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Now that the betas are over, I was thinking back on my experience and assessing it. The controls had felt a little off, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I was dicking around in WoW, just killing some time... when it dawned on me. WoW's controls feel a hell of a lot more tight than GW2's. I used these last few stress tests to reaffirm my suspicious, and sure enough they, indeed, felt quite clunky. I've heard people complaining about the camera before, which also feels a little weird, but I'm mainly talking about the character movement itself. For one, I've noticed that when I move back and forth, there is like a skip in frames or something, and my avatar jerks around. It kind of feels like there is a delay to all of my actions, which is a really annoying thing to have to deal with every second of playtime. Also, the jump arc feels off. It's too fast. I know a slow, smooth jump isn't necessarily realistic, but I think it feels a hell of a lot better in games. I mean look at most platformers, or even a lot of other MMOs. Jumping in GW2 feels really awkward.
These two things combined make the jumping puzzles a nightmare. I feel like if the same puzzles were in WoW, they'd be a cakewalk. Unfortunately, these don't seem like prevalent enough issues for them to "fix". Maybe I can get used to it once I spend enough time with the actual release. If not, then I don't think I'll be playing it.
Comments
I actually had my description notarized by the Duke of Adjectives, so take it up with him.
It was nothing more than lag and they addressed it right before server went down this evening and apologized for it. Something they are working on and trying trying to fix.
The past BWE the controls have always been smooth and fluid, this stress test not so much!
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
There were clunky times, but that was during the stress tests and when servers were heavily loaded.
90% of my time in the beta weekends....smooth as butter.
A) This is stress test
One of the data centers in NA went down hence why all this lagginess
C) GW2 has seperate animations for upper and lower body which is why you'll see some crazy movements when jumping, using skill, auto attacking all at the same time.
D) Take the time to play around in the options, it makes your life a lot easier.
It's possible, but they also felt weird when I was in the betas. I just didn't really think about why or paid much attention to it. I didn't spend a whole lot of time playing in the betas, but after a while it started to grate on me. I'll see what happens when the game actually launches to make my final critique.
You know you're right, it's the finally release. They just brought the servers down for extended maintenance.
wow...umm he said "I'll see what happens when the game actually launches to make my final critique."
Clearly that means he knows it's still beta.
i've heard of some people feeling somewhat disjointed from their chars when they have had the height slider maxed out on some of the taler races, as the animations don't quiet match up to what your character is doing as fast. so this may of contributed to what you where sensing somewhat.
I actually just discussed this with people on another forum. And we've had extensive discussions about this on here as well.
Your combat feels sluggish because of the auto attack, and the way animations work. The game is very responsible, and as soon as you press something, the server does receive it. However, the skill system works differently than WoW. I'll copy my post to here for combat:
"""
I should remind you that if you are using your number 1 skill on auto-attack, all skills MUST complete the animation of the current skill before the next skill can begin. That's why combat may seem clunky. If the animation for your number one as already begun, it must get to a certain point in the animation for the next skill you queued up to begin.
In WoW, many of the skills are instant cast, and when you press the key to execute those skills you get instant feedback that the skill did damage (regardless of what the animation is doing), whereas in GW2 when you press the key to execute your skills there's an animation associated with it and the skill doesn't actually land until it visually connects with the target. So there's a delay between when you start the skill and when you get that feedback of it doing damage.
However, there's a major drawback to the WoW system. In order to balance that instant gratification responsiveness, they had to interject a false delay between successive skills... the global cooldown (GCD). GW2 does not use a GCD system but instead each skill has a cast time, even if it's very brief. So what's happening in the two systems is this: for WoW you get key press, damage, delay... key press, damage, delay; but for GW2 you get key press, delay, damage... key press, delay, damage.
Every skill in GW2 has a casting time, even if it's very small. Even melee attacks have a casting time (the animation). So you are probably experience this, as well as skill queuing (when you press a skill while another is in progress, it goes into a queue).
""""
The bit about the skills being instant cast come from another post on this forum from a few weeks ago. You mentioned WoW that's why I mentioned it.
Also when you start running or change directions, there isn't a delay. It does happen instantly, however, there is an animation that makes it seem sluggish. So even though you turn right and you start running right you think it's taking awhile because of the animation. Then when you start moving, there is a slight animation of you speeding up, even though you're moving full speed as soon as you start moving forward.
And then someone also mentioned your lower body and upper body are separate.
The biggest problem is people are use to WoW's animations. Guild Wars 2 uses different animations, albet a little more realistic animations. That's also why going from say an Asura to a Norn, movement seems slow and sluggish. Your animation is moving fast as an Asura as there's a shorter stride, but as a Norn it's a little bit slower as there's a longer stride even though you're moving at the same speed.
This is kind of what I'm talking about. There is a disconnect between what you are pressing and what the character is doing. You can really tell when is moving back and forth. Notice how it looks really jerky, when he's moving around?
I was moving side to side, and I also watched the environment, so I could tell that it was accelerating immediately, but character itself wasn't quite syncing up with my button presses.
I feel that the controls are quite responsive and smooth.
But, I also don't really look at my character in combat other than peripherally, I'm watching the enemies and the environment. So, maybe you are correct in that animations or character movement are not quite syncing up. I just wouldn't notice that sort of thing.
Yeah that, I think i just never noticed it. Unfortunately I think it's the animations causing that, and I don't know if there's a way to fix that without taking out the animations.
That is what you get when you put transitional animations inbetween direction changes. WoW has them too, but they aren't as obvious. Think it has a lot to do with upper body lean and movement.
anyways...as others have stated (including you, right in this post I am quoting), this does not effect gameplay, just how it looks.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Awhile back, during BWE2 i believe, there was a dev that addressed this issue. He basically said they were looking into it, but that they compromised on keeping the transitional animations, even if it felt like the characters were sliding. I guess they would rather have aesthetic animations instead of a solid feeling of control. Also, the A & D keys (for turning) turn way to slow and there is no option to increase it. This one point where i disagree with the devs..
Now i finally understand what people mean by floaty characters. Something I never noticed. In pvp though I didn't notice it at all, i was too busy not getting my ass kicked.
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
One thing if you notice in the wow part of the video is the separation of animation in the lower half and upper half of the body. It looks very gamey.
About the "sliding", guess I'm just used to it from all of my time in GW as I don't even notice it in game.