No more PvE with Factions?

Hi guys,

i have been playing GW since August 2005 (prophecies). I found it really enjoiable but when Factions came out something went wrong.

In the euro districts almost all the cities are empty (obviously except KG or House Zu H.)... For me the problem is: if there are ppl they only want to:
1) sell stuff
2) sell other stuff
3) farming
.
.
.
100) maybe do some quest

In prophecies there was almost every time someone to party with, in order to do some quest (the little ones too!). Now NOBODY seems to do quest in party. There are a lot of ppl with 7 henchies and they want join you (or answer you at all) even if you say: LFG ANY QUEST!

Guys, i like the pvE of GW (more the PVP) and i'm getting annoyed of this situation. And I think it's not a question of "summer period"... this situation starts almost from the beginning of Factions.

What do you think guys? I'm only unlucky?

Maybe i should find an active guild (it's not easy)...

Honestly, that is what henchmen are for. It's a shame to say, but some outposts in factions are so deserted that the only recourse is to use henchies.

I'd say it's most likely due to the fact that most pve focused players find factions pve content to be severely lacking and head on back to tyria. Let's just hope that Nightfall lives upto being more pve oriented as promised

I don't know what country you live in to be in the Euro server, but if you're like me (Australian), you're probably better off changing to the American servers. There are far more people around at the times of day I'm awake and able to play.

This will happen even if there are some ppl (like me for example) looking for groups. Many times I found 5 or 6 ppl (sometime more), in the same outpost, with 7 henchies... Moreover in bigger outpost (house Zu H. for example) it's really hard find someone to quest with... only sell stuff, lf taxi or hang around

Nah I don't like factions strictly for the lack of pve content.... Well "lack" may be a bad word to describe it. Not so much a lack of content just alot of poorly planned content. My problems with it:

1) No skills as quest rewards (I have to farm even more to afford them)

2) I enjoyed level 20 being a challenge, not create a character and 3 hours later voila lvl 20. (Maybe exaggerated a little but not by much)

3) Alliance system...dunno why just not a fan of how the elite missions can be totally kept under wraps if an alliance wants to.

4) Henchie AI worse than chapter 1, don't know how but it always is.

5) Inconsistent monster lvl's... if I'm lvl 3, fighting lvl 3-4 monsters I don't want to see a lvl 12 in the middle of the group I aggroed. (I think they fixed that but I remember it being a problem)

6) Timed missions? Great.....now my bonus xp relies on my team not being leechers, having overactive bladders, or having a massive urge to go get something to drink which will inevitably lead to another "afk brb". All that rather than actual skill...

7) Being forced to choose a side... why can't I remain neutral? (this isn't a big deal to me just a minor annoyance. It just so happens I at least like the Luxons )

8) Monster Rit's can deal massive damage but whenever I do it, well lets just say my damage is pathetic compared to theirs. It doesn't matter what level the monsters are their channelling is always set at 30 or something.

9) Merchants and vendors not talking to me if my faction is below what 1k? I hate warping back to friggen Kaineng every time I want to sell something.

The list can go on and on... needless to say I spend alot of time in prophecies.

Maybe i could try... but i'm afraid of the time zones. I mean: I'm from Italy and I can play only in the evening (exept during weekend) - work sucks - and I think American guys would sleep at that time. Or not?

Petardo, Americans don't sleep.

If you play at, say, 2100, that's only 1500 for the east coast, and 1200 for the west. Those are great times to play. Try changing your location and see how you like it. Just make sure you can change back if you don't like it.

Your evening would be late morning for us most likely. Maybe even early afternoon.

Beat to it :S ^^

Uh... When do you play? 5 o'clock at night? Except for some really out of place places like Seafarers Rest (and of course the eternally empty Jade Quarry) the towns in factions are never empty...

Well, that's different. Maybe they don't want to join you? I play with henches because I don't want to rush, and I want to be able to go AFK whenever I want for as long as I want.

Actually it's as easy as standing in Kaineng Center and answering the people trying to recruit players.

EDIT: OH, I just saw that you're italian. You've been playing in the ITALIAN district? That one _IS_ empty; apparently GW hasn't been the same success in italy as it's been in most of the rest of europe. Go to the English district.

I'd never respond to that annaouncement. Most of the time PuG's are just horrible company for questing, all go-go-go and rushing is just not my kind of game. Sorry.

There have been exceptions, PuG-questing can be worthwhile. When it was fun, my attention was drawn by announcements radically different from "lfg, any quest", something that indicated to me that this person or group was likely to quest in a more fun way, for me.

No... i'm playing from 21 to 24 in the evening. The problem is: If there are ppl in the cities they don't do anything but selling stuff for hours. No questing at all. That's the problem for me

sure. It's possibile but IMHO the spirit of a multiplayer game should play togheter. Or not?

I tried. I'm always in english district cause italian are always empty

So do you play only with your guild mates?

Moreover I found some really mature player playing quests (few in the factions)... often the kiddies or rushers prefer to do only the main quest or farm. This in my experience.

Sometimes I help someone in the guild with a quest, usually that turns out ok. Other then that I'll just take henchies, since good pickup lines that would catch my interest are very rare.

Funny I didn't have to farm unless I wanted all skills on one character, but I did do every quest on every character, that will killing monsters made me lots of money

The all the lvl 20's from tyria will be bored cause when they dock at Kaining Center they are fighting what? North Shiverpeak or Kryta lvl monsters instead of South shiverpeak lvl enemies.

agreed

Actually I enjoy Factions hench a whole lot more then Prophcies, at least faction hench have condition & hex removal, and the monks don't stand right next to me while I'm trying to tank like Alesia & Lina do. Maybe you are taking Melee hench with you, try without melee hench.

Still around, only in "presearing" and they wheren't that big of a problem.

Only thing I hate about this is some Jackass gets into a team that doesn't care about getting masters and tells them to hurry up cause he needs it.

I'll forgive you for that (Kurzick)

All bosses do double dmg, regular monsters are around the same lvl as you.

Love the merch at my guild hall

Hopefully this will be corrected with Nightfall. There's a post somewhere from Gaile of Anet where she admits basically Factions was more for the PvP crowd and that Nightfall will be much more for the PvE crowd.

Interestingly that was never mentioned before release, the cynic in me says sales would have been a lot less if they said that beforehand.

A few more details: the fast track to Level 20 is very likely here to stay for future expansionstandaloneaddons because you can merge and carry over your old level 20 characters - which would then promptly tear through any low level content.

Server population in Europe has not been all that impressive. I've been playing at various times of day and night and completed it several times over now with old and new chars, and most assuredly, there are less players around compared to when Prophecies was new-ish. District hopping to find players was uncommon then, but it's not unheard of now.

Incidently, it's a "multiplayer online game" bots/henchies are all well and good but that's not the same as "multiplayer" you might as well just play a single player game if you suggest just bots as the answer.

Nightfall FTW!!!!! its gonna be allright again^^

anyone have a link for that Gaile quote?

I've only seen players *assume* Nightfall will be more like Prophecies
(because its the same Dev team)

just settle down now; our precious pve will be back soon

lol

I hope so. But i'll wait some weeks before buying Nightfall in order to "feel" the "mood" of the community about the pvE. Free time is too short to waste it "LFG" for hours.

Good! Let's hope this is the truth (i mean: for Anet is business... often "lie" is key word to sell)

thanks for posting that

I'm a PVE player

I love the Fast Track to level 20 in Factions
BUT
I'd rather quest for my skills

this also raises the question if every other campaign will alternate between a pve focus and a pvp focus

Well, hard to say really. Smart money would head towards more PvE and stay with a focus on PvE. I say that by looking at other online roleplaying games (Note I didn't say MMORPG or CORPG; both of which are online roleplaying games). The "others" out there have far more players that ar paying a monthly fee (fools ) but those games are far heavier into PvE.
With more chapters coming out, players are going to need more and more players to keep the zones full, unless these customizable henchies rumored are indeed true and they are allowed to follow cross chapter. So PvE would, again, be the smarter route.
Then again, Anet seems to try things outside the box. So it may go back and forth. If they do that, there's a good chance GW will become another Shadowsbane or Asheron's Call 2. Both of those attempted to merge PvE and PvP playstyles; look those up to see more.
That said, however, GW devs have one thing going for them those other games didn't; Instanced maps, so griefing* (a major reason many PVEers insta-quit other games) is not a huge issue.

* Griefing seems to happen mostly when PvP and PvE are to tightly intergrated. In Asheron's Call 2, PvEers trying to do quests and missions would be PKd by spoiled kids with nothing else to do. In Ultima Online, same thing and I hear it's the same in Lineage 2. We can see griefing in Jade and Aspen missions now as well, as can see it's impact in the forums.

Thoughts? Anyone have opposing point of view? Good discussion time.

Jeff Strain said on VGM interview a few weeks before Factions release that Factions was going to be a great ROLEPLAYING EXPERIENCE and we need not worry at all about a lack of content...Nightfall will be a PvE game? I will wait for you guys on the forums to tell me that before i go near it.

This completely baffles me. And no, I'm not pointing at you specifically, I've heard plenty of people say this. I don't understand it though...where is this magical PvE content in Tyria for level 20s?

I think the problem with catering to either side of the coin (pvp and pve), the pve side is decidedly harder. As a PvP guy, I'm pretty easy to keep happy. Just give me some more new skills, shift the balance somewhat, keep the metagame updated and I'm happy. What else can you expect from PvP, right?

But the PvE crowd, they're much much harder to please. Give the monsters dumb AI and people complain about certain classes not being picked in pugs. Raise the monsters AI and people complain about things being too difficult. Not opening up the elite missions to the public and people complain about a lack of endgame content. Opening up the elite missions and people complain about them being too hard/too long/too gimmicky. Nerf certain skills that were being gimmicky and people complain about the pve metagame being not gimmicky enough. Making the maps open ended had people complaining about the ability to run all over the place and destroying coherence. Making the maps linear and more focused has people complaining how you CAN'T get run all over the place. Reducing the drop rate has people complaining it's too hard to get good weapons. Raising the drop rate has peopel complaining about ruining the current economy. Yadda yadda yadda, the examples go on and on.

I suspect there's a happy medium in designing a PvE experience that appeals to a good amount of the GW community, but it's apparent that Anet hasn't found it yet.

don't worry; whatever it turns out to be, you'll definitely be hearing about it the day it goes live or the preorder headstart even (I bet there will be one..... probably...maybe)

Here's (part?) of the quote from a few weeks ago I think, that I was referring to myself.

I can't find the exact thread it was in, it's here somewhere but the search engine "find posts by user" doesn't seem to be working/is missing. In any case the log backs it up as well, so hence Factions was more for PvP crowd, and Nightfall hopefully will appeal more to the PvE folks. Also of note, apparently the team that worked on Prophecies is working on Nightfall (can't find that info either but it's here in the forum somewhere too). This could be useful to know because there are 2 teams I think, which alternate on the chapters and one team which works on events etc. We get the original team for Nightfall (apparently) Again, search isn't too helpful at this point but that's what I recall anyway.

I never have more than 300 faction of one side or another....and as long as my faction of choice is higher than the other that sides merchant will always talk to me. (even the armorer did too)
Otherwise I would use Maatu keep instead.

and timed missions are bad...especially when my mom calls in the middle or the doorbell rings and I have to answer it

It baffles me too. Maybe they find level 20 content too hard? Or maybe they like mindlessly boring grind.

The restriction on level is yours and this also gives an indication of were your misunderstanding lies. The original statement reads:

There is no mention of level 20 content. Prophecies level 20 content starts at the desert and something like 70% of Tyrian adventuring is prior to that.

The profession quests on Shin Jea Island were the incarnation of grind, doing the same thing, over and over. Nothing in all of Tyria was as boring as those. But perhaps you like mindlessly boring grind.

And then there is ... befriending the Luxon's ... now, I might have missed some quests but that one does seem to require some mindless grinding, for faction rather then gold or XP, but still, grinding.

Despite the marketing claims, Factions has more grind then Prophecies.

I am still waiting for when the really hard parts of Cantha start. But I realize it's not entirely fair to judge Canthan difficulty with a fully developped and equipped character

But where Factions really lacks is story and most notable the presentation of the (thin) story it has and it's inability to capture ones imagination. That might be the content that those players feel is lacking in Factions and the reason they return to Tyria.

But I am just me and not most players - and unlike some I do realize that different players like different things.

I am going to say this, once

I was one of the guies that told anet not to go that route on the fourms! now see the price payed! Now they have more than pissed off their player base!

Huh? Would you adding some explanations?

And that's why I skipped most of those profession quests. But at least you have the option to skip them. And I wasnt the one who kept complaining about lack of level 20 content in Tyria yet complain that Factions has no content even though it's mostly level 20 content.

But hey, if you want to do Tyria for the billionth time again then go ahead. That's what I call mindless grind.

You bought into the Gaile PR machine, the reality is this game is lossing interest in the gaming circle, and FAST.

Anet can say what they want about their sales figure, but all I see is guild after guild slowly become inactive and eventually disbanded. Mmmkay, maybe I should distrust my own experiences and believe a corporation which has every reason to mislead us with their figures, yeah, that's sensible.

The line I quoted referred to "going back to Tyria". One wouldn't cross over to Cantha from Tyria unless they were level 20, as that is the level that you should be on the mainland. Drawing from these two statements, I can only conclude that he was referring to content aimed toward level 20s--because sure, there's plenty of literal content in Tyria, but how fun is it to wand level 12 scarabs to death in a couple hits because you're so much stronger than them?

For pure comparison purposes:

The level 20 content that exists in Tyria: seven story missions (lol THK), the Tomb of Primeval Kings, the Southern Shiverpeaks, the Ring of Fire islands, and Fissure of Woe and the Underworld. How many of those you enjoy repeating is up to you.

Whereas in Cantha, the entirety of the mainland is level 20 content. Eleven story missions (less than Prophecies? sure. less level 20 missions than Prophecies? nope), plenty of quests (which are about on the same fun level as the ones in Prophecies, which is to say not fun at all), five challenge missions (which are generally meh), two competitive missions (which are rather addictive imo, though I could certainly see why others would dislike them), Alliance Battles (everyone's pretty divided on these, as far as I can see, but I generally enjoy them), two Elite missions (which literally everyone has access to these days, though they really just another long, repeatable farming run), and Cantha shares the UW and FOW with Tyria.

Comparing literal level 20 content, Factions has more. Fun, of course, is up to you--you can play and enjoy whatever you want, but I'm spending my time in Cantha because there is far more there that I enjoy.

Sadly henchmen are better than most PUG, the only reason henchmen groups aren't really popular in prophecies is because you don't see level 20 henchmen until the southern shiverpeaks. I finally considered henchmen for the first time since I kept losing with people at thunder head keep, and they rocked so awesomely I did the bonus and mission with henchmen on my first try and I did it. I never ever really used pugs ever again, except for the glint quests. Most the people doing those were actually worthwhile players who knew what they were doing, thankfully.

I'm not sure how Factions content, or lack of, baffles anyone in anyway.
The only thing I can imagine is that those that are baffled enjoy both PvE and PvP, or promarily PvP and dabble in PvE.

Factions brings to table the worst in PvE with no long standing enjoyment what-so-ever. From locked gates stopping exploration, faction farming* to the most dull quests** I've ever seen yet in a game...

Mobs are a terrible issue in Factions as well. The "balanced" "builds they come in destroy the illusion of humans vs mobs. Instead, we have no creature that "acts" like a creature, all mobs act exactly the same. They all come to battle as if they sat in town looking for a group. Thus we end up with almost every single mob group being a balanced group. After fighting these a hundred times, it's like entering the Zaishen Challange a hundred time... boring.
Not all creatures should be smart enough to have a healer with them, it breaks the illusion of the game world. Instead, make them act like a creature might, either far more powerful (strength to survive) or far superior numbers (strength in numbers). Imagine the fun a group would have fighting off 30 or so Mantids flooding at you at once, instead of fighting the "bugs" mixed with and acting like the Am Fah.

* Faction farming: This comes about simply because many people do not enjoy PvP or the mini-PvP games like those Challenge missions (PvP via score ladder), Competitive missions or even those ABs. This forces players to spend hours running in circles, doing the same extremely dull quests till they get the faction they need to progress through the game, or get the armor they are simply wanting. In an ideal Anet world, everyone would love AB, Challenge and Competive missions and faction would be gained just by playing and having a good time. Problem is, the rewards for these missions is sad compared to what a player can gain elsewhere while being bored. So, it's get through it fast to move on and be miserable, or have fun and feel guilty about wasting what game time you have. Poor design.
Solution: Quadruple the rewards of cash and faction in those Challenge missions or cause the foes there to drop loot to make up for the lack of rewards. Those are in a PvE map after all, make them act like it. For the Competitive missions, keep the rewards doubled as they are this weekend, but also add in monetary rewards.
** I've said this before and for some reason, it doesn't stick with those that love Factions. Tyria does have boring quests, however, these quests take place over a large area giving the "illusion" or going somewhere and doing something. Factions does the exact same type of quest, only a dozen times over within the exact same zone. Running back and forth within the same zone is not fun, rewarding nor entertaining. If these quests spread out over five zones without being held back by locked gates, they might be enjoyable.

These are just some issues where Factions content is lacking. There are other as well.

In early Factions development, we were assured the focus would be on PvE. It turned out to be a highly PvP oriented game. I suspect that Nightfall will also be highly PvP oriented, with PvE very much an afterthought.

The reason is, players interested in PvE have already gone elsewhere and it will be difficult if not impossible to lure them back. GW is now known as a PvP game, and it makes sense to play to the strong suit from a marketing standpoint.