f13.net

At the core Guild War's PvE hasn't changed.  You take a small team of players/henchmen through a series of quests and missions.  But the things around it has changed.

Original:  Henchmen sucked.  You couldn't play solo past a certain point.
Nightfall:  Henchmen fight well. Heroes are even better. You can play the whole game solo.  I am attempting to prove it now.

Original: Lots of filler quests most weren't rewarding.  Give low xp/money and items you don't want.
Nightfall: Filler quests give more money/xp and Quartermaster items.  Quartmaster items are turned in for utility items that you can actually use.

Original:  Missions give max 2000xp and 2sp
Nightfall: Missions give max 4500xp and 3sp, and bonus' aren't as obtuse, 

Original:  Skills and Elite Skills where a pain to get.  Filling out you're skill set was a lot extra work.
Nightfall:  Skills are much to easier buy because of the above changes and because trainers have offer many more skils to train.  Elites are easier to capture and easier find.  With spoilers they are just like any other quest.  And changing secondaries is much easier.

Original:  The story was a complete mess, uninteresting, and cliched.  Even worse than FF8 and Dungeon Seige.
Nightfall:  The story straight forward, original, mildly interesting. On par with Chrono Cross.

Original:  Loot is boring.
Nightfall:  It's a little less boring with named items and insciptions.

The playerbase still sucks and the world is gamey.  But the bottom-line for me is all the things that dragged down PvE are gone and all the fun core mechanics are still there.

Dammit now I am going to have to pick it up.

Pretty much summed it up. I'm enjoying it almost despite myself. The PvE is still a bit bland (but pretty) but it's not a struggle anymore. The heroes aren't just good they're FUN; playing with the different skill sets and watching the AI play a minion master to perfection is a thing of beauty.

Taz, have you tried the hero based pvp at all? I've got just enough people coming back to the guild to set some of that up and am curious as to how it works.

I got throughly trashed the 2 times I tried Hero Battles.  Its going to take some thought.

Have a copy of the collector's edition sitting in gamestop. Guess I'll pick it up. I wonder if the assassin is fun now.

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/N/Me_SS_Nuker (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/N/Me_SS_Nuker)
Maybe you can revive Schild Is Dead with the above build. It sounds like you.

Really want to try a Paragon.  Those guys look completely badass.  Being a support type character with henchmen who don't suck sounds much better than the alternative.

I'll pick it up in a while.

Not far from my build. I run my N/Me SS/AE build through the new chapters first. They're so completely and utterly broken in PvE it's almost like playing with a cheat code.

I don't particularly like playing with broken characters. At the same time, I like playing with super fast characters - which tend to be broken due to DPS in online games. Like right now I'm deciding whether to go the munchkin total ninja badass route with Vaan in FFXII or having a true spellcaster with Ashe. Or go Ninja/Black&Arcane Magic hybrid with Penelo. These are serious decisions I have to make. I did however take off work to finish FFXII by saturday so I can get back to other games I'm loving like Devil Summoner, Scourge, some old PC stuff (kinda learning DotA), and various other games including God Hand.

I'm hoping Nightfall fixes PvE as much as op says. The box is still waiting for me at the store (a lot of boxes are, I'm keeping myself from being distracted - though I did break down and buy Children of Mana and Powerstone Collection this morning).

Completely broken may be a bit of an overstatement. It's not as though you're invincible or anything. What you do have is an attack that you just tab around putting on everything that the AI is never going to be smart enough to deal with. Quick kills.

The pve's not perfect. There are still bland parts and mechanically there's not a ton of variance. But the missions are all pretty cool; for contrast I went back and got a new set of armor infused and even ten minutes in this old mission was pretty awful by comparison.

Assassins are glass tigers. Assassin chains can be tough. Some people can't adjust.  They have to play like a warrior.

The henchies can take care of themselves now.  That frees up the the assassin player to teleport into the enemy casters, and be reasonably assured the henchies won't die while you are taking of business.

If I don't want to buy Factions, can I still buy this and have an excellent game play experience?  And furthermore, if I somehow get to level 20 and advance to the 'end game', is Factions going to be required for that?

I am very impressed with the description so far.  Non-shitty henchmen is definitely enough to get me to play this game.  The PvE would be 10x better (although still not great, but at least decent) if I wasn't forced to do it with other people.

> If I don't want to buy Factions, can I still buy this and have an excellent game play experience? 
Yes. Nightfall is completely stand-alone.

>And furthermore, if I somehow get to level 20 and advance to the 'end game', is Factions going to be required for that?
You get to 20 early in the story-line.  Development post-20 is lateral.  Having Factions gives you a few more lateral options.

>I am very impressed with the description so far.  Non-shitty henchmen is definitely enough to get me to play this game.  The PvE would be 10x better (although still not great, but at least decent) if I wasn't forced to do it with other people.

I haven't played through Prophecies in a long while, but the Henchmen there should there should use the new AI too.  You could test drive it there before you buy Nightfall.

Think I may have found a mission unhenchable. It's that Temple of Whatever mission where you have to take over the different nodes. Damned hard because it's so quick.

lol, going to have to be more specific.  I tried Thunderhead Keep at lunch. Made a tactical mistake.  Didn't have time to re-do it.

It's a Nightfall mission... Grand Court of Sebelkeh. Actually ended up with a human group and two heroes. Nailed it pretty well. Prior to that, though, had about eight failures with just AI party members.

OK, well first of all I'm back here. So you really had to group with the unwashed like 1 time. I'm not sure what your telling us.

I'm saying that the new AI is pretty damned good and the new heroes rock faces but there are certain situations where even a bad human is preferable. A mission where you have to split forces is far better in the hands of a human. This mission was one of those cases.

The henchies/heroes can interrupt Orison of Healing and similar fast casting spells. That makes me envious. Friggin LPBs. :P
Of course they don't have any sort of 'priority' on spell interrupting, they'll blow interrupts on fast casting/cheap spells and then watch the enemy cast Meteor Shower unhindered.

They aren't so smart about skill usage overall though, and a lot of builds are wasted on them. A Monk build with Word of Healing f'rex will just spam WoHl over and over and over, even if the target is above 50%; a barrage ranger will just spam barrage (even vs 1 mob) and neglect interrupts (I got around this by manually disabling barrage when I really need her to interrupt stuff), and getting them to use traps properly is a huge pita. They ARE pretty efficient though, overall, even if they seem to have a hardon for spamming elite skills. One of my guildies made a minion master out of the necro hero back on Tyria and he's a one-man wrecking ball. Can probably solo most of the stuff in a mission by his AI lonesome.

Also, have to put their rez or rez signet off autocast as well and use that stuff manually, or they end up wasting it / wasting 10 seconds of trying to rez in combat and letting someone die, then having the person they rezzed die immediately as well.


-- Z.

It took me 10 trys to finally to beat to it solo.  It was really clawing uphill since the henchies aren't lightbringers and I was forced to use my Monk Hero I hadn't leveled much.  Thunderhead Keep wasn't that hard but it's so long, so many chances to make mistakes.

Beat the game last night with an actual (gasp!) group of people who were competent.

The story's not going to set the world on fire but it's all markedly better than the prior two. It also fleshes out the lore in a way that hasn't been there before.

Last boss would be appreciated by Schild (though I doubt he'll get there); it reminded me almost of an old SNES last fight in its execution. Very consoley, though not horribly challenging.

Overall, this was a good buy. Whether I have the easy time negotiating the game with my dervish that I did with my SS necro is up in the air but they've drawn me back into the game. And I still maintain that nobody does environments as well as the GW art team.

I started up the game this weekend just long enough to download all the new stuff and take on a few fights outside of town.

I didn't play enough to see the new stuff.   Plus, I'm going to buy the expansion later.

I just had to say, I agree that the art in this game is still better than anything I've seen yet.  I just sat and looked around for a long time enjoying it.

Is playing pve stil worthwhile/necessary, or can you get everything you need through pvp these days?

You can lock everything with pvp.

Is there enough people for an F13 guild?

After trying this numerous times I'd like to suggest we do it differently if at all.

Have somebody that plays the game quite a bit already find a decent guild for us all to join together.  We can't ever seem to make a go of a guild all by ourselves no matter how many of us there are.

Personally, I think the perfect guild likes to GvG but doesn't care about winning.

Right, then it isn't so much about how much you play, just that you play.  My perfect night of playing would be to just log on and find people willing to get a fight going.  After each loss we'd talk about how to improve and do it again.  No bitching, no whining, no stomping of feet, no drama...

Um, so have you found that yet?  :-)

There is one. No one else has logged in for 30 days.

Ya, and it was pretty fun back at the beginning.  I think I remember you taunting Koreans in Heros' ascent.
Are you in it? who is the leader?

I'm in it, or was.  I'll have to check again, but I think Schild was leader.

Tried some stuff I hadn't bothered with before.  Alliance Battles, which I assumed meant giant organized fights of guild alliances, are pretty cool.  Just show up, jump into a group of 4 and go.  You're dropped with 2 other 4-man groups against and equal number, fighting for the Luxon or Kurzick side depending on... well, your guild and you.  Since there's automatic rezzing, it allows much looser builds than the random arenas.  Minion masters are fun there.  So is a minion master who brought along Verata's Aura.

I'm actually picking Nightfall up this week. Probably Wed or Thurs. They were kind enough to hold a collector's edition for me until the winter drought.

Have they put clan stuff in for groups with islands yet? (like us)

Also, how long does it take to 20 a character now? (I ask because I'd like to make a straight Dervish).

Other questions? Sure, why not.

Has the hardware requirements gone up? Factions ran slower than the original one for me. Part of the reason I never got into the assassin. Also, and tell me straight here, does the economy still make no sense whatsoever? Oh, and is there any purpose in the game thus far?

Basically, while picking this up is inevitable, I still have other games to play - including ones I'm paying for (Phantasy Star Universe), but I remember enjoying leveling my necromancer/elementalist in the original game - though 10-20 of us were almost always on.

Anyway, yea, How cool is dervish and is this worth my time?

Dervish is pretty awesome.

No real economy.

Not long to get to 20. Less than a week if you play quickly.

Game runs the same for me as it always has.

If you mean guild halls, you can buy NPCs for it.  And there are, of course, Guild Versus Guild battles.

You can hire NPCs to provide services for a flat fee.
 
Xunlai Agent and Balthazar are the only ones realy needed.

7 hours to 20 if you are going slow?

>Has the hardware requirements gone up?
I upgraded my video card for EQ2, so I don't know, but its only a little bit if they did.

>Also, and tell me straight here, does the economy still make no sense whatsoever?
It not a virtual world, economic simulation is not the goal.

>Oh, and is there any purpose in the game thus far?
The purpose is to play through the story and fight against others online.  Both aspects have been improved. What's purpose of any game?

>but I remember enjoying leveling my necromancer/elementalist in the original game - though 10-20 of us were almost always on.
It was pretty great to able to group with people you like and being chat will playing.

>Anyway, yea, How cool is dervish and is this worth my time?
I have played to 12 with Derv.  The Derv is not nearly as brittle as the the Assassin and I thought it was fun to store up a bunch enchantments and dump them on group baddies.  Many people really like the avatars because they make you a serious badass for 50 seconds.

Picked up Nightfall. Didn't get Much time to play around. PvE SEEMS better. We'll see. Even while skipping the first tutorial, this game holds your hand, a lot. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Odds are, over the next month or so, I'll at the very least play the storyline.

So - they do have some interesting missions. One requires that you take no henchmen.

You have to solo 8 harpies. (To win the mission)

To get the extra skill points you need to:
Battle a mime. (He /dances you /dance back, basically it's Simon says in emotes).
Re-inact a historical duel (Simple fight)
Have a drink off - drink 13 drinks in 1 minute or so. (Run around with your screen getting harder and harder to see)
Kill/Buy/Trade for a antique Vase
Teach a kid to dance.

That mission was pretty cool.. and surprisingly doable for every type of character incl. my squishy elementalist [though you may need to fiddle around with the builds for a bit].

However, the 2nd last Nightfall mission pissed me [and the guildies I was doing it with] off. It basically requires you/heroes/party members to use several obscure skills to beat it, and the most useful one is from Factions. If you have the correct builds, the boss fight at the end is trivial, but otherwise it's almost unbeatable.

If the entire mission was a single boss fight, I wouldn't really mind -- but you need to clear about 50-60 minutes worth of stuff before you get to that particular boss too. Ugh. I'm all for challenging fights [the 45 minute Baron run from WOW is still one of my favorites], but that one boss is just stupidly frustrating, and a lot harder than NF's end boss.


-- Z.

I was not real impressed with the drought either. Ticked me off that melee was worthless against him for the most part.

It's frightening that I consider the henchmen smarter then your average player now. Got in a group to do it, everyong agreed to get the master, then someone goes and hits a lever. "Oh I didn't know what it did and saw I could click it".

That being said, I grabbed one tank henchie and the rest ranged, gave myself ranger as my secondary (for winter) and beat it with no problem, (I failed like 4 times with a couple melee henchies).

Ah, I don't mean the Drought [though that was nasty as well, we thought we could pull it off by not weakening him for the bonus; *BZZZZZZZZZT* wrong!], I mean a mission further into the game... you'll see. :p


-- Z.

Trick to him is spreading people out and getting a winter on the ground asap.

If I could splatter this across the sky I would. No shit, everytime I start feeling like the world has some inkling of hope (see: November election) all I have to do is log onto Guild Wars and see one million of those apes to have my heart snap back to reality. Those are the people that are going to take care of the world when I retire. Dear God, we're lost. How so much stupid has concentrated in one place is a mystery.

Somebody school me. If I'm thinking about picking up this or NWN2, which should I get? Either way, I'm going to play it single-player. I probably won't replay it. I might dick around online, but probably not much. Mostly I just want to pick up the shiny and eviscerate some monsters.

Have you played Guild Wars already? Or you just asking about Nightfall specifically?

Either way, it's best to stay away from NWN2. For now at least (Story wise though, it's better than Nightfall).

[edit]

Also, Guild Wars is online. There's no way you can "dick around" with it offline.

Ok, replace 'online' with 'in a group.' I was under the impression that heroes made the game soloable in a way previous GWs weren't.

I've never played any GW before. Nightfall would be my only box, if I picked it up..

OK DW, I will chime in here. PVE The henchmen are much better now. You can solo (online) much better than you could before. There may be a mission or so that you will need to group. If you thought that WOW player base was immature you have a lesson to learn. The game is free. Buy the box play forever. The community is beyond belief. Really until you've been there you cant believe how many smart 5 year olds there are in America. Oh and nightfall is the much better option in my humbale option.

Not that smart.

Walking the fine line between swallowing their own tongue every time they look up at the ceiling and remembering their log-in information, huh?

heh,


Nowadays, im not sure games know what PVE IS

Sure they do - they're practically all PvE focused with PvP tacked on.

you would say that about WOW?

Sure, the quick lvl up is nearly all grinding or quests, but end game content in nearly every MMO is PvP.

WoW's end game content is raiding. Plain and simple. And until recently, being primarily a (PvE) raider gave you a huge advantage in the PvP game, which is just wrong - beating the easy content of PvE should not give you a leg up in the (theoretically at least) more difficult game of killing other players.

Shadowbane, UO, Eve-Online, DAoC (I think, didn't play it much) are the only games with an honest eye towards PvP, especially as the end game content.

I dunno... it just seems like no MMO is successful without a PvP system.

EQ was fairly successful without a PvP system. And numbers aside, EQ is supposedly a much superior game to what it was at launch, and again without a true PvP system.

Also, RE: FFXI, Vanguard, CoX, etc.

Just because a game has PvP does not mean it has a real, balanced PvP system. A lot of games are simply not balanced for PvP. At all.

Hmm...

Well, I suppose that's one reason why I'm looking forward to lotro online - no PvP.  Something called PvMP (monster player)

have any idea how that's worked out in other games?

I've only seen it in EQ, and they only had it functioning briefly. From what I can tell from the  :nda: forum, it works much better in LotRO.

We'll see.  I just hope we don't get some leeroy jenkins as a balrog stuff.

CoX has PvP...

But anywho.  Was going to mention that DAoC was at least as equipment dependant as any other game, expect MAYBE Lineage 2, when it comes to success in PvP.  If you didn't have your spellcrafted gear and the right artifacts all leveled up, you might as well have gone home.

Picked it up myself, recently.

To get the changes, do you have to start a Nightfall campaign or can you get the Nighfall/Hero benefits from any campaign?

Also, is there a common guild the forum has here?

You might be a year or so late on the F13 GW guild thing.  :evil:

lol, well what ya gonna do.  I overplayed GW so badly during Alpha that I didnt play much after release.  I have all three boxes, but have only been playing it actively a few weeks now.  Workin' on a mes/ele, trying to get up all the skills.  It's a Prophecies character though, and I am not sure if I can get heros without restarting.

Your choice.  Existing characters get missions to travel to the expansion lands.  New chars start there and play through a newb area and get the new professions as primary.

You get heroes either way.

As long as pick them up in Prophecies. (Then again there is one you can pick up in Factions - provided you have Prophecies).

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Heroes (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Heroes)

Anyone with Nightfall can get a full set of Elonian Heroes by playing through the campaign.  There is also a Factions and a Prophecies Hero available if you own their respective campaigns in addition to Nightfall.  A non-Nightfall character basically gets 5 Heroes just for stepping foot on Elona (W,Mo,Mo,D,R|E).

Cool, thanks.  I picked up some Elona heroes, but I want Prophesies heros.  I'll go look for em, thanks for the link.

My character is Survey Says, if anyone is still playing much.  Right now a Mes/Ele with fastcasting interruptions spikes.