Guild Wars 1

[Alphard]

and start from nightfall ( 3rd campaign)

Definitely not. Nightfall was the weakest campaign IMO.

Nightfall has the best storytelling, best quests, best outpost missions, best open areas level design wise ( as opposed as those narrow pathways in ascalon). also best tutorial for beginners and heroes.
Prophecies is also too slow at beginning ( pick up steam at LA ) and risks to drive people out of the game. heck it bored me to death in certain moments and i love the game

 

[Darth Roxor]

Yep, Nightfall is prob the best. I have a ton of appreciation for Prophecies, and I think it provides the biggest area diversity by far and the coolest antagonists (Mursaat), but it has some annoying quirks that were resolved much better in the next campaigns through various QOL additions or just better use of the tech - I still rate it very highly though.

Factions otoh is weird. I always hated the navigational nightmare that was Kaineng, with its 98346983 dead ends, pop-up ninja ambushes, omnipresent traps, shitty aesthetics and whatever else. Also the afflicted death splosion can be insanely frustrating if you're playing a melee character - which is mind-boggling given that Factions introduced the assassin, which is a total glass cannon. Shing Jea and the Jade Sea are so pretty though.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Prophecies is by far the best for high end gvg, for what the game was originally meant.

The best pve area is of course pre-searing.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Factions ramps up fast on difficulty compared to the other 2 campaigns. If you aren't hunting down all the side quests, you will probably be way under leveled for the main missions until you hit 20. I remember the first time I got to the mission to leave the island. That took several retries over a few different parties. I like the atmosphere of it a lot but that difficulty jump, along with the already mentioned death explosions, and just how fucking huge kaineng is makes factions pretty rough early on. I still like it a lot but by no means should it be someone's first jump into Guild Wars.

 

[what am i doing]

Afflicted used to be a lot harder. I'm not sure if their death explosion got nerfed or their builds weren't updated to some skill balance or if it was just power creep, but they used to be really hard and capable of taking out a party surprisingly fast. Think of WoC Afflicted today, regular Afflicted used to be comparably difficult.

The one place Afflicted still shine is Tahnnakai Temple due to their abundance of buffed Elementalist AoE skills and the map's very tight areas. This is made worse by its nature as an escort mission which makes pulling sometimes a hassle or not viable; when you go to pull, Mhenlo/Togo will often accompany you, stay there attacking while you fall back, and die. Definitely a map where you want multiple human players so one person can keep the AI escortees away while another person pulls.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i remember the afflicted as nasty but fair, as most of the whole factions. just the final boss was completely unbalanced, as in some parties had almost zero chances to kill him while some other combos could kill him in a matter of seconds.
but it was 15 years ago.
damn, 15 years ago.

 

[Black]

Afflicted used to be a lot harder. I'm not sure if their death explosion got nerfed or their builds weren't updated to some skill balance or if it was just power creep, but they used to be really hard and capable of taking out a party surprisingly fast. Think of WoC Afflicted today, regular Afflicted used to be comparably difficult.

The one place Afflicted still shine is Tahnnakai Temple due to their abundance of buffed Elementalist AoE skills and the map's very tight areas. This is made worse by its nature as an escort mission which makes pulling sometimes a hassle or not viable; when you go to pull, Mhenlo/Togo will often accompany you, stay there attacking while you fall back, and die. Definitely a map where you want multiple human players so one person can keep the AI escortees away while another person pulls.

They definitely changed something about the afflicted to make them easier, maybe something about their death explosion.

 

[Alphard]

so i bought faction, made a sin and it is already a lot of fun with the combo system.
meanwhile i already tried 5 times Hell Precipice to finish prophecies with my mesmer.
after a bit of brainstorming i changed build to my team ( still using 4 henchies) and managed to do bonus and close the portals. then i clear 2 groups , try to clear another only to also aggro P.R. and the sparks. i panic and get wiped, after 2 hours carefully pulling and flagging every encounter. damn this game can be punishing as HELL

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

you know, we did that stuff with fewer, weaker skills and classes u_u

 

[what am i doing]

Hell's Precipice was hard, then piss easy for a long time due to power creep... and then one day ArenaNet did the big Elementalist patch and Hell's Precipice became really fucking hard again because the imps happened to have spells that got buffed substantially in the update.

 

[Average Manatee]

Afflicted used to be a lot harder. I'm not sure if their death explosion got nerfed or their builds weren't updated to some skill balance or if it was just power creep, but they used to be really hard and capable of taking out a party surprisingly fast. Think of WoC Afflicted today, regular Afflicted used to be comparably difficult.

The one place Afflicted still shine is Tahnnakai Temple due to their abundance of buffed Elementalist AoE skills and the map's very tight areas. This is made worse by its nature as an escort mission which makes pulling sometimes a hassle or not viable; when you go to pull, Mhenlo/Togo will often accompany you, stay there attacking while you fall back, and die. Definitely a map where you want multiple human players so one person can keep the AI escortees away while another person pulls.

They definitely changed something about the afflicted to make them easier, maybe something about their death explosion.

It used to be that Afflicted were armor-respecting damage, which meant that:
- Player armor levels > 60 reduced the damage
but also
- Enemy levels > 20 increased the damage (in effect every level the enemy has reduces your base armor by 3, it works the same for player damage which is why 60 armor takes normal damage at level 20)

So since Afflicted tend to cap out around level 28-32 you'd be taking ~+75%-100% damage for casters. Bosses would also deal double damage as bosses always do in GW1 so for them its getting up to around 4x normal damage. It was changed to be armor-ignoring meaning it does normal damage to everyone, a slight nerf to warriors but a buff to everything else. Of course bosses still get the 2x multiplier which can be pretty nasty.

God, its incredible how I can remember such minutiae about a game this old. Could probably describe the effects of virtually every skill in general usage still.

Factions ramps up fast on difficulty compared to the other 2 campaigns. If you aren't hunting down all the side quests, you will probably be way under leveled for the main missions until you hit 20. I remember the first time I got to the mission to leave the island. That took several retries over a few different parties. I like the atmosphere of it a lot but that difficulty jump, along with the already mentioned death explosions, and just how fucking huge kaineng is makes factions pretty rough early on. I still like it a lot but by no means should it be someone's first jump into Guild Wars.

Factions is definitely best left to a second character but is also great for all future characters. Nightfall is just too long and easy while Prophecies is that x3. Factions is paced perfectly for veterans, the side quests are actually relevant to leveling and equipping your character and you can zig-zag around with knowledge of the area to get a lot of stuff done quick.

 

[what am i doing]

Factions is definitely best left to a second character but is also great for all future characters. Nightfall is just too long and easy while Prophecies is that x3. Factions is paced perfectly for veterans, the side quests are actually relevant to leveling and equipping your character and you can zig-zag around with knowledge of the area to get a lot of stuff done quick.

My first few characters were in Prophecies (and by god, playing Prophecies for the first time was some of the most fun I've ever had in a video game). Then for most of my playtime I'd make Factions characters for the speed and convenience. Nowadays when I decide to start a new character it's back to Prophecies again, just because I'm not in any kind of rush anymore and when I make a new character it's to play through the story (since you can't reset primary quests on existing characters) rather than to get a new class up and running to play with other people.

 

[Alphard]

After some nore tries i did it , the final boss was the easiest part

Hell's Precipice was hard, then piss easy for a long time due to power creep... and then one day ArenaNet did the big Elementalist patch and Hell's Precipice became really fucking hard again because the imps happened to have spells that got buffed substantially in the update.

yeah the sparks were the problem. had to always flag heroes away..

btw is there some post game content in prophe or i should go on in faction?

 

[Alphard]

you know, we did that stuff with fewer, weaker skills and classes u_u

i mostly used prophe skills and only 4 heroes (only prophe professions )

heroes were mandatory because the imps would 2 shot my team if i hadnt separate flags

 

[Average Manatee]

Factions is definitely best left to a second character but is also great for all future characters. Nightfall is just too long and easy while Prophecies is that x3. Factions is paced perfectly for veterans, the side quests are actually relevant to leveling and equipping your character and you can zig-zag around with knowledge of the area to get a lot of stuff done quick.

My first few characters were in Prophecies (and by god, playing Prophecies for the first time was some of the most fun I've ever had in a video game). Then for most of my playtime I'd make Factions characters for the speed and convenience. Nowadays when I decide to start a new character it's back to Prophecies again, just because I'm not in any kind of rush anymore and when I make a new character it's to play through the story (since you can't reset primary quests on existing characters) rather than to get a new class up and running to play with other people.

Prophecies is definitely nice the first time around but there's a reason the Drok's run exists. Also its really annoying how many side quests there are that require tons of time traveling across a huge area only to reward you with 250 xp. You can totally just get to level 20 in Factions before transferring to Nightfall or Prophecies.

btw is there some post game content in prophe or i should go on in faction?

There is the Last Day Dawns questline which is a sort of epilogue. There is also Sorrow's Furnace which is a pretty cool dungeon with multiple stages that change what goes on as you go through it multiple times. There's also, of course, Hard Mode, which I believe unlocks after you've finished a campaign. Hard Mode absolutely doesn't fuck around though

 

[baud]

navigational nightmare that was Kaineng, with its 98346983 dead ends, pop-up ninja ambushes, omnipresent traps, shitty aesthetics and whatever else

I played a little of GW: factions years ago, but I stopped playing right in this area, it was fucking annoying and the constant afflicted were a pain in the ass. But I don't think I would have been able to finish the game anyway

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

go back to noobcraft u_u

 

[Average Manatee]

Kaineng is great. A Coruscant-level city in a fantasy setting is pretty unique and the areas are packed with quests.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Now if only it looked less like ass...

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Kaineng is great. A Coruscant-level city in a fantasy setting is pretty unique and the areas are packed with quests.

i'm pretty sure that's just how hong kong always looked.

 

[luj1]

The art direction in Factions as a whole is

 

[Kev Inkline]

Can't believe it's a fucking 15 years ago I Iogged in for the first time.


:tearsinrain:

 

[Cyaniv]

Spoiler

The art direction in Factions as a whole is

Even more than a decade later, virtual tourism is still arguably one of the game's greatest strengths, probably the most textbook example great visuals with outdated technology... especially so when you remember that even when it was a new game it still ran excellently on underpowered computers.

 

[Alphard]

Guys the 3 titan final quests are damn hard with few skills and heroes as i have.
managed to do The last day dawns, now i'm at the one ot LA with all those tree elementalist titans.
i need to figure what to use of my available heroes because i feel the only one that has a decent build is Gwenn and i just filled her bar with interrupt skills. i refuse to look at wiki for builds and refuse to give up to some overgrown rock launching trees. i mighty retry in some days, now i'm too mad i lost 80 k exp point for survivor title

 

[what am i doing]

Post current teambuild? Without knowing the skills you have available I'd at least say get Panic in there if you have it, it substantially reduces enemy damage ouput.