Do you have to study the game mechanics to get a usable character?

Is Guild Wars one of those games where you have to study the game mechanics in-depth to get any real benefit out of it? Where if you make one wrong move in your build, add a few distribution points in the wrong place, chose a bad second role, etc, you've effectively mucked the whole thing up for yourself and made your character useless? (I'm really bad at these types of games)

Or is it a game where you can explore freely and build your character how you like without having to do too much study in the wiki? Obviously you wouldn't get the best character but can your character still be useful even if you've made a few mistakes along the way building it up?

Builds are changeable in outposts / towns. Attribute points also.

You'll come across things as you level up / explore new things. As a newbie, I recommend just playing what you think is fun. When you come across stuff you're not able to beat, that's when you start looking up guides and things that suggest how best to play your character. Listen to these guides then, in the mean time, have fun, experiment.

There's very little, if anything, you can do to gimp your character which you can't fix at some point.

Make the mistakes, have fun, guides and stuff are there for when you get stuck / want to be effective in your class or whatever it is you're doing.

Thank you for the advice. I feel a lot better knowing that certain things are reversible. Experimentation is how I like to play.

Definitely not. I think it goes without saying that having precise knowledge of how everything fits together is of benefit, but you won't need to read up on a lot before you start playing. GW is an incredibly forgiving game. The only permanent choice is your characters primary profession; everything else is easily switched around when you're in a town or outpost*. Remember that levels 1-19 are basically training levels so everything in that period (and afterwards too; there's always more things to know) is a time for messing around with builds, attribute distribution and so on. Flexibility is a key point of GW design. Perhaps that might not work as well if you're the kind of person who rushes through the main quest in 2 hours and declares it finished, but I think it's a very rewarding way of understanding the game as a whole. To be more specific, you don't need to read anything before you play. You may be tempted to look at some guides as a starting point, which is fine, but don't get caught up in trying to learn the game by reading. You might end up doing your head in with all the terminology.

*You'll need to get past a certain point in the game before you can switch your secondary profession, but it's not too big of a deal.

Here are the wiki's you should be aware of:

Unofficial: http://www.guildwiki.org/Main_Page
Official: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
PvX (for builds): http://www.gwpvx.com/PvX_wiki

-Always avoid wikis with 'wikia' in the url.
-Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the PvX is the god collection of builds. Not everything on PvX is optimal, and not everything optimal is on wiki. Don't rush forward trying to get everything on those pages and end up confusing yourself. As above, do yourself a favor and take your time to mess around. Learning things yourself and understanding them is far superior to someone telling you 'you have to do x and y to achieve z' without you actually having any idea why.

there is no wrong way to play---if you are enjoying it.
some of the builds I use on my characters would (and do) make others cringe!

its a GAME play it as you wish.

It's a more complex game than say... LOTRO and WoW, but more rewarding, because you need to think about what skills are best in a certain area. When you make a build that works by yourself, you're on the right track

It's almost impossible to go wrong in Guild Wars. The only thing you could go wrong is on your primary profession choice - like if you choose one you don't like to play much. Even then you could just make a new character and get it up to max level in a few hours or so.
Other than that you can go back on any other character choice, so feel free to experiment as much as you like.

LOLWHATTHERED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOAMIREADING?
"Study" to play a video game?

I understand what Beechlgz is saying, but I know there are people crunching numbers out there and you make me cringe.

Once a game becomes work it stops being a game.

No, it's a really easy game to pick up. Of course, the more you know about the mechanics, the easier the game will become. For example, knowing how AI will react in any given situation, or how aggro works can greatly benefit you in certain situations where you can abuse those features and flaws; but you don't need to know these things to simply enjoy the casual game. Those things usually only come in handy in high-end stuff.

You don't have to study mechanics in depth to enjoy the game. You can always delve deeper into the particulars later on.

There are a few basic concepts that will help in understanding gameplay without getting too involved:

-You can wield a weapon for which you dont meet the requirement, you will just do less damage

-Enchantments are enhancements to you, some you apply yourself, others get applied by your allies. There is no limit on the number of enchantments you can have

-Any ally can cast a weapon spell on you, but the limit is one at a time and the newer replaces the older

-Only you can enter a stance, one stance at time, the newer replaces the older

-Only you can apply a preparation, one at a time, the newer replaces the older

Seems like you've never played Magic: the Gathering, or at least not on a competitive level.
You do have to study the cards, the mechanics, the possible exploits of the system and card combos, you do have to know a lot of the game by heart in order to see the links between the cards, to create a proper deck, to see the opportunities during any match, to outsmart your opponent if neither deck proves superior to the other.
Up to some level, it's the same with Guild Wars. It's much better to know your class in and out, to memorize all the skills (or just get familiar with them after weeks of already playing), so that you can come up with new builds much easier. It's much better to know your opponents and react to them, adapt to the mission/location you are getting into - and it's how it was supposed to be played. It's much better to know the game's mechanics and be aware of the biggest bugs (like the armour stacking, or the usefulness of armour in general PvE), rather than just 'crunching numbers' and choosing whatever yields the biggest numbers (and even then, a newcomer won't know what actually IS a 'big number' in the first place, when related to this particular game, and whether it's better to get big numbers in, for example, health or armour).

So yes, it's better to get familiar with the game.
But the difference between GW and MtG is that you can play successfully - although not at 140% of your possibilities - without wasting hours to read the wiki, getting to know the mechanics and skills, or theoretizing for 'the perfect build'. The system itself is pretty forgiving (especially in PvE) and open to experimentation, encouraging newcomers to play around and, in the effect, learn how the game works. More so, the flexibility is very important here - being able to change your secondary, your skills and your attributes is really, really important in terms of saving time on pre-reading before playing.

The only thing you have to consider closely before you run the game is your primary class.

After that, just start playing, experimenting, fiddling around. At some point, you might feel like you wish to learn more, to find out how loot scaling works (especially if you want to start making money via farming, but that might come much much later), what are the most important/useful statistics and what to pay attention to, or how the market is organised (and, for instance, getting into trading - and being a bit secure about it - requires a lot of research before you start - but then again, it's not really the part of the 'game proper'). You can always catch up on those topics, anytime you feel like/need it, using the wikis or asking other players, in game or here.

You can beat the game with just about anything due to the current state of power creep. Really the main thing you want to "study" is just understanding how to develop a nice team of heroes to complement your own style of play (being here at guru and reading a few threads will massively improve your gameplay experience).

Otherwise for most normal quests there isn't a whole lot of strategy involved. If you go to the wiki page it will cover the basic walkthrough for each quest and what to expect but otherwise you can muddle through just about anything will very little preparation.

The great thing about Guild Wars, as others have said, is that you can always recover from mistakes. There's no having to re-spec your character by paying ridiculous amounts of gold to make yourself effective, because you can always change your build up in any outpost. I first started playing Guild Wars when I was ten back in the winter of 2005, and was absolutely horrid for the next four or five years. But I've just recently come back and already improved just because I realized how to correctly play the game to suit my style and tastes, and it's become almost an addiction.

All in all, you get what you put into Guild Wars. If you study the hard logistics, economy, etc. then you will feel rewarded for your efforts, but if you just play the game to have fun you will still have fun.

When you roll a character, the only things you can't change later are:
- Your Primary Profession.
- Your Name.
- Your Looks.
- Your Gender.
And even the last three are changable, if you toss Anet some money.

So experiment to your heart's content.
You'll pick up the game mechanics as you learn what worked and what didn't.

I've been playing about 2Months, so I’m not to far ahead fo you. I just got One toon to Lv 20; will likely get the other there this weekend. While you can level up in a few hours (If you have the in game experience) I don’t believe its really possible, or useful, for a beginner to do so; and while you'll see my name on this board a good bit; I mostly post away from home; when I'm home I mostly play.

GW is a great game to Learn by Doing. Once your comfortable with the interface though, I would recommend pushing a Prophecies Toon through the missions till you arrive at Yaks Bend, the Drops, Exp and Gold go up radically there and its just a more enjoyable setting.

I'm not familiar with Night fall so I wont speak to it, but players really seem to enjoy that setting/ story.

Factions by all accounts has the steepest Learning curve, Its also pretty damn ugly so much of it set in miles and miles of sprawling slums. Ikk. Any now if you find this sort of game a challenge you might stay clear of Cantha's shores for a while.

Factions become much more enjoyable once you get into the Luxon/Kurzick conflict, both PvE-wise (the forest and the sea are simply pretty, and the storyline is pretty decent there) and PvP-wise (Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood are probably the most popular and the most newbie-friendly formats right now). Nightfall is really great in terms of gameplay and story, and quite decent in terms of views - that is, if one isn't bothered with all that sand and, later, the Torment. EotN is obviously the best looking, both in terms of design and the engine used.


@down:
You can actually finish the whole Factions campaign in not a full day if you know what you're doing. EotN is even shorter if you want to rush it

It depends on tastes, I think. I have a toon who's still languishing in the Shiverpeaks because I just don't like Prophecies. Mostly. It does get better after Lion's Arch, but not my favourite of the campaigns. Still, she got to 15 in maybe a week.

Nightfall's a lot faster, and IMO, the story and graphics are better, as well. As is the in-game money.

Factions is really fast - the toon it takes you four days to level in Nightfall will take only one or two days there. But I hate timed missions - definitely not a boon to those of us who have no sense of in-game directions.

So I guess it comes down to the dreaded 'it depends'.

Kamara's advice is totally spot on. If it's the first time you've played, just enjoy experiencing it - there's no way to really "fail" at the game by playing it.

Guild Wars is the best of both worlds. To make a really optimized character, you do have to study the mechanics (or use pvxwiki), but pretty much everything about your character is changeable in an outpost once you unlocked them (skills, secondary profession etc.).

It's actually impossible to totally mess up a character in the long run... my original necromancer was a warrior secondary since I was using touch skills (in case you don't know...N/W is a horrendous idea, truly awful).....yeah, it was a slog to get through Prophecies to where I could change secondary profession, but fortunately nec's had a lot of primary only options.

This is one of the primary things that attracted me to GW, since I frigging hate games that lock you down one path then require you to replay their entire stupid story to play the alternative builds.

Most of you guys take it too broadly, he thought the attributes and secondary were fixed, which they are not.

Anyways, one of the core mechanics is the ability to run any build setup you want at any time, opposite of most RPGs.

My first MMO type game was ASHERON's Call. I LOVED that game like no other, perhaps because it was my first love of a 3D persistent world. However.. I understand what the OP is saying, if you made a mistake in spec points on a character... you were indeed GIMPED.... with no recourse for a fix.

By now the OP has received helpful and hopeful advice from good sharing above. Let me just echo, since I know what you are referring about and scared about, you really can not gimp a character in GW. A little reading to learn how others play the classes you wish to play will be helpful, but any perceived mistake you think you have.. can literally be corrected in seconds. :-)

Don't be afraid to play with your attribute points, or hero setups, or if you've not got heroes, then which henchmen you bring. I've seen a lot of the meta builds, but playing the game is different - one set-up does not cover every encounter. Sometimes minions are really helpful, sometimes they wreck things. Sometimes you want to give up a bit of damage because you need more healing, and sometimes a different form of damage and a different strategy is more effective against a different enemy.

I really like that about the game, and that you can rearrange things for each encounter if you need to do.