Last, but not least the PEE VEE PEE! At least the small amount that was at PAX. Sadly we have little to no new information about WvWvW, something I'm presonally very eager to find out more about. I did take pictures of the PvP matches at PAX, but alas they were awful so I won't be displaying them here.
Collision
I was going to save this topic for last, but what the heck, let's save the best for first instead. Prior to going to PAX, I had found a couple articles that had quoted a few Arenanet team members stating there was no collision currently in the game. Going to PAX, I completely expected the game to be devoid of collision. But to my surprise and fancy...there WAS collision! Hooray!
Now for those of us that have played PvP games where collision was included in the game (DAOC, Warhammer, World of Tanks, etc), we know that collision gives that added level of strategy and thinking. Unfortunately, having collision tends to increase the amount of data needed to be shot back and forth between the player and the game's servers. Extrapolate this to 100's of players in a large zone and you end up with lag typically. Warhammer had both friendly AND enemy collision and as a result (and for numerous other reasons) they had some fairly laggy battles at the forts. They attempted to take out friendly collision but the players screamed bloody murder even though it would have helped Warhammer's lag issues somewhat.
Fast forward to Guild Wars 2 and a few months ago the game, indeed, had no collision whatsoever. What Arenanet found, though, is that players in PvE and PvP would attack their opponent, walk inside of them, their opponent would swing but miss because their enemy was now occupying the same space as they did, and so on and so forth. In other words, players were using the lack of collision AGAINST the game mechanics to avoid damage. Smart play, but not what the developers wanted. Thus enemy collision was added.
I tested this thoroughly during my PvE playthrough and had other PAX players try it as well. We all came to the same conclusions:
#1 There is collision with the enemy npc/monster only if you have them targeted.
#2 You cannot walk through the enemy; the game will make you go to either side of them if you try.
#3 Sometimes you can walk backwards through an enemy if they're targeted (might be a bug however).
#4 You can walk through all friendlies.
#5 You can walk through enemies if they're not targeted.
I also watched the PvP matches to check if the above also rang true, and I can safely say, for the most part, it looked like all the above rules applied. There were only a few times that I thought I saw two opposing players go through each other. Otherwise they couldn't. I imagine that both PvE and PvP collision mechanics are the same code and therefore should act exactly the same.
Focus Firing
I discussed this briefly in Part 2, but I'll go more in depth. While watching the PvP matches, more often than not, a solo player would find himself/herself against 2 or more other players. I actually clocked how long it took to kill the solo player. The average time was typically around 5 seconds with the shortest being 3 seconds and the longest being infinity; there were quite a few times the solo player got away or used obstructions to block spells until the solo'er got backup. Not once did I ever see a player get 1 or 2 shot. Big relief for me. The biggest worry I had with the lack of a trinity is that the fighting would be too fast paced-that everyone could 1 or 2 shot each other. It's simply not the case. While it might take a player of extraordinary skill to beat other players when outnumbered, anyone can stay alive for an reasonable amount of time, at least slowing the opposing side down. Therefore during structured PvP where you have 5 players a side, it is a completely reasonable tactic to have 1 player guard a point.
Dodge and other utility skills
For the most part, everyone was just trying to figure out how to use most of these abilities, but dodge did work very well when used appropriately. Players very quickly, however, got the hang of their elite skills. I can't tell you how many times someone used lich form or tornado. One criticism I did have was that a lot of players really didn't take advantage of their team's guardian bubbles or line of wardings. Only once did I see a team correctly use a line of warding (and to great effect). Otherwise all the players including even the guardians themselves would walk right past the protective bubble, instead of staying inside and either healing or using offensive range spells/abilities.
AoE vs Single Target Dps
To put it simply, no where in Structured PvP did I see where one was overpowered or overused. AoE, of course, worked best against larger groups and single target dps worked best against, you guessed it, single targets. Not a big surprise here, but it is refreshing not to see to big imbalances yet in GW2 in spite of it only being in the alpha testing phase. I can only imagine AoE will become a more important part of WvWvW, but time will tell. If they make AoE damage spells work like AoE healing spells (increase duration, not damage), then single target dps might actually be more important. It really remains to be seen.
From PAX, the two effective "cowboy" classes, ie loners, seemed be primarily be thieves and elementalists. Sure Necromancers were great at taking damage, but if something needed to be quick n' dead and allow the player to be able to heal, the player was usually playing a thief or a elementalist. Elementalists really did well because of their water element and the extra heals granted from that. Thieves tended to do well because of stealth and their pulling ability, singling out single players at a time. Granted all classes can effectively solo. Now don't assume that I'm saying only thieves and elementalists can fight effectively solo; the other classes just tended to play much more effectively in groups of 2 or 3.
Destructible Environment and Cover
Overall the more effective teams and players took extensive use of both destructible objects and of cover. If better team saw a number's advantage, they'd push into the other team. If they didn't, they'd typically use cover (temporary and permanent) to slowly tear the other team down and/or bait their enemies into making poor decisions. It was quite pleasant to see this aspect of the game in action.
That's it. That wraps up my PAX adventure this last weekend in Seattle. Keep in mind all of what I have wrote is subject to change since Arenanet has just started on some of these game features, but from what I saw, it should prove to be a very fun game.
