Curse

aron searle · May 11, 2006, 11:38 PM // 23:38

Quote:

Just to clear one thing.. stand alone != sequel or new game..
Stand alone means u can play it without the core game..
Factions is a stand alone expansion where you don't even need to know the story of prophecies to play..

You know i think people have gathered that.

Its more a case that content wise its more of an expansion than a full game in comparison to the 1st.

Ken Dei · May 12, 2006, 12:27 AM // 00:27

My perception of A.Net has been continuously blown away in small bits since Factions released....this is not the company I bought Prophecies from...something is terribly wrong...maybe A.Net has become "afflicted" with a different kind of foreign plague...such as NcSoft Corporate Execs....

MelechRic · May 12, 2006, 12:32 AM // 00:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warcheif_Jonval

While i understand the Op's opinion, I must say your view is quite skiewed.

Backtracking at this level is nothing compared to the entire days I spent traveling on the back of a chocobo, doing basicly nothing, in Final Fantasy 11 just to prepare to travel some more on a chocobo tomorrow and waste hours upon hours standing in the same spot, killing something every 20 minutes, grinding for days upon days to obtain enough money just to buy my food for leveling. yes, I said Food. When I finished getting gil for food, I had to WALK back to a town, atleast 20 minutes of walking away from me. With absoloutely no speed boosts.

Now, in reality the amount of game play in FF11 only 40+ hours, but that only counts the missions. Not the insane months of grinding. some might say "You grind in GW for months too!" But what they dont realise is that the grind in GW has a shred of entertainment in it. You grind in FF11 to obtain something through basicly entering a zone, clicking on a monster and chatting to your freinds while the game does most of the work for you.

If you want to bitch about something like grinding in guild wars or lack of content, go play FF11. Either you will get all the content you could ever dream, or you will find that the grind in GW is about as tedious as playing your favorite game in comparison.

Again, I understand the Op's frustration with the "lack of content" or the amount of backtracking, but people such as I understand the good in what you say is only bad.

(Any posters that claim "Im off topic, I do not understand this, or that the two games are so diffrent you cant compare them" are subject to flames and insults)

One thing I'd point out to you is that saying something is/was much worse than Factions does not in fact make Factions good.

Here is an over-the-top analogy of your statement: Getting shot by a rifle is way worse than being shot with a bow and arrow.

I totally agree, but it doesn't make getting shot with an arrow a good thing either.

CK0 · May 12, 2006, 12:36 AM // 00:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shyft the Pyro

Ah, but I'm not trying to tell people what I personally think is wrong with Factions. I'm trying to get at the design elements that have caused the wave of grief over Factions, so that - if ANet is watching - they can do more than a "cosmetic" fix of the same model for the next chapter.

I understand completely. It is not mindless ranting. We can only hope they will make the adjustments.

Cacheelma · May 12, 2006, 01:25 AM // 01:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shyft the Pyro

Can't dispute your facts, but do have to respond to your points.

"Game length" is both subjective and objective. If there was no Prophecies we would only be able to speak of subjective game length - how long it takes the player to complete the game when compared to other players. But Prophecies does exist, and we're forced to contend with objective game length - how long it takes the player to complete the game when compared to other games. If you're equating "game length" to "storyline length," Factions is indeed smaller.

Well, I completed Prophecies in just a week after released. But I'm still in House zu Heltzer RIGHT NOW. So, your point is?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shyft the Pyro

And my point isn't that Factions does not have "guild wars." My point is that Factions does not have "Guild Wars." Prophecies didn't have rival guilds fighting each other - the closest we ever had were the White Mantle - but it was still "Guild Wars" because GvG took center stage. In Factions, despite the presence of NPC guilds, main emphasis is on alliances and alliance warfare. That's my point - the deviation from "Guild Wars" to "Alliance Wars" which, in my opinion, does not give Factions the right to share a title with Prophecies.

GvG took center stage in Prophecies? Then how come a PvE player like me never have a chance to GvG AT ALL in Prophecies? Yet I still feel good playing the game. And I don't see anything different in that in Factions.

So, again, your point is?

Thallandor · May 12, 2006, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Give me Conical HATS!! ANet and i promise i will stop complaining :P

Edit: Add a full body cloak and i will buy chapter 3 CE without question even

Vel Satis · May 12, 2006, 06:49 AM // 06:49

Quote:

I don't know how anyone can call Factions a PvP-oriented game ... it's a FARMING game. Despite of ANet whining how much they hated farming, the essence of Factions is just that: faction farming. Just look at the guild that's sitting on Cavalon by farming supply quest over and over and over again.

That's true at the moment but I can see them raising the reward for alliance battles to make it more faction-profitable than quests. If they do that then more people will turn to PvP to try and win control of the capitals.

UndeadRoadkill · May 12, 2006, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vel Satis

If they do that then more people will turn to PvP to try and win control of the capitals.

No matter how the game is built, people who dislike PvP are just not going to do it, contrary to what Anet may believe.

WasAGuest · May 12, 2006, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vel Satis

That's true at the moment but I can see them raising the reward for alliance battles to make it more faction-profitable than quests. If they do that then more people will turn to PvP to try and win control of the capitals.

Or give up with the factions system all together. Lets not forget, many players do not and can not stand PvP or that style of play.
The alliance system needs as many players giving faction points as often as possible as quickly as possible. Rewarding PvP more would tick off PvE players a great deal.

Here's a fix:

Rather than having two faction turn in NPCs, merge them. When you turn in 5k faction points, you are "rewarded" 5 amber/jade. Make them two in the same. The PvEers who are going after the armor and not investing in the alliances will get the armor they want, and the alliance will get the needed faction points.

Edit: UndeadRoadkill is correct in saying that. I have already been asked to join in PvP from alliance members. I do not enjoy it at all, and have turned them down, which in turn just makes them mad. If Anet thinks that people will just say "yes" because they are allied, they are sorely mistaken.

Shyft the Pyro · May 12, 2006, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by heavenscloud2

um faction presear ends when u get out of the annoying toturial, since u can accsess ur storage, weapon/armor crafter and traders.

also there is a huge gap betweenn the island and the mainland. the mainland is for lvl20s, hardly anyone is lvl 20 after u finish all the quests and mission, and some quest are stupidly hard, for example "The Captured Son"

Though you can access all of these in the Monastery, you do not yet have a second profession, and the areas you travel through still have enemies at level 2 or lower who do not aggro you unless you attack them. If you've noticed, the only Kappa mobs before Harbor that will attack once you enter the aggro range are those with a level 6 Kappa "babysitting" the level 1s.

We can't really draw a precise parallel between the "training areas" in Prophecies and in Factions, but there is a huge jump in enemy "party composition" and tactics after the Harbor, and you only need to look at the henchies who are level 13! at that point to see that ANet sped up advancement on purpose. I agree there is another huge jump between leaving the island (even if you do Captured Son you only get to level 18) and hitting the mainland (where even random city mobs are level 20), but that's just additional proof of the greatly shortened learning curve in Factions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kimahri

Ok, read through the thread and I'm starting to feel like the only person who likes the game and the fact that leveling goes fast. Ok, not too many missions but I have so much to do when I have finished the last one. My list is so long that I often have a hard time to decide what to do. Playing with friends is always fun, but what do I know.

I don't really have a problem with fast advancement. What I have a problem with is the fact that in Guild Wars - and I mean the "theory" of the concept of Guild Wars here - advancement does not equal better characters or better players. The "theory" is that Guild Wars is a game based on skill(s), both the skills you choose to bring on your character and the skill with which you can use them. What good is fast advancement when there are fewer skills available from quests in Factions (so new players who haven't been saving for Factions can't get the skills outright) and when there isn't time to figure out how different skillsets work on different enemies (so new players who haven't played Prophecies don't have the advantage of figuring out good skill setups)?

I believe that's one of the main reasons we see so many assassins dying in missions and quests. As new players, they never managed to stick with the steep learning curve ANet based Factions around, and they didn't realize the need for better armor/skills/skill sets. It's the same thing we've seen with W/Mo in Prophecies, really: new players don't realize when the challenge level has been raised so far they need to reevaluate their tactics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by artay

I always say: Don't Complain if you can't do better. So basically anyone in this forum who has made an online game that has sold over 1 mil copies may speak....*waits*.........That's what i thought,

I feel the need to reiterate. First off, we are customers. We paid for Factions based on the expectations that we had from Prophecies. Clearly, we got a different game, and "different" can mean good or bad depending on the person. But as customers, we have a right to voice our opinions on the game. Your logic could just as well support "If you haven't made a successful game, how can you praise them?" Neither of us has created a top-selling video game; how can you say I have no right to criticize ANet without implying you have no right to claim the game is good? If only experts can comment on the work of other experts, experts lose touch with the common people.

Second, ANet doesn't actually have a precise way of presenting the public with accurate play numbers. Unlike WoW, where you know X million subscriptions means the gaming community is X million players strong this month, ANet's disclosed numbers - Y million games sold - show only how many people have bought the game. The distinction is incredibly important because if ANet could/would tell us how many people logged on within the last month the numbers would be much lower. Of course, it would be commercial suicide to reveal these numbers (if ANet even keeps track of them), but without an accurate count we can't actually tell how many people have already quit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shred Dread

-I agree with a lot of the comments here. There is less content and more grind, and experience is seriously inflated. However, I still count Factions as one of my favorites games. No game is perfect, yet I see people ranting about how "Anet has betrayed us!" Why don't you all write letters to Anet telling them how YOU think it should be and how Anet is a "traitor" if it doesnt make all it's games exactly the way YOU want. It's easy to crizticize, but I still see people paying their $50 for the game.

ANet has listed GuildWarsGuru as an "Elite Fansite." ANet employees constantly prove they're watching this forum by making posts. This makes it as good an avenue as any for player feedback, and each "I hate Factions!" thread is, at the very bottom of it, the very letter you describe. They've already been written, and they're still being written as I post.

I, personally, do not "hate" Factions. I greatly dislike certain decisions that ANet has made for Factions, but not to the degree to stop playing. That doesn't mean I'll keep playing Factions silently, when ANet has given me the hopefully true impression that my opinions matter to them. I hope that, if ANet sees a large enough dissatisfaction with Factions, and if it recognizes certain design elements as the general source of negative feedback, it can make different design decisions for future games.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gwenhywar

I don't know how anyone can call Factions a PvP-oriented game ... it's a FARMING game. Despite of ANet whining how much they hated farming, the essence of Factions is just that: faction farming. Just look at the guild that's sitting on Cavalon by farming supply quest over and over and over again. It's kinda pitiful that to be the strongest Luxon guild all you need is ... mindless farming. I already see chinese farmers & their bots farming faction with supply runs in near future, even not being a programmer it's not hard to see that these kind of scripts would be much simplier than the ones used to farm minotaurs.

I really wish they'd think at least a little about the PvP people and allow us to switch part of the Balthasar's faction we get for Luxon/Kurzick faction, so that we are not forced to go farm faction in PvE to be able to compete with the PvE farmers' guilds. (Ofc PvPers can do alliance battles, but IMO without 12 people parties they aren't that fun anymore and many would prefer to get their faction in GvGs instead).

I don't know what happened to "no grind" ... Factions is ALL about grind.

The Factions focus on PvP is more a perceived than an actual thing. Players want to see a reason behind the mad rush to level 20 and through the storyline, so they assume the main thing that was there for Prophecies characters - PvP/GvG/HoH - is still the focus in Factions. Problem is, Factions is about "Alliance Wars" rather than "Guild Wars," and getting faction points for the alliance becomes the only real pursuit, since it leads to elite missions. This indeed leads to a grind, whether it's an Alliance Battle PvP grind or faction farming PvE grind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warcheif_Jonval

While i understand the Op's opinion, I must say your view is quite skiewed.

Backtracking at this level is nothing compared to the entire days I spent traveling on the back of a chocobo, doing basicly nothing, in Final Fantasy 11 just to prepare to travel some more on a chocobo tomorrow and waste hours upon hours standing in the same spot, killing something every 20 minutes, grinding for days upon days to obtain enough money just to buy my food for leveling. yes, I said Food. When I finished getting gil for food, I had to WALK back to a town, atleast 20 minutes of walking away from me. With absoloutely no speed boosts.

Now, in reality the amount of game play in FF11 only 40+ hours, but that only counts the missions. Not the insane months of grinding. some might say "You grind in GW for months too!" But what they dont realise is that the grind in GW has a shred of entertainment in it. You grind in FF11 to obtain something through basicly entering a zone, clicking on a monster and chatting to your freinds while the game does most of the work for you.

If you want to bitch about something like grinding in guild wars or lack of content, go play FF11. Either you will get all the content you could ever dream, or you will find that the grind in GW is about as tedious as playing your favorite game in comparison.

Again, I understand the Op's frustration with the "lack of content" or the amount of backtracking, but people such as I understand the good in what you say is only bad.

(Any posters that claim "Im off topic, I do not understand this, or that the two games are so diffrent you cant compare them" are subject to flames and insults)

Backtracking may be the way other games have been set up in the past, but it's not one of the main design elements in Prophecies the way it is in Factions. My point isn't just that backtracking is bad; it's that it was a necessary feature that ANet chose to include because of the way they designed Factions. If the continent wasn't so compressed, we wouldn't have so much backtracking; if there wasn't so much of an emphasis on persistant alliance warfare, the continent wouldn't be so compressed.

Why should I be happy with what I got when I was happy with what I had?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TRicciardi

Just to clear one thing.. stand alone != sequel or new game..
Stand alone means u can play it without the core game..
Factions is a stand alone expansion where you don't even need to know the story of prophecies to play..

You're correct on the story - the way the Factions storyline is set up you don't need to know the Prophecies storyline at all. But what about the gameplay? Can you honestly say that people who learned the game at the much faster pace of Factions will be as able to take on the same tasks as people who learned it in Prophecies? As a Prophecies player, I already had a general idea of what to do and how to set up my skills when creating a new character in Factions, but working out skill setups and combat strategies takes time - time that Factions characters simply don't have.

Even In terms of the learning curve, Factions is an expansion rather than a stand-alone game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken Dei

My perception of A.Net has been continuously blown away in small bits since Factions released....this is not the company I bought Prophecies from...something is terribly wrong...maybe A.Net has become "afflicted" with a different kind of foreign plague...such as NcSoft Corporate Execs....

Oh yes. And any day now, they'll die in an Afflicted Explosion that kills us all because we're standing too close and attacking them in a Frenzy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cacheelma

GvG took center stage in Prophecies? Then how come a PvE player like me never have a chance to GvG AT ALL in Prophecies? Yet I still feel good playing the game. And I don't see anything different in that in Factions.

Alright, lets look at this more closely. You say you're a PvE player; that means you have purposely removed yourself from the PvP realm. GvG combat was the main emphasis of Prophecies at least in theory, because I believe ANet thought PvP would extend the gameplay time for people who got through PvE or didn't like it at all. Why do you think the first GW World Championship was made into such a big deal, if you don't think GvG was the main focus of Prophecies - which incidentally was originally called Guild Wars?

In Factions, however, the main emphasis of post-storyline gameplay is on alliance warfare. Again, you can purposely remove yourself from this aspect and trade faction points for rare materials requred to craft certain armor. But where in Prophecies that choice would mean you still have the whole game world at your disposal (with "mini expansions" of UW, FoW, SF, Tombs), in Factions it means you will miss out on content because you'll have no way of accessing elite missions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vel Satis

That's true at the moment but I can see them raising the reward for alliance battles to make it more faction-profitable than quests. If they do that then more people will turn to PvP to try and win control of the capitals.

Let's assume ANet does this to discourage faction farming through PvE quests. Would that do anything to the nature of faction farming? You'd still need a ton of faction points to gain access to elite missions, but instead of farming for them in PvE you'd be farming for them in PvP, relentlessly grinding away in Alliance Battles. Tying elite missions to the alliance system does about the same thing that rank did for HoH: you can't get in unless you know how to farm faction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by UndeadRoadkill

No matter how the game is built, people who dislike PvP are just not going to do it, contrary to what Anet may believe.

Right. And if they find less content accessible to them in Factions due to both smaller map/storyline size and greater emphasis on PvP, guess what they'll do on these forums?

Mavrik · May 12, 2006, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Length of the game... perhaps not as long as prophecies. But I believe the maps are about of the same size... and here is why. Prophecies is pretty flat were as Factions has a lot of hills... higher areas to get to. I've been attacked by things at the bottom of a hill yet I was a good ways away from them.

MasterThrawn · May 12, 2006, 08:43 PM // 20:43

I must say I agree with everything the OP has said. The back tracking in quests drives me insane. Here go meet his guy, now go meet this guy, now go back to this guy, there wasn't that fun!? At least move the rewards guys back to an outpost or something so don't have to run through mobs to get to him. And I hate running around that multi-level maze. Don't even know if I'll take my Prophecies chars through here, because I hate that area so much.

I have also been stuck for like one week because I have no idea where to go. Made it Zivros something in the Jade Sea, but do not have any primary quests, and have done them all that I could find. I have no idea how to advance the story - very frustrating.

And I am in a large alliance - just happened to be that way, we are mainly a PvE guild, but are allied with many PvP guilds. I do not enjoy PvP - I can probably get to elite missions, but have not tried yet. Mainly because I do not find Factions nearly as fun as Prophecies.... gets old real quick. A shame - I spent many, many hours playing Prophecies - I think I will take my Canthan char over there....

Shred Dread · May 12, 2006, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Shyft, as usual you'll probably have a lot to quote on this one

There are some issues with Factions, I agree, but I don't necessarily believe that this is reason to call Anet the "root of all evil" as this thread's title suggests.

Here are some issues that I think the game does have:
(I'm probably forgetting a few things here)
-Too much grind
-Experience is inflated
-Elite missions are denied to too many people

Now here are the ways I think Anet could fix these problems:
-Spread out the game more, as it is too hurried and rushed
-Make more quests instead of every basic, insignificant quest giving 3000xp
-Lower the requirements for accessing elite mission areas

Now it may be too late for Anet to fix all of these things for Factions, but they can do their best, and consider some of this for the next chapter.

Beat_Go_Stick · May 12, 2006, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by artay

I always say: Don't Complain if you can't do better. So basically anyone in this forum who has made an online game that has sold over 1 mil copies may speak....*waits*.........That's what i thought,

Haha, if you buy a car and the door falls off as you're driving it to work a week later, would I tell you to go build your own car if you're having such a problem with it?

Seriously though, I found Factions to suffer the same problems as many forms of entertainment do these days: Flashy lights + 'splosions = money maker! If you didnt find the story and plotline of Factions laughable, I hope you had a great time as Mission Impossible 3 and Lawnmower Man 2.

Realize the thing that made games like Max Payne, Half LIfe, Final Fantasy, and Clive Barker's Undying so great was the fact that the plotline behind them was flushed out, thought out, and interesting. There are so many holes in Factions that I won't bother elaborating beyond:

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJ Josh

1)did the fortune teller have an ultirior motive for brainwashing shiro?
2)was the emporer about to have shiro killed or not?
3)why did shiro become an envoy?
4)whats the deal with the absorbing s**t from his kills in the harvest temple?
5)where was the switch from local hero to kick ass evil dude?
6)whats the deal with the death wail,and where can i cap that skill(must be an elite

)?
7)what is the link between shiro and the afflicted and why does everyone but us know that inflicted=shiro's returned yet none of them have any info on why they think this?

I, like Josh, enjoy immersing myself in a story worth telling and, let's face it, Factions (where enemies are humans, plague-infested humans, and, well, minions of humans) reads like a Mad Libs page:

The evil Lord _______(proper noun) has returned and is threatening the land with _______(noun). You and a select group of _______(plural noun) must bind together and combine forces to stop his evil scheme by _______(transitive verb) the _______(noun) before it's too late!

No depth, no twists, and the only mysetry is caused by jumbo jet sized holes in the story. The result of this was that the game feels rushed. The entire theme is packed with a feeling of "Hurry up and defeat Shiro!" without any significant background of "Discover what is going on and act accordingly upon it."

Anyway, let's just say I agree with the OP. I felt like A.Net said Factions would be all these things and then it turns out to be rather few of them. I am still playing it and still enjoying it but probably not for much longer. I played Prophecies up until the day Factions came out without taking more than a month or two break and never got sick of it. I am already losing interest in Factions (to the point where i can see an end to my Guild wars playing) after a couple weeks. It may keep me for another month, but that's nothing compared to the 12 months I got out of the first chapter. When C3 comes out, I will have probably been away from the game for a while. Maybe I'll check the forums to see if it's worth getting and maybe I'll be playing something else by then. Who knows? The point is that A.Net needs to realize if they ever want me (and others like me) to buy their games again, they need to do more then just set up some situation where we are forced to fight and then let us do so. We want some Role-Playing in the PvE sections of our RPG and the whole "Quick, kill everything!" scenario just doesn't cut it.

**cosyfiep** · May 12, 2006, 09:26 PM // 21:26

I agree with Beat_.....I have already starting loosing interest in factions....I have 4 tyrian characters and 1 canthan.....my chathan is still on the island and none of my tyrians have gotten thru the first mission (2 havent even been past kahieng while one ran to the marketplace, only 1 has done most of those fedex quests and I dont want to have to repeat them again so soon.....they were very exhausting mentally the first go 'round).
I have been spending my gw time getting titles since, first I didnt get my CE, then when I got it most of my friends had already gone on leaving me behind to do all those dangg quests alone---not much fun in babysitting pugs or henchies. So my monk is at 98% for the cartographer title.........yep, repeating running the gwp missions is a lot more fun than the fedex/mob quests of factions.

UndeadRoadkill · May 12, 2006, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by artay

I always say: Don't Complain if you can't do better. So basically anyone in this forum who has made an online game that has sold over 1 mil copies may speak....*waits*.........That's what i thought,

I can't believe so many people try to use this "argument" and expect to be taken seriously.

Fred Kiwi · May 12, 2006, 11:45 PM // 23:45

I think the whole reason behind all this is because this is a team that hasn't necessarily worked on gw before, other than maybe a few that worked on the original

probably, so im hoping they don't peddle the same stuff in the next one

Bahumhat · May 13, 2006, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Heres my 2 cents about how long of gameplay factions has compared to prohecies:

Not all stand-alone games made by the same company need to have the exact same gameplay hours. Why should they?

GW:P was worked on for 5 years. 5 years!! Factions has, what... a year!? They made 2 new professions(alot of balencing and testing). Then added new armor, new pvp systems. a bunch of stuff, under a very short time span.

I'm not gonna say, "why dont you make something like this and then complain" because I bet even Blizzard cant make stuff as good as this.

artay · May 13, 2006, 01:54 AM // 01:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by UndeadRoadkill

I can't believe so many people try to use this "argument" and expect to be taken seriously.

This "argument" Is meant to help you get some perspective. Making a game isnt that easy and the time the gw team worked on to make gw,p was much longer than factions, They've really done an outstanding job.

artay · May 13, 2006, 02:11 AM // 02:11

So basically Shyft your saying that we should judge things b4 knowing what the full story is. Eg. God! i hate those starving kids in africa! Y r they starving?? They should be eradicated because they're taking up to much land and they're dying heaps!

Is that what we should be doing? IMO, no