Pacing of the game

Just curious to get everyone's opinion on this subject. I'm hoping that the game will be paced more like Prophecies, but have the same wide selection of skills that were available early on in factions.

I personally felt that the skill choices in prophecies were severly limited until about halfway thru the game. The elementalist is a prime example of this as your only real skill choices were limited to the fire magic tree for nearly haf the game! Sure you got a few skills from the other trees here and there, but primarily you only got fire skills.

Factions didn't get it right either. In Factions you were able to choice from a very wide variety of skill right from the start, but (IMHO at least) you leveled way too quickly.

Ideally I would like to see Nightfall have you level at about the same rate as Prophecies, but give you the same wide range of sklls that Factions had. If I had to choose one over the other, I'd rather have the skill choices. What do you guys think?

I don't want to have the insanely slow leveling rate of Prophecies, but I do want it to be slower than factions.

You have to remember the reason you leveled so fast in factions is because otherwise there wouldn't be any challenge for prophecies chars (obviously they could have made noob island bigger).

i agree. the elemental thing in particular- probably the reason I quit playing one and deleted... I really didnt want to be another pyromancer... I dont think you could even get any good air or water skills in LA for that matter!

They should bring back skill quest rewards, but give you an option of which one you want out of like three choices. On both Exp aquisition AND skill choice-->Maybe go half way in between...? factions kinda laid it on thick by the time you get to Kaenig and I cant say Im against withholding SOME skills til the later parts of the game.

Options is what it all comes down to... too many can be just as bad as not enough.

Actually, I was a fan of the factions system. Personally, I hate pre-searing in any form, and I loved how if you weren't level 20 by the time you left nublet island you would be level 20 soon because of all the high-level monsters and crap you were forced to fight. It kicked powerleveling in the nuts!

Man: I need a level 20 monk quick!
Friend: well, I could spend 5 hours powerleveling you (boring), or you could make a factions char...
Man: how long does a factions char take to get to level 20?
Friend: most people are level 20 by the time they leave the island!

My guess: Nightfall will be very similar to Factions, with the starting island and then moving on to the level 20 content afterwords.

Could be a little slower, though, since this is more PvE based.

^ I agree and hope so.

Even though each chapter is standalone - they are more like expansions (and they should be).

More level 20 content FTW. - if it was like prophecies where 2/3 of the game was under level 20 it would be pretty boring for existing chars.

^ Fair enough. I see your point about existing charcters.

My main concern is skill variety. As long as we don't get a repeat of what happened to the elementalist in Prophecies I'll be happy. I want to have the option to make whatever kind of build I want as opposed to being pigeonholed into one type of character.

As far as getting skills as quest rewards goes, I think that's something that will remain unique to Prophecies. And I for one prefer getting gold as a reward and buying skills rather then being gifted with pre-chosen ones. Again, it's all about the choices.

They've already basically stated that there will be a Nightfall equivallent to Noob Island, the concept that lies beneath this is that they want level 20 characters coming from Tyria and Cantha to have almost as much to do in Elona as an Elonan native.

^ its also stated that the 'return to vabbi' will be dark etc etc nightfall

So... MAYBE noob island + some vabbi quests (think mayhem in market) to get 'past' nightfall... whereas tyrian/canthan characters will come into it w/the land already being infected by darkness.

Im not basing this on anything- but I have a feeling they will do something a little more ... sear-like.. than in factions where you just hop on the boat and go to KCenter.


you know- youre right. its kind of annoying making a cantha character and having to go all the way back to ascalon just to pick up some obscure skill like the lava font(bad example, you get the point)

I recommend either A) getting to Ember Light Camp, or where A is implausible/too time consuming, unlocking the skill with faction and buying it in Lions Arch.

I actually kind of prefer the Prophecies quest-based skill acquisition system, though I do think all Nightfall-specific skills should be available for purchase by the time you reach the main port (a la Factions) so that you don't necessarily need to take every character through the campaign. I know with my assassin, once I got to Kaineng Center I felt sort of overwhelmed with the choices. It's hard to familiarize yourself with all those skills at once; it felt in a way like memorizing something for school, and that's no fun. The pacing provided by Prophecies skill quests was a good thing I think.

I really hope its slower than factions but that they do a better job then with propecies. Id prefer buy your own skills but not give such a huge selecton in the beginning of the game.

I'm going to have to agree with what everyone else is saying here. And I'd like to point out that, even if ANet doesn't do everything right, one thing that they do do (doodoo?) is learn from their experiences.

Actually in my experience most people don't make it off the island any higher than 12-16.

It is certainly possible to reach lvl 20 beforehand; but people are way too rushed in this day and age in GW to slow down and get everything in one area before moving on. Hell, you can reach lvl 10 before even getting a secondary, and people wonder how I do it- it's not that hard o_O