GW2 got me interested in GW but i need help

Mageick · August 2011

so after seeing some footage from GW2 im thinking of playing GW till it comes but i need some advice...

What game should i get?

the way i see it, there is 3 things to buy. trilogy - Nightfall - EotN?

What should i buy first? Do i skip the trilogy and go for Nightfall?

also im a college student not much time... so is this casual friendly and something that wll keep my attention?

and, Is it worth it? being an older game and all or should i just wait for something else to keep me busy till GW2? (ie console games - Deus Ex, Dark Souls?)

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Bladestrom · August 2011

I went for the trio, cheap enough that its worth getting even if you only complete prophecy. I found prophecy fun but there was a lot of valley -type force down 1 path zones which was getting old fast. Worth checking if the other expansions are more open, I know Nightfall was at the start at least. Also worth noting that nightfall will give you heroic henchmen that allows you to solo a lot more stuff, for e.g I got the henchmen and used them to help complete the prophecy line solo. Its doable without but more fun with.

Remember you need the last expansion if you want to open up the Hall of monument for GW2.

aspekx · August 2011

it really depends upon what you want in a game to tide y ou over. quite frankly GW1 and 2 are going to be quite diffferent.

having said that i picked it up again recently. if you dont mind straight pve its very good for the casual gamer as each area outside of a town is an instance. and you get 'hirelings' or companions along the way. which means you can basically solo all of the content you need to get the carry over benefits from GW1 to GW2.

what i learned the long way around is this, buy the trilogy and EotN. start in one of the trilogies, Factions or Nightfall has a better tutorial than the original 1st game. hit level 10, then unlock EotN, even though you own it you have to unlock it.

once you do unlock it do the first quest to pick up 2 heroic companions that are incredibly useful and finish out the content in the trilogy, then come back to EotN.

thats what's worked for me anyways.

it is casual friendly in the sense that because of the instancing and hirelings, or hero companions, you can just jump in and out of the game whenever you like.

i found most of the storyline interesting so far, the difficulty ranges from quest to quest, but can be quite challenging at times, requiring a bit of strategy on your part in using your companions to your best advantage.

the social aspect is a bit lacking unless you find a guild to join. i have noticed quite a number of them recently playing GW1 for the sole purpose of getting the rewrds that carry over into GW2. note, however, that the rewards are not game breaking. mostly cosmetic in nature and a testament to your devotion to playing GW's in general.

good luck!

gainesvilleg · August 2011

Originally posted by Mageick
so after seeing some footage from GW2 im thinking of playing GW till it comes but i need some advice...

What game should i get?

the way i see it, there is 3 things to buy. trilogy - Nightfall - EotN?

What should i buy first? Do i skip the trilogy and go for Nightfall?

also im a college student not much time... so is this casual friendly and something that wll keep my attention?

and, Is it worth it? being an older game and all or should i just wait for something else to keep me busy till GW2? (ie console games - Deus Ex, Dark Souls?)

Thanks in advance for any advice!

You know what, I never really played the original GW and was thinking the same thing. With all the hype around GW2 I figured I must have missed the boat on GW as I've played pretty much every other mainstream MMO. So I bought the trilogy a few nights ago to catch up and see what I've been missing.

All I can say is so far it is completely dissappointing. I started in Factions as I like to play an assassin but as I play it dawns on me that somehow somebody has played a cruel joke on me: I'm not sure I've ever been more dissapointed in a game.

Mabye it was the high expectations and maybe it just is I haven't played long enough yet to see what makes it so good, but I seriously doubt it. My guess is the high ratings for GW (and probably by extension GW2) are just from broke cheap gamers who give it high marks for not charging a monthly fee. Well, a monthly fee is meaningless to me, so I give it no extra points for that.

My initial impression was that the graphics are sub-par and the camera action might be the worst of any game I've ever played. The number of times a hill or even slight change in elevation caused my camera to pan down on the ground and not let me look in the distance is reason enough to never play it again to be honest. But on top of that everything just seems so artificial. Bland instances devoid of life and not really any hook to keep me playing, very few quests, and no sandbox either. Also, there are "invisible walls" everywhere, and sometimes you need to run way out of your way because it won't let you just jump down a couple feet to the path below. Oh yeah, and there is no jumping at all: not sure I played a game like this in the last 10 years that didn't allow jumping...

I'm going to give up on it for a while and go back to playing some Civ4 mods to kill time while I wait for something better on the horizon (maybe Deus Ex?), and maybe I'll give it one more try in a few days now that my expectations are basically nil.

I know this sounds like a flame post, but can somebody please explain why GW is so highly regarded? Is it just the no monthly fee or am I missing something? I am a PVP addict and I haven't played that yet in GW, but the graphics/control in this is so clunky I find it hard to believe this game excels at that either (although I know it has a good rep here).

Can somebody clue me in here on why GW got such good review, as I'm just not seeing it?

Halandir · August 2011

Originally posted by gainesvilleg
Can somebody clue me in here on why GW got such good review, as I'm just not seeing it?

I think a lot of things led to GW getting good reviews. Of course the buy to play model is part of it, but I dare say that for most longterm GW players it has little to do with it.

Chances are that GW simply does not appeal to you. Nothing wrong with that, personally I played WoW for a while to join friends and I never got over that: "Hmm, why does everyone find this special?" feeling. Part of MY problem with WoW was that I wanted it to be more like GW. I liked the artstyle and surroundings in GW a lot more and the interface felt a lot more responsive. This was of course not a problem with WoW, I just liked GW better.

Some of the things I have seen people mention as problems in GW:

Yes, most areas/missions are "on rails" and you can't jump. To me it is not a problem and I never think about the missing ability to jump when I have fun playing the game. Linear progression (missions/primary quests) are part of telling a great story.

PvP: Everyone that thinks openworld PvP is the only "real" kind of PvP will hate PvP in GW. GW is all about skillbased, organized, smallgroup PvP on a level playing field. "Gear" is cosmetic and everyone can have a max. level char by just creating a PvP char. The learning curve is steep and may put many off. Don't take it too serious until you have a steady group of players. Try to have some instant fun in Random arenas or Codex for a start.

Aggro: In PvE many newcomers find that "aggro is messed up". Not really, but it's very different to all the usual "holy trinity" games. In GW the monsters basically try to kill the soft targets first. Makes a lot of sense if you think about it: Soft targets are usually healers or highdamage threats. Tank and spank does not make much sense - In GW or otherwise. :-)

Interface/GUI: GW is a "no mods allowed" game. This is part of the level playing field but you are allowed to customize the interface within the game. Press F11 and select the "interface" tab - Resize/rearrange to your liking.

Clunky movement: While it may seem clunky depending on what/how you are used to playing, it feels extremely fluid to me. You can change your layout if you want (F11, select the "controls" tab) but I prefer the default layout. I use 1-8 for skills, F1-F4 for weaponset change and WASD for movement (well mostly, in some PvP situations click-to-move makes sense). I usually have my right mousebutton pressed during play for cameracontrol and turning. A-D is mostly used for strafing.

One final thing: Get used to using Ctrl and Alt keys to locate NPCs, other players and other "clickable" things in game.

To the OP: It may or may not appeal to you, but you should do the free trial before you decide: http://guildwars.com/freetrial/

daniel!!! · August 2011

Originally posted by Mageick
so after seeing some footage from GW2 im thinking of playing GW till it comes but i need some advice...

What game should i get?

the way i see it, there is 3 things to buy. trilogy - Nightfall - EotN?

What should i buy first? Do i skip the trilogy and go for Nightfall?

also im a college student not much time... so is this casual friendly and something that wll keep my attention?

and, Is it worth it? being an older game and all or should i just wait for something else to keep me busy till GW2? (ie console games - Deus Ex, Dark Souls?)

Thanks in advance for any advice!

triology includes nightfall so get it, then all your left with to get is eotn and then once you have played them all and completed them see if you fancy EotN, i would recomend it but thats really up to you.

sudo · August 2011

I too am interested in spending some time in GW1 until either GW2 comes or FFXIV gets some major improvements. Storyline arcs and combat / skill system interest me the most...

What I'm wondering about is, I've seen somebody mentioning a 15$ deal for the trilogy and I can only find the 29$ one. Is this old news and 29$ for the trilogy is the best deal I can get at the moment?

MurlockDance · August 2011

I might pick this up again too. Going to redo the free trial to think about it, but mainly because I am thinking of dropping sub games for a while. I am really attracted to several games right now that require no sub, GW2 being one.

sudo · August 2011

Well, I've been trying the game out for the last few days on a trial account and while I like the gameplay a lot and even the quests are interesting (while being a bit simple and blant after cataclysm ones), I've been reading about a very big number of cheaters and abusers on Guild Wars forums... Moreover, it seems like the game has VERY low population these days...

I'm starting to think that GW1, at this point, might be a waste of time and money

Can anybody please comment on this? I'd really like to see a positive point of few, found too much bad criticism on the game on gwguru forums. Mostly about PvP being abused, cheated in, pointless and heavily unbalanced (which was a strange thing to read since I've always heard that GW is one of the best balanced games in pvp).

jezvin · August 2011

I enjoyed the main story lines in GW1 you should be able to get through almost all of them with just heros like a singleplayer game if you want.

Also If you have the extra money to toss into it after getting every game buy the skill packs it cost $50 for all so it might be a little expensive but it unlocks all the skills for you heros so you can have some good builds on them as soon as you get them.

It's definatly not required but It made my experiance a lot more enjoyable.

If you like lore and really want to know where guild wars 2 is coming from I recommend playing through it. you can also get a few easy HOM points just from beating the main story lines.

Most importantly find a class you enjoy playing

Let your heros worry about winning

sudo · August 2011

Thanks, Jezvin, I was considering playing it for the story itself as well

What is this 50$ you are talking about? The only ones I've seen are 30$ for the trilogy and another 30$ for the latest expansion, did I miss something?

Serelisk · August 2011

Originally posted by sudo
Thanks, Jezvin, I was considering playing it for the story itself as well

What is this 50$ you are talking about? The only ones I've seen are 30$ for the trilogy and another 30$ for the latest expansion, did I miss something?

To get all the games it's about $50, I'm pretty sure. $30 for the Trilogy, and $20 for Eye of the North.

sudo · August 2011

Originally posted by Serelisk

To get all the games it's about $50, I'm pretty sure. $30 for the Trilogy, and $20 for Eye of the North.

Thanks, Serelisk, you are right, just checked the Ncsoft store and it will be:

Guild Wars® Trilogy for 30$

and

Guild Wars: Eye of the North® for 20$

What about all those other items on the GW store? Are any of them needed? I would love to explore the story before GW2 comes out. What about all those mercenary packs and whatnot, what are they for?

And what about the order of stories? Should I start with the classic one and go on or do as everybody here suggested and start with Nightfall?

Thanks in advance.

Dev_Nights · August 2011

I will try to clear up these questions as best as I can.

If you are into lore and story I suggest two things.

1)Play the games in the order that they were released (there are little bits of lore that follow this path).

2) Is that you purchase the Bonus Mission Pack. The BMP isn't at all necessary, it is just 4 extra missions that cover the history in GW through playable missions.

As for the rest of the purchasable items go, The costume packs are purely asthetic and provide no extra advantage/game play. The Mecenary Packs allow you to have your alternate characters as heroes. This is useful if you want a specific team build and don't want to complete EotN/NF to unlock them on a new character. Xunlai Panels allow you to have extra storage space for your account if you end up running out (like me). Makeover packs are for remaking your character if you don't like his/her looks (extreme lets you gender swap). Name change is self explanitory. Pet unlock pack is if you want a specific pet on a ranger. Skill unlock pack is useful as it unlocks every skill for whichever pack you buy. You can then use these skills freely on any PvP character you make, any hero you add or use tomes to access them on your character.

I appologise for the lack of proofreading/editing on my part as my battery in my laptop is about to die. Post more questions if you have any.

sudo · August 2011

Thank you for the answers, Dev.

I've only got one quetion left: is it true that the game has become very bad balanced and maintaned by Anet in both PvP and PvE lately?

Dev_Nights · August 2011

The game is actually pretty balanced for the most part. People complained when they nerfed all of the very easy builds that made the game so easy that even a monkey could do.

The three major campaigns have a nice level of difficulty for a new player who isn't used to the style of play yet. EotN is where they game begins to get more challenging but if you have played through the other campains before this you should have no problems.

GW Beyond is where the balancing issue starts becoming apparent. War in Kryta and Winds of Change begin to make the player have to party with atleast one more human in order to ace the content, or be a good player with good techniques. Gimmick builds that could be used in the campaigns start to become harder to use here as the mobs are being designed to challenge the player. If you have another human, the content should be challenging enough but completable.

PvP wise, gimmick builds are still common and spoil the fun in certain areas. I don't play PvP anymore because of the number of gimmick builds.

ArenaNet is constantly implementing updates however. Every couple of months they may tweak a couple of builds to make them less OP or more powerful where necessary. In PvE you can see ArenaNet doing stuff with the recent release of Winds of Change Part 1 of 3, so they do take an active part. In PvP ArenaNet is working on banning bots and fixing the overpowered builds.

I hope this answers your new queries.

sudo · August 2011

Thank you for the answers, everybody. I will be buying Guild Wars Trilogy tonight

Hopefully, I will be able to enjoy a the story on a ranger, even though I was reading that they are one of the weakest and hardest to play at the moment due to being heavily underpowered, compared to other classes like Mesmer, Monk, Warrior and whatnot (pretty much everybody else, as it seems...)

Methos12 · August 2011

You should be aware that there IS a trial out there for GW1 so you might want to check it out first, if for no other reason than to see if gameplay sits well with you because it's not your traditional MMO fare.

Halandir · August 2011

Originally posted by sudo
Thank you for the answers, everybody. I will be buying Guild Wars Trilogy tonight

Hopefully, I will be able to enjoy a the story on a ranger, even though I was reading that they are one of the weakest and hardest to play at the moment due to being heavily underpowered, compared to other classes like Mesmer, Monk, Warrior and whatnot (pretty much everybody else, as it seems...)

Ranger, Guild Wars and underpowered in the same sentence... I guess I have seen everything now :-)

Joke aside that is just wrong. Rangers are not as powerful as they have been from time to time but "underpowered"? In the past rangers have definately been quite overpowered in some of the meta's. (Ie: Better energy management, single target damage output and interrupts in PvP than most classes for years).

Even with the needed adjustments, rangers are still a powerful and very interesting class. A warrior would have to sacrifice all other armor advantages just to match their elemental armorlevel. The ranger skillset has selfheals, energy management and increased attack/movement speed skills. This allows a lot of room for experiments with their secondary profession.

The ranger attributes allows for some extremely different (but fitting) playstyles, think "Beastmaster" with a pet, damage and interrupts as a bow and arrow ranger, or an annoying and deadly trapper.

Playing through the PvE content as a ranger works very well. If you cannot spend the time to gather a team or you have no friends/guildies online, a ranger is fine at leading a team of heroes/henchmen doing quests/missions.

Add to all that the rangers primary weapon, the bow. Different range/ballistics from the rapid firing, but short range "shortbow" to the long range, still rapid firing but high trajectory "Flat bow" and the other 3 types (hornbow, recurve and longbow) and you have a very interesting class.

Good luck with your travels. And remember F10 ingame + name of quest or whatever will bring up the official wiki :-)

sudo · August 2011

Methos, thanks, I've already tried the trial for a couple of evenings and finally bought the game yesterday

Halandir, great news and thank you for all the replies and help! Very glad to hear that rangers are perfectly viable through the whole pve campaign. So far, it's been a blast on my ranger and he is a lot of fun. I'm enjoying GW combat mechanics a lot (compared to other mmorpgs I've played to date that is) and am still trying to decide which subclass to take as my first (considering either elementalist for enchanted arrows or mesmer for some additional interrupts).

I'm reading guildwarsguru forums a lot at work and it's so full of information that's totally new to me and terms I don't yet fully (or partially...) understand that I'm quite lost in all of it. I'd love a very general advice on which classes can contribute ranger the best at the start. I realize that it will be possible to change the subclass later in the game by doing some quest but I've no idea when will that be and I've started playing from Prophecies since story interests me the most and I'd hate to jump between campaigns.

Thanks in advance!

Dev_Nights · August 2011

Yay! We have converted another MMO fan to play GW.

Anyway, for a secondary profession, Rangers don't need a specific one to work optimally. Usually people choose any of the core caster professions. (Elementalist, Mesmer, Necro or Monk. If you had made your character in Factions you may have chosen Ritualist or Assasin).

I would personally choose Monk because you can't go wrong with secondary Monk.

Necro is useful if you want to be a 'Toucher'. This type of ranger specializes in using touch skills available to Necromancers. Not much else to say. (Takes ages till you can use this build effectively).

Elementalist is mainly used in farming by combining the additional armor available through Earth Magic.

Mesmer is used in trapping builds to copy skills temporarily making it easier to spam traps. Although it is possible to take certain Mesmer skills like Leech Signet to add extra interrupts.

Ultimately there aren't any Ranger secondary professions that you should not take (apart from Warrior). My best advice is that you make your own build as you go along and see what works for you. The best builds for Rangers only use secondary professions for extra affects. Choose something you are comfortable with and run with that.

If you really want builds go to http://www.gwpvx.com/PvX_wiki and look at the great working PvE builds.

Also, if you ever want help in game just PM me here with a character name and I'll see what I can do for you.

sudo · August 2011

Thanks again

After checking some builds, I went for Monk as a secondary profession indeed. I'm not going to follow a specific build at this point, though. Would just love to explore the game and make some noob mistakes

Zeus.CM · August 2011

Originally posted by sudo
Thanks again

After checking some builds, I went for Monk as a secondary profession indeed. I'm not going to follow a specific build at this point, though. Would just love to explore the game and make some noob mistakes

i think thats the best way to enjoy the game. Learning it is whats fun and collecting those skills.

bamdorf · September 2011

I was going to post separately but I thought my comments fit in here. I had tried GW a couple of times, didn't get into it, then tried again several weeks ago. I play 2-3 hrs a day roughly, and I suppose I fall in the casual gamer class. I have much experience with the classic MMOs --- tho GW does not have the feel of an MMO, tbh.

1. The lack of jumping, the lack of camera control, and the inability to scale a small height are annoying, but not a LOT annoying for me.

2. I bought Trilogy for this go. I played through prophecies until Lion's Arch, then did the quests to access factions and nightfall, and I find the ability to go between the three areas very nice; if you get stuck or frustrated, just switch for a while. And it is useful because you unlock heros. Although I might comment that heroes, when I am not too good at selecting skill sets and am just beginning to unlock skills, may actually be more trouble than value. But eventually I hope to get better. I have managed to realize that switching my secondary (which is possible after a while) is very useful so as to get advanced skills that your heroes can use.

3. The content gets harder as you go. Of course there are lots of web pages to help, fortunately. EOTN is challenging for me at this stage in Normal Mode --- indeed I am struggling to do the prophecies missions in Hard Mode.

4. The vast amount of customization, which is possible at no cost just by going to an outpost, is really a big part of GW. Getting to max level (which took only a few casual days) is really just a tutorial. Then you start to get harder missions and start to fool with builds and unlocking skills. Of course there is so much to do that to say the game is linear is somewhat misleading. Yes, a quest or mission series is linear. But there are so many choices. You can even just expore for the hell of it...and it can be quite fun.

5. I have had great trouble finding others to play with. There seem to be people around, and I did try a couple of guilds, but nothing is working so far. So I am soloing with heroes for the present. Hopefully that may change....who knows.

6. I am still at the point of discovering how much I don't know, which is good in a way.

7. There are three major keys to GW (at my stage).

First --- You must be patient, wait for opportunites, pull carefully, and run away when you "see the elephant".

Second --- You need to learn what works against certain monsters, especially bosses. Often this is hard to figure out without checking the internet. Sometimes I can figure things out myself, often not --- at least not without a lot of failure first, at least. I usually try to scope out a mission before reading on it, and sometimes I can get it in one or two tries.

Third --- You need to figure out what skills you need (part of no. 2, in a way) and you need to go get those skills, either questing or capturing them from bosses. I think this is particularly important for hard mode. At least I hope it is. However, learning what skills you need, and how to use them together synergistically, is not very easy. Heck, maybe that is why I play a hammer warrior mostly. Knockdown, cripple, DBS, wait a bit, knockdown, weakness, etc. But nothing works on everything, and you have to get your whole team of heroes working.

Summary, major point.

I don't know how to fix it without breaking the game, but my biggest issue is that I don't very often see how to decide what to do against new monsters. Of course I can cheat on the web, but even that doesn't help some times because the skills that are recommended I haven't unlocked. Catch-22.

But a bigger problem is how is one supposed to figure out what skills to go after when I don't know they are in the game! Players at the original launch must have had a lotta fun figuring stuff out --- hehe, I mean, a lotta patience.

So with this caveat, I would say that GW is a very good game, tho I am playing it more like a single player RPG at the moment. Perhaps I will have an epiphany, or find some friends, and I will become a little more competent. I think for now it is just a little bit harder than I would like (not a lot --- making it a lot easier would ruin it) but I haven't gotten completely stuck yet. As I say, when I get better maybe "very good" will become "excellent".

Meanwhile, I am trying to figure out some way not to get stomped in "Heart of the Shiverpeaks". That stupid worm boss is annoying. I knocked out his armor, and he just disappeared and repopped....Grrrrrr.

To the OP and others: it is certainly worth looking at, especially so given the ridiculously low price for so much content. Buy the trilogy first. If it catches --- i.e. you finish one of the campaigns --- get EOTN next.

My 2c.

Nailzzz · September 2011

What i found most fun for me personally about GW1 was coming up with your own builds. Everyone seems to have this thing about going on wiki to find the optimal build to do anything with, but you have to realize that despite what some other players will tell you (i call them build-nazi's), there is never just one single build solution for every challenge. While i would peruse the wiki from time to time, i have always been reluctant to use builds from there (i usually just slap those on my heroes). I just prefer to come up with my own and have enjoyed coming up with unique builds. Only trouble is in finding other players who are willing to take you along if your like me. Most players only want exact wiki builds. Sadly this has only gotten worse.

When the game first started i was able to convince other players to allow me to heal as a necro with a monk secondary in the northern shiverpeaks area missions (which isnt at all difficult to pull off). Now you cant even get started in a group doing ascalon missions without a monk. Another reason im overjoyed about the lack of monks in GW2.

kramt · September 2011

The thing I love about Guild Wars is like the other poster said, is how you can make your builds effectively. Coming from a strong CCG background, I fell in love with the 8 skill building you can carry at one time. Kind of like your cards in hand available at your disposal like CCG's have. Also, the gorgeous sceneries, awesome graphics, amazing soundtrack, and immersive PvP. The game also is not about gear grinding like traditional MMORPG's have.

Hope you like and enjoy the game

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GW2 got me interested in GW but i need help

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GW2 got me interested in GW but i need help

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