The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[SuicideBunny]

when talking about customization, don't forget traits and trait slots.

 

[Berekän]

but there's still a lot of room for improvement in deck building, you can easily make a subpar build in PvP if you don't take complementary skills. Every weapon has a different "role" to it, and so, playing a Guardian with a staff it's very different than playing him with a mace, the choices in your skills (even in your healing skill) depending on your weapon(s) and what is going to be your focus can make or break a build.

A few questions about this: does this mean that I can change weapons while in battle and get a different set of skills? Like thumping an enemy with my mace attack skills for a while and then retreating to support with my staff?

How many spots of the skill bar correspond to weapon skills? Can these weapon-based skills be switched (for other weapon skills or for other non-weapon skills)?

That exactly, you can have two sets of weapons equiped and can switch them anytime during combat, which gives you another set of skills belonging to that weapon set. Of course, there's a cooldown to weapon switching.

The first five spots of your build belong to your weapon set combination. If you take a two handed weapon it fills the five, if you're using a one handed weapon the first three spots are those from your main weapon and the other two are dependant on your off-hand. (Although the thief also changes the third skill with certain combinations, can't say I've seen any other class doing this though). The weapon skils can't be changed, you can just choose your other five skills.

That coupled with the more dynamic combat system that makes choices during battle much more relevant.

And this is where I draw the retardo line. How are choices during battle much more relevant (you make no comparison to anything so I'll assume you mean GW1)? Was movement and strategic positioning a non-issue in the first? Did your skill choices, timing and usage sort of not matter that much because the combat was less dynamic?

To make it clear, one of the design decisions which killed my interest was when I heard of the dodge mechanic. Lord help me, I've tried to like what I hear about GW2 after spending some 700 hours playing the first. So what the flying fuck is up with this new twitchy, actiony combat? Why isn't dodging still a mechanic derived from your chosen skills, rather than player skill (I know you could dodge stuff by moving in the first too, but only projectiles and AoEs)?

Well, positioning and timing were very important in the original Guild Wars, no argue about that, but the more dynamic combat stresses this more. Things like the unrestricted terrain (you can jump to a roof and shoot your mêlée enemies from there), the combo skills (you can use your flame wall next to your archers so they get flame arrows, or use it to block a hallway and damage the enemies there) or the dodging make it, imo, a bit more "micro" intensive.

 

[Excidium]

when talking about customization, don't forget traits and trait slots.

And equipment modification.

 

[SuicideBunny]

speaking of which, i found a piece of armor with a set rune last time. 'twas neat. didn't know sets made it into the game, much less that they were done via runes.

 

[Average Manatee]

Not related to GW2, but GW1 just got an update that reduced the grind of PvE title-based skills considerably. Now the skills max at half the max title rank. Considering the exponential effort required for each successive level this is like a 90% reduction in grind (actually 100% for most titles that you gain through story events). Fucking finally they fixed the disastrous mistake that started with Nightfall.

 

[Urist McLurker]

Not related to GW2, but GW1 just got an update that reduced the grind of PvE title-based skills considerably. Now the skills max at half the max title rank. Considering the exponential effort required for each successive level this is like a 90% reduction in grind (actually 100% for most titles that you gain through story events). Fucking finally they fixed the disastrous mistake that started with Nightfall.

Wait what.
So the community for GW1 has been grinding for like, a year or two now(?) so they have the max-leet-awesome-shit for GW2, and then Arenanet just change it so that the grind-fest for the PvE titles wasn't needed and every poor sod who wasted their life grinding for the titles wasn't just wasting their life by grinding, but wasting their life in the actual context of the game?


Hahaha, oh wow. Maybe I've completely misunderstood, but isn't that going to be more disastrous than leaving the crappy system in?

 

[Hoaxmetal]

completely misunderstood

 

[SuicideBunny]

a) 6 years. pve skills were introduced with factions.
b) it does not affect titles, it affects skills which are tied to titles instead of attributes. those skills now need less title grind for max effect, so yes, you completely misunderstood.

 

[Urist McLurker]

Oh good. I was hoping I had.

 

[Average Manatee]

Plus the unlockable items only require 30/50 HoM anyway, which can be done without much of the grindy stuff. Above that just gives fluff titles in GW2. If it's anything like GW1 the unlocks won't be much more than a convenience.

 

[Berekän]

New Beta Weekend Announced:

Beta Weekend Event 2 will begin on Friday, June 8th, at noon PDT (GMT-7) and will run until Sunday, June 10th, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).


If that isn’t enough to get you all bursting with excitement, here is some more news:
Your existing beta characters have not been deleted, and you will be able to continue right where you left off! This means that enterprising players with characters level 35 or higher will be able to test their mettle against the explorable version of the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon!

[...]

We have listened intently to all of your feedback from our first Beta Weekend Event, and we’ve made great strides toward resolving many of the issues you’ve helped us identify. These include party movement into overflow servers, chat functionality, key bindings, server stability, performance, and many more that we will detail in the near future.

 

[Ulminati]

I regret that I have but two BROfists to give Arenanet

 

[Elim]

Do we have a Codex guild on Desolation?

 

[Berekän]

We do.

 

[Mangoose]

Since Annie is back, are there any questions we want to ask Annie? She says to PM her. Or I can collate and PM her. If we have any. Only question I can think of - on 32 hours of sleep deprivation - is WHEN IS THE RELEASE DATE?

 

[Angthoron]

That's probably one of the few she can't answer

 

[yazaga]

My question is this : Can we expect to have at least some of the amount of the depth that GW1 PVP offered. What i didnt see so far from all the previews is at least some kind of the deckbuilding that was so nice in GW1 ? Hell, even LOL that is universaly accepted as " noobish " game and " easy-mode " have some kind of rudimentary deck building in that u have to select a carry , a tank, a support and have some basic synergies between the heroes. I understand that GW1 was too complicated at times ( even i quit because of that ) and also the audience today is different than it was in 2005, but can u at least show some of the depth of the current system ? Also why only 1 mode for all the PVP maps ? Is it true that this is a direct consequence of the lack of healer, which would make all other game modes ( captere the flag, deathmatch ) pointless because any kind of confrontation in 5vs 5 would end in seconds ?

 

[Ulminati]

My question is this : Can we expect to have at least some of the amount of the depth that GW1 PVP offered. What i didnt see so far from all the previews is at least some kind of the deckbuilding that was so nice in GW1 ? Hell, even LOL that is universaly accepted as " noobish " game and " easy-mode " have some kind of rudimentary deck building in that u have to select a carry , a tank, a support and have some basic synergies between the heroes.

You have 1 heal skill, 3 utlity skills and an elite skill, plus the skills your weapon gives you. Off the top of my head, each class has 4-5 different heal skills, of which they can only slot one. some may give buffs, some may be AoE - the engineer gets a heal gun that can shoot health at friends or tranquilizer darts at enemies which replaces whatever weapon they have equipped while toggled on). There are a good 20-30 different utility skills, of which you can pick only 3. Some of them have a secondary ability accessed with F1-F5, others give you a "kit" of extra abilities that replace your main weapon. The elite skill is basically like an utility skill, only more AWESOME and you can only pick one. I think there are ~10 elite skills per class. (Again, at work so my number may be off. you should be able to wiki up the exact number from the beta by now).

So. 1 main hand (possibly 2-hand) weapon, 0-3 off-hand options per main hand weapon, 1 of 4 heal skills, 3 of 40 utility skills, 1 of 10 elite skills. Sounds like deckbuilding to me. While every class theoretically has a heal, it is definately possible to build some as dedicated buffers/healers with far better healing output. All specializations still specialize to some degree, it's just easier to dabble now.

 

[Angthoron]

^ Plus timing and teamplay is everything, Guardian popping a defense wall and some AoE heals while the rest gather in it and heal up/regroup is in my opinion much deeper than healspamming flag carrier for half an hour.

 

[Ulminati]

Plus comboing skills like elementalist flamewall + ranger arrow requires handy positioning too.

 

[Black_Willow]

PLUS trait points and traits. People tend to forget that instead of simplistic "12 fire magic, 12 energy storage" from GW1 we now have plethora of primary (60 per class) and secondary traits. That adds a whole new layer of complexity.

 

[Average Manatee]

I don't count "use these two skills together for moar damage" to be much depth, and there isn't much to suggest 60 traits won't boil down to 2 worthwhile ones.

^ Plus timing and teamplay is everything, Guardian popping a defense wall and some AoE heals while the rest gather in it and heal up/regroup is in my opinion much deeper than healspamming flag carrier for half an hour.

Healspamming a flag carrier *efficiently* while protecting NPCs while splitting while other shit is going on has a lot more depth than balling inside the GW2-equivalent of a ward.

 

[Angthoron]

To my GRORIOUSU bros: GW2 has received a 5 gig update, so if you intend to take part on BWE, I'd recommend starting the DL nao.

I don't count "use these two skills together for moar damage" to be much depth, and there isn't much to suggest 60 traits won't boil down to 2 worthwhile ones.

^ Plus timing and teamplay is everything, Guardian popping a defense wall and some AoE heals while the rest gather in it and heal up/regroup is in my opinion much deeper than healspamming flag carrier for half an hour.

Healspamming a flag carrier *efficiently* while protecting NPCs while splitting while other shit is going on has a lot more depth than balling inside the GW2-equivalent of a ward.

Whatever dude, whatever. If you come seeking flaws and deviations from your ideal model, then really, there's no point in this discussion. The model is solid and effective, if it's not what you want, then eh it isn't. You might like the dedicated role system, I might be tired as fuck of it by now - I've a couple of friends that are like "BUT I LIKE TO TANK/HEAL" and no amount of explaining benefits of a different system will persuade them otherwise, same might be the case for you in some other ways.

...And re: traits, there's a fair bit of useful/situational things to pick from. Obviously I've not tried efficience of all of them yet, but it's certainly beyond the WoW level of skill trees, for one. So deck building does seem to exist.

 

[Ulminati]

I don't count arguments that oppose my preconceptions as valid, and there isn't much to suggest I'm not butthurt about not having a beta invite.

Guild wars 2 is not for you.

 

[Average Manatee]

I don't count arguments that oppose my preconceptions as valid, and there isn't much to suggest I'm not butthurt about not having a beta invite.

Guild wars 2 is not for you.

Guild wars 1 had so much extra depth because Sever Artery combined with Gash for massive damage, and you could even substitute another source of bleeding if you wanted to (for hundreds of possibilities). Except it didn't add much extra depth, either a skill is balanced for the combo or individually, the other usage is broken. GW2 will have even less available combos, so it certainly won't add anything new. At best it might give a fraction of the old system.

lol @ you thinking I could care at all about an MMO beta. Even if it was the best shit ever I couldn't be arsed to play it until at least a year down the road. Beta testing an MMO is for the peasants.