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Nierro
 Novice Member
Joined: 6/23/05
Time flies like an arrow; |
I started following GW2 at some point last year after having given up on MMOs for some time because of their lack of innovation, overall repetitiveness, focus on gear accumulation rather than player skill, and some other factors. I was attracted by the games touted reintroduction of 3 faction siege-weapon-keep-seizing PvP, dynamic events/questless system, different combat, rewards for exploration, and the abandonment of rigid class definitions, despite not having enjoyed GW1. I knew it wasn't a sandbox and I knew I wouldn't be drawn into the lore, but I have less time to dedicate to video games and was fine pre-ordering a game I knew I wouldn't be consumed by. Eventually BWE rolled around and my pragmatic expectations were met but not exceeded. After the last BWE, I think I've played enough to get a good feel for the game and give it a fair "reviewette" from the perspective of leveling 1-20 as a mesmer this last BWE and playing in both battlegrounds and WvWvW. First off, I was impressed by the level of character customization in both playstyle, during the character creation process, and with armor dyes. You can choose from a lot of different faces, hairstyles, etc, with many different sliders which allow you a wide variety of options influencing your characters appearance. The dye system allows you to choose the color of different aspects of your armor based on a pool of dye colors which can be expanded by purchasing or finding additional dyes. Each class allows for a variety of different unique playstyles based upon combinations of weapons which correspond to unique abilities, and (with the exception of engineers who swap between kits instead), the ability to swap between weapon sets. Your character also has access to one of three healing skills, three unique slot skills out of a largish pool of these skills, and one of three "elite" skills. Additionally you dispense points between different trait trees to augment existing skills and weapon sets which range from passive improvements to things like "creating a clone upon dodging". To illustrate differences between intra-class playstyles I'll describe two of my mesmer builds: As a mesmer I initially played using a sword/torch with swaps to a great sword. The sword/torch combination allowed me to have burst damage, access to vulnerability debuffs which decreases opponent armor, a clone which snared my opponent, the ability to blind and disappear, and a clone which casts a confusion spell. The great sword allowed me to have access to melee illusions which snare foes and cause melee damage, a ranged direct damage spell, a powerful ranged ability which applies a five-stack of vulnerability, and knockback ability. Overall I chose traits which improved melee damage and chose slot skills which gave me access to direct damage abilities, improvements to my vulnerability debuffs, and stealth. Mesmers have access to three relatively benign clones and/or less benign illusions who use actual damaging abilities on enemies, and have four abilities which destroy these for different effects. This is known as shattering. These effects compound based on the amount of clones you shatter, and include direct damage, stacks of confusion, "dazing" (a silence ability), and an ability which allows you to evade all damage. For the aforementioned build I usually shattered my clones and illusions primarily in order to use the evasion ability and the dazing ability. I would have used the direct damage shatter more if it didn't feel gimped. Later on I decided on trying a mesmer with more of a ranged focus which emphasized the confusion ability, which causes substantial damage upon enemy skill activation. For this build I chose a scepter/torch primarily for the ability to apply stacks of confusion, and a staff as a secondary weapon for an ability which gave me, among other things, the possibility to inflict more confusion. I chose several traits which augmented slot skills to also inflict confusion, and shattered my illusions to give an enemy three additional stacks of the spell. I had great success with this build in PvP, as I was often able to stack confusion up to 10 times on an enemy who would essentially kill himself by trying to damage me. The combat in GW2 definitely feels different from other MMOs, and requires that you pay more attention to every fight. Even a one-on-one fight with a monster the same level as you can prove fatal. I loved and appreciated the challenge this presented, even though you can usually avoid death by utilizing the dodge mechanic effectively and kiting. However if you don't you then enter "downed state", in which you lay immobilized on the ground and try and finish off a foe with 5 different unique downed state abilities. If you kill an enemy during downed state you come back to life. This feature seemed to have been implemented for no other reason than to mitigate the otherwise challenging combat, and I have mixed feelings about it. I definitely appreciated it during times when I accidently aggro'd more than one enemy, managed to finish one off, and then was able kill the other two. However other times I felt myself playing less cautiously than I otherwise might have had this feature not been implemented. All classes have the ability to revive players in downstate, which encourages cooperation and prevents wipes. However a number of times I would feel resentful if I killed an enemy player 1 on 1 only to have three of his/her friends show up, kill me, and then revive him. Questing is also different from other MMOs. There aren't any quest hubs, but rather "renown hearts", dynamic events, skill challenges, and a central individualized story quest. Renown hearts are essentially individual npc faction quests which require you to do a combination of standard MMO quest aspects an arbitrary amount of times for an experience bonus and access to their "karma shop", from which you can buy a limited amount of gear or other items. You accumulate karma, a sort of non-tradable currency, through completing all quests. Renown heart quests are basically the same as conventional MMO quests, but don't require you to scamper around the map to have them assigned and then later turn them in. Renown hearts aren't a huge deviation from conventional MMO quests, but streamline the process and eliminate at least some monotony. Dynamic events are a series of usually player-triggered quests which involve things like killing a giant boss, fighting off waves of enemies, escorting something, clearing something, and collecting something, primarily alongside other players. I loved that these quests fostered cooperation and brought players together for a common cause. That being said, these were rarely challenging because players would often zerg and easily accomplish the objective. Some of these dynamic events had several stages and unfolded in interesting ways which made them more enjoyable, but again there was usually little challenge in completing them if enough players showed up (as they frequently did), and many felt very similar to each other. Skill challenges are quests which are marked on the map and award skill points to unlock slot skills. These ranged from simply clicking them, to defeating one or several enemies, to (in one instance) completing a jump puzzle as ghost ballistae fired upon you. These, if attempted solo, could be challenging but not impossible. The central story quest is tailored based upon selections made during character creation and is instanced with voice-overs and cut-scenes. These were extremely disappointing. The story of my mesmer, which I won’t detail because I don’t want to spoil anything, was interesting in the beginning but I loathed the cut-scenes which felt completely unnecessary. The dialogue was awful and often cringe-worthy. The missions themselves weren’t anything special aside from being frustratingly difficult. I stopped doing them after facing some ghost-king who slaughtered the NPCs who were there to support me very quickly, and regenerated health as I kited him for 15 MINUTES without him dying. The stories I played on my other characters were equally as lackluster and frustrating. As a DAoC veteran the main draw of GW2 was its PvP. GW2 has a huge three faction PvP battleground as well as two mini-battlegrounds (think WoW's AB on a smaller scale). The two battlegrounds were fun, fast paced, and you could really feel the difference you made as an individual. That said there definitely need to be more battlegrounds in order to have that aspect of the PvP retain its appeal. I was pleasantly surprised by the scope and complexity of the three faction PvP system, but was disappointed by how easily one faction could dominate. I only played three or so hours of WvW and don’t understand all of the dynamics perfectly, but I attacked and defended keeps as well as supply points, manned siege weaponry, and fought in some pretty decent sized battles. I definitely felt echoes of DAoC, and for that reason alone I would recommend this game to a DAoC vet or anyone else interested in this particular feature of GW2. Additionally all the classes seemed to be very well balanced and I never felt like I lost a fight due to being out-geared or underpowered. Overall the game felt very polished and fun. In a sea of mediocre MMOs this one definitely stands out. It brings some new blood to the genre, though not as much as I think it needs. My main complaints about the game have to do with things inhibiting my own individual immersion such as annoying voice acting, huge interface, the graphics style (could be because I play on medium/low settings?), uninteresting lore, and other minor things. These are personal preferences and relatively unimportant gripes when contrasted with how many good things this game offers. I am definitely looking forward to the next BWEs and eventually launch, despite knowing that the game doesn't offer an experience which fills the gaps left by DAoC and pre-Wrath WoW, and will likely have a limited lasting appeal to me personally. Note: I didn't review crafting because I didn't have time to play around with it.  |
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6/14/12 1:31:00 AM#2
A long, but fair reviewette, I think. I can respect the opinions in it, even if my own don't always align completely! Games are, of course, a personal experience, and people can get varying amounts of mileage from it. Not sure you would have been impressed by the crafting (Though I liked it because it had a little exploratory element, and it actually makes useful things, which somehow impresses me when equipment is actually useful from crafting), it's not TOO far off of normal crafting. Only major feature other than that I think you overlooked would be the exploration. I think for people who like to explore nooks and crannies and discover things, it has a surprising amount of value. :) Not sure if you didn't explore, exploring isn't your thing, or you just didn't notice anything interesting (A list of achievements showed I missed a LOT of hidden areas, apparently. Though still no idea where they all are!) |
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6/14/12 1:41:26 AM#3
Originally posted by Nierro
I totally agree...the cut-scenes need to be cut out of the game. They are uncomfortable to watch because of the eye movements and the voice-overs don't do the game justice. Sorry Anet, cut-scenes just don't work as designed. Anet please take them out and save yourselves a lot of heartache and $. |
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Alot
 Hard Core Member
Joined: 1/04/11
Minister of Propaganda for GW2 Fascist-Capitalist Party |
6/14/12 1:45:59 AM#4
Those cutscenes are already in game, they can't save money on them by romiving them right now. And besides, improving the cutscenes seems like a better solution than removing them completely. |
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6/14/12 1:46:04 AM#5
Originally posted by garretth Too late now, after all the millions they've spent on motion capture, amazing lip-syncing technology and VO. At least they have the decency to provide a "Skip" button for those that detest the cutscenes.
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Nierro
Novice Member
Joined: 6/23/05
Time flies like an arrow; |
Originally posted by Meowhead Thanks for bringing my attention to this! I didn't know there were any hidden areas whatsoever, and figured that the points of interest, dynamic events, and skill challenges were the only things that encouraged exploration. I'll definitely take my time and try and find some of these hidden areas next BWE. |
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6/14/12 1:54:28 AM#7
Originally posted by Nierro Yeah, GW2 happens to be one of the only new themepark MMORPGs that truly cater to the explorer, with tons of jump puzzles and others things that can be discovered of the beaten path.
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6/14/12 1:59:49 AM#8
pretty fair review but imho the op needs to change his/her vision of HOW you play this game. I realy don't know about the pvp yet, didnt try it out yet (i am more of a PVE guy unlike the op who likes pvp a lot i presume. Maybe the pvp doesnt have quests in these WvWvW ???
But the way you quest seems very linear and thats why you prolly get "stuck" on your personal storyline? I played the guardian in BW1 and i did the personal story there......at some (early) point i had to fight many waves (of 3 to 4 mobs) off alone and it all worked out pretty well without TOO much trouble, sure i died a fiew times but that's ok you know. maybe try to explore a bit more m8.....you might like it ;-) but like i sayd, good (and honest) review.
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6/14/12 4:50:39 AM#9
Originally posted by Nierro Oh yeah! I guess.... a lot of people see those points of interest and skill challenges, and think 'Ah. It sucks that they marked all the hidden stuff'. ... but honestly, that's not it. They marked skill challenges because a character without all their skill points is going to be gimped. Points of interest are basically major tourism locales. What they DON'T mark are the hidden puzzle areas, and some of them are REALLY hidden. We're talking just finding them involves peering into nooks and crannies just to find the area the puzzles start. :) Also, there's little buildings and areas that are scenic or have hidden NPCs that aren't marked in any way, that are still interesting to look at, or can spawn dynamic events. If you haven't seen Caraemm's videos on how dynamic events continue, it's worth checking out. It helped me appreciate better how dynamic events work. Sometimes they start from yout alking to NPCs that are not indicated with any sort of graphical flourish to show you should actually be talking to them. :) Sometimes they happen because you hang around after an event and see how it segues into another one. They acutally appear to have put more work into their dynamic events than their personal story, which in my opinion is how they should have done it anyway, because honestly, the story of the world is more interesting than the story of some character who I even pretend isn't my character, but 'some random stranger my character heard about', so as to not pigeonhole the personality/storyline of my character. :) |
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6/15/12 4:37:16 PM#10
Cutscenes are fair enough-you just need time to adjust to them(sth you obviously haven't had).
Uninteresting lore-have you played GW 1? I think it has SUPERB lore(in the sea of Fantasy copy-pasta MMOs). Please share your vision on interesting lore(Warhammer Fantasy/LoTR incoming) Art style-the same as cutscenes Voiceacting-yes, it is horribly bad. Maybe if you muted voices? Good and balanced review by the way ;)  |
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