GW2 Making Improvements

Before the June Beta Weekend Event ArenaNet went through a list of the changes they were making. Many of those changes were really easy to understand and generally straightforward, but the one change "UI Improvements" was pretty general. In the end it ended up being a lot of little updates that caused some gigantic improvements.

The first thing I noticed was the updates made to combat text notifiers, most notably being the new feedback for confusion damage. As you probably know by now, I play a Mesmer and confusion is a condition almost entirely unique to Mesmers. In the previous BWE, and subsequent Stress Test, I had actively been trying to figure out what exactly confusion did. Does it do a lot of damage? Was it worth it? Should I put more effort into building up stacks of confusion? How worthwhile is Cry of Frustration anyway? I would dig through the combat log to see what confusion was doing and most of the time it was more work than it was worth to track down one tick of confusion damage in the multitude of notifications flooding my combat log.

Now with this new update it's obvious. Confusion actually has it's own unique damage notifier. You can see it in the screenshot above. It's super easy to see how much damage its doing, and how often. Other combat notifiers that are especially awesome now are the new critical hit text and the revised notifiers for combo field combos. 

If anyone combos with your combo field a heart will show up over their character. Not only does it show that they've made a combo it also says what condition they caused, if they caused one. This makes combat a lot more fun, and if you're a class that generates a lot of combo field opportunities you get some great positive feedback. You can actually see if your support is working effectively.

The other big change, which is really subtle, is the update to the condition and boon notifiers. Now there's this little white stroke that decreases around the condition or boon flag. It's super subtle and that's ok. Even this little change goes miles to show some more minute information that can be extremely important if you need to know when to start stacking cripples back onto your foes. Even in the WvWvW combat I participated in above you can obviously see what's going on at a glance. It's awesome.

This last one I got a lot of joy from. The new 'map completion' notifier.

Previously the notification came in the form of a letter, the same way you get from filling out an NPC Heart anywhere else in the map. I love the treasure chest, it's so satisfying. I feel like I've truly accomplished something and having this unique chest popping up really brings me back to completing a dungeon in GW:EotN, super fun. If you haven't gotten the chance to complete a map yet I highly recommend it. The rewards are great, 52 silver, a sword, a set of shoulders, a mystic key, some cloth, and 2,500xp. I know I for one am going to be striving for 100% map completion once GW2 launches. This is the first time I actually feel encouraged to go for it! I'll get more than just an achievement!

GW2 Finding a home

For those of you who are just now getting into the GW2 culture it may be difficult to find a place to fit in. Thankfully over at Attached To Keyboard Tasha has aggregated a ton of data and opinions on people's thoughts of their servers after the first BWE. Furthermore, there's an awesome post over on GuildWars2Guru with all the data on which servers well known communities will be flocking to.

The second list made it particularly easy for me to find out where I was going to house my characters. See I knew from the get go that I intend to PvP a lot, so that cut down the list of possible choices quickly. Combined with the fact that a lot of the DAoC guilds were congregating on Sorrow's Furnace my server choice essentially became a no brainer. I would live on Sorrow's Furnace and PvP with the big boys. So far it's been working out quite well.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised of the Sorrow's Furnace population. My typical experiences from PvP servers included groups of hostile, belittling, and immature super egos that dominated most of the server. So I figured I could expect much of the same here. I couldn't have been more wrong. I'd constantly get help questing, and people would be more than happy to just stick around in a group even after finishing an escort quest. There was a point when I stumbled into a group while wandering around Kessex Hills and before I had even stopped to think about it we had finished every renown heart in the entire zone, and cleared multiple dynamic events. Some of which at least a few group members had already done before.

If this is a sign of how GW2 is going to shape up in the future I have to say that it's going to be a wonderful place to live. The important thing is community and it sure feels like GW2 has it.

GW2 Gearing up for BWE2

Now that ArenaNet has posted what we'll be able to see and do in this coming Beta Weekend Event the question arises as to what will you ACTUALLY do?

With all this new content you could spend the entire weekend crafting, exploring and fighting bandits without even stepping foot into the new PvP content. Likewise, it's entirely possible for you to spend your entire time locked in brutal combat with the newly added sPvP tournament mode. Will your team be victorious, or will you be crushed by your foes? But perhaps, it fits your fancy to go look into the explorable Ascalon Catacombs and spend all your time vanquishing the newly formed ghosts of olde?

I know I for one haven't spent nearly enough time with sPvP and WvWvW content so I'm definitely going to make sure to at least do a tournament or two, and find out what this Dark Room they speak of has to offer. I do love tricks and traps. Also, I've finally gotten my rig set up for recording video (sorry no streaming yet) so I've definitely got some plans for a steady flow of content after the beta has run its course. Expect glorious screenshots and battle reports at the very least!

Which means if you've got any ideas on what you'd like to see feel free to let me know! My Mesmer would be more than happy to risk life and limb for you.