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Early Impressions and criticisms - First 18 levels
FrodoFragins
Member EpicPosts: 5,905
I never played GW1 and I didn't play GW2 at all during beta. I did very little research into the game and it's mechanics. I prepurchased the game based on:
1) ANets reputation and manifesto
2) Lack of Trinity
3) B2P
4) WvWvW
5) Art Direction
I do enjoy the game quite a bit, and criticisms of the game shouldn't be seen as disliking the game.
EDIT: My experience is on a Charr Warrior
Character Creator:
The character creator was great and unexpected. I'm hoping that I'll be able to alter my character at some point as I was eager to get into the game.
Character Movement and Combat:
I had to set the camera movement to the max and I'm still not 100% happy with the mouse movement. I believe I'd have to modify the OS setting at this point to make it faster. I like having FPS style movement of the mouse where a short flick rotates my character 180 degrees quickly.
My biggest peeve at the moment is the character jump. It jsut doesn't feel right to me, although I haven't had too much trouble getting to the vistas. I just don't feel like the character jumps soon enough after I hit the key.
The dodge mechanic is interesting but I haven't had to use it yet. I don't think it would do a lot of good in WvWvW, from my brief experience. 1v1 or Arena is likely where it is most handy, and I assume later in the game for PvE.
Other than the dodge mechanic, it feels very much like other MMOs.
Questing and Dynamic Events:
I definitely love the fact that you don't have to manage a quest log. When you are in an area with a "quest giver" it automatically appears on screen with your progress. When you leave the area it no longer appears but your progress is saved. This is great.
Dynamic events behave in the same way, except that there's also a designation on the map to tell you where it is. At times I get the notification for a DE but don't know where it actually is due to either being too far away or in an area I haven't explored.
The dynamic events really aren't anything special, atleast the ones I've seen, but they are definitely an improvement over finding NPCs with exclamation points on their heads.
I love the fact that nobody tags a mob. If you contribute enough to the kill you get EXP and loot.
I also like the fact that resource nodes allow multiple people to harvest them.
WvWvW
I was only there for a level and a half, mainly because I finished the starting area and felt I was behind too much in levels. It felt like a zergfest, but I enjoyed classic AV in WOW and that was as well. Their engine is far superior to that of LOTRO and SWTOR in handling lots of people. But my rig certainly struggled at times. Being a melee character made things difficult when either attacking or defending a gate. I felt gimped by not having ranged attacks. (Edit: I wasn't aware that warriors could be effective from range when I wrote this.) My next character will probably be a ranger and so if that's my main issue, it's easily rectified.
Personal Story:
I'd say this is the weakest, but also the least important part of the game. The voice overs aren't anywhere near the quality of SWTOR and I've been skipping a lot of the dialog. This is far from the focus of this game and so I don't really mind. I'd say they are about on par with the LOTRO epic quest line.
In the end, it's still a very enjoyable leveling experience. My hope is that either each race has a unique path (series of zones) to level in or that we are given choices of where to go (such as the two continents in starter WOW).
Comments
I miss DAoC
No class in this game is really melee only. Even warrior can wield a rifle and a longbow and they get some pretty nice skills from those weapons, no worse than any other mainly ranged class. All you have to do is buy or craft that weapon and you're ready to go. So feeling gimped about it is pretty much your own fault there...
I wouldn't give up on the personal storyline just yet either, I think some pretty interesting quests come later on, and I always enjoyed good personal story quests...
I never thought of equipping a ranged weapon. I guess I'll get one and skill it up to see what attacks I get. Thanks for the info.
Oh and another thing about dynamic events, that alot of people tend to miss. Many dynamic events consists of more than one part, so when you're done with one it's always wise to stick arround for a bit and see if there's another part to that DE...
HF.
One area had like 6 in a row and then started up again. I assume you get less EXP the second time you do the same DE?
Good short review. I agree with you on the jumping. When a character jumps, it feels like they're hitting a ceiling. This was brought up in beta, but they still didn't change it. The camera movement is also awkward, and i hoped they would let us zoom out more, as this was brought up during beta too.
Edit: Forgot to mention.. All classes are melee and ranged. It just depends on which weapon sets you use.
These are STARTER zone DE's. They're designed to show you how things work and ease you into things. As you progress through the levels and zones you'll notice fewer Hearts and more complex DE's.
This because you put, as a developer, most of the variety and graphics into the front end of the game. It's easier to have fewer DEs in later zones. As for complexity are there any that are really difficult, most seem pretty simple and don't need raid level coordination.
asking for raid level coordination from PUBLIC and STARTER dynamic events is way way too much lol. just saying, that's like asking a lvl60 WoW pug to clear blakc temple. you cannot get total strangers that just started playing a game to have raid like coordination LOL
Well, that's my view of them they are very simple and designed for ZERG PvE. As a result they feel like atired concept for the mainstay of a PvE experience in a game now in 2012.
The difficulty That I saw in my limited time in the three BWE's was in the first one. A lot of one or two shots from mobs even in the starting areas if you didn't dodge at the right time. The third took most of that away in the starter areas and it is just a simple zerg. Not much of a chance to die.
I guess they wanted it simple for the early areas, so not much difficulty at all. Don't know how much "complexity" there will be, but it should at least get harder so you have to react more, not just zerg. Havn't gotten very far yet, so don't know. Only level 8, 7 and 4. Yes, still not sure about my main yet.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
Yeah, you have an opinion which is, simply, your personal tastes in things. Good for you. Your taste is your taste while mine is mine and it'd be a funny old world if we didn't have different tastes...
Personally, I think you negatives on movement, quests and especially the personal story to be complete horse apples... But, like I said, these are matters of taste...
Let's take the personal story. I'm playing the Charr 'dad is a soldier' line last night. I meant to go to bed at 10PM. It sucked me in for "one more chapter" until almost 1:00AM. And I've had a great time with the Sylvari (great hunt), Human (noble) and Norn (lost heirloom/bear (not sure which is key, though I think heirloom)) quest lines as well.
Honestly, IMO, this is the first MMO since LOTRO to have good personal/main quests that aren't unbelievably over-the-top.