A Consolidation of Community Suggestions to Improve GW -- Both PvP and PvE

[BlaineTog]

The Team and Competetive Arenas should not randomize the maps. I *hate* playing in The Crag, for example (when I kill someone, I want them to stay dead), but the D'Alessio arena I like. What's wrong with letting people choose which map to play in?

Here's a suggestion that I've seen before: Refund Points should refresh every time you visit a town (maybe reduce them to 12 in that case). It's so frustrating to have to go kill mobs for an hour before I can respec from PvE to PvP or vice versa.

[silvertemplar]

Not sure about making to single enemies stronger and reducing group size. Would shift balance in unusual ways I can't guess yet, maybe a slight shift might be good, single target disables, long recast hexes and slow recharge single target nukes make few appearances in PvE.

Since a large majority of skills in GW is single-foe or PvP specific i'd say following a similar approach on mobs in PvE was the OBVIOUS thing to do.

When i seared the first time whilst in an international district i got into that first PvP arena with JUST henchies [both on my side and against me]. I found it thrilling, it went by a bit too fast to figure out their exact tactics, but at least it had a "sit up and concentrate" effect on me. I see no reason why there must be so many "repetitive" mobs, i rather fight a Glint-like mob [huge dragon requiring to know its weakness/strength to kill] twice per map than fighting 5 Ettins 10 times per map.


Suggestion:
Program more forms of AI behaviour [offensive vs. defensive] and reduce the amount of mobs by making them more intelligent/stronger.

--> This itself would change solo-farming scene, in fact it will probably kill farming all together. Compare solo'ing 30 Griffons vs solo'ing Glint.

Suggestion 2 : With above statement in mind, the reward system can easily be adjusted to "task completion" vs "amount of kills". For example, after you kill something like Glint, a chest appears for each team member and everyone gets their own set of rewards. Only advantage of solo'ing Glint should be maybe extra XP, not drops.


There is almost NONE of this in the PvE game, 99% of all encounters are based on how well you can do "crowd-control" . The end-bosses usually are cake-walks, only reason why they are hard is because you have to fight 50 other mobs before you can kill it.

[SisterMercy]

Some suggestions:

1)

Originally Posted by InvaderGIR

...[*]Drops are an obvious issue that needs to be brought up. Don't make the players suffer because of the farmers. In fact, don't even make the farmers suffer. It only encourages them to farm more...

Some of the biggest frustration in this game comes from vastly overpriced commodities (dyes, runes, some rare crafting materials) and vastly underpriced ones (that 1-point short of max-damage rare gold weapon that you'll have to sell to the merchant for 50g because no one will ever want to buy it... or salvage).

There's 2 parts to solve the problem, and still have the fundamental needs (weapons, runes, gold) accessible to everyone: more drops and more gold sinks. Creating scarcities has resulted in wild inflation and a lot of player frustration that the various new Traders have only partially helped (plus, in the case of runes, it's still harder to unlock by PvE, trader or no). And, yes, it's encouraged more farming -- because it's seen to be gaining that much more of an edge via having more gold. More drops = lower prices people can demand for those drops. Look at the change in fur price after they fixed the scarcity back in the first month or so.

More (quality) drops helps, but it would also create the need for more gold sinks. If they implement guild storage, it should be something purchased or rented. Optionally, there can be purchasable communal storage there plus purchasable personal storage. If they implemented some form of auction house, it should encorporate a transaction fee based on percentage of the sale (I don't know about everyone else, but not having to spend hours WTS or WTB would be worth something to me) -- and perhaps an initial registration fee to list items there. Dye mixing and usage could be changed so that they need to be done by the dye trader (with a preview window for mixing?) for a fee. The ability to purchase the proposed training wing for your guild hall (accessible by a jump point) would also be great, and perhaps one could even purchase ("rent") different maps for it (i.e. train for the existing capture-the-flag missions).

For gold sinks, I'm talking especially about conveniences and looks. Players have proven that they will pay a lot for looks (witness fissure armor). So as has been repeatedly suggested, new armor, new hairstyles, new weapons (same damage limits but more diversity in "cool" looks) at a price are all called for, and will go vast strides to fixing the economy.

2) Encorporate something to indicate enchantments and hexes on a target. Similar to the icon below left that shows what your target is casting, there could be icons at right (no text unless mouseover) showing enchantments or hexes on them. It'd be a great way to help determine what strategies are being used against you, and a great way for healers to determine some of the habitual oversights of their teammates. "Hmm... he keeps on wailing on that Shadow Beast when he's got Spiteful Spirit on him. No wonder he's dropping like a fly..."

3) Instant Lvl20 PvE option available once you've finished the game (possibly also having to include a minimum % of quests, if that's easily calculable from a prgramming perspective). Includes a set number of skill points, but not as many as you'd have from doing the whole game from scratch, and perhaps the 15 attrib-point quests would be unavailable.

4) Add Lina, a Lvl20 protection monk with best current hench AI to Temple of the Ages, and assign her so that she can only be taken to UW or FoW (plus upcoming bonus areas). If you could have witnessed the joy that took place at Thirsty River when this happened (I was skill-capping there at the time), you'd understand how much of a difference it makes in the worst LFG areas.

5) A max armor level for low-level arenas; possibly one arena designated as an anything-goes area for low levels.

6) PvE unlocks are random vs. PvP Faction unlocks. If I pick up an un=ID'ed gold armor, what if there was a window where I could specify what I'd like to unlock (perhaps with a % chance of failure, varying depending on XP)?

7) Pickpocketing NPCs. Sure. We could try to pickpocket the rune trader, starting with low chance of success (improving with each successful attempt), and each time we're caught we have to pay a fine (another gold sink). OK, go ahead and laugh...

8) The ability to right-click on a party member's name and see how much XP he / she has (and if ascended, infused, etc). It's not a cure-all, but it'd go a long way to determining the quality of person you've just taken on in a PuG, not to mention determining which player is preventing your party from entering UW.

9) A party formation Registrar who you can pay 50g to (another gold sink!) and will display your primary/secondary profession, a descriptor ("smiting"), Level, XP, goals ("UW quests," "skill cap," "bonus only" or "trapping run") and any comments ("have Blood is Power equipped for monk energy support") to all who consult him for prospective party members. This list would be cross-district, and if someone from another district clicks on your name, you get an auto whisper ("Stinker Belle: has invited you to join a party in district 11"). And, of course, once you've accepted a party invitation, you're stricken from the Registrar's list.

10) I'm convinced that the unpopularity of Necros, Mesmers and even Rangers is largely due to the near invisibility of their skills. Dress them up with a few special effects and people will start to notice that yes, they are valuable members of a team. I've been crusading with my necro (Sister Sin) at ToA and others for the past month demostrating the value of BiP, and though it's taking awhile (and not solely due to my efforts -- I'm not that deluded), people are starting to look for necros as team support. It's nice to see. But if there was a little more attention drawn to various skills, we wouldn't see rangers confined only to Hell's Precipice and UnderWorld for good grouping (for example).

11) Some Dispel Spirit(s) skills or signets (with modifiers, penalties, whatever). Would go a long way to rebalancing Nature's Renewal.

12) And what about a way to purchase Faction points with gold? (no flames please, I'm only asking)

Originally Posted by Drakron

The only real issues I have is the moronic NPC (not henchman) AI that do incredible stupid things, (such as "Oh no, the Dwarves are attacking ... lets rush and try to kill then with bare fists"), the spawn and patrol points of mobs that put then right into a NPC path that gets killed before we have the chance to talk to then and also how enemies are aggro by such NPCs (like being aggro by a ghost).

For a few specifics that come to mind, if Anet would like to address them: 1) the missing caravan outside Yak's Bend, which shouts "oh no, dwarves! Save us!" before charging at all the nearby Ice Elementals (and yes, also dwarves) and trying to pummel them with weak bare fists; 2) the dwarven fellow just outside Droknar's Forge who's supposed to lead you to the next area but is slain by Avicara 3/4 of the time, unless you're really recklessly rushing; 3) the 3 ghosts at the tent (including the eternal weaponsmith) who will be fine until you've proceeded on into the forge, at which point you notice Kormil's health drop and boom, you're dead. Those skeles have a huge roaming pattern, and it sure doesn't look like they should aggro the ghosts, but they do.

[LoneDust]

This is an issue of personal concern, but it might bother more than just me in GW:

Descriptions Bugs
This game has a lot of in-game descriptions for items, skills and world effect. From time to time, some of them are bugged. I am listing what I know and I hope others can add what they know to the list as well.

Skills Description Bugs
Currently some descriptions are not truth and is hurting people's playing strategies. I find it hard to believe that after all the alpha/beta testing stage and three months into release, these description bugs still exist. It requires little effort to change some text in the descriptions of known bugs.
Example:
Channelling: "...for x seconds, whenever you cast a spell, you steal 1 energy from each nearby foe." In fact, you do not "steal" energy from the enemies. You simply "gain" energy for each nearby foe. Rumor says that the devs in this case intend channelling to work the way it is right now. If that is true, they cannot be bothered with changing one word for the many patches we've had since the game came out?

Item Description Bugs
I have found some description bugs in collector items as well.
Example:
Item that gives bonus modifiers: "..improves casting speed using divine favor skills (chance 20%)". After testing with skills from the DF attribute for an afternoon, I found that the casting speed bonus and similarily, recharge bonus, only affect spells. Signets and general skills do not appear to be affected by the bonus of these items.

The quickest way to fix these "bugs" are to change the description to fit what is actually happening. If the devs' true intentions are for the mechanism to act as described, but are strapped on resource, it's still better to just change the descriptions first. Factual descriptions are important at build making and strategy planning, for knowledge is power. Little things like description bugs may affect the success of a build. It is not the first time after something doesn't work as planned, me and some friends shrugged: "well, it's Anet..." as if we were expecting the Murphy's Law to apply.

In-game Description Style
Some other skill descriptions are so weird in this game that even a non-native English speaker like myself find the style akward.

- Random capitalization
example: "For 30 seconds, You gain..."; "Improves Casting speed..."
- "Health", "Energy", and "Enchantment" are always capitalized, while other variables like "armor" isn't. (Thx Silmor)

[wheel]

Sec II. Faction System Issues (Last Updated: Aug 3, 2005)

1. Insufficient Faction
   The amount of faction rewarded especially for “lower” levels of PvP (i.e., team arena) is prohibitively low.
   Suggestion [Learn More]: Increase faction reward amounts (Currently looking for an elegant argument for and against)
   Suggestion [Learn More]: Scale faction costs based on the number of unlocks already purchased through the faction system. (suggested by varyag)

1. I am writing this to give an elegant argument for the drastic increase of faction reward amounts. The numbers that I will be giving will not be including any of varyag's suggestions, but they are good ones, and can definitely be implemented along with a smaller scaler number that I'll be suggesting.

My numbers that I will be giving are proven through the documented gameplay statistics of over 100 Guild Wars players. The data has been collected by the program G-Stats developed by kunt0r. G-Stats is a program, popular on The Guild Hall, that is used by lots of top ranking players (and some not-so-top-ranking players) that can track any number of statistics about their PvP performance. One of the statistics that it can track is faction gained per minute. The raw data that I used to find the numbers can be found by browsing the player profiles.

I have taken the liberty of removing outliers, like players who had not done PvP under the G-Stats program and people who gained less than 1 faction per minute. The numbers that I used from the player profiles were each player's faction per minute. This gives an idea of how long it will take a player to effectively unlock a skill. The values generally ranged from around 3-7 faction per minute. Now, before I delve into my findings, let's do an overview of the faction system.

Each normal skill costs 1000 faction.
Each elite skill costs 3000 faction.
There are 364 normal skills and 92 elite skills.
1,000 faction * 364 normal skills = 364,000 faction required to unlock all normal skills.
3,000 faction * 92 elite skills = 276,000 faction required to unlock all elite skills.
That gives us a total of 640,000 faction to unlock all skills.

Each attribute class of rune costs 4500 faction (1000 {Minor} + 1500 {Major} + 2000 {Superior}) to unlock.
There are 6 (Warrior) + 4 (Ranger) + 4 (Monk) + 4 (Necromancer) + 4 (Mesmer) + 5 (Elementalist) + 1 (Vigor) "attribute" classes of runes, for a total of 28 "attribute" classes.
That Equates to 4500 faction * 28 "attribute" classes = 126,000 faction required to unlock all runes.

Each dynamic weapon upgrade costs 2000 faction (1000 minimum + 1000 maximum) to unlock. Each static weapon upgrade costs 1000 faction to unlock.
There are 10 static weapon upgrades for Axes, 6 for Bows, 7 for Hammers, 0 for Staves, and 9 for Swords. That comes to a total of 32 static weapon upgrades.
There are 9 dynamic weapon upgrades for Axes, 8 for Bows, 9 for Hammers, 8 for Staves, and 9 for Swords. This comes to a total of 43 dynamic weapon upgrades.
1000 faction * 32 static weapon upgrades = 32,000 faction to unlock all static weapon upgrades.
2000 faction * 43 dynamic weapon upgrades = 86,000 faction to unlock dynamic weapon upgrades.
This gives us 118,000 faction to unlock all weapon upgrades.

Total faction required to unlock all skills, runes, and weapon upgrades is 640,000 faction + 126,000 faction + 118,000 faction = 884,000 total faction to unlock everything.

That's a lot of faction. Now, let's look at how fast players accumulate faction. Again, these numbers are taken from real player statistics, not my estimations.

Total Faction to unlock everything: 884,000 faction
Average Faction/Minute: 3.916 faction/minute
Average Faction/Hour: 3.916 faction/minute * 60 minutes/hour = 234.93 faction/hour
Total Hours to unlock everything using Faction: 884,000 faction ÷ 234.93 faction/hour = 3762.82 hours

Now, what to do about these numbers, and the incredible amount of grind that they represent? Well, the easiest fix would be a simple scalar multiplier on faction rewards, or a scalar divisor on the faction unlock costs. What would that multiplier be? Well, that would have to be a function of how long ArenaNet wants the average gamer to unlock everything. As it stands, this would occur in pure PvE situations in about 600 hours, not counting runes or weapon upgrades. In my opinion, (and in many many other people's opinions), this amount of time is ridiculous to invite a casual gamer into the PvP scene. When you look at the amount of time with faction, you get an even bigger shock. But, regardless of that, however, the multiplier based on how much time it should take a player to unlock everything should be based on the following equation:

Faction Multiplier = Total Hours required to unlock everything ÷ Total Hours that should be required to unlock everything

Say that ArenaNet decides that the Total Hours that should be required to unlock everything is 100 hours (which would be very reasonable, I might add). The equation would break down to this.

Faction Multiplier = 3762.82 Total Hours required to unlock everything ÷ 100 Total Hours that should be required to unlock everything

That would come up with a multiplier of 37.63x if ArenaNet wanted players to be able to unlock everything in 100 hours. That's how much Faction needs to be increased.

Originally Posted by Chowley

Gaile:

Why cant faction be doubled or tripled on the next chance to get an update in, wednesday next maybe, it cant take that long.

Originally Posted by Sopot

Thats a typo! he meant x16 Gaile

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

*snicker*

But, you raise a really good point, you guys, that has me personally curious. Honestly, and thoughtfully, if it was a matter of percentages, what percentage would you feel was reasonable? Increase by 2 times? 4 times? (Not going with that 16 times. ) There are a lot of people here who are really good with stats and analysis. So if it were a simple adjustment of rates, what is a good number for increase?

I'm not going to turn my post into an Anti-ArenaNet bash, but this post just proves that ArenaNet has not done enough testing of their own game on how fast players unlock skills and how long it actually takes them to unlock skills in their own system. Gaile, I'll answer your question, since I am very good with statistics and analysis. To make it so that players can unlock everything in roughly 100 hours, the faction reward needs to be multiplied by roughly 37.63x.

[Phades]

For clarification, are these arena battles, gvg, or tombs?

[wheel]

They are an average of about 120 players playing all of those types. G-Stats does not discern from GvG, Tombs, or Arenas, so it's basically a representation of what everyone's doing.

[Orochim4ru]

They are an average of about 120 players playing all of those types. G-Stats does not discern from GvG, Tombs, or Arenas, so it's basically a representation of what everyone's doing.

Your number are off: the rate of accruement for top players dwarfs that of lower players: the weaker you are the harder faction is to get. For a true 100 hour grind you'd have to have a multiplier even larger than you stated.

[Phades]

Balancing for the worst case scenario is not the best solution though.

[Orochim4ru]

Its not a worst case scenario. The people who start playing do not have any skills. You can't expect them to waltz into pvp and completely decimate their enemies like the people on TGH do.

[Phades]

Originally Posted by Orochim4ru

The people who start playing do not have any skills.

I would loosly define that as the worst case scenario.

[Keure]

While I would like an adjustment of unlocking rates things can only be pushed so far before the PvE rewards of the game are devalued (something A.net doesn't want).

I have another idea that, if refined, could drastically lower PvP entry barriers without affecting the PvE negatively.

I would like to be able to *temporarily* unlock skills/items with faction and/or money.

The faction prices of these temporary unlocks would have to be very low, at least in comparison to how much things cost now faction-wise, in order for it to be worth it. Monetary prices, I'm not so sure about how they should be set.

Very low prices for temporary unlocks would allow for easy build testing and dynamic build creation without having PvE accomplishments being trivialized (through their permanent unlocks). It would also increase pick-up group viability for Tombs/team arena, where people hoping to get a good build would only have to have some number of faction on-hand to create a temporary build.

PvE could definitely benefit from another gold sink, too.

[wheel]

Originally Posted by Orochim4ru

Your number are off: the rate of accruement for top players dwarfs that of lower players: the weaker you are the harder faction is to get. For a true 100 hour grind you'd have to have a multiplier even larger than you stated.

If you browse the profiles listed, you'd see that not ALL the players are top 100 guilds or whatever, but the main point is to illustrate is that even "the best of the best" players need a 37x increase in faction rewards to complete the game in 100 hours. The average joe probably needs a 50x+ increase, but that number is not based on statistics, just speculation.

[Soul Shaker]

Maybe guild faction would help some of the newer players in guilds with skills? Since every person has faction, they can choose to put their earned faction into a "faction vault" kinda thing. The leader and/or officers have access to withdrawing this faction to unlock skills for ALL people in the guild. Of course, these skills would cost more than normal, but it's a way to help people along PvP. I dunno how far this'll go if implemented, but it's an idea. (sorry if someone's mentioned this here before but posts are too long to search

[Shadow_Avenger]

For the faction system, They need to put a priest of Bathazar in the arens areas so that PvP players can unlock new items with there PvP chars and have the option of adding the weapon / rune upgrades there and then.
Similarly PvE players who gain unlocks should beable to equip them on their characters there and then.
The amount of faction rewarded in the arenas should work off s reward system, in respect to number of wins, i.e. 5 wins gains 2x faction rewards, 10 3x etc. Flawless victories should hold a bonus to faction, which increases the more flawless victories you have in a row. 2x, 3x,4x and increases for each consecuative win. This would only be a fair system if The Preists actually allowed the player to equip their unlock there and then. Rememebering that once something is unlocked it cannot be reunlocked for a new weapon or PvP character,

The PvE game IMHO needs simply to scale more and a minimum XP system needs to be inplace. With scaling areas it would Take away the issue of l33t builds solo, as any character could solo, but in doing so loot drops would decrease as the monsters scale down.
Loot drops should be scaled towards the difficulty level of the creature you are fighting, i.e lvl 3 against a lvl 3 = good drop for a level 3 player, but still only drops a lvl 3 drops if killed by a lvl 15 player, meaning that the loot is useless except for selling.
Instigating a min xp is a must for a scaling system, as a solo explored the creatures would need to be 10-5 levels less than the player for mass attacks, similar level for small encounters. It would not effect the game for other players as it is instanced.
This would also make gold / farming more viable for all players, whilst still remaining a challage, it would stop players using l33t builds farming high level areas for uber loot as it would simply not drop unless you are in a high level group.
This would instantly add more variety and replayablity to the PvE side of the game.

Now for actually loot distribution within a group, I would like to see a lotto system inplace rather than the last person who does damage gets the loot. This system would be infinately fairer, and not really make any difference to those with henchmen.

Then there needs to be more side quests, in the instances to find, not just the quests that you can get in the towns. This actually gives the player more reason to search through the areas.

Have the option to take a boat from Drognars forge to either the Fire chain isles or the desert. Ascention and the main story are good first run through, but second and third runs through the game they can become tedious, having the option to take a boat to these two areas, means that all areas of the world are open to players amd the missions are an option rather than a neccessity.

As for auction houses, etc. Will see how they implement it, If they use existing models from games such as WoW or EQ2 they cannot go far wrong, If they try to be unique they IMHO they are in for a world of hurt. Having a seperate instance for trading, such as a auction house simply would not work, it sounds good, but it would have exactly the same effect as adding the trade chat channel, some would use it, but alot would not and just spam the towns with their wares.

[Divinitys Creature]

Originally Posted by wheel

I am writing this to give an elegant argument for the drastic increase of faction reward amounts. The numbers that I will be giving will not be including any of varyag's suggestions, but they are good ones, and can definitely be implemented along with a smaller scaler number that I'll be suggesting.[/list]My numbers that I will be giving are proven through the documented gameplay statistics of over 100 Guild Wars players. The data has been collected by the program G-Stats developed by kunt0r. G-Stats is a program, popular on The Guild Hall, that is used by lots of top ranking players (and some not-so-top-ranking players) that can track any number of statistics about their PvP performance. One of the statistics that it can track is faction gained per minute. The raw data that I used to find the numbers can be found by browsing the player profiles.

I have taken the liberty of removing outliers, like players who had not done PvP under the G-Stats program and people who gained less than 1 faction per minute. The numbers that I used from the player profiles were each player's faction per minute. This gives an idea of how long it will take a player to effectively unlock a skill. The values generally ranged from around 3-7 faction per minute. Now, before I delve into my findings, let's do an overview of the faction system.

Each normal skill costs 1000 faction.
Each elite skill costs 3000 faction.
There are 364 normal skills and 92 elite skills.
1,000 faction * 364 normal skills = 364,000 faction required to unlock all normal skills.
3,000 faction * 92 elite skills = 276,000 faction required to unlock all elite skills.
That gives us a total of 640,000 faction to unlock all skills.

Each attribute class of rune costs 4500 faction (1000 {Minor} + 1500 {Major} + 2000 {Superior}) to unlock.
There are 6 (Warrior) + 4 (Ranger) + 4 (Monk) + 4 (Necromancer) + 4 (Mesmer) + 5 (Elementalist) + 1 (Vigor) "attribute" classes of runes, for a total of 28 "attribute" classes.
That Equates to 4500 faction * 28 "attribute" classes = 126,000 faction required to unlock all runes.

Each dynamic weapon upgrade costs 2000 faction (1000 minimum + 1000 maximum) to unlock. Each static weapon upgrade costs 1000 faction to unlock.
There are 10 static weapon upgrades for Axes, 6 for Bows, 7 for Hammers, 0 for Staves, and 9 for Swords. That comes to a total of 32 static weapon upgrades.
There are 9 dynamic weapon upgrades for Axes, 8 for Bows, 9 for Hammers, 8 for Staves, and 9 for Swords. This comes to a total of 43 dynamic weapon upgrades.
1000 faction * 32 static weapon upgrades = 32,000 faction to unlock all static weapon upgrades.
2000 faction * 43 dynamic weapon upgrades = 86,000 faction to unlock dynamic weapon upgrades.
This gives us 118,000 faction to unlock all weapon upgrades.

Total faction required to unlock all skills, runes, and weapon upgrades is 640,000 faction + 126,000 faction + 118,000 faction = 884,000 total faction to unlock everything.

That's a lot of faction. Now, let's look at how fast players accumulate faction. Again, these numbers are taken from real player statistics, not my estimations.

Total Faction to unlock everything: 884,000 faction
Average Faction/Minute: 3.916 faction/minute
Average Faction/Hour: 3.916 faction/minute * 60 minutes/hour = 234.93 faction/hour
Total Hours to unlock everything using Faction: 884,000 faction ÷ 234.93 faction/hour = 3762.82 hours

Now, what to do about these numbers, and the incredible amount of grind that they represent? Well, the easiest fix would be a simple scalar multiplier on faction rewards, or a scalar divisor on the faction unlock costs. What would that multiplier be? Well, that would have to be a function of how long ArenaNet wants the average gamer to unlock everything. As it stands, this would occur in pure PvE situations in about 600 hours, not counting runes or weapon upgrades. In my opinion, (and in many many other people's opinions), this amount of time is ridiculous to invite a casual gamer into the PvP scene. When you look at the amount of time with faction, you get an even bigger shock. But, regardless of that, however, the multiplier based on how much time it should take a player to unlock everything should be based on the following equation:

Faction Multiplier = Total Hours required to unlock everything ÷ Total Hours that should be required to unlock everything

Say that ArenaNet decides that the Total Hours that should be required to unlock everything is 100 hours (which would be very reasonable, I might add). The equation would break down to this.

Faction Multiplier = 3762.82 Total Hours required to unlock everything ÷ 100 Total Hours that should be required to unlock everything

That would come up with a multiplier of 37.63x if ArenaNet wanted players to be able to unlock everything in 100 hours. That's how much Faction needs to be increased.
I'm not going to turn my post into an Anti-ArenaNet bash, but this post just proves that ArenaNet has not done enough testing of their own game on how fast players unlock skills and how long it actually takes them to unlock skills in their own system. Gaile, I'll answer your question, since I am very good with statistics and analysis. To make it so that players can unlock everything in roughly 100 hours, the faction reward needs to be multiplied by roughly 37.63x.

I fully support Wheel in this matter. Previously, I have taken an initiative when faction was released and reached a calculation of 16x faction increase to make it equal to the rate of unlocking in PvE. See the link in my sig for that. However Kunt0r was good enough to create G-Stats and that has a wealth of statistics we can use in a more accurate way than the relatively few player submitted stats in forum posts that I used.

There is the summer update and faction/other changes coming including new quests and accelerated rates of XP gain as James Phinney stated. Since we do not know what those rates are it becomes impossible to calculate what a suitable modifier of faction should be to make it fair to PvE. The method Wheel used is independent of this and so it is fairer and more relevant. It also takes into account a suitable time in which to unlock everything.

So I support his rate of faction increase suggestion. And keep in mind that this is based on the G-Stats data which is publicly available for you to all check and amounts to the results of over 100 players.

www.guildkarma.com
PvP rewards wrong (need increase) by a factor of 16+ or 8+ since patch
WTB: 450 SKILL POINTS/ 9 MILLION EXP AND A WAY TO GET 1 MILLION GP | OR 630,000 FACTION

[Plague]

I consider myself an intermediate player, one experienced enough to know the game but not one so engrossed within acronymns and casual exchanges of complicated concepts within the game that I've become entirely focused on them. As such I'll try to not make a fool of myself while at the same time, try to offer up some ideas that more experienced players may not have bothered with. I tend to type a lot by accident, so bear with me.

PvE Only

"Hermited" Gameplay

This is one of the first things I noticed, obviously. With combat being a "one man show" in that it's just you on the map, unless you've partied, there's a certain degree of solitude in the game. I don't mind this - playing an area without having to stand around waiting for a lvl 35 rat to spawn is fantastic. However, I think this carries over to other parts of the game, especially Guilds.

I could not tell you the name of a single guild. Aside from the occasional WaW (I believe that's you call it) message and noticing players' tags from time to time, I never see any hint of a Guild in the game. If a Guild has its own hall, you can't travel there, you can't see any hint of its existence. If a Guild has many victories, players or prestige (however this could be determined), there's no way of noticing this within the game.

IE, there's no immersion as far as the players' world as a whole goes. Everything is very much situated on players playing their own game, in their own world, and interacting with other players on a very small level, be it within temporary parties formed with strangers or with Guild members, hidden away in secret either within halls, in the field or via private chat. You can view a multitude of players in mission areas or normal towns, but these are all individuals. The only part of their accomplishments I can notice are their armor, level, and cape.

I could offer up any number of solutions to this, but I'll make a few for the sake of example. Guild-owned/captured properties within towns, small town-like questing areas (think pre-Searing Ascalon or Divinity Coast), or possibly an "ocean map" that allows viewing of/visitation of the islands held by the current top ten guilds. Something along those lines, maybe not necessarily my suggestions, just something to remove the lack of immersion and the air of solidarity that comes with playing through PvE.

Replayability

I'm sure this has been discussed long before I got here, but there is simply nothing to do in this game aside from completing quests (gaining experience) and capturing skills (gaining abilities), which is actually a secondary objective in almost any other MMORPG. You can explore for the sake of exploring, but everything revolves around either buying armor, finding rare items or unlocking a skill.

I for one think a lot of the fear of making skills easier to unlock in PvP stems from the desire to make THAT the reason for replay value. Why do you keep coming back to the game? For the sake of progress, the feeling of accomplishment. Unfortunately, as Guild Wars is a game centralized around proper skill selection, and skill, it also relies on skills to ensure its own longevity. If I managed to unlock every skill in the game (which I may try to do, I am a completist), I would probably play PvP for a while until I bored of it, and move on to another game. Why? There's just nothing left beyond that.

In many other games there would be jobs to perform, other non-combat skills to raise, etc. I'm not suggesting adding in coal mining or something - that certainly wouldn't fit. What I am suggesting would be to put the players more firmly into the economy instead of having them be simply consumers. Let Guilds open their own inter-district shops, the goods listed either by top Guilds or by the best value. This would probably be something to place alongside the Auction House though. I think some form of crafting would fit nicely in Guild Wars, given the massive number of salvageable goods that people simply will never use for their character, or only use once. There's a grand excess in these objects that could be better put to use through modifier enhancements or manual construction of weapon attachments, rather than spending hours trying to find one manually.

Point aside from my meager suggestions, there needs to be something later in the game that you can be used to integrate you into the community, aside from this vital piece of any online RPG being replaced by random farming drops or non-dynamic high level area questing (UW, FoW.)

The Economy

To me, a fairly new player, this is baffling. As I said in another post, dyes especially are perplexing. They're throw-away items, as you can use them for nothing but asthetics, you can't retrieve them after a use, you can't retrieve them (both anyway) after a test mix, you can't preview their effects, and they sell at merchants for next to nothing, even at Dye Traders. Now, if the price at a merchant is determined by what you, the player(s) sells to them, I have no reason to sell to someone that will not give me a reasonable price, and I have no reason to give up my rare find (which you need multiples of unless you like abstract paintings.)

When something that costs several thousand plat (Superior Absorption for instance) is found randomly, why would you ever sell it back to a merchant that will rip you off? By not throwing potential money out the window, the price is never lowered, and the item never decreases in value. I personally hoard these kinds of items for use on other characters or for later, or to sell to a human player that will give me a more reasonable price for such a rare find.

In this respect, I think, if this is really how the merchants work, the economy is broken. Supply and demand in the real world is determined not by the stock of the seller, but also by the rate of trade between consumers. A good manager of his own products will not price items at standard rates when they are being traded privately for dramatically lesser rates. Stores are for convenience, after all, not for financial dictatation.

My suggestion, once more, is to put the economy, as much as it can be placed, into the players' hands and give everyone an alternative to rare drops and purchases from partisan NPCs that do not even offer unlockables. Constructable runes, quest-specific rewards, something.

"Healing" Syndrome

This is not a large problem at the beginning of the game, but more near to the end, especially when you enter into even Yak's Bend, monks become almost necessary components. Too many quests require longevity or survival against many foes. This puts a strain on all players, because too much time goes into looking for one and keeping one. 5/6 groups that spend 15 minutes shouting requests for monks and spamming invitations are all too common. The flip side is that what few monks there are cannot be free in their skill selection unless they play privately with henches, and are often blamed for any failure or death in the group.

The problem here is that monks were created to be the healing class. Some other classes have their own means of healing, but they're always in the form of secondary skills or recovery effects that you must maintain or perform with great caution. This creates a huge burden on the monk class especially, and also narrows the range of all the other classes. Creating future classes for new chapters can also prove challenging because monks in GW are stereotypical archetypes with little range beyond Smiting abilities, which they are blamed for using.

In my opinion, this can't be resolved within the current chapter, which is a shame. You would have to perform major changes that are unacceptable to a great deal of players. I'm sure something like this has been an issue that's come up many, many times however, and probably debated as being an unnecessary complaint, as surely all missions can be completed in some way without a monk. I do feel this is a problem nontheless, however. The only resolution I can think of within Chapter 1 is to place and distribute all classes evenly across all districts or to add in another semi-healing class as a "going away present" for Chapter 1 later to take the pressure off of monks and revitalize the community as Chapter 2 is nearing release.

That is all. Congratulations for reading.

[Corbin]

I feel that in order to improve GW is quite simple, just make there an inscentive to explore. you cant base a game off missions, there needs to be other things to do!

[SisterMercy]

Originally Posted by Plague

... My suggestion, once more, is to put the economy, as much as it can be placed, into the players' hands and give everyone an alternative to rare drops and purchases from partisan NPCs that do not even offer unlockables. Constructable runes, quest-specific rewards, something...

Currently, the only way to adjust for selling prices between players is to adjust it all manually, on a continual basis. And the value adjust to is subjective, because one minute ecto is selling for 9k, the next someone's paying 12k, and even later, someone's asking only 7k. Tell me: what's the average selling price for a +1 Protection Prayers staff upgrade? This is far more time-consuming than I'm sure the developers would want, if they're to address bugs, balancing and other issues which some feel more important.

However, this is also an excellent argument for a trade house, as inter-player trading statistics can then be collected and commodified to adjust the economy automatically and reflect a far more realistic buy/sell price.

[Jake]

I think this game really needs improvements to how much information it gives out about what's going on. Best way I can see of doing this is to improve the score board.

The score board right now really doesn't do much to inform how individuals are doing. In an FPS the score board obviously lists frags/deaths, some random guy can come in and see a guy 100/0 and be like, WOW THIS GUY IS AMAZING!!!! You can't do that in GW, there's NO WAY for an individual to stand out really unless like.. you're the last one alive on your team, everyone is watching you, and you do something really crazy, but that's farfetched.

I suggest adding in new scoreboard charts that list things such as .. total damage done, total healed, maybe something along the lines of potential damage avoided, things like that. That way you can see how effective your teammates are somewhat, and perhaps it could aid in the group finding process. If some random players see warriors/necs/mesmers/rangers outdamaging elementalists in their team, they'll probably get more respect and maybe *GASP* convince random players to get different class combinations as substitutes instead of the standard obvious choices.

I think the game's engine limits individual players from standing out from the rest of the pack pretty heavily but something like this can at least help out.