lol...so much hype, so much hype, so much attention, so much information...an article based on information pulled out of thin air. GW2 is bound to disappoint, expectations are way too high.
lol...so much hype, so much hype, so much attention, so much information...an article based on information pulled out of thin air. GW2 is bound to disappoint, expectations are way too high.
There's got to be a way to balance it all out. For myself, as an older player who never learned the console skills or "action" style combat young enough for muscle memory to develop, I'm often at a loss in the newer games, and it's why I invariably choose to be a healer (41 healer-medic in GA, for example).
Now one poster above mentioned PvP with people running around like chickens with their heads cut off. In Fallen Earth, we coined the phrase "the square-dance-on-meth" to describe most "action" PvP. If you're good at it, you're REALLY REALLY good at it. If not, you just suck. There's little middle ground. And taking away the healer role, as GW2 will (and FE does too, btw) leaves a WHOLE lot of people in the "suck" category, and they'll lose interest in PvP (and, as the content runs dry, the game) very quickly. Which will leave a small number of people PvPing, who'll slowly leave because there's not enough PvP, and the cycle breaks down.
There's got to be some method by which the AVERAGE player (i.e., not completely inept, but not really good either) can participate and at least have a chance to contribute. That's what I liked about Warhammer, for all its flaws. It's by far the only game I ever played where I spent more time in PvP than PvE. I could contribute, even though I'm quite combat-challenged. It's the only time I've EVER played a wizard as a main, for example. Part of it was that it's geared to group work, which I like in PvP. Part was the lack of any death penalty, something GW2 addressed quite satisfactorily in the GDC video, imo. Warhammer made me actually WANT to PvP and, as a side effect, gave me the courage to try PvP in other games since (FE, RoM, GA). Being able to have FUN in PvP, rather than just being ganked (e.g., UO, Lineage) was a real eye-opener. But as things speed up (FE, GA) I'm back up against the same wall. And while "practice" can help to a certain extent, I'll never get the hang of the square-dance-on-meth no matter how much I try. It just isn't natural.
I like the speed chess analogy. I like teamwork. I like being able to contribute. Sure, I'll always be a PvEer first and foremost. I want a world with stories that make me feel heroic, unlike real life. That's why I PLAY virtual worlds. But from my Warhammer experience I KNOW that PvP CAN be fun, if it's paced in a way that allows an AVERAGE player to participate, and doesn't overly penalize me for not being "good".
My real question with GW2 will ultiimately be how they address the ever-present "I've reached level cap and I'm bored" syndrome. This is the REAL issued that NO MMO to date has been able to get right.
-- Xix "I know what you're thinking: 'Why, oh WHY, didn't I take the BLUE pill?'"
Fast paced combat seems more real to me. Think about it if the enemy is attacking an outpost or village on their way to their main objective they're not going to wait around for you to show up and stop them. Faster combat and encounters make you think on the move, you learn the fastest way to neutralize the enemy or you fail and that village or outpost burns to the ground and the march of destruction continues. If it's anything like it's predecessor we won't be fighting many woodland creatures if any at all. In fact I don't remember fighting any in the first game, unless an aoe hit them.
There's got to be a way to balance it all out. For myself, as an older player who never learned the console skills or "action" style combat young enough for muscle memory to develop, I'm often at a loss in the newer games, and it's why I invariably choose to be a healer (41 healer-medic in GA, for example).
Now one poster above mentioned PvP with people running around like chickens with their heads cut off. In Fallen Earth, we coined the phrase "the square-dance-on-meth" to describe most "action" PvP. If you're good at it, you're REALLY REALLY good at it. If not, you just suck. There's little middle ground. And taking away the healer role, as GW2 will (and FE does too, btw) leaves a WHOLE lot of people in the "suck" category, and they'll lose interest in PvP (and, as the content runs dry, the game) very quickly. Which will leave a small number of people PvPing, who'll slowly leave because there's not enough PvP, and the cycle breaks down.
There's got to be some method by which the AVERAGE player (i.e., not completely inept, but not really good either) can participate and at least have a chance to contribute. That's what I liked about Warhammer, for all its flaws. It's by far the only game I ever played where I spent more time in PvP than PvE. I could contribute, even though I'm quite combat-challenged. It's the only time I've EVER played a wizard as a main, for example. Part of it was that it's geared to group work, which I like in PvP. Part was the lack of any death penalty, something GW2 addressed quite satisfactorily in the GDC video, imo. Warhammer made me actually WANT to PvP and, as a side effect, gave me the courage to try PvP in other games since (FE, RoM, GA). Being able to have FUN in PvP, rather than just being ganked (e.g., UO, Lineage) was a real eye-opener. But as things speed up (FE, GA) I'm back up against the same wall. And while "practice" can help to a certain extent, I'll never get the hang of the square-dance-on-meth no matter how much I try. It just isn't natural.
I like the speed chess analogy. I like teamwork. I like being able to contribute. Sure, I'll always be a PvEer first and foremost. I want a world with stories that make me feel heroic, unlike real life. That's why I PLAY virtual worlds. But from my Warhammer experience I KNOW that PvP CAN be fun, if it's paced in a way that allows an AVERAGE player to participate, and doesn't overly penalize me for not being "good".
My real question with GW2 will ultiimately be how they address the ever-present "I've reached level cap and I'm bored" syndrome. This is the REAL issued that NO MMO to date has been able to get right.
Well, GW in itself is pretty fast paced even though they add movement when you fight and dodges here.
But you are right, Arena battles might turn out like you say, some people are really good while the rest suck. But I don't see the same problem in the mist where a lot of players are in the same time, all 3 sides will have a lot of average players on them as well so anyone should be useful there. With a 100+ players on each side I think the thing will balance out itself.
Compare it with Arenas Vs battlegrounds/scenarios in Wow and WAR. Arenas are a lot harder while anyone can be helpful in larger scales, and GW2 will have a lot larger battles than either of those games.
I think at least most people can have a good time in the mists, Arenas is a very different matter. Still, some people will of course be harder to take down than others. Choose your opponent carefully to quote Sun Tzu.
the only thing i hate more then the pull one mob and fire skills (then repeat 1000s of times till you hit max level...then you do the same thing just with bigger mobs) is the fact that AI has not advanced (or possibley devolved) in years. why do mobs still stand around while all these people are killing their friends?
Not sure if you've played GW1 but it did have somewhat more advanced AI than just to close in on the player and whack away, ocassionally try to run when its health got low.
I hate that the wildlife in an MMO only attacks the player characters, and not the orcs or goblins, or whatever that I am fighting. It breaks too much immersion for me that I am the only thing these critters hate, not any other mobs. I would love to see mobs fighting each other too. ( Looks like Rift is planning to have some of that with the warring planes, but so far I can't remember an MMO where this was the norm).
I personally dont think someone affiliated with a gaming site should give their opinions of games that their site is being paid to advertise.
What are the chances this guy would say something bad about the game?..........Zero!
Oh wow, considering I've been seeing plenty of Jade Dynasty and WoW: Cataclysm advertisements on here, your point is EXTREMELY VALID!
/sarcasm.
If someone affiliated with this site is giving reviews and opinions of games that advertise here (Jade Dynasty, wow, or whatever else you care to mention) my point still stands. Notice i said "of games" in my post.....maybe you'll understand this the second time.
I personally dont think someone affiliated with a gaming site should give their opinions of games that their site is being paid to advertise.
What are the chances this guy would say something bad about the game?..........Zero!
Oh wow, considering I've been seeing plenty of Jade Dynasty and WoW: Cataclysm advertisements on here, your point is EXTREMELY VALID!
/sarcasm.
If someone affiliated with this site is giving reviews and opinions of games that advertise here (Jade Dynasty, wow, or whatever else you care to mention) my point still stands. Notice i said "of games" in my post.....maybe you'll understand this the second time.
Yet you still seem to be pulling this out of thin air. Where did you get the idea that this site is being paid to advertise GW2? What you seem to be saying, is that the reviewers aren't allowed to have any interest in a game unless they're dissing it. What complete BS. That's like saying if they make an article praising Rift, then they're being paid to do so. Not to mention they clearly stated they got to play the demo, so wouldn't it make sense that they know what they're talking about in the article? Especially sense the article is about combat and pace (something that was of course in the demo).
From what I have seen of GW2 you are going to feel like a hero right out of the gate, from the way the NPC's treat you to the sorts of creatures you combat, to the combat options available. I love that!
I'm going to load up Cata tonight and see how much (or how little) has changed since I last gave WoW a try, though from what I have seen from the 50 min demo movie of GW2, I'd much much rather be playing that right now.
Certainly pacing is something that FFXIV got wrong in my opinion, at least at early levels and I got so bored and disenfranchised with it that I wouldn't know if it gets better. Nothing like making an avatar of the biggest strongest looking race in the game, choosing the Marauder class with a huge 2-handed axe and then being pecked to death by a Dodo, or killed by a swamp rat about the size of one of my feet. And! having all that happen in a kind of ridiculous slow motion with but a single skill on my bar to hit. Such fail.
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks ~ WC
the author is talking about dast skill usage because of CD ( cooldown ) and easily to kill mobs. well ArenaTen stated that demo was specialy made to be easy and fast and in final product everything will be normal so slow CDs, slow killing, tough mobs since begining....
I like the speed chess analogy. I like teamwork. I like being able to contribute. Sure, I'll always be a PvEer first and foremost. I want a world with stories that make me feel heroic, unlike real life. That's why I PLAY virtual worlds. But from my Warhammer experience I KNOW that PvP CAN be fun, if it's paced in a way that allows an AVERAGE player to participate, and doesn't overly penalize me for not being "good".
My real question with GW2 will ultiimately be how they address the ever-present "I've reached level cap and I'm bored" syndrome. This is the REAL issued that NO MMO to date has been able to get right.
Considering how GW1 dealt with the level cap boredom "problem", and knowing that GW2 is to be dealt with in much the same way, if not precisely the same, I don't think this is even a factor.
as for the balance of fast paced action PvP vs playability by the average player, I can tell you that, as lame as it sounds, I think Anet is one of the most likely companies with the drive and experience to achieve this kind of PvP. This, however, does not preclude the possibility that only the best of the best will be any good at the competitive format of PvP. For this reason, it is my opinion that casual PvP is a good part of any game. The best way to do casual is to have as few restrictions on it as possible, and to make it so that the individual cannot outshine the abilities of his opponents, and must therefore rely upon being part of a greater system. WvWvW is looking to be such a format, and it is no wonder many are eager for more PvP news.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
I personally dont think someone affiliated with a gaming site should give their opinions of games that their site is being paid to advertise.
What are the chances this guy would say something bad about the game?..........Zero!
Oh wow, considering I've been seeing plenty of Jade Dynasty and WoW: Cataclysm advertisements on here, your point is EXTREMELY VALID!
/sarcasm.
If someone affiliated with this site is giving reviews and opinions of games that advertise here (Jade Dynasty, wow, or whatever else you care to mention) my point still stands. Notice i said "of games" in my post.....maybe you'll understand this the second time.
Or, if you bothered to use your eyes for moer than internet porn, you'd get what I'm saying. I've seen little, if any, GW2 advertisements, yet I've seen advertisements for Cataclysm and Perfect World Internation so much it's burned into my retinas. IF, and that's a big fat IF at that, they were being paid for positive reviews and such for the game, it wouldn't be in their best interest to do it for everyone.
I'm not going to pay Mr. X 5 grand to talk good stuff about my product, if he's already being paid by my rival to talk good about his stuff, and will start talking about both of our products in a positive manner. Why? I won't gain anything from it. I'd rather have him diss the other companies, while hyping my own up.
And, by the way, the whole "LAWL U PAID LOZERZ SO I WUNT LISSEN 2 U!" thing went out of style several years ago. It's worse than beating a dead horse. You're flogging it with a paddle and molesting the corpse now.
And bub, since you obviously can't check this site itself, Perfect world games are at a very low 6.8-7.1 range. So obviously they are getting paid to say nice things about them.
I don't agree with this pacing concept one bit,sure it seems by rading tons of forum posts that a certain group of people want that arcade speedem up type combat,then i ask WHY?Is there some race going?
I got two points to backup why this is a false assumption,and i use two reasons why.......
#1 I think most would assume that kids are the fidgiest,they have no patience,well so happens the number 1 voted kids game>>>WIZ101 probably has the slwoest combat of all the games out there,so what are they basing BEST on,if pacing is so important.Also the questing in WiZ 101 is also incredibly slow,they send you from one end of the map to the opther and back,then that same NPC sends you right back to the same place,with new orders,when he could have just tidy them all up in one trip.
#2 My second point is that again reading what EVERYONE keeps telling me/us,FUN is the most impotant thing in a game.Well just because the pace is faster that does not mean it equates to fun,fun can and SHOULD be achieved by giving the players a character thati s fun to play,pretty simple really.Give a cool animated player with cool abilites and spells,make their spell animations and ability animations look good,so that the player is looking forward to using them.Give the player some armour or weapon they like to use and look good with ect ect,none of it has anything to do with fast paced.BTW Raiding seems to be the big thing now a days and it is NOTHING close to being fast paced.
I can also use another games example>>>FFXI.The combat many say is on the slowish side,yet tons of people still found it more fun than other games combat.Then you have on top of that ,FFXI used no questing as a form of easy mode leveling,so it was all about combat and fun.The reason is again simple>>.SPIKE DAMAGE.In FFXI your slow combat allowed you to build towards a massive strike be it one of many weapon skills.Even one of the lowest dmg dealers in the game could look forward to using their HEXA Strike ,that is a club skill pretty much used by a whm [white mage/healer.It was a multi hit attack.
I attach a video to show everything i was talking about,,nice animations,long slow fight but is very strategic and the Hexa Strike weapon skill that the players love to watch and look forward to.Also a video of other class weapon skills.
This other video is to show what players look forward to ,those weapon skills,and no these are not one turn kills,these are what the players built their TP up to be able to accomplish these weapon skills,and again nice animations /effects.BTW it takes about 6-8 turns usually before you can do a weapon skill.
One of our priorities in developing Guild Wars 2 has been to make the simple act of moving around and interacting with the world an enjoyable experience for our players. We often refer to this as introducing "joy of movement" into the game. This means being able to jump and swim freely, but it also translates directly into combat.
To reinforce the importance of movement in the game, we want your character's position in combat to really matter. You'll see a lot of attacks in Guild Wars 2 that encourage and reward tactical player movement and positioning.
One of the best things I've ever heard about a game.
Having a fast paced combat system is something indeed borrowed from console -like games but as far as concerning the rrpg's combat systems it moved gameplay backwards.
I play rpg's and mmorpg's over 19 years and from expirience concerning combat goes like the slowest the better. What do i mean? When the combat system 's pace is relatively slow the players can actually watch details like movement of theirs and their opponents,carefull watch of the attacks made,have time to think what tactical choises they have,and actually perform them,instead of the nowdays don't have time to even check life bar an have to spam macros and many skills in order to increase dps either we are talking of pve or pvp.
Best example the Gothic series..From the slow but TACTICAL combat of Gothic 1-2 go check combat in Gothic 4 arcania. Combat is fast but also a meangless fast spam of attacks,most typical of consolized rpg's fast gameplay.
Sure some ppl say fast gameplay style is the future but future should mean evolvment nd not going backwards in terms of quality of the final result.Which should be the gameplay.
It's not a case of faster necessarily being better. Combat that is slow and tactical is fine, too.
The problem is combat that is slow and idle, which is what a lot of games have. Start combat, sit there for two minutes auto attacking, and eventually the mob dies is not interesting. If you use a few other skills during those two minutes, but it's the same skills with the same timing in every single battle, that's still not interesting. If you have 3 seconds worth of decisions to make, then dragging out the battle to take 2 minutes is awful.
If you have 2 minutes worth of interesting decisions to make in a battle, then combat that takes 2 minutes is fine. But they better be interesting decisions that make you pay attention to what is going on.
the only thing i hate more then the pull one mob and fire skills (then repeat 1000s of times till you hit max level...then you do the same thing just with bigger mobs) is the fact that AI has not advanced (or possibley devolved) in years. why do mobs still stand around while all these people are killing their friends?
Not sure if you've played GW1 but it did have somewhat more advanced AI than just to close in on the player and whack away, ocassionally try to run when its health got low.
ohh i did and i still do play (did another run of slavers today =]) ... I just hoping that they can transfer that to a persistent world...
Fast paces combat in pvp mmo? But it is like in every damn mmo design development
Then i think when it come to combat system at least, that there is a lot of movement and inovations in the mmo world in general. FPS aiming have been tryed quiet a few times now, combos are everywhere now too, and those are clearly from other game genre. So i have to disagree here, and not follow the opinion of the mass : mmo are all the same old crap. At least in the aspect of combat, a lot of new things are around now.
Now when it came to balance in pvp, let me say this cleary this kind of argument just let such bitter taste in my mouth, because its a straight up lie. In one hand all the designer talk all over the place about class blance, and how much this is a main concern, and in the other hand they make it all to unbalance the combats in pvp mmo. 2 exemple gears in Aion, their gold like pvp gear that made a lv30 as strong as a lv50 with normal gear. What is the result, it fucked up all their system, UO style to the point they had to take out one of their main pvp feature (open world pvp). ANd yes just like class balance it was asked by the players. An other exemple, Darkfall, the designer where like, no we will have skill system, a new character will have a fair chance in pvp against a vet, there is no automated evade mechanism in our game blabla. Few month after the launch of the game you have all the players crying about the fact a new player have no fucking chance agains a vet, and the grind make it so they won't have chance for months and months ahead of time... ?!? Balance ?!? Just fucking lol.
Game designer don't want pvp balance in mmos, its a fact. They claim it all you want publicly, but behind the scene they think at the oposite of it. In fact the only stuff that force them to balance some aspect are the players, because they are so much winnning in all the pvp mmo forum about the "this guy 2shot me, fix it", that they have to make some effort. But it is exactly like my wife who tell me something so i just shut up but think and will do exactly the opposite. They just don't want balance, thats all. And in fact thats not that they don't want balance, they want unbalance, players need to feel like they deserve somethign in mmo, they need to feel like hero and all this kind of crap that clearly have no place in pvp is their main concern, just because its an "mmo". It is very sad, but it is the way it is.
That really conjures up image . But it is all a matter of perception, if it was a real boar, killing it with three hits would seem quite fair. Where is the sense of progression if your first enemy is a band of human brigands?
Having recently started playing DDO I find the combat more fast paced than AoC Lotro/WoW. Which I put in that order for simply how quickly you can down an avearge mob. DDO has a more FPS feel, in fact that’s a option you can pick from the keyboard settings. Many spells and most bow shots only hit if the mob does not move (I am not certain about this last part being so new to it). But DDO eschews PvP problems by only having an arena. GW2 will be full on PvP, were an inbalance in combat is far less forgiving.
True FPS games have very few special keys to press, it is move and fire or more and strike. You would normaly have a prone, grenade, parachute, enter/exit and so on key handy to press. But you don’t need many special keys in combat. If we go down this route special powers and chains power ups will be hard to do, so we will lose that.
Well if you are an Orc, healthy, muscular and strong, carrying an axe you should be able to kill a boar with 1 to 2 hits, I mean, 1 hit to weak/seriously injure, and the second to finish it....
[object Window]
Its not like boars are made of steel xD
"It has potential" -Second most used phrase on existence "It sucks" -Most used phrase on existence
i think some of you go overboard with the orc vs boar discussion. The idea was how long killing pest in your backyard should take. Not wheter or not a boar is an suitable eksample
I disagree with the entire premise of this article.
The "problem" with the "grind" in MMOs isn't the pacing; "Pacing" is a function of game style and player preference. There are great games where combat takes forever and horrid games where it is very quick and "actiony".
What far too many MMOs fail to deliver on and why the grind is a problem is that they forget that whatever the pace of the game or speed of combat, it should be FUN. I have no problem with a game where it takes 3,5 or even 10 swings to kill a critter if I am having FUN while I am doing those swings. Fun is the point of all these games and why we play them.
Try playing Mount and Blade for an example of how combat can be anything but quick and still be much more entertaining than any MMO combat I have ever played. Trying to say or somehow argue that quick smash combat is always better is like arguing that the MMO version of Asteroids would be better than EVE.
Comments
lol...so much hype, so much hype, so much attention, so much information...an article based on information pulled out of thin air. GW2 is bound to disappoint, expectations are way too high.
Playing: Darkfall Unholy Wars
Played: Darkfall, EVE, AoC, Ryzom, Ragnarok Online, GW2, PS2, Secret World, WOW, City Of Heroes/Villains, Champion Online.
I personally dont think someone affiliated with a gaming site should give their opinions of games that their site is being paid to advertise.
What are the chances this guy would say something bad about the game?..........Zero!
Oh wow, considering I've been seeing plenty of Jade Dynasty and WoW: Cataclysm advertisements on here, your point is EXTREMELY VALID!
/sarcasm.
GW2 is gonna destroy the MMO market and be crowned king... I hope so anyways LOL!
Rawr?
There's got to be a way to balance it all out. For myself, as an older player who never learned the console skills or "action" style combat young enough for muscle memory to develop, I'm often at a loss in the newer games, and it's why I invariably choose to be a healer (41 healer-medic in GA, for example).
Now one poster above mentioned PvP with people running around like chickens with their heads cut off. In Fallen Earth, we coined the phrase "the square-dance-on-meth" to describe most "action" PvP. If you're good at it, you're REALLY REALLY good at it. If not, you just suck. There's little middle ground. And taking away the healer role, as GW2 will (and FE does too, btw) leaves a WHOLE lot of people in the "suck" category, and they'll lose interest in PvP (and, as the content runs dry, the game) very quickly. Which will leave a small number of people PvPing, who'll slowly leave because there's not enough PvP, and the cycle breaks down.
There's got to be some method by which the AVERAGE player (i.e., not completely inept, but not really good either) can participate and at least have a chance to contribute. That's what I liked about Warhammer, for all its flaws. It's by far the only game I ever played where I spent more time in PvP than PvE. I could contribute, even though I'm quite combat-challenged. It's the only time I've EVER played a wizard as a main, for example. Part of it was that it's geared to group work, which I like in PvP. Part was the lack of any death penalty, something GW2 addressed quite satisfactorily in the GDC video, imo. Warhammer made me actually WANT to PvP and, as a side effect, gave me the courage to try PvP in other games since (FE, RoM, GA). Being able to have FUN in PvP, rather than just being ganked (e.g., UO, Lineage) was a real eye-opener. But as things speed up (FE, GA) I'm back up against the same wall. And while "practice" can help to a certain extent, I'll never get the hang of the square-dance-on-meth no matter how much I try. It just isn't natural.
I like the speed chess analogy. I like teamwork. I like being able to contribute. Sure, I'll always be a PvEer first and foremost. I want a world with stories that make me feel heroic, unlike real life. That's why I PLAY virtual worlds. But from my Warhammer experience I KNOW that PvP CAN be fun, if it's paced in a way that allows an AVERAGE player to participate, and doesn't overly penalize me for not being "good".
My real question with GW2 will ultiimately be how they address the ever-present "I've reached level cap and I'm bored" syndrome. This is the REAL issued that NO MMO to date has been able to get right.
-- Xix
"I know what you're thinking: 'Why, oh WHY, didn't I take the BLUE pill?'"
Fast paced combat seems more real to me. Think about it if the enemy is attacking an outpost or village on their way to their main objective they're not going to wait around for you to show up and stop them. Faster combat and encounters make you think on the move, you learn the fastest way to neutralize the enemy or you fail and that village or outpost burns to the ground and the march of destruction continues. If it's anything like it's predecessor we won't be fighting many woodland creatures if any at all. In fact I don't remember fighting any in the first game, unless an aoe hit them.
Well, GW in itself is pretty fast paced even though they add movement when you fight and dodges here.
But you are right, Arena battles might turn out like you say, some people are really good while the rest suck. But I don't see the same problem in the mist where a lot of players are in the same time, all 3 sides will have a lot of average players on them as well so anyone should be useful there. With a 100+ players on each side I think the thing will balance out itself.
Compare it with Arenas Vs battlegrounds/scenarios in Wow and WAR. Arenas are a lot harder while anyone can be helpful in larger scales, and GW2 will have a lot larger battles than either of those games.
I think at least most people can have a good time in the mists, Arenas is a very different matter. Still, some people will of course be harder to take down than others. Choose your opponent carefully to quote Sun Tzu.
I hate that the wildlife in an MMO only attacks the player characters, and not the orcs or goblins, or whatever that I am fighting. It breaks too much immersion for me that I am the only thing these critters hate, not any other mobs. I would love to see mobs fighting each other too. ( Looks like Rift is planning to have some of that with the warring planes, but so far I can't remember an MMO where this was the norm).
If someone affiliated with this site is giving reviews and opinions of games that advertise here (Jade Dynasty, wow, or whatever else you care to mention) my point still stands. Notice i said "of games" in my post.....maybe you'll understand this the second time.
Yet you still seem to be pulling this out of thin air. Where did you get the idea that this site is being paid to advertise GW2? What you seem to be saying, is that the reviewers aren't allowed to have any interest in a game unless they're dissing it. What complete BS. That's like saying if they make an article praising Rift, then they're being paid to do so. Not to mention they clearly stated they got to play the demo, so wouldn't it make sense that they know what they're talking about in the article? Especially sense the article is about combat and pace (something that was of course in the demo).
From what I have seen of GW2 you are going to feel like a hero right out of the gate, from the way the NPC's treat you to the sorts of creatures you combat, to the combat options available. I love that!
I'm going to load up Cata tonight and see how much (or how little) has changed since I last gave WoW a try, though from what I have seen from the 50 min demo movie of GW2, I'd much much rather be playing that right now.
Certainly pacing is something that FFXIV got wrong in my opinion, at least at early levels and I got so bored and disenfranchised with it that I wouldn't know if it gets better. Nothing like making an avatar of the biggest strongest looking race in the game, choosing the Marauder class with a huge 2-handed axe and then being pecked to death by a Dodo, or killed by a swamp rat about the size of one of my feet. And! having all that happen in a kind of ridiculous slow motion with but a single skill on my bar to hit. Such fail.
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks
~ WC
the author is talking about dast skill usage because of CD ( cooldown ) and easily to kill mobs. well ArenaTen stated that demo was specialy made to be easy and fast and in final product everything will be normal so slow CDs, slow killing, tough mobs since begining....
Considering how GW1 dealt with the level cap boredom "problem", and knowing that GW2 is to be dealt with in much the same way, if not precisely the same, I don't think this is even a factor.
as for the balance of fast paced action PvP vs playability by the average player, I can tell you that, as lame as it sounds, I think Anet is one of the most likely companies with the drive and experience to achieve this kind of PvP. This, however, does not preclude the possibility that only the best of the best will be any good at the competitive format of PvP. For this reason, it is my opinion that casual PvP is a good part of any game. The best way to do casual is to have as few restrictions on it as possible, and to make it so that the individual cannot outshine the abilities of his opponents, and must therefore rely upon being part of a greater system. WvWvW is looking to be such a format, and it is no wonder many are eager for more PvP news.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Or, if you bothered to use your eyes for moer than internet porn, you'd get what I'm saying. I've seen little, if any, GW2 advertisements, yet I've seen advertisements for Cataclysm and Perfect World Internation so much it's burned into my retinas. IF, and that's a big fat IF at that, they were being paid for positive reviews and such for the game, it wouldn't be in their best interest to do it for everyone.
I'm not going to pay Mr. X 5 grand to talk good stuff about my product, if he's already being paid by my rival to talk good about his stuff, and will start talking about both of our products in a positive manner. Why? I won't gain anything from it. I'd rather have him diss the other companies, while hyping my own up.
And, by the way, the whole "LAWL U PAID LOZERZ SO I WUNT LISSEN 2 U!" thing went out of style several years ago. It's worse than beating a dead horse. You're flogging it with a paddle and molesting the corpse now.
And bub, since you obviously can't check this site itself, Perfect world games are at a very low 6.8-7.1 range. So obviously they are getting paid to say nice things about them.
I don't agree with this pacing concept one bit,sure it seems by rading tons of forum posts that a certain group of people want that arcade speedem up type combat,then i ask WHY?Is there some race going?
I got two points to backup why this is a false assumption,and i use two reasons why.......
#1 I think most would assume that kids are the fidgiest,they have no patience,well so happens the number 1 voted kids game>>>WIZ101 probably has the slwoest combat of all the games out there,so what are they basing BEST on,if pacing is so important.Also the questing in WiZ 101 is also incredibly slow,they send you from one end of the map to the opther and back,then that same NPC sends you right back to the same place,with new orders,when he could have just tidy them all up in one trip.
#2 My second point is that again reading what EVERYONE keeps telling me/us,FUN is the most impotant thing in a game.Well just because the pace is faster that does not mean it equates to fun,fun can and SHOULD be achieved by giving the players a character thati s fun to play,pretty simple really.Give a cool animated player with cool abilites and spells,make their spell animations and ability animations look good,so that the player is looking forward to using them.Give the player some armour or weapon they like to use and look good with ect ect,none of it has anything to do with fast paced.BTW Raiding seems to be the big thing now a days and it is NOTHING close to being fast paced.
I can also use another games example>>>FFXI.The combat many say is on the slowish side,yet tons of people still found it more fun than other games combat.Then you have on top of that ,FFXI used no questing as a form of easy mode leveling,so it was all about combat and fun.The reason is again simple>>.SPIKE DAMAGE.In FFXI your slow combat allowed you to build towards a massive strike be it one of many weapon skills.Even one of the lowest dmg dealers in the game could look forward to using their HEXA Strike ,that is a club skill pretty much used by a whm [white mage/healer.It was a multi hit attack.
I attach a video to show everything i was talking about,,nice animations,long slow fight but is very strategic and the Hexa Strike weapon skill that the players love to watch and look forward to.Also a video of other class weapon skills.
WHM Hexa
This other video is to show what players look forward to ,those weapon skills,and no these are not one turn kills,these are what the players built their TP up to be able to accomplish these weapon skills,and again nice animations /effects.BTW it takes about 6-8 turns usually before you can do a weapon skill.
FFXI weapon skills
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I have not played the demo, but I did read this:
One of the best things I've ever heard about a game.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Having a fast paced combat system is something indeed borrowed from console -like games but as far as concerning the rrpg's combat systems it moved gameplay backwards.
I play rpg's and mmorpg's over 19 years and from expirience concerning combat goes like the slowest the better. What do i mean? When the combat system 's pace is relatively slow the players can actually watch details like movement of theirs and their opponents,carefull watch of the attacks made,have time to think what tactical choises they have,and actually perform them,instead of the nowdays don't have time to even check life bar an have to spam macros and many skills in order to increase dps either we are talking of pve or pvp.
Best example the Gothic series..From the slow but TACTICAL combat of Gothic 1-2 go check combat in Gothic 4 arcania. Combat is fast but also a meangless fast spam of attacks,most typical of consolized rpg's fast gameplay.
Sure some ppl say fast gameplay style is the future but future should mean evolvment nd not going backwards in terms of quality of the final result.Which should be the gameplay.
It's not a case of faster necessarily being better. Combat that is slow and tactical is fine, too.
The problem is combat that is slow and idle, which is what a lot of games have. Start combat, sit there for two minutes auto attacking, and eventually the mob dies is not interesting. If you use a few other skills during those two minutes, but it's the same skills with the same timing in every single battle, that's still not interesting. If you have 3 seconds worth of decisions to make, then dragging out the battle to take 2 minutes is awful.
If you have 2 minutes worth of interesting decisions to make in a battle, then combat that takes 2 minutes is fine. But they better be interesting decisions that make you pay attention to what is going on.
ohh i did and i still do play (did another run of slavers today =]) ... I just hoping that they can transfer that to a persistent world...
Fast paces combat in pvp mmo? But it is like in every damn mmo design development
Then i think when it come to combat system at least, that there is a lot of movement and inovations in the mmo world in general. FPS aiming have been tryed quiet a few times now, combos are everywhere now too, and those are clearly from other game genre. So i have to disagree here, and not follow the opinion of the mass : mmo are all the same old crap. At least in the aspect of combat, a lot of new things are around now.
Now when it came to balance in pvp, let me say this cleary this kind of argument just let such bitter taste in my mouth, because its a straight up lie. In one hand all the designer talk all over the place about class blance, and how much this is a main concern, and in the other hand they make it all to unbalance the combats in pvp mmo. 2 exemple gears in Aion, their gold like pvp gear that made a lv30 as strong as a lv50 with normal gear. What is the result, it fucked up all their system, UO style to the point they had to take out one of their main pvp feature (open world pvp). ANd yes just like class balance it was asked by the players. An other exemple, Darkfall, the designer where like, no we will have skill system, a new character will have a fair chance in pvp against a vet, there is no automated evade mechanism in our game blabla. Few month after the launch of the game you have all the players crying about the fact a new player have no fucking chance agains a vet, and the grind make it so they won't have chance for months and months ahead of time... ?!? Balance ?!? Just fucking lol.
Game designer don't want pvp balance in mmos, its a fact. They claim it all you want publicly, but behind the scene they think at the oposite of it. In fact the only stuff that force them to balance some aspect are the players, because they are so much winnning in all the pvp mmo forum about the "this guy 2shot me, fix it", that they have to make some effort. But it is exactly like my wife who tell me something so i just shut up but think and will do exactly the opposite. They just don't want balance, thats all. And in fact thats not that they don't want balance, they want unbalance, players need to feel like they deserve somethign in mmo, they need to feel like hero and all this kind of crap that clearly have no place in pvp is their main concern, just because its an "mmo". It is very sad, but it is the way it is.
LOL Garrett. You should be feeling a bit sheepish about including that boar analogy in your article.
“I am an Orc, there is a boar in my backyard.”
That really conjures up image
Having recently started playing DDO I find the combat more fast paced than AoC Lotro/WoW. Which I put in that order for simply how quickly you can down an avearge mob. DDO has a more FPS feel, in fact that’s a option you can pick from the keyboard settings. Many spells and most bow shots only hit if the mob does not move (I am not certain about this last part being so new to it). But DDO eschews PvP problems by only having an arena. GW2 will be full on PvP, were an inbalance in combat is far less forgiving.
True FPS games have very few special keys to press, it is move and fire or more and strike. You would normaly have a prone, grenade, parachute, enter/exit and so on key handy to press. But you don’t need many special keys in combat. If we go down this route special powers and chains power ups will be hard to do, so we will lose that.
Well if you are an Orc, healthy, muscular and strong, carrying an axe you should be able to kill a boar with 1 to 2 hits, I mean, 1 hit to weak/seriously injure, and the second to finish it....
[object Window]
Its not like boars are made of steel xD
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
i think some of you go overboard with the orc vs boar discussion. The idea was how long killing pest in your backyard should take. Not wheter or not a boar is an suitable eksample
I disagree with the entire premise of this article.
The "problem" with the "grind" in MMOs isn't the pacing; "Pacing" is a function of game style and player preference. There are great games where combat takes forever and horrid games where it is very quick and "actiony".
What far too many MMOs fail to deliver on and why the grind is a problem is that they forget that whatever the pace of the game or speed of combat, it should be FUN. I have no problem with a game where it takes 3,5 or even 10 swings to kill a critter if I am having FUN while I am doing those swings. Fun is the point of all these games and why we play them.
Try playing Mount and Blade for an example of how combat can be anything but quick and still be much more entertaining than any MMO combat I have ever played. Trying to say or somehow argue that quick smash combat is always better is like arguing that the MMO version of Asteroids would be better than EVE.