Curse

Ariena Najea · Nov 06, 2008, 09:21 AM // 09:21

This purpose of this thread is to compare the current state of the Luxon and Kurzick titles to that of the EoTN Reputation titles as well as Nightfall's Sunspear and Lightbringer titles. From these comparisons we can adjust the currently broken Luxon/Kurzick faction system to function more similarly like the other, more balanced titles.

I am aware this is an extremely long post but please read from start to finish if you are posting to discuss the topic.

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Why is the current system broken?

The current system began in Guild Wars Factions and was intended to be somewhat of a PvP based title. Similar to the PvP titles at that time it was not intended to be maxable. With more recent changes to the game such as the implementation of the PvE only Luxon and Kurzick skills, treating these titles as PvP titles is no longer appropriate. Furthermore, the addition of bounties to the explorable areas as well as faction rewards for completing missions, although a step in the right direction, are insufficient in their current capacity to increase the title at a rapid pace. Changing the titles such that faction donation and skill acquisition grant double points towards the title was an appropriate step, however given the slow pace of faction gain in the first place, is still insufficient even in conjunction with the other changes.

Currently the fastest known method of gaining faction is repeatedly completing the quests Securing the Forest or The Jade Arena. This is not confirmed as far as I know, however, the FFF page on GuildWiki states that it is possible to gain 1400 Kurzick faction in a three minute period by Warden farming in Arborstone HM, although it should be noted that through this method the gain should hypothetically be doubled due to the update to the Blessing bonuses, as compared to the approximate gain of 1200 Kurzick faction in a three minute period (completion of 1 run per minute) of Securing the Forest FFF. I'm going to analyze the approximate time required using the Securing the Forest method, although if you are familiar with this other run, and are able to vouch and provide proof of its claim to be more efficient that Securing the Forest then I will certainly re-evaluate my argument to include that information.

Assuming that you are starting with either zero or negligible Kurzick faction when you begin aiming for the title, you have 10,000,000 points to earn. Assuming that you are either exclusively donating or acquiring skills with your earned faction, each full donation of 10,000 faction gives 20,000 points towards this title. This means that it takes 500 full faction donations in order to max the title. One run of Securing the Forest will yield 400 raw faction, or 800 points towards the title. Therefore, it takes 25 of these such runs in order to earn 10,000 raw faction. If we multiply the number of these runs per full faction donation times the number of full faction donations required to max the title, we end up with 12,500 runs required in order to max the title. Experienced runners are able to complete a full cycle, which includes running; taking the quest reward; and rezoning, in approximately 1 minute. We will assume for this discussion that there are no failed runs and that every run lasts exactly 1 minute. This means that 12,500 runs requires 12,500 minutes to complete. This translates into approximately 208.333 hours, or 8.681 days of doing these runs. This seems somewhat excessive, especially for being the "fastest" method around.

Now that we've highlighted some of the main problems under the current system and have some approximations for how long it takes to complete this title through FFF, let's move to analyze similar titles.

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Analysis of Sunspear and Lightbringer Titles

It should be noted that these are Hard Mode titles, meaning that they are intended to be at least partially completed in Hard Mode due to the bounty constraints in Normal Mode. A player who is looking to max other Hard Mode titles will find that through doing quests (can be done in NM) and Vanquishing Elona will max both of these titles assuming both the Sunspear and Lightbringer Bounties are efficiently utilized in this process. Essentially, these are freebies to anyone looking to also get their Vanquisher title. Farming is therefore not necessary to obtain these titles in a timely manner as completing Elona in HM will yield enough points for both titles to max.

For the sake of discussion we will assume that the player is choosing not to go the above route, and is simply farming for points. To compare results, we will calculate the approximate time spent farming points for each title using the fastest known method at two points; what rank a player can reasonably be at after completing the game including quests as well as if the player is starting entirely new.

According to statistics on GuildWiki about Sunspear and Lightbringer point farming we can determine that farming the Sulfurous Wastes from the Remains of Sahlahja is the fastest known method of maxing both titles. According to the given statistics, a "full" run containing both paths yields approximately 650 LB points and 570 SS points in 7-10 minutes. We'll assume each run takes 10 minutes for these calculations. It takes 50,000 points in order to max each title. If we assume the player has no points in either title track, it will take 50,000 points divided by 570 SS points per run, or 88 full runs in order to max both titles. Let's say going through Nightfall in NM puts you at r8 Sunspear and r3 Lightbringer Ranks. This means we have 42,500 SS points remaining and 49,000 LB points remaining to max each title. Using these figures it takes 75 full runs to max both titles. Using our previously determined figure of 10 minutes per run, this means you would require approximately 14.667 hours to complete the titles starting without any initial points, and exactly 12.5 hours to complete both using our assumed starting point totals. In comparison to the approximate 208.333 hours in order to max the Kurzick title using the Securing Melandru's Hope method, it takes about 16.667 times as long to complete the Kurzick Allegiance title as both the Sunspear and Lightbringer titles using our r8/r3 figure, and approximately 14.204 times as long using the r0 figure. I feel the current balance of these title progressions as far as point acquisition goes is sound, although perhaps not perfect are at least in an acceptable range. For such large multipliers, this shows that the Kurzick and Luxon titles far exceed any reasonably calculated range.

Other than simply achieving higher title ranks and ultimately max ranks of these two titles, both titles have PvE skills whose functionality is linked to the respective ranks. These skills are what at least gameplay wise the titles are important for. Skill effectiveness and rank have a linear relationship and as such, ignoring "break points" where the graph meet integers on the y-axis, insofar as each successive increase in rank yields the same increase in skill effectiveness regardless of what your current rank is. Let's analyze the effective title progression as it relates to progressing through the Nightfall storyline. It isn't difficult to reach Sunspear r7 after completing Kourna and entering Vabbi. Personally on my last Nightfall character, I had achieved r8 very soon after reaching Kourna. This rapid progression in rank results in the linked skills being comparable, or slightly stronger albeit with the PvE skill constraints, to attribute-based skills until the highest ranks are achieved at which the skills are only slightly stronger as to not cause severe imbalance.

We have determined that maxing both the Sunspear and Lightbringer titles can be accomplished through the completion of Elona vanquishing. From a farming perspective we determined it would take 12.5 hours of farming, given a reasonable initial rank in both titles, to max both compared to approximately 208.333 hours for the Kurzick title. The effectiveness of the Sunspear rank-based skills is logical and balanced to acceptable standards under the current system. Maxing the Sunspear title will further increase the effectiveness of these skills, however, the increased strength is not game breaking. Let us next look at the Eye of the North Reputation titles and their linked skills.

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Analysis of Eye of the North Reputation Titles

In the previous section we focused upon the relevant methods of maxing the titles as well as how long each process would take given different initial ranks, in addition to how the linked skills are effected by rank increases. We will continue to address these topics in this section, however, exact figures are more difficult to obtain given the more random nature of the GWEN Hunt bonuses, which affect not only the points earned in explorable areas but dungeons as well. As such, this section will be more abbreviated than the previous and contain fewer empirical comparisons.

Roughly speaking, completing Eye of the North in NM places you at approximately r3-r4 for all of the Reputation Titles. I have had it reported that r9 and some left-overs is similarly achieved by maxing the Master of the North title track. Given the ease of point farming and book farming the rest of the points take little time to earn. As was the case for the Elonian Vanquisher title, completing Eye of the North in Hard Mode (as well as exploring and such) nearly covers the related titles. This process takes longer in total than completing Sunspear and Lightbringer farming, but also yields more max titles, one for each group as well as Master of the North, resulting in 5 maxed titles rather than 2. Again, it is difficult to formulate an approximate time to earn these titles, but per title is comparable to Sunspear and Lightbringer.

The situation for skills in Eye of the North is similar to that of the Sunspear skills. You must be at least level 10 in order to access EoTN content, however, you will quickly become level 20 through slaying monsters and completing quests along the main storyline. We will thus evaluate the comparative effectiveness of Eye of the North PvE skills to attribute-based skills of a level 20 character. We will also consider the generic effects of many of the skills such as Great Dwarf Armor which has an EoTN only benefit, additional armor vs. destroyers, in addition to a base benefit. It is clear that many of these skills, as are the Sunspear skills, as or more effective that the skills of a comparable attribute-based skill, of course factoring in the constraints of using PvE only skills. This is also true for the Kurzick and Luxon skills. With the recent update to the EoTN PvE skills intended to reduce the grind necessary to run an effective skill bar, skills such as Snow Storm are effective PvE only versions of similar skills such as Searing Heat. It should be noted that Searing Heat at 16 fire magic, reasonable enough for a PvE fire Elementalist, deals 42 damage per second compared to the range of Snow Storm's damage of 30...40 per second. Despite the burning effect caused by Searing Heat, Snow Storm is a more powerful skill in that its recharge and attribute-point-free usage allow for more flexible skill bars, however, as always the usual PvE skill constraints apply. This is a perfect example of the balance of the EoTN reputation titles' effects upon skill effectiveness. As previously stated, the linear progression of skill effectiveness proved ideal for these skills which are intended for usage at level 20, as well as the Sunspear skills whose effects scale appropriately by rank for a reasonable character level.

As we can see, there are many comparisons to be made between these PvE skills. The Sunspear and EoTN skills are well-balanced with their rank progression, which in turn, is also reasonable. Now that we have analyzed the similar titles, let us decide how to apply this knowledge upon the Allegiance titles.

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Application

The balance of the Sunspear and EoTN Reputation skills has been determined to be realistic and non-game-breaking. As far as PvE is concerned, the ideal solution would be to reform the Allegiance titles similar to the either of the successful other systems. Ideally, the Sunspear skill progression would be used since those skills are intended to be balanced for level 20 characters at a high but non-maxed rank, as would be appropriate for completing either side's storyline in Normal Mode. This would involve making the title character based rather than account based and significantly scaling down each tier of the title to make it similar to the Sunspear, or as significantly scaling up the rate at which raw faction may be earned. Although this solution as-is sounds plausible for PvE players concerned over using the linked skills or maxing the title there are several serious problems.

For one thing, the title originally was oriented towards PvP due to Alliance Battles. Character based titles don't make sense in terms of PvP where accomplishments deserve to be account-wide as the current system employs. Despite the lore and storyline connections between the PvE content and PvP based Alliance Battles, it is also illogical for a PvP based title to be able to progress through PvE play.

The other major problem is that people who currently have a significant amount of faction should not lose out on their hard work and dedication, especially those who persevered to earn the title. To reduce the entirety of the 10,000,000 to my proposed 50,000 or 100,000 would be absurd and hideously unreasonable. There is a way to solve this as well in my solution.

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What I propose

Split the title into a character-based PvE title and an account-wide PvP title:
This would solve the dilemma of the PvE skills scaling and progressing appropriately. This would also allow the title to be maxed similarly to the Sunspear title as I suggested above. This would also give proper separate recognition to players who achieve high ranks in each title.

To fix the potential account-wide to character-specific problems a few things would have to happen. First of all, there would need to be a one time switch where your rank under the current account-based system would transfer to all of your characters so that you lose nothing for your hard work. After this one time change, characters would independently gain faction through PvE gameplay. Note that the actual faction would be scaled down to the 50,000 or 100,000 (due to the balanced-existing feature where donated faction and skills grant double points). For PvP, the new title would act similarly in that it would inherit the current system, possibly nearly identically. Some scaling may be beneficial, seeing as how most players with high faction did not AB for the majority of it. In any case the PvP shift would not be as fluid, however, in the long run makes much more sense.

No suggestion is perfect, and there are a few obvious problems with this one. A new list of Kurzick/Luxon titles would need to be written up, something which I doubt is high on ANet's priority list for obvious reasons. The PvP shift is somewhat awkward and we may be better off simply starting it off fresh as a new title. That may encourage players towards factions for the chance of boasting over a new PvP title, but on the other hand may drive away existing players.

Insightful discussion is appreciated.

daze · Nov 06, 2008, 09:29 AM // 09:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ariena Najea

I am aware this is an extremely long post but please read from start to finish if you are posting to discuss the topic.

What if we arent posting to discuss the topic? do we still have to read the whole thing?

This is not an ADD friendly threaOh look a nickel.

Luminarus · Nov 06, 2008, 10:58 AM // 10:58

Ummm yeah, everyone knows this which is why in the title balance on the 13th its supposed to be changed.

Capua · Nov 06, 2008, 11:17 AM // 11:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luminarus

Ummm yeah, everyone knows this which is why in the title balance on the 13th its supposed to be changed.

I thought the title balance was to make them less of a grind, not actually splitting them in half?

P.S Didn't actually know about the HM Arborstone thing, I'll try that out later

SkekSister · Nov 06, 2008, 11:25 AM // 11:25

Well reasoned and a good read. I'm not sure I totally agree with your final proposals, and as a games developer with experience of such retro-fitted changes to established systems, I should imagine that the changes you suggest are unlikely to occur to a game of this age.

The empirical comparison of 12 hrs SS vs 208 hrs Lux/Kurz is an eye opener for sure...

For me personally, it will be fascinating to see what changes are made on 13th and whether they pay tribute to the few who have already maxed the allegiance titles, or whether a blanket nerf is applied for the good of the masses at the expense of the few.

As a dev a blanket nerf would be my solution, though it would certainly cause a fair bit of resentment amongst the minority. However it would be faster, easier and allow more dev time to be spent on additional content rather than try to retro-fix something that wasn't quite implemented as well as it could have been from the start.

Kook~NBK~ · Nov 06, 2008, 01:36 PM // 13:36

I think I'll just wait until the 13th of this month to see what other changes they're going to implement for the Kurzick/luxon title tracks before reading the OP. I know that since they've already doubled the faction rewards for killing enemies in explorables, farming faction can be done fairly quickly without doing the more monotonous HFFF thing.

Shadowmoon · Nov 06, 2008, 02:25 PM // 14:25

i must be out of the loop, when did they say the update is goin to be on the 13th, not today? Usually the monthly updates are 2 weeks after the MAT.

Shayne Hawke · Nov 06, 2008, 02:38 PM // 14:38

I like your idea of splitting the title to make one that's more suitable for PvE, but I'd much rather not see it come to fruition due to worries that ABers would cry too much over their title points being adjusted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadowmoon

i must be out of the loop, when did they say the update is goin to be on the 13th, not today? Usually the monthly updates are 2 weeks after the MAT.

Regina tells us something useful here.

Skyy High · Nov 06, 2008, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadowmoon

i must be out of the loop, when did they say the update is goin to be on the 13th, not today? Usually the monthly updates are 2 weeks after the MAT.

In the same update where they said that the XTH points were coming on the 13th.

Darth Durgason · Nov 06, 2008, 04:13 PM // 16:13

you forgot one thing into your calculation:
the 12 hrs SS vs 208 hrs Lux/Kurz is not correct as lux/kurz is for all your characters while SS is for one character. You need to multiply the SS time with the amount of characters effected by the lux/kurz before really comparing.
Taking the average amount of characters will be 8 that makes 8*12 = 96 hours.
To max lux/kruz should be more in that time area.

Ariena Najea · Nov 06, 2008, 06:53 PM // 18:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darth Durgason

you forgot one thing into your calculation:
the 12 hrs SS vs 208 hrs Lux/Kurz is not correct as lux/kurz is for all your characters while SS is for one character. You need to multiply the SS time with the amount of characters effected by the lux/kurz before really comparing.
Taking the average amount of characters will be 8 that makes 8*12 = 96 hours.
To max lux/kruz should be more in that time area.

Something I should probably have more clear on is that I don't expect people to try and max these grind based titles on every single character. Most people I know who are aiming for the KoaBD title are going all-out on a single character, and are fine without maxing titles for the sake of maxing them. This is important because as the Sunspear title is laid out so that achieving a high rank of 8 is very easy, allowing a casual player to get the most out of the Sunspear skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkekSister

Well reasoned and a good read. I'm not sure I totally agree with your final proposals, and as a games developer with experience of such retro-fitted changes to established systems, I should imagine that the changes you suggest are unlikely to occur to a game of this age.

The empirical comparison of 12 hrs SS vs 208 hrs Lux/Kurz is an eye opener for sure...

I agree that my suggested changes are unlikely to be implemented, due to the amount of developer time required to make the changes as well as the impending changes scheduled on the 13th. I wish I had written this last month before coming so close to this update.

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The first post focused upon the analysis of other titles and gaining empirical data because it seems to me that many people do not fully understand the problems with the current system. The sections where I analyze what is wrong and how the other titles work are significantly longer because that is what is more important in this thread.

Lastly, anyone have information about the Arborstone HM farm? I currently don't have time to test this myself and want to know how the numbers work out. If the 2800 faction per 3 minutes figure is accurate, it will take only approximately 42.857% as long to reach the max title as Securing the Forest.