How will our level 20 characters fit into Nightfall Storyline this time?

I asked the same question before faction release and the answer Jeff gave on VGM was that we "needn't" worry about our level 20s missing out in factions since they will enter the story just after the 2 mission in the newbie Island.

Though the above sound perfect in concept, what resulted was an overall rapid progression of levels to level 20 to catch up with the migration of characters from tyria making the gameplay feel rushed (Damn those Fed Ex quest) and a general lack of character development. The locked gates made things worse by artificially lengthening a very short game in PvE terms.

With Nightfall approaching, then my question remains the same: How will Anet handle the migration of characters from both GWP and GWF which are likely to be level 20 amist those characters newly created in GWN without excluding too much content for those high level characters but meanwhile providing ample opportunity for new characters to progress in the game with a learning pace which allows them to enjoy the character progression with the storyline of Nightfall?

What i hope not to see is a repeat of Faction's rushed Fex Ed style quest used to level characters as quickly as possible and seek perhaps constructive and creative solutions that the community can provide to over come the said dilema.

An idea would be to perhaps enlarge the "newbie" Island or even to recycle missions like having the local/Foriegn districts for some towns or missions. I would like to hear any suggestions and comments from those who may feel this issue is a valid concern.

Edit for grammer, i was in a rush to go somewhere.

I think ( hope ) a large newbie area, but on that area, there is plenty for us to do. For instance, you add level 20 mobs, but they're only hostile to canthans/tyrians, not elonians, so they can leave those alone.

Factions tried to compensate the levelling rush by putting loads and loads of guides on Shing Jea so that people would learn every aspect about the game. The problem was that 1) noone read the tablets, 2) not everyone did every single quest, which brings you to like lvl 17/18 and 3) As a result of 1 and 2, by the time you got to the last mission on Shing Jea, even people who had played Prophecies were biting their nails at the difficulty of the monsters.

If they don't have this concept installed, then it could run similar to Prophecies, but the problem that you could face in that situation would be that you're level 20, and the monsters are easy.

Anet could work on getting players more immersed in their game mechanics, with even more helpful guides without making the game seem like... school (thats what Shing Jea reminded me of) then I think it could do really well.

It looks like Nightfall will be more like the size of Prophecies, so hopefully this will be less of an issue. I'd be happy with a level progression rate that is about halfway between Prophecies and Factions. Maybe there will be 4 Elonian-only missions and 19 missions for everyone. That seems reasonable.

Do you have a link or what did you hear to make you think that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thallandor I With Nightfall approaching, then my question remains the same: How will Anet handle the migration of characters from both GWP and GWF which are likely to be level 20 amist those characters newly created in GWN .

it was stated by Alex Weekes that at least 80 % of a new chapter would be level 20 content .

since more and more people will be moving previous chapter level 20 characters on than starting fresh except to try out the new profession/beginner areas/explorer titles areas that makes sense

it may even be faster advance than Factions.

Radical thought:


Maybe it's time to just have a "tutorial" to learn the basics, but your character starts at level 20.

Seriously, Guild Wars is not about leveling. It's about playing.

Would anyone really miss this?

I mean, what is it about "low-level" missions that are exciting? Is it the ability to solo? Well, keep that, but with level 20 characters beating up lower level monsters.

I can honestly envision a set-up like PvP, where you even choose a starter template to try out in PvE, with skills picked that work together to show you the basics of builds. (Of course, you would tweak it, or scrap it all together once you started playing, that's the fun of Guild Wars!)

People will flame this because it's so radical, "you'd just have a bunch of 20 level noobs", etc. Well, guess what. You're always going to have "noobs." I don't think the lower levels really prepare you for the higher level challenges anyway - how can they?

Anyway, that's my idea, I'm curious to see the reaction.

I'd say a good half of prophecies is dedicated to newbies. Too bad we can't get that experience on new characters.

I just hope we don't get a butchered storyline like Canthans did coming to Tyria.... it literally just plunked you in Lion's Arch, gave you a 5 second overview of what had happened, and then left you there to figure it out.

Yeah, the Old Ascalon area is pretty low-level for a 20, but it's an integral part of the storyline.... if you skip over that, you're missing out on quite a bit, in my opinion.

I say let every character start at the beginning, yeah it'll be easy for a while, but at least you won't be missing out on any of the story.

I just hope they do away with 2-party missions. In theory... they're a good idea. In practice they utterly suck. Vizunah Square, to get masters on that your better off with a full hench team coming from the other side. The real players **** up so much its amazing.

It'd be good if they get it somewhere in between Prophecies and Factions. Factions was just a rush to get you level 20. Prophecies was incredibly drawn out and you were brought in when the Tyrians were lvl15.

Wonder if Mhenlo is gonna be so close to the ladies in Nightfall too

GodDAMN this pisses me off.

Name me THREE QUESTS in Prophecies that WEREN'T "go kill this/these guy/s" "go escort this guy" or "go get this item for me".

Yeah but a lot of the canthan quests are
Talk to this guy (in the middle of no where) surrounded by enemies for some reason
talk to this guy (in the middle of no where) another mob of 23 level 28 monsters
Deliver this to a lady (in the middle of no where) .
Report to the original guy, (in the middle of no where) to get your reward.

Dont get me wrong, that was fun the first time around...even the really long ones. But now I dont even take those quests...

LOL, true, the quests are getting a little stale.

But come on Kakumei, even you have to admit there's a big difference between the Fed Ex quests in Prophecy, and the insane amount of running back and forth in Factions.

Examples: Delivering Elonian Mirrors to the Homeless. There's a homeless, I'll just give... what?!? I can't give him a mirror until I give it to another homeless first?

Passing the Buck. I'd argue this is so far the worst quest of all time. And, yes, I realize the title, but after talking to the fifth guy, the joke wasn't funny anymore.

The Medicine (don't know the official name, sorry). This is the quest you're supposed to find medicine for a dying girl. After (again), talking to many, many people, you find they guy who had the medicine took it for erectile disfunction. Oh, now I get to tell the mother her daughter will die. Nice.

I honestly can't see how anyone can take these quests and enjoy them. Saying they're "just as bad" as Prophecy quests is not true, and even if it was, shouldn't we expect better, more original quests in a sequal, not worst ones?

GW:P was like this too, you just didn't notice because you were all new youself.

And the running around randomly, is nearly all the quests in this game.

Actually, in Prophecy, there were relatively few quests you had to go back to find someone in the middle of nowhere to complete the quest.

Most rewards are given right away when you finish the quest, or by mapping back to a town. In addition, you could plan your adventures to finish several quests in a single area. In Factions, you often have to actually leave a zone to complete a quest, and then go back to another zone to get the reward (re-spawning all the monsters that you killed to get the quest in the first place).

That kind of crap, like the locked Gates, are just ways of artificially making the game longer.

I think the reason Factions gets the most hate on its quests is because of one thing...

Unlocking Skills. Really the two campaigns are full of running around quests. But Prophecies had more that let you collect skills.

Actually if you look at the rewards for the Factions quests they give you alot of XP. This is almost the same ideaology that instead of unlocking skills as a the quest reward, you aquire enough xp to get another skill point to buy the skill of your desire.

When I was playing Prophecies I would aquire the skills I needed by doing the quests for it. But when they changed it that any skill you unlock is avaible at all skill traders, this made skipping alot of quests a natural habit.

Overall those who hate the Faction quests don't really see the point in them. You only have to do a few of them, the majority of them ar ethere in case you want too. Like say you want more Imperial Accommendations, another skill point, or get to level 20 quick.

Personally i feel the quests are the same, and the rewards are the same. They're just presented differently. But Factions probably get more hate cause of all the mobs and yes, people do get lost in maps more than they did in Prophecies.

Going to assume something similiar to factions.

There will be a "starting" area for level 1 and they will reunite shortly in the "lvl 20 content area" and the majority / bulk of the game will be level 20.

Won't know untill it actually comes out, PvE event may give us some clues.. but the Faction Pve event wasn't a good gauge as to how large the map really was.

The distinction people are trying to make between quests in Prophecies and quests in Factions is that Factions quests involve a great deal more running around. In Factions you typically have a 4~6 step quest, sometimes spanning multiple areas, where you absolutely must perform each action in succession. Prophecies quests tended to be much shorter and more linear - get quest from A, kill/find/talk to B, see C (often in a mappable town) for reward.

Frankly, I liked the much faster level progression of Factions. I don't consider anything below lvl20 to be part of the 'real game', per se. I had stopped playing GW for a few months before Factions came out, and after I bought Factions I started all of my new PvE characters in Cantha. I absolutely can't stand having to play through ~70% of Prophecies with a character below lvl20, without elite skills, and without endgame armor. It feels like you're still in a newbie training area for most of the game. Being able to jump your character from lvl1 to lvl20 in just a few hours in Cantha was a huge, *huge* plus.

I'd also support higher game difficulty. I enjoyed the wake-up call of Zen Daijun and the Jade Brotherhood outside Kaineng. As many people found out, they were either underlevelled or incompetent, and therefore got their asses handed to them repeatedly by these significantly harder enemies. Ideally, game difficulty should be at a level where you are forced to become a better player to pass each mission, but in a team-oriented game like GW there's probably no way to reasonably accomplish this. But really, the state of the game is such that you are more likely to complete a mission with henchmen than with the average PUG, and that's pretty damn sad.

I'm not defending the Factions quests--yeah, they were generally pretty awful and I only did them to grind out necessary skill points--but I hate it when people look down on the Factions ones and then praise the Prophecies ones like they were so much better.

They weren't.

Luckily, the missions in Factions--while unfortunately fewer in number--are all far more interesting and fun than all of the Prophecies ones.

The ebgames preorder page:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10010335

The original ebgames ad said Nightfall would have 20 missions and 55 explorable areas, which is about the same as Prophecies. Anet said that we can't take the ad as official word, but I expect it is mostly accurate. The info is too specific for ebgames to have completely made it up.

So an early game description that got leaked shows they were planning to make a Prophecies-size game. I'm hoping the final product will at least be close to that big.