sephiroth1084 wrote on Sep 14^th, 2012 at 9:46am:


It has the standard auto-leveling that most other MMOs have, and you can't multiclass. The customization comes with skills and traits, which can be reset. Each weapon that your profession can use gives you five new weapon skills, so swapping between weapons gives you different options (usually along the lines of DPS versus control versus AoE, etc).

I like DDO's customization much better, but GW2 does a lot of things right that overshadows that drawback.

sephiroth1084 wrote on Sep 14^th, 2012 at 10:05am:



I've read this a lot when people speak of the upsides of DDO and in many ways I agree with them.  However, in reality even though DDO has many options only about 20 of those combinations are viable.  If there was so much customization why is everyone a clonk, an exploiter, a monster, a blitz...  etc etc.  This selling point of DDO is way oversold.

One other thing -

All the people that excel at twitching while attacking, and moving to avoid damage in DDO, will absolutely rule GW2.

stainer wrote on Sep 14^th, 2012 at 10:17am:



How does your 286 run GW2 anyway?

Also, as to no multiclassing, almost no balanced game will have it. Multiclassing almost always inherently breaks the balance which is trying to be achieved.

Eladiun wrote on Sep 14^th, 2012 at 10:10am:


That honestly depends on the crowd you run with.  In the elite end-game world, this is pretty true.  There is a lot of min-maxing going on.  Max DPS builds are often heavily copied.  But there is more variation in play than what you see in the small subset of the game that is end game.  And even there, many end game players make min-max sacrifices to try out other concepts and or gain some utility or versatility or flavor.

I agree that if there are 8 races and 13 classes and approximately 27 PrE's available and 10 ED's and 20 Heroic levels to multiclass and anywhere from 7 - 22 feats per build and 80 enhancement points to spend and 3 twists of fate and 26 ED points that you can create literally billions of possible combinations.  And literally billions of them would be total crap.  But their are still thousands upon thousands of combinations that are viable and interesting.

GW2 doesn't give you the ability to make the "traditional" MMO roles of Healers, Tanks, DPS, supposedly.  People say they enjoy that GW2 escapes this mold.  The odd thing is that DDO has been capable of escaping that mold for years.  You don't have to build a min-max DPS toon and look for a min-max healer toon.  You don't have to wade in and hack and slash and take a ton of damage and hope the healer can spam heal ahead of the pace.  That's just the lowest common denominator strategy that is used because it is simple and easy.  But if you wanted to build versatile, multifunctional, self-sufficient toons, you are quite capable of doing so in DDO.  Lots of players do it all the time. 

I'm not saying that GW2 is wrong and DDO is right.  I don't think it's about better or worse.  Any more than chocolate ice cream is better or worse than strawberry or vanilla.  But I'm not sure I'm sold on the logic that fewer options is a feature or a benefit.

Asheras wrote on Sep 14^th, 2012 at 11:20am:


I never twitched... I never could get the timing down.

Asheras wrote on Sep 14^th, 2012 at 11:12am:


And lots of players fuck it up royally and totally gimp themselves, get frustrated, and quit the game because the mechanics of 70% of the game do not support anything beyond the lowest common denominator strategy.  How many forums threads start with I want to be different and end with 20 posters calling the player a gimp or a player with on odd and inefficient build crying because no one will let them in their groups?  Sure, if you want to play an MMO solo do what you want.  I'm not a sightseer; I'm a meta gamer.  I need goals and difficulty and that next piece of gear to get.  So, non-optimal builds make me want to punch a baby. 

Asheras wrote on Sep 14^th, 2012 at 11:12am:


Depends on how you look at it.  You want to be constantly nerfed and have your characters changed, your builds invalidated and broken; more options get you there because Wizards are OP so they need to be nerfed to balance melee and etc.  Do you like PvP?  I've come to find I enjoy MMO PvP in a a balanced environment.  It provides a challenge that pre-written content doesn't.  There are pluses and minuses to both systems.

I'm not saying the customization in DDO is bad I love it too.  I'm just saying that I see a lot of people throw it out as a reason why DDO is better yet every one of their characters is a cookie cutter build.  It's an overused line when most players don't do anything beyond using the flavor of the moment builds.

Eladiun wrote on Sep 14^th, 2012 at 11:27am:

1.  THere will be idiots in GW2 that will fuck up their toons or not play them correctly and get frustrated and quit.  That's not a new thing.  There will be forum group-think in GW2 that will push people to be sheep and follow the herd of conventional wisdom.  Nothing any game developer can do about that. 

2.  You can be a meta-gamer and not use a traditional min-max optimial build.  Optimal is defined by your playstyle.  Many of the best non-traditional builds really make use of the latest and best gear to make them hum.  In fact, by combining multiple PL's, end game gear, and ED's you can create some top notch end game toons that do not follow the cookie cutter paths of Tank, DPS, Support.

No trading system?

Quote:

There is no person to person direct sales, and no COD mail.  They stated this early and often as trying to get people to use the across server AH.
Quote:

Goes back to my lack of time sinks post.  Why run to a mailbox?  It wastes time.  Time is a Devs enemy.  Dont want those players using that time to explore the game.

Just bought 2 copies for me and my GF last night, gonna create our 1st chars when I get home from work.  Any tips for new people just starting?

You might want to start as the same race. That will make it easier to find each other at first.