smallfry on 6/5/2012 at 19:42
Thanks Malf for the write-up! The game seems like it's living up to the hype. The main thing that worries me is, like Tomi, I had a hard time keeping up with the fast-paced battles in GW1 and if GW2 is even faster and more chaotic it might just be too much for me. (wtb pause button)
Koki on 7/5/2012 at 13:01
Quote Posted by Malf
PvE and "Events"? Utterly brilliant.
Firefall has a very similar system where the "Chosen" spawn in random places on the map randomly + there are town defenses and Chosen town assaults which decide how much map you can explore, since killing the Chosen towns pushes back the Evil Fog.
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First, you have to understand that the game actively scales your character level down to whichever area you're in.
Oh, I know. That's my biggest problem with the game so far, technical-wise. It's plain and simple retarded, mob level scaling is bad enough but player character scaling? I'm not going to grind for 100 hours(in b4 THI GAEM IS NO GRIND HURRRRRRRRRRRRRR) just to have it all taken away from me whenever I enter Noob Zone. Where is the sense of character progression, the very fucking core of a MMO? Getting owned by a jumping mushroom at level 5 and then becoming literally invincible to its attacks at level 50?
Malf on 7/5/2012 at 16:26
Koki, I would agree if I hadn't actually played the game. This is the only time I've ever felt level-scaling is justified, and it works absolutely brilliantly, but that's partly because GW2 doesn't have low level quests that feel low level.
I can't emphasise enough how important this is to team play in an MMO. There is NO penalty for going back to the start and helping people out. You get rewarded according to your level. It means that the whole game is end-game content. Other MMOs feel amateurish in comparison. You reach level 80 in Age of Conan for example, how much of the game's content is meaningfully available to you? 20%? Less? In GW2, it's 100%. That's pretty fucking remarkable.
And I doubt very much that Firefall's event system works in the same way as GW2 or encourages cooperation as smoothly. These are hand-designed events with outcomes written according to what happens. They're not simply borders being pushed back. There are causes and effects.
Let alone which, not having to join a group or be invited to one that's fighting the event makes things sooooo much smoother, and again, it positively encourages team play. The more people join in, the bigger an event stage gets. The bigger it gets, the better the reward. For EVERYONE who took part.
I know you're the forum cynic, but I encourage you to try it.
Oh wait, that's right, it can't be pirated.
Edit: BTW, one of the hardest things in MMOs is trying to persuade people there are better ways of doing "Character Progression" than by gear grind. Let's face it, thanks to WoW, that's all that any MMO is these days. The original Guild Wars challenged this by introducing aesthetic incentives, gear that statistically wasn't any better, but that looked different enough that the few who obtained it stood out from the crowd. Surprisingly, it proved enough.
And let's face it, when it comes to multiplayer, would you rather lose to someone because they have better equipment or because they're simply better than you? Which provides you with more learning?
Tomi on 7/5/2012 at 16:55
A level-scaling system that actually works could be pretty awesome indeed. GW1 is the only MMO that I've played so I can only comment on that, but it's just stupid that 90% of the Prophecies campaign for example becomes ridiculously easy once you hit the max level on your character. Going back to the starting areas later on is just pointless since the enemies can't even deal any damage against you, and that makes helping out some newbie players just boring and unrewarding. And for the very same reason I didn't want any help from more experienced players either when I was starting, because I (correctly) thought that it would ruin the challenge. So in the end you only play the same few "elite areas" over and over again, until you get bored.
I don't know how the system works in GW2, I hope they've come up with something good, but I can't think of anything that works without any flaws. I like the fact that in GW1 (and hopefully in GW2 too) you actually need to know how to play the game to be a good player - spending thousands of hours leveling up your character and finding some special loot doesn't save you from being a bad player.
But yeah, how does it work in GW2 then? If your mighty level 80 warrior wants to help out a newbie level 1 friend, does the higher level guy have any advantage over the lower level guy? Will the loot "scale" too? = Would the enemies only drop some terrible stuff if there's a level 1 character with you? If everything always scales according to what level the players are, what's the whole point of the experience levels then? (I genuinely don't know, I'm hoping that someone who's played the GW2 beta could answer that.)
Oh, and I went and pre-purchased GW2 yesterday. :erg:
Malf on 7/5/2012 at 17:35
Levels and gear scale, although I've heard the scaling isn't total on gear, giving a slight advantage over gear available to toons at that level. That does match my experience.
But the real advantage for high level players is how much of the trait tree they've unlocked and how many skills are available to them on their cast bar.
You start the game with 1 weapon skill unlocked, with the potential to unlock 3 in total for one-handed weapons, 5 for two-handed weapons and 2 extra for offhand weapons. These are unlocked through use, so a new character will not have a huge amount of weapon skills unlocked. High level characters on the other hand will have all skills unlocked for all weapons available to their class.
Then, on the other side of the health orb, you have your five class skills, only two of which are unlocked initially, a heal and another; for example, my warrior had "Kick".
Every tenth level, you unlock another slot on this bar, with level 30 unlocking the tenth skill slot which also happens to be the Elite skill slot.
(
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596969175454031437/3B0316458CAA90FA31E9D87979C34E21A7D8EFA5/) Here's a screenshot from the event where you can see the last 2 skill slots are still locked for my character as he's only level 16. Also of interest in that screenshot are the 2 numbers in the bottom left corner of the screen. The green number is what you've been auto-levelled to, whereas the white number is your actual character level.
Oh yeah, that F1 skill above the first five skills with the 3 yellow/orange bars to the left?
That's the warrior's "Adrenaline" skill. As I have an axe currently equipped in my main hand, the adrenal skill is "Eviscerate". If I'd had a sword equipped, it would have been "Hundred Blades".
The three bars are charges of adrenaline. The more you have when you use the skill (up to a maximum of 3), the more effective that skill is. I also read that having a full adrenaline bar offers other benefits too, although I'm not currently aware what those benefits are.
The bar above the right hand group of 5 skills is your stamina bar, which limits how much you can dodge. By default, that bar is long enough to allow you to dodge twice before needing to recharge. I think that's something ArenaNet may be working on, as there's a lot of people who are worried that there's an imbalance between ranged and melee characters at the moment. Allowing for more dodges for melee characters would improve their durability in close combat.
I haven't got a screenshot of the trait tree, but basically, for every level after 10, you get 1 trait point to invest in what will come to be regarded as your "Attributes". It's really fucking difficult to describe here (which probably means that it's more complicated than it could be), so (
http://www.arena.net/blog/play-your-way-jon-peters-on-traits-and-attributes) here's a link to the GW2 Blog article about how it works.
Finally, each map is dotted with "Skill Challenges". These are nifty unique events that when completed grant you a skill point. You then use skill points to unlock skills from the skills window. There's no need to go hunting for the skills themselves; as long as you have enough skill points to afford it, you can buy any skill open to your class at any time you like.
This and the trait tree could very well be seen as that treasured "Character Progression" Koki referred to. To fully unlock your character is going to take you way past level 80 I suspect.
Koki on 7/5/2012 at 18:29
Quote Posted by Malf
I can't emphasise enough how important this is to team play in an MMO.
If that's your thing. I never cared about partying in MMOs, quite the opposite. Whenever I felt like helping noobs I would just go to a Noob Cave and buff some of them, maybe tank a bit for ranged classes. Even though I was as far from a tank as I possibly could be build-wise it didn't matter because my level was so high the mobs there could hardly touch me.
And seeing noobs trying to solo a mob I can one-shot with a regular attack gave me both sense of nostalgia(since I used to do that too, in same place) and accomplishment(since I could clearly see how much my character evolved since then).
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I know you're the forum cynic, but I encourage you to try it.
Oh wait, that's right, it can't be pirated.
Sure, let me get in the open beta/free trial and see for myself.
Oh wait, that's right, I can't.
Malf on 10/5/2012 at 09:37
Just in case you miss the announcement, they're hosting a server stress test for pre-orders only on Monday, from 2pm EDT (7pm BST) until 9pm EDT (2am BST).
Koki on 10/5/2012 at 20:33
Guaranteed horrible performance!
polytourist97 on 12/5/2012 at 00:55
I skimmed through some of Malf's posts, (but didn't want to read too much about the game before playing it myself) and it sounds like I'll be picking this up as soon as it goes regular retail. Thanks for giving some hands-on info Malf! I tried pre-ordering but for some reason it wouldn't let me. Odd. (edit: read the link about stress testing. Makes more sense now)
I am a very big fan of arenanet's philosophies and designs, and of course I really enjoyed GW1 so I'll be excited to get in on some GW2 when it's released!
