Final beta: July 20-22

[CHIPS]

It would be great if ANet had auto-gold looting; no option needed, just have the gold auto-loot from corpses -- I guess kind of like running over it in D3, would be nice -- but in GW2 just have it appear in your inventory once an enemy dies. Then have the auto-loot option for items only.

I would actually support the idea of auto loot all. I rather manually throw junk out than missing a potential gold drop. I didn't realize there is an option to sent certain loots to the bank straight. That's pretty cool.

Loots and inventory should be as automatic as possible. Focus should be on game play. No time to pick up drops when there are 200 mobs vs 100 humans.

A few things:
-I play an Asura engineer and had 2 bars of stamina for dashes. And they take forever to recharge. Maybe it is profession related not sure. Either way that's not enough. I think it should have 4 bars, with it recharging twice as fast.
-My engineer can only use 3 types of weapons. Rifle, 2 pistols, pistol+shield. I think all the weapons lacks skills. Take the rifle for example. I maxed all 5 of its skills by the time I was lvl 6. And when I hit level 16, I was STILL using those 5 skills. So I didn't improve at all. I hope the real game give much more options than that.
-None of the missions I went though actually teaches the player how to play the game. For example no one taught me how to dash. I figured out that I had to double tab a,s,d,w by myself. And of course no mission taught me the application of it (e.g. when should you dash? How to dash strategically so you don't run out of stamina? etc)
-Teleports should be totally free. My opinion. I died so many times fighting that HUGE fire boss. I already had to pay for repairs. So paying for teleport every time that I die, on top of repairs, really sucks, given how easy it was to die there. This is like a double punishment. Now this isn't nearly as bad as Diablo 3's repair costs. But let's not get anywhere close to it.
-Final PvP event: The map was way too big for the # of people involved. It was also very chaotic since I have no idea where my allies are. Their location weren't shown on the map. I hope there is some kind of central command in the real game. Or at least some indication on the map showing me where to go or what's going on. I also got very confused with that robot thing. No idea what that's about. After 10 minutes as a robot I was thinking if I should just quit the game or not.

[sorudo]

i do think they need to remove the junk, in GW1 we never had a problem with this because everything dropped on the ground but in GW2 auto-loot picks up everything the mob has on it.
besides, why even have junk, why not keep it on the useful things or better yet, if junk has to say why not make it at least salvageable.

[nkuvu]

-My engineer can only use 3 types of weapons. Rifle, 2 pistols, pistol+shield. I think all the weapons lacks skills. Take the rifle for example. I maxed all 5 of its skills by the time I was lvl 6. And when I hit level 16, I was STILL using those 5 skills. So I didn't improve at all. I hope the real game give much more options than that.

From what I've read... nope. Skills are weapon based. Traits let you change the power and precision and so forth, but it's still the same skill. Utility skills are unlocked as you level, but those go in slots 6-10.

Though I'd love to be proven wrong for this, and admittedly have no experience past level 10.

-None of the missions I went though actually teaches the player how to play the game. For example no one taught me how to dash. I figured out that I had to double tab a,s,d,w by myself. And of course no mission taught me the application of it (e.g. when should you dash? How to dash strategically so you don't run out of stamina? etc)
-Teleports should be totally free. My opinion. I died so many times fighting that HUGE fire boss. I already had to pay for repairs. So on top of that paying for teleport every time that I die sucks, given how easy it was to die there. This is like a double punishment. Now this isn't nearly as bad as Diablo 3's repair costs. But let's not get anywhere close to it.
-Final PvP event: The map was way too big for the # of people involved. It was also very chaotic since I have no idea where my allies are. Their location weren't shown on the map. I hope there is some kind of central command in the real game. Or at least some indication on the map showing me where to go or what's going on. I also got very confused with that robot thing. No idea what that's about. After 10 minutes as a robot I was thinking if I should just quit the game or not.

I don't mind the convenience charge if I'm just traveling to a waypoint to get somewhere faster. But if you're defeated, travel to the nearest waypoint should be free. Though I could also accept that travel to a distant waypoint would incur the normal charge.

Final event wasn't chaotic at all for me. Run run run run run run run run oh hey, there's a hostile player who killed me in one shot because I couldn't find any rations. Resurrect because it was in grace period and run run run run run run oh look three hostile players and I still haven't found any rations. Yay I'm a bot. I can explore. Run ru--oh hey, one shot killed. I... I guess I'll just sit here quietly then.

I was really disappointed with the final event.

I wrote up a whole lot of my thoughts on the BWE, but it got to be so long that I'm not sure it needs to be posted. Edit: Holy weasels. Did a word count, and... 3900 words or so of my blatherings on the BWE and GW2.

[raspberry jam]

I played for maybe two hours and I was monumentally bored. I couldn't really put my finger on why, though. So I sought enlightenment in the pulsating veins of the internet. I didn't have to seek for long. The very first thing that popped up was:

"Guild Wars 2 is a single player MMO".

I said to myself, what? That can't be right. But as you all know, I'm certainly not one to reject an idea out of hand. So I read on. The poster argued that the ad hoc grouping system, which I up to this point thought of as one of the strong points of GW2, actually is worse than formal grouping. Since anyone boost everyone else without having to actually interact with them, the game becomes entirely momentary and there is nothing that form a persistent bond between you and any other player. At this point I had to agree with him, it was the same thing that I had said before; that GW2 felt like you were playing side by side with people instead of together with them.

I read on. Without persistent bonds, he argued, there would not be the same sort of social interactivity between players. You would not value being in a group, because groups were everywhere where players were. Therefore, you would only follow your own purposes, not necessarily the purposes of the group (except for the immediate moment). This also seemed correct: even if you are in a dynamic event together with 20 other players, whomever you play together with doesn't matter once the event is over. The friendships, however temporary, that appear in a formal party would be lost, as would any social interaction deeper than asking people where the nearest merchant is.

What he was saying was true. GW2 is an MMO without the point of an MMO. It's the same as playing Skyrim, except that you see everyone else who are playing Skyrim at the same time as you.

Still a good game, though. But kinda boring. GW1 didn't make me feel like this.

[Carpe Diem]

I actually felt the same Raspberry. The game is totally beautiful and I'm sure there's loads of cool stuff to find, but after a few hours I logged off too. Maybe it's because I didn't feel like investing in my character as I knew it would be deleted, but after all three betas I don't think I actually 'played' with anyone else, felt very single player to me. Beautiful tho and nice environmental differences in race regions so will definitely give it a good play thu, but got a foreboding that it will feel too single player even after release. GW1 party system was broken, but even that siting around LFG was sorta bonding for players, defo added a few peeps after some epic waits and a win on the mission.

[Fluffball]

I experienced the single player woes in all three betas. Fortunately they totally go away in many areas. The obvious example is dungeons, and then the more challenging aspects of normal maps like (newly named?) group events and those extra challenge areas like the spider cave and flame temple mini-dungeon (which is fully underwater, CMEPTb.)

Also, if you randomly invite people to your party, 90% of the time they accept and are willing to do about anything. That may change once people get on a beeline to finish the game on release, or it may actually further encourage grouping.

I found the higher level areas (as far as betas go) people were especially likely to group just because everything is a little harder, and it's more sparsely populated.

[raspberry jam]

Well yeah, the single-player feel is strongest in the starter areas. But I found it there later on as well (I started over for this beta, but in the previous ones I got pretty far). Content is more difficult later on, but that is partially because the game is all new.

GW1 party system was broken, but even that siting around LFG was sorta bonding for players, defo added a few peeps after some epic waits and a win on the mission.

This. Exactly this. Even a broken system does the job of pushing people together - and they must be pushed together, otherwise they just won't bother with it.

[RD]

I would actually support the idea of auto loot all. I rather manually throw junk out than missing a potential gold drop. I didn't realize there is an option to sent certain loots to the bank straight. That's pretty cool.

There is an auto-loot all option

[Nemeon Lion]

This. Exactly this. Even a broken system does the job of pushing people together - and they must be pushed together, otherwise they just won't bother with it.

A broken system is exactly that, a broken system. Nothing more, nothing else. LFG is an horrible way to make groups, period. That "bonding" you guys speak so fondly off consists of nothing more then finding 5-7 other random people that may or may not be retarded, finish the mission and go off to never be seen again.

After 5 years of GW1 I can safely say I never "bonded" with any random party member, with exception of guildies. But I had to actively look for those guildies.

It's the same in GW2. The difference is that they removed the necessity to be stuck for 1 hour looking for one last member to finaly start having fun, which I thought was the whole point of the game, fun.

[raspberry jam]

A broken system is exactly that, a broken system. Nothing more, nothing else. LFG is an horrible way to make groups, period. That "bonding" you guys speak so fondly off consists of nothing more then finding 5-7 other random people that may or may not be retarded, finish the mission and go off to never be seen again.

After 5 years of GW1 I can safely say I never "bonded" with any random party member, with exception of guildies. But I had to actively look for those guildies.

It's the same in GW2. The difference is that they removed the necessity to be stuck for 1 hour looking for one last member to finaly start having fun, which I thought was the whole point of the game, fun.

It's nobody's fault but your own that you were that antisocial. Both in PvP and PvE settings I got to know so many people. I had several of the people I first completed THK with on my friends list for years afterwards, and we continued to play occasionally even though we were in different guilds.

The system might be broken, but it has beneficial side effects. Actually, I'd say that the most broken thing about it is that you can skip the grouping process by using heroes and henchmen (though admittedly, large parts of the game would be nearly unplayable without that option).