So what do you guys like and dislike about the game so far?

One of the things i didnt like on the game is the zerg. Big fights ,be it on WvWvW or sPvP, arent fun. Basically you get focused and die in a horrible way w/o actually doing anything.

Now, when we played inhouse sPvP… hell that was a complete diference… a organized sPvP is way too much fun and you actually can sense the diference you have in a battle.

On the PvE part of the game i cant say much about it because i spent almost all my time doing sPvP =)

In terms of core gameplay changes, I really really think they need to increase the cooldown on heal skills. The game revolves a bit too much on how many heals you can get off through awareness and muscle memory every 20-30 seconds hitting that 6 key, than strategic uses of heals.

Also, because of this, fights last like 5x longer than they should if they intended pvp to be fast and intense.

The thing is that we have poison in the game and it lowers the healing ability by 33%. By nerfing the heal perhaps the strategic value of a well placed poison is lost.

If im not mistaken there is a weapon thing (forgot the name) that X chance to poison the enemy in critical hits so even a mesmer crit build could do a poison like that.

At first, I found PvE to be a bit hectic. While I'm glad they don't hold your hand through questing like most MMOs, it was a little crazy trying to figure out where to go and what to do at first. At least in the Charr area anyways. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty nice though. It is extremely difficult, especially as a melee as mobs hit insanely hard which I think is a good thing. Dynamic events, at least in the beginning area, feel a bit scarce resulting in grinding the same events to level up for the next area. Granted, I didn't explore a ton, so there could have been more around the map.

Structured PvP was pretty damn fun and is where I spent the most time. It is really going to take getting used to this combat system. Learning when to dodge, when to use each skill, learning different builds. It is going to take a while to master each class. You can't just spam all of your attacks like you can in most MMOs. The main 1 skill is the main damage and the other skills seem to be mainly utility based on the situation. It gets pretty hectic, so learning the timing and visual cues is going be be extremely important it seems.

I didn't play much in WvW, but I can see it being fun when you want to roll around in a group with the guild and conquer objectives. Seems like it will get more fun when your character is higher level and you can afford to make siege weapons and stuff.

The game itself looks amazing. The graphics themselves, while not on the level of say FFXIV, still look very good. And the art in the game is phenomenal. I don't think I've ever seen such a pretty game from an artistic standpoint. Divinity's Reach is the most epic city I've ever seen in a game.

Overall, the game is just really fun. I love the fact that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want without much or any hassle. Want to PvP? Just jump right into the mists with a fully leveled character and get any gear/weapons you need. Mess around with your build and jump right into a match. Don't need to wait around in a queue to PvP. Everything is just very convenient, get/send mail from anywhere, post on the auction house from anywhere, port to different areas easily. Everything is just smooth. Even the UI is very good. It's very minimal while still providing you with vital info you need. Windows open and close like you would expect them to. i.e. opening up multiple windows doesn't close other windows.

There's still some stuff that needs work, but it's probably the most fun MMO I've ever played.

game is too easy

In terms of core gameplay changes, I really really think they need to increase the cooldown on heal skills. The game revolves a bit too much on how many heals you can get off through awareness and muscle memory every 20-30 seconds hitting that 6 key, than strategic uses of heals.

Also, because of this, fights last like 5x longer than they should if they intended pvp to be fast and intense.Ziddy

I don't know. I mean the PvP is built around group PvP in which case the heals didn't really feel too op. It's only in 1v1s where it really draws out the fights. Also, in structured PvP it's going to be all about holding the objectives so I can see people mainly splitting up into groups to hold certain points. In which case, you probably won't run into many 1v1 situations. Also, like Rickz said the poison dot reduces healing by 33%, so I think learning all the conditions and boons and stuff is going to become very important for fights.

Not every class has a poison, so unless burning and bleeds do the same thing that's pretty lame unless its balanced like that by design.

You can count on 1v1s actually being very common. Especially on battle of kyhol or w/e it's called. You have 3 control points and 2 trebuchets for 5 people to account for.

At this point, I'm thinking there will be multiple instances where players will have to fight 1v1 to hold a point. Even ignoring the trebuchets and going to other map (which still has 2 bosses on top of the 3 points), the area you need to cover is pretty big for only 5 people that I bet you will run into multiple instances of this situation just trying to run to a point to reinforce or attack.

Yeah, those are good points. I don't know, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. They did say the game is still far from being balanced, so we might see it lowered at some point. So far as it is though, 1v1s don't seem like an efficient use of time. If they keep it like it is, it might be better just to kite somebody back to your group. In 5v5 you only really need to hold down 2 points, so you can still do like a 3 and 2 or something. I don't know, there seems like there can be a lot of different strategies used.

It will be very interesting to see what guilds come up with since terrain plays a huge role. You can have an ele or ranger parked on certain cliffs or have an Engi or necro hold a whole point by themselves. You can have trebuchets just completely decimate fights with 1 hit or reshape the terrain. A lot of shit you can try, that i wanted to test this beta but couldn't. Hopefully they have that custom game shit by the next one.