I'm making this thread to give people interested factual information and not just assumptions and stipulation from people pretending to have played the game. These are not my complaints but recurring themes from the beta forums.
1. Information is not readily available. Skill descriptions are some times vague and many complex systems, such as WvW, are not explained in detail or at all. This can lead to confused players.
2. Performance. Obviously beta is beta, but performance in crowded areas has to be better by release.
3. Respawn timers. Mobs often respawn too quickly, resulting in unexpected deaths as players(specially solo players) are ambushed while clearing an area. This can make some boss encounters too dificult for small groups as well.
4. Dynamic event frenquency is too low. Ironically, DE frenquency was too high during BWE1 but now players are finding themselves lacking content. This seems to be due to over-adjustments based on previous feedback.
5. WvW server imbalance. Since there are no stable stats for server populations and win/loss records servers are being matched at random, leading to populous servers dominating others.
6. Some Personal Story missions are overtuned. Some missions are incredibly hard for a solo player.
7. Some items in the Cash Shop, such as dyes and salvaging kits, are character bound rather than account bound. This forces players to make separate purchases for different characters.
If anyone would like to add some items to this list please PM with a link to the forums or at the very least a personal annecdote.
Edit: I would just like to point out that I am not personally affected by many of these issues. I am simply echoing the voice of the beta forums for those that are interested in the current state of the game but not part of the beta themselves. I would also like to note that most of these issues are exactly what testing is for and all of these can be adjusted fairly easily.
As someone who is happy to see a post OTHER then anything with the "H" word in it for a change i have to congradulate you on actually researching the current beta problems. Seriously, i'm not being sarcastic it's REALLY nice to see a REAL post for a change about this game.
It looks like everything in testing is normal, i mean that the games growing pains in beta are normal for where it's at right now. I'll start worrying about it more when it gets closer ie when asura and the other race become available and they let a much much larger set of people into the game.
I find the game to have a weird, multiple personality disorder type of feel too it similar to what some have mentioned above.
One of the personalities offers this large world backed by lore from the original Guild Wars and the interceding tie-in works. It's designed for players to impose their own structure while exploring every corner of the map and spend time talking to characters they come across. It's expected that these players will also farm for achievements and crafting professions. In line with the amount of time these players invest, the combat system and situational character builds take a long time to master, but those who do so can pull off feats many newcomers would consider impossible. A portion of these players will compete in and dominate structured pvp.
The other personality is one that encourages running around not caring why you are doing anything. You don't stop to read in-game text or break off on your own to explore the nearby ruins or the narrow path in the hills. You simply follow a crowd and mash buttons and by doing so you will accomplish enough to feel like there is some purpose to the game. The fun part is in feeling like you "belong" by running with the zerg and having people rez you while you rez them in turn. It's the leveling experience reduced to a drunken riot, and a lot of people obviously love it.
If you want to experience personality #1 though, it too often feels like the game is penalizing you for doing so IMO, whether you're missing out on some fun DEs, or running into the same DE a dozen times, or you're being swarmed by waves of respawns (or players) as you try to admire the view or read a lore object or trying out pvp tactics, etc etc.
I imagine some retuning will go on throughout the first several months as some of the noise gets filtered out. I guess we'll see.
Indeed. It's very encouraging to find that the issues GW2 has are not fundamental design flaws but simply number adjustments.
The most difficult problem to solve by far is how to convey the fact that GW2 plays quite a bit different than other fantasy MMOs.
I disagree.
IMO GW2 is flawed by the very nature of its design. GW2 is designed to be a zerg game pve wise (its rewards everyone, no kill steals), and because of that mobs need to scale depending on how many players is attacking the mob. But the problem is it does not scale in real time. Hence the reason you will get crushed sometimes as a solo player.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
With number 2 in WvW. What would happen occasionally is you wouldn't see the 30+ people from the other server. Then suddenly they would appear on you screen at the same time.
With 3 sometimes exploring certain areas or trying to do certain DE's would be impossible because of rapid respawns. It was also annoying every once in awhile when you are already fighting 2 mobs and a third spawns on top of you.
I have to object to 7. I was almost positive they fixed dyes to be account wide. I didn't actually check. However the dyes I unlocked this BWE said that they were account wide. I was just assuming that the pop up was correct.
With number 2 in WvW. What would happen occasionally is you wouldn't see the 30+ people from the other server. Then suddenly they would appear on you screen at the same time.
With 3 sometimes exploring certain areas or trying to do certain DE's would be impossible because of rapid respawns. It was also annoying every once in awhile when you are already fighting 2 mobs and a third spawns on top of you.
I have to object to 7. I was almost positive they fixed dyes to be account wide. I didn't actually check. However the dyes I unlocked this BWE said that they were account wide. I was just assuming that the pop up was correct.
I found an ingame dye, and it was set to accountwide.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
@Op pls post this is also on the gw2 forum ( official ) the things you are saying are for me small issue's but like you said its a beta and we are playing to improve the game.
Originally posted by neobahamut20 The gemstore is quickly turning into a cashgrab and a P2W. Everything except pets seem to be account bound or soulbound.
Indeed, as someone who doesn't plan to spend money in the cash shop, I fully expect to be completely roflstomped by the wallet-warriors who are willing to buy dyes and miniatures for all their characters, while I am stuck with the clashing selection of dyes and small range of miniatures I will get from drops in-game. :-(
With number 2 in WvW. What would happen occasionally is you wouldn't see the 30+ people from the other server. Then suddenly they would appear on you screen at the same time.
With 3 sometimes exploring certain areas or trying to do certain DE's would be impossible because of rapid respawns. It was also annoying every once in awhile when you are already fighting 2 mobs and a third spawns on top of you.
I have to object to 7. I was almost positive they fixed dyes to be account wide. I didn't actually check. However the dyes I unlocked this BWE said that they were account wide. I was just assuming that the pop up was correct.
I found an ingame dye, and it was set to accountwide.
I found one too, so I think they intend for dyes to be accountwide, however they still seemed bugged during the beta. I popped it on my warrior, went over to my mesmer, and had none of the dyes my warrior had unlocked. Hope it gets fixed.
Back to the OP topic:
- Performance is still an issue, but I've gotta say (for me at least) the game performs incredibly smooth. I only ever really get lag when the entire server congregates all in one spot (like the end of beta events). I can't think of a single MMO that hasn't had that problem, though.
- As for DEs being too few, it could use a little bit of tweaking, but there were actually quite a lot of DEs going on. Some I thought were happening too frequently (i.e. there was an event to fix / protect a bridge in the Diessu Platue that I swear would happen every 10mins or so). Some of the areas also seemed to have too high of a respawn rate, but I don't think either are a universal 'across the board' type problem. I think it's just that certain areas / events need more tweaking over others. Overall most of the events seemed pretty close to where they should be.
- About WvW. This bugged me as well, but I think (as someone pointed out) it's mostly to due w/ the readily available transfers. A lot of players seemed to be swapping sides during this last beta. I know our server (Maguuma) was kicking ass up until Friday night. Then come saturday morning, we were in the exact same lineup as Friday, but all of a sudden it wasn't even close. Sea of Sorrow had 98% of the map, while us and the 3rd server only had an outpost for most of the weekend. It definitely ruined the WvW experience, and it this was the first time I've seen such a lopsided matchup in any of the betas. Hopefully once they lock down the server caps, and people have to pay real money to switch sides, things will be a bit more normalized again. It's definitely a ton of when teams are more even in WvW. I would hate to see people get a bad taste for WvW over something so stupid as mismanaged server transfers.
just report your stuff in game, thats what beta is for.
No, that's what Beta Testing is for. This is not Beta Testing this is Beta Access. Do you really think that someone is reviewing all of the reports for everyone playing on these Beta weekends?
Actually they are. They have stated multiple times that for them Beta weekends are for the one and only purpose of it being a beta and them seeing how the world functions for a large crowd of players. Its for testing and finding out bugs/things that don't work right.
Its no trial or priview of the finished game, its a bug test.
Actually, they're not. They're stress testing. You're not there to find bugs. Sorry to disapoint.
There's a difference between having "beta access" and being a "beta tester". You have access to the beta client. That doesn't make you a beta tester. Read what you wrote, "one and only purpose of it being a beta and them seeing how the world functions for a large crowd of players" --- see anything there about bug reporting? They'd have to bring a staff of 25 people just to look at all the messages trying to find new bugs, and 5 additional developers to explain what seems like new bugs are actually already reported ones.
No, for stress testing they use a few h long testing called "stress test". Sure in beta your supposed to play and enjoy the game. But its not a demo. They show unfinished product and they even noted on few things that are still bugging and that may not work because they are being worked on right now.
"Your participation is even more important when you consider that we take our beta events very seriously in terms of our development strategy. At ArenaNet, “beta event” means exactly that—it’s a development-centric event in which we test our systems, discover new and exciting bugs, and get pivotal feedback from our testers about what is going in the right direction and what isn’t.
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. "
In solo or small group situations, melee is fine. There are tells in the mob animations, so if you pay attention, you can counter pretty well. You need to understand your abilities though, and stop hitting buttons for no reason so they're on cooldown when you need them.
It falls apart in larger zerg situations, when you can no longer actually see the mob you're fighting. At that point, you have small choice but to switch to a ranged weapon and just shoot from a distance. Made me pretty much avoid player zergs whenever I encountered them.
The real issue for me is the chaotic nature of the whole game.
Especially in PvE. There really isn't any organization, and everyone is just zerging the events, without caring about death. There's a feeling of lack of control in combat. The whole support system needs to be tweaked and refined still.
The melee combat just seems off, and i can't explain it. I've said this before, but i really think they should add cues for NPC's, such as cast bars, target of target, or something more visual on screen, so we can have better reaction on which skills to use to counter them. Yes, we have dodge, but we only have 2 tries. If you can't dodge enough times before the enemy dies, then you'll just end up dead. The only solution is to go into range mode, until dodge refreshes again. This is a problem though, when you're trying to fight 5 mobs at a time during a Dynamic Event.
Yes the game is chaotic but so is real life. I think they were trying to make it more immersive. The idea is to make sure you are careful that you don't over pull, etc. I was playing a mesmer, most of this BWE and was happy to have the extra illusions because they helped alot. If this game was dependent on the 'MMO trinity' I would have needed a monk and a melee with me for everything. It seems they also learned from GW1 that if people have a chance to use NPCs, they will before playing with others. I enjoyed the way you get XP for being part of an event (meaning actually doing something there) rather than being ignored if you are not part of the main group (think Rift and all group Rifts you can open).
I agree to all of the OP's points above. This also is a bug reporting time in beta, why else would they have the option at the top of the screen to report a bug? I played GW2 for the first time this weekend, and minus a few issues (namely what was on the OP's list) I enjoyed the game. There are bound to be bugs throughout as this is just the beta, but to see how far they've come and how much work has gone into this game, it's impressive.
Comments
As someone who is happy to see a post OTHER then anything with the "H" word in it for a change i have to congradulate you on actually researching the current beta problems. Seriously, i'm not being sarcastic it's REALLY nice to see a REAL post for a change about this game.
It looks like everything in testing is normal, i mean that the games growing pains in beta are normal for where it's at right now. I'll start worrying about it more when it gets closer ie when asura and the other race become available and they let a much much larger set of people into the game.
I find the game to have a weird, multiple personality disorder type of feel too it similar to what some have mentioned above.
One of the personalities offers this large world backed by lore from the original Guild Wars and the interceding tie-in works. It's designed for players to impose their own structure while exploring every corner of the map and spend time talking to characters they come across. It's expected that these players will also farm for achievements and crafting professions. In line with the amount of time these players invest, the combat system and situational character builds take a long time to master, but those who do so can pull off feats many newcomers would consider impossible. A portion of these players will compete in and dominate structured pvp.
The other personality is one that encourages running around not caring why you are doing anything. You don't stop to read in-game text or break off on your own to explore the nearby ruins or the narrow path in the hills. You simply follow a crowd and mash buttons and by doing so you will accomplish enough to feel like there is some purpose to the game. The fun part is in feeling like you "belong" by running with the zerg and having people rez you while you rez them in turn. It's the leveling experience reduced to a drunken riot, and a lot of people obviously love it.
If you want to experience personality #1 though, it too often feels like the game is penalizing you for doing so IMO, whether you're missing out on some fun DEs, or running into the same DE a dozen times, or you're being swarmed by waves of respawns (or players) as you try to admire the view or read a lore object or trying out pvp tactics, etc etc.
I imagine some retuning will go on throughout the first several months as some of the noise gets filtered out. I guess we'll see.
I disagree.
IMO GW2 is flawed by the very nature of its design. GW2 is designed to be a zerg game pve wise (its rewards everyone, no kill steals), and because of that mobs need to scale depending on how many players is attacking the mob. But the problem is it does not scale in real time. Hence the reason you will get crushed sometimes as a solo player.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
This is totally class dependend.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I agree with 2 and 3 on your list.
With number 2 in WvW. What would happen occasionally is you wouldn't see the 30+ people from the other server. Then suddenly they would appear on you screen at the same time.
With 3 sometimes exploring certain areas or trying to do certain DE's would be impossible because of rapid respawns. It was also annoying every once in awhile when you are already fighting 2 mobs and a third spawns on top of you.
I have to object to 7. I was almost positive they fixed dyes to be account wide. I didn't actually check. However the dyes I unlocked this BWE said that they were account wide. I was just assuming that the pop up was correct.
I found an ingame dye, and it was set to accountwide.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
@Op pls post this is also on the gw2 forum ( official ) the things you are saying are for me small issue's but like you said its a beta and we are playing to improve the game.
I found one too, so I think they intend for dyes to be accountwide, however they still seemed bugged during the beta. I popped it on my warrior, went over to my mesmer, and had none of the dyes my warrior had unlocked. Hope it gets fixed.
Back to the OP topic:
- Performance is still an issue, but I've gotta say (for me at least) the game performs incredibly smooth. I only ever really get lag when the entire server congregates all in one spot (like the end of beta events). I can't think of a single MMO that hasn't had that problem, though.
- As for DEs being too few, it could use a little bit of tweaking, but there were actually quite a lot of DEs going on. Some I thought were happening too frequently (i.e. there was an event to fix / protect a bridge in the Diessu Platue that I swear would happen every 10mins or so). Some of the areas also seemed to have too high of a respawn rate, but I don't think either are a universal 'across the board' type problem. I think it's just that certain areas / events need more tweaking over others. Overall most of the events seemed pretty close to where they should be.
- About WvW. This bugged me as well, but I think (as someone pointed out) it's mostly to due w/ the readily available transfers. A lot of players seemed to be swapping sides during this last beta. I know our server (Maguuma) was kicking ass up until Friday night. Then come saturday morning, we were in the exact same lineup as Friday, but all of a sudden it wasn't even close. Sea of Sorrow had 98% of the map, while us and the 3rd server only had an outpost for most of the weekend. It definitely ruined the WvW experience, and it this was the first time I've seen such a lopsided matchup in any of the betas. Hopefully once they lock down the server caps, and people have to pay real money to switch sides, things will be a bit more normalized again. It's definitely a ton of when teams are more even in WvW. I would hate to see people get a bad taste for WvW over something so stupid as mismanaged server transfers.
No, for stress testing they use a few h long testing called "stress test". Sure in beta your supposed to play and enjoy the game. But its not a demo. They show unfinished product and they even noted on few things that are still bugging and that may not work because they are being worked on right now.
"Your participation is even more important when you consider that we take our beta events very seriously in terms of our development strategy. At ArenaNet, “beta event” means exactly that—it’s a development-centric event in which we test our systems, discover new and exciting bugs, and get pivotal feedback from our testers about what is going in the right direction and what isn’t.
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. "
quote from the offical blog about beta weekend2
In solo or small group situations, melee is fine. There are tells in the mob animations, so if you pay attention, you can counter pretty well. You need to understand your abilities though, and stop hitting buttons for no reason so they're on cooldown when you need them.
It falls apart in larger zerg situations, when you can no longer actually see the mob you're fighting. At that point, you have small choice but to switch to a ranged weapon and just shoot from a distance. Made me pretty much avoid player zergs whenever I encountered them.
Yes the game is chaotic but so is real life. I think they were trying to make it more immersive. The idea is to make sure you are careful that you don't over pull, etc. I was playing a mesmer, most of this BWE and was happy to have the extra illusions because they helped alot. If this game was dependent on the 'MMO trinity' I would have needed a monk and a melee with me for everything. It seems they also learned from GW1 that if people have a chance to use NPCs, they will before playing with others. I enjoyed the way you get XP for being part of an event (meaning actually doing something there) rather than being ignored if you are not part of the main group (think Rift and all group Rifts you can open).
GW2 Cured my cancer!
I agree to all of the OP's points above. This also is a bug reporting time in beta, why else would they have the option at the top of the screen to report a bug? I played GW2 for the first time this weekend, and minus a few issues (namely what was on the OP's list) I enjoyed the game. There are bound to be bugs throughout as this is just the beta, but to see how far they've come and how much work has gone into this game, it's impressive.