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Post by bainsoulsmite on Jul 28, 2006 9:33:36 GMT -5
Well... for those of you lucky enough to not be stuck in the office all day, do you have any first impressions you can share with us as to the new classes or the Nightfall environment? (I know we are very limited at this point.) I had just enough time before leaving the house this morning to see that we did not get any new slots to try this out with...though I suspected as much.  Hopefully see you all in game this evening....*chomping at the bit*  |
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Post by Sollo on Jul 28, 2006 10:06:41 GMT -5
I saw the new classes last night before I went to bed. I created a Paragon character. I was impressed how good the dude looks but I was less than impressed with combat performance. Granted, I had very little time to play with skills so I could be wrong. However, with Spear mastery set to 12 and using a PvP spear, the dude was only doing about 20 points of damage with skills to boost damage! So basically the Paragon's spear is ceremonial because it is useless as a weapon. The few skills I tried for assisting in combat really didn't seem all that impressive.
Keep in mind however, that I only tried combat in the training grounds so it wasn't a real test. But you asked for first impressions.
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Post by bainsoulsmite on Jul 28, 2006 11:34:53 GMT -5
well, they promoted the Paragon as a "back line" support char, maybe if your first impressions hold true, they would be better suited as a secondary ....for a Rt, maybe...
I am hoping to have a chance to play around with them tonight.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Jul 28, 2006 11:44:14 GMT -5
I made a dervish last night before bed. First let me say, badass animation and appearence. And the avatar skills.....woot! So cool. The AOE melee damage is somewhat impressive. With tiger's fury or lightning reflexes I think you might mow down mobs pretty quickly..... and look cool doing it.  |
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Post by Fate on Jul 28, 2006 12:02:34 GMT -5
I liked the dervish but with only 70 armor I could not tank as well as I thought I would be able to.
I was thinkign de/ra. Apply poison with the fact that you always hit all adjacent foes would work well. With enchantmernt and interupts could be quite handy as well.
However I wish for this preview they would have unlocked all skills.
Now for a big complaint. The Paragon female model not ready? give me a break. I am starting to wonder about the development team at ANET. Also the lack of dancing with the female dervish? man what a downer.
Also I went 15 or so in ZE last night and they seem to have changed it so you only get faction if you win. Not for killing the NPCs. Lets hope this was an accicdent.
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Post by Aeron Serabien on Jul 28, 2006 12:15:24 GMT -5
I understand it's disappointing not to get both models, but aren't we seeing this WAY earlier than we had the comparable preview for Factions. In a way, I see this as a good thing. I'd rather have them work the kinks out early (ie stupid assassin hunchback or unbalanced 'porting skills) then have things that are stupid and stick or get nerfed and everyone goes into an uproar.
We didn't get 'Sin or Rit dances until release, I believe.
On another topic-I'm thinking de-ra as well. The stances and preps should help. De-mo would also be good for enchants.
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Post by Fate on Jul 28, 2006 12:56:16 GMT -5
I'd rather have them work the kinks out early (ie stupid assassin hunchback or unbalanced 'porting skills) then have things that are stupid and stick or get nerfed and everyone goes into an uproar. I hope you are right. Lets hope it doesn't mean they are really, really behind schedule(I not only don't see the glass as half full but I see it as the glass tunred over and all the milk as run out. ). I don't think I can take another poor quality release like factions. |
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Post by bainsoulsmite on Jul 28, 2006 13:25:37 GMT -5
OK, Silly question... I rolled up a PvP char real quick at lunch, a De/Pa just to see what was available...none of the skills were unlocked... how do you unlock skills? I expected to have all new skills unlocked... how else are you supposed to "test" it out?... at least SOME of the skills. To make things worse, the only slots I had open were on my second account (all low lvls and very little skills/runes/upgrades unlocked for any chars) * begin rant* ... I do not understand this aspect of the game...if you can only uses PvP chars fro PvP..why do you have to unlock items in PvE...are they afraid that that aspect of the game will fall to the side? Isn't that the main reason we only go to LVL 20...so everyone has the same stats to work with, and not have to spend many hours grinding the environment to have an even playing field?...* end rant*  |
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Post by Eldarion on Jul 28, 2006 13:45:35 GMT -5
Playing devil's advocate....
Just as with the PvP-only preview of Factions, pre-mades are the only characters available with unlocked Nightfall skills. This is an early preview, not even a full beta. I think it's generous enough that they've provided the community this much to play with when they're still about three months from release. There aren't that many companies that give users such an advance look. I suspect there will be a more robust beta weekend before release, just as there was with Factions.
Anet has always positioned GW as a blend of PvP and PvE. These are not two separate games that happen to share a common account. They've always wanted players take part in both parts of the game, and attempted to reinforce this notion with Factions. If you don't want to do PvE, you can still earn your unlocks in the arenas.
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Post by Sollo on Jul 28, 2006 13:51:44 GMT -5
...none of the skills were unlocked... how do you unlock skills? I expected to have all new skills unlocked... how else are you supposed to "test" it out?... I picked one of the pre rolled characters and they had a small selection of skills unlocked for that. If you do a custom character, I imagine you will have to spend faction points to unlock skills. |
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Post by bainsoulsmite on Jul 28, 2006 14:13:50 GMT -5
thanks, Eld and Sollo. Yes I made a custom char... this is my first "preview" so did not know you had to use pre-mades..guess that makes sense. I will try that this evening then.
Eld, don't misunderstand my lil rant... I think the preview is great of Anet (I just lacked knowledge in that area) My only issue is that I suck at PvP...lol... I know that is not Anet's fault... I just hate not having adiquate skills to participate in PvP/ GvG until I can work several chars through the entire (or at least a good portion) of the PvE. Granted, a lot of this is a lack of compitance and experience on my part. I tend to like PvE most of the time anyway... just frustrated by the slim pickings on my PvP creation screens. Guess I just need to keep my nose to the grindstone!
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Post by Sollo on Jul 28, 2006 14:30:47 GMT -5
Try not to fret too much. I think we all went through that on our first beta. I remember feelings much the same as yours when factions came out. A-Net seems to just assume everyone knows the process and thus they don't bother telling you. But your second Preview will be much easier...
Now that I think of it, when they released Sorrow's Furnace, they didn't even bother telling people where it was. You had to just explore the world until you stumbled across it by accident. It was released for several days before I even had an idea where it was and a full week before I actually got a character there.
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Post by Presort on Jul 28, 2006 14:49:49 GMT -5
I logged in at lunch and was shocked at how many minor graphic changes were made to the game as a whole. There are several font and shadow changes, also a slight but cool change to the graphic showing what your opponent is casting.
I had a chance to view the 'muted colors while dead', quite nice. :-)
--Presort
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Post by Fate on Jul 28, 2006 15:15:15 GMT -5
As I remember it before Prophecies came out, we had access to everything and then once the game was released we started at ground zero.
I think the reason they keep the skills locked is simple. It is easier for them.
I don't really think that ANET is trying to be nice to us having this preview. Its all about money, promoting demand for factions, and having many free testers.
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Post by Ascalon Destroyer on Jul 28, 2006 19:45:34 GMT -5
I actually like some of the prebuilds. Paragorns seem over rated, but Dervishes are deadly. They make carrying "blind" all that much more important. I wish I could get access to them without actually buying Nightfall.
And for Bain, you can unlock the entire game through PvP as well. Each regular skill costs 1k Balthazar faction, while elites are 3k. It would take you a while to unlock them all, but probably about the same amount of time as unlocking the skills in game (at least for Factions).
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Post by Fate on Jul 29, 2006 13:03:58 GMT -5
Ran a Ra/Pa spike with lov last night. Almost won HoH. But then again we were playing other Ra/Pa sike teams. |
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Post by Amaretta on Jul 30, 2006 11:39:25 GMT -5
 Well I am not terribly impressed with PVP to begin with. I prefer PVE.
I could not access any new characters on Friday only watched as others created them.
On sat I was able to purchase a char slot and try out the paragon, pre-made and the dervish pre-made.
Most of my time in PVP land does not make me motivated to purchase nightfall.
My future opinions could change if they let us see a bit of the pve aspects of the game.
Cheers
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Post by Indagatrix on Jul 31, 2006 9:09:01 GMT -5
I liked the animation and design of the new toons...And I greatly enjoyed playing a pack hunter in AvA....but like Am -- I hope that the PvE content is better than Factions... I guess secretly I wish the storyline from part 1 (gwen, charr, etc) carries through more to the additional chapters...  |
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Post by ronin on Jul 31, 2006 9:32:01 GMT -5
both paragons and dervish was extremely overpowered this weekend, as expected (anyone remember the un-nerfed Temple strike from the factions preview). But dervish was almost gamebreaking since the 600-something ranked guild Spearmen could get up to top of the ladder with a 7 D/Mo zerg build. As for the pve side of the game, Nightfall is supposed to be for the RP population (according to Gaile). On the other hand she said factions were directed at the pvp people, something I really can't see. Even though I mainly pvp I hope pve in Nightfall will be a lot better than factions.
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Post by Asya on Jul 31, 2006 10:04:27 GMT -5
Talk about an understatement! After they nerfed the D/A on Friday, the D/Mo became the dominate force in PvP. Don't know if anyone caught the Spearmen on GvG-TV, but they were running Derv-way D/Mo's and just chewing up every opponent except for Evil. The killer skill in the build was Contemplation of Purity (CoP), which would remove the enchantements and give the player about 24-30 energy and bookoo health. Those PBAoE enchantments were awsome! 90+ holy damage ignoring armor, spamable every second with basically infinate energy! Expect a major rework of the Darvish before release. Kudos for the extra faction medalions. Was able to unlock all the offered elites for both professions, a few regular skills, and a couple of superior runes over the weekend. Animation of the Avatar elite forms was well done. Felt much like Dr. Jekel/Mr. Hyde going from sweet-small-as-they-come Dervish female to giant scythe wielding nasty Grenth (Ok, technically I had the +energy sword and a +energy focus item. It just sounds better the other way). Having new PvP maps was a glad addition. The new UI changes were interesting. For example, Anet gave up being original on the options screen and finally went for the standard tab dialog approach. Ease of use > style. Some of the yuckier UI components, the flat party, health, energy, bars. The previous gradiant looks was better. The lavender choice for the thermobars on the Hero screen.  Totally out of the color pallet. Problems with the keyboard interrupt monitor! There were a few times when different keys would just stop responding. Very bad in PvP when your attack skill won't work. It was also annoying when typing in chat and the game would just go out of chat and menu's would just start poping up because of pressing the hotkeys for them. Overall, it was enjoyable and served the purpose of beta testing the skills in a user based environment quite well. |
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Post by Quintare on Jul 31, 2006 11:56:09 GMT -5
This is new issue for you? I've been suffering from that since release
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Post by Tremor on Jul 31, 2006 13:43:07 GMT -5
That makes two of us Quint, lol. I do it a few times a day myself.
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Post by bainsoulsmite on Jul 31, 2006 14:55:20 GMT -5
Dito... |
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Post by Xaja on Jul 31, 2006 15:05:00 GMT -5
Yeah that happens to me a lot too...
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Post by Quintare on Jul 31, 2006 18:11:30 GMT -5
glad to see I'm not the only one. Misery DOES love company I suppose.
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Post by Sollo on Jul 31, 2006 21:41:48 GMT -5
Problems with the keyboard interrupt monitor! There were a few times when different keys would just stop responding. Never happens to me. This is the first time I've heard of the problem... Oh wait, someone said misery loves company... Now I feel left out! This never happens to me. Why do you all get to have all the fun... |
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Post by Eldarion on Jul 31, 2006 21:49:51 GMT -5
That dead key thing happens to me since the preview was loaded.
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Post by Xaja on Jul 31, 2006 22:02:23 GMT -5
That dead key problem has been happening to me, not frequently but occasionaly, ever since I got the game.
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Post by bainsoulsmite on Aug 1, 2006 14:52:46 GMT -5
I have just noticed it receintly, but I thought it was something with my wireless keyboard...
(MS piece of Scheiße)
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Post by spiritofice on Aug 5, 2006 17:56:26 GMT -5
Heh, personally I was far more impressed with the paragon than the Dervish. I only played RA which could account for it, but I never really saw teams with dervishes that actually won, while my shouting paragon made for a huge difference.
The paragon is going to be key to alot of build i feel, because it ups the damage output of everyone on the team and offers team-wide versatility, while the dervish seems to be more based on AoE damage, the most easily avoidable damage of them all.
I only really got one day to play with them though, so I'll reserve judgement till I get time to properly experiment.
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Totally out of the color pallet.
