How Much of This Game Can I Solo?

I am sure this question has been asked before, but I couldn't find a good answer.

Here is my situation:

1. I quit WoW because it was waaaaaaaay too time consuming and playing as a "casual" meant that I missed out on most of the game.

2. I LOVE to solo and only group when I feel like company. One of the things I hated about WoW is that 90% of the game required you to group with someone. I don't like grouping out of necessity.

3. I know the Guild Wars box says "solo content", but so did the WoW box. I am not talking about just running around killing boars in the woods. I am really asking about the core game content.

4. Can I casually play the game, 3-4 hours a night, and still feel like I can access most of the game and still be competitive if I wanted to PVP?

Thanks in advance for any help. I am desperate for a new MMO and WoW was about to get me divorced and CoV looks like I am playing in the same zone all the time.

1. Good for you and Welcome to GW.

2. 2 things, yes you can solo things, just have to find a place and a build that work for you, try Wiki and see what builds are out there or make your own up. You dont have to play with real people, Heros and Henchies do work, if not better in some cases.

3. See Above

4. Yes, I play about 4 to 5 hours a night and more on weekends. Always have something to do. And When I do get bored, take a night off and come back is always good for me.

I soloed all but 1 or 2 missions of Nightfall and Factions. Those that I didn't solo were either tougher missions that I could have beaten by myself, eventually, or were missions where you need to carry an object from point A to point B, and since there were 2 objects, having another person there meant only making 1 trip.

My suggestion would be to get Nightfall, if you don't already have it, so you can get heroes, which are basically fully customizable henchmen that you can give extra equipment, choose a secondary profession for them, and pick whatever skills you want.

In factions and nightfall, you level up quite a bit faster than you do in the original guild wars. I, personally, believe the game really begins at level 20, and so prefer that format. Nightfall and factions also allow you to change your secondary rather easily, and after paying the initial 500 gold to get a new secondary profession, you can go back to any secondary you've unlocked, for free.

In summary, you absolutely can solo the game, but having heroes makes it a lot easier.

Pretty much all of this game can be played alone, and there are a wide selection of heroes and henchmen to fill out your party if you don't want to play with other people. There are some missions that are considerably easier if you team up with at least one other human player, but by and large you can make your way through things with just the AI henchies.

As far as casual play goes, this game doesn't have that much grind in it at all, and most of that grind is entirely optional. Even if you can't invest a lot of time in the game, you can still get a max level character with max equipment very easily; this game is mainly based around the skills you equip to your character and how you combine those skills in combat, rather than the amount of time you invest in your character.

Welcome like it was said previously you really do not need a group for any of the game except high end pvp content. Good place to be if you do not like having to group or find groups. I do suggest though to find one maybe two buddies. w/ 2 people to play with there will be nothing you cannot acomplish or master other then the PvP. :-p

Play GW, casual its its definition! I go on and off a lot and once went on a year hiatus. You can solo or group, no fee to pay, can go on and off. Its rly great

OP Here

Wow, these forums are amazing! 4 replies in 10 minutes and none of them were ASCII art!

From what I am gathering the game looks very promising.

I don't mind at all grouping with 4-5 other people. What I was really scared off is something like 40 man raids that will require you to go on a strict "playing" schedule of grinding the same 6-8 hour dungeons over and over again hoping for that 3% chance that a boss will drop you some loot.

As to where I would like start, I think I am going to start in Factions since I have always enjoyed the tactical calculated approach of an assassin/rogue/stalker. Is that going to ruin my experience if I don't start in Prophecies first? As I understand it, Prophecies has a superior story line and is better for beginners.

I would start with prophecy first - it introduces your basic skills at a slower pace and has a larger amount of stuff to do. You can build up a basic skillset for the core characters through questing.

The thing with factions is whilst it has the assassin and ritualist (2 fun classes to play) it is rather short. Also you might find that playing an assassin in the main storyline a frustrating first experience as there is a particular mob they introduced in factions which destroys assassin's quite easily.

I preferred Nightfall and factions to Prophecies. Prophecies is a more traditional story, set in a more familiar European setting. You *do* progress slower, but that was more frustrating to me than it was enjoyable.

I very much liked the factions setting, except for the very twisting urban areas, but you figure things out eventually. Nightfall has a much more open environment, and overall it feel grander in scope. W/o giving anything away, Nightfall involves the various gods and goddesses of the game world, while Factions is a more personal story.

Casually play 3-4 hours a night?!

I don't play that in a week. 3-4 hours a night is hardly "casual"

Start with Nightfall (it pains me to say that) Heroes are great(ish)

GW is team game, so no true soloing. Party sizes are 4-12. The important difference is that you can add NPC party members.

PvP isn't about gear, so how competitive you are will depend on how well you can play in a team.

Sins work in PvP. In PvE, they are used as minion fodder. Starting out as a sin is a sure way to spend most of the time waiting for a rez.

Also, despite being quite decent at pvp, they are a far cry from WoW rogue slaughter nonsense.

lol. I meant casual compared to wiping in Naxx 30-40 hours a week chasing that l33t server first!

The reason I was thinking of starting in Factions is because I would like to make an assassin and run him through the entire game.

Assassin...heh you'll be playing alone a lot, even f you want to group not many "digg" assassins.

Factions is a bad place to start TBH. It was classed by most (well on Guru atleast) as the worst of the 3 games.

Chapter1 is slow
Factions is like marmite, ou either love it or hate it
Nightfall promised much, delivered little. Has Heroes <~~big bonus

If playing solo is important to you, and you like tactics, I would start with nightfall. You have the flexibility and challenge of using heroes, which are basically NPCs you can customize. The story line is also pretty good, and while it is not short like factions, it is also not long like prophesies. I remember as a new character in proph, it took me weeks to get through the game, learning as I went. I kept forgetting the story line.

Personally I liked nightfall the most. Mostly because of the heroes, I think.
Factions was good too, it was short, and is a good place to start characters if you know what you are doing and don't want to spend as much time in character growth.
Prophesies is good for someone who wants to learn how to play in depth. It is long though.

OP the largest group you will get in gw1 is 8 people (there are a few missions that use 16 ...) so for the most part you dont need to worry about 40 people groups. Loot usually drops from anything you kill---however, the quality of that loot can be diminished by the use of heroes or henchmen, but you will usually get something.
Deciding which chapter to start with can be a bit daunting, though it really doesnt matter so factions is ok, you can get the others and add them to your account whenever so no worries about that. Prophecies has the slowest beginning so it is what people usually start with, nightfall offers the option of customizable heroes while factions has the shortest story line to get you into it faster.
Welcome to guildwars and we hope you enjoy your stay!

Not to be judgmental of your personal business or anything, but perhaps jumping into another game isn't the best thing for you to do right now.

I think starting in a campaign more depends on the person. Personally, I played through Prophecies and loved it, good storyline, my character wasnt fully developed after 5 hours of gameplay, and I got a good view of how skills work. Nightfall is good with the hero's, but again, personally, I didnt like it because it had a terrible storyline.

All in all, whatever campaign you like depends on what your looking for in a game.

See... this is where our tastes differ. Nightfall felt grander to me. I liked the wars, seeing the different principalities, and fighting an evil diety. Prophecies, well, felt too much like Lord of the Rings. Perhaps I am just tired of the medieval European setting, and both factions and nightfall offered something different.

If you care at all about keeping the storyline in order, I'd recommend starting from the first one, Prophecies. If you liked playing through it and want more, buy Factions and start a new character there. Same with Nightfall after Factions.
But I suppose most people don't care much about the storyline.

As for the soloing content, I love it in this game. Group is still required pretty much everywhere, but henchmen npc's can fill up those slots nicely. And they sure don't mind you going afk while out questing.

You probably won't "solo" per se, but you can complete most of the games without ever playing with actual players. This is because most areas let you bring heroes or henchmen.

If you plan to play most of the game by yourself, I highly recommend getting Nightfall first, so you can use Heroes. They are like your own little customizeable AI buddies who help you out.

I'll re-iterate some of what has been said just to make sure you remember this when the time comes: an assassin isn't a good new player class. There are exceptions to that - if you are a member of a guild that plays across many games, GW being one of them, and they are willing to endure your learning then go with it. However, short of that I would highly suggest otherwise.

I do not care how long you have played video games (I've been playing since the very early 80's) you will find some games that are just mostly different - GW is one of them. You may be lucky in that you have played similar games (there is nothing new under the sun) and have little trouble, however the Assassin is still probably the most difficult class in the game to play well.

I do not want to steer you away from them, while not my favorite class there is absolutely nothing wrong with them and they can be *highly* effective in a skilled players hands. But I would suggest you try an easier to play class first as you are most likely in for a world of frustration until you learn other game mechanics.

At least give another character a go until level 20 and a little play time, something that happens fairly early in each campaign. For one thing, as an Assassin, you really need to have some level of understanding of what targets to hit and which ones to ignore - it is hard to get that your first time through. With warrior (or a few other classes) this isn't as vital to winning a quest/mission and you have time to learn what to do. Not to mention that even veteran players find an Assassin hard to play in an AI group. A melee AI leader needs to be in the thick of things selecting and calling targets, an assassin needs to stay back and let everyone do their thing and strike when the opportunity arises - it take a WHOLE lot more skill for an Assassin AI player than it does any other class.

As for soloing - the H/H are only as good as you. I've cleared almost all of the game that one is physically allowed to use them and I'm not, by far, the best player. Before Factions was released some players took it upon themselves to do the mission/bonus of Prophecies mission using *only* the henchman (that is - no skills, no weapons, and no attributes spent on the human controlled character). They successfully did every mission with screens to prove it. I do not know if the archives here are old enough to find them, but they were there at one time. Personally I dread most of the last 10 or so missions (spread across the three campaigns) I need for a protector title even with Hench, Heroes, and not gimping myself.

So, your mileage may vary on how easy you find them. I lack those few missions bonus/masters, a few dungeons in GWEN, and a few masters level quests, though I mostly haven't given them a go yet due to not really enjoying trying builds/strategies to clear those few areas. That is a VERY small part of the game. There are others who could not even complete the game without a human group, let alone clear most of the elite post-game areas.

And, lastly, given the data from /age (hours played and months the account is active) I average around a little less than 2 hours a day. So yes, you can get by with 4 hours a day, especially if you hench/hero as they are always there and do not take any spamming of local to form a group

I agree with strcpy that assassin isn't a good class if you're just starting - neither is mesmer for that matter! Go with something a little less complicated (that would be just about any other class).

Personally I play around 3 hours a day on average - and consider myself a casual player. Guess the definition of "casual" is open for interpretation

Just a little perspective here:

My first char was an Assassin. He still is an Assassin. He is the guy in my avatar at the front (Chae Soon)....

Starting with an Assassin is jumping into Guild Wars at the Deep End. Not only is Factions EXTREMELY fast-paced as opposed to Nightfall and especially Prophecies (slow as buggery)... but the Assassin class is difficult to play well and VERY awkward to learn. That is to say that while a good Assassin is as good as (if not better than) a good Warrior .... a bad Assassin can be FAR worse than a bad Warrior (excepting when a nub Warrior survives in situations where a nub Assassin would die JUST long enough to aggro YET more enemies... which then makes the Warrior worse). You'd be quite shocked if you saw my Assassin's death-count (ironically the only char I have with a higher death-count is my Warrior... in Pre-Searing... who death-levels Charr).

As such... where you should start and what as depends on your particular playing style.

If you want a VERY gradual introduction to the game and a slow but steady progression then I'd recommend starting in Prophecies.
If you want to jump head-first into the game and progress very quickly then I'd recommend starting in Factions (and if you want to challenge your learning ability, start Assassin).
If you want a medium progression but focusing more on supporting characters than your own individual player-char then I'd recommend starting in Nightfall.


And for the record.... you can solo (with herohench) ALL story-related content almost. There are a few parts of the game that are kinda awkward to herohench effectively (The Eternal Grove and Dzagonur Bastion come to mind)... but those aside... the AI is all the help you need. Certainly no 40-man raids.



As for Casual play.... Pfah to that. If you play several hours a day then you're working your way out of the Casual Gaming rut and becoming a proper gamer... which is a good thing. I personally play about 5 or 6 hours a day, which constitutes the entirety of my free time on weekdays. On weekends it tends to extend to around 12 hours or more.
I remember the time before I had a job when I could game in my every waking hour.... except when I had lectures... University time was good time, even if I was poor (and spent all my spare cash on games). These days I have money enough to have a MASSIVE game collection and very little time to play them. v_v;

As long as the player grasps basic game concepts quickly, the Assassin should be the easiest class to play, actually.

There was a whole thread about this.

Several people have talked about what campaign is the most fun as far as PvE is concerned, but the second part of your question dealt with being competitive in PvP. If you are going to be a 'sin in PvP (a strong choice btw) you're going to need both the Factions and Nightfall campaigns, or one of the campaigns and the PvP unlock pack for the other. Having a limited skill selection in PvP is not a good thing.

Aye

As has been pointed out, it depends upon what you mean by solo, but I would assume that you mean "not requiring you to form a [human] group". Since most of my Guild went off to play other games (such as WoW), I have spent most of the time using only heroes & henchmen (H&H).
A large percentage of the game can be done just using henchmen. Almost all of the normal mode game can be done using H&H (depending upon your class, experience, etc.). Hard mode and some master/elite areas can be more challenging. In order to use Heroes, you'll have to get Eye of the North or Nightfall.
One note about heroes - to get the most benefit from them, you need to outfit them properly. Don't just slap a few insignias on them and give them any old crap weapon you have lying around. Spend the gold and outfit them almost as you would outfit yourself (leaning toward extra health rather than other things)

Welcome, I was and still am to some extent a WOW player, I gave it up but have jumped back in when my love for pvp kicked in, I can jusp into wow and pvp for a bit and get points to get gear.

Anyway, guildwars is so far removed from wow its a bit of a shock at first, the skill system seems stupid, and lacks flexibility to change from one attack style to another, but once you have played for a bit you realise that it s very good system, it does not take hours getting ready for encounters, once you have a basic build for your char and learn the basics of combat you will realise the genius in its simplicity.

I have found the community a lot better in parts and sometimes worse, what I have found very strange is that some of the adults seem to behave like younger little brats we would get in wow, and the younger people seem to be a lot more mature, you will always find someone to help in 10 or so min, whereas in wow you could be waiting hours or days, cant find someone in your district, move to another one, if you arein europe, move to america etc, there is no problem of your friends rolling on another server and you not being ale to play with them, just move district and you are together, guilds also span over servers which is awsome.

If you have factions it is very easy to hit lvl 20 in around 8-9 hours, my ele is 13 ad only 5 hours played, this takes away the days played to hit max lvl in wow which removes alot of the drive and addictions that wow have, so does being able to get max armor and weapons with not a lot of probems, this leaves a game down to skill and not time which is what I think all MMOs should be!!.

Long live Guild Wars!

P.S of there are any typos sorry Im in a rush and had a lot to say Grin
P.P.S f you need any help just add me to your friends list.

Eddy
Lore of Might W/mo and Davd Copperfield E/Mo

You have been given a lot of good advice and as you can see the opinions vary from one person to the next. If you are set on starting out as an assassin go ahead and give it a try. If you find yourself more frustrated and dead than playing just go back to these posts and realize that most suggested it was not a good first choice. Start a different character and go from there. If you are wanting an easy sample of the core professions you can start in any of the games and try out the different combinations of primary and secondary profession before you invest too much time.

Playing some of the core professions even just a few levels will unlock basic skills so that when you do get heroes you have some options for them. It also gives you some insight on what the different professions are and do so that you know how to play against each class. Any skills you unlock on any character will be available to your heroes account wide.

You always have the option to make a pvp character that is max level but without skills, runes and insignias unlocked this may be an exercise in frustration.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Guild Wars! Have fun and don't be afraid to come back with questions or ask for help. You found a great site with a lot of experienced players, most of which are very willing to offer suggestions and help. If you get stuck come back and post, you will be surprised how much help you are offered

Here's a link to the sticky in the Campfire section Assassin forum http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10210467

There is no "bad" profession, just a few that require more thought to play. Personally, I don't have the patience to play an assassin, but my mesmer rocks.

Also, check the wikis (we have two) for information on the different professions and secondaries.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Main_Page

The first one is available in-game by typing /wiki in your chat bar.

Yes id suggest Nightfall first, it has inscribable weapons and treasure chests are VERY fun. I would also start with a monk sin ce a 55er is a perfect soloer and if you want to group, you can always get another set of armor and heal them. Perfect for you id say. PLus monks are in need and very useful, you will get snatched up in minutes and have everyone at your feet.

Glad some one is comming over to our side. I have been playing since it's first release, and I have three out of the four GW tales. If it was me I would start off with Nightfall. My reasoning is you can get proph. later and travel to it. You can go to GW:EN (sorry Eye Of The North) later as well. In nightfall I just finnished a Paragon Monk in 5 days. Started off as Level 1, and am now almost 20. Already have 5 Heroes, and can already get to Lions Arch in Proph. Don't get the wrong idea here. I'm almost 20, but haven't even touched the surface of Nightfall. The great thing about GW is you can go back and re-do missions and collect Elite Skills and Weapons etc. Also If you ever get tired of the game just switch it to hard mode, or farm, or create a new character. I have 6 plus 15-20 heroes. It can be equally as fun getting items for them and armor etc. The one thing is if you get purple and gold items make sure you know what the upgrades are. Sometimes an Upgrade is worth 7 to 10P when u extract it, but if you sell it in an item it might be worth less. Be ware of selling gold items to merchants. they will give u 380 for a near perfect gold staff of fortitude, but on the market its 5 to 10 times that. Just Wiki it. The game is a blast all in all.