Factions -- What the hell? (spoilers)

Just got Factions. Is it me, or is the expansion just horribly, horribly designed?

The difficulty curve is all wrong. You spend at least 12 levels on a 'tutorial island' with little or no challenge. Then you hit one extremely difficult mission city, and are then sent to Cantha to fight against nothing but level 20s. It's like there is a complete absence of mobs between levels 14 and 20 in the game. Fighting things like that, you'll get to level 20 very quickly...leaving the later 3/4ths of the campaign utterly meaningless, as your level is maxed soon after leaving the 'tutorial'. I understand the game is geared towards PvP, but if you're going to *have* a PvE campaign you might as well give the players *some* incentive to finish it.

Oh, there's one challenging mission on Shing Jae -- Captured Son, which you can get at 10th level and which will kick your face in. This mission is equivalent in reward and difficulty to The Villany of Galrath. Why would you allow 10th level characters to attempt it? I could also mention the mission on Cantha you'll get at 16th level that gives you a -3 Health degen before sending you up against level 24 opponents...but that one I'll mark down to pure developer sadism.

Then there's the character classes. The ritualist is interesting, but only as a main class, as so many skills depend upon communing and that depends upon spawning power. A secondary ritualist seems doomed to either casting weapon spells or being a weaker elementalist. The Assassin, on the other hand, is the full package -- interesting utility, some great (if energy inefficient) spike damage, and a role that we haven't had before, that of the quick and lightly armored melee combatant. And what do lightly armored melee fear the most in these games? How about enemies that explode upon death, which by chance happens to be the defining ability of the main quest's main enemies. The Factions campaign seems engineered specifically to neuter Assassins into irrelevance. I'm tempted to bring my assassin to do the Prophecy campaign, where I think the class would be much more useful.

I could go on. About the maps (let's take something that the players rely upon, and make it useless by using confusing, maze-like map design everywhere), the missions (no skill rewards, ever?), and the loot drops (what, are there sixteen different varieties of 'diseased flesh'? How about something I can salvage into cloth, which all the Faction armors require?). But I think the point is made. Factions, as a RPG game, is horribly designed. It takes the learning curve and bends it into a brick wall, and throws the notion of reward based on challenge out the window.

One thing Factions has going for it is a better storyline...but then anything's better than the 'Let's abandon our people and screw up all time and space!' storyline from Prophecies.

Someone please tell me that once I get out of this city maze the game improves. The Kurzick/Luxon stuff looks interesting from a distance. But then, so did Cantha.

So am I seriously the only person in the world who loved all of Cantha what the hell

At least it's better than Tyria. Drudgery for the infinite lose.

I think factions is a decent game. Granted the maps and some design seen flawed. Overall, it give you two new characters and whole lot of enemies to kill off.

It definitely gets more interesting when you get out of the city.

Hmm level 12 by the time you reached mainland you say? Well then it's obvious to me that you are a rather weak PvE player.

Have you done ALL of the quests on the island? Did you only do 1 of the Secondary Profession quests? Because last time I checked, my assassin was level 18 by the time I could acess the mainland. By that time I had done all the quests on the island (with the exception of one; the 2nd 15 atribute quest).

About the Ritualist, it is ovious that you are simply jumping to conclusions based on the small amount of time you have seen a ritualist. Play the game for a few weeks, try using a ritualist, as a primary and as a secondary. Then maybe you will have a good idea of what you're talking about.

I would like to state (in favour of the aflicted) that an assassin MUST learn their place to be effective in PvE. They are essentially the melee version of mesmers. You must learn how to use them before you can be good with them, much unlike the warriors, who you can just learn about while fighting.

Its a good game because there are a lot of things to kill?

The real game starts at level 20, welcome to GW.

I hated the idea of the "fast-track to 20" at first, but really love it now. They only down side I've seen is for people buying factions as thier first GW game. I seem to see a lot of them trying to complete Square in the armor they were born in. :shock:

it is you.

you should be level 20 within a few quests on the mainland at most.

then you are level 20 with a full party of level 20s fighting other level 20 mobs.

see a pattern there yet?

Ouch, you guys are harsh. He said "at least level 12" not "at level 12."

The fact he mentions some of the higher XP quests gives me the feeling he did most the quests.

I agree, the lower level areas are pretty useless in preparing for the challenges of mainland Cantha. There is a huge jump in difficulty, and I hope Nightfall will do a better job of "bridging the gap" between Tutorial and Veteren content.

I disagree that Level 20 is where the game really starts. IMO, we should be able to create level 20 PvE characters from the start, but I know that will never happen.

Personally, I really don't see what everyone has against the chalice of corruption. Just grab some hench and it'll be done in less than half an hour. I drank from the chalice on all four of my characters and it was no big deal. Also, when my assassin left for the mainland it was around 18 I believe.

@Curse You: "You spend at least 12 levels on a 'tutorial island' with little or no challenge."
Read the post before burning people, perhaps?

@Sekkira: He didn't flame anyone, and he's given thorough explanations for all of his opinions. Take the keyboard warrior routine elsewhere.

RemusShepherd, in GW:Factions they were aiming for a more challenge-based PvE game rather than reward-based. The rapid leveling is a boon, of sorts, to 'replayability' as it leaves a large proportion of game content balanced for level 20 characters.

The skill rewards, I'll admit, were probably the biggest reward-based incentive to play through GW:Prophecies. It was also very limiting to new players (and old, until they changed skill traders). This new system is supposed to inspire variety in builds and allow players to experiment with their own builds from the beginning. It doesn't really work like that in practice, though. Because you know exactly what you're up against, cookie-cutter builds rule supreme. Hopefully ANet will eventually remedy the stagnation of PvE by introducing some kind of random element into the spawns/AI.

Oh... about the plot. You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. Once you've finished the game, you'll understand.

Well, thats one way of looking at it. Cantha is far more challenging for the average pve'r and the feeling of breaking out of the city for the first time is very pleasing. Unfortunatly, following the quest line to arborstone, you end up in darkville emo teritory for a bit, where tree-hugging kurz seem less able to be of service. I loath the dredge, i loath the drab feeling overall of cantha for the most part and am glad i went luxon for the openess, even if it's all jadite ladened.

I like to pvp, but really enjoy the pve end of the game, which factions just doesn't fill out as well as tyria. Even if the story line is better and easier to follow. I'm really looking forward to getting chapter 3.

Ok, Just thought I should say something. I kind of agree with the convoluted map deal. It was quite a hastle to go for a quest and fight for nearly two hours to where the quest is, only to find it's on the skyway and not in the sewers.

About the Captured Son quest. That quest is no where near as difficult as Villany of Galrath. I did it with a lvl 12 assassin and henches and only died once. Also, I only had the first set purchaseable armor (from the Monestary). I could have gone through it without dying, but I got too gung-ho and didn't see the level 16 group. And this was before I knew I could command the henchmen to attack before me.

Ya, ok, so they could have, and probably should have transitioned from super easy to super hard better. Yes, you do get to level 20 really fast, but this game starts to get fun at level 20, not it gets pointless to play any further at level 20. This game is about skill, not level, and it shows it by having all the funner things in areas where you almost have to be level 20 to reach.

How is ritualist even close to an elementalist? I would consider it that ritualist is mainly used for restoration or spirit spamming...

And yes, one reason why assassins are so hated might be because the enemies explode on death and since assassins already have low armor and not all of them are even played right....

Ya, in the city area, you almost might as well not use your map and just go in the general direction of the green arrows, or just wander around untill you get to where you want to go.... But, not all of the game is like that. The only place where the map is almost useless is the city areas. There is no more overlaping things once you leave the city area.(at least not that I know of)

Yes, once you get out of the dump, I mean, errr.....city, then you accualy get nice looking scenery, and it looks way better (enspecially on the luxon side, unless you are into gothic stuff, then teh kurzick area would probably look better to you), and, at least to me, it is a lot funner out of the city.

Poor difficulty curve?

1) Factions was designed for two types of players. For those who started in factions and for those who started in prophcies. The ascention to level 20 is a lot faster in Factions BECAUSE they didnt want Canthan characters to miss much of the content/plot. Besides, you should be L20 half-way through Prophecies. GW wasnt a game to constantly build your level, it was a game to play and have fun.
2) Captured Son is a difficult mission, on par with Villany of Mr. G. However you fail to realise that you pick up Villany in Kryta when your about L14ish. Therefore the same levels encounter the same type of mission. Answer: Come back to it later or get help.
3)Nope, you know why? Because then Factions would be the optimum place to create a character because you can level fast AND gain skills. You can either level fast in factions, or gain skills for free in prophecies. Your choise.
4) First of all, its not a difficult maze. All you have to do is follow the quest pointers. Second, in my opinion I loved the Jade Sea which was my favorite place in factions. I disliked Cantha because playing in a rundown diseased city is not my ideal enviorment that I like to play in.

There are a few more counters I could post, but honestly Im too lazy.

I searched over Shing Jea twice for all quests, and left it at lvl 16. That is as high as you can get, if you do all profession quests and every single other quest. I'll arrive at the first mission when I'm lvl 14.
There is a gap between Shing Jea and the mainland,, but it's only from 16 to 20. I did Tyria after that, until I was lvl 20.
Sure Cantha is tougher, but not as tough as you made it for yourself

Lies.I made two characters both of which got off of Shing Jea Island at level 19 and 18.

If you need more experience for level 20 simply make a party in the Market and head north until you find a portal to Kaineng and do the quests there.Most of them are moderately easy.

I left at 17, doing everything as fast as possible. I could have done 18 if I didn't miss the two other quests I didn't know about.

So I'm in an area where I shouldn't yet be. Okay. So...some people are telling me that I suck at the game, while others are saying that I'm doing too well at it? Okay.

For the record, my assassin did every quest I could find on the tutorial island except Captured Son. I'm sure I missed a few, but I don't know where. I'm now working through quests in Kaineng. The only mission I've abandoned is Chalice of Corruption.

Okay...that makes sense. I might disagree with it, but at least it makes some sense out of the game design. Thank you.

I don't know how other people are playing them, I only know what I see. I see restoration skills that depend upon having spirits nearby (thus requiring communing and spawning power) and second-rate lightning attacks in the channelling line. It looks like the only useful ritualist is a primary ritualist.

I understand the concept of 'the game gets fun at 20', except...I don't expect there to be anything to do at 20th level. I played Prophecies -- there's nothing to do at 20th level there, either, except do missions for skills, finish the storyline, and farm for gold. If there are no skill rewards and if I don't care about gold, the storyline by itself isn't enough to make me want to finish the campaign.