Curse

ckenni · May 16, 2006, 04:16 AM // 04:16

I think a good approach to solve the alliance/elite mission problems is to focus not on the amount of faction farmed by an alliance but on the whole Kurzick vs Luxon war.

A good way to deal with this situation is:

1.) It should be that the only thing required to access Elite Missions for an Alliance is to have a Minimum amount of Faction for an alliance (which will of course, degenerate over time).
A minimum of 1,000,000 faction per Alliance to allow access to any elite mission is reasonable but challenging enough for all kinds of alliances.
Getting that amount of faction will then become a goal but maintaining it will also be necessary (due to the 10% faction decay) thus the need to gain factions through pvp and pve quests.
Lets call any Alliance that reached the minimum amount of factions required as the "Elite" Alliances (otherwise those that can access the elite missions).

2.) However, Elite Missions will open up if and only if the Kurzick/Luxon border division has been pushed beyond the 50/50 line.
Meaning that if the Luxons are winning the majority of alliance battles and pushed the border to gain some Kurzick territories then the Cavalon "The Deep" elite mission will be opened up to the "Elites".
Pushing the border even further towards Kurzicks will open up the Houze Zu Heltzer Elite mission for the Luxons.
This battle of pushing the borders will give Factions a system similar to the favor of the Gods except that the battle will only be 2-sided.
Alliance battle maps already supports this (Saltspray beach for neutral borderline, Ethnaran Keys if the Kurzicks are winning, etc etc) so the border battle system for Elite mission access would be easier to implement for the devs.

3.) Of course pushing the border should have several ways to achieve it:

The primary way is Alliance Battles,
First of all it is used to gain factions (to maintain "Elite" status for Alliances) and second of all to push the border in order to open the Elite mission areas. Of course, the Alliance battle system should also be fixed to allow 12-person chat and make the other 8 people in the battle as allies (as suggested in many other threads).

The second way should be the Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood Missions which are also direct representations of the Kurzick/Luxon conflict,
Every win will also contribute to pushing the border and of course, Faction rewards should be increased to incline more players to play the missions as well. These will give PvPers 2 alternative way to battle aside from Alliance Battles.

Third way would be through PvE mission rewards.
Each time a Luxon or a Kurzick was able to gain faction through certain PvE missions would also contribute significantly to the war effort.
I am not talking about short repeatable faction farmable quests like the arena or the supply lines.

The mission should be lengthy and similar to the Sorrows Furnace/Defend a Town quests where players can undertake a mission to gain good items (greens anyone?), experience points while contributing to the War effort in the process. A repeatable, lengthy but rewarding mission like "Defend House Zu Heltzer", "Infiltrate the Jade Sea", where Kurzicks fight Luxon invaders or spy invade Luxon territories would be one idea.
This would give PvE'rs a good way to fight for their respective alliances while also gaining PvE rewards and most important of all, without forcing them to PvP at all.

4.) Control of towns and other outposts should not be disregarded at all.
Aside from the exclusive merchants, fireworks and areas in these towns. ANY Town/Outpost holders should have a tangible reward for their hard work.
This could be one of the following:

a.) an exclusive armor/weapon crafter within the Elite missions will only be available to an Alliance if and only if they are holding a town within the territory of the Elite mission.
b.) maybe an extra quest (that results to satisfying rewards) within the elite missions can also be made available to any town holder.
c.) or any other tangible (but not game-breaking) rewards that will make alliances AIM to gain town control (like extra xp within the elite mission, some small decrease on faction degen, increased chance to drop greens on the area they control, etc,etc). Please give some ideas here

The rewards to controlling towns can also be scallable depending on the town they are controlling (e.g. controlling House Zu Heltzer will merit the best reward, maybe like a Kurzicks cape trimming)

However, the turnover rate of town control should be made much more often to enable more alliances access to these towns. It can be made like once an alliance lost control of a town, they wont be able to control it again within 3 days after they lost it.
Also, for every day that an alliance is maintaining control of a town, the amount of factions needed to control the town should also start to degenerate exponentially after 3 days of control. This would make the turn-over of town control very active and very competitive at the same time.
However to prevent a just newly acquired town to be captured by another alliance, there should be something like a 1-2 hour leeway before another alliance can control it.

Of course my idea is not fool-proof since there might be some fallacies that I overlooked. One such thing would be what if everyone just become Kurzicks so that all have access to elite missions. There should be some checks and balances to maintain the equality between these factions.

But if ever ANET was able to implement this system I am sure that the Guildwars Factions community would become much more lively and more competitive than before.

If anyone has suggestions/comments/criticisms please do tell and I hope ANET and the devs notices this thread as well.

Lampshade · May 16, 2006, 04:49 AM // 04:49

I believe this belongs in Sarledec Sanitarium..

generik · May 16, 2006, 06:30 AM // 06:30

I won't go as far to suggest an exclusive armor crafter for the top alliance, since it means extra CONTENT and we all know how precious content is to Anet!

Besides it takes time to create, nor can it be used as marketing fodder, what good would that be?

Just be less anal and create different pricing from the traders, so the capital city can buy stuff at say 60% of regular price, the 2nd highest will be 70%, and the 3rd highest will be 80%.. etc..

Sure, so they can *gasp* abuse the economy and buy ect0s from their towns and resell else where, so what? The faction they've pumped in to maintain their hold is worth more than whatever ectos 1000 people can buy and resell.

Currently it takes 9mil+ factions to hold cavalon, let's round it up to 10 for sake of calculation. Faction decay will be a mil faction a day, a mil faction can be traded for.. let's see.. 1000 jadeite..

1000 jadeite * 1500g each = 1.5 mil gold.

PER DAY!

I'd say they basically earned the right to scrouge off the economy.

ckenni · May 16, 2006, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Yes, I still needed ideas on what kind of rewards those Alliances holding towns should be able to attain. It should be enticing enough to make alliances want to have it without denying certain content to other players.

Arkis · May 16, 2006, 06:56 AM // 06:56

Actually with the exception of the alliance holding town armor stuff. (another reward? maybe cool capes?...maybe an emote like /rank?)... people will begin to rant about the armor/weapon crafter being too "elitest." The only way to stop the whining is implement something that wont affect the game =P. Maybe even a title...

I agree with everything else, though.

I mean seriously Anet. Luxons/Kurzicks should NOT have to fight amongst themselves. You should, instead, force the conflict onto the opposing side. Right now with the whole BBK and TC conflict going on, its kinda sickening to see our FACTION having a civil war =P. Number 2 fixes this well.

What you're suggesting does just that. Luxons/Kurzicks will work together to ensure that their elite mission stays within their elite mission.

And yes, Jade Quarry and Fort Aspen NEED improvements in rewards. They're fun but just not worth the time.

Sagaris · May 16, 2006, 07:12 AM // 07:12

I like the idea, but I don't think the alliance holding the town would have access not extra content. Maybe the alliance holding the cities could get access to the elite mission at any time? Disregarding that the line is not to their 'favour'?

Arkis · May 16, 2006, 08:54 AM // 08:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sagaris

I like the idea, but I don't think the alliance holding the town would have access not extra content. Maybe the alliance holding the cities could get access to the elite mission at any time? Disregarding that the line is not to their 'favour'?

Something occured to me:

Perhaps add extra damage for the last boss to those who have the influence?

Like "cavalons champion" title where he gets extra bane dmg. Maybe up the drops for them? Something presitgious? I mean this might get more whiners but even so...

ckenni · May 16, 2006, 05:01 PM // 17:01

hmm im thinkng if an alliance was able to get into elite missions without the need to control it then it would be pointless for them to do alliance battles anymore. just have to maintain the minimum amount of faction required to control a town.

mariano · May 16, 2006, 05:42 PM // 17:42

/signed