Guild Wars 2 Stress Test...Tonight!

Every since the end of the 3rd Beta Weekend I've been steadily getting more and more hyped for the game. There have been two stress tests since then, but both during work hours so at most I got to spend about 30 minutes in game before it ended. Tonight there is going to be a 3rd stress test lasting from 6 PM to 10 PM central time and I am psyched.

For several reasons I deliberately limited my time with the 3rd beta weekend. For one thing, I really wanted to keep my experience with the game as fresh as possible. This was coming off a very good experience with experiencing Tera w/o any foreknowledge about the game coloring my actions. I just wanted a taste of the character creation and a quick peak at some of the classes and beginning areas in the game. But I deliberately avoided doing very much just so when the game did release it would remain fresh and new.

Since that beta weekend I've become more and more interested in reading up on the game's core mechanics and classes and I've started regretting the fact that I really didn't spend much time with the beta when I had the chance. Since that beta there have been two stress tests, one last week and one yesterday. Both during hours that I work, and in both cases I was able to get in only about 30 minutes before they took the servers down.

Tonight there is going to be a third stress test, and it's going to be happening between 6 PM and 10 PM tonight. This will be a good chance to see the game in action again, and a chance to spend some time actually looking at the classes in (a little) more detail. And this is more important that I originally thought it would be because Guild Wars 2 limits you to just 5 character slots. That means that you can't just create 1 character for each class.

*while I assume that you'll be able to buy more characters slots once the game ships, I don't know any details about who many, or how expensive that will be.

At this point there are several classes that seem very interesting to me: Elementalist, Engineer, Necromancer, and Ranger (in that order). The other classes all have things of interest I like (Thief, Warrior, and Guardian). Mesmer actually sounds cool, but the 10 minutes I spent with one didn't impress me. Though I am well aware that it's impossible to base a real impression on a class based one look up to level 3, with just the default weapon (and not all of the skills unlocked).

At this point I would really like to spend some quality time with the Elementalist Class. When I first played it in the beta, I got to level 4, and 'unlocked' the staff. But now I realize just how off I was. I now know about elemental attunements, and skill chains, and etc. So really I just have unlocked the Fire skills on the staff; and nothing else. Heh. There is no weapon swapping for the Elementalist and I can see why: with elemental attunements Elementalists have access to 25 skills at any given time. 10 more than the other classes (at least from what I can tell). The Elementalist may have a limited weapon selection, and no swapping, but they seem to actually have even more flexibility. This has increased by interest in the class even more.

Another thing I want to spend some time with is key bindings. The default key bindings in the game are, in a word, unpleasant. Considering my mouse and keyboard setup a different binding setup is going to be required. I spent some time with that last night, but with game time so short I really just set one thing and wondered around until the game kicked me out. Hopefully I'll get some time to refine things a bit without feeling like I'm having to rush.

Tera Midgame

I've been playing Tera for about a month now. I've had a chance to see many of the game's systems in play and I'm now past the honeymoon phase. The new look and feel shine has worn off a little bit, and the reality of the game is starting to sink in. At this point I have a level 41 sorcerer, my original priest is level 36, and I've played both Warrior and Lancer into the 30s. I've done crafting, and instanced dungeons, and grouped up for BAM fights. And while I have no idea what Tera's endgame is like, I feel that I've had enough time to figure out the leveling game. Fortunately, I'm still having fun with Tera, enough that I'll probably be keeping my subscription past the release of Guild Wars 2.

  

There are some harsh realities that have set in though. The most obvious is the fact that Tera stays too close to the WoW foruma--and it's the vanilla version of that to boot. Tera's game systems are rather simplistic. There are fewer gear slots and fewer meaningful stats. It's questing system is beyond simple, with a very limited variety of quest types. It's crafting system is even more simplistic than WOW's, if that is even possible. It's dungeon finder tool is next to worthless, and it's LFG channel is a cess pit that's worse than I've seen in most MMOs (and that is saying something).

All of these were problems with SWTOR as well. However, while The Old Republic tried to make up for that with story, Tera tries to make up for it's deficiencies in it's combat system and class mechanics. And without this combat system, Tera would be a true flop. As it is, though, Tera's classes and combat save the game even into the mid levels. It's not fresh, or exciting anymore, but it is still fun.

Leveling from 1-20 is very simple, and takes a very short amount of time. 20-30 is slower, sure, but still very fast and painless for pretty much every class I've played. So when I say that I've gotten 3 classes into the level 30 range that's not saying much. It's only at around level 30 where the leveling slope starts to turn verticle and the newness of the game starts wearing off.

It makes me wonder...would a game like this do better with a much higher level cap (say in the 200 range), but with faster levels? It would necessitate a lot of marginal power-up skills, but most of these MMO systems are designed to scale well anyway.

Anyway, it's around level 30 where you hit the leveling brick wall and everything slows down a lot. I've read that a lot of people give up on the game at this level, and I can understand why. Everything is the same...it just takes longer. Kill quests get longer, and give a percentage smaller amount of XPs for the next level. And by this point, the simplistic quest design really starts to show the failings of the system. Levels 1-30 does not feel like a grind. Levels 30 to 40 most certainly do.

The pace does settle, though, and it remains pretty constant from levels 30 to 40. And in reality the amount of time it takes to level isn't all that bad--a few hours at most per level, less if you know where everything is (which I do not). I think I've read where it's possible to get from 1-60 in about 72 hours, and I can certainly see that. And while the quests do not become any more complex, the environments and monsters most certainly do.

This is a common feature of most MMOs, especially when leveling. It's not uncommon for characters to actually feel LESS powerful as they go up in level because the monsters outpace the power of the characters. This is partially by design, especially at low levels. Developers want you to get comfortable with the system before upping the challenge. But in Tera, this difficulty usually manifests itself as monsters having more HP. This is a very bland way of upping the difficulty because it means that the monsters you are fighting aren't really substantially different to what you fought earlier...they just take longer to kill.

Sorcerers seem less susceptible to this, but this is mostly because they seem almost rediculously overpowered in the 20s, and they still do very well in the 30s. Lancers, however, seem to start moving at a glacial pace because everything takes way too long to kill. And at the same time, it becomes much more difficult to solo BAMs in the 30s. Doable, but more difficult. I've had very good luck doing this on my Warrior and Lancer, but very little luck with Sorcerer and Priest. Even then, the fights just start taking too long for the rewards to justify it. My lancer can still pretty much solo any BAM, but at 10-15 minutes per fight it's simply not worth it.

  

While the quests and the classes don't change much, the environments you encounter in the 30s do open up a bit. Not only do you find some large open environments, deserts and such, but you all start finding various open-world dungeons. There's a mine, a pirate cove, and a wizarding school that comes straight out of harry potter. These open-world dungeons are a bit more difficult, mostly due to tight corners and limited space limiting movement (a big deal in Tera combat). Not to mention the trains and adds that inevitably pop up. The variety, though, helps and does create some more focused experiences and story lines. But it's still not something that makes you forget the grind.

There is a lot of talk about some of the negative aspects of Tera here, but really I'm still having fun with the game. I just wish that as a whole Tera was in a more polished state. And I'll admit that I'm a little concerned about how 'gridy' the game is getting. Right now it's about 'right'--slow enough to make each level seem like an accomplishment, but not so slow that it's painful. My goal at this point is to try to hit 60 on my Sorcerer, but at this point that seems less and less likely. Guild Wars 2 is less than 3 weeks away at this point, and while Ive decided to maintain my subscription for a bit after the GW2 launch, I'm not sure how much time I'll be spending with the game past the 25th.