Curse

Age · May 19, 2006, 10:22 PM // 22:22

I haven't beaten factions yet or got to far in to it but it sure is different than the beta version which in the end prophecies wasn't.I wil have to say this and that is that factions is really not to much for the PvE player as there is next to no solo farming and no running unlike prophecies in otherwords where is the fun.Yes factions is more of a PvP style game.

Phades · May 19, 2006, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayne Nightfyre

I must disagree with your claims about the new henchmen. True, some are worse than their Tyrian counterparts (Alesia > Sister Tai, Lina > Redemptor Karl). Their skill sets are different, yes, but that does not make all henchmen "worse." Simply different. Some are better than the Tyrian henchmen.

You must be kidding about the monk henchmen. Most conditions and hexes are gone the moment they land. The previous henchmen couldnt even deal with either of those. Alesia had and still has a nasty habit to run right into the middle of fights or spritz enemies with her wand more than she heals. Sure, people have beef about when and how npcs rez, but thats about the only valid complaint they could possibly have when comparing the monks. Even then, the old ones didnt always res at good times.

If anything the only thing they should complain about is the ritualist henchmen. They drop spirits at very bad times and locations or at times not at all especially if there is more than one spirit henchie. Typically they end up being the first ones dead, even before assassin henchies.

healthsoldier0570 · May 19, 2006, 11:10 PM // 23:10

Because I rarely PvP, Factions would probably suck for me. I just plain out love PvE in Prophecies. PvP is ok, but I don't get the same rush as I do in PvE. After reading about how Factions makes the game seem longer by PvP, I have a feeling that I would absolutely hate it.

Arcanis the Omnipotent · May 20, 2006, 01:45 AM // 01:45

My one complaint with Factions is that it takes absolutely forever to get anything constructive done.

Case in point is the new "special" armor. 15K armor always required lots of materials and money. But it was within reach. FoW armor required grind, but atleast the areas were fun to go into.

But Kurzick and Luxon armor require hours of grind, in areas that either force you to do PVP, or are repeatable quests that just drive you nuts doing over and over. Yesterday, from about noon to 11 pm, I did the Duel of the Houses quest. I got just about 13 Amber in that ammount of time. For those keeping track that means I earned 1K faction every 1.19 hours. Hell, I know people who farm 3 ectos in that ammount of time.

Faction Rewards are incredibly difficult to get and just increase the grind on PVE players. Unless you wanna be forced into PVP...but since 12vs12 isnt fun anymore, who does?

Another point is the mob size. Apparently Anet decided that instead of making the game harder, they'd just cram more enemies into every area and make them impossible to get through without DP.

BrotherGilburt · May 20, 2006, 02:04 AM // 02:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by healthsoldier0570

Because I rarely PvP, Factions would probably suck for me. I just plain out love PvE in Prophecies. PvP is ok, but I don't get the same rush as I do in PvE. After reading about how Factions makes the game seem longer by PvP, I have a feeling that I would absolutely hate it.

Well, you don't have to do the PvP part of it. Alot of it is still PvP. If you like do PvE(doing all the primary quests and missions) then i don't think you'll have a problem with this game because it forces you to do all the missions and primary quests anyway.

Brother Gilburt

generik · May 20, 2006, 02:27 AM // 02:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrotherGilburt

Well, you don't have to do the PvP part of it. Alot of it is still PvP. If you like do PvE(doing all the primary quests and missions) then i don't think you'll have a problem with this game because it forces you to do all the missions and primary quests anyway.

Brother Gilburt

Actually you do have to basically. For the Luxons you won't even get enough factions from quests rewards (ie: non repeatable quests) to befriend the luxons and carry on with the campaign, that leaves you with the channel mission (aka mad impossible) or Fort Asphenwood. Alternatively you have to grind the running quest.

Either way it all smells of poorly thought out design and implementation.

LaserLight · May 20, 2006, 03:41 AM // 03:41

Biggest crock of steaming dung I’ve ever read. Didn’t go much beyond the original post, but that original post was so disgusting I couldn’t stand it.

So. If you don’t play GvG, you don’t play Guild Wars? If a game isn’t centered on GvG, which is actually more exclusively and unforgiving than even Hero’s Ascent and serves an even smaller player base, it doesn’t deserve to be a Guild Wars game?

Did you know that’s effectively saying that Factions should not have been produced?

Your argument is basically stating that what you wanted Factions to be an Asian Prophecies. You were told, well before release, that most of Cantha was for lvl20, fully-developed characters. What, exactly, did that mean to you?! Did you think that Cantha would be ten times the size of Tyria to encompass the same mind-numbing, bloody pointless grind to 20 that is Prophecies? Yes, tyria is pretty. It’s also [b]empty[/i]. Eighty percent of it is wasted space. And your argument that Canthan pre-sear ends at Seitung? Let’s try another argument in the same vein, shall we?

Tyrian Pre-Sear doesn’t end until you hit the Southern Shiverpeaks. Or, some would say, Ember Light Camp. Want to know why? Because it’s only when you hit the Southern Shiverpeaks that you can attain end-game armor and the Elite skills that might make you eligible for content beyond hold-your-hand-to-20 quests and missions. You can’t even unlock much more than half the normal skills available to you until you hit Ember Light!

As far as I’m concerned, anyone who is a Tyrian Grand Master Cartographer, as you are, has no voice in determining the worth of Factions. Your joy comes from exploring, and apparently exploring alone. And maybe when you’re done exploring, grinding the UAS account, r9 emote, and FoW armor needed to convince a decent PvP Guild that you may be worth a one-day trial. Cantha is more easily explored than Tyria, thus it is an inferior game? That’s bull.

But not even half as big a pile of it as saying that Factions should not have been produced because it doesn’t focus on GvG. Ahem: BULL-CRACKING-SHITE. Alliance Battles and their rewards are new; of course people are going to focus on them for a while! Give it a few more months and GvG will be the focus again and we all damn well know it, especially since Alliance battles are no longer anything approaching fun.

You want an Asian Prophecies? Too bad. You got Factions. And for guys like me, who do not equate a quest worth 250 experience, nine useless weapons that sell for maybe twenty gold apiece, and the occasional almost-useful skill into a thrill, Factions is awesome. In Factions, you can fight at your full, true power, and it is that power which is challenged. You are a hero, and Cantha will push you to your true limits. Prophecies, Tyria, and the Flameseeker Prophecies is nothing more than a terminal case of, not ascending strength, but diminishing weakness. You aren’t growing stronger as you play the Tyrian campaign, you’re becoming less useless. When it takes three-quarters of the game to get you to within shouting distance of useful in anything but level grind, there’s something wrong.

Cantha puts it all on the table and forces you to acquire skill to progress. Canthan missions are five times harder than Tyrian missions and thank God for that. In Tyria, even in Hell’s Precipice, all it takes is three marginally-skilled players and the least little bit of pre-mission planning to succeed. One Winter-using Ranger, one elemental damage-dealer, and one Monk, and the rest are semi-helpful meatshields. Hell, I played through that mission with an Icy bow and did the work of half the damned PuG! And we won!

In Cantha, that’s no longer possible. Shorter game? Yes. More intense game? God yes. And as far as I’m concerned, intense beats length any day of the week.

xelloss12 · May 20, 2006, 04:07 AM // 04:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaserLight

Words

You said everything I wanted to say, better than I could.

Stabber · May 20, 2006, 04:36 AM // 04:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaserLight

Cantha puts it all on the table and forces you to acquire skill to progress. Canthan missions are five times harder than Tyrian missions and thank God for that.

You had a compelling post until you invalidated it with that comment. Canthan missions are hard? In which freaking reality?

I finished the main storyline missions with my Barrage ranger the day after release. Within three days I had one of every set of 15k armor for which I earned every stinking piece of jade and amber by playing the challenge missions until my brain bled from the tedium. By the end of the week of release I had completed every available non-repeatable quest.

And I have nowhere near the skill at this game that some others I know do. When I made it to the Sanctum the first time, I met someone who was there with his second character.

Factions PvE is mind numbingly easy. Kuunavang is a pushover. Shiro is a bad joke. Factions is, in sum, a total disappointment to me, for I had hoped that PvE would become interesting again.

Maria The Princess · May 20, 2006, 05:40 AM // 05:40

when i bought factions i was sure im buying someting like "prophecies 2"

but its actually A DIFFRENT GAME!!!

and maby Anet thought that buy saying factions is as long as prophecies when they calculated all the back and forth runing... anyways i see it as pure false advertising!

and the story line seemes to be thrown together very fast, kinda like a last minute thing

generik · May 20, 2006, 06:22 AM // 06:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaserLight

Cantha puts it all on the table and forces you to acquire skill to progress. Canthan missions are five times harder than Tyrian missions and thank God for that.

97.45% of figures ae made up on the spot.

Pretty much the same with the rest of your bull-cracking-shite post. So how did you derive this figure? 5 times as hard? Please.. nothing in Cantha comes *remotely* close to missions like Thunderhead. Even the final missions? Well they sure gave you a godly skill to help didn't they? Let's just say those skills are too godly

If you consider the Fedex quests in Cantha to be challenging then I pity you, for you are indeed mentally challenged. I for one find them mind numbingly boring. Seriously.

Sirus Dibley · May 20, 2006, 10:50 AM // 10:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaserLight

Cantha puts it all on the table and forces you to acquire skill to progress. Canthan missions are five times harder than Tyrian missions and thank God for that.

In Cantha, that’s no longer possible. Shorter game? Yes. More intense game? God yes. And as far as I’m concerned, intense beats length any day of the week.

You must be playing a different game from everyone else, Cantha missions are so easy it's laughable. Please stop talking bollocks.

samifly · May 20, 2006, 11:53 AM // 11:53

So if we like exploring we arnt allowed to speak? Some of us like wide open spaces, and its not necessarily true that mostly level 20 content means a smaller area. Cantha isnt that much of a challenge... really, its more annoying than challenging.

Viruzzz · May 20, 2006, 12:17 PM // 12:17

a lot of the prophesies content which is allready done by those who came from prophecies is also available to faction characters. but because people from prophecies have done it allready, they forget to count it.

this includes UW and FoW to name some
also, factions characters get the chance to do alliance battles, something i do not believe is possible on a prophecies only account.

also, you can't compare the 2 games just by numbers, sure the map is smaller, but the quests in the sifferent area make up for it, instead of 2-3 quests for an area you will get sometimes get 7 quests or more in a single area

and finally, you say "complete the game" and compare how long it takes, in prophecies, wasn't all about getting through the game as fast as humanly possible, you did things along the way, didn't just use your standard skillset, you experimented, tróed different things, did quests for fun. the people who have "completed" the game now have just done the last mission. there is so much more to do than that. wish people saw it, why would you buy a game if not for the fun?

Theos · May 20, 2006, 12:48 PM // 12:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by generik

97.45% of figures ae made up on the spot.

Pretty much the same with the rest of your bull-cracking-shite post. So how did you derive this figure? 5 times as hard? Please.. nothing in Cantha comes *remotely* close to missions like Thunderhead. Even the final missions? Well they sure gave you a godly skill to help didn't they? Let's just say those skills are too godly

If you consider the Fedex quests in Cantha to be challenging then I pity you, for you are indeed mentally challenged. I for one find them mind numbingly boring. Seriously.

THK is not hard, the only thing that increases its difficulty is the stupidity of people who don't know what to do. Same applies to the Factions Campaign, its all a team game after all. I'd dare say 2nd to last mission is easily harder than THK, seeing as how THK is mind-numbling easy to do with henchmen, not so much for the other.

POV, or point of view, to each person the game is different, you questioning someones view of what is hard and what it not is moronic at best. If you yourself do not want people to whine about what you say as your opinion then do not attack the opinions of others, simple as that.

Darksun · May 22, 2006, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by MelechRic

I think it's a fair comparison. The difference between ANet and a flight avionics software company is that ANet knows shipping buggy software is acceptable (within limits). An avionics software company can't get away with that for obvious reasons. However, there's nothing preventing ANet from testing its software to the same degree that an avionics company would except market pressure. The pressure is to get out product and capture market share.

I mainly made the comparison to suggest that customers are ultimately the driving force behind quality, but programmers will always be responsible for the qaulity of the code they produce. As a software developer I know I must write good code because my customers demand it. If I don't then it's my fault and my customers will probably go somewhere else. I can't blame them for being upset or for the fact that my job is "hard." They don't care about that. They do care that they are getting quality software that works as advertised.

Not true. The marketing is equaly, if not more of a driveing force behind the quality(forced schedules). It might be possible to make perfect software, but how many years are consumers going to wait for the testing to finish. FULL testing of something like Guild Wars would put it out of date by years when it was done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MelechRic

Sorry, but the game really does have bugs, and the AI is one place that this shows up. I honestly believe the problem lies with the new skillsets that some henchmen have. The AI was built around old skills so now it doesn't cope with the new ones well at all. (Think monks waiting for ritualist to rez or monks that have signet of devotion with no points in divine.) The new classes are also thrown into the mix and this gives problems to the AI. These are all new changes that weren't thoroughly tested. Now the AI doesn't even measure up to the player's expectations from Prophecies of what a decent AI should do. That's a bug because it's a regression.

Sorry, but the henchmen I've used live up to Prophecies for me. And in some ways progressed. Especially the Ele. The Monk almost allways starts rezing before the Rit (the Rit rezes faster so he sometimes beats her to the finish) A few times they've waithed a LONG time, but I don't know if that's energy or whatnot.

Btw, I've heard from people who work at Pratt & Whitney that problems have arisen from Avionics software bugs. So much for perfect.

Retribution · May 22, 2006, 11:25 PM // 23:25

To me, Factions is an expansion marketed as a full game. NO matter what a-net says, most players would agree the content you're getting is that of an expansion, only you paid 50$. If they put as much content as a 50$ game should have (not harder monsters or UPS/FedEX quests), or dropped the price to 30$, people wouldn't be so mad.

shadowfell · May 23, 2006, 12:59 AM // 00:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guardian of the Light

You guys all do relize factions costed less the the orginal GW do you?

We got what we payed for.

Swell..

70 dollars, plus, another 49.99 while I'm waiting for the 70 dollar version to arrive (still).. not to mention that the 49.99 was just for a key from ncsoft.. no packaging.. no booklet, no.. anything.

Talk about a bargain!

Pompeyfan · May 23, 2006, 02:17 AM // 02:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viruzzz

and finally, you say "complete the game" and compare how long it takes, in prophecies, wasn't all about getting through the game as fast as humanly possible, you did things along the way, didn't just use your standard skillset, you experimented, tróed different things, did quests for fun. the people who have "completed" the game now have just done the last mission. there is so much more to do than that. wish people saw it, why would you buy a game if not for the fun?

Not true - when I say I finished the game in just under a week, that wasen't just doing the missions/quests needed to finish the game - it was doing every single mission/quest I could find (enough to have over 81% of cantha uncovered) in the city and on both Luxon and Kurzick side, with some of the repeatable ones done more than once (and some of the missions repeated to help guildioes/alliance members) for the faction needed to complete the the befriending quests.

I've said it before and there is no getting away from it - Factions has a lot less content and is padded out with lots of repetative back-tracking and having to do the same things over and over - for example, tonight I decided to clear up some on the Waijun Bazaar qusts on the 2nd character I'm taking through - half were fresh in the area and half collecting rewards from quests in the area so this was at least the 2nd time I'd had to clear the same area - once cleared I ended up covering the same path of red dots 4 or 5 times to complete the rest of the quests/get rewards, then mapped to the Emperors Hand for the last reward - and bugger me if he didn't then give me a new quest that involved re-clearing the exact same area I'd already just done at least twice (incidently, I'll have to clear this area when making my way to the undercity for those quests too) - this is what makes Factions so boring - I took 5 characters through Prophecies and it kept me hooked for 9 month's because of the variety, but I'm really struggling to stay interested enough to take a 2nd through factions and that dosen't bode well for the future.

Thallandor · May 23, 2006, 02:29 AM // 02:29

I am one of the original doomsayers if you like to call me that, who emerged shortly after factions release, and was dissappointed with factions for many reasons already pointed out several times in this thread and many others.

However having said all theres to be said, i am still playing it and some parts though more frustrating (feels like i am being punished by the game AI at times) than others, there were great moments too, just not that many. Set goals you want to acheive in the game and work towards them and you will be duely rewarded.

Fun finds a way.

My only hope is that Anet reads this and makes a better "expansion" next time and gets on to fixing more of the current game and provide us with the addons as promised.