Support NeoGAF

[Vinci]

Ahh, I mostly managed to resist the beta weekends after the first one so one month from now, I can start the game almost not knowing anything about it. I quickly tested all the classes and I think guardian might be my choice because it is both a very durable tank with certain weapons, but almost a pretty decent damage dealer with something like greatsword.

That being said, I'm repeating the mistake I always make. NEVER go melee in a multiplayer game. But here I am, once again going melee. And I'm probably going to suffer terribly in the months to come, not being able to do a whole lot in mass PvP.

Tell that to all the Axe/Shield warriors in BWE 2.

 

[Ferga]

I found the Guardian to be a supporting machine in spvp. Heals and shields everywhere!
I love the "SAVE YOURSELVES!" skill too.

So I hope you enjoy supporting to an extent if you're going to main guardian and aim to play pvp a lot.

 

[darkwing]

Greatsword, Sword/Focus

The greatsword speaks for itself, but I really enjoy sword/focus. Good mobility, Blurred Frenzy for those bosses that are really troublesome, and Swap on the Illusionary Leap.

Seriously badass. I will make sure to play around with the Staff more after launch. I was having so much fun with this combo that I sort of neglected some of the others.

staff is awesome for the Chaos Storm

 

[etiolate]

I really never had problems going melee as a Mesmer with the MH sword. It worked in PVE and DEs, though I would revert to staff for its support often. MH Sword was a common element of every good Mesmer pvp build as well. It hits hard and blurred frenzy is a great spike or defensive skill. The teleport of swap is good as well.

 

[HarryHengst]

All classes have ranged weapons. There is no melee class or ranged class. Everyone (least ideally) is suppose to be able to do both well.

True, but the associated skills will determine which weapons will be more or less viable, especially in PvP.

 

[Phinor]

All classes have ranged weapons. There is no melee class or ranged class. Everyone (least ideally) is suppose to be able to do both well.

Yep, I know, but as you said, "ideally". MMOs are pretty rough when it comes to that. GW2 is at least trying to give everyone the option but it remains to be seen if it's a real competitive option. I didn't spend enough time to form an opinion because as I said, I was actually trying to play the game.

Being a gnome dps warrior from the release of WoW until I quit few years ago made me appreciate the ranged option, but I always go back to melee. It's just more satisfactory hitting people in the head from close range. Or legs, in the case of my gnome. Currently my race of choice is obviously Asura, go figure. I also really loved some moments of world PvP as a tank in Warhammer Online, but most of the time I was unable to do anything meaningful. So maybe GW2 can change that. At least on paper everything seems to be in place for that to happen.

 

[Ferrio]

Making the comparison to WoW is bad though. Blizzard didn't really give you an option to play ranged warrior, you had to be melee. They gave you a shoot option, but really it didn't do anything and they weren't going to balance the warrior around it.

Anet should be balancing all weapon options, whether they successfully do it or not who knows.

 

[Vinci]

staff is awesome for the Chaos Storm

I will play with it a bit more, absolutely. Damn, the wait is going to be killer.

I really never had problems going melee as a Mesmer with the MH sword. It worked in PVE and DEs, though I would revert to staff for its support often. MH Sword was a common element of every good Mesmer pvp build as well. It hits hard and blurred frenzy is a great spike or defensive skill. The teleport of swap is good as well.

Exactly. I love MH Sword with Focus. Typically how it worked was this: If I were taking on a group, I would usually keep with the Greatsword... Once things got narrowed down and/or we were on the boss, I would swap over and use MH Sword to help put him down. It's just a fantastically useful combination for attacking a single target, even if the target is very dangerous. Hardly ever went down using it either.

 

[etiolate]

The sweeping strike of the MH sword also makes it the second best aoe weapon for Mesmers.

On Messies:

We got through some of the changes, but there is a lot more to do still. Here are some things we need to look at.
Skills:
Scepter – This weapon will get a look because it is the least developed. It certainly isn’t strong enough defensively which is where its current niche is.
Staff – This weapon needs to be more reliable. Skill #1 needs to be able to hit targets up on walls, etc.
Traits: I looked at only one trait line between BWE2 and BWE3, and didn’t even get that one where I wanted it. There will be A LOT more time for balance this time around.
Clones: We really think these need to do the low damage that they do because it makes it possible to balance them. It also makes more sense as a decoy. We will improve shattering to help make them better.
I haven’t posted before in here, because it was a lot of issues and I wanted to try and address it all at once. When I post in these forums I tend to post on specific issues with facts because its a lot easier to do with the time I have than getting into a long discussion. Mesmer threads just didn’t present that kind of opportunity so I am leaving you with this.
Gotta run to the grocery store now…
Jon

The only odd thing about Peters response is the idea of the scepter as a defensive weapon. The sword and staff are far better at defense. There's only one real defensive skill on the scepter. It's mostly a clone spam and confusion weapon.

 

[Vinci]

It's fine if they want to mess with the Traits and Clones, but I really, really hope they don't screw with the weapon skills other than Scepter - which does need some work. The rest, though, are pretty damn solid.

 

[Jira]

I will post this here because I know a lot of people have questions about balance.

If you look at the number of balance changes from BWE2 to BWE3 its fairly significant, but that is really just one of us working for about a week hard on balance. In the upcoming weeks we have multiple designers and a chance to focus on balance full time for multiple weeks so you are going to see a much larger set of changes and focus on every profession.

This game has a lot of depth so when we change stuff we are doing it from a point of experience, and while not every change is going to be perfect and not everything will be perfectly balanced, we are working hard to get things to a good place by release. Our balance philosophy is a lot about patience and allowing a meta game to evolve before reacting so keep that in mind before assuming that things are broken and need balance work. Sometimes string builds will emerge as players are familiarizing themselves with the system.

So without waiting much longer, here are some things to think about when commenting on balance. This is mostly a re-post of some things I said on our internal forums, but I think it will give you guys a good idea of our plan moving forward.

Beta is Beta
This is not a released game. We are not nerfing any builds. We are not buffing any builds. We are balancing an unreleased game so that it might be closer to balanced when it does release. Try to not get too attached to anything because it skews your feedback on changes that are often going to be necessary.

PvE vs PvP vs WvW
We do not only balance for PvP. We do not only balance for WvW. We do not only balance for PvE. We balance for the game. When we make a special balance change for a specific part of the game, we will let you know by splitting the skills. Otherwise every balance change is there for the whole game. Balance in control, support, and damage are equally important to all aspects of the game and we are not ignoring that.

Patience
This is not the last balance change. We can’t change everything at once. Sometimes even when an entire profession is in a bad place we will balance specific strong builds or skills. Sometimes even when a profession is in a good place we will balance specific weak skill or builds. We aren’t ignoring things, there is just a limited amount of time and we are working on things when we can. Sometimes we go through things piecemeal so we might be making wholesale adjustments to a profession but only get to certain weapons in a single update note. This does not mean we think the other weapons are ok and not going to change.

A forest for the trees
We are not balancing in a vacuum. Your profession is not the only profession. We have to make sure that all 8 professions are working and viable in different scenarios. We are trying to bring everything to within acceptable boundaries. If some aspect of your profession is getting changed it is because we beleive it is outside of the boundaries of what we deem acceptable in the game. Every change is going to be bad for some people and good for others. We are not making the game for just a few people and we have to make decisions that make this a better game overall, not a better game for you specifically.

Balance > No balance
This change might not stick, but we aren’t going to know if we don’t do it. We have to do balance work, sometimes the changes aren’t enough, sometimes they are too much, sometimes things have just been done wrong and are going to get undone. That doesn’t mean we are going to stop making balance changes so if you think something didnt work post about it and we are happy to discuss it.

We talked about patch notes a lot between beta events. For various reasons we decided against it, one of which was that balance patch notes alone were 20 pages. Rest assured we will have patch notes after release and these unreleased patch notes for bwe3 have helped inform us on what should be included and what it takes to generate great patch notes. We appreciate your enthusiasm and can’t wait to share the final product with all of you.

Next

So I just spoke with the programmer who implemented the queueing system. There is indeed a bug that can make spamming the portal bypass the queue. We know how we want to fix it, not sure if we can fix it in time for BWE3.

We are also going to have to add a queue display so you know your position in the queue.

Huzzah! They also talked about a bug for WvW where the game thought there were more people than there were per server and in some cases more per server than there should have been resulting in an identical issue on both sides.

 

[Vinci]

Out of curiosity, did anyone else get an Exotic Aqua Breather? I found one that was called "PvP Light Aqua Breather" or something. It was what you use to breathe underwater, but it was for level 80 and yellow in color. Boosted defense by, like, 79.

Didn't even know you could replace your Breather.

 

[Klyka]

People who say melee is terrible are terrible at the game.

So there.

 

[etiolate]

Out of curiosity, did anyone else get an Exotic Aqua Breather? I found one that was called "PvP Light Aqua Breather" or something. It was what you use to breathe underwater, but it was for level 80 and yellow in color. Boosted defense by, like, 79.

Didn't even know you could replace your Breather.

Yes, you can replace your breather. I replaced mine around level 16 this BWE. I got it from a Heart karma vendor. I believe your breather actually counts as your headgear armor when underwater.

 

[Jira]

Some Tier 1 Sylvari Cultural armor screens:

http://imgur.com/a/vnIKH

http://imgur.com/a/B86s4

 

[Deleted member 10571]

Out of curiosity, did anyone else get an Exotic Aqua Breather? I found one that was called "PvP Light Aqua Breather" or something. It was what you use to breathe underwater, but it was for level 80 and yellow in color. Boosted defense by, like, 79.

Didn't even know you could replace your Breather.

uuh didn't know that either. Nice

People who say melee is terrible are terrible at the game.

So there.

I had a Blast in sPvP with my warrior, both sword/axe/pistol and greatsword/bow. So much fun that it will most probably be my main come the game.

 

[HarryHengst]

Some Tier 1 Sylvari Cultural armor screens:

http://imgur.com/a/vnIKH

http://imgur.com/a/B86s4

Not sure if its the coloring, but thats pretty bad.

 

[Klyka]

Melee does so much more damage than ranged in a shorter time, it's not even funny.
Playing my thief and shadowstepping to someone pew pew-ing, they always freak the fuck out when their health just DROPS as my dagger/pistol shreds them.

 

[Jira]

Not sure if its the coloring, but thats pretty bad.

You can dye any armor in the game so if you don't like it then change it.

 

[Ferrio]

You can dye any armor in the game so if you don't like it then change it.

True, but I'm kinda worried. Like I said earlier, the sylvari have a lot of stuff going on with their body. It seems it'll be really hard to get armor that isn't just a mess of stuff going on. Like my starting armor looked really odd. No mater what I dyed it.. it was hard to see where the body started and armor ended. Any other race their skin is pretty much one color, and one texture.. so there's no issue.

 

[HarryHengst]

You can dye any armor in the game so if you don't like it then change it.

I know, but the more i look at the picture the more i think its just a bad design (in my opinion), and it doesnt seem to fit the Sylvari at all.

 

[JonCha]

Some Tier 1 Sylvari Cultural armor screens:

http://imgur.com/a/vnIKH

http://imgur.com/a/B86s4

Top screen good, bottom screen not good.

And I like how the devs say 'we have to implement this feature,' rather than giving a roundabout answer to the effect of something like 'yeah, we're considering it, but we'll do what we want.'

 

[Vinci]

True, but I'm kinda worried. Like I said earlier, the sylvari have a lot of stuff going on with their body. It seems it'll be really hard to get armor that isn't just a mess of stuff going on. Like my starting armor looked really odd. No mater what I dyed it.. it was hard to see where the body started and armor ended. Any other race their skin is pretty much one color, and one texture.. so there's no issue.

I made a Sylvari, but I didn't spend a lot of time with it... Wouldn't it be possible to have the shades of its body the same color? That is, you would cut down on the layering effect that they have and, therefore, act as more of a background to the armor.

 

[Jira]

I made a Sylvari, but I didn't spend a lot of time with it... Wouldn't it be possible to have the shades of its body the same color? That is, you would cut down on the layering effect that they have and, therefore, act as more of a background to the armor.

You can, the amount of colors the Sylvari have access to for hair and body color is something like 76 each. Barring City of Heroes, Champions Online, and EVE, the Sylvari character creator is the best I've ever seen.

 

[zon]

Bah I fucking suck at playing betas. I lose all motivation because I know all my progress will be deleted after a few days.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

Bah I fucking suck at playing betas. I lose all motivation because I know all my progress will be deleted after a few days.

Hah, I know now how to play PvP, how to beath the Spiral and how to find every single PoI in Lion's Arch. That's progress i will keep!

 

[Minsc]

Not sure if its the coloring, but thats pretty bad.

I do like the this screen, the way the armor almost looks like it is blending in to the colors of the environment like adaptive camouflage, just too bad that isn't the case. Cloaking armor would be great for the Sylvari.

 

[Dreavus]

I do like the this screen, the way the armor almost looks like it is blending in to the colors of the environment like adaptive camouflage, just too bad that isn't the case. Cloaking armor would be great for the Sylvari.

I am now imagining a dye that could do something similar to this... and it would be amazing.

 

[Ghizz]

I do like the this screen, the way the armor almost looks like it is blending in to the colors of the environment like adaptive camouflage, just too bad that isn't the case. Cloaking armor would be great for the Sylvari.

wow that looks so nice...

 

[Deleted member 10571]

I am now imagining a dye that could do something similar to this... and it would be amazing.

Actually I won't rule that out at all

 

[BattleMonkey]

People who say melee is terrible are terrible at the game.

So there.

Oh we are playing this game now

 

[Klyka]

Oh we are playing this game now

It is the only game worth playing.

 

[Hawkian]

That sylvari armor is great-looking. I was pretty fond of them as a race honestly.

I just got that it was supposed to be The Hunger Games and Battle Royale.

 

[Retro]

All my GW2 Beta Screens: http://imgur.com/a/3ZG8I
Some of those are from BWE1 and 2, but they're organized by date so just scroll to the bottom if you want.

I can't believe we get this game in a month.

I can't believe how much fun it was just sightseeing with guildies last night before the event started.

I can't believe I took so few screenshots considering how often my jaw was on the floor.

 

[flyinpiranha]

People who say melee is terrible are terrible at the game.

So there.

That's pretty unfair. In most MMO's I've played with large scale PVP (Aion, WAR, WoW) melee was usually at a disadvantage in the large scale PVP.

So asking about the viability is a valid question.

 

[Ms. Tea]

That being said, I'm repeating the mistake I always make. NEVER go melee in a multiplayer game. But here I am, once again going melee. And I'm probably going to suffer terribly in the months to come, not being able to do a whole lot in mass PvP.

Melee is completely viable, fortunately! You will need to learn to move well, and it helps to have skills with good travel to help close the gap between you and ranged opponents. For example, greatsword-ranger's 3 (the eagle move) has a very fast dash that's about as long-range as most projectiles in the game, giving you the chance to go from long-range to point-blank where ranged characters will be at a disadvantage.

 

[Shanlei91]

So was all the Guild chatter on the Mumble server or was it disorganized due to the lack of being able to get into WvWvW?

Didn't have a mic ready this weekend so didn't join the Mumble server, but also didn't see a single thing said in the Guild chat tab all weekend. Also managed to only see one other Gaffer all weekend. I couldn't help but feel that something was broken and/or off.

 

[flyinpiranha]

Melee is completely viable, fortunately! You will need to learn to move well, and it helps to have skills with good travel to help close the gap between you and ranged opponents. For example, greatsword-ranger's 3 (the eagle move) has a very fast dash that's about as long-range as most projectiles in the game, giving you the chance to go from long-range to point-blank where ranged characters will be at a disadvantage.

Yeah, I think the big thing is that with most MMO's the ranged abilities for the melee classes sucked. At least in GW2 it seems there are valid options, granted not as powerful as ranged class abilities ... but you won't feel worthless.

Just going to take a lot of practice.

I'm like the person you quoted though, I love melee classes, never really liked much about ranged classes as I like being up close and personal.

So was all the Guild chatter on the Mumble server or was it disorganized due to the lack of being able to get into WvWvW?

Didn't have a mic ready this weekend so didn't join the Mumble server, but also didn't see a single thing said in the Guild chat tab all weekend. Also managed to only see one other Gaffer all weekend. I couldn't help but feel that something was broken and/or off.

Wasn't on the Mumble server for the most part except for the meet and greet Thursday but Guild chat seemed to be somewhat lively on Friday, unfortunately didn't get a good chance to play much of Saturday or Sunday.

It's expected to be somewhat quiet though, everybody is just kind of doing their own thing. I saw one or two other Gaffers but I tried out the Charr zone instead of going Sylvari (which I think will be my main race) and I couldn't get into Asura at all, I stopped and switched to Charr after about 10 minutes.

 

[BrettWeir]

Ok......I think I've found (read about) two negative things with the game:

- You can't transmute PvP gear?!
- Random sPvP rewards?! Sure there are alts that can use items later, or throw them into the Mystic Forge, but not fond of the mechanic...

Ugh. Sad day when I can find something negative about GW2.

Awesome screenshots all!!!!

 

[Anoregon]

I ended up not actually spending much time with this over the weekend. I enjoy what I did play, especially my Norn Necro, but I never really felt that "mmo grab" that makes me think I'd be playing the game a lot for a decent period of time.

 

[BattleMonkey]

That's pretty unfair. In most MMO's I've played with large scale PVP (Aion, WAR, WoW) melee was usually at a disadvantage in the large scale PVP.

So asking about the viability is a valid question.

It's viable, it's just in WvWvW you will often find yourself stuck with no real use in the large attack and defend battles that break out, especially when dealing with fortifications. They work good for defensive lines and breakthroughs, but during a siege you will want to have out your ranged weapons. Once you break through a wall or gate it will often turn into a big melee and the melee users have good damage output. And if you want to just be pure melee in a siege you will probably be up against that gate pounding away... it's something to do.

Your usually not going to be static with how you play a role in GW2 and will be swapping between weapon sets often.

 

[RepairmanJack]

Ok......I think I've found (read about) two negative things with the game:

- You can't transmute PvP gear?!
- Random sPvP rewards?! Sure there are alts that can use items later, or throw them into the Mystic Forge, but not fond of the mechanic...

Ugh. Sad day when I can find something negative about GW2.

Awesome screenshots all!!!!

All the pvp gear is the same stat wise? There isn't much of a point to transmute it. You just get the gear and put the modifiers in it. Unless you mean to take PVE gear and use it as pvp or something like that?

The random gear rewards is stupid though, I had a big complaint about that after the last BWE. Just a dumb way to do it.

Edit: I really liked the Sylvari zone, there were some parts of it that really felt dense and forest like. One complaint thought is it was really hard to see some times during the night cycle. Ended up having to mess with the brightness and gamma settings to be able to see clearly in some places.

The game keeps losing me around the same point with every character I have made. Right around level 12-17 or so just loses me. There seems to be less going on, the events seem like rehashes of the earlier zones when there are even events going on. I end up just getting bored around this level range. Hoping this either gets sorted out or the it picks up once you get to 20. Will have to find out on release.

Surprisingly really liked the Engineer. I went from not being interested at all in ever playing it, to now wanting it to be one of my first character. Lots of fun with it.

 

[BrettWeir]

All the pvp gear is the same stat wise? There isn't much of a point to transmute it. You just get the gear and put the modifiers in it. Unless you mean to take PVE gear and use it as pvp or something like that?

The random gear rewards is stupid though, I had a big complaint about that after the last BWE. Just a dumb way to do it.

I mean, if I find a bow that I fall in love with stat-wise in a late level dungeon, I can't transmute those stats onto a sPvP bow model that I like and use that model in PvE and WvW?

 

[kagete]

I love the game and will probably create a Mesmer, but what's the feedback on the Guardian so far? Is it really not an ideal tank and more of just a support character? I only got one up to level 5 and browsing the skill list made it seem very cleric-like and less full on tank like I'd expect. Is aggro (in the Wow sense) a thing in GW2?

Or should I just roll a Warrior instead if I want to tank? My goal is to play a character that can singlehandedly carry an undergeared/leveled group of potentially casual players if i play great (like a tank in Wow or tank/shout barb in d3).

 

[RepairmanJack]

I mean, if I find a bow that I fall in love with stat-wise in a late level dungeon, I can't transmute those stats onto a sPvP bow model that I like and use that model in PvE and WvW?

Oh, yeah that I am not sure. I could see them wanting to keep PvP gear seperate though. It could be used as a visual cue to the players rank in PvP. Also could just want to keep PVP achievement(gear) seperate from PVE achievement.

 

[Klyka]

I mean, if I find a bow that I fall in love with stat-wise in a late level dungeon, I can't transmute those stats onto a sPvP bow model that I like and use that model in PvE and WvW?

sPvP is NOT supposed to let you customize your guy however you want. It is supposed to provide clear and distinct differences in the appearances of the classes so as to be easily recognized and identified.

 

[Kos Luftar]

Best part of this last BWE, just playing with all the guys that were on Mumble. Running aroun with them to get all the waypoints, pois, vistas and doing jumping puzzles.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

So, I was really disappointed.







With the Dark Knight Rises.

Thankfully, I had this game for the rest of the weekend.

Going in basically blind without much background on the game was an interesting experience. It wasn't quite what I expected, but after about an hour of wondering what the hell I was doing, things started to click.

Can't get over how much I love Engineer. Enjoyed Necro, Elementalist, and Warrior a lot as well. Don't think there's any chance I'm not rolling Charr at launch, but Silvari and Norn will be right up next.

I'm glad I got over my repulsion of the Asura to try one as well. It's a shame I hate the way they look, because their animation and story/starting area are awesome.

 

[BrettWeir]

sPvP is NOT supposed to let you customize your guy however you want. It is supposed to provide clear and distinct differences in the appearances of the classes so as to be easily recognized and identified.

Transmutation stones are supposed to let you customize your guy however you want. So it still sucks that I can't use a weapon model I absolutely love (and spent a lot of time to obtain) if the model comes from sPvP and is only available there. Maybe the models will also be available in PvE/WvW, but I doubt it.

I could understand the possibility of locking your weapons in place for sPvP purposes so that classes are identifiable, but if you earned those weapon models, why does that even matter if I want to use those models (transmutated skins) in PvE or WvW?

It just doesn't make sense. It's almost like if you obtained a dungeon specific drop, but could never use that skin outside of that dungeon? You should be able to show off items you have acquired, no matter where it has come from.

And Peacekeeper weapons are so Tribes-esque lol.

All my GW2 Beta Screens: http://imgur.com/a/3ZG8I
Some of those are from BWE1 and 2, but they're organized by date so just scroll to the bottom if you want.

I can't believe we get this game in a month.

I can't believe how much fun it was just sightseeing with guildies last night before the event started.

I can't believe I took so few screenshots considering how often my jaw was on the floor.

DUDE!! So glad I went and checked those screenshots out. I had no idea half of that was even in the game. The orphanage, all the dragon statues, puppet show stands.....

So much love has been poured into this game.

Thanks for sharing the link to your pics Retro.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

sPvP is NOT supposed to let you customize your guy however you want. It is supposed to provide clear and distinct differences in the appearances of the classes so as to be easily recognized and identified.

I understood he wanted to transmute the visuals of a PvP weapon to a PvE stat weapon, for usage in PvE, not PvP.