Guild Wars : Factions - Feedback needed

[Stillmatic]

Hey, wondering if any of you guys picked up the new guild wars expansion/game. Could use some feedback, as I'm a huge fan of the prior one and wondering what's the diff in this one? Whole new story? PVP concept any good? Only 2 new classes?

[Allanon754]

I picked it up. Really it's the same but harder. I started off taking my ascended healer monk to Cantha, the first mission I did was amazing with two groups of 8 people fighting these weird afflicted things. I also made a Ritualist who rock and am finishing up the quests in the beginning area.

So basically; game is more challenging, enemy AI is better, leveling up is even easier, Missions are much better, more of a plot then even the first one. Along with much, more. There was a issue with not enough CE's for Guild Wars:Factions but despite that everything has gone smooth.

[oneeye]

I made an elementalist/ritualist, pretty fun. The new spirit pets are cool, temp but helpful.

In general there is an asian theme now, both the new faces and setting. That includes the old classes not just the new. ARmor quests there are three types now for three different looks including old world one. Quests early on seem to pay a lot better.

Not sure how to get from old continent to new yet? Anyone know?

One of the early missions, an NPC teaches your group how to assist and stick together lol. Pretty funny, cause PU groups in GW (and also wow) can get pretty noob at times so it's not a bad thing. There's also a new quest where you duel npcs using different pvp tricks, pretty fun.

I like it so far. but only level 8.

Wouldn't mind bringing my old mesmer and ranger over to the new world but not sure how.

[Allanon754]

You missed the Day of the Tengu? OH NOES!

Go to Firstwatch sergio in LA; he gives you a quest which is basically zoning out into North Kryta talking to Mhenlo then talking to a guy at the docks in LA.

[oneeye]

ah ok thanks,

you really like mesmer as a second class huh?

[Stillmatic]

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like alot of fun and will most likely pick it up after my finals are over. What about pvp? Anybody try it yet? How does the fight for boundaries go?

[Allanon754]

ah ok thanks,

you really like mesmer as a second class huh?

Yah I love the energy management component.

[Artisan]

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like alot of fun and will most likely pick it up after my finals are over. What about pvp? Anybody try it yet? How does the fight for boundaries go?

The way the 12v12s worked in the preview event was better, when you just entered the mission and got put with a team. Now you get in groups of 4, and are paired with 2 other groups of 4, but they don't show up in your party window, so you can only see the guys in your team, which makes it almost impossible for a healer to heal people not in their little group.

Also, the map boundry thing seems kind of half-assed, it doesn't move much, the only thing that really gets affected is the harvest temple.

Otherwise, it's a pretty fun game. The storyline is a little lame towards the end (just not as impressive as the Prophecies story), but works out. A lot of nice new skins, and some classes get nice new armor. Ranger armor kind of sux though :(

[Realmreaver]

I am getting to like the new one simply because it is FAR easier to level now than before.
(got up to level 17 called it quits because the groups of foes was hard to manage but now when I was level 14 taking out level 20 mobs in the new world with my new char.)

I am now a proud owner of a level 20 War/Ass. I use Swordsman skills of a Warrior and healing aspects of Assasin. Overall I am a overly aggresive dpser/tank thanks to my preffered combo.

I will probably stick with this combo cause I think overall due to choices than skills this is probably my best designed char yet. It is VERY much me. =)

[Techguy101]

Guildwars has become my main game, factions in particular, I got 3 characters through the entire prohpocies campeign before I quit and went back to World of Warcraft, after the new expansion came out and played a little but was quickly depressed that I didn;t have the new expansion! so after cleaning my desk and trading a friend a barnes and nobles gift card for cash (who reads anyway) I went and got factions.

First impression, amazing, it feels like a differant game. One of my favorite things in the new expansion is that most of the content is aimed towards the higher levels (mainly 20). Shing Jea Island (the Pre Searing of Factions if you will) can easily get you to 18 or higher if you complete the quests. Quests in factions give much more exp that prophocies quests. In prophocies the average reward was about...500exp, in factions it is about 3000exp. This increase helps you level a lot.

There are a wide varity of new skills, normal and elite, for all professions. The two new professions, Ritualist and Assassian are great assests to groups in many ways. A ritualist is the closest thing to monk in healing power although the way they heal is altered greatly. They also have the power to commune with the spirts of great power to the partys aid. you can also gear your Ritualist up to doing massive amounts of damage to single targets or large groups of Enemys.

Assassians focus on a single enemy usually but the speed in which they can dish out dmg and negetive conditions onto a target is amazing. Assassians work to take out their enemys one by one. Assassians how ever are very weak and can take very little physical dammage.

Another innovation of the Factions Campeign is a new Quality of items. Previously there where white < blue < purple < Gold items. With the new expansion Green items where added, Items of extream quality aimed towards a very specific player (ex. Healing monk, Death Necromancer, Inspiration Mesmer).

PvP and Faction was also given a whole nother demension with the expansion. As the name suggest there are 2 "Factions" always combating in Cantha. The Kurzick are the more advanced technologically, with large building and focusing on the more "intellegent" magics. The Luxon are much more spirtual, having many rituals and ceremonys in order to give people their place within society.

Guilds can now chose a faction at creation and PvP in "Alliance Battles" to gain faction with their team. Guilds can also Clump together as Alliances (groups of up to 10 guilds) and work to gather faction as a larger group. The Alliances with the largest amount of faction can actually own differant locations on the map, which has it's benefits, as you can imagine. The guild will then have access to fireworks ect. as well as a huge status symbol throughout Cantha.

There is a whole new campeign in factions with a varity of differant types of missions. There are missions in which two partys can work together in order to reach a common goal, there are also missions where the soul purpose is to kill the maximum amount of mobs as possible in the given time. The missions are much harder in factions then they are on Tyria. Which in my opinion is a good thing.

Money is easier to come by as well in factions, you get much larger rewards, usually in the form of gold, in factions than you would anywhere in Tyria. You also get Credits which can be exchanged for goods in differant parts of Cantha (Monastery Credits for Shing Jea Island and Imperial Commendations for the mainland).

All in all I would rate Cantha and the factions campeign a 9/10 in over all gaming, it preforms well, great graphics and quests, also ArenaNet provides many in game events and special items (recently the Dragon masks durring the Dragon festival). The campeign is long and there is no real way to "run" the missions past Shing Jea island because they are all geared towards higher level groups of players.

I rated the prophocies campeign a while back a 6/10 because of the repetivness of it, but ArenaNet Impoved...a lot...with this expansion, if you liked the GuildWars Prophocies campeign, or even tolerated the presearing I would strongly reccomend ou give the game another chance with factions.

thats my very long and drawn out two cents--
If you have any further questions please contact me on Guild Wars on -
Alinia Decomondedi
Duke Triton Belware
Shi Hai Shu Nyu
Or
Salue Sa`Tazi

You may also e-mail me at
[email protected]

Thank you for tolerating my extreamly long post :)

*edit*One thinkg I forgot to add...the henchmen, there are a lot of new henchmen with very differant "play styles" I guess you could call them, by the time your reach the end of the game you've prolly seen a henchmen to fill any spot no matter how big or small, the healer henchmen are much more effcient, hell all the henchmen are :)