state of the game

I haven't touched GW since before Factions came out. I didn't personally know anyone who was into the PvP aspect of the game, and since that was the design focus back then, the game didn't draw me in enough to hook me.

Recently, though, I reinstalled the game, and I've been tooling around in solo mode to see what it's like these days. That, plus browsing these forums and the two wikis, have answered lots of my simpler questions, but I still have some high-level general ones, like...

* Is there a reason to get to level 20 other than PvP?

* What can be done to develop characters further once they hit the level cap?

* What's out there PvE-wise that people do over and over because it's fun?

* What does the PUG scene look like?

* Are there certain skills/gear/builds/classes I need to make sure I always have or don't have to avoid getting kicked off teams? Are there things I have to bring over from Factions or Nightfall even if I'm playing Prophecies content? Are there things veterans universally expect, like "always have max armor by level 8" or "don't bother with teams before endgame content"?


Thank you muchly.

PUGs are fine in most cases, but there's a ton more "use this build" and "fix your build" or "add this skill" because of hard mode in PvE.

Most veteran players don't make new characters often anymore. Basically beat the story and mess around in hard mode, elite areas, dungeons, farming, zaishen quests, and such.

Many builds in the "great" section of PvX are good enough to not have you kicked.
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Category:G...general_builds
Here's "great" for PvE. Feel free to make variants of them or your own version.

* Is there a reason to get to level 20 other than PvP?

Yes! that's where the real game starts! There's loads to do, and there's two full games and an expansion after prophecies. There's a load of end game dungeons, challenge missions, a trophy room called the hall of monuments, and tonnes of titles to get, high level armours, weapons, miniatures etc.

There's daily quest challenges, hard mode, a cross-campaign treasure hunt, hero characters in Nightfall and eye of the north you can customize to bring along with you, who are better than people at certain things...

Oh and four new professions if you haven't played factions and nightfall.
loads of storyline also.

* What can be done to develop level characters further once they hit the level cap?

See above! And hundreds of new skills.

* What's out there PvE-wise that people do over and over because it's fun?

See my first answer. There's titles! and the hall of monuments, and dungeons, and hard mode!

* What does the PUG scene look like?

pugs in pve are generally confined to cookie cutter builds and daily quests, high level areas like Underworld and Fissure of Woe, Domain of Anguish etc...

But it's still alot of fun to just go in firing wildly with a random build when you're playing alone. It is a game after all!

Hope that helps!

Yes. It's called PvE.

What's a "level character?"

Past getting to level 20, you can unlock additional skills, and work on certain title tracks to further increase the effectiveness of skills specific to that title track.

Zaishen Quests.

Heck if I know.

It goes all the way from non-existent for sidequests to fairly strong for Zaishen Quests to extreme strength for any new content for the first few days. The quality of PuGs has stayed the same, but it may as well be however well you feel PuGs can work. This means that for me, PuGs are rotten.

Imbagon if you're a Paragon, other niche builds from other professions otherwise. That's only for players that are terribly close minded. Basically, make sure there's some real synergy to what your bar does, and you shouldn't have a problem with most people.

Not really sure what you're asking here, but if you want something from either campaign, you'll most likely want to get into Nightfall for access to heroes.

Max armor once it's available, don't use terribad bars/skills, and do your goddamn attribute point quests as soon as you get access to them. There's little more that pushes my buttons in GW than seeing players who ping builds that clearly show they have less than 200 attribute points. PvP has a whole other laundry list of expectations that I don't feel like getting into.

A typo. Fixed.

I don't have a meaningful point of reference for that. Seriously, I stopped playing a couple of months after the original launch. A common complaint I heard then was that PvE enemies were too tough because they healed too much, so the only way to finish missions was to brute-force through them with overleveled characters and get lousy kill XP in return.

Unless that's your general point: PUGs believe some wild and crazy things. In which case, yeah. But forewarned is forearmed.

I'm asking if there are any gear/skills/assets I can only get in one campaign but use in all of them, and that all other players will expect me to have. (I'm not just asking if there's stuff I can carry across campaigns, BTW. That's against forum rules.)

Most skills originate and can be learnt from one campaign only but all learnt skills can be used in all campaigns. There's a list here of all the skills that are available from all campaigns (called core skills), and you can choose from the side to see the skills that are available from each campaign in turn. Generally teams will expect builds containing skills from all campaigns. ( Edit: you don't need skills from all the campaigns to complete any campaign by the way. Just that PUGs like the cookie cutter super speedy and effective builds, which generally need skills from several campaigns)

Other than that, armor and equipment doesn't gain strength from campaign to campaign. Max level armor (which is profession dependant) is the same everywhere you buy it and however much it costs - you just pay for the skin or its appearance. Same with swords for example - a max damage sword from Prophecies does the exact same damage as a sword from Nightfall, they just look different.

Hope that helps!

A common complaint these days is that PvE enemies are way too weak to be challenging - even in hard mode! And these are the same enemies as ages ago.

This happens, because with all the skills from all campaigns+expansion you can create way more powerful builds than 5 years ago with only 1 campaign. Builds that were never ever thought of.

Because of that, you are somewhat expected to have more than the original campaign. With only Prophecies skills, you are in fact much weaker than a character that has a build that uses synergy between all 1400+ skills available from all campaigns.

If you want to know what to do after lvl 20 - well, at lvl 20 the real game begins. Collect skills. The challenge is making the best build for a given mission/area/quest. If you just got to lvl 20, you just left the tutorial part of the game. If you left as you became 20, you missed approx. 80% of the PvE content. This may not be completely true for Prophecies (you get lvl 20 at perhaps 40-50% of the content), but is true for the Factions and Nightfall campaigns. Eye Of the North is solely designed for lvl 20 characters.

Yeah, to play the game. In Factions and Nightfall, you should be at or close to level 20 before you even finish the tutorial zones.


Getting skills.

Not much. The stuff people do over and over again is for "phat lootz."

A cross between an Adam Sandler movie and a lynch mob.

Don't bother playing Mesmer, Ranger, and only run an Assassin if you plan on doing farms/runs with a static build. If you want to run a Paragon, you need to farm Kurzick/Luxon faction and make an imbagon.

They're fun classes to play, but if you're going to be trying to PUG, they'll work against you. Just trick out your heroes.


HTH.

It's not so much that there's a reason to get to level 20, it's more a matter of level 20 being a natural part of playing PvE. You'd actually have to work at it to avoid getting to level 20. Particularly if you start a character in Factions or Nightfall.

In Prophecies, not much really. But, in Factions you get Kurzick/Luxon faction points, in Nightfall you get Sunspear and Lightbringer points, and in Eye of the North, you get Asuran, Norn, Vanguard, and Deldrimor points. These points can (among other things) be used to power PvE-only skills which are very useful. A well appointed character with a skill bar using PvE-only skills is much more powerful than a character using only Prophecies skills.

That depends upon what you find to be "fun". There's lots to do if you have the complete set - all 3 campaigns and EotN. Some people do Dungeons over and over, some kill Raptor Nestlings over and over (and over), some do Z-quests with each of their 11 characters.

Because of the age of the game, and because Heroes make it easy to go "solo" (1 human, 3 Heroes, plus henchmen), there's hardly any PUG action for side quests, and not much for primary quests or missions either. The main PUG action these days is for Zaishen Missions/Bounties and elite areas.
PUGs are the same as always - sometimes it works really well, sometimes idiots ruin it for others.

That depends somewhat upon the team. Some teams get really into making sure everyone has the "correct" build - some teams realize that there is no "correct" build.
But, just to be sure, there are a few build types you should have. If you are a Ranger, you should have an interrupter build. Necro - Minion Master. Ritualist - Spirit Spammer and/or Resto healer. Monk HB/UA healer, RoJ smiter. Paragon - Imbagon. Elementalist - Fire Nuker, Snare. Etc.
Builds are easy to store and change, so this doesn't mean you need to play those builds - you just need to have them available and be familiar with them.

Nothing that you "have to" bring, but certainly things you'll want to bring. Most of the builds I mentioned above would involve skills from various campaigns/EotN to be most effective - particularly PvE-only skills.

Veterans would expect you to have max armor and weapons (unless it's a low level area), full 200 attribute points (except low levels), a decent build, and to know how to use them.
"Leets" would expect you to carry a spear, have a cookie-cutter PvX build, and wear an ugly costume. (Best to avoid them when possible)