The root of all evil (true reason for Factions hate)

This point was made due to the complaint about backtracking. If backtracking was so horrid, why is Metroid so good?

And it's being claimed that the complaints on this forum represent the community as a whole. Of course people are going to be disappointed, it doesn't mean the game is a failure, it just means that you can't please everyone.

You know, on the lower number of missions:

One thing that disappointed me in Prophecies was the lack of questing at the end. By the time you reached the Southern Shiverpeaks, it seemed that, apart from the 15 attribute quest and the later updates (Sorrow's Furnace and the Titan Quests), no-one wanted you to do anything that isn't missions any more. Without those updates, most of the Southern Shiverpeaks was basically there as a place to put elite skill bosses. Meanwhile, the later areas of Factions - Echovald Forest and the Jade Sea - remain loaded with quests, and the rest of the map in general maintains a quest density as high as Ascalon in Prophecies. So yes, there are fed-ex and annoying 'travel the same ground over and over again' quests (which I found annoying too, but which there were also plenty of in Prophecies as well - remember the Duke's Daughter and Althea's Ashes quests, or, even worse, Blood and Smoke (especially if you didn't know about the trick of killing the centaur first)?) but overall I think the greater number of quests does go some way to mitigate the smaller number of missions.

As another item of note: The faster rate of levelling was a deliberate move by ANet in order to increase the proportion of high-end content, with lack of high-end content being one of the points of complaint in Prophecies. Consider, if Factions had the same pacing as Prophecies, we'd be complaining about how little of the new storyline was actually challenging for our Tyrian characters (I'm a little apprehensive of taking my Factions characters through Prophecies in order to acquire the Prophecies elites myself). Unfortunately, there's always going to be a point where the content has to stop and you're left with repeating the highest-difficulty areas - in Prophecies, this is the new Tombs, Sorrow's Furnace, and, if you have favour, the Fissure and the Underworld, while in Factions it's going for a higher score in the Challenge missions and, if you're lucky enough to have access, the elite missions. (And remember that two of the areas mentioned for Prophecies - and, furthermore, the two with unrestricted access - were after the original release, so we may get similar post-release goodies for Factions.)

Ultimately, they have to stop somewhere and release the product. I suspect that if ANet can maintain their intended schedule of a chapter every six months, by this time next year all but the most hardcore players are going to find themselves swamped with things to do between new content and redoing old content with new characters.

Do you realize Metroid doesn't claim to be an RPG?

Did you not understand my subtle point?

Good Points

Hi Shyft lol

From my view, this topic is just another split from,

PvPer's view
vs
PvEer's view

Nothing more.

Anet had promise they will work both way, each at a time. One time focus on PvE, another time focus on PvP.

I am hoping chapter 3 would have a good merge of the two though.

Do you not see a very significant amount of difference between the backtracking in Metroid games that takes seconds to minutes, and the backtracking in Guild Wars that takes tens of minutes?

Missed it completely, because the two are unrelated.

Metroid backtracking: New powers often open new routes you can take (Or in some cases, same old routes but completely invulnerable, ie speed boost), and you can simply ignore the enemies the majority of the time if you don't feel like killing them.

GuildWars backtracking: You have to kill everything in your path, because you need to get your party through to the quest, then back to the goal, every time. New routes never become available.

Plus there's the fact that metroid never forced you to clear an area, do something, then reload the zone and clear it a second time just to do something else. That would have been annoying...but it's okay for Factions to do it?

Oh good god, you're right!

RPG'S TAKE A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF TIME TO COMPLETE! MY WORLD IS FOREVER CHANGED BY THIS REVELATION!

Don't you just hate clearing every nook and cranny of a zone? I know I do. I can't stand random monster encounters either, sometimes I take two steps after a battle and end up in another one. God it's so repetetive, I hate RPG's.

So because you can't prove that they're actually the same thing (Which is what your point requires), you choose to resort to sarcasm and gross overstatements. And double post. Use the edit button and copy a new quote in, maybe?

Ah forum discussions, how I love them...

Indeed. I can't prove they're the same thing because ZOMG WTF THEY AREN'T. LOOKS LIKE YOU MISSED MY POINT ENTIRELY.

You don't have to clear the entire area each time you backtrack, in fact, considering your skill should be slightly more adjusted than the previous time, it should be easier to go in and kill the things in your way and avoid the enemies you don't have to fight. Are the similarities becoming clearer now?

Lets get to the real point though, why is Metroid so popular? Obviously not because of the backtracking, because that's so goddamn horrid and infuriating to make you quit the game

Oh that's right, it's FUN. Never would have thought of that, I know I wouldn't.

You have to re-clear bits you cleared before, and there's no reason you wouldn't have the skills before that you do after. Besides that, no one skill in GW will ever have the impact on getting around that some of the upgrades did in Metroid. They're still completely dissimilar.

I never had a single frustration with backtracking in Metroid. Fighting the same enemies was somewhat entertaining, something Factions is lacking (Fighting the same enemies in Factions is boring as almost nothing else...) You can't say "Metroid had backtracking, therefore GW backtracking doesn't suck" and expect it to work, because as I explained the effect in each game is completely different and you've said nothing to demonstrate otherwise.

And Factions isn't, it's relying on Prophecies' popularity to carry it through. What's your point?

This is the part I ask you why you're playing. It's not fun? Noone's forcing you to play, noone's forcing you to buy each chapter. If you lost out, cry more. Many people have spent money on games that they later realised sucked. ArenaNet can't please everyone and you're one of them.

Now, why does my having fun or not make it okay to require heavy backtracking to complete quests, sometimes having to reload a zone to get a second quest? (And thus doubling the backtracking time, as you have to clear the paths you need again...) Fun of the entire game or not is irrelevent, the point you were arguing was that backtracking was good...right?

If you don't think it's good -- just that it doesn't make the game not fun -- then you have nothing. The original point wasn't that it was the entire flaw of Factions, just that it was a flaw Factions had.

Factions beats Prophecies in terms of Level 20 content, hands down. Prophecies has four Crystal Desert missions (not including the doppleganger fight, which takes only a minute and half a brain), three southern Shiverpeak missions, three Fire Island missions, a handful of Sorrow's Furnace quests, and Tomb of the Primeval Kings. In Factions, pretty much all the content after Shing Jea is meant for level 20 toons. The sheer number of Level 20 quests all over Cantha beats the five or six (or more, I think) that you get down in SF.

I don't agree that Factions stiffed us at all. It offers content that even tripped-out Tyrians can enjoy immediately. A tripped-out Canthan, meanwhile, has to finish six missions before he reaches an area with some challenge (assuming he doesn't get run to Sanctum Cay). After the missions are done, the Canthan basically has SF and Tombs to do. Back on Cantha, meanwhile, someone who finished all the missions has three Challenge missions plus a large amount of quests that can be found in several towns.

I remember reading somewhere that ArenaNet planned to focus their future content on stuff that Ascended (read: level 20) players would enjoy. Because really, how long do we intend to stay at level 10, 11, 12, etc?

Actually, I seem remember the issue of HL2 being too short of a game (especilly when compared to the first one) coming up in many professional reviews of that game.

Professional game reviewers judge games based on general hours of gameplay <i>all the time</i>, I don't know why everyone keeps acting like it's too abstract and subjective a concept to be a valid criticism.

I like Factions. Factions is different from Prophecies, if it was made same format with prophecies, that's boring - some more running and excessive farming, just different terrain and mobs.

I never said it was fun or good. Before you go on assuming more things, I didn't say it was boring or bad either. It is a part of the game, typical RPG style thing. Make a quest that can't be narrowed down to "Go from place a (maybe with item x) to place b", or "go to place a to kill monster b" and you'll be a winner.

Would you rather the quests be just strolling through Cantha without any enemies in the way? Because I think that would just be over the top with excitement. There's only so much fun you can pack into a game before it gets too much.

A chapter every 6 months will be the end of this game. I remember when Magic the gathering came out, and they released a theme deck 1 time a year. Then it became multiple times a year. As time went on, people lost interest with the constant change. Change is good, but in moderation. Prophecies was out a year, thats long enough. Seems to me, factions was made short to set us up for the 6 month plan. I dont want to blow $50 every 6 months, on a game that takes me 20 hours to beat. $50 for a game that takes days upon days, ok, but something like that doesnt come out every 6 months. This game is quickly leaning towards WOW and EQ. 30000 expansions, oh sorry stand alone games, in a few years. Too much change isnt a good thing. And how on earth are you all comparing Metroid to GW? Metroid is legendary, GW doesnt deserve that title yet. Thats like comparing Cal Ripken to Derrick Jeter.