And it's depressing when it does.

I've rarely came across that and it was mostly later in the game's life when people playing for years had nothing else to do and did so just to try and make themselves feel better about having the 'leet' armor. it was also rare.

Now in higher end PvP areas I seen those comments all the time along with the rank elitists. A few bad apples don't instantly make the rest bad as well. There was a lot of nice people when GW1 was still expecting campaigns and the like.

-Character models seem to be hit or miss and just overall very subjective and personal. Is there a place where there are some good screenshots to look at for this? i'm glad they see an issue in the blank stares and faces in general. It would be sad to create such a beautiful environment and allow those faces to overshadow it.

-Animations seems to be the exact same as character models, so I'll leave it at that. Personal choices.

- Character models are still being worked on, they haven't even discussed/showcased their character creation yet. Look at the early showing of the Star Wars MMO and how bad the characters looked compared to now.

- Smoothing out animations is typically done closer to release, this game is still in deep development. When they have most of the basic stuff taken care of like all of the professions and races, then it is time to worry about the animations.

As for the Personal Story events were we get a close of the character and NPCs chatting.... those are horrid now and I don't expect them to get much better. Same with the females having porcelain faces. Look at GW1, good luck finding a female that has imperfections on their face. I can think of one, it's a Nightfall female Warrior face that had a little scar and that was it. Even the GW1 Necromancer females had perfect faces while the males had horrible scars and in some cases, a missing eyeball as face choices.

-No trinity system or a veil over the eyes. Hmm.. I don't know about this one tbh. They say they don't want you to "play a healer" cause you need to. Yet, they talk about people switching between aspects to use abilities that heal those around you. Now, obviously healing IS needed.

Yes, in a game were players take damage, healing of some sort is needed. A dedicated healer is not needed though. There are no dedicated healers. Some classes have some extra ways to heal, but that is not their role nor can they keep others alive with it. They can assist in helping others but they can't keep them up with it.

People do get hit, and they do go to a fallen state, and then slip into unconciousness. Am I seeing offensive spells that have a secondary ability to heal those around you? Are you sure this is the way to take the game? Are you sure that's better than a trinity system? It makes the need for healing turn into an automatic thing. Like, you just play your dps game until you want to heal yourslef, and repeat times infinity. Without the need of a healer, the game surely will not make it overly hard to stay alive. Bosses don't focus on one target, but instead use aoe abilities. Everyone around takes damage. But, everyone can heal, and it looked that it was sometimes tied into their offensive skills, or it was simply, place your totem here. You don't heal your tank, you just heal all around you. That does NOT sound interesting, I'm sorry. It negates the need for the mechanic, which some of you see as a good thing. I feel it trivializes the whole combat system.

First, there is no tank so you can't "heal your tank". If a player tries to tank, then they will die rather quickly. Some classes can take more hits than others but they can't tank. There are offensive spells that heal, think of them like the small group healing that comes from a Shadow Priests offensive spells. Would those heals keep a DPS up that was being focused on? They are nice little ticks but nothing to count on for keeping you alive. Those spells only affect those in line of those spells or standing on the target when the spell hits so they aren't great group healing in that regard. In some of the videos players had life stealing weapons, they steal around 10 health with each hit when the players are getting hit for up in the hundreds.

Most of the skills designed solely for support healing, they act as a small regen. Example, Guardians have a virtue that lets them give all allies around them a regen. If someone else applies a regen, then instead of getting multiple stacks, they get the duration increased. To simplify that further for people: A feral-bear Druid puts a 12 second Rejuvenation on Wilbur the Warrior and a Priest in festival gear places a 12 second Renew. They both stack in duration rather than healing. So Wilbur the Warrior has 24 seconds of weak regen on him.

Yes, everyone can heal and dodge. Both of those take chunks of mana. Dodging alone takes around 20% of your maximum mana, so this means that you can dodge 5 times before being out of mana. Spells that serve just to heal are far and few between with high mana costs and long recharges. They aren't anywhere near as good as personal heals. Personal heals have a mana cost and recharge as well. If you don't try to avoid damage, then you have to heal. If you get focused on then you can easily die. Healing and dodging are quite finite so you have to be careful and plan.

Can the system fail horribly? Yes, we have to wait and see how well it turns out. The main issue with it is how well can players break the mindset that you are supposed to stand still all the time while attacking and the boss will be focused on the tank so you just have to not stand in fire while someone else heals you. Can the players learn to actively avoid attacks is going to be a big thing with this system.

It makes the need for healing turn into an automatic thing. Like, you just play your dps game until you want to heal yourslef, and repeat times infinity.

You do realize that the above quote from you describes the trinity system as well, right? A lot of classes in the trinity system can heal themselves or others as well. The healing isn't that great but neither is the healing in GW2, you have to try to avoid the damage. You can also take a hit to save an ally by moving into the line of attack. Instead of taking a hit because someone else is going to quickly heal you to full health, you have to be careful in taking damage because you have very limited mana with limited healing sources.

But doesn't this worry you that to compensate for the possibility that no one will be healing others, that the encounters will simply be too easy? The reason I say it may trivialize combat is, if it's not "needed", then why worry? By needed, I mean as a dedicated role. A powerful "I will keep you alive, Brother" kind of role. If everyone can just heal themself, then it turns into, don't be stupid and forget to heal yourself. Conscious, thoughtful players will use attacks that have am AOE healing effect, or drop the standards to heal others around them. But will that be the majority? I have to say that I doubt it. And my guess is that the devs also are thinking, "Many people won't do that. They want to pound the boss, not help heal another player that can heal themself." It seems to me that if you simply move out of the fire, and don't forget to heal after the boss's AOE hits you a couple times, then you really have nothing to worry about. You know what I mean?

i'm not worried about it being easy.. The beginning stuff will be easy as it has to try to break people into all of the mechanics of the game. A lot of the things you do to aid yourself will also aid others (Walls of Flame, ect...), it's why they are designing the skills the way they are.

As for just healing a couple of times after taking some damage... no. There is a video of the devs playing a pirate attack with players and they basically wipe because that event wasn't toned down. More dev players, the ones still at the company studio that were playing with the demo players, show up to help them complete it since it took enough players that knew their classes and helping others to actually complete that event. If you go out of your way to not aide others, or don't know your class at higher levels, then good luck beating the events or getting a decent reward. So while there will be simple events that can be done solo, there will be a lot that also require a lot of people actively working together to be able to complete it.

Now in GW, the devs have said that they don't want you to ever feel like you have to group or talk to another player. So right there, it tells me that the logic that was the WoW winning BG team is not used in GW. If there is no need to group or talk to other players, then the content can not be made with the thought in mind that it is needed at all.
So, if there is no need to talk to another person, that means that there is no need to group with another person, which means that the content is not designed around group mechanics. It's designed with the thought that 5 people fighting this event may not work together at all, and we need to accomodate that.

The reason you aren't forced to team up is because they know that some players don't want to team up to enjoy a game. being forced to team up for those people make the game completely unfun. They designed the system so that you aren't forced to team up and chat to do the events. That is the reason why a lot of the spells work the way they do and don't require you to be on a team to aid others. it is why resurrecting a fallen player counts as participation in the event. It is up to the players on how they want to play during the normal aspects of the game. That is also why max gear will be easy to obtain.

How did you meet and make friends in other MMOs? Did you only play with your real life friends? In WoW, I ended up grouping up with others because we had a common goal to complete and were ended up helping each other out. One example of that was before BoAs, taking out Blacktalon the Savage in Hellfire Penn. We ended up chatting some and found we had a lot in common and we became pretty good friends in the game. That is just one example. So during an event, if someone saves your rear by taking a hit for you or rezzing you or anything long those lines, you might end talking some. Same goes when you form a group for dungeons or general chatting in towns.

As others have said, you are reading to much into it when they say you won't be forced to team up. You have to team up and work together for dungeons or structured PvP. You have to work together, but don't have to team up, for WvW PvP as well as the larger events.

For the dungeons I agree with you. For Shatterer, while obviously designed for multiple people or you die, there still is no need to do anything with or for another player. I've seen that video from different perspectives enough to see pretty much no one doing anything useful for other people.

Actually there is. In WoW, would a Paladin not buff others with Blessing of Might/Kings to aide both the other players and also aide themselves by ensuring that more damage is being dealt to the enemy? An Elementalist placing a Wall of Fire down will aide others even if they only intended to use the spell to deal damage instead of helping others. On a lot of events, if they don't aide others then they risk failing the event because they get overwhelmed. In WoW during the elemental invasion bit in the cities, we had players helping others out and teaming up to better help each other.

Like with the Shatterer, if you don't work with others then more people die and you end up losing the event. If you want more of a reward you have to use your skills which means you end up helping others by not only helping to down the boss faster but also using skills that benefit others. The events, like the Shatterer, were toned down in the demo so players could complete them and they had the devs that were still at the studio helping them as well.



I'll have to take a break in responding as the walls of text in my text documents are making my eyes cross. X_X'

[Blznsmri]

when i played noone was in full Obsidian gear but yea i do remember people being rude ofc, never said noone was

That's what I got last time I tried to pvp, or use like 2-3 year old builds... But now... Now it hurts to log on because I got hacked and they killed my main, deleted my main sin's primary armor and weapons and got my account locked for gold selling.

On the other hand, I got a fancy new farming build... peachy...

[Ogretron]

I'm really exited for the sidekick system. Being able to run with your lower level friends without actually just raping everything is going to be sweet, I don't know about bumping upward though. I'm glad someone listens to us when we ask Blizzard for things like this.

[Deleted]

I used to be worried as well about how are they going to pull off the whole no-trinity thing until i read Arena Net's combat article on their blog which explains it in detail how it works.

Here's the link hopefully this clear things up for people and I would suggest adding it to the Opening post

http: //www .arena. net/blog/jon-peters-talks-combat (can't post links yet so just remove the spaces)

P.S. gw1 didn't have the classical trinity either cause there was no taunt mechanic and no aggro table yet Underworld and Domain of Anguish (formerly known as Dead on Arrival) were 1 of the hardest dungeons I've ever done in any MMO including wow to date
Hope this puts your worries to rest

P.P.S. there is no need to dumb down the events as rifts in rift because they aren't designed for you to just keep winning them,they branch to new events even if you lose so they won't be faceroll because you don't NEED to win every time,if you lose you just get a different follow-up event

[Tackhisis]

The game without tanks cannot exist. Either DPS are reduced to 1-2 abilities (like in Diablo), or boss is big dummy on the pole (like in most singleplayer games). In proper MMO you need the tank.

[Tristan Khan]

There is a fanmade video on Youtube that might be worth a look, even Anet has noticed it and tweeted about it. I tried to look through this whole thread to see if it had been posted before, but I couldn't find it. Sorry if I missed something.

I don't think I can post links myself, so maybe someone could check it out, and repost it perhaps?

It's called Guild Wars 2 | Protectors Of Tyria

youtube.com/watch?v=IhFylw4LYjQ

[jvbastel]

The game without tanks cannot exist. Either DPS are reduced to 1-2 abilities (like in Diablo), or boss is big dummy on the pole (like in most singleplayer games). In proper MMO you need the tank.

GW1 had no tanks, yet has 12-person group play. Why would a you need tanks in an MMORPG? All the current trinity does is make fights about standing still and hitting a boss' ass. It would make more sense if that boss turned around and punched all those rogues,cats,retri's and fury warriors right in the kisser

[Tholl]

GW1 had no tanks, yet has 12-person group play. Why would a you need tanks in an MMORPG? All the current trinity does is make fights about standing still and hitting a boss' ass. It would make more sense if that boss turned around and punched all those rogues,cats,retri's and fury warriors right in the kisser

This right here. I never understood why a boss who is supposedly close to godlike intelligence (LK, Mag, Ony, Ill, etc) would IGNORE the healers in the back who are keeping whatever target they are wailing on up. Bosses should be attacking everyone, not tunnel visioning like a mid-field scrub in wsg.

[Relente]

People think you need a Tank because not many MMOs have attempted what GW2 is trying to do. You don't need a Tank in GW2, because your not suppose to be getting hit by enemies, the whole point of the game is to keep incoming damage to the minimum and still dish out damage yourself. All professions have defensive abilities as well that can help redirect damage, reflect damage to enemies, and much more. There is no limiting abilities to DPS, because every is a DPS, and a Support, and a Control class. Some professions are better in areas, but the point is that they all can do it, you don't need to spec into healing, tank, or DPS.

You don't need a tank for a game to work, that is just the formula that has been working for years, so everyone uses it. I never understood why your character would just stand there taking damage the whole time and your the only one getting attacked as a tank. I like the direction ArenaNet is going with and I hope other MMOs bring something like this in the future.

As for teamwork, I think this game is going to require a lot of team work. A lot of the videos everyone has been seeing is demo footage of players who don't know what is going on and the demos are also dumbed down a lot, and people are still dieing. The events aren't just going to be cake walks (some might be, but not all of them), you are going to have to help each other out if you want to win the event. This could involve reviving, healing, buffing, or using defense skills to save other players. Yes, you can play solo and not help out at all, but then thats not helping yourself out either. The whole thing ArenaNet is trying to do is get players to play together without making them talk to each other. You can just jump in an event and work as a team without chatting or grouping up, but if you wish to, that option is still there. In other games if someone is attacking an enemy usually you don't help out because you won't get rewarded, but if you help people kill enemies in GW2, you get loot and XP as well and in events it works the same way.

[nalvaudi]

No trinity system or a veil over the eyes. Hmm.. I don't know about this one tbh. They say they don't want you to "play a healer" cause you need to. Yet, they talk about people switching between aspects to use abilities that heal those around you. Now, obviously healing IS needed. People do get hit, and they do go to a fallen state, and then slip into unconciousness. Am I seeing offensive spells that have a secondary ability to heal those around you? Are you sure this is the way to take the game? Are you sure that's better than a trinity system? It makes the need for healing turn into an automatic thing. Like, you just play your dps game until you want to heal yourslef, and repeat times infinity. Without the need of a healer, the game surely will not make it overly hard to stay alive. Bosses don't focus on one target, but instead use aoe abilities. Everyone around takes damage. But, everyone can heal, and it looked that it was sometimes tied into their offensive skills, or it was simply, place your totem here. You don't heal your tank, you just heal all around you. That does NOT sound interesting, I'm sorry. It negates the need for the mechanic, which some of you see as a good thing. I feel it trivializes the whole combat system.





So to sum up what you guys have said: There is more flexibility in this system. People are more responsible for keeping themself alive. People being stupid will die, because the aoe heals aren't designed to save them, but merely help. I can understand the design thought. No tanks means everyone gets hit by the big baddy. "Yell all you want, you won't hold my attentions you little warrior. I will crush you all" No healers means there is no need to take people just cause they heal, and it doesn't make people do something they don't want to do just to succeed in an encounter. Ok.

But doesn't this worry you that to compensate for the possibility that no one will be healing others, that the encounters will simply be too easy? The reason I say it may trivialize combat is, if it's not "needed", then why worry? By needed, I mean as a dedicated role. A powerful "I will keep you alive, Brother" kind of role. If everyone can just heal themself, then it turns into, don't be stupid and forget to heal yourself. Conscious, thoughtful players will use attacks that have am AOE healing effect, or drop the standards to heal others around them. But will that be the majority? I have to say that I doubt it. And my guess is that the devs also are thinking, "Many people won't do that. They want to pound the boss, not help heal another player that can heal themself." It seems to me that if you simply move out of the fire, and don't forget to heal after the boss's AOE hits you a couple times, then you really have nothing to worry about. You know what I mean?

Your understanding of how healing works, while partially correct is missing the most important part. The part that makes this system work. Energy. All healing has a significant cooldown in addition to it costing your character a LARGE amount of energy. Energy is limited and all defensive moves require it. Dodging attacks, defensive skills, healing.

With energy being limited that stops the "i can just dps and heal myself with no concequence." Because no, if you do that YOU WILL DIE. I personally am looking forward to this system because it allows me and my friends to play the real classes we want to play rather than being like "ok who wants to roll a tank, dps, and healer, so that we don't have to rely on sucks." In addition i feel this system will weed out the sh***y players really quick. The ones that consistently die quickly are the ones with horrible energy management.

So in summary, you are missing the key to why the healing system they have works.

Hope this helps shed some light.

[ManiaCCC]

The game without tanks cannot exist. Either DPS are reduced to 1-2 abilities (like in Diablo), or boss is big dummy on the pole (like in most singleplayer games). In proper MMO you need the tank.

You never played pen and paper D&D ..right?

[Silentcry]

So... It's either GW2 or Tera Online when they go live I guess...

[georgevonfranken]

So trend of this thread is to have a massive wall of text right?

[Deleted]

The game without tanks cannot exist. Either DPS are reduced to 1-2 abilities (like in Diablo), or boss is big dummy on the pole (like in most singleplayer games). In proper MMO you need the tank.

Define proper MMO please. I take it you've only ever in your life played WoW so that is the only "proper" MMO in the world right? Everything is a clone of WoW. As has been said before GW1 had no tanks yet group of 12 players went into missions etc. Worked fine with no tank, oh and it was a proper MMO.

[DeanyKong]

So trend of this thread is to have a massive wall of text right?

Some people go to forums to have conversations.

[Auror]

Frankly i think gw2 is going to be the best-selling mmorpg ever , in terms of sells , not the amount of money NCsoft will make from it.
seriously , a game like this free to play forever once you buy it? rpg and mmorpg lovers will just buy it regardless of how better it is from anything else because what the heck , its a huge mmorpg for free with good general opinions.

[Trollsbane]

Great writeup, Snowy. Thanks
And you are right, Nalvaudi. Energy/mana costs will definately make the healing be a meaningful thing.
Georgevonfranken, you know you love it.

Thanks everyone. I am starting to see the big picture a little clearer now that a few details have the shading.

[Tholl]

Just found a GW2 'Traits' builder someone made from current public content. Pretty damn cool.

http://gw2.revgaming.net/Home/TraitsTool/

[Blazer]

Well done mate, good to see the game gets the attention it deserves.
BTW for people interested in more info check out the Guild wars 2 guru (forum) site.