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Guild Wars 2 |OT5| We've got fun and games
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LumpOfCole
Member
Plz someone look at those frog people with a bobble head thing
oh that's right they got the night-time stuff working, shit is gonna be CRAZY
LumpOfCole
Member
Got the parrot carrier which is only 2g on the TP, via the only way I will ever get these mail carriers.
I made a mistake buying one for 25g thinking they were cheap at that price
Man at least on the charr with the short length on the coat, I getting some biker coat vibe from the new outfit. It kind of reminds me of Mad Max in some way lol. Think I am liking my memser's new look with it.
Ouch. I surprise they are already so cheap. I guess it not that rare from the chest (well it is in the uncommon tier I believe).
Edit: The mad hipster scientist/biker that is my memser lol. And he is ready to whip out the chain sword as he awaits becoming a time mage!
Ouch. I surprise they are already so cheap. I guess it not that rare from the chest (well it is in the uncommon tier I believe).
Edit: The mad hipster scientist/biker that is my memser lol. And he is ready to whip out the chain sword as he awaits becoming a time mage!
UltimateIke
Member
Congrats Apple!
Something isn't clicking with me in the beta. Events take way too long to complete, enemies take way too long to kill, and once night falls, it doesn't feel at all dangerous to venture outside of the rally points. It's actually really boring; you spend immense amounts of time defending the rally points, and trying to collect supplies and rescue stranded Pact soldiers feels like a completely futile effort.
Maybe there is something more to it that no one has figured out or more events that aren't there since the rest of the map is blocked off, but I'm not having a lot fun as things stand right now.
Something isn't clicking with me in the beta. Events take way too long to complete, enemies take way too long to kill, and once night falls, it doesn't feel at all dangerous to venture outside of the rally points. It's actually really boring; you spend immense amounts of time defending the rally points, and trying to collect supplies and rescue stranded Pact soldiers feels like a completely futile effort.
Maybe there is something more to it that no one has figured out or more events that aren't there since the rest of the map is blocked off, but I'm not having a lot fun as things stand right now.
LumpOfCole
Member
I have to guess the enemies taking too long to kill is due to non-optimized builds with Celestial Gear / Dolyak Runes. Once people get their mains in the new zones, mobs will be going down faster.
Verdant Brink Summary. Spoilers Below:
The second you get into the map there's a story instance to do. At the same time, in the open world, two quest chains start. The first quest chain is right by where you enter the Brink, and it essentially continues off of where the story instance ends. You run with Laranthir and through a series of events create an outpost in these cool ruins in the southwest area of the map. The final event has you on two different sides of the ruins, up on cliffs, alternating fire at a giant vine and the respawning Mordrem Champion that puts up a shield over the vine. Destroy the vine, the Mordrem leave, and the Pact gets a great foothold for the coming night cycle.
The other quest chain is all about the Itzel. You meet them, learn about them, help them. They worry about their religion, and hunting for food. One of the early events you can do is help a hunting party go out and protect them as they fight ever and ever larger game. The third stage has you fighting the same enemy from the Chronomancer pre-recorded video on its livestream, which is the same enemy in the Dragonhunter trailer. Eventually the wyvern attacks the village, and you help them put out the fire while fending off invading Mordrem.
I'm a bit unsure about this whole section and will be clarified during the final time, but basically Itzel decide to venture out and you help them to win back other Hylek from the nearby enemy tribe and its disliked religion. You literally travel into a sermon and throw rotting food at the speaker in order to disrupt it. Afterward you take a detour to collect explosive wyvern eggs, and I currently assume the last event in this chain has you splitting into two-three groups as you distract the enemy tribe while others stealthily plant those explosive eggs. Assuming this is the last event in the line, there's a good chance you get an outpost for completing it.
Next comes the Night Phase.
The second you get into the map there's a story instance to do. At the same time, in the open world, two quest chains start. The first quest chain is right by where you enter the Brink, and it essentially continues off of where the story instance ends. You run with Laranthir and through a series of events create an outpost in these cool ruins in the southwest area of the map. The final event has you on two different sides of the ruins, up on cliffs, alternating fire at a giant vine and the respawning Mordrem Champion that puts up a shield over the vine. Destroy the vine, the Mordrem leave, and the Pact gets a great foothold for the coming night cycle.
The other quest chain is all about the Itzel. You meet them, learn about them, help them. They worry about their religion, and hunting for food. One of the early events you can do is help a hunting party go out and protect them as they fight ever and ever larger game. The third stage has you fighting the same enemy from the Chronomancer pre-recorded video on its livestream, which is the same enemy in the Dragonhunter trailer. Eventually the wyvern attacks the village, and you help them put out the fire while fending off invading Mordrem.
I'm a bit unsure about this whole section and will be clarified during the final time, but basically Itzel decide to venture out and you help them to win back other Hylek from the nearby enemy tribe and its disliked religion. You literally travel into a sermon and throw rotting food at the speaker in order to disrupt it. Afterward you take a detour to collect explosive wyvern eggs, and I currently assume the last event in this chain has you splitting into two-three groups as you distract the enemy tribe while others stealthily plant those explosive eggs. Assuming this is the last event in the line, there's a good chance you get an outpost for completing it.
Next comes the Night Phase.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
hahahaha!
Night Phase
For the 2 hour blocks of the beta test, 70-80 minutes is for the day and 35-40 minutes is for night. I really should have looked at those timers much closer.
Every one or two events you complete during the day phase gives a defensive position along the north (Itzel) or south (Pact) that you can protect. I didn't count but there are in the ballpark of 10 areas to defend if you finish the whole map during the day phase.
Night isn't scary. It's annoying. There is a constant cycle of defense waves every 3 minutes at every single defensible location. In between waves you're supposed to run to find supplies and carry them back manually, but many of them are placed so far away that by the time you randomly find one and bring it back you're already in another defense event.
On Masteries: The only way to increase Masteries is by earning experience. Best way to earn experience was completing events, but with the way the Night Phase gave out experience most of your progress happened during the day anyway. At least give us more experience if we're going to have to sit through the grinder.
The goal is to fill the supply bar across the map, which is done fastest by securing the most defensible locations and then bringing supplies to all of them as often as possible. There are Pact Soldiers that have been marooned or paratrooped their way into odd locations, and they have long escort events tied around them. At this point I'm convinced you can't both defend a place and escort supplies consistently, kind of like escorting dolyaks in the Silverwastes.
The bar also moves so very slowly, but it may be because the defense events popped so frequently that people didn't know they were supposed to spread out and look for supply. There also seemed to be separate meta events for Itzel and Pact, or at the very least they only counted the number of defensible locations available for the side of the map you were currently on.
Next test I'm going to tag up at as far of an outpost as I can on the Itzel side, and make it my mission to escort supply as much as possible to see how it goes. If I can get that bar even halfway up I'll be happy.
Conclusion:
Day Time: Fun, a little easy at times, the last event on both chains can take some time.
Night Time: A slog, less dangerous than annoying, currently feels futile to win that meta event.
Maybe I should make a post on Reddit to rally people to this.
Edit: Post.
For the 2 hour blocks of the beta test, 70-80 minutes is for the day and 35-40 minutes is for night. I really should have looked at those timers much closer.
Every one or two events you complete during the day phase gives a defensive position along the north (Itzel) or south (Pact) that you can protect. I didn't count but there are in the ballpark of 10 areas to defend if you finish the whole map during the day phase.
Night isn't scary. It's annoying. There is a constant cycle of defense waves every 3 minutes at every single defensible location. In between waves you're supposed to run to find supplies and carry them back manually, but many of them are placed so far away that by the time you randomly find one and bring it back you're already in another defense event.
On Masteries: The only way to increase Masteries is by earning experience. Best way to earn experience was completing events, but with the way the Night Phase gave out experience most of your progress happened during the day anyway. At least give us more experience if we're going to have to sit through the grinder.
The goal is to fill the supply bar across the map, which is done fastest by securing the most defensible locations and then bringing supplies to all of them as often as possible. There are Pact Soldiers that have been marooned or paratrooped their way into odd locations, and they have long escort events tied around them. At this point I'm convinced you can't both defend a place and escort supplies consistently, kind of like escorting dolyaks in the Silverwastes.
The bar also moves so very slowly, but it may be because the defense events popped so frequently that people didn't know they were supposed to spread out and look for supply. There also seemed to be separate meta events for Itzel and Pact, or at the very least they only counted the number of defensible locations available for the side of the map you were currently on.
Next test I'm going to tag up at as far of an outpost as I can on the Itzel side, and make it my mission to escort supply as much as possible to see how it goes. If I can get that bar even halfway up I'll be happy.
Conclusion:
Day Time: Fun, a little easy at times, the last event on both chains can take some time.
Night Time: A slog, less dangerous than annoying, currently feels futile to win that meta event.
Maybe I should make a post on Reddit to rally people to this.
Edit: Post.
appletoasty
Member
There are no gurls on da interwebs dont you know
Beta done. My post on reddit seemed to actually help. People tried. We finished the day phase with 20 minutes to spare, so I finally got to try the two adventures. Also, I'm a dummy; since I didn't look at any details from the first Verdant Brink event, I didn't know that the Itzel chain ended in a wyvern fight. You live and you learn.
Night just is scaled for a super packed map. Best we were able to do was keep around 4 out of the 8 total camps, and two of them got upgraded to tier 3 I believe. We still only got the bar up to about 20% for the night phase. I guess it's going to need something along the lines of a [DTOP] guild to even have a shot of winning it as it's currently tuned.
Night just is scaled for a super packed map. Best we were able to do was keep around 4 out of the 8 total camps, and two of them got upgraded to tier 3 I believe. We still only got the bar up to about 20% for the night phase. I guess it's going to need something along the lines of a [DTOP] guild to even have a shot of winning it as it's currently tuned.
i have one
Yeah what do you mean?
Whatever that means it's highly unlikely they'll release new ascended armor skins.
You usually want that for the stats, and once you have them for that, you can use the wardrobe to make it look like any other armor you want anyway.
Locking a new set of skins behind ascended crafting looks like a waste of everyone's time.
True, that sounds smarter ^^ I guess I'll have to look into how to craft it later then.
No, there's an event chain for everything, unless I missed some events. You can finish the event chain early or not make it at all, and some people chose to ignore them (although they were the best way to earn experience for Masteries).
It means there's no randomness, but it also means it's like Silverwastes where the map progresses at whatever rate the players on it are going at, until the timer hits.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
My concerns (as we talked about last night in Gchat) :
1) On the new Map; On Reddit some people where saying bad things about the new map. Is more like Silverwastes, feels off, doesn't feel impactful, finding pact fleet survivors= who cares?, people who haven't played S2 won't be able to relate, understand or give a fuck and so on.
I know S2 only costs a few gems, but the whole system feels cumbersome. I don't know if I can tell my friend in good faith to buy the base game, then pick up the expansion, and then buy all these mini episodes. the blur between the personal story, living story season 2 and HoT story. I don't like how they are doing the red narrative thread here.
It's absolutely true that nobody really plays GW2 mainly for the story, but this map seems more story/themed focused than maps in the past, and Anet has said that this is deliberately done to make players more intuitively understand what is going on. Well, it's not a promising way to start off a whole new adventure.
I hope there will be some sort of good introduction cut scene or something that eases players into it, and gets veterans pumped up. Not too much, but just enough exposition so you care about it.
People say the map is beautiful and use high rez textures, so that is something.
And also; I think Silverwaste is great. I know some of you like Dry Top more, but I don't. Maybe it's my internet, but I can't navigate the aspects well with latency, I find them clunky, the sandstorms are too frequent. The Map feels too narrow and linear and is cumbersome to explore. But Silverwaste has given me lots of joy. Defending the different areas, collecting the different achievements, the segregation of an entire map working together to unlock bonus chests. All those things are cool to me, and hard enough for it to really require most of the map to do their best and want it, but easy enough to let it happen before most people say "fuck it" (like Triple Wurm).
2) "Mastery skills for your character as a replacement for carrot-on-a-stick-MMO conventions" People are saying the glider is off. Colin said that they had heard the feedback from the early previews, so I was surprised to see that people still feel it opens to slow.
I am concerned that people won't see gated obstructions as not being able to gash upwards, or jump on a certain colored mushroom, not being worthy replacement as meaningful progression, and more as a needless intrusion that is put in place to give the illusion that your character is becoming more powerful.
Let's not forget GW2 is making a massive statement in the world of gaming. No new treadmills, gear increases, level increases. It's quite inspirational. It's the right thing to do, and it shows a great reconcilliation of the values held by GW1. However, I am concerned that there is little actual meat on the bone here.
When you dodge, it's a physical skill that requires timing and players instinctly gets better at it. Will that be the case for gated mushroom jumping, turning invisible, climbing vines or gliding from one platform to the next? Or will it just be like a mini game - Press F, fart and you're home!?
3) Armors. Most MMO Expansions often have a poor output of armors. I've never played a MMO expansion that didn't have its playerbase call the developers lazy for reusing art assets.
Anet has pushed Outfits a lot, and I think Outfits are fine for gem store. They are great tools for Alts, but the concerning thing is that the outfits look so much better on Charr, Sylvari, Norn and Asura than regular armors (often), which might suggest that they are really struggling with the quality control, or they just don't have enough resources.
5x races x2 genders is 10 character models. With 2-4 layers of over 400 dyes in the game, I can see how making armor in this game is complicated.
I want Reaper themed armor, Dragon Hunter themed armor, and Druid themed armor. The idea that there will be 8 Class + 1(Revernant) "theme" adjusted to 18, with every new specialization giving a new visual look, is amazing. Each spec is getting their own mechanics, name and icon. It is treated as a sub class.
I really think that the game is going to feel 10x more varied, even from a psychological stand point, if they can let each specialization differ visually in armor distinguishment from their base profession.
I am not concerned about weapons as all, because there are so many great ones. But I am really, really worried about armors. Armors is one of those things that has never satisfied people. Almost in no game that I have played.
4) It is my opinion that the rest of the game must not be left behind. HoT is also a means to keep doing the entirety of the old maps, which includes Dry Top and Silverwaste, and right now I feel like getting the Geodes from outside PvP or working on Mawdrey is not offering the best synergi right now. These maps should not be left in the wayside with their currencies and so on. It's hard for me to find organized groups for Season 2 achievements, Dry Top achievements.
5) No world on new guild missions, New Fractals, or New Dungeons. People are pissed about only one new sPvP and Borderlands map. GW2 is the first game since WoW that has so many groups of people that want to pull the game in a trillion different directions. It's a testament to how strong the game is, but also frustrating as each player group will be annoyed by others. I was listening to Brazil talking about how disappointed he wll be if ArenaNet ignores Dungeons in HoT and just goes for Fractals. And I've heard others say the complete opposite. Dungeons are trash and Fractals are the only thing that matters.
And then there is people like me, who want more Tequatl/Marionette style map-wide 200+ player bosses that feels hard-but dooable.
6) What the hell are they going to do with the Personal Home Instance, the Order you choose, and the Charisma/Ferocity/Charm system?
Gameplay systems that have been left in the waste. For good reason. These are not as important as all the other great stuff they have been doing, but will they ever do more with them? And then there is Guild Halls which opens up.. If there is so many things we haven't seen here at the end of May - 6 more specializations, the rest of the Revernant weapons, Guild Halls, and so on, I am beginning to think it will be really, really hard to imagine a a third GW2 Birthday HOT launch at the end of August.
And that raises additional concerns, because then we're looking at a downtime so long, that they could easily have a Living Story Season 3, and not having content for so long besides a returning Dragon Bash, Super Adventure Box or something else, is disheartening. If it is Q4 2015? Then they have to have something else. I don't know how else they can maintain interest. People desperately want the WvW changes before a new Tournament as well.
7) The sky is falling. Everything will end as we know it, and Hello Kitty Online Adventures will "kill" GW2.
I don't want to be too reactionary, but I have little interest in PvE maps where I'm made to feel as if I'm holding everyone else back by not contributing to the event chains. I'll do the bare minimum it takes to unlock the masteries and from then on I'll just be gliding around.
I'm more interested in the WvW potential of the revenant. Rumors persist that hammer revenant will be the new frontline standard.
I'm more interested in the WvW potential of the revenant. Rumors persist that hammer revenant will be the new frontline standard.
UltimateIke
Member
I can honestly say now, whatever it is I wanted, it was not another map on a giant, looping event chain. Dry Top, The Silverwastes, and now Verdant Brink make for three straight variations on map-wide linear repeating event systems that take an hour or more to see through to the end. It makes me miss the dynamic event systems from older maps. It feels contrived, not at all organic; every event being tied to a greater goal makes your individual contribution at a given time feel insignificant, especially when you get as little feedback from your successes as you did in the beta events.
I won't give up hope. The beta was a very small slice of the real thing, so there is a lot more to look forward to.
I won't give up hope. The beta was a very small slice of the real thing, so there is a lot more to look forward to.
appletoasty
Member
The mushroom soldiers were pretty cute tho.
The dynamic events are also far less romantized than you give them credit for. A chain of events with a meaningful reward at the end is better, gameplay wise, than small events with no connection that you do once and then never again because they offer nothing outside of the first time experience. And if they dont, they become the blinxx event at the cursed shore: a way to farm stuff taking away any resemblance of "I did the difference".
This is exactly how I felt yesterday, to be honest. And I hated this new map because of it. Everything about the design of this new area is intended to artificially gate you from content in order to make you grind for mastery points.
I had an absolutely terrible experience yesterday. Only able to participate in the last cycle of the beta events, I followed a chain of dynamic events that led me south to the ruins - wherein I was stuck for almost an hour because poor event communication to the player led me to believe I needed to stay and defend the ruins area. All the experienced beta players either long ago glided off or knew to avoid that southern area completely.
Lost, trying to stumble my way around to where all the other players were and being unsuccessful because every turn you run into a dead end or some artificial barrier that requires you to have a mastery point to get to. Unable to earn mastery points because all of the events have long since been done with you begin to realize that you'll have to wait around for a hour or more for the chain of events to cycle back around. Finally got someone to respond in map that I needed to head north from the first waypoint to get where I needed. Followed his advice only to then realize from map chat that the big end event was completed and can't be done again because it doesn't repeat more than once for the time period the beta runs in.
I loathe this new map.
To contrast, it's both what I want and not what I want. I enjoy the Silverwastes, even if it can be exhausting. I'd also like something else, but I'm not sure. Possibly another exploration focused map like in lower level zones with more contained meta chains. But I also want more maps like the Silverwastes and Dry Top. I couldn't tell you the optimum ratio.
I like the fact that they're moving from an 1 hour cycle to a 2 hour cycle. This allows for two things: if only half the map is working on the meta then they have enough time to complete it. If the full map works on the chain then you can finish it early and then get up to things like Adventures with those same people you just fought with.
Also, these things never make me feel insignificant in my contribution either, but it may be how I approach it. Like when climbing up the cliffs to set bombs to open the ruins I'd be the type to stay at the bottom breaking CC bars and rumbling with the cover fire overhead. During the Night Phase win attempt I tried to organize I ran off to the furthest location I could and defended it with only about ten people, running out for supplies with only one or two others at a time. For contrast, in the Silverwastes I'm running condition builds and rushing head long to maim the husks and cripple the charge-griffs, then quickly run off to escort supply when I see a lone dolyak go by.
Edit: Oh jeez, a number of posts. Let me add in a quote here...
Edit 2:
The problem I see here isn't the Masteries. With the exception of the bonus mastery points, there was nothing in the actual beta event that was gated by gliders or mushrooms. They were always, always, always shortcuts. I know because I explored the whole map without them first.
The problem is that the map is confusing and dense. It takes time to learn where to go. The ruins especially were a perfect example as getting to the mortar area requires you to run through a specific route and having a glider helps you skip the first or second staircase... if you've already taken the time to climb on foot to the other half of the event with the snipers.
That's something I actually forgot to praise. The Masteries make things easier, but as they're shortcuts their primary use comes after you've learned the map anyway, when you need to rush around during the night phase to gather supply. Otherwise, you can still go on foot, or do the necessary defense events instead.
UltimateIke
Member
What meaningful reward? Small, unique events I do once and get to experience something new are much better than repeating the same slog over and over for "rewards." The Silverwastes and Dry Top play out the same way every time you do them, and you can plan on doing them dozens of times to get the rewards. After the first two or three times you've seen all there is and it stops being a game and becomes a job.
Any of the events in Verdant Brink taken individually are good on their own, but as things that all have to be done together repeatedly to succeed, they're not enjoyable.
You realize that in that case you can just experience the event chain once and then move on, just like with the old maps? That there are still areas on the map untouched by events you can explore? Or is it that you also want little events and activities strewn around off the beaten path too? That last concern I can empathize with.
They are better but they are also finite. At one point you will run out of events and get bored out of it. The repetition of events happens because they offer (in most cases the possibility of) different rewards at the end. And ultimately, rewards are what drive people to play a game: how can they measure their progress if the game has no way to reward them?
Of course, we dig into a different territory now, which is the carrot in a stick design where people do repetitive tasks for the chance to "earn" a reward. Ultimately you are asking for a "experience" vs "reward" conflict (because an event cant be a great experience AND a rewarding one forever), and although I enjoy both types, I feel the rewards have a bigger impact in GW2 where the gameplay aims to be equal across the field and rewards are needed to differentiate players.
UltimateIke
Member
Orr managed to have the big Temple meta events and tons of unconnected events scattered elsewhere. That's the template I have enjoyed most.
Multi-hour event chains on set schedules don't do it for me.
Multi-hour event chains on set schedules don't do it for me.
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