I Dont Understand!

Well, the main reason I chose Prophecies over factions was the fact that I love events. (Strong filter. o.o). Tyria and Elona have Winterfest and Halloween, as well as access to Canthan new year.

Cantha had the Dragon Festival, and they are going to have the Canthan New Year, but they had limited acess to Winterfest, and No acess to halloween.
A-Net is working on balancing that though, so I guess that won't be a reason any more.

Second, there's the fact that it is pretty short. And I've heard of a learning curve, and the infamous 10k grind. Of course, If you plan ahead you can avoid it.

I personally see it as more of an addon campaign for me... It does have it's merits, but you need to understand the game to get the full effect.

Rezing yourself is pretty useful though. Those Rits are very useful if you know how to use them.

I liked it alot.
I like it the same as NF but less than Prophecies.

imo factions > nightfall > prophecies

blasphemy, i know

i can play through the factions campaign many more times before getting tired of it. i love popping afflicted and doing quests in the echovald forest, and raising my 10k faction at fort aspenwood. i was uber sick of prophecies after my first go through it, and cba to do it again. LFR ftw in tyria.

1- FedEx quests.
2- timing mission to complete mission + bonus is stupid.
3- density of mobs are insanely high.
4- no solution yet for AFKers in fort aspenwood and jade quarry.

Nobody's mentioned the abundance of mobs that blow up in your face? When a boss mob hits for double damage and leaves you at a sliver of health, then dies and wipes all your melee teammates? Assassins don't suck, Afflicted are build to kill assassins, either straight up or with a retributive strike.

The density of mobs was another sticking point. Being unable to start a fight without half the zone stepping in and whaling on your party was disheartening. It acually got to the point where I would watch a spawn for several minutes each, just to get the patrol patters down, then rush one group at the far end, kill them, and run away. Next group, same thing. Too many mobs doing too much damage at once. I like it sometimes, but it's not conducive to a fast playstyle.

Bosses doing double damage. Whoever thought this was a good idea should be smacked in the head with the nearest 4 blunt objects sequentially. And then, whoever thought of giving them half casting time should get the same treatment. There's no fun or challenge in being hit once for your entire life total, it's just aggravating. See: Argo, Koosun, Orosen, and my personal favorite, Tin Dao Kaineng.

Shiro is a joke. He's pretty unbeatable with a balanced team, you need to just throw dirty tricks at him. He's not challenging, he just cheats, and to beat him, you bring stance ending, blindness, and damage. The special monster-only skills he has are ridiculously overpowered. You really don't fight SHIRO, the big bad guy. All you have to do is plan against his skillbar, and you win.

The bad voice acting never bothered me much, although Danika still gets on my nerves a bit.

Arborstone. The number 1 reason to hate factions, in my opinion. My dervish is there, has been at that mission for a week, and I haven't attempted it yet because it's just frustrating and annoying. Being knocked down every few seconds isn't fun. I'm not playing the game to sit around on my *** half the time, I want to actually PLAY the character I'm on.

Locked Gates. Fun once. It was nice getting to each new area in turn, having to go through the storyline. By the 10th run through, I don't even care. Just let me past already.

FA: leechers and an unbalanced playing field turn what could have been a fun setting into what seems to be a lost cause. Why bother going there if the Luxons get an easy win most of the time, and half the kurzick team is just botting "enter mission" every time the window pops up?

10k faction required to continue. Ouch? I honestly just got to 10k luxon, 10k kurzick faction, then saved it so that I could get any character through without the boring repeatable quests, or having to go to FA/JQ to earn faction.

No skill quests. So what if a quest gives me 250 gold when skills cost me 1kk apiece? In prophecies, there were many quests that would give you a skill from your primary AND a skill from your secondary. Losing skills quests was a bad idea, and one that they continued in Nightfall, although the hero trainers are a step in the right direction, letting us once again earn skills without paying a ridiculous amount of gold for them.

I know good account reward after finishing Factions once. Open every gate from Factions to every other character too but not let in Raisu Palace without completing at least few from those previous missions before it.

The storyline was kinda obvious and not much happened... oh wait, didn't the emperor die in last mission? Or was it Togo :S Ohh, and what did the kurzicks and luxons do to stop Shiro?

Also, my assassin can't die, cause when she has death penalty, she dies with 1 Afflicted putrid explosion.

Outposts traders being un-usable because of PvP really annoyed me as well, and did I mention the HORRIBLE city? It's like walking on a scrapheap, and the buildings don't even look like buildings. And of course the bosses who spike for 500 damage with 1 skill.



In factions, I wasn't playing for the fun of it, but I was playing to get out of the friggin city, and Luxon/Kurzick area seemed fun, but the factions screwed that up for me as well.

Factions had some good stuff though. Vermins and Shiro'Ken farming... And some skills. But that's about it.

It was boring. Enemies were insanely hard in insanely large mobs. Too much repetition. No variety.

I don't like it because:
- the devs idea of fun was like "Hey, let's make the enemy groups at least twice as big and let them explode when they die! Fun fun fun!"
- you get to buy top notch stuff after few hours in the game (and you're already lvl 20).
- the environment is just disgusting, especially the city where the map is completely pointless since it all crosses above and under each other. Looking back at Tyria, I realize how beautiful and diverse it is. Unfortunately, Elona is only a bit better than Cantha.

Personaly i dislike Factions because fast lvling ( way too fast for me, only good to lvl my heroes now anyway )
and i didnt like that 10k faction to proceed on either side.. cmon stupid grind... Well i also hate that 2500 sunspear points grind...
Oh and i just realy hated that huge city there.. same thing all over the place.. it was realy boring ! If it would be half that big it would still be too large. Well just my opinion anyway

I prefer the prophecies advancing but over all i liked the surroundings in Kurzicks forest.

Quite. Rits are awesome...only Assassins suck.

All the Factions hate also annoys me a great deal...all these nutters claiming to have "burnt all the boats on their arrival in Elona"...Most of my characters are Canthan. Not because it's easy levelling...because Factions was the first game I bought. I now have all 3....I guess as "classic" as prophecies is it's stupidly boring between pre-searing and Lion's Arch. And it's, imho, too slow to level up in. I find Nightfall has the best balance between "Length of Starter Island" and "Speed of Levelling Up"

I've noticed a lot of people claiming to hate Cantha because of the City of Kaineng. Sure, the town area is a but grubby...but it's riddled with plague! What do you expect? Personally I like the city, and I like the gently background humming music that goes with it. For most of my characters it's a warm feeling and it feels like home.

*Don't cut me down for the assassin statement. Ok, so they can farm a bit but ... I tried one once and for me they will always suck. Needless to say he got deleted. *

So, just like Tyria? Tyria REALLY gets on my nerves. All it is, is:
*walk 2 steps*
*kill all the devourers which pop up*
*walk 2 steps*
*kill all the devourers which pop up*
*walk 2 steps*
*kill all the devourers which pop up*
*walk 2 steps*
*kill all the devourers which pop up*
*walk 2 steps*
*kill all the devourers which pop up*
*walk 2 steps*
*kill all the devourers which pop up*

But that's part of the fun! I LOVE a good, overpowered, Rit or Ele boss...and [wiki]Wavecrest Stonebreak[/wiki], [wiki]Bazzr Dustwing[/wiki] and [wiki]Kunvie Firewing[/wiki] sure know how to lay the smack down. Some form of challenge is nice every once in a while. But if you don't like Cantha because of some of the bosses...have you ever met [wiki]Droajam, Mage of the Sands[/wiki]?

There's nothing wrong with Shiro. You can go in with the most balanced of balanced teams. A warrior, couple of monks, couple of eles, necro... Just make sure one of the eles is E/Me with Arcane Echo and Echo so they can use 3 Celestial Storms.

So...just like Post-Searing Ascalon? Disgusting, depressing greyness everywhere. Every 2 steps has Devourers popping up. Music you can slit your wrists to. Kaineng OWNS Ascalon on entertainment value imo.

Edit: To correct spelling

personally i think factions is the best guildwars game only guildwars game ive finished and only done it once on my warior x majin buu x but i like it because
the two factions joining together to defeat an arch enemy that threatens there land.
also personally i dont think guildwars is about lvling its more about strategy with skills for example u can ruin a 55 monk with disenchants(well from my experiances) but if u got the disenchants ur missing other important skills so u gotta make up for it someway maybe in your skillbar or maybe an ally like a paragon could help you with that with his shouts or you could disenchant then an assasin spike em.Ritualists are one of the most ownage classes in pvp they absolutly destroy there enemys with spirits and channeling magic. and when combined with other classes they can be devastated. also a ranger/dervish with symbiosis and avatar of meldanru(wouldnt last as long but still) could have alot of health if made right also maybe a prot monk could enchant a blood necro with lots of enchants and then a ranger have symbiosis up(for those of you who dont know what symbiosis is its a spirit that gives extra health for each enchantment on you) the blood necro could use lots of awesome skills that need sacrifice.

Here is what I find to be the appeals of the three campaigns:

Prophecies:
* Slow character development. From gaining levels to acquiring skills to gaining your 30 extra attribute points/elites, Prophecies by far is the campaign for the classic RPGer.
* Diverse environments. From the lush presearing to the scarred Ascalon to the snowy Shiverpeaks to the jungled Maguuma to the barren Crystal Desert to the firey Ring of Fire - it's just breathtaking.
* Complete freedom of choice. Absolutely no grind is required in the game - there are only two mandatory missions - Sanctum Cay and Thunderhead Keep - needed to visit every part of the game. Running, farming, etal - it's your choice.

Factions:
* Fast character development. Great for the experienced MMORPGer/PvPer that just wants to get it all now.
* PvP for PvEers. Fort Aspenwood and Alliance Battles are relatively non-competitive areas for PvEers to dabble in PvP, and get a reward for their efforts.
* Ritualists. Yes I'm biased, but this character was the first "out of the ordinary" character that GW introduced. The six core classes (and to a lesser extent the Assassin) are very common themes in most RPG games.

Nightfall.
* Medium character development. IMO, took the best aspects out of Prophecies and Factions to make a moderately slow character development.
* Heroes. Love them or hate them, this is a big selling point to Nightfall and the better ability to control/customize your NPCs.
* Inscriptions. Absolute freedom of choice by separating the appearance of items with their functionality.

I never made a character other than in Cantha since I gotten Factions

From a pvp perspective factions is usually considered the weakest campaign in terms of skill selection.

I don't hate Factions, but don't spend too much time there anymore.

I have all my 6 tyrian and cathan chararacters past the 10000 factions and don't want to do the same on my two Elonians.
Kurzick is not much of a problem and I have some Luxon quests on other characters, but I want to progress somewhat faster.

Furthermore, I was really annoyed this weekend.
I took my monk, protector of Cantha, to Unawakening Kurzick side.
Only to find out I forgot the quest leading there (so had to fight the entire area again). Hello, I've completed the mission! I want in....

The other thing that I remember are the mobs there.
Compared to most parts of Prophecies, the damage is insane.
The only place I've found that kind of damage in Prophecies are in Southern Shiverpeaks, outside main mission/quest area's.
And the bosses in Cantha do even more damage.
When you are not prepared, you'll get killed in no time.


Missions:
I don't mind timed missions, but not all of them please.
It's ok when you just want mission, but hard to get masters on them.
I've managed to get protectors on my 4 Tyrian characters, so I know what I'm talking about.
The combined missions (specially Square) are also hard to get masters on, because you cannot control the other team.

I still have mixed feelings about Factions.
I did like the storyline and the landscape.
That is, excluding the Citi.
I also liked the missions in general and the challenge some mobs gave me.
I also liked the new professions.
I still have aggro control problems when henching with Sin (he's crit. barrager at the moment, so less problems). And my Rt is mule right now, but that will change when I get my 4 core characters through NF.

In the end, I think it is a decent chapter.
Prophecies still favorite, NF and Factions about the same.

Ummm thanks I think.
If I'm reading this correctly you are saying that you don't own all 3 chapters, but continue on to criticize games that you haven't played.

I personally thought Farmwars was a piece of garbage but there were alot of good aspects to it.

First off there is my mini siege turtle.
Secondly ummm , wait , *thinking* , ummmm , drawing a blank for #2 so I give up

I didn't hate factions, but it's not my favorite of the three.

When it first came out, and i went through the game i enjoyed it. What i really liked about factions was the fact that you couldn't be a level 1 and get a run to a 15k armor town. You are pretty much going to be at level 20 before you get to those towns. I also liked both of the character classes introduced, I liked the styles of the armor very much, and I loved the scenery in the jade sea. i didn't like the big groups of stuff everywhere, I hated trying to explore with 60% dp because i had to bring henchies. I hated that to get a masters reward you had to do a mission in a certain amount of time. I also didn't like the fact that it was so small. Granted it kept me busy throughout my summer last year, but that was only because i took all of my tyrian characters and the new factions ones through a big part of the game (mostly to get armor).

I never suggest factions to people who ask "which chapter should i get" though. I prefer nightfall over factions because its longer, its not horribly repetitive, theres no "crap, i have to go over to cavalon because i have more luxon faction to use the merchants" kind of thing. (that annoyed me badly.) I prefer prophecies over either nightfall or factions because its the biggest, and offers the most variety scenery wise, but there are a lot of small problems it has.

I think they all have there ups and downs though, I mean Prophecies is my favorite, but I think some of the features in Nightfall and Cantha make for a better type of game. (Mainly the hero's, and the fact that you have to work to get further, not pay some warrior to get you there.)

I love the city, IMO it is less dreary than Ascalon, but still manages to have a perfectly dreary atmosphere. It is completely unlike any other area in the other campaigns and features quite a bit of variation in its own theme as you visit its different areas.

Almost a perfect list- for Prophecies I would add skill quests and for Nightfall I would add mission goal + bonus structure.

My main disconcern with factions is mainly two things that I have not seen mentioned yet.

We all know Factions is PvP based, heck the box even advertises it in a suttle way. Although it seems that "taking control" over cities brought so many guilds to do different things, such as merge, break up, etc etc. Now we all know that this happens normally although when it happens at such an abnormal pace and when alliances were introduced things got really out of hand. I hated the social impact factions had, "your guild sucks since it doesnt have X faction donated" This single handedly for me turned into alot of negative attitude around guild wars.

Secondly, they praised how great the alliance system was going to be, and as much as I love it, I have some problems with it. How come we cannot see the roster in other guilds? Why can we not have a lead guild, then a second in command guild etc. Now I'm going to hate how there is only 3 levels of positions in a guild as well, and how officers can promote more officers.. blah its a horrible system and should be redone imo. Not only do they need to enhance the alliance system and hopefully continue it and make guild co-operation go beyond pvp they need to make it worthwhile.

I'm not a PvP player at all, and I loved Factions. I still love Factions, this green weekend gave me a great excuse to put finishing Nightfall again on hold and instead romp around in Factions for a bit. I love my Rit, and while I didn't end up taking to assassin, I've seen lots of people who did, and who knows, maybe I'll try it again one of these days (hah or I can try PvP and use the mule assassin Demonic Nachos).

I love Cantha, and I think I always will.

IMO: Prophecies/Nightfall > Factions; I was pretty disappointed in it. Although in saying that, I do love my Ritualist, I've spent a tonne on him and he was the second character I took through NF. Apart from him I just couldn't help but feel frustrated and bored with it after a while, to the point where I quit as soon as I'd finished it until NF was released.

I'm a sole PVE player - Nightfall and Prophecies kicks Factions a$$

That doesn't mean that Factions was bad though it just means that the other 2 chapters were better.
I'm afraid honestly I can get a character through factions in a weekend without any problem - so it's a bit short for me on the PVE side.

Jade Sea is very very cool and Echovald is done very well also.
I'm not moaning about it but the fact that they made PVP part of the PVE experience didn't suit me.
Overall factions was ok (hated city/sewers - too closed in) but assassins were a good class except everyone hated them in PVE!

I haven't been disappointed in any GW chapter - I do have the preference of Nightfall > or = Prophecies > Factions though.

I like the kaineng enviroment especially in the mission nahpui quarter. Kaineng is also cool because the am fah jump down and theres like a war going on in the city while a war is going on outside the city. and then theres the plague in the city which make things even more complicated especially getting round because all the afflicted jump out of holes but that is a good thing because it makes the game more challenging

Factions was a great chapter, but I think it got misunderstood. Not misunderstood in the pedantic oft overused sense of the word, but really misunderstood. I think for some reason (I still don't understand why) the PVE community viewed Factions as too PVP oriented, and the PVP community saw no real new PVP. There were Alliance battles: 3 teams of 4 means somewhere between RA and TA without the simple format, too much going on to be serious PVP. There's Jade arena: yes its actually not even PVP since the point is to get jade not kill people. Theres Aspenwood: RAx2 with leechers. PVE problems: the 2 team mission system was plagued with issues stemming from bad pathing and bad AI resulting in failure if there weren't 2 half full+ human teams. All these issues have been improved upon about as much as possible at this point, and it's better. But I think Factions was ahead of it's time, because the issue wasn't any of those I already listed. The fact is Factions was really a game for the crossover or hybrid player. We loved it despite all of these obvious flaws because it was at least an attempt at combining pvp and pve WITHIN the context of the story. Taken out of the PVE context yes the PVP was nothing new, and the PVE itself had some issues with the missions. The large mobs in pve packed like sardines put the more casual player off a little I think... kinda like the elite DOA does now.

I think Factions to be better than NF and Prophecies. It was pretty straight to the point and i hate running around, i like playing mission after mission simply more. Additionally i loved Vizunah Square and Unwaking Waters, that was some kind of a challenge (no joking).

Well, why do i write this post? To counter the argument that Factions sucked because you had to farm 10000 factions. I have played my second char through NF now and i HATE the part where you have to farm sunspear points. That's so stupid, i really preferred to play some Alliance Battle in Factions instead.

But that's just my humble opinion.

My bad. I'm ALWAYS doing that (typing "not" instead of "now") - I never know why - I guess I must just type too fast and not pay enough attention. Replace "not" with "now". It should have read "I now have all 3...". Just to clear up that confusion. So in response I can criticise all the games, should I choose to, as I have multiple endgame characters in all three.

*edited previous post*

One of my all time favourite missions.

I like to do this just for fun.

I love Factions because that was the first capaign I got. I don't really care what other people say about it, hate it or not. Everybody has his or her own opinion about the game, some people just agree with others.

I love factions too, but thats because including the betas, I'd been playing Prophecies for 18 months, so i was bored senseless of it

I liked a FEW things about Factions.
-Newb Island was entertaining.
-The super-fast leveling system means I can bring my Prophs character over when it gets to Lion's Arch and get it from lvl13 to lvl20 in an hour or two.
-Umm...did I mention Newb Island?

The things I don't like:
-The HUGE maze run through the city. If I wanted to run for my life through a ghetto I'd just go up to Detroit.
-The big mobs start exploding when you kill them, and if you kill too many too closely together poison explosions wipe your party.
-Having to buy every skill means casual gamers are always poor. Unless you are into the trading scene (which I can't stand to do) or Ebay gold (ditto) then you had BETTER do your homework before buying that skill.
-The 2 added characters seem to be difficult for people to play. I'm not saying they're not good, but the majority of players think an assasin is just a skinny warrior. As a healer primary I wince every time a sin is added to our party, hoping against hope it's not a tankasin with a death wish. Of course they stand there and die and it's all the healer's fault. Rits are pretty much a non-factor - I hardly ever see any rits around outside Factions.
-I don't PvP, and you can't force me to. If that means I can't finish the game, then I'll never finish the game. I haven't played Factions all the way through, and I have better things to do in the other 2 games to be bothered with it. I've finished Prophs and still have fun with my other chars there.


At the OP- you misspelled "retarded". If you're going to use disparaging remarks at least spell them right, please.

You guyz are outta your minds. Faction brought sooo many new gameplays that you could not even image it possible for GW.

1. Alliance Battles
2. Challenge Missions
3. Competitive Missions
4. Elite Missions
5. New reward system for missions
6. New skills, (Some metagame builds Do NOT work without Faction Skills)
7. MANY new items (Especially Green)
8. Some of the best looking Environments in GW
9. Some of the Best looking Armors in GW
10. Two New Classes that kick your ass in PvP.
11. Guild Alliances
12. End-Game ACTUAL ENDING
13. Last of All: SO MANY IN-GAME EVENTS

Although for me, still Ascalon is Home, but I have taken all 4 of my PvE Characters through all 3 games and Enjoyed Factions fast-pace the most.

City-control/elite missions/faction-farming splintered the GW player base even more than it was in Prophecies. On a personal level, I saw obsession over faction-farming splinter two guilds and ruin friendships.

Vizunah Square. There's nothing like spending over an hour continuously re-loading because no team on the other side can keep Togo alive for just a few minutes to make me hate a mission.

The City/quests. It's an ugly maze without any redeeming features. The side-quests through the City where you have to constantly traverse the same areas and kill the same mobs over and over just make it worse.

10,000 faction grind. Not particularly difficult, but unnecessarily boring and repetitive. I'd feel the same about the Sunspear title requirement, except I've never felt a need to grind for Sunspear points (they come too easily just playing through the game).

Timed mission bonuses. If I want to explore, I have to do every mission at least twice with every character. Add in that the mission zone maps do not necessarily match the contours of the same zone as an explorable area, and you actually have to go through the same areas three times or more to get the entire area mapped and mission completed. Again, it's unnecessarily repetitive.

Locked gates. Again, limits exploration and forces you to repeat. I'm OK with some PvE repetition (I've got 10 or 11 PvE 20's lol), but once I've gone through, let me decide what I want to repeat and in what order.

Overall: I think GW strength is its flexibility - you can PvP, you can PvE, you can do both, you can PUG, you can solo with heroes & hench, you can join a guild or not, you can explore, etc. I think Factions is the most repetitive and the most forced of the three chapters, giving you the least options as a PvE player. From that perspective, it is hands-down the worst chapter of GW.

Having said all that, I still think Factions is OK personally - it's fun once you're out of the city IMHO. But I know people who own Factions but 100% refuse to play it for the reasons I stated above.

I hated factions it sucked, and I reserve my right to have the opinion that its sucked!

Same as the original posters posting style.

Factions was seriously not worth it.

EXplain why? I mean two posts up that person made so many AMAZING POINTS and you say sucked dont matter

Edited by Arkantos - calling people names doesn't solve anything.

Ohh I missed name calling. *meh*

On both a personal, and gaming interest level, I hated Factions for both the whole style of the game and most of the new features.

Only saving grace of faction was AB, and Anet still neglected it, and managed to mess it up.

Now if its so hard to understand a personal opinion (dictionary.com will help on the definition of the word opinion) and if you insist on debating my opinion...your gonna be doing it solo. I refuse to argue over personal beliefs.

Only thing I hated about factions was that there were so many "keep suicidal leeroy NPC alive" restrictions.

If Danika/Togo/Mhenlo are so important they should stay at home.

I'm there to kill things, its a risky business, get used to it.


Aside from that, I liked it a lot. Sure its frustrating when you've got to push a char so far through the game to cap a skill for the next farming-fad, but I can live with it. The game shouldn't be designed around farmers.

My main complaints about Factions are .. lack of enemy diversity (afflicted EVERYWHERE), the ugly city slums (way too much time is required to be spent there), the ugly echovald forest (OK I know a lot of people like it, but it's just way too dark and dull for my taste), and most bonuses being timed (encourages rushing, feels like the designers were too lazy to think of actual secondary missions)

Other than that, I thought Factions was alright. I love my PvE assassin, sure she's not the greatest class ever but I find her fun to play (especially with her attack animations!). I haven't tried ritualist yet. The missions and quests, at least the first time through, were ok. I don't think it deserves all the hate it seems to get. Shing Jea Island and Kaineng Center are two of the most beautiful areas in the whole game, in my book. I just wish the whole chapter was actually Oriental-themed (Kurzick/Luxon territory was NOT oriental)

jade is an oriental material aint it and they made the game it was an oriental style but it dosnt neccesarilly mean they cand add other things in

Reasons Factions sucks compared to the other 2 chapters.

Your not the hero... you spend the entire frigging game following around Mhenlo and Togo. Which goes to the next point.

The 2 party missions obviously were tested by people who actually knew how to play but didn't actually play. Anyone with half a brain who plays GW casually could've guessed that making you rely on a team that you had no choice over to complete a mission was a stupid idea.

The NPCs CONSTANTLY get stuck on objects or even nothing in the missions.

The maze of the City is just plain annoying.

Afflicted, while well designed are annoyingly powerful... specially when by killing the bosses they explode and kill you!

The 10,000 faction grind to continue a storyline.


Most of these don't annoy me that much anymore... there are ways around it. However the fact that Luxon/Kurzick merchants refuse to talk to you because you have 2 more faction for the opposing side really does piss me off.