Can someone explain the game to me?

DX_Intruder

Heard some good things about this game.. heard that it's more skill based and less based on your level, and that its extremely easy/quick to cap a character.. or something... but I understand there are tons of character skills to choose from to mix and match to make some good strategies.

(I would normally just play the free trial but i guess there isnt one for GW)

But... I dunno.  I watched a video, and the combat looked like the typical mmorpg 'click on your enemy and hit auto-attack and make dinner' combat.  which leads me to my first question...

1.) is combat really like that?  do you just easily target your enemy by clicking on them and choosing attack or a spell?  no dodging fireballs or striking, jumping back, striking, strafing to dodge, striking, etc?

2.) also, is PvP combat fair?  I'm all about balance and fairness when it comes to PvP, which is why I don't enjoy the typical mmorpg such as WoW and Lineage (because the outcome of the battle depends on your level and not on -player skill-)...

3.) how's the environment?  whether or not an mmo is immersive is important to me.. are there any cool weather effects and sounds effects like wind, animals, etc, or does it just seem like you're blatantly in a game repeatedly bashing mobs?  any atmospheric music or anything like that?

4.) can someone explain what "instanced" means?  i read that everything in GW is "instanced".  i've watched a couple WoW videos and i've seen my friend play WoW (and saw some things that were referred to as instances)....  and from the looks of it, it looks like "instanced" means: an area full of enemies that you can enter, but cannot leave from, until all the enemies are defeated.  is that right?  or does it just mean that everything is in its own separate zone?  I wouldn't have a problem with separate zoned areas, but if I leave town, then decide I want to go back in, I don't really want an invisible wall preventing me from re-entering the town because "it's instanced".  ..is it like that?

thanks in advance for any replies

Bent

You can dodge missle attacks, and try to run away from meele fighters.  There are also a ton of reactionary skills. 

Distortion

(Stance) For 5 seconds, you have a 75% chance to "Evade" attacks. Whenever you evade an attack this way, you lose 4..2 [1] Energy or Distortion ends. Updated: 3/2/06

Power Spike

(Spell) If target foe is casting a Spell, the Spell is interrupted and target foe takes 20..86 [107] damage. Updated: 3/18/04

Riposte

(Sword Skill) For 8 seconds, while you have a sword equipped, you "Block" the next melee attack against you, and your attacker takes 20..68 [84] damage. Updated: 3/2/06

as just some examples.

PvP is as fair as it can be.  Battles are always Xnumber vs Xnumber.  So the number of people on each team is the same.  But if you take a team of noobs and place them vs a team of vets it likely won't seem very fair.  But their is no issue with levels or items diciding the outcome of battles unless your purposefully sabataging youself.

I really depends what your looking for.  I figure you know that GWs isn't a presistant world.  Since it is mission based that means the things you do in certain mission effect the game enviroment.  If you take your time and play through slow I think it can be very immersive.  I remember a time when some spiders suddenly fell down from the trees (AKA you couldn't seem them beforehand) and attacked me.

Instanced just means zoned.  Just you and your party.  No other players can enter your instance unless they are in your group when you start it.  So 48 people could all be doing the same mission, but there would only be about 8 people in each indepedent instance.

Your in a town press "m" are show a map, you can click on a number of icons on the map that represent locations.  You are instantly transported to wherever you pick and can then enter an instance buy leaving that area by walking out the exit.  If you ever played Diablo, it is a lot like that.

As far a free trial, that last trial was about a month ago so you missed it.  However, there are a number of "Buddy keys" floating around that will let you try the game out.  I suggest you browes some of the guild wars fansites as most have post deciated to giving away buddy keys.

Since you seem to favor balanced PvP I should tell you, GWs is about the complete opposite of lineage or WoW.  As soon as you install the game you can make a max level PvP only char that starts with end game items.  Even people that play through the PvE part of the game tend to take advantage of making PvP only charaters and deleting and remaking them simply because their is more or less no disadvantage and this allows them to build for different builds without having to re-gear their PvE chars.

VGJustice

I'd say that Bent covered it.

The game is, IMHO, exactly as imersive as you let it be. Take your time with it, and you'll get that lost in the woods feeling pretty quickly. If you skip everything and rush to the end, the game will seem VERY short and shallow.

I introduced a guy to a few out-of-the-way areas in PvE, after he got bored with the game just playing PvP all day. Now, he's got a renewed intrest in the game, and is making PvE characters for the first time since he started the game 8 months ago.

There's plenty to do, but you have to go find it. Make your own adventrure out of it.

Aseenus

pvp is very fair

DX_Intruder

ahh... alright thanks a lot guys

I think I completely get instanced now.... which i really should've immediately got since I use other programs that use the term... so it means whatever area you zone to, you or your set party (i'm guessing you have to make a party in a town?) have your own separate version of that wilderness zone, and if someone else were to zone there, they couldn't see you, right?  they'd have their own version of the zone too?  ahh, that's kind of a big negative for me, I think it's fun running into friendlies in caves and adding people to your party, but anyway, I suppose making everything not instanced would require more bandwidth and probably a monthly fee.

so, if everything's instanced though, how do you run into enemies?  are there like, set "arena" areas?

one more thing, I think I understand the combat now, does seem like MTG sort of, but, do you actually do anything or do you just think of an awesome setup and then autoattack the enemy?  I asked about "strafing or dodging" to my friend when I was watching him play AO, and he said, "well.. you could do that, but it'd just be dumb because your next attack would be more delayed".  or do you actively have to select targets and spells instead of just sitting there and crossing your fingers?

and what did you mean by a PvE char vs. a PvP char?  (like, I know that pve is vs. ai monsters and pvp is vs. humans, but..)  are PvE and PvP completely unrelated?  again I'm against becoming god-like through hours of mob-bashing, but are they -completely- unrelated?  like, can you find a slightly better weapon or armor by killing a monster or is all equipment and skills all bought/sorted out in town areas, and mobs are simply there for people who enjoy fighting mobs?

thanks everyone.  tbh it doesn't sound like what I was hoping for, but if I can find a buddy key I'll try it, and probably will get addicted and buy it anyway lol.

VGJustice

In Guild Wars, there are two options for character creation. The PvE characters start at level one with the weakest armor, and not really much else. You have to find a secondary profesion, and weapons, and skills. Eventually, the character will be strong enough to use in PvP, and they will have access to all of the game content.

A PvP character is refering to the PvP Only option. These characters start at level 20 (max) with all of their attribute points and a set of maxed out weapons. They also have access to anything you personally found and identified (Skills, Runes, Weapon Mods), so they can start very strong. However, they ONLY have access to the PvP content of the game, and they are restricted from the PvE portion. But, these are useful as you can re-roll them repeatedly at max level with lots of good skills.

As far as combat goes, it's very involved. It is true that you can Point and Click, and you will attack that target with your basic attack until it's dead, you're dead, or you try to move away. Skills, however, are all by player use. You have to actually use the skill (click its icon or press the coresponding number) for it to take effect. And, skills are what will make or break a character. As for movement, you have a few options there. You can click a spot on the ground to move there, or you can use the WASD keys to move around. In higher levels of PvP, movement and positioning can sometimes be key to winning matches. Just being in the right place at the right time can give you a great advantage, as can knowing when to move and where to move.

I personally concider this to be more of an action type game. Your reflexes will be much more important than your character's level or equipment.

Bent

When you go into character creation you have to chose "RPG char" or "PvP only" char.  RPG chars start at lvl 1 at the begining of the game.  You play through normally and their are PvP options at certain lvls.  AKA there is a lvl 10 and lvl 15 PvP arena, when you get the the end game this char has access to end game PvP as well.  You need to lvl and equip them pretty much like other typically RPG games.  You must work your way to the end game.  As your RPG learns new skill or unlocks new items, they are flagged available for your entire account.  If you start a new RPG char they start with nothing.  If you start a PvP-only char they start with all the skills and items ANY of your other chars unlocked.

If you make a PvP only char they start at lvl 20.  You have access to any of the skills or items you've unlocked plus a few basic sets of end game gear.  They only have access to lvl 20 PvP areas.  They can not go into any PvE areas. 

While doing PvP you earn faction which can be used to buy more unlocks.  So you can gain unlocks by either playing the PvE game with an RPG char or doing PvP with either.  There are many types of PvP, from random to team based to Guild vs Guild battles.

You can get very very very slightly better weapons IF you put in the effort for your RPG chars.  As an example PvP only chars can choose from a number of max damage weapons they can be upgraded with unlocks

Something like

PvP weapon
Stave max damage
spells recharge 20% faster (20% chance)
spells cast 20% faster (20% chance)
with 2 upgrade slots.

The PvE only version would be the same thing with maybe
+3 energy thrown in.

The difference is the first is free (to pvp chars).  The second will take hours of farming.  +3 energy compared to a base pool of around 40 energy isn't really a meaningful benifit.  Most people that farm the items do it for the cool looks.

You friend is right... if you are attacking someone and strafe or run your going to stop attacking.  But if your a caster you don't really care much about attacking.  The PvE game is kinda typical but in PvP combat it is very active.  A typical match is 8v8.  You are 1 of 8 people.  That spell I mentioned eariler "power spike" you have 8 people you could use it on, you need to watch the enemy team and wait for someone to cast a spell you think is worth interupting.  Most spells only have a 1-3 second cast time, so you have to be on the ball.  At the same time while doing that you need to actively use the other skills you are carrying to the best of you ability, while running from warriors or out of range of other casters/archers.  The fact that the enemy is constantly taking damage and being healed in the simplelist form would at least require you to keep changing your target to the most damaged enemy if you want to kill anything.

rekkor

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Originally posted by DX_Intruder

one more thing, I think I understand the combat now, does seem like MTG sort of, but, do you actually do anything or do you just think of an awesome setup and then autoattack the enemy?  I asked about "strafing or dodging" to my friend when I was watching him play AO, and he said, "well.. you could do that, but it'd just be dumb because your next attack would be more delayed".  or do you actively have to select targets and spells instead of just sitting there and crossing your fingers?

---

I wanted to speak to the combat directly. As far as any mmo i've ever played Guild Wars has the best balance pvp i've seen. Some people don't like it but they are usually the people that want the broken I win button template characters from other games. PvP combat is designed around a team concept so usually the only time you wind up 1v1 is when the rest of the team is dead. Your character can choose to combine two classes. Then you pick a set of skills to take into battle. You can set up a theme set or just random spells but the key is synergy between you and your mates. Building you skills around what your team is trying to accomplish. Either a quick 1 shot kill ala the elementalist spiker team. (High damage output low defense) or the warrior/monk teams ( High defense some healing, less damage)

At any rate so much of what you do will depend on what the enemy does and how they react. Do you persue a fleeing enemy and cut them down or back off and get your team back to full strength. I've seen matches lost where my team persued a seemingly beaten team to be lead into a trap and devastated.

DX_Intruder

thanks for all the feedback everyone.

to be honest it doesn't sound like the type of game I'd normally enjoy.  some of the concepts seem odd to me (everything being instanced) and I don't enjoy FF-style combat in multiplayer games.  I'm also a little worried about the magic system, I'm for "realistic spells" if that makes sense.. if someone "casts fireball on me" I want to see them actually charge fire in their hands and fling the projectile at me, which I could dodge, and probably get hit by a little bit of splash damage from it.  (it seems that some spells such as Power Spike are instant, click target, click spell, and theyre instantly hit (depending on a dice roll).  kinda... mehhh... to me.)

but, the fact that they made PvP balanced, and the fact that it IS possible to get slightly better stuff by leveling, but not insane uber stuff, I think that's amazing and that's what gonna make me play it.  thanks again

Bent

Flare

(Spell) Flare flies toward target foe, striking for 16..40 [48] fire damage if it hits. Updated: 3/18/05

5

1 sec.

None

Meteor Shower

(Spell) Create a Meteor Shower at target foe's location. For 9 seconds, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 7..91 [119] fire damage and knocked down every 3 seconds. This Spell causes Exhaustion. Updated: 9/7/05

25

5 sec.

60 sec.

There are spells as you described.

In the case of meteor shower a caster has to stand still for 5 seconds to cast it, While casting you see a "fire" summion effect surrounding them.  After it is cast you have a second of so that you can dodge out of range of the blast.

Skills like power spike have to be instant in order to have a chance to interupt 1second cast time enemy spells.  That's right, even your 1 second cast time spell aren't safe from interuption.  I can't think of any more active a system.  You can dodge arrows, you can dodge area effect damage over time skills, you can dodge projectile based spells like flare.

There reason I listed the first set of skill a couple of posts back is because you said you wanted a active combat system.  So I gave a sampling of skills that you have to put a like thought into using and just can't press a botton over and over.  If you were carrying power spike you would likely interupt meteor shower, if you aren't carrying an interupt your only choice is to run like hell once the ball start falling from the sky.  A player can only carry 8 skills into a battle.  8 out of 300+ skills?  It is pretty much Magic the Gathering at "live speed" instead of turn based.

Of course there are other ways to deal with casters besides interupts...

Backfire

(Hex Spell) For 10 seconds, whenever target foe casts a Spell, that foe takes 35..119 [147] damage. Updated: 3/18/05

Note that most players only have 400-550hp.  Of course bacfire has a number of counters to it as well.  There simply is no I win button.

exanimo

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