Fuze if you see several servers for beta, use Chimaera.
Scenery is great, and it's very hard to have something "real world" looking but wait until you can see some dungeons, or some other zones
Characters model and creation is intensely discussed in beta. Devs already improved them but I don't know why they we re not as good as in AoC.
It could be to allow better performance with the single server technology, or maybe because in TSW you can cast,n use weapons etc while moving and even jumping and that had some consequences on models... But yes, people asked for changes; some were done so far.
Report bugs: CTRL B to open the window
I'll jump fast to open beta to see if you're there.
Ah, ok. I was curious what mistake would make someone re-roll. I can't see myself doing so. Ever.
If nothing else, you'd lose your Talisman SP. (no bien) So unless you reaaaally hate your haircut or recklessly named your toon after your (recently) ex-girlfriend, I can't stomach the idea of losing points, losing tokens, or running through Ord Mantell again. Er, I mean zombie-ville. Screw re-rolling. I mean, sure it's cool to swim in the kiddie pool once, but then it's time to move on ... to HELL!! (muahahahah)
As for judging weapons, ya never know how things will change. Abilities have weird synergies. You may hate Weapon "A"s functions until down the road where just one of its abilities can make Weapon "B" just flippin' devastating.
Personally I'll tend towards designing builds that focus on 4-5 active abilities from one weapon, then have 2-3 actives shared by my secondary weapon & something like the green Survivability sliver. The heal or Elite Active from that path are cool add-ons for a glass cannon type, especially because the heal requires no healing stat on gear. (I forget what it's called atm)
Anyway, I guess I'm trying to stay open minded about all weapons. Even the ones that turn me off a bit. Ya never know how they'll interplay with another skill set. It's the game within the game, I think.
I can't wait to see what you experienced folks do with this system. I already have four different builds set up, and I'm a complete moron about this stuff. It's been fun as hell! It's such a far cry away from SWTOR's legions of Vanguards running around with "the Iron Fist" build, or whatever.
I kinda wish I'd bought the lifetime membership. (for reals)
btw - Pistols are turning out to be nice in a group. 40% crit buff for everyone. Evidently it applies to healers, too. I dunno if it stacks, but we had 3 pistol users in a PvP squad & it turned into a crit-fest.
In closed beta I have probably enough stuff to upgrade everyone. This is not an "easy" way as you should normally be able to either get items from friends or buy them on the market, it's just normal.
Savage Coast is much harder than KIngsmouth. You can visit it but you're not supposed to play a lot there until you have seriously raised your various ranks and got the correct gear. The "inferno" zone near the motel is a warning: it's actually harder than several missions (but not all).
Also, you don't have the storyline quest in open beta to guide your through your "leveling" (even if the word is not totally appropriate), you would see that Savage Coast is not yet for you.
You said you did all Kingsmouth? I'm not sure what's up in the open beta ATM but that would be a lot! In the case you missed it: you can test your power North East of KIngsmouth with the missions given by Ann Radcliff and the other Orochi person at the bridge, and on the island top Nort-East nearby too (they have a mission for this place). Also, Edgar's scrapyard mission "Full Metal Golem" is hell but it's a good way to see how far you progressed. When all those missions get relatively comfortable, you can start considering Savage Coast.
And, yes, Tango and Cash is bugged. Two for Tango (escort the dog) works though but the dog doesn't always start when you expect him to.
Hey Chris ... if I see a Templar asking about crafting, should I say, "There's a good FAQ on Athen Paladin's website. You should check them out. They're one of the Founding 50."
I usually take the one with beating Tango and Cash´s record and the one where you need to set the barrels up to defend, that way you get both missions done in one go.
Crash wrote:Hey Chris ... if I see a Templar asking about crafting, should I say, "There's a good FAQ on Athen Paladin's website. You should check them out. They're one of the Founding 50."
Good thought but we are not (yet?) one the founding cabals. Also, ATM, don't point people to our forums for TSW content please. You'll be able to do that at launch, and it will evne be highly recommended for advertising AP.
You're right, as it is at the moment, shotgun is quite a specific weapon. Inside small areas, though, its possible proximity damage bonus and some support abilities can be nice. Also, its synergies are tricky (they all are but some more than others). Don't overestimate the assault rifle though, especially because it offers some life leeching / healing abilities: they are low, unless you pick a global build focused on healing in which case you'll be more team than solo.
The good thing with AR though is it has a clearly better range than the SG.
Now, you went for only one weapon. It's a choice that usually becomes tough by the end of Kingsmouth and when playing in the savage Coast.
Having a second weapon and access to a second set of powers (don't forget there are also three wheel sectors with "misc" powers that can fill some gaps sometimes) is highly useful. Most often, for your main build, you'll have:
- one main weapon / powers line using like 5 slots out of 7, more or less, both active and passive
- one secondary weapon / powers line for synergy and to face situations that are harder to handle with one line (for example range to hit mobs that kite you.... yes some mobs, especially later, know how to kite you)
- those two weapons / lines significantly lower the cooldown between your special hits, as the cooldowns will be separate
- in the end, you can of course have both maxed
Also, your talisman, glyphs, and, later, signets, affect a lot your results. (Signets are like a glyph but giving you procs: for example, when your life is below 50%, you raise a small shield or the next hits do 9% less damage, etc.)
That said, I never like the idea of building resources in combat. I can live with it but I still don't understand why they went this way (which is not the case in AO or AoC).
I also regret the absence of big, fun, and spectacular powers but, honestly, to my knowledge, only City of Heroes offer something like that, especially with the "Incarnate" levels, past level 50. (Shadowbreeds in AO were supposed to be that, the deadline goddess killed the idea).
Ah and wisps. OMG I DO HATE WISPS! We all hate them. Some mobs were designed to be an annoyance: they belong to them. It's why you very rarely find them in a zone, and you can almost always avoid the missions in which they are implied. But you'll find some other mobs that will make you scream... like those damn Ak'abs jumping behind you and hitting+knock-backing you on the way.
Remember though to always pay attention to the white lines a mob "draws" on the ground when preparing a special attack: if you can get out of them, you'll avoid the special.
And, Fuze: we have codes for the Closed beta.... just get one... we won't use them all before the Closed beta is over.
fuze wrote:Wonder if Zam or someone is making a out of game "skill builder/tree builder" site for the wheel.
Just quick notes ATM:
I'm working on an abilities / build database thing. Also as an AP advertising tool. I'll see how it looks in the end.
Misc abilities seem to be open since start at the moment. I'm not very impressed by them though but I haven't worked a lot on them either.
About ground-targeted AoE's... In all games, especially AoC and CoH, I has similar issue when my system was not powerful enough. If seems they all rely on the same functions for the targetting part and that just doesn't work very well if the system is not powerful enough.
Edit: last year we spoke a lot about your system but I can't remember the details now. I remember it uses a notebook CPU and 4GB RAM shared video/CPU but I can't remember if there is a PCI slot?
I think pursuing dual weapon paths from the start is important because of the way Resources are gained. At first I would equip a builder for each weapon type because I thought I had to. Once I saw that Pistols would build resources for both Pistols & Elementalism, it let me dump my Elementalism builder & altered my rotation completely. Feels like getting a free consumer shot after the way I'd started.
On misc abilities: I think Survivalism helps fill glaring holes in pure DPS builds, especially for PvP. Sleight of Hand helps with the stun fest, but can be kinda buggy. Turn the Tables is a modest to decent heal (642) that's cool because it requires absolutely zero healing stats to use. I haven't invested the AP in Last Resort, but prolly will down the road as a wild card, especially against familiar enemies. (makes you immune to dmg for 5 seconds) It'll keep them guessing.
The Turbulence & Subversion misc paths seem a waste unless aggro management is an issue. The 25% dmg buff from Subversion's Do Or Die is nice, but that's a ton of AP to spend on a dmg buff that sucks up an Active slot. If it buffed the whole group, maybe. Or if you had buddies popping Breaching Shot & Deadly Aim it could be brutal. (40% Crit buff + 40% Penetration buff, followed by 25% dmg boost would leave a mark)
I use Hammer and Blood Magic. I spam ppls in the noggin with my hammer mostly. As I do this, it builds hammer resources for my big haymaker hammer attack. At the same time the noggin spamming builds blood resources, so yes, both resources build up at the same time from the one weapon. This is crucial to how i play. I use my hammer builder then hit my big hammer attack and follow with a big blood consumer.