Guild Wars: Factions free weekend

[Wyrm]

I know the Lounge as a whole was generally unimpressed with Guild Wars when it came out, but here's hoping that some people will be willing to give it a go again.

Next weekend, Guild Wars is going to have a free world event, much like they did with the betas of the real game, only this time, it's going to be for the coming up expansion, Factions. The nifty part about this weekend is that you don't need to have an existing Guild Wars account in order to play during the weekend. The main web site has a free access key available for anyone in the Americas or Europe. If you, for some reason, don't want to go to the website to learn more (or you already have the client from the last WPE), you can just use these keys for access:

American Players:
888D9-H27PG-NM72D-PLHJ1-2HG11

European Players:
66DG9-C4RHB-9FKD6-287BJ-LRGCJ

I know those of us from Realms Beyond (and I'm assuming the Basin and other guilds people who populate here as well) will be devoting quite a bit of time to the weekend. So, even if you want to do nothing else but see how the game has developed from the betas, you should come join in. If you want to PvP with us (since that is the primary focus of the event), you're more than welcome to join us.

My account-associated character is Lurker Wyrm, feel free to say hi if you decide to go for it.

In case you're interested in what you've been missing by not playing Guild Wars, here's a shot of some of us from the RB Guild in triumph in the Team Arenas.

[SwissMercenary]

Not much to say, other then "I'll be there, as "Mending f t l""

[DeeBye]

Showing off my new shield in a Guild Wars thread.

[Walkiry]

Hm, maybe I'll create a PvP character and go for it this weekend, haven't touched GW in ages :)

[ima_nerd]

I never did much in GW. How's the end-game for it? I'm guessing it's mostly PvP but how's the end-game gear progression handled? With WoW being out of my life so to speak and ES IV not coming out till Marchish I need something to do besides DotA on WC3 :P

[SwissMercenary]

I never did much in GW. How's the end-game for it? I'm guessing it's mostly PvP but how's the end-game gear progression handled? With WoW being out of my life so to speak and ES IV not coming out till Marchish I need something to do besides DotA on WC3 :P
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Once you get about 4/5ths through the game, you have access to end-game quality gear.

If you choose to create a PvP-only character, they are provided with end-game quality gear (With the exception of upgrades, which you have to "Unlock" by finding in PvE, or "Buying" with faction that you get from doing PvP)

Come to think of it, that wasn't entirely accurate. Let me... Illustrate via a detailed overview.

Items come in three main categories in GW - Weapons, Armour, and Shields.

Weapons and Shields can be found as drops from monsters or chests, crafted at a NPC, or 'bought' from a "Collector NPC."

Armours can only be crafted at a NPC.

About 4/5ths of the way through the game's plotline... You'll get to a city, with NPCs who can craft top-of-the-line items (Collectors for similar items are scattered in the surrounding areas).

By the time you get there, if you were careful with your money (Sell everything that drops, don't spend all of it buying new skills, the like), you should be able to afford just about all of those things.

Now, those items can still increase in power, because...

Weapons and Armours can be "Upgraded."

Each weapon type has two possible upgrade components (Effectively, Diablo prefixes, and affixes). "Prefix" upgrade components can, for instance, make a sword do fire damage, or steal life. "Affix" upgrade components, can, on the other hand, increase your defense, or life pool. 'Perfect' upgrade components (such as a +30 health axe haft) are quite rare, and ridicilously expensive, if bought from players. On the other hand, anything that's not perfect (Such as a +26 health haft), can be bought from another player very, very cheaply.

Armours are upgraded by inserting "Runes" into them. Each armour piece only fits one. Most runes are restricted to a specific class, and tend to enahnce a specific attribute (Think of it as a... +1 to all fire skills). More powerful runes carry a health penalty associated with them. (So, you have to make quite the tradeoff between a 'Superior' and a 'Minor' rune - the former gives a bigger enhancement, but carries a heavy penalty) Minor runes are fairly common, Superior ones are quite rare.

Shields cannot be upgraded.

The jist of all that is, if you want a "Perfect" stat weapon, you'll have to dish out an arm and a leg. If you want a "near-perfect" item, you can get it, no problemo.


So, there you have it. The gear that "anyone" can get is roughly 98% as good as "Perfect" gear.

So, what's the point of all the end-game 'dungeons'?

Cosmetics. You see, the four 'difficult' end-game areas have unique-looking items that can only be found as monster or chest drops, when fighting in those areas. They don't drop all too often, the areas are fairly difficult, and to get a 'perfect' roll on all the attributes (Base damage and built-in modifier) is not easy. However, they do make you stand out.

Additionally, in two of those areas, special crafting components drop, that can be used to craft a ridicilously over-priced, and rather distinct, but equivalent, stat-wise set of armour.

But really, I think that there's little need to worry about 'perfect' or 'non-perfect' items. Unlike WoW, the skills that you bring to the fight, and player skill and coordination have an immesuarably bigger impact on the outcome of a battle then player level, or equipment. You don't need to do a half-dozen runs of Molten Core to get started on BWL, is what I'm trying to say.

[roguebanshee]

Unlike WoW, the skills that you bring to the fight, and player skill and coordination have an immesuarably bigger impact on the outcome of a battle then player level, or equipment.
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Player level (and two specific quests) can still have quite an impact due to attribute points.

[ima_nerd]

Thanks for all the feedback. I reinstalled it last night and started a Ranger/Mesmer which I'm liking so far. I'm all the way to level 3! Whether or not I'll keep playing remains to be seen.

I did some PvP before I left the game but since I hadn't unlocked much, I sucked :(

[SwissMercenary]

Player level (and two specific quests) can still have quite an impact due to attribute points.
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Yeah, that does make quite a difference, moreso then health gain progression, but again, not nearly like a standard MMORPG (No 80% miss chance on anyone 4 levels higher then you). The only 'in-combat', so to speak factor that your level has an effect on is the amount of criticals you inflict/receive on/from enemies.

Not that it really matters, seeing as how most people cap out in the Desert. :rolleyes:

[DeeBye]

GameSpy has a Faction preview up, including some screenshots.

Here are a couple of quotes I found interesting.

The Luxon/Kurzick conflict is also the driver of the major new gameplay dynamic of Factions -- territorial conquest. Strain can barely keep his voice from shaking with excitement as he describes Factions' new "meta-game." "The main goal of players in  Factions is going to be deciding which faction to align with." Once Factions releases, guilds will be able to join together in "alliances." These Alliances will share a chat channel and be able to visit each other's guild halls. More importantly, Alliances will have access to a real-time map of the struggle between Luxon and Kurzick. By participating in "alliance missions" and "faction battles," players can take control of cities and towns and actually move the two nations' control zones.

Some of the new battlefields players will be fighting on include the rooftops of a densely packed city, huge temples built on the back of giant tortoises, tunnels carved in the jade sea, and in the elaborate hollows of a petrified forest.

How will ArenaNet manage to introduce two new professions and hundreds of new items and abilities and still manage to keep the game balanced? "At the risk of not being humble, we've gotten pretty good at this. We've tracked every battle that's taken place in the game and have loads of statistical evidence to avoid killer combos. We're constantly tweaking the balance to make sure it stays that way."

[Wyrm]

The only 'in-combat', so to speak factor that your level has an effect on is the amount of criticals you inflict/receive on/from enemies.

Character level also has an impact on the amount of damage you deal when using a staff/rod weapon, unlike bows, axes, swords, and hammers (and pets, if you count those) which are based off the level of the associated attribute. In other words, that starter rod will deal more damage at level 20 than it will at level 1, without attribute point allocation.

Edit: It went live earlier today, you can sign up/on and join the fun.

It was great beating the snot out of the AI IWAY team using trappers.

[SwissMercenary]

General opinions.

I'm overall pleasantly not surprised that the new professions aren't ridicilously imbalancing compared to the canon ones. In fact, I'd daresay that many of their skills need... Help.

The rit/me premade is the saddest thing ever (As are most ritualist elites). The assasin/warrior premade... Is just what you can expect from a fighter type with 12 in their weapon attribute, no attack speed stance, using Flourish. Most of their skills, on the other hand, look allright.

The updates to the pvp areas are quite awesome.

[Ashock]

How will ArenaNet manage to introduce two new professions and hundreds of new items and abilities and still manage to keep the game balanced? "At the risk of not being humble, we've gotten pretty good at this. We've tracked every battle that's taken place in the game and have loads of statistical evidence to avoid killer combos. We're constantly tweaking the balance to make sure it stays that way."
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Yeh, I'm sure that they've gotten real good at maintaining their high standards of boredom, tediousness and blandness. Hooray for parity. 10,000 piles of the same crap might be unusual to see, but they're still just piles of crap.


-A

[SwissMercenary]

Yeh, I'm sure that they've gotten real good at maintaining their high standards of boredom, tediousness and blandness. Hooray for parity. 10,000 piles of the same crap might be unusual to see, but they're still just piles of crap.
-A
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Quite unfortunate that it did not meet your expectations.

[Wyrm]

The rit/me premade is the saddest thing ever (As are most ritualist elites). The assasin/warrior premade... Is just what you can expect from a fighter type with 12 in their weapon attribute, no attack speed stance, using Flourish. Most of their skills, on the other hand, look allright.

The R/A prebuilt is pretty decent. I used that earlier today in randoms and the team I was on made it to TA where I used it to solo-kill a self-preservation monk (took 9 min for the first kill, but hey).

The updates to the pvp areas are quite awesome.

Well, somewhat. We found yesterday that taking a group of trappers will completely smack down the AI opponents in a way that's not even fair. We were on 17 consecutive wins, quite a few of which were flawless, in the Zaishen Elite Challenge fighting 9 opponents at once (18 vs. the IWAY team) and the only reason we stopped was because I had to leave.

I added "Mending F T L" to my list, but the only time I saw you on was when I was busy (either that or switching in and out of the game). Is that your main account or a weekend pass one? I've been using my PvP slot (not really a PvP slot, but the char that was using it is taking a vacation), "Angela Adams," a lot this weekend, trying out the new classes and giving the Me/E I came up with (somewhat) a go.

[SwissMercenary]

That's my main account, but with evening classes, evening housework, and too much spare time in the day, I'm on at odd hours. Which is pretty much the biggest reason for why I'm no longer playing as much as I used to - few people in my guild are on at those times.

I think I've only played the R/A for two or three rounds. The E/A's interesting, so I was too quick on that.

I've unlocked enough ritualist skills to make the Rit/me somewhat useful. I think.

[Wyrm]

That's my main account, but with evening classes, evening housework, and too much spare time in the day, I'm on at odd hours. Which is pretty much the biggest reason for why I'm no longer playing as much as I used to - few people in my guild are on at those times.

Ok, that explains that one. RB has 2 key activity times, around noon-4pm EST for the people in Europe and other similar time zones, and then after 9pm EST for the rest of us (this one generally goes until the wee hours depending on who's online, I've been up until almost 6am with the guild before, signed off when a GMT +1 person logged in and then when I signed on later that day they were still there). With the weekend event going on, there's almost always at least 4 of us on at a given time. Feel free to call on us if you want to do TA and don't have enough guildies.

I've unlocked enough ritualist skills to make the Rit/me somewhat useful. I think.

I unlocked the Assassin and Ritualist skills I needed to make my own A/Rt build that has been shutting monks down like crazy (would be even heavier on the shutdown if the Rt skill wasn't broken...). RB had a group in TA today and whenever we fought a team with only 1 monk it was almost a garunteed flawless.

[Roland]

That's my main account, but with evening classes, evening housework, and too much spare time in the day, I'm on at odd hours. Which is pretty much the biggest reason for why I'm no longer playing as much as I used to - few people in my guild are on at those times.

I think I've only played the R/A for two or three rounds. The E/A's interesting, so I was too quick on that.

I've unlocked enough ritualist skills to make the Rit/me somewhat useful. I think.
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E/A: I hated it. I found it to be utterly useless in PvP play. I could deal damage, sure, but nowhere near enough to outdo a good healer, plus I had to get right up next to my targets, making me easy prey. Just didn't work out as well as I was hoping. Interesting thought on paper, but poorly executed, IMHO.

A/W, OTOH, featuring 100% Assassin skills, rocked the house. 7 consecutive wins (5 of which were Flawless?), only to be stopped by, of all people, the Basin crowd. ;) A worthy opponent, for sure, and I'm glad it was them who finally knocked us off the charts. I still think we could have taken them, but I think we all were a bit tired by that point (it was somewhere near 2 AM).

I must say, I LOVE the Assassin. Ritualists are a PITA, and I could see them becoming a powerful force if used properly. Assassins just OWN anything non-Warrior. Even with a good healer, very few opponents stood up to my twin blades. I chewed through casters like bubble gum. All in all, a most enjoyable evening. :D

I'm very much looking forward to the expansion, especially now that I've gotten myself hooked on Guild Wars. I still have many of the same gripes I had before, but some of them I think are "teething pains" - things that you just have to get through early in the game, when you're too weak to do much of anything, before you can really start to enjoy what's being offered. I still get my rear handed to me every so often, but at least now I have the firepower and tactics to overcome it, if I'm smart enough to see the path.

Pathfinding still sucks, and unlocking everything for PvP is horrendously tedious, but I suppose that's to be expected when I primarily got the game for the PvP side, and all I want to do is PvP (thus anything non-PvP, ala the whole RP side of the game, is just mindless grinding to me). I'm spoiled by WoW, though - they definitely need to do more with quests and the UI. They ought to have quest GIVERS have markers on your map, as well as the quest locations themselves. WoW spoils me like this, but once you have it, it's very hard to go back to not having it.

The new expansion looks to add a lot of variety and excitement to the game, and certainly keeps up (if not improves) the level of tact needed to play this game. I look forward to it greatly, especially since WoW is, unfortunately, out of my budget for the time being. Debt-paying crunch time does not afford even the smallest of expenditures, especially when I have free alternatives. WoW will lure me back sooner or later, but until then, I'll enjoy GW, and keep pushing to unlock more content so I can finally get to the "good" stuff - PvP! :D

[SwissMercenary]

E/A: I hated it. I found it to be utterly useless in PvP play. I could deal damage, sure, but nowhere near enough to outdo a good healer, plus I had to get right up next to my targets, making me easy prey. Just didn't work out as well as I was hoping. Interesting thought on paper, but poorly executed, IMHO.

Ah, sorry about that - I was speaking from the PoV of a player who has the canon professions unlocked.

I did a good bit of switching the skills around - fire was replaced by Earth... What I meant to say is that the assassin skills it came with were decent. But, you are right, the pure pre-build tself was not too great.

In regards to unlocking for PvP: I'm sorry to hear that. I'll just say this in advice - don't spend faction to unlock skills. It is easier by far to unlock skills in PvE then PvP. Runes, and item upgrades, on the other hand, unlock fairly quickly compared to them.

Did you get past the problems you had with your Ranger/Elementalist? If not, I could give a pointer or two - I've taken my ranger, using pretty much only primary skills through the game a short while after your previous posts.