Curse

Scholar Valandil · Sep 08, 2006, 11:23 PM // 23:23

This is quite a long thing I sent to the NC Soft Customer Support desk. They asked that I post it on a fansite; so, obviously, this was the best one to choose. I apologise in advance if there is already a topic on this subject, and I appreciate any non-flammatory input.

This concerns two matters: Switching Territory, and the Favour system. They are interlinked, so I shall simply let the structure form itself, rather than separating the two issues; and relay what I have to say in what I hope is an understandable manner.

A friend and I, who both play on the American servers, decided that we would like to start a farming operation in the Underworld. Since Europe nearly always have Favour, it would only be practical, given that I am English and he is American, for us to switch to the European servers, so that we could play the Underworld area at a time beneficial to both of us.

It has come to my attention, since then, that this is not fair. Europe currently holds Favour 90% of the time. I have been awake at such ungodly hours as 4AM GMT after particularly long jaunts in The Underworld, and yet Europe still has favour. Europe seems only to lose favour for maybe two hours in any twenty-four-hour period. This means, of course, that anyone wishing to enter the Realms of the Gods can only do so under two circumstances: Switching to Europe; or in this two-hour window. The latter is clearly impractical, given that it means that those in the other Territories can only get through one trip per day; two if they're very lucky. Switching to Europe is the only efficient way to get into the Realms.

This means, then, that the oriental Territories are the most unjustly treated: they *do not have* this Switch option; and, when Europe does not have Favour, America does. I have only seen the oriental Territories gain Favour maybe three times this week; and I know for sure that their hold over it did not last for very much more than the 30-minute minimum period.

This problem is not all directed at the other Territories, though: Europe suffers too. Because Europe has grasped Favour with near-perpetuity, it means that much of its population has taken residence in the Entrances to the Realms of the Gods, and do not ever leave because the Realms are such profitable places. This means that the other areas: Missions, both competitive and cooperative, such as Fort Aspenwood; and Towns & Outposts where one picks up other quests, are almost entirely deserted.
My personal experience of this has only been realised today, when I tried, as a Monk, to form a group for the series of Storyline quests starting at Seitung Harbour on the English Districts. (I try to form a group here because it is so difficult as a Monk to use Henchmen for any quests after this point.) To my deep surprise, I received almost no interest whatsoever. This is particularly extraordinary when one considers how often, on American servers, Monks are invited to groups because they are such a high priority.

The other problem I have is with the limit imposed on Territory switching. A maximum of five for the entire life of one's account is insanely restrictive. I understand, of course, the reason for it: Anet does not wish people simply to abuse the Favour system by switching automatically to whichever Territory holds Favour; but this could be done by less restrictive measures. Five switches per month, for example, would have the same effect. (Provided, of course, that the maximum Switches one can have at any one time is five: That if one has zero switches at the end of the month, they gain five more; but if they have three Switches remaining, they regain only two).

This change, while it may be linked to favour, is necessary regardless of whether Anet chooses to change the Favour system or not: It is simply unfair to expect people to only require 5 Switches for the life of their account. I hope, of course, that Anet wishes Guild Wars to grow and grow for years to come. As such, it is necessary to allow people to breathe properly. It is necessary for them to be permitted to explore the benefits of the other Territories without fear that they will never be allowed to return home. Just as Human Beings do not wish to be tied to one place in real life (particularly when they are aged 16-30, which must be, surely, the dominant demographic in Guild Wars), so, too, will they feel smothered if they are forced to remain in a single Territory for said "Years to come". The 5-per-month system is not so much that it allows Favour abuse, but not nearly as restrictive as the current allowance.

Regarding a solution to the horrid imbalance of Favour: It can only be resolved, I believe, through a solid Rotational system: Giving Favour of the Gods to each Territory in an equal amount, such that it is the Peak time for that Territory. For example, rotating it such that when Favour is with Territory X, it is evening in Territory X. Since, I believe, the timezones of the Eastern servers are quite close together, perhaps it would be most beneficial, for ONLY the purposes of this Favour Rotational system, to tie those three Territories together. Then, it works out that Europe has 8 hours of Favour; America has 8 hours of Favour, and the Eastern Territories have 8 hours of Favour.

I understand that the most likely reason for Anet to have set up the Favour system the way it is currently operating is that it adds an extra benefit to the PvP aspect of the game: Fighting for your country, et al. But, under the current circumstances, I believe it is strangling the PvE game, which it directly affects.

The only drawback I can identify with this change to Favour is that it will make Heroes' Ascent worthless. However, I feel confident that Anet could come up with a different reward for winning in the Hall of Heroes. Suggestions for that are also welcome.

Darkobra · Sep 08, 2006, 11:36 PM // 23:36

As the game gets bigger in both population and content, it seems highly restrictive to only ever have five territory changes. Surely if you needed to change territory at all, then you'd need more than five in a life time? Five a month IS fair. It avoids just changing as the wind blows, yet it's not so restrictive that you can never change again.

Hyper Cutter · Sep 09, 2006, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scholar Valandil

The only drawback I can identify with this change to Favour is that it will make Heroes' Ascent worthless. However, I feel confident that Anet could come up with a different reward for winning in the Hall of Heroes. Suggestions for that are also welcome.

HA currently drops sigils and various other loot already, as I understand it...

Kakumei · Sep 09, 2006, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

The problems with the Favour and Territory systems.

They're awful and should be done away with entirely?

Yeah pretty much.

Mezmo · Sep 09, 2006, 03:08 AM // 03:08

Ussually people that HA aren't doing it for the favour, there doing it for the pvp experience. People that heavily farm UW/FoW aren't the same people that go and win in HA (i'm saying this in general terms, i'm shure there's many HoH winners that go and farm these places and viceversa). The idea of having favour change timezone during peek times seems to be a good idea, except that japan/korea/taiwan are all in pretty similar time zones and would therefore have similar peek times.

I'd prefer having the ability to change territories reset after X period of time. Once a month seems to short for me, but once every 2~3 months seems to be a good amount.

perhaps there could be some rule that one territory can only hold favor for X amount of time before another territory gets it. And then europe can't re-gain it again for X amount of time. I realize this would mean that HA would no longer be what would determine favour, but like i said before the people that win HA aren't normally the people that recieve the benefits of having favour.

Knightsaber Sith · Sep 09, 2006, 04:01 AM // 04:01

The flaws in the "worlds at war" system have been noticed from the beginning. In all honesty, it's never going to change. Anyone that's been here long enough rembers when favor used to always go back and forth between America and Korea, now it's just Europe and eventually America.
(unfortunately it seems most of us Americans only want to iway...)

Monk Mystic · Sep 09, 2006, 04:47 AM // 04:47

dude i remember cursing out the koreans lol. i got so many hate PMs LMAO. anyhow, i forget, they did make it so that prices in each territory are the same right??cause i ALSO remember having a lot of friends that had friends in the European servers where, for some strange reason the prices were ALWAYS MUCH higher than on the american server so they would all go over to the european servers to sell mats and what not. if they havent fixed this(which i seem to remember them doing but it would have been a long time ago) then 5 times a month is WAY too much(if they have then 5 times a month is fine). however i do think 5 times for the life of the account is far to spread out. i know that as a military kid i moved around a lot so if someone moves 5 times out of the US their screwed. and it says in the user aggreement that its impossible to EVER get them back even talking witha support guy wont help you. which i think is wrong. if youhave a good reason you should be allowed to switch to wherever it is you live.

xiao1985 · Sep 09, 2006, 05:01 AM // 05:01

that's funny...

i am on european servers, but whenever i log on it always say

abc team has just won a battle in HoH and holds the favor of god for America...

Scholar Valandil · Sep 09, 2006, 01:27 PM // 13:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper Cutter

HA currently drops sigils and various other loot already, as I understand it...

Ah yes. Forgive my senility there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knightsaber Sith

The flaws in the "worlds at war" system have been noticed from the beginning. In all honesty, it's never going to change.

That's a real shame, then ... At least I'm not alone in my realisations, I suppose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xiao1985

i am on european servers, but whenever i log on it always say

abc team has just won a battle in HoH and holds the favor of god for America...

Log in more often, then. We need Favour. :P

Set · Sep 09, 2006, 04:02 PM // 16:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knightsaber Sith

The flaws in the "worlds at war" system have been noticed from the beginning. In all honesty, it's never going to change. Anyone that's been here long enough rembers when favor used to always go back and forth between America and Korea, now it's just Europe and eventually America.
(unfortunately it seems most of us Americans only want to iway...)

I agree that the favor system has been a little unforgiving recently (I'm American), however I remember when I first started playing over a year ago and we always had favor. Course we had better drops, chests that didn't require keys, etc. I'm mainly a PVe player and enjoy trapping UW or forming a good group for FoW, however if we don't like the favor system the only thing we can do about it is start PVPing more at HA and getting creative with our builds as you pointed out.

KoalaMeatPie · Sep 09, 2006, 04:23 PM // 16:23

From what I see, Europe holds favour only during Peek times on there servers, and latter ion the nigh (during there morning) We hold favour. It looks pretty 50/50 to me. Maybe 60/40 for them, but not the "Two hour gap" that has been talked about.

And yes, Korea is very unfavoured That seems to be the real problem, and soemthing should be done to remedy that, What? I don't know how they could work out a specific algorythm to keep everything balanced, but if you ask me three 8 hour shifts centered around peak times seems more then fair.

Thargor · Sep 10, 2006, 07:45 PM // 19:45

Alot of people only play PvE. Having anything in the PvE side of the game controlled by the PvP side of the game is rather stupid. I say that this needs to be balanced. Maybe they could make an international mission that would control GvG battles or something, if your territory doesn't have the highest score in this mission then you cant GvG.
Yeah that is a stupid idea and I am sure that it will get flamed but that is the point. If this were in effect then almost every PvP player would be crying about it saying it was unfair. The favor system should just be done away with totally as far as I am concerned.

I will agree with the 8 hour for each territory idea though as that would be much better than what we have now. /signed
I see no need to change territory unless you move to another territory and need to change it. so I think the 5 you get now are more than sufficient. So that idea will be /not signed

xiao1985 · Sep 11, 2006, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scholar Valandil

Log in more often, then. We need Favour. :P

lol maybe i should change my district into am servers.... damn everyone prefers fow /uw... no one wants missions... =(

Lynxius · Sep 11, 2006, 10:23 AM // 10:23

Do what i did, i played in America for 10 months thinking it was better.

When i changed back to Europe( and i live in europe) i was glad to find good humoured people, less complaining kids that cry for gold and complain needlessly etc etc.

I was also happy to find other types of people and seeing people speak french and other languages wasnt that bad. You CAN learn something

.
Anyway theres alot more of language diversity, but in overall its pretty good.

And even though i originally only changed to it in order to have favor, now i see that even if america had favor most of the time i would still be happy in europe servers because people are in overall, nicer there. ^_^

Darkobra · Sep 30, 2006, 01:46 PM // 13:46

The original author won't be able to reply to any comments as he's busy for most of his life now. However, I feel this is at least a topic that should be discussed and kept alive.

KoalaMeatPie · Sep 30, 2006, 03:52 PM // 15:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkobra

The original author won't be able to reply to any comments as he's busy for most of his life now. However, I feel this is at least a topic that should be discussed and kept alive.

So He's Either in Jail - or married?

Urzza · Sep 30, 2006, 07:31 PM // 19:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by KoalaMeatPie

So He's Either in Jail - or married?

Both....?

TheBaron82 · Sep 30, 2006, 09:14 PM // 21:14

One thing I dont understand is that Anet separate Korean from Taiwan? Why dont they just make Asia as a territory that might help Asian gamers.

Knightsaber Sith · Oct 01, 2006, 04:01 AM // 04:01

This makes me think of what's going to happen when GW goes live in China. With the Chineese goverment being communist and very strict over what people have access to; they will have their own servers completely unconnected with the rest of the world. Does this mean they will be able to go to fow/UW 24/7? Will they even have a HoH? Well I guess it doesn't really matter as they can't affect the economy of the rest of the game or anything......

Navaros · Oct 01, 2006, 04:13 AM // 04:13

They should just scrap the whole Favor system, period.

Absolutely no one ever makes a Tombs teams after thinking "We need Favor to enter the UW so let's make a Tombs team and win HoH five times in a row so we can get it!"

My point is that the act of winning favor is based merely on happenstance, not a deliberate effort or success by a team of those wishing to enter the Favor-specific areas. The one thing has absolutely no relevance to the other whatsoever.

Therefore, the Favor system is fundamentally broken and might as well be scrapped altogether.

This would make the territory switching point moot and be a more sensible overall solution to the problem.