Fixing some of the things I hated about Factions PVE

Funny thing- I played Prophecies almost a year and never did much PvP or GvG. Just farming and helping out with quests and missions was enough for me. I bought Factions and the PvE was (in my opinion) so different, so wrong, that I haven't touched it in 1 1/2 months. For one thing, the ghetto area was abysmal. Post-searing Ascalon wasn't even as dreary and monotonous. But that's been addressed before.

What really turned me off was the inability to explore. Serendipity was removed from Factions. Yes, to stop running, but it could have been done better. In Prophecies, I would wander around the world and find new towns and even mission outposts completely by accident. Sure I did some things out of order, and maybe even skipped some stuff altogether, but here was this big world for me to explore, to get lost and then find myself again. Just taking it all in, killing stuff, then suddenly, "Wow! A new town, out here in the middle of nowhere!" I've been playing RPG's since 8-bit consoles, and getting lost and finding new stuff has always been part of the fun for me.

Well, you get that in Factions too, except that you're locked out if you haven't done a certain mission or quest. Yup, explore all you want, but if you don't follow linear story progression, you'll have to start at the last town and come back later. And that is what killed PVE for me, the last nail in the coffin. Requirements just to get into a town.

How can this be remedied? I've been thinking about it. Open the doors, but deny the content. If you wanna explore, go right ahead, get to new towns and outposts. But you won't be able to do the missions and get new quests out of order. You can always map back later (as compared to traveling the whole distance again) when you've fulfilled the requirements up to that point, but you'll never hit a bunch of dead ends and have to backtrack. Skill trainers, merchants, quest givers, etc. will turn you away. If you enter a party that's about to do a mission, your health bar will be a different color than the other people, and they'll know you haven't completed the story up to that point yet, and it won't let the group enter the mission. If you join a group that's doing a quest you haven't earned yet, sure you can help, but it won't be considered completed for you when you actually receive the quest later on.

If people want to get run, fine. It won't help them gain much of an advantage because the content will still be off limits (boss caps inside missions, quest rewards, etc.). But for peopel who just want to run around and explore when they don't feel up to doing quests and missions, the world will still be a wide open adventure.

I think a lot of Prophecies PvE players feel the same way, but it's still pretty good. How far did you get before you stopped playing? I did the Kurzick missions/quests; now I'm working on the Luxon side....
All the flame threads aside, I hope that ANet just looks at Factions objectively, say to themselves, "well, it did come out a little flat, when compared to Prophecies", and loks to blow everyone away with Ch. 3...
And for all the flame threads, I STILL play Factions, and enjoy it...

Or instead of all the stuff listed in the original post, they could simply leave runners alone.

Locked gates suck.

Nerfing running equally sucks.

Running is perfectly legit. Allow it for all future Chapters. Leave locked gates on the cutting room floor.

i started off with Factions 2 months ago, but after a few weeks i thought i was obligated to buy Prophecies too. just because its part of the overall game. i was really amazed how fun it was just to run around and find some strange city that came up in the middle of nowhere. then i did realise this has been sort of "nerfed" in the Factions campaign. the worst problem most games have is that the devs dont think about closing a door to a certain place that this kills alot in a game. for me its not a problem because of my frequent brain farts >_> that i dont realise this untill somewhere near the end. but for a whole lot more it does matter. seeing the new chapt. being like the Prophecies would be a very big improvement. and no, keeping content away in the game just for the sake of the storyline doesnt make the game better(at least not for me)

The problem is whether or not we should start as 20th level ascended characters, when in fact we have no experience playing the skills or using any build whatsoever. I have seen scam artists conning runners in the Crystal Dessert into getting them thru Ascension with 4th and 7th level characters. (And you BET I reported them. I made life as uncomfortable as I could while they advertised also.) How were 4th and 7th level characters getting to the Crystal Dessert to Ascend without runners? How were 1st and 2nd level characters showing up in Ft. Ranik with 15k Armor if not through runners?

It's a viable service according to the game dev.s, but then the players are said to never develop the skills to go with the armor. If a player has been running around spamming flare and using AL60 against Charr successfully, then they hit Mergoyles and start dying every 12 seconds, because they do not understand the game and have relied on their advanced armor and spamming flare - then what? Worse, they make it somewhere a Nuke is needed and they know nothing about nuking, because they are a "Touch Elementalist." Fine against Grawl when you have 60+=>24 AL , baaad against Fishies in Jungle.

There is a reason for gate blocking and there is a reason for people to develop familiarity with their skills a little at a time. The question I would ask is what is the best form of skills acquisition? Is it: 1. Max out the player and let them play in a controlled environment first using various builds, then start and paly maxed (PvP -> PvE), 2. Max out the player quickly and let them choose which skills to develop familiarity with as they get swamped with inseparable mobs that keep them at 60 dp nere constantly (Cantha Style), or 3. Provide slow progression tossing in various skills with no rhyme or reason, they are unrelated to what you are fighting, do not contribute to any build mechanic, and receive little to no use as you progress, while allowing you to practice at a couple of arenas if your level isn't too high (Prophecies Style).

It is not hard to see I am not truly a fan of any of the three presentations so far. Skills should come in builds that match the opponents you will face from the AI so you can learn to use them. Quests and skill rewards from quests should make sense in this regard. Even in prophecies, skills granted specifically for use to defeat a given foe never had any value in doing so. (I am thinking of the Necromancer quest given by Kasha Blackblood.)

I like running as it is a wonderful sport and great entertainment. Like bowling where the pins are very very agressive. However, even when I have had characters run to say the Crystal Desert they did not Ascend until 20th level. Unfortunately, I cannot state that all my fellow gamers have the same code of personal honor. Of course, all those characters are dead now.
Fitz

I like running in PvE.


Do you want to know why?

because, completing the same quests 4 times isn't funny.

Fitz, just fyi, most chars that got runs in Prophecies weren't noobs. New players generally couldn't afford runs to all of the different places they would need to go, unless they happened to be in a very friendly guild. I personally have never seen a low-lvled char in high lvl armor that was also an idiot.

i think running was fine in the game... some people liked it or just used it for money. Some used it as a goal like a title. Me i just used it to get places... sometimes it is a pain to do beginner quests, and that's where running rocks. You never see people running on their first character, they don't even know what it is. I didn't find out about it until my second character went through the missions to beacons and i noticed people talking about droks. I found out nice armor was there and i saved my money to get a run and armor. Total amount of money brought in the game, 2k for the run. I bring more doing a couple quests... to the econmy didn't have any problems that i can see.

the hole city bite could be retought. They should have made more like nwn cities instead what they made was a maze with no freedom!

there was alot of things about factions I think could have rethought.

Oh, there are people that run their first character. How many times have you seen "LF runner to next mission" ? If they knew its name, they would say it. Sure, its mainly in the maguuma jungle (I remember one person who was at denravi spamming for a runner to "next mission", I came back a few hours later and he was still there spamming.)

I agree wholeheartedly with everything said about the gates. I absolutely hated them. Takes then entire idea of exploring out of the game. Not to mention there isn't anything really worth exploring in Factions, like out of the way towns or outposts, like there were in Prophecies. It was awesome to be able to stumble upon cites like Serenity Temple or Maguuma Stade, or just to explore areas like Dragon's Gullet or The Falls, areas that had no real purpose quest-wise, but were there anyways. Can't find any of that in Factions.

I also support runners. Once I beat the game once, I like to try different things with my other characters. Its like the New Game+ feature from some of the old JRPG's like Chrono Trigger, you beat the game once, and then you get to do it again, but this time you can get access to end game items and weapons and skills and such. It also allows you to skip some of the more monotonous parts of the game, and focus on the more entertaining parts.

Locked gates are not fun, and make me dread taking new characters thru. I've done the stuff already and I'm more than a little annoyed that i can go right up to a place that was possibly -harder- to get to without the quest (ie togo and mhenlo helping out) and I'm prevented from getting in.
I like how it prevents -some- idiots, but to be honest, it just hurts more experianced players from getting characters to places like raisu palace. Any idiot can do all the quests, just like they can be run, they wont learn anything. Just look at the new "mini-tombs" and how many pugs suck there.

I have to say, Cantha seems WAY too rushed. I liked how Tyria had so much to offer and explore, it really made my Grandmaster Cartographer title a challenge, but fun to get. On the other hand, it was so ridiculously easy. Small world, no hidden paths, all easy monotonous bosses. I can remember not even knowing Dragon's Gullet even existed until I got the Titan Source quest. Now everything is labeled, all quests are just go exactly to this place and talk to this person and kill them. No challenge at all. Maybe it's always been like that, but when you're forced to do only that like in Factions the gameplay gets too monotonously annoying. I mean seriously, the only enemies can be listed using one hand: City Thugs, Shiro's Slaves, Warden, Fish, ...

I agree with the topic creator, but not for the same reason.

I just want to be able to skip Vizunah Square and let the two of my characters stuck there get on with the damn game. What a stupid choice for the first mission on the mainland that was...

ONLY FOUR!?!? LOL! Ive done some quests TEN times before I got them done(only a couple), but it doesnt bother me much at all. Hell, Ill even go on ones Ive already done, just to pick up some items to sell(not necessarily puprples and/or golds). Dont understand why so many people want to rush through the game. OH! I KNOW! How about they throw in a button, so if you have at least one character whos finished the game, itll make you a lvl 20 ascended, give you all skills for your pri/sec classes, 100k gold, all quest items, 250 ecto, and put you in position to do last mission! That way, you wont have to bother with actually doing anything, except the last mission, which is where youre trying to get to, AND youll have lots of goodies to sell to people!
/sarcasm
Closest Ive ever come to running someone was taking 2 people to Yaks from Piken. All I did was throw some heals on them if they really needed it(were about to die, and couldnt heal themselves), didnt do any fighting myself.

I kinda agree that factions PvE is tedious, quest repetition etc, but once I got onto the Kurzick/Luxon quests and missions it became much more enjoyable, I wish it wasnt such a small part of the game...

Jade Brotherhood, Am Fah, Afflicted, Vermin, Temple Guardians, Yetis, Mantises, Wardens, Dragon Mosses, Kirin, Dredge, the Stone army, Jade Fish, Turtle Dragons, Saltspray Dragons, Leviathan parts, Luxon Outcasts, Oni, Shiro'ken.

Perhaps not the stunning array of creatures in Tyria (devourers lol) but certainly more than one hand.