Guild Wars 2 Stress Test - June 27th

[lujate 578]

Wednesday, June 27th, 10am-2pm PDT (GMT -7)

http://www.arena.net/blog/help-us-stress-our-servers-on-june-27

 

(Their timing leaves a lot to be desired. )

[Wygram 23]

Wednesday, June 27th, 10am-2pm PDT (GMT -7)

http://www.arena.net/blog/help-us-stress-our-servers-on-june-27

 

(Their timing leaves a lot to be desired. )

 

That is quite the classic understatement.

 

At most I can get in for 30 minutes.

[Ryanrocker 200]

(Their timing leaves a lot to be desired. )

 

I'm not into the beta yet, but what were they thinking? That time window is awful

 

Edit: Forum changed my double question marks into a smiley

Edited June 22, 2012 by ryanrocker1217

[lujate 578]

From their Twitter feed:

For those of you wondering about the time of the stress test: Keep in mind that we have a huge playerbase outside of the US.

The last stress test started about the same time. My guess is that their working on EU issues.

[Wygram 23]

From their Twitter feed:

For those of you wondering about the time of the stress test: Keep in mind that we have a huge playerbase outside of the US.

The last stress test started about the same time. My guess is that their working on EU issues.

 

I really don't mind that they want the EU stressing out their servers, I just want a shot at stressing them out myself. An extra hour or two would be wonderful.

[Kiyeri 34]

Wow, I'm in agreement.

 

Don't think I will even get in 30 mins, but you never kno.

Think I'll take my Laptop with me and log in and

if I have a minute or two of downtime I'll at least explore =).

 

Could it also be cuz EU peeps complained about last stress test hours being inconvenient for them?

[Flooxim 49]

You're gonna need to tell me how it was, it you noticed some changes, because I already know I'll be working on that day. So I won't be able to play this stress test at all. This is kinda sad that I can't help testing that much.

 

 

Max

[lujate 578]

If my luck holds, I should be able to get in on a good portion of this.

 

Grasping desperately to find the silver lining for FDM in this brief, inconveniently scheduled stress test... My best attempt is that this stress test is shorter than the last. Does that mean things are going well? I am trying to be uncharacteristically optimistic and hoping for BWE3 in a couple of weeks, and (dare I say) a release date?

[Kiyeri 34]

Crossing fingers and toes for BWE the 14th or 21st of July

Would be cool to be able to test it on my new computer

[lujate 578]

Crossing fingers and toes for BWE the 14th or 21st of July

Would be cool to be able to test it on my new computer

So I was looking at the calendar last night...

 

BWE1 ended on 29 Apr

Stress Test 1 was two weeks later on 14 May

BWE2 was the fourth Friday after Stress Test 1, starting 08 Jun

Stress Test 2 will be two weeks after BWE2

 

 

If we make a blind leap of faith that the pattern will continue, 20-22 Jul looks promising.

[Flooxim 49]

I just tried to open the game, and I had to download a ~40MB update before I was able to get to the login screen.

 

 

Max

Edited June 27, 2012 by Flooxim

[lujate 578]

I just tried to open the game, and I had to download a ~40MB update before I was able to get to the login screen.

 

 

Max

Thanks for the tip! Tomorrow is going to short enough, without having to download updates first.

 

 

FWIW, I saw an unofficial news story today that they will be running the BWE2 finale the last hour of the stress test.

[lujate 578]

Just got booted off 1hr 1min past when it was scheduled to end. I have to say the finale was not particularly enjoyable. Getting turned to the dark side, given an unfamiliar skill bar and ground into the dirt by a mass of players is not my idea of a good time.

 

I did discover that you can call a target from the downed state, so you buddies can help you rally. I had the camera rolling until I got disgusted with the finale. When I have time, I will go through what I got and post anything that looks good.

 

 

Here is looking towards the next BWE, and eventual release...

 

 

Update

I am back now, and ready to really talk about GW2. The stress test... So was there stress? You better believe it. The last stress test went smooth and much better than BWE1. This one not so much. It was still playable, but more like a beta game than BWE2 was. The big question right now, is what did the developers want to see? This may have been a homerun for them. No way for us to know.

 

Here are the things I noticed:

• The loading screens were taking what seemed like forever. The first time, I thought the game had locked up. It eventually moved and I just came to expect that.
  
• On one occasion, it took me three tries to teleport to a waypoint. The first two tries gave me a dialog window about a firewall error.
  
• Lag. Lag has never been a terrible issue for me with GW2. On two occasions today, the lag monster reared up and bit me on the nose. The first time, I was soloing a Flame Legion charr (or was it two). Everything was still moving at combat speed, but none of my skills were working. I ended up hitting all five weapons skills. A couple of seconds later, they all fired (cutting the poor charr to ribbons). Just a few minutes later, I was in a Dynamic Event with a number of other players, fighting a group of Flame Legion charr. This time, everyone else froze. I could still move, but my skills were not working.
  

 

I also encountered a bug that was not stress test related. Somehow, I fell through the floor of a cave into an underground lake and could not get out. Kiyeri said it looked like I just fell through the floor. When I get to that video footage, I will go frame-by-frame and see what I can see.

 

 

Here is a Mesmer-specifc observation.

You start with Ether Feast as your heal spell. It seems like a good choice. It offers good healing and extra healing for every illusion you have up. The first problem with it though, is that illusions tend to have incredibly short life expectancies, so you cannot really count on having a number of illusions up when you need a heal. The second, and IMO worse, issue is that it has a casting time, and the heal is interrupted if you get hit. On too many occasions, I have fired Ether Feast and lost it because I got hit.

 

Enter Mantra of Recovery. Mantras are Mesmer-only skills that you can charge up ahead of time and then use when you need them (think charging a camera flash). The biggest benefit in my mind is that the heal is instant and AFAIK cannot be interrupted. The downside is that it has an 8 second cooldown on the heal, and then you either finish the fight with no heal or spend 3 seconds casting the mantra.

 

So far, I am leaning towards going back to Ether Feast, but I have not quite made that decision yet.

[Flooxim 49]

Wow, great write-up. Looks like this test was not a really a "walk in the park" like the previous one. I hope you still had a good time, and I can't wait to see what you recorded from this test.

 

 

Max

[Kiyeri 34]

For me this stress test was FULL of stress. Not even sure im ready to talk about it myself. My experience was extremely disappointing. I can only hope that it was because it was a stress test and not changes they actually made on purpose.

 

Remember how much I LOVED the meele/Ele, the only thing I didn't like was that the Charr characters are not at all cute and cuddly but rather kinda ugly (love the way they run tho) and they do not have the ability to switch between 2 weapons like the rest of the races do. I had so much fun in the last BWE and I was so excited to play my Ele again.

 

I'm not as technical or observant as the rest of you, but I found the movement and controls to be different. To auto attack I had to be standing right on top of the mob or use an actual skill. There seems to be no more just basic attack, although Lujate said he didn't see a difference.

 

I don't know exactly why, but this BWE I seemed to be fighting the controls the entire time, this was a first for me too, past BWE's I absolutely had no problems. I also found that my Ele couldn't even take down a low level mob by herself with out dying. I was doing no damage at all for over 50-75% of my hits.

 

I got so frustrated that I finally switched to my Necro and had a better time.

 

As for the finale.. yea not fun trying to kill a level 80 when your only a level 11 and your skills do -0- damage to them. Oh and I think my 1 key is gonna need to be replaced soon, cuz once your turned into a baddie you have to hit it every single time you want to punch. Overall, I think the game is more keyboard intensive then it was in previous BWE's (there goes my mouse/keyboard combo approach)

 

Thankfully Lujate was there to keep me alive and sane lol. The company was good, kinda disappointed otherwise tho. I keep asking...Is it because we had such a short time to play we pushed ourselves to do everything quickly? in a game that you normally need to immerse yourself into and then kinda simmer to a boil. I'm still optimistic, and looking forward to release.

[lujate 578]

When I first landed yesterday, it was like I had completely forgotten how to play. I took a dirt nap from the very first fight I got in to.

 

I know my auto-attack still worked for ranged. I cannot say for certain about melee, because when doing melee I am usually frantically hitting buttons, so I cannot say if auto-attack worked or not. I did notice near the very end that auto-attack was not enabled after being turned to the dark side.

 

I understand that they added the extra hour since the finale did not start on time on all servers. IMO, it would have been about right if ours had ended on time, before the frustration level got too high. That extra hour was a killer. I had to go cycling to calm down in order to write the coherent review.

[Kiyeri 34]

Yea I still haven't recovered from it. My melee was the same normal as It was on the dark side, maybe that was a mistake on their part. I filed about 5 bug reports related to it too. I think if the finale had ended after 5-10 mins we wouldn't have left so wiped out. Precisely why I don't like PvP myself... non stop dirt naps and I don't quite get along.

 

edited for the typos I failed to even see the first time

Edited June 29, 2012 by Kiyeri

[lujate 578]

In this simple looking event, we are supposed to kill earth elementals and gather lodestones. The elementals were spawing so fast, I did not have time to worry about gathering lodestones. To make matters even worse, the elementals kept gaining levels. My guess is that the higher levels were to compensate for more players, but I think it may have jumped too quickly.

 

[lujate 578]

Here is a Dynamic Event that scaled down to be solo-able. In fact, it may have scaled down too far.

 

[Flooxim 49]

Great videos you posted yesterday! I agree, the elementals event seemed simple, and it got much harder very quickly, you had a tough time.

 

For the second vid, I think that this kind of dynamic event shouldn't be soloable.

 

 

Max

[lujate 578]

This video here shows a Dynamic Event, "Battle in the Vault" that takes place in the charr region. The slimes we were fighting were not too tough on their own, but the respawn was so fast that the ones we killed had respawned before we were ready to move on. This video also shows where my Mesmer simply fell through the floor into an underground lake. I had just fired Phase Retreat. I went frame-by-frame but did not see anything. One frame I was standing on solid ground, and the next I was underwater. I have read two other Mesmers reporting falling through solid ground when using Phase Retreat during this stress test.

 

Another thing I would like to share, is that Immobilize and Stun are two separate things. The slimes frequently used Immobilize (the animation shows your character wrapped in chains). I mistook this for Stun and used my utility skill that breaks stun. That skill obviously did not do what I had expected since they were not using a stun.

 

[Flooxim 49]

Wow, the fall underwater was pretty intense. I hope it will be fixed. I agree that the oozes spawned a bit too fast.

Great video!

 

 

Max

[lujate 578]

Wow, the fall underwater was pretty intense. I hope it will be fixed. I agree that the oozes spawned a bit too fast.

Great video!

 

 

Max

About an hour after posting the video, I had a youtube comment (my first ever ) from a guy saying the same thing happened to him (he also bug reported it). That make four people I know of this happening to. All using Phase Retreat and all somewhere in the charr region.

[lujate 578]

This video shows (yet again) the quick respawn rate. We had just cleared a cave and I briefly went AFK. In my short absence, two charr and a flame turret spawned and started attacking me. I got back just in time to hit my heal and turn the tables on them. I got one of the charr. The other went into the cave, and I assume Kiyeri took care of him.

 

 

(Nothing too special here, but I just like this video for some reason.)

[Kiyeri 34]

Once again some great vids.

I cant help but notice how badly I SUCK... lol

I notice a lot of lag too... didn't realize I was lagging that badly.