Guild Wars 2. How is it?

[zinfamous]

I am personally intrigued by the non-existence of holy trinity and weapon-based skill set, but if I ended up not getting GW2 it's because of point B above. All of the descriptions I've read regarding combat in this game seems like playing a typical arcade fight game to me. I believe I've read that I have to actively move around and can dodge spells/arrows/etc. and I have to time my moves correctly to get the effect that I want.

This just doesn't appeal to me. If I wanted to play Mortal Kombat or Soul Calibur I'll play Mortal Kombat or Soul Calibur, not an MMORPG. I got burned on similar thing with Age of Conan and its supposedly fresh combat mechanic. It was advertized pretty much exactly like that. I tried the game, and the combat mechanic alone killed that game for me before everything else did.

Even in the official website they describe combat as: "Combat in Guild Wars 2 is flexible, fast-paced, and dynamic. You’ll achieve victory through timing, dodging, and quick thinking, not immobile number-crunching." Ugh.

So, fans, please tell me I misunderstood this combat thing.

No, you didn't really misunderstand it. dodging and movement is critical for survival in the game, for pretty much all classes, depending on the situation.

Of course, there are some that can currently rely less on it (warrior, as it now stands, can mostly sit there and bash a 4+ NPC mob into paste until it has to move), but there is also the class diversity that the dodge mechanic utlizes.

For example--the Mes (my favored class), is pretty much a "kite mobs until they die" strategy. Your primary utility is to cast illusions--clones of yourself, divided into 2 separate categories (clones and phantasms), that provide various utility use, or damage sources--phantasms being the beasts of the bunch. If you focus on this aspect of the class, you are casting a mob of clones all over the field, each drawing attention, or providing buffs/debuffs/damage whatever, to the NPCs and your local allies. You can explode these clones on mobs, using 1 of 4 skills that provide different debuffs (or buffs to allies), then bring them up again. Depending on how you spec, you can activate a trait that spawns a clone whenever you dodge while in combat--this is extremely useful. While it's still best to save your dodge for when you need it (you only get 2 before your dodge energy needs a recharge, so it's not like you are constantly dodging), it affords another level of strategy where you can pop a quick clone if you want to quickly stack some more damage by shattering them.

There are also various parry skills attached to certain weapons that almost all classes can use--essentially allowing a quick block, and class-based retaliation (mesmer has a parry that will spawn a clone with one weapon, and another that will cause a stun/daze) Further, many skills won't freeze you on parry--you can re-activate that skill while waiting for the block to simply blast out a separate attack.

With the squishier classes, you will be kiting and dodging quite a bit, but depending on how you build your character (and you are never locked in with your profession--there are at least 5 or more, maybe up to a dozen styles of play for each class that you can always readjust at any point), but some of them also offer some quick, spikey damage (like Mes) that involves jumping in and stealthing out of mobs, or all-out massive AoE damage (the ele).

 

[KMFJD]

No, you didn't really misunderstand it. dodging and movement is critical for survival in the game, for pretty much all classes, depending on the situation.

Of course, there are some that can currently rely less on it (warrior, as it now stands, can mostly sit there and bash a 4+ NPC mob into paste until it has to move), but there is also the class diversity that the dodge mechanic utlizes.

For example--the Mes (my favored class), is pretty much a "kite mobs until they die" strategy. Your primary utility is to cast illusions--clones of yourself, divided into 2 separate categories (clones and phantasms), that provide various utility use, or damage sources--phantasms being the beasts of the bunch. If you focus on this aspect of the class, you are casting a mob of clones all over the field, each drawing attention, or providing buffs/debuffs/damage whatever, to the NPCs and your local allies. You can explode these clones on mobs, using 1 of 4 skills that provide different debuffs (or buffs to allies), then bring them up again. Depending on how you spec, you can activate a trait that spawns a clone whenever you dodge while in combat--this is extremely useful. While it's still best to save your dodge for when you need it (you only get 2 before your dodge energy needs a recharge, so it's not like you are constantly dodging), it affords another level of strategy where you can pop a quick clone if you want to quickly stack some more damage by shattering them.

There are also various parry skills attached to certain weapons that almost all classes can use--essentially allowing a quick block, and class-based retaliation (mesmer has a parry that will spawn a clone with one weapon, and another that will cause a stun/daze) Further, many skills won't freeze you on parry--you can re-activate that skill while waiting for the block to simply blast out a separate attack.

With the squishier classes, you will be kiting and dodging quite a bit, but depending on how you build your character (and you are never locked in with your profession--there are at least 5 or more, maybe up to a dozen styles of play for each class that you can always readjust at any point), but some of them also offer some quick, spikey damage (like Mes) that involves jumping in and stealthing out of mobs, or all-out massive AoE damage (the ele).

Love the active combat, especially for a caster, having to stand still to cast spells got old fast in other games.

 

[cronos]

You did but you didn't...

No, you didn't really misunderstand it...

Thanks for the explanation guys. You were able to confirm what I was worried about, but yet make me even more interested in the game

The truth is, the combat sounds like too much work for me. It may be exciting for most of you but it's kind of a turn off for me. I'm just too lazy to learn this new 'active combat' system.

I suspect I'll eventually end up getting this game, although I'm in no rush to do so.

 

[zinfamous]

Thanks for the explanation guys. You were able to confirm what I was worried about, but yet make me even more interested in the game

The truth is, the combat sounds like too much work for me. It may be exciting for most of you but it's kind of a turn off for me. I'm just too lazy to learn this new 'active combat' system.

I suspect I'll eventually end up getting this game, although I'm in no rush to do so.

it really hurts my fingers to be honest, as it forces you into strange w+d or e rather constantly, + shift (i mapped dodge to shift, which makes all the difference for me), then the typical need for 1-0, and with this game, and depending on your class, the various Fkey setups.

so yeah....constantly in motion is a bit of a standard action for this game, and with poor ergonomics, can really wreck your hands. :\

 

[diesbudt]

Thanks for the explanation guys. You were able to confirm what I was worried about, but yet make me even more interested in the game

The truth is, the combat sounds like too much work for me. It may be exciting for most of you but it's kind of a turn off for me. I'm just too lazy to learn this new 'active combat' system.

I suspect I'll eventually end up getting this game, although I'm in no rush to do so.

Yea, would have explained better, but its kinda hard.

Like explaining what the color purple looks like to a blind person. Until you experience yourself, you wont get a perfect explaination. But yes it is more "active" than most MMOs out there. Though WoW raids are getting closer to some boss fights being almost all movement.

 

[imaheadcase]

(A) - The alt characters are fun as you get a feel of how different each profession is and each one can have a different story. Plus the PvP is a blast and can take a while to get anywhere achieveable. So it only has 0 replay value if you require a gear "carrot on the stick" from max level raiding.

(B) - Easy? When has an MMO not been easy to level? I have never once seen an MMO in which leveling wasn't easy. To claim the game is easy, I hope you beat each dungeon on exploration mode (especially AC ) and have attained enough wins in PvP for one of the nice titles.

a. All the classes are pretty much the same. The story for each is no something for replay value at all. No one wants to play a game to level 80 for a story. The WvW is "ok" its not a blast, its pretty much zerg vs zerg and with all the healing in the game hardly anyone EVER dies.

b. When has a MMO never been easy???? You must of never played any MMO post WoW. You know how you gained Exp in older MMO? You did guests that could take a hour to wait for a spawn, grind grind grind that last half exp before you dinged. Thats it. Nothing else.

Used to be everyone knew who was the top crafter, because only a handfull mastered crafting. Unlike now when lots of people already maxed it. Same goes for PvP, everyone knew who was the best in a certain class, now its all just a bunch of cannon fodder. No one stands out because its not a priority to compare in gw2.

Gw2 is made from the ground up to be a casual game that anyone from kids can play to older adults. It does not try to be anything other than a casual game for those who have a few hours of play time a day .

 

[Anubis]

i think you mean Pre WoW,

 

[diesbudt]

a. All the classes are pretty much the same. The story for each is no something for replay value at all. No one wants to play a game to level 80 for a story. The WvW is "ok" its not a blast, its pretty much zerg vs zerg and with all the healing in the game hardly anyone EVER dies.

b. When has a MMO never been easy???? You must of never played any MMO post WoW. You know how you gained Exp in older MMO? You did guests that could take a hour to wait for a spawn, grind grind grind that last half exp before you dinged. Thats it. Nothing else.

Used to be everyone knew who was the top crafter, because only a handfull mastered crafting. Unlike now when lots of people already maxed it. Same goes for PvP, everyone knew who was the best in a certain class, now its all just a bunch of cannon fodder. No one stands out because its not a priority to compare in gw2.

Gw2 is made from the ground up to be a casual game that anyone from kids can play to older adults. It does not try to be anything other than a casual game for those who have a few hours of play time a day .

Story is not the same. Each race has completely seperate stories. Then your choices you make on character selection change smaller aspects of the story, such as (which invention did you make as an asura = 3 different story arcs, on what bad thing that invention ends up doing.)

Also (if you think each character is similar enough in combat, that is far from the truth). If people find it fun to play 2-3 different characters that IS replay value. replay value isn't about how long until 1 character can no longer do anything, replay value is how often can you play the game again (same character or different character) until it no longer interests you.)

WvWvW is fun if you enjoy PvP much like AV and battlegrounds in WoW. But that isn't the endgame pvp as your level scales to 80 in that zone. The organized 8v8 PvP (much like GW1 GvG) is where it is at. In which you need to win so many matches to actually start reaching pvp "ranks" (aka pvp endgame)

I played Everquest and Asheron's call. Both "First Generation" MMOs. Way Before WoW.

And yes they were LONG. not HARD. Difference in words there. All i had to do was run around and kill things for xp. Sure leveling took damn forever after level 35ish in those games. But, I rarly ever died. I rarly struggled to keep up with any fight. They were easy to level, just long. And long isn't a good MMO strategy anymore.

There were only quests for items in that game not xp, and some of them were really boring. Oh hey find a rare firestone in this cave that has maybe 5 monsters, but requires you not getting lost. Alright your group of 20 people made it there. Each person must take turns picking one up. 5 minute respawn. So we had to sit there an hour and half, just sit there and protect everyone as the 2 respawning monsters would respawn every 2 minutes.

Every MMO is more casual today. You can play WoW or Rift for 45min-2 hours a day 3-4 days a week, and it wouldnt be long before you had enough to play "end game". However if you wish to excel in any MMO "end game" tehre is plenty of things. in GW2 it will take almost a month to collect and farm and get the stuff needed for the best items in the game, not including the PvP titles that will take forever to earn.

So yes, if leveling to max and 'good enough' for end game dungeons is the "end of the game". All MMOs are going to be considered casual.

 

[krnmastersgt]

a. All the classes are pretty much the same. The story for each is no something for replay value at all. No one wants to play a game to level 80 for a story. The WvW is "ok" its not a blast, its pretty much zerg vs zerg and with all the healing in the game hardly anyone EVER dies.

The classes can all do roughly the same roles depending on how you set them up, but they all do it via different mechanics.

The stories are really well made, while they do belong in more of a single player type game they add a decent amount of value to the game, and your friends can tag along with you on your story. I plan on eventually playing pretty much every story combination there is just to see all the different developments.

People hardly die in WvW? Were you just doing really short scale skirmishes? In WvW there's typically a ball of players and if you get caught near it and they aren't friendlies, prepare for a pretty quick death. Organizing a small group in WvW can also turn things around pretty quickly if you've ever seen commanders in action, or just played with friends and coordinated assaults/defenses.

b. When has a MMO never been easy???? You must of never played any MMO post WoW. You know how you gained Exp in older MMO? You did guests that could take a hour to wait for a spawn, grind grind grind that last half exp before you dinged. Thats it. Nothing else.

Used to be everyone knew who was the top crafter, because only a handfull mastered crafting. Unlike now when lots of people already maxed it. Same goes for PvP, everyone knew who was the best in a certain class, now its all just a bunch of cannon fodder. No one stands out because its not a priority to compare in gw2.

Gw2 is made from the ground up to be a casual game that anyone from kids can play to older adults. It does not try to be anything other than a casual game for those who have a few hours of play time a day .

If you think waiting for an hour for a monster to spawn, just to finally complete a quest is fun then you have a weird sense of fun/enjoyment. What about when it finally spawns but just as you get there it's already downed, so you have to wait another hour for just that single quest, not so fun. I've played a few games like that and while I was more hardcore about it and was fine with it, I wouldn't exactly call that fun.

And yes many older MMO's people who cared about PvP at all would know who was best, or the best crafters in the game, etc. Why isn't that so prevalent with modern MMO's? Because 99% of people don't want to put in hundreds to thousands of hours to max crafting on a character as that would mean the vast majority of players wouldn't bother and just buy goods off the few that bothered to master it, not everyone has time to play all day long.

Another issue with that is that those games had smaller populations, GW2 has a few hundred thousand players, I don't think all of them are going to know X person is the best in PvP. For starters there's time-zone differences, massive level gaps, a huge continent to explore, instanced stories/dungeons. And most of all, people don't care, why? Because if you're the undisputed BEST in PvP it means 1 of 2 things, either you have some incredibly fine tuned reflexes and thought processing and it just allows you to out-think your opponent. This would be great but realistically it's more likely option 2, that person just has gear that is a cut above the rest because they invested so much time into getting it, and they just use the most efficient theorycrafted builds. Basically boring stagnant PvP as just having an efficient build + top tier gear can almost ensure your dominance, and it's unlikely to change.

Fighting AI isn't all that interesting after a while because there's only so many scripted responses it can have, once you realize all the flaws and defects it cannot adapt whereas another person in PvP can and should adapt (unless they like dying). But many MMO's have their PvP structured in a way where people can easily buy their way into the top rung of power, and it's not about outwitting your opponent it's just about memorizing the popular builds and their counters.

 

[darkewaffle]

If the combat isn't fun for you it is one of the few possibilities where:

(A) The holy trinity was your comfort zone, and it isn't enjoyable leaving that zone as everything in combat was more or less predictable, and only 1 person had to worry about the groups survival and not each individual person. (Did my first dungeon and I came to realize how difficult it is to NOT die w/o the holy trinity)

(B) Do not like the more "live action kite feel" from Diablo 3, and would rather have a stand still attack and only move if needed combat (Much like what WoW has become)

(C) You do not fully grasp the combos that can be done with weapon switching and/or chosing skills that compliment each other and the weapon skills to form insane combos.

I personally love the combat, I would be lying if I said I didnt miss the holy trinity in my dungeon run, but overall the PvE in a dungeon felt like a PvP battle and was still fun.

This "trinity" thing is a bunch of seriously overblown rhetoric. Personally I think building classes that take up distinct roles and piece together is one of the great draws of MMOs because when your character can't do it all it really encourages players to work together and generally allows party play to really have different/unique dynamics relative to solo play. All that's happened in GW2 is character homogenization; everybody is essentially DPS with a heal button. That's it. To me that's a regression, but really has nothing to do with what about the game is not particularly fun for me either.

While I think dodge is done fairly well, I still don't find the combat to be that engaging. I think it's because a lot of abilities are "all in ones". Maybe this is Guardian specific, I only have experience with that class so far so I can't say. But I have one button that is AoE CC, AoE damage, and healing all in one. I have one button that is a defensive buff and AoE damage. I have one button that's a CC and an Inflict all in one. I have one button that's AoE damage and an AoE cleanse at the same time. I dunno, I think because so many different 'effects' are rolled into each ability it feels to me like I end up doing the same thing (even though it may very well be for different reasons) with each encounter. I think it's the opposite of the problem I felt WoW and to some extent SWTOR had, which is too many abilities/too much fragmentation of them.

I don't think there's that much to grasp frankly. If you're referring to the actual "combos" well they're interesting but poorly documented and most of the time simply seem to just add passive effects to the existing ability rather than actually changing it. They're nice and amusing but so far don't really seem potent enough to really care about except as a happy accident. If you're just referring to abilities that work well together, well yea, so I can press 2 and then swap and press 3 for 'focus' damage but my problem with weapon switching is essentially just how it feels. It reminds me of three different mechanics from three different games that I really just didn't like using; stance dancing in WoW (warrior), equipment set swapping in FFXI (TP/haste/accuracy/WS/enfeeble/etc) and even just magic find swapping in D3. I just don't like the feel of it. I think I'd much rather have static weapon abilities [in combat] and a greater variety and number of slot skills in exchange.

For those that are very "meh" on the questing/dynamic event aspects: Have you hung around to actually work through some of the event chains? early enough in Kessex--the bandit fort, the centaurs vs Seraph throughout central and western Kessex? The thing that really works, is you have to "stick around." Listen to the NPCs, complete one, and then follow where it takes you to the next event. It really does offer some wide-ranged "world changing" if you follow them through

Yea they're not all bad. I did get through some/all/most/something of a centaur event in Harathi (I think) earlier today. It was pretty fast paced and the rewards were good. I find that the text notices rarely (never?) have an accompanying map indicator though, so they can be hard to keep track of until you're familiar with an area. I'm just not fond of the constant zergzergzerg (which seem to be the majority of events), but with zone population and combat as they are I don't suppose there's much you can do about that anyway.

 

[diesbudt]

<snip>

So a little of all 3 then it sounds like?

I like building a character to do roles too (which you can, based on traits) just not requiring to always have a certain position or class to actually play in a group.

For the longest time in WoW, if you had a rogue there was a good chance you were not wanted. Melee dps had so many weak points. What fun is it playign a class one would enjoy but cant play because a lot of groups want 100% efficiency and rogues failed at that? (old WoW playstyle, BC > early Wotlk)

If I was to spec my elementalist at 80 with 30 water, 20 air, and 20 arcane. I would have a lot of healing strength on my character. Add in gear that focuses on healing and then using a staff that has strong water healing abilities and tada, I can consider myself a good healer for the group not just myself, which can also switch and do adequate damage when not needing to heal. (basically the group relies on everyone to help out when needed and not just 1 healer to heal and 1 tank to not die, which I see as progression. As if a tank or healer died in other games, the leader would just say "whipe it and run back" )

(Earth and water and arcane would be used for one to "take a punch and live / tank idea")

The combos I was referring to is if a ranger shoots an arrow through an aoe that is on fire (like a fire wall) it will catch fire and do much extra damage. (many other combos out there, havent really taken time to look yet)

I love the weapon switching myself, especially as an elementalist. I don't know how many fights I have needed to switch elements to make sure things died or I didnt die.

 

[Keeper]

it really hurts my fingers to be honest, as it forces you into strange w+d or e rather constantly, + shift (i mapped dodge to shift, which makes all the difference for me), then the typical need for 1-0, and with this game, and depending on your class, the various Fkey setups.

so yeah....constantly in motion is a bit of a standard action for this game, and with poor ergonomics, can really wreck your hands. :\

Tonight I am reprograming Heal (6) and chat/examine (F) to my mouse buttonns 4 & 5....
LOL I just unlocked spots 7 and 8 last night.

DAMN that stinks. I need Johnny Bench hands to get there.
I wonder how a gaming keyboard would work?

 

[diesbudt]

Tonight I am reprograming Heal (6) and chat/examine (F) to my mouse buttonns 4 & 5....
LOL I just unlocked spots 7 and 8 last night.

DAMN that stinks. I need Johnny Bench hands to get there.
I wonder how a gaming keyboard would work?

I have a cheap gaming keyboard that actually came with 1-0 on the left side of the keys in 2 5 button columns.

 

[zinfamous]

So a little of all 3 then it sounds like?

I like building a character to do roles too (which you can, based on traits) just not requiring to always have a certain position or class to actually play in a group.

yep. I don't think it's that anyone dislikes the trinity--I like it fine for strategy purposes, but it is highly confining for a segment of players. No tank available for your raid? Tough shit, no one else in your raid can play either, because the fulcrum of your trinity is unavailable (b/c no one plays tanks any more). That's simply what that model does to you.

standing around spamming for pugs for an hour or so and not actually raiding is, in my mind, not actually playing. Others may see that differently. Not to mention that going with an unknown factor--a pug for an important role like tank could ruin your evening something fierce.

The lack of trinity doesn't always work for the best: yes, boss fights tend to be zergfest in open world (but certainly not in dungeons, so it almost does become a non-issue in direct comparison), but mobs are still difficult and require thinking. And, you can actually play the game. The most important factor, if you ask me

Tonight I am reprograming Heal (6) and chat/examine (F) to my mouse buttonns 4 & 5....
LOL I just unlocked spots 7 and 8 last night.

DAMN that stinks. I need Johnny Bench hands to get there.
I wonder how a gaming keyboard would work?

Lol--Johnny Bench hands! I have to admit, I'm generally quite adept at using 1-0 for skill activation, but I don't know if I've gotten older and lazier, but I've developed some rather deplorable habits: click for skills 6-0 D: (luckily, those aren't exactly time-intensive activations/requirements). at least i"m still targeting and cycling targets with my keyboard.

I need a mouse that can properly map extra buttons (I don't have those extra buttons, for one :\)

 

[gladiatorua]

I currently play grenade engineer. This is where control is tough. NO auto-attack. Main five skills(and F2-F4) are ground-target.
Had to reassign all skill-buttons(1-0, F1-F4) to the mouse, that I bought expecting this kind of thing.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I currently play grenade engineer. This is where control is tough. NO auto-attack. Main five skills(and F2-F4) are ground-target.
Had to reassign all skill-buttons(1-0, F1-F4) to the mouse, that I bought expecting this kind of thing.

You can select the "fast casting option" and then all the AoE skills will be cast at the location of your mouse pointer if that is your thig.

 

[HexiumVII]

If someone was a "huge" fan of the first, i would just get the next one.

I played GW1, it was pretty fun for 10 levels. Then i kinda got really bored and didn't like it much.

The graphics/mechanics feel very much like GW1, so if you love GW1, you'll love GW2 for that alone.

At that expect it to be a $60 D2 style game, not a $12/month full MMO. I think you'll be surprised at how it can actually go up with the "full" MMOs.

Having lots of fun right now playing 1-2 hours a night. Feels like i'm accomplishing something at least rather than waiting around for parties like some other games. I think the most important is finding a fun guild, which i am still doing.

 

[zinfamous]

I think the most important is finding a fun guild, which i am still doing.