[:1]So yeah, I wish I could explain in words how awesome this year's GamesCom was.
And I can.
After I have breakfast.
[EDIT] I broke fast, time to talk.
So I demo'ed the PvP. I played one round as a Sylvari Ranger. I originally wanted to play an Earth Ele, but I figured I had some experience with the Ranger so if I wanted to compare **** from memory, choosing the same class was probably smartest. The PvP demo was 5v5 (obviously, on the map Battle of Kyhlo)
Firstly the game tracks some statistics, namely the points you got and how you got them.
Our team won, I got 85 points (iirc, could be 5 more or less), finishing third on my team. More specific stats:
I got 10 kills, at 5 points each. I'm not 100% sure whether downing or finishing an enemy got you a kill.
I got 1 revive, at 10 points.
I got 1 capture (Mill iirc), at 25 points. The capped point preceded to add points (rapidly, I'd guesstimate 1 point every 3 or 4 seconds). I did not see this reflected in my personal stats. I'm unsure whether capping a point only adds 25 points to your personal or also your team score. as such I'm unsure how reflective personal score is of team score and whether it'd promote good or bad behaviour; that's however a finer point which is fine to handle post-release.
Secondly, the character I played and the controls:
As a Ranger, you started out with axe/horn with longbow on the switch. No idea what healing skill: it took some time to cast and then healed a chunk of health, reasonable recharge. There were three utility skills. Spike Trap (KD, Cripple, domage, long recharge), ?Sharpen Arrows (next 5 attacks cause bleeding, reasonable recharge, good duration, precasting was smart) and antidote signet (passive, removes a condition/10s, active, removes all conditions. Never activated, fairly neat, iirc long recharge). The elite doubled the attack and movement speed of both me and my pet for a short time with a long recharge. Halfway through the match I switched my longbow for a shortbow (inventory automapped [I]). Much more enjoyable weapon. You cannot switch during combat btw.
wasd = movement. Doubletap = dodge in direction. 123..890=skills. i =inventory. b=dodge. space=jump. Aiming skills = left mouse. Camera control = right mouse. tab=switch to visible nearby enemy. f=context sensitive.
Thirdly, everything on how a character plays.
Overall, speed seems to have decreased. Probably because you can't roll anywhere near as often anymore. The roll meter [I'm going to call it stamina] is sufficient for at most two rolls, after which you have to wait ~10 second to roll again. This drastically increased travelling time. The weapons I used, especially initially weren't anywhere near as mobility based as the sword I used last year meaning I actually ran out of stamina while in combat. During my first engagement this actually lead to dying. Respawning took some time, countdown started at 17 seconds iirc. I'm guessing respawn is at set intervals.
I preferred the increased speed of constantly being able to roll, but I dislike the old energy mechanic. The new 'b' button doesn't really add anything. My advice: add a sprint button, allowing players to sprint for short distances at slightly below swiftness boosted speeds while draining stamina.
A second reason though, which I'll elaborate on later, is the size of the map, the static goals and the fewer people.
As far as Ranger weaponry goes, the axe was kinda boring, warhorn ok and the shortbow incredible. Retreating shot, Crip Shot, elite skill, some kind of barrage ability, having your pet aid in attack -> kill from safety while massively increasing your mobility. Longbow is definitely more fun in PvE than PvP, though I once used barrage to clear away some crates and get access to another path which was cool. Overall, I'd probably say sword/horn+shortbow is the most fun weapon setup for Ranger (though I haven't tried great sword, dagger or torch yet).
Pets still suck. No really. I'm beginning to think adding something like a no-pet option might be a good idea.
Downed states don't seem particularly well balanced for PvP. Every class gets access to help me which restores health meaning, if you don't get attacked, you'll live and if you only get attacked by minor aoe, you live. Killing through damage is surprisingly tough so using [f]inish him is normally easiest; [f] is only available in melee. This means backline classes are much more likely to survive. Especially Elementalists required something extra as their skill grasping earth interrupted [f]. I'd change Healp Me to only heal when no enemies are nearby, and to check what skills interrupt [f].
I still didn't feel teamplay and team combo's were present enough, but for that I blame...
Conquest and the map, as a final point.
Conquest is principally fine: especially at the beginning it was very confusing to locate everything and everyone but that was to be expected. My main gripe is that capturing as a main way to score points is boring: it does not necessitate conflict and for the first two or three minutes the two teams were basically racing to cap, more than they were in actual combat. You know where you need to go to score big points and you go there, rather than tryng to prevent the opposition.
This was exacerbated by the size of the map and the number of players: in meters squared, the map was big, but also vertically there was a lot of movement. The clocktower has multiple levels and there's an insane amount of roofs and obstacles, meaning you'll easily miss other players even if they're passing right by. This might be less when you actively fire the trebuchet but that means you need to sacrifice a player to running the repair kit/manning the treb, meaning there's even fewer players concentrated in one area. If there would've been more players, the size would've been circumvented as a problem as there's just more encounters. An additional option for remedying the problem would be showing nearby enemies on the mini-map, though I kinda like the player stealth element of them not showing on the mini.
What really was sad was the lack of teamplay. In part of course it's because of the PUG nature of gamescom demo's, but also because the map invites spreading out more than staying concentrated. Which is ****ty as playing with other players can be incredibly rewarding. To illustrate, once I encountered an ele which I followed he turned out to be water. After some fumbling in a 2v2 square off where I got chased in a corner by a warrior goddamn chokepoint with little maneavrability I used the combo mentioned earlier, but I did a 180 beforehand landing me behind the warrior and forcing a pass through a water geyser which I hoped had the healing spec, giving me a nice heal so I could continue to crip and smash the war (especially when my pet joint in and the war was dumb enough to walk through the geyser). That's incredible positional play which afaik can only be had in GW2 but which imo thanks to the map and fewer participants was a rarity rather than par de course.
So anyway. Lots of fun, some definite improvements, but some definite things holding it back. I think it's a shame I didn't get to try a second match but I did get to admire-if-not-play the vita, see a the secret world presentation and a whole bunch of other things, so mwuh.
Plus a new bags with delicious artwork.
[EDIT2] And there seemed to be a bug where you couldn't use double tap to roll while wielding a longbow or som'thing. Didn't test it too intensively (something with demo's only being 10 min).|||Quote:
So yeah, I wish I could explain in words how awesome this year's GamesCom was.
And I can.
After I have breakfast.
I don't know whether to say "oh, the anticipation!" or "cool story bro."
So.. cool anticipation, bro.|||I think we are being rick roll'ed by Akirai.
Just saying...|||Quote:
This was exacerbated by the size of the map and the number of players:
I noticed this too from the demo videos floating around. The map is essentially like a TF2 map, but only 5v5 players. Given 3 control points with the center being the most important point and various goals/stuff you need to deal with, you're better off with a split tactic from the start. Team play really doesn't seem to be encouraged on the map at all. I'd say 6v6 to 8v8 might have been more fitting given the size. 5v5 on maps of that scale means you're better off focusing on cap goals rather than actually doing PvP action. It's the JQ problem all over again, professions good at capping (in this case, likely the 1v1 best class and the running classes) are going to have an advantage over the others, and the team with the most of them wins. Mobbing and going in with a build helping the team will matter little. Already, the Pyrogineer seems like a good class for clearing cap points because it's essentially the TF2 Pyro + Engineer, clear the cap point, drop a turret or some mines, GTFO to the next point.|||EDIT: misread the title, there was something about t-shirts here.
I managed to go to desktop in the middle of my demo, probably hit the windows key or something, I was playing on the pc that was shown on one of the screens on the side too :/
Anyway I posted my experience with the assas- umm thief in the PvP thread. And I agree GW2 needs a sprint button.|||Thanks for the thorough write-up!|||Seems to backup my thoughts and arguments about it. Nice writeup.|||Very interesting.
Why is the shortbow more comfortable than longbow? I'm guessing firing rate?
Sprint button is a good idea.
Your story at the end seems to show great promise for GW2 but also implies that they should increase the team size and/or change the game mode so players tend to play closer together.|||I would guess firing speed in relation to kiting and the arc the arrow will have.|||Also went to GamesCom today and it was awesome. Very sad that I couldn't get hold of a T-shirt because of .. some... REALLY wierd and obsessive people.. but I got 4 handkerchiefs, an ncsoft neckless thing and a mousepad :D Together with this awesome Guild Wars 2 bag ofcourse.
I played as a human warrior on PVP and I have to say, I mostly do not like to play pvp on mmorpgs but hell, this was so great that I think Ill be starting a pure pvp character once the game comes out. My screen got monitored on a big screen so that made my gameplay a bit nervous. The waiting to play pvp was long though, but you could talk with the developers while you waited :D Issaiah and someone else where having a mini-marker-pen-sword-fight for wich I would pay money to see. :p
Also, at the lore Q&A with Soesbee, I asked a question. If you want to see how it went, this is the recording
(skip to 3:10)
Despite my nervous "uhm"s from all the excitement, she was able to understand my question and answer it. :p
I want to have this game so badly. :(
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