Disapointed about Factions PvE

First of all, I'm a pvp-player, but I was looking forward of playing pve cause I wanted to do something else for a change.

At first, I was enthousiastic about it. Nice graphics, new skills etc etc. But later on, I started to get disapointed.

First, the game is waaaaaay too easy. I completed it in 4 days including all the sidequests and I did most of it with henchies (in fact, I only did Raisu Palace with a full pug-team).

Second, the storyline. Even a Chinese $10 budget movie has more originality.

Third, it's awfully small, if u play 1 side there are only 9 missions, and the last 1 doesnt even count as such, cause it's only beating Shiro. Compared to the 25 missions in prophecies, bleh.

Fourth, most of the sidequests are simply running around the map as if you're somekind of deliveryboy

Fifth, there isn't a single place to solofarm. And lets face it, that's what the majority of the pve-players do (I have nothing against that, just to let you know)

Sixth, no high-end area's like Fow/UW/Tombs unless you're in an elite guild. WTF are you supposed to do next when you've finished the game? The challangemissions aren't that rewarding to play, certainly not if you know the build to use and done that over 10 times.

Seventh, very few different looking area's and the amount of really huge monsters is also limited.

Eighth, the ammount of bugs. Sure, you'll have small bugs in every game, no problem. But factions has huge bugs. Some of them lead in the failure of a mission (square), but there are other bugs which makes some quests and missions even easier to complete (I won't mention them here cause of spoiling). This gives me the impression that the game hasn't been tested enough. Appearently they felt themselves under pressure of releasing it on the 28th of april.


All of this doesn't really bother me personally since I'm a pvp-player, and with all the new skills which will evolve in new builds to try, I'll have a lot of fun. However, I'm very concerned for the players who bought factions solely for playing pve. The pve part of factions looks more like an expansion than as a standalone game to me.

Disclaimer: this is my opinion on the pve part of factions. Please share your opinions, both positive and negative, with us. Maybe someone of Anet is reading this as well. It'll help to improve the development of GW.

There is, you just can't get into if you aren't 1337 enough, apparently.

My bad, corrected.

Wait what is the area you have to be "uber leet" to get to? I have yetto see a place like FOW/UW

The "elite missions" that you can only play if you are in the controlling alliance.

Check out this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3024710

yeah,.. this thread is completely true, luckily im getting back into gvg!

I agree. I was very excited about the PvE aspect of the game, but two days of playing my Rt/Mo I got bored, and went back to good 'ol FoW farming. :3

I think that factions should have simply been an extension, and not "A whole new game"

Though it was amsuing that almost all the quests were 2K exp. XD

I definitly loved the Leauge mission i think...the one where you have a 16men party. That made me kept on playing.

There's not enough innovation in the PvE game. Sure, there's a handful of missions with interesting new mechanisms, but the vast majority of the content is same old, same old: explore maze-like areas... fight mobs blocking your intended path... oh no! pop-ups! phew, killed them, let's move a bit slower. The city slum areas are just another Maguma Jungle, only less visually appealing. Replace vegetation with wooden constructs, animals with gangs and there's no difference. The quests aren't anything to get excited about either.

I find myself not particularly motivated to even try and finish the game.

Gli: Agreed.

Though for a ranger lover, the having a tiger is pretty spiffeh in RA.

The locked gates have ruined my opinion of the GW franchise. Not only is the world smaller, but you can't even go wherever you want until, assumedly, endgame when everything opens up. Joy. Small world keeps you constricted to an even SMALLER space.

The whole point of MMO's in my opinion is explorability. It's one of the main things that I loved about Prophecies. As much as I thought running needed to be made "unwanted", I thought it was being made unwanted enough with the mass amounts of new collectors, armors, and high-level mobs/drops all over the place from the get-go. The bottom line for me is, if GW is just going to devolve into a linear RPG experience where I'm forced to be led by the hand everywhere, I might as well spend my money on Final Fantasy or something of that sort instead of this.

Plus, I hate that there are no new FoW/UW areas other than the two (and only TWO?!) elite missions. Also mad about no increased storage, bad henchies, poor mob allocation, no minigames or really any sort of RPG depth added. People in this world do nothing for fun but swing weapons and get possessed, it seems.

Although I do not agree on many points...

there is one I agree on ....some times you'd rather just skip a mission...give us the option..I'm sorry but losing the Viz square mission over and over again b/c the other team isn;t able to heal their NPC is just.....well annoying....don't make a coOp mission required...half the time I pray that the other side is hentchies.

To add insult to inury if you have hentchies on your team they try to follow the other team's movements and LEAVE you A SiTTING DUCK.

It would have been simpler to make it so each person had to zone for themselves (ie. unless you charcter crossed the zone you didn't get moved to teh new area) This was the way it is Done in other games.

That would have easily stopped most of the runners as well. Yet left the exploration open.

As far as:
"explore maze-like areas... fight mobs blocking your intended path... oh no! pop-ups! phew, killed them, let's move a bit slower."

That is pretty much how all MMO's work....not sure you can do much about that.

I wish I could complain about the game being "too short", but I can't...I am still stuck in the city.

Exactly how I feel, and that is why I cancelled my order. And they tell us they are cranking out another chapter every 6 months, so I assume this is the amount of content they are going to give us everytime. There are many of us that feel the same way. I don't PvP, so there is part of the game I will never fully explore, and if the PvE is crap, delivery boy missions, then forget it. The bad part is that all ANET has to do is to "mislead", and "hype" up the game, so that people will take the plunge and buy the game. Once you bought the game, that's it, they wash their hands of you (well not fully, they still need to keep some fans for the next chapter). It was good of them to offer the preview event though, so it's not completely a gimmick. That allowed for people to experience the game to see if they would invest in the full game. Unfortunately, it was not enough in my mind to pay $50 for this game.

I feel that if it was pay to play, at $15 a month (a generous $15), I would have done all in GW:Factions that I would need to in approx. 2 months (especially since it's the summer time and there is a lot of free time). That is only $30. Let's wait and see what they have in store for Chapter 3, and if they want to pass that off as a full game as well.

We paid £30 for an add-on that was sold as a new game , anet have miscalculated their core audience (exp guild wars players) and have tried to cover all bases and failing miserably in the process.

The level designs and general quests are all very samey , I completed the whole game in 5 days and that leaves me with the very poor pvp alliance battle , which are either empty or full of leavers who go the minute they start losing. No high end areas like a fow or uw either. Heck even Sorrows was more fun than 90 percent of the missions in Cantha.

If I could get my money back I would and I never thought I would be saying that about the "new" guild wars game.

4/10 and a big knife in the back of seasoned players from anet.

Even though I agree with all of your points, I don't regret buying Factions.

I regret buying facions as standalond which I though it would be. Its an expansion for the price of a standalone...

But I got the feeling that GW:F isnt ready by far, maybe they just released the game even though it isnt finished?

Anyway, I really hope they will improve the areas and add new content to explore.

That is the key thing they can do right there. Add new content that would warrant the purchase. Many have said that the game feels rushed, and in many ways it is. It is such a stark contrast from Prophecies. I'd really just prefer a Prophecies game in the Cantha environment, but they had to have Alliances and Factions which is a terrible or terribly done concept (my opinion_).

Everything in this game is about rushing, and if there weren't areas that were blocked to prevent running/runners, this game would be renamed Guild Wars: Time Trial. Leveling is much faster. The entire map is much smaller than what we are used to (GW:P). Missions are time-based; bonuses are determined by how fast you finish. Challenge missions. AND THEN!, it seems they added mobs around every claustrophobic corner, just to slow you down, extending game time perhaps? Or just frustration. I will leave this one alone because many people may enjoy this. Back on topic, I just don't enjoy Factions from a PvE perspective. "Hey look! I paid ANET $50 to do delivery boy missions in a pretty exotic environment!"
Perhaps the game is so completely different in design, that even if they added content, it still would not be the same. I am hoping they will do something else in CH3. If this is the current trend, well then, so long.

I'll be happy with factions PvE as soon as the henchmen AI doesn't suck.

The new fleeing mob AI often pulls the henchmen away from the battle into an adjacent group (or three) resulting in a *huge* pull. It's frustrating, if you're going to boost mob AI at least have the courtesy to make the hench not fall for stupid tricks.

I totally agree with you CK0! It feels like the game is rushed in all ways.

Ive had the same problem, ive found no lvl 20 content yet, it can all be done by henchmen. Most then complain but the missions are so hard, well if they were no-one would be able to finish so quickly, and they're but a tiny part of the game, the majority of the content is way to easy. I warned people this would happy, AN simply dont know what the hell they're doing when it comes to challenges.

Hmmmm...

Speaking as a pve player I have the following observations:

- We get an online game with no monthly charges that is pushing out new chapters every 6 months.

- If chapter 2 is anything to go by Anet have really tried to give us a great new environment with two wonderful new character classes to play.

- If your not an 'uber-leet' player obssessed with completing the game as quickly as possible then you actually get quite a lot of new gameplay out of this as a pve player. I, for one am happily moving along at a steady pace enjoying the new environments, monsters & missions.

- I am happy with the level of challenge this new chapter offers, it seems quite acceptable.

- The elite mission being available only to top guild alliances is the only problem I have with this game. I feel Anet have made a mistake with this part of the game dynamic.

- All in all I would like to thank Anet for revitalising my interest in GW. As a majority pve player I had almost lost interest in this game, but Cantha will keep me playing until the next chapter release.

I feel that this thread is a little ungrateful, the price tag for chapter two is completely acceptable when you take into account that there are no monthly charges. Anet have managed to give us a good, solid new environment to play in a very short time, (comparitively), since initial release.

/Agreed!

Well maybe im spoiled by GW:P then?

As it is now, GW:F is just a lot smaller and all the same everytime then GW:P

It's really nice to see I'm not the only one who's been feeling this way. Stand-alone game my bum. Factions was made as an expansion for Prophesies players to unlock more skills for PvP and ANet can deny it til they are blue in the face if they want, but that's the truth. People who've bought solely Factions don't stand a chance, especially if they are playing PvE. To go from the "newbie" area straight to level 20 mob zones, timed missions and side-quests that have you running around like a blue-arsed fly, is a bit much to take if you haven't played Prophesies, whereas high level players from Tyria can do these areas with their eyes closed.
Plus the fact you have to buy all the skills instead of them being a reward for all your troubles. Can you say BS, ANet? It's not very balanced, is it?

And don't get me started on armours. ANet dangled and nice big fat juicy carrot right there during the FPE. Ascalon collector's armour skins?? I don't want that horrid Ringmail Armour for my Warrior, when the FPE waved that glorious Sentinel armour under our noses. Did the guys over at ANet just get lazy? Couldn't be bothered thinking up new armour skins?

Henchie AI has gone to pot. I'd rather have Alesia tanking than those idiotic healer henchies who run away from you instead of heal you.
I'm not even going to comment on the areas because I can't even bring myself to play enough to get out of the city.

I was so rooting for ANet before the Factions release. After the FPE I thought they'd done a great job and couldn't wait for Factions but now I'm so disappointed. ANet have really dropped the ball this time. It saddens me to say it, but I don't think I'll be buying Chapter 3.

Time to go back to FoW.

/disappointed

But still getting Factions to play with friends in guild....NWN2 RELEASE damn it release it already i cant wait X_X.

It's funny that you mention NWN2. Those guys are developing the game for like 2 years now. IMO that's about the time you need to create a descent and huge RPG. Creating a new chapter every 6 months, it's simply too quick. They had 1 year to develop chapter 2, that gives me little hope for chapter 3.

I remember some Anet official stating they started creating Factions a year ago (that is, right after the realease date of Prophecies). Moreover, development of Chapter 3 started Fall 2005, ensuring it could be released after 1 year development (6 months from now). I don't know if work already has started on Chapter 4, but i suppose it has.

So basically, for each Chapter they got 1 year development time. Because of multiple development teams working at the same time, they are able to release a Guild Wars edition every 6 months, but this doesn't mean those Chapter's only got a development time of 6 months

You just gave me hope again

That's true--the three Tyrian characters I brought over for the Tengu event had no problems in the city. The new Canthan characters struggled a bit when they first arrived on the mainland, even though it was the same player (me) controlling them--because they arrived in the same area with no elite skills and without enough time to practice using some of the new ones. But I'm getting better now.

I've complained quite a bit about Factions and also said what I like. Overall, I'm enjoying it and I'm glad I bought it. As a player who only PvE's though, there are a couple of things that really bother me: the timed bonuses, and the elite missions. The timed bonuses are incomprehensible to me--there are so many other factors they could have tracked for the different completion levels without making everyone rush. It's PvE--what's the rush? As for the elite missions, I guess I just won't be playing those, so I paid for content I'll never get to use. Most of all--fix the henchies.

Bottom line is that I'm enjoying the game regardless, but I'd like to see them come out with PvE more similar to Prophecies for chapter 3.

After an initially positive feeling towards the game I've began to feel somewhat enthusiastic. Overall I have three gripes:

1. It's spelled F-A-C-T-I-O-N-S, but it's pronounced FedEX. Many many many of the quests invovled running from points A --> B --> C --> A --> B. I should have known that's what was in store for me after doing the Black Moa quest in the FPE. FedEX style quests are fine for a place like pre-searing where you're trying to get people to get skills, items, armor and map knowledge. In Factions it's just annoying grinding.

2. Alliance controlled towns. This has got to be one of the worst ideas ANet has ever had. What you basically have is a small group of PvP elite guilds that will now controll outposts and elite PvE content. Prices for outposts are now around 500k-600k and the House Zu Heltzer is around 1.3 million faction. Thats not easily attainable by smaller PvE guilds or even by an alliance of small PvE guilds. At least with FoW a good small PvP guild could gain access to that PvE content. Now the access takes massive effort. This is not a casual gamer friendly feature. In fact it's downright hostile to the casual gamer.

3. The Factions world is dead. Yes, maybe this is because it's new and people aren't as far as I am. I haven't played crazy amounts of time and have found myself in the Kurzick area. I'm not done with the game by far, but I find that most outposts devoid of human activity save the House Zu Heltzer that has a population of about 30 people. (Most of them teens talking about their lives/relationships.)

I won't complain about gates/locked portals and such because I've never been a person to use runners. I've found the game to be visually interesting and I like the new skills which I'll employ in TA/RA and maybe HA (if I can get a group). However, the visuals and skills aren't enough to sell me or smooth over a lot of the roughness/weaknesses this game has.

ANet I hope you're listening. Factions is what I consider to be a "swing and a miss."

EDIT:

Thought I'd say that I do like three things very much:

1. Challenge missions. These are a kick and I do enjoy trying to get a high score. I think you should have added many more of these.
2. I like the fact that normal missions have levels of mastery. This is cool since I always found the bonuses in Prophecies to be a pain. I like knowing if I completely destroy a mission I will get more skill points and XP.
3. XP bonus for capturing elites. A very nice perk.

As a PvE player, I never had any intention of buying Factions. Guild Wars itself was OK for a bit of fun every now and then, but it certainly didn't impress me enough to regularly spend money on it. I had no illusions that it would get any better in future chapters. I've been more than willing to get my PvE entertainment from other games, games with monthly fees no less, and this only confirms that I was right to keep my debit card in my wallet in this instance.

I have deducted the reason, from my standpoint, why I finished the game so quickly, and why it has the "rush" mentality. Yes, timed missions with time-based bonuses...umm whose idea was that. Terrible, just terrible. Most PvE'rs relished the fact that we learned what the bonuses were the first time...explored the map in order to find them. Exploration was shot out the window when the bonuses became a trial of how fast you can finish the mission.

On top of that the knowledge that you will not be able to enter the next town via exploration, but only through completing primary quests and missions also eliminates the need for exploration. In Prophecies, the first time around, I was thrilled when I was working on a quest and saw the little swirly on my map indicating a new portal. It was a discovery I made, and a little added bonus. Now, if I see one it's an annoyance, knowing when I get to it, it's too bad..can't go in until you finish X quest.

Explorability is the equivalent of replayability. And regardless of what people may think, as far as Anet already having your money, and being happy to have your money and you never play again, believe me they want us playing to some degree. If a game has no replayability value, consumers lose interest, as well as faith in the company, and that company then has lost their core market audience.

Yes, it's a bit worrisome, isn't it? I was in an outpost last night for one of the missions (the seaboard one), and it was hell getting a group, not because of my profession, but because there were only about twenty players in town, and most of those were afk. This was during prime-time EST and in the only district. Not good for a game that was only just released last week.

I like this too. Couldn't care less about the challenge missions, but I think it's great that they're there for those who do. At least Anet made them optional--good move.

Yeah, why not base bonuses on how much of the mission map you explore, or how many enemies you dispatch, or how many deaths occured in your team, or something like that. Things that reward exploration, planning, and strategy. As I said in another thread, having timed bonuses for PvE says to me that whoever came up with the idea doesn't understand the PvE player base in the least.

exactly how i did it...(tried to find an assassin for killing shiro, but there was no1 there lol)

the storyline was very short, and not that hard, i expected something more challenging...

i wish there would have been some missions where u have to fight luxons or summit, coz the war between the two "factions" was kinda short in game(about 5 minutes in a mission, thats all...)

I'm not going to play Factions until my exams are over (so I start the game on Tuesday), and reading this thread makes me sad. I'm more of a PvE player than PvP, and it sounds like I'm going to be disappointed. I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed that the next chapter will be more like GWP.

I always wondered how they could get away with saying it was a stand-alone game after they released the fact that it had ~1/2 the missions of Prophecies.

Edit (Addition): As someone who didn't play the original until November of last year, I have no knowledge of how "bad" the game was at release. Could someone please send me a message about this, or refer me to threads if there are any? There could still be hope that Factions will get much better.

I dont understand people complaining about factions being hard, whether playing with henchies or PuG, I had a *much* higher rate of success during missions compared to Prophecies when I played that the first time.

And I always suspected that the content would not reach the huge amounts of prophecies, that is ok with me. However 2 points are really annoying:

1) Time based bonuses. This furthers rushing (when the content is not really long as it is) and stops you from actually looking at all the nice areas they created

2) The map is still only half used. Now that they made the Cantha only half as big as Tyria, they could at least have done away will all the annoying unreachable parts. Just stick a few mobs and collectors in there and nothing else, but let us go there.

- Xeeron

I prefer exploring over doing quests and mission. I've only played factions for about 4 hours on the starter island, but I'm already getting pretty tired of having to do quests to advance further in the game.

I WANA FARM!

I WANA RUN!

I WANA BE FREE TO EXPLORE!

I miss prophecies I think I'll be going back to running and farming pretty soon if it's the same type of game play once I get off the starter island.

Since when do Asians have guilds anyways. Guild Wars was based around magic and melee set in medieval times. Moving to an Asian theme was kinda a bad move imo. I would have prefered them to just say "okay, here's an expansion for prophecies" and expand the prophecies map with a new continent and keep the same theme for Guild Wars. Even though we can connect thru Lions Arch I feel that the games are divided, and that the player base is divided.


My example:

Your a happy young family that moves into a one story house. Your happy in you new home and your pretty comfortable, but you decide to expand and add a second story to your new home. You call a builder (Anet) and pay them to add a second story to your home, but they accidently add the second story to the asian families house across the street! Unfortunately the builder as skipped town and you've already paid them in full with no hopes of getting a refund Of course you can always walk across the street to visit the asian family to enjoy your new two story addition, but WAIT! It's not your home!

Tyria is our home, and has been for a year now. Factions just doesn't feel like home yet.


My solution to this mess:

1) Anet should fess up, and just make this an expansion.
2) Take the new factions map and merge it with prophecies to make one large map.
3) Reduce the amount of exp or raise the lvl cap. You might as well just start everyone out at lvl 20. Hell, why even have levels, your just trying to rush us to lvl faster. Once your lvl 20, then what?
4) Fix all of the cut scenes in both chapters. The voice overs suck, the mouths don't move. Hell, let me purchase a cinematics disks separately and charge me $15 bucks or something, ill gladly pay for the upgrade!
5) Listen to your community of core players. 9 out of 10 posters on gwg are hardcore loyal gw players. Without us, you have nothing.

It was once said that Zeus and the other gods cease to exist if the people don't believe in them anymore.

Let's first look at the main problem people are having with comprehending Factions and if it is a standalone or not.

I come from Tyria, I am a mesmer. I steam roll the missions and enjoy the scenery and beat the game in about one day. For me it is an expansion, with alot of nice things in it. Now I finish the game, I have yet to explore and I simply steamrolled through the game for my guild so that I could form an Alliance. I am left with 70% of the game to explore, admire, and grow fond of.

Now I make my second Lyssa based character, the assassin. I spend time playing around in on Shing Island, do the missions, and explore the island. I discover I just spent two days having fun creating a character. I move to mainland and pow, does it get hard. This is where the game is standalone. I have no elites, no ASB, and no super armour and runes. I start by exploring the mainland. My assassin is still just roaming and enjoying. To me this is a standalone for those who start from Shing.

This is the problem many seem to experience in their cognitive ability to understand words. The game is standalone, no if and or butts about it. Just because you have the urge to blow through the game is your own problem. Also its been, what, four days? Honestly please complain after at least a week, at least then you will have explored most of the world. Either way, the PvE is great, though the gates may be pesky.

Though I suppose everything can be bad if you see the glass as half empty as most people seem to. To each his own.

Your point about the standalone game would be valid if it weren't for the fact that ANet has based it's business plan on selling new chapters to existing customers as well as garnering new ones. What did you think most people with Prophecies would do? For that matter, what did ANet think they'd do? Not play their faithful level 20's through Factions? Surely the vast majority of people did a 50/50 split. One new character, an assassin or ritualist, and then brought over their favorite level 20. Even more to the point is the number of new slots we got which was two. So I would think that ANet would expect us to use our level 20's over here and should have anticipated that a little better. This game is only stand alone if you don't have Prophecies.

I agree that it's much harder when you start out on the island and level a character to 17 or whatnot. Then on the mainland you're immediately outgunned. However, that in itself doesn't make this a stand alone game. By your reckoning it would only be stand alone if we forget about all the Prophecies characters. That's not possible is it? Unless you're talking about deleting all of them. Besides, I want my two other mini-pets. Mini-pets, by the way, are a reward for keeping older characters around. It would seem ANet wants us to use our older characters.