Darks wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 10:54:
Anyone else finding crafting a bit frustrating?

Copper ore being one of them, the conversion ratio for ore per bar for one. Then trying to make weapons requires a lot of bars. I’m finding that per weapon, the amount of bars required seems a bit high. Plus finding copper isn’t exactly and easy chore either.

I find that I have out leveled the areas where Copper ore is at and now mining Iron and Silver. Before I have even leveled up and past Copper usage. I don’t mind looking for the Ore, but the returns seem far too low. And I really don’t want to spend all of my time just searching for Ore and going back and running around just looking for it. And lets not talk about the low drop rate of the Blood Viles.

Anyone else seeing this issue too?

Not really. I go out and adventure and resource collect as I roll. It's pretty easy. Each copper node gives you usually 2-4 copper, and 10 makes a bar (yeah that's a high ratio), but you're also getting leveling experience each time you mine, and each time you craft. In fact, it's entirely possible with an alt to hit level 80 purely by crafting.

I'm a Norn and the first two major areas are lousy with copper deposits. I can make a mining run and easily get 100 copper in a relatively short period of time. Not to mention backtracking is legitimate in this game: You level cap and your HP drops, but the XP rewards and loot stay more or less appropriate to your level. Which means going back and escorting a friend who is 10 levels behind is actually a viable option for you.

There's a *lot* of great ideas in the game that make it fun to play. Some frustrating areas too (Ascalon plains I think it is, the artillery/trebuchet/ghost bastion is a BITCH), but overall it's stupid amounts of fun.

My biggest complaint is that I usually have to grind group events to level up in the late teens. The XP rewards need a little tweaking it feels like. And group events happen pretty frequently, which takes the uniqueness of stumbling into one away a little. But they're major XP sources.

My second biggest complaint is the respawn time. I'll kill a mob or two, and by the time I'm done killing the second mob, the first mob has respawned and aggro'd me. Moving through one area literally took like 20 minutes because it was lousy with mobs and I couldn't kill them faster than they respawned. That's frustrating.

Also, for the person concerned about local events occurring later on with no people around, during the very early hours of the first launch day I got into two or three of those literally by myself. They scale thankfully and most if not all are soloable.

Still, it's pretty sweet to start a fight with someone and suddenly be surrounded by a murderball. They have bullshit cheese attacks usually and you'll end up with a sub-group of people running around reviving folks. It's an interesting dynamic. The murder throng gets a little old though when it's individual mobs that pop up in twos or threes and you have 20 PCs laying smackdown: it's hard to feel relevant, but you stick it out because it's a grip of xp.

Oh... AND FIX THE AUCTION HOUSE. It's impossible to make real money in game without the AH.

Just wanted to comment to correct the thought that servers are instanced. They are not. When you enter Overflow your not entering another instance on your server, you are entering an entirely different server that 'is' instanced. When you leave, you go back to your own server that does not have instanced zones.

Game is a heck of a lot of fun and while similar to other MMOGs (because it is an MMOG) the game strikes out on its own in several ways. Exploration is an important factor, there are a 'lot' of secret areas you can find in every zone. The crafting is very rich. I do agree that armor and weapon smithing is a bit rough because you need so much copper, but other mats are super easy to get if you buy salvage kits and salvage everything you would otherwise sell (old gear, items that have no use to you, items marked 'salvage item'). The experimentation system is genius. I've made a bunch of items in tailoring that I've sold for quite a bit because nobody else on my server seems to know how to make them. Though this might change once the trading post is working.. as it is global. It is such a well done 'AH' style system that not having it available has stunted the game in a variety of ways.

The combat is heavily inspired by ARPGs with tuns of movement and positioning. Someone said they saw a Veteran slaughter a group of six because they weren't using the dodge mechanic or probably the boon/condition system. Soloing vets requires tact but is entirely possible, but it takes some skill and know how of your class and the games systems. The first zones are usually fairly easy but past that, if you don't learn to dodge and your class to its fullest, you get your ass kicked.

I really highly recommend it. Especially being a single purchase even if you only get a months of fun out of it that is still more than most other games for the same $60.

On a personal note, I'm playing a wide variety of characters. My main however is a Sylvari Elementalist scepter/focus. Playing an Ele is like being Avatar Korra lol. It's fantastic.

This comment was edited on Aug 28, 2012, 13:36.

Ozmodan wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 12:54:

Someone maxed a crafter already. Give me a break, this is just another copy cat MMO with very little substance behind it. No challenge, strictly fun.

I will have to disagree with that, I have been trying to get my weapon smiting up and I’m finding it a bit tedious. It’s been tough getting the materials needed to get your leveling up. So I can’t agree that it’s a cookie cutter in anyway. I found WOWs crafting much better and simpler to level versus GW 2 system. Their system is requiring a lot more materials to make items. And some of the materials required are a bit hard to find. Vilas of Blood being one of them.

So, if someone maxed their crafting out already, then I have no idea how they did it so quickly. it’s not been something I found very easily done so far.

Verno wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 12:54:
I definitely don't think it's a situation like TOR though, that game just had several design flaws that ruined its longevity.

Somewhere in Canada, a Bioware employee dies a little on the inside.

Creston

Someone maxed a crafter already. Give me a break, this is just another copy cat MMO with very little substance behind it. No challenge, strictly fun.

There were some pretty hardcore people in the beta who have since been fed items from an entire guild to do that. It's sort of like the people who hit level cap in a day in a new WoW expansion. There's some crazy guilds on Henge of Denravi who are literally spending thousands of dollars trying to buy siege weapons for WvW too, although the joke is on them since the rotations change daily. I'm not sure what you mean about challenge, you should give it a shot, the game does not coddle you. Everyone has to heal themselves, dodging becomes important quickly and most mobs can kill you quickly if you aren't paying attention. I can see people having many complaints about the game but I doubt challenge will be one of them, the game can be almost punishing at times.

In the end though the game isn't designed to be played for eternity. There's a huge world filled with shit to do and PvP will keep me going for a long time. I'd estimate the time spent (assuming someone likes the game in the first place) at about 100-150 hours. Since there's no sub fee you can just stop playing whenever you get bored or other games come out, then pick it up again later if it suits your fancy. I definitely don't think it's a situation like TOR though, that game just had several design flaws that ruined its longevity.

Even I had to eat crow on this one. The game does indeed rock

http://preview.alturl.com/kanam

28 hours played so far, most of it on my Charr Warrior. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the game. I haven't touched any of the PvP yet, and crafting has been a nice diversion. Mostly I've been exploring, joining in on events, and jumping off of cliffs.

I'll say it again: dynamic leveling is fantastic. You won't outlevel an area, so you can always go back and play earlier zones while still getting a challenge, and rewards that fit your actual level. I strongly recommend exploring, there are lots of neat areas that you won't see on the map. They'll also put chests or other rewards in these out of the way areas, so it pays off.

My only gripe right now is the same as someone else mentioned: crafting components don't have any storage area, so it only pays to make them when you are going to use them.

Ozmodan wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 12:45:
Someone has maxed a crafter already. Give me a break, this is just another copy cat MMO with very little substance behind it. No challenge, strictly fun. We saw that with SWTOR and the exact same complaints will follow this title. Nothing original, at least their is no subscription for this game, kudos to the developers for that.

Fun is great, and this game has plenty of that, but in the long run, it is the same old, same old crap they have been serving to the MMO players since EQ was unfurled.

I have nothing against fun, BUT there is nothing new in this title, just presented in a slightly different manner. Anyone thinking this will be a game they play for a long time has been smoking something far more potent than weed.

So basically, exactly like GW1? Color me unsurprised.

Cutter wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 12:41:

mixma242 wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 11:43:
Ok, if there is anyone interested in a Blue's guild please PM me in game. I will try to keep everyone updated. I myself am on Tarnished Coast, but guild do not have to be server specific.

My in game contact is Mixma.2539

Yes, we do have a small Blue's Guild on Tarnished Coast atm. Send Waxx a tell or email in-game for an invite. That being said, however, guilds are a little borked atm as a lot of people can't seem to join guilds. They are aware of it and working on it though, so it may take a few days to get sorted. Sen Kez a dozen invites last night and he simply couldn't join. And Bleg took about 6 times before it managed to accept him. Or is you see any other The Silent Reign members they can invite you too - guild tag is TSR. We'll start recruiting outside soon.

If they don't get the AH up and going soon I'm going to snap!

And as for crafting metal and wood are easy. I'm rocketing throgh jewellery. Clothing crafts are a fucking bitch and half. I simply cannot find even close to the sort of leather and cloth I need as a leatherworker an it was the same problem in beta. I'm farming low level areas and have been salvaging items since I started and still...not even close to really get going. I posted about this in each of the BWEs and still to no avail. So I guess I'm going to have to buy what I need to at least get to 75 of which I do have a lot more mats so far.

That aside, I hit 30 yesterday and got my first elite skill. As a ranger with my pet spider it's a fucking hoot! We can keep most stuff locked down and poisoned between the two of us and with our quickness buffs/skills I'm whizzing around like some demon ginzu blade. Can really plow through the mobs really fast with a greatsword and make fast work of them ranged with the short bow.

The world design really is amazing. I find a lot of times it takes me a very long time to get from A to B because I see something interesting and just wander off to explore and see what it is.

This is an fucking great game!

Ya, I love that my ranger can use so many different weapons. Swinging a great-sword is AWESOME. Plus, the sword/axe or sword/torch combo is fun too. I love that a bunch of the skills turn into reaction skills once you use them. Like the quick stab skill we get with sword that makes you stab the target and then quickly leap back out of range turns into a leap back and stab the target again if you hit it quick enough after using it.

D4rkKnight wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 12:42:
Is this like GW1 with its generic loot that keeps everyone on the same playing field?

Yes we found out with GW2, this is thee main core feature of the GW franchise. Prior to that I would have said the skill system, but that was scrapped that and the main thing kept is the game other then lore is the game is still not about loot.

And as for crafting metal and wood are easy. I'm rocketing throgh jewellery. Clothing crafts are a fucking bitch and half.

Yeah that one is frustrating, Most of your stuff comes from salvage unfortunately. People mentioned it frequently in beta but they didn't appear to listen. If the Trading Post worked it wouldn't be a big deal though IMHO.

Someone has maxed a crafter already. Give me a break, this is just another copy cat MMO with very little substance behind it. No challenge, strictly fun. We saw that with SWTOR and the exact same complaints will follow this title. Nothing original, at least their is no subscription for this game, kudos to the developers for that.

Fun is great, and this game has plenty of that, but in the long run, it is the same old, same old crap they have been serving to the MMO players since EQ was unfurled.

I have nothing against fun, BUT there is nothing new in this title, just presented in a slightly different manner. Anyone thinking this will be a game they play for a long time has been smoking something far more potent than weed.

Is this like GW1 with its generic loot that keeps everyone on the same playing field?

I felt like the game was holding my hand trying to avoid making any major loot changes that could cause balance issues with other players, so everyone gets the same generic shit.

This changed a bit with the EotN expansion - but I'm wondering if its back to GW1 original style where loot is pretty much meaningless

Verno wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 12:36:
Anyways getting back to the game itself, I'm running Dagger/Dagger, Pistol/Pistol on my Thief and it's pretty ridiculous. Its funny because in beta people bitched about Thief being really underpowered but right now they are absurd in PvP. It took me awhile to get past the idea of not having permanent stealth since I was so used to the Rogue play in WoW. Once I got over that and learned to be more strategic with my stealth skills I started having a blast with it.

Pistol/Pistol kiting is really fun and satisfying. My only beef is that if your stealth stuff is on CD then you get messed up pretty easily. I wish the subsystems of the game were a bit more exposed though. I have +condition damage on my pistols so does that increase the duration or the damage of conditions like poison/bleed? I'll have to really watch the combat log tonight and see.

The only class I am really unhappy with is the Necromancer. It is so boring, everything you do is condition damage and your direct damage sucks compared to other classes. Sure you can outlive everything but I feel like I could read a book while playing it.

Yup. I played a lot of Necro is beta, since I knew I didn;t like the class and wouldn't play it at launch. Necro can be the best party healer in game, but damage is BORING. Plus, your pets bite it so quick it's ridiculous.

mixma242 wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 11:43:
Ok, if there is anyone interested in a Blue's guild please PM me in game. I will try to keep everyone updated. I myself am on Tarnished Coast, but guild do not have to be server specific.

My in game contact is Mixma.2539

Yes, we do have a small Blue's Guild on Tarnished Coast atm. Send Waxx a tell or email in-game for an invite. That being said, however, guilds are a little borked atm as a lot of people can't seem to join guilds. They are aware of it and working on it though, so it may take a few days to get sorted. Sen Kez a dozen invites last night and he simply couldn't join. And Bleg took about 6 times before it managed to accept him. Or is you see any other The Silent Reign members they can invite you too - guild tag is TSR. We'll start recruiting outside soon.

If they don't get the AH up and going soon I'm going to snap!

And as for crafting metal and wood are easy. I'm rocketing throgh jewellery. Clothing crafts are a fucking bitch and half. I simply cannot find even close to the sort of leather and cloth I need as a leatherworker an it was the same problem in beta. I'm farming low level areas and have been salvaging items since I started and still...not even close to really get going. I posted about this in each of the BWEs and still to no avail. So I guess I'm going to have to buy what I need to at least get to 75 of which I do have a lot more mats so far.

That aside, I hit 30 yesterday and got my first elite skill. As a ranger with my pet spider it's a fucking hoot! We can keep most stuff locked down and poisoned between the two of us and with our quickness buffs/skills I'm whizzing around like some demon ginzu blade. Can really plow through the mobs really fast with a greatsword and make fast work of them ranged with the short bow.

The world design really is amazing. I find a lot of times it takes me a very long time to get from A to B because I see something interesting and just wander off to explore and see what it is.

This is an fucking great game!

Yes, the Blues Guild happened. We're based on Tarnished Coast. The Silent Reign. Waxx (Cutter) is GM, you can send him an in game email or /tell. You can hit me up as well, on Jordan Kayyne.

I'm loving this more than any recent MMO I have played. This brings back memories of when WoW first released and how much fun I had playing that game. There is so much crap to do that I missed a bunch of it and have foudn it by going back to areas I already explored.

Crafting is fun, and I am wasting huge amounts of time doing it. I love that you have to discover recipes by combining items. They don't waste your time by letting you fail and lose ingredients either. It's sort of like Skyrim that way. items that won't combine are greyed out, and they tell you the recipe looks like something if you can craft an item out of the ingredients you select.

I've also spent a lot of time exploring the Charr and human cities, hitting up all the vistas, POIs, and Waypoints. I think i may have quested somewhere in there too, but you can get levels from exploring and crafting just as easily.

Unfortunately, my desktop died right in the middle of playing Sunday night, so I have to lug my 12lb laptop back and forth to work now. Arg.

Anyways getting back to the game itself, I'm running Dagger/Dagger, Pistol/Pistol on my Thief and it's pretty ridiculous. Its funny because in beta people bitched about Thief being really underpowered but right now they are absurd in PvP. It took me awhile to get past the idea of not having permanent stealth since I was so used to the Rogue play in WoW. Once I got over that and learned to be more strategic with my stealth skills I started having a blast with it.

Pistol/Pistol kiting is really fun and satisfying. My only beef is that if your stealth stuff is on CD then you get messed up pretty easily. I wish the subsystems of the game were a bit more exposed though. I have +condition damage on my pistols so does that increase the duration or the damage of conditions like poison/bleed? I'll have to really watch the combat log tonight and see.

The only class I am really unhappy with is the Necromancer. It is so boring, everything you do is condition damage and your direct damage sucks compared to other classes. Sure you can outlive everything but I feel like I could read a book while playing it.

pagb wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 11:37:
People should start to accept that any mmo will have issues at launch.

But they all don't now and in general have been getting better. What Anet did wrong imo is they didn't have a longer-consistently running beta. It was a weekend per month and a stress test for a few hours. What most are doing is running a beta for a solid month ongoing. To me you can get a much better picture and can realize changes/fixes day to day. This game also did not launch under their words of "When it's done", way too many changes late proving otherwise. They were pushed imo.

Anet dropped some points with me on this one. They feel they have a better solution to everything vs the norm. The beta wasn't. Their take on forums is overly protected. To me they won't open then up, because they don't want to hear it. Even though it is not that bad and there is a lot of good.

"The forums are closed at this time. We will open the forums as soon as we are able. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this causes."

I do not believe them.

Verno wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 10:26:
I approach it more like an ARPG with MMO trappings and find it pretty damned fun.

A lot of labelled MMO's are like that. Face it the genre and it's players really struggle with "What is a mmo?". To me all I need is multiplayer RPG's. I can take several variations of it and don't hammer myself into a small segment.

The one thing very different though is you don't have to group running DE's to get rewards. That is very different then ARPG's typically, which are small groups running exclusive content.

GW1 to me played much more like a ARPG, it was basically a 3rd person Diablo. FWIW I think Diablo 3 should have been 3rd person and not overhead, being 2012. But when you only release once every 10 years...

Other mmo's that really strike me as ARPG's: Vindictus, C9 or Dragons Nest. They are basically Diablo in a 3rd person perspective and accepting that, they aren't too shabby. C9 being way too easy though.

This comment was edited on Aug 28, 2012, 12:36.

Turglar wrote on Aug 28, 2012, 12:04:
So is the fanboy honeymoon over yet? I want to hear the real dirt on this game.

What do you want to hear? I don't love or hate it, it's a pretty good game with some cool ideas. It's possible I'll feel different in a month but I can't imagine not getting my moneys worth out of it. I love the pvp in this game and I've never been one for competitive MMO shit.

My group hasn't run into any downtime or problems yet but it would be nice if they fixed the fucking auction house, it has not worked at all since launch. I don't know how you keep the game stable but fail at the auction house, fix it already. A lot of the crafting shit would be easier if you could use it.