Guild Wars 2 - Beta 2 Weekend Coverage 23-25 March

[Nemeon Lion]

Here's TB's first video of the beta (I see a certain sampoes chatting around):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8-9V...Q&feature=plcp

[RD]

[shawn]

guys

guys listen

i found the best thi

guys listen

i found the best thing ever

guys

i'll change COLORS

guys

colors

i'll change COLORS
guys listen here

i'll change COLORS... for my EYES.

[Lady Rhonwyn]

Here's TB's first video of the beta (I see a certain sampoes chatting around):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8-9V...Q&feature=plcp

You know, I never got an answer to that question!

[Nemeon Lion]

You know, I never got an answer to that question!

I never knew you had the opportunity to even ask that question in GW2.

Y I HAZ NO BETA INVITZ!!!

[teina]

I've read and heard about the complaints of Beefjack from other beta-players as well.. Too much spamming in combat, too much chaos, no thought etc..

While others comment on the combat system as being positive. Saying it does require thought, especially on higher level combat. That working as a team is necessary, etc.

So much conflicting information all the time.

I think it depends a lot on the situation. If you're in a smaller group, coordination obviously works much better than leeroying and spamming. On the other hand, if there are 20+ people in a world event, yes, well, it's pretty much spam and chaos. Sure, you can try to be tactical, but when things are blowing up faster than you can aim, the event pouring in more mobs, and people running all over to stop the new adds, then coordination tend to take a backseat.

On the other hand, in WvW, large groups need to have some level of coordination, even if unspoken. Randomly throwing yourself at the opponents is a quick way to earn you a large armor repair bill, since your body may end up some place where nobody can get to you to res.

-T

[Nohjo]

And how is the combat system when you are solo'ing? Is it how people described it, that its just wait until the cooldown is finished and mindlessly use the skill again? What was your experience in small (friend) groups? And how did highend compared to lowend combat?

Thanks. :)

[RD]

Alaris' blog post address the cooldown / mindlessness questions!

[Lady Rhonwyn]

And how is the combat system when you are solo'ing? Is it how people described it, that its just wait until the cooldown is finished and mindlessly use the skill again? What was your experience in small (friend) groups? And how did highend compared to lowend combat?

Thanks. :)

I'm not a high-end player (far from it, I prefer to lay back and enjoy the scene mostly ) but at one point we decided to go to Kessex Peak. This was a lvl15-25 area (we were all lvl30). We went in search for the mystical gate to Lion's Arch (but those evil devs had closed it and redirected it to the Shiverpeaks ). In short, we were just exploring and having fun. We did have some nasty spots where we had to really fight our way through, but mostly got through okay (ignoring most of the events on the way as it was an exploration mission). I later retraced our steps while alone. And didn't really notice a difference between going alone and in a group. Except the lack of help if you needed it (for example nobody around to revive you) I still had some nasty spots but got through okay. Also, this was a rather empty world now, I don't know how many invites were sent out in total, but if you spread that over 6 areas (3 low-level, 3 high-level) and the PvP and WvW, you'll find that the total population was rather low. But still you met people all around the maps to help and aid you (or you to help and aid them).

[Alaris]

Yup, it's skilled play like I have never experienced in MMOs.

In larger groups, it's easier to mash buttons, but that's only because the player is confused. Even masking buttons there wouldn't work well, playing better would give better results. That is, there same reasons why it's noobish to mash buttons in 1vs1 also apply to larger fights.

Combos were difficult to keep track of though. I think those might need some learning to pull off reliably. I still managed to get a lot of random combos playing normally though. I think a coordinated group could pull those off more regularly. I'm not sure how important they are to winning though.

High-end vs low-end, not sure how to answer that. Dungeons were more difficult, but I would say they required the same kinds of skills in combat, but also included cool stuff like traps etc that added other types of challenges than just combat. Also, more bosses.

As for population density, it was quite variable over the time I played. The game adapts really well to increased population though.