Curse

Felbryn · Jun 30, 2005, 05:29 AM // 05:29

I'm both excited and disappointed by the PvP rewards system in the new patch. Excited because it sounds like a fantastic idea and a step in the right direction; there are several details I quite like about it. Disappointed because, in actual practice, its focus is ridiculously narrow.

In short, the rewards scale has been set such that you can get completely passable advancement in GvG, but everything else doesn't count. Tombs is an order of magnitude slower than GvG, and anything else is much slower even than that. The patch notes advertise that you gain some favor even if you lose--which is technically true, but the gain is so tiny it's more like adding insult to injury than providing an avenue of advancement.

I would have thought that a game advertised with the phrase "skill, not hours played, decides your fate" would have made items of major combat utility EASY to get with a SMALL amount of playing time. Apparently, either the left hand knoweth not what the right hand doeth, or the developers' idea of a "small" amount of playing time before you can start competing on even ground is somewhere up in the 50+ hours range, and PvP doesn't count unless it's GvG. I can sort of understand needing to play through the RP campaign (though it seems excessive), but I'm completely done with it and I have yet to unlock one single superior rune (and I have only a handful majors, less than half of the minors). The difference between a 13 attribute and a 16 is kind of important, and being able to add +1 (from minor runes) to ALL your secondary attributes with NO penalty doesn't hurt either. I can buy runes, but if your goal is to make everyone buy all the runes they use, what's the point of the unlocking system?

Now, the PvP rewards system isn't going to let me unlock everything in a hurry, but in GvG, if I can scrape together a reasonable number of wins, I can unlock a few choice runes and have a well-equipped PvP character. Play a little longer, and I can even vary the strategy a bit.

If I want to unlock a superior rune from playing in tombs, I need to play a minimum of 81 games, assuming that they're all successive wins against teams of 8. Since many of the matches are 3-way or 6-way free-for-alls, the average player, by definition, is winning much less than half the time, which means wins are rare and successive wins extremely rare (heaven help the below-average players). Add to that the disadvantage of not having the good runes or equipment unlocked yet, if we're supposed to be using PvP to unlock things like that, and we're easily looking at several hundred matches; quite possibly thousands if you want a couple runes and upgrade components. That's quite an investment just to establish a level playing field in a game where hours played isn't supposed to determine victory, don't you think? (Especially if you add in the time trying to compose a decent group of 8 if you don't have a pre-arranged group of friends playing with you.)

Now, maybe the moral of the story is that everyone is supposed to be playing GvG. However, that seems like a highly unjustified bias. What's wrong with wanting to play small-scale 4v4, or with cross-guild teams? Is everyone required to find a guild (with a substantial number of active players) that will let them join in GvG matches (despite them not having elite equipment unlocked) before they even count as playing the game? That seems excessively arbitrary and mean-spirited.

If ALL forms of PvP gave rewards similar to what GvG currently gives (GvG could even give more if you want to maintain a difference), I would be happy.

Of course, if I were designing the game with the advertised focus, I'd probably cause absolutely everything to be unlocked (for PvP purposes) to all players upon account creation (thereby making skill and strategy the only determining factors), so maybe there's something the developers are trying to do that's entirely escaping me. If you know what it is, please tell me.

Dreamsmith · Jun 30, 2005, 06:04 AM // 06:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felbryn

If ALL forms of PvP gave rewards similar to what GvG currently gives (GvG could even give more if you want to maintain a difference), I would be happy.

Then you should be happy. I'm guessing you've not played much GvG, or else you'd realize that GvG matches generally last far longer than other types of PvP matches. Thus, you really aren't getting that much more in the way of faction points doing GvG than other types of PvP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felbryn

Now, maybe the moral of the story is that everyone is supposed to be playing GvG. However, that seems like a highly unjustified bias. What's wrong with wanting to play small-scale 4v4, or with cross-guild teams?

There's nothing wrong with wanting to play Arena. Just remember Arena matches only last a few minutes, whereas GvG matches frequently last nearly an hour ("Victory or Death" comes at the 45 min. mark IIRC, and it's not an uncommon thing to see). If we want GvG to be as rewarding or more rewarding than Arena, it needs point awards to be a couple orders of magnitude larger per match.

Seth Oriath · Jun 30, 2005, 06:09 AM // 06:09

How long has it been since the update? Six hours, give or take?

My goodness, you'd think people had already played under the new system for a week.

Ever heard of this great concept called time? Another thing called balance?

Guess not.

Dreamsmith · Jun 30, 2005, 06:24 AM // 06:24

By the way, someone check my math here: In 4v4 Arena, assuming you win the match, you're going to get six points for the victory, plus two points for each unique kill, of which there will be four, so 6 + 2 * 4 = 14 points. Now, how many Arena matches do you fight in an hour? Twenty, give or take? Some matches are over quite quickly, others can take a few minutes, I'm really not sure what the average is, but let's say three minutes for the sake of making this calculcation easy. So that's twenty matches per hour, fourteen points per match, 20 * 14 = 280.

GvG matches award 200 to 500 points. It sounds a lot to me like they've balanced this so that a GvG match (which often lasts an hour) is worth only slightly more on average than an hour of Arena. No?

arredondo · Jun 30, 2005, 06:28 AM // 06:28

Wow, you actually win 100% of your matches in arenas? Kudos to perfection.

slycrel · Jun 30, 2005, 06:37 AM // 06:37

I was very excited to see what this patch was going to bring. Now I'm disappointed.

I've been through the game 1.5 times and played a bunch of PvP. I bought this game for the PvP aspect (played in the last few beta events) and I thought it was very very promising. Now I'm finding that I've played for 80+ hours and only have two classes more or less unlocked skill-wise. I've been trying to unlock everything and suddenly I'm out of skill points and I have to grind with my first character just to cap a few more elite skills.

Long story short, I'm not happy with having to play through the game with 3 separate PvE characters to unlock most of the skills. I was hoping that this patch would allow me to unlock some skills faster to keep the PvP alive for me. That's turning out to not be the case. I could go thru the PvE game and unlock skills probably faster than continuously playing PvP.

I'm not sure what your definition of casual is, but I was apparently mistaken when you said you were targeting a more casual slice fo the market.

Here's to hoping you speed up the unlocking a bit. I'm just not sure it's worth the time for me to grind through levels just to unlock skills to use in PvP. :/ Thanks for the otherwise great game.

Ancalagon06 · Jun 30, 2005, 06:47 AM // 06:47

the perception that you need all of your skills, or, hell, more than half, to have a good time in PvP is horribly, horribly flawed. I'm sorry that you feel it's necessary for you to continue to "grind" away at this game, I don't think it's really necessary at all.

Ashleigh McMahon · Jun 30, 2005, 06:59 AM // 06:59

I agree with the op.

IMO, they should either lower the faction requirement or give alot more points for normal based pvp, like tombs or arenas.

This update has really lowered my thought on gw.

Regards, Ashleigh.

Zeru · Jun 30, 2005, 07:05 AM // 07:05

I have over half the skills in the game yet I can only play 1 class effectively :-/

This is fine for the top player in a top guild who wins 90%+ of the time but for the casual player? yeah right, his hopes of unlocking much through this are almost nil.

The amount needed is simply far too much.

Ashleigh McMahon · Jun 30, 2005, 07:06 AM // 07:06

I'm sending a complaint to support.

Regards, Ashleigh.

Felbryn · Jun 30, 2005, 03:26 PM // 15:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dreamsmith

Then you should be happy. I'm guessing you've not played much GvG, or else you'd realize that GvG matches generally last far longer than other types of PvP matches. Thus, you really aren't getting that much more in the way of faction points doing GvG than other types of PvP.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to play Arena. Just remember Arena matches only last a few minutes, whereas GvG matches frequently last nearly an hour ("Victory or Death" comes at the 45 min. mark IIRC, and it's not an uncommon thing to see). If we want GvG to be as rewarding or more rewarding than Arena, it needs point awards to be a couple orders of magnitude larger per match.

Yes, you're correct, I have yet to play GvG (not for lack of wanting to).

But, if that's all true, then that means that GvG rewards need to be increased by about a factor of 10 (or more) as well, not that the other kinds of PvP are satisfactory. It's not like you've said anything to defend the system.

If you got the impression that I was complaining things were uneven, I'm sorry to have misled you. GvG can be a hundred times faster than anything else, for all I care, as long as everything else still proceeds at a reasonable pace. Playing for hours upon hours to unlock one skill, rune, or upgrade (if you're winning) is absurdly slow for a game that's supposedly about skill at playing intead of hours played.

The fact that it's uniformly slow rather than slow for some people is another strike against it, not something in its favor. I still have yet to hear one good reason that ALL PvP skills, runes, and upgrades are not unlocked upon account creation.

Quote:

How long has it been since the update? Six hours, give or take?

My goodness, you'd think people had already played under the new system for a week.

Ever heard of this great concept called time? Another thing called balance?

Guess not.

Since they make all the details of the system public, anyone with a small amount of representative data (like, say, an hour's worth of playing) and a calculator can figure out the general scale of advancement we're talking about. If you lack one of those things and don't share our insight, I'm sorry, but that doesn't make it any less valid.

timmo567 · Jun 30, 2005, 03:31 PM // 15:31

The new system is absaloutly perfect, enough said.

Dreamsmith · Jun 30, 2005, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

Wow, you actually win 100% of your matches in arenas? Kudos to perfection.

Actually, I don't, just most of them. But you'll notice I was also assuming you win the GvG match. For fair comparison, you can't assume 100% wins on one side and less than 100% on the other.

However, if you don't like those figures, we can redo it with a 50/50 win-loss ratio, which makes Arena look even better by comparison with GvG. That means you're making 100-250 points in an average GvG match, vs. about 180/hour in Arena, figuring 14 points for a win and 4 points for a loss(assuming you at least kill two opponents in an average match lost), 10 wins and 10 losses, 10 * 14 + 10 * 4 = 180.

Now, if you want to be perfectly pedantic, I should be adding the unique kills to the GvG match as well, but that just makes a win 216-516, and a loss say about 12 (assuming you average six unique kills even when you lose). So your average reward is 114-264. Now, happy? 114-264 for an average GvG match, vs. 180/hour playing Arena, in both cases assuming a 50/50 win/loss ratio. That actually looks pretty close to even. You have to play close to perfectly for GvG to really offer a significant advantage. The less often you win, the better off Arena is by comparison. If you lose 100% of the time, the rewards for Arena are several orders of magnitude greater than GvG rewards.

By assuming 100% wins, I was baking the figures in GvG's favor. I was doing so simply because it was an easier comparison to make without deep explanation, fewer assumptions, and I didn't figure anyone who disagreed with me would complain since I was tilting the figures in their favor rather than my own by keeping it simple.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felbryn

If you got the impression that I was complaining things were uneven, I'm sorry to have misled you. GvG can be a hundred times faster than anything else, for all I care...

You're right, silly me, in a thread titled "All PvP rewards should be more like the GvG ones", combined with all the other comments to that effect in the original post, I oddly thought you were complaining that things were uneven, and felt pointing out that all PvP rewards ARE like GvG ones was a valid point to make. Also, when you said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felbryn

If ALL forms of PvP gave rewards similar to what GvG currently gives (GvG could even give more if you want to maintain a difference), I would be happy.

I foolishly assumed you were good with what GvG gives, since you said you'd be happy if other PvP forms gave what GvG currently gives. I don't know how I could have gotten that impression from that. My apologies for so badly misreading what you were saying...

Deathlord · Jun 30, 2005, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Team arena, get a good team out. I have friends in guild who do it, i made about 140 favor in an hour right after patch came out. If you can't win 10 consecutively, then you probably just wasted alot of time. GvG DOES take a rather long time, even in a short battle, it can be atleast considered for 30 - 40 minutes. Not to mention that you run the risk of playing over an hour just to lose, an hour that could've been spent in team arena for 140 favor. GvG Truly tests the challenge of you against other opponents meanwhile team arena is practice, GvG is riskier and longer, therefore it has more rewards. Unlocking is not a easy task, nor should it be one. If you aren't in the GvG phase yet, then you really shouldn't even be worrying about unlocking too many things. HOH is well enough as it is, if you get 4 consecutive rows + all the kills, it'll mount up just fine.

Edit: Side-note, if you win HOH in say... 5 matches, then here's how many faction points you get right here.

+2 per kill, if you say you killed about even 16 people per match (There can often be more than that even), 32 x 5 = 175 faction from kills.

From wins,
20 + 40 + 40 + 40 + 40 = 180 faction.

Winning it in 7 matches = 355 Faction, I'm not exactly sure how the heck you did your math, but 1000/355 is definetly NOT anywhere near 81 matches of HOH played.

Felbryn · Jun 30, 2005, 06:09 PM // 18:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dreamsmith

I foolishly assumed you were good with what GvG gives, since you said you'd be happy if other PvP forms gave what GvG currently gives. I don't know how I could have gotten that impression from that. My apologies for so badly misreading what you were saying...

How exactly you can assume that AND simultaneously assume that I'm entirely misled about the amount of reward that GvG gives is beyond me.

I have experience in the arena and tombs, and not in GvG. I assumed that the general timescale of game in GvG would be similar to that in other PvP, an assumption which you cleverly detected and pointed out was incorrect. If you're too unimaginative to guess the probable revisions I'm going to make to my appraisal of the rewards after my misconception is corrected, then you're hardly qualified to critique my position; and if on top of that you're not willing to listen to my own clearly-stated revisions of my position based on new information, you are certainly not worth debating against.

The interesting question is not "precisely what is the current rate?" but "how fast (approximately) should it be, and why?" I'm saying it should be extremely fast, because fast unlocking is necessary to create a level playing field between new/casual players and those who have logged huge numbers of hours, and this is ostensibly the philosophy behind the game.

I figure that to do a reasonable tweak of your character build while staying in the same profession might require you to unlock an elite skill, a couple non-elite skills, a superior rune (already having a minor) and an upgrade component (maximized), for a total of around 10,000+ faction.

To develop a radical new build is on the order of one elite skill, seven non-elite, one superior rune, two other minor runes, two maximized upgrade components, total 20,000+ faction.

I think it's completely reasonable to let the average player do the former after no more than a few hours of play, and the latter after no more than a few days of play, and faster would be better. The developers, obviously, disagree with me, because if they were aiming for that they're astonishingly incompetent, no matter who you take your estimates from (but if GvG gave its current rewards and was as fast as some other forms of PvP, it would be in that ballpark, hence my earlier comments.)

I'm posting here because it's how the developers say you're supposed to submit feedback to them (and I hope there's some chance they can be persuaded), and because I want to hear any actual arguments in favor of making things take longer, if such arguments exist.

Quote:

Unlocking is not a easy task, nor should it be one.

Perhaps you'd like to explain why you think that is?

Shadow-Runner · Jun 30, 2005, 09:03 PM // 21:03

I played HoH for about 4 hours after this new patch came out. I was pvping with a simple pick up team and by far not the best. Few if any were even rank 3, yet after 4 hours i was able to gather 300 faction easy. With a good organized team this could have been doubled easily as an hour was spent getting people and setting up skills, and another hour spent lossing. In my opinion the reward system is perfect. As for your beliefs that it would take to long to unlock skills and upgrades, it is slower then i anticipated but if anyone could unlock all the skills in a few days with casual gaming then the accomplishments of unlocking all the skills would seem less satisfying to me. At least this way it is something to strive for as not everyone has unlock everything. I by no means am a serious gamer, so in my mind there should still be that subtle difference when i run into a serious gamer. Yes, i do feel that it is kind of unfair that they have an advantage simply because they play more, but if they didnt then why play. If you have played for 100 hours, how would you feel if someone that has played for half the time has accomplished everything you have. This reward system is great as it rewards PvPers but that is what it is, a reward. It is out there to reward people who do good in PvP, and frankly Arena matches are faster and easier then a HoH matches and a HoH match is easier then GvG match (or at least faster for the most part). The cordination and time that goes into these upper-end matches should have a greater reward for them. Personally i have not competed in GvG matches but from what i have heard and what i have imagined, they would last longer and be more dificult to win because both teams put alot more thought in their builds.

Well back to the point, this new reward system is great in my opinion, it rewards the hardcore players and yet is still somewhat rewarding to casual gamer. The only flaw i see is that with this new faction you gain no experience in any PvP matches. Before when you PvPed with a PvE character and skill points and more importantly refund points in my mind (which affects both PvP and PvE chars as I run 2 different builds on the same character and it gets annoying when i have to fully remake that PvP char). Now there is no point to play with PvE char other then to unlock some preliminary skills and gloat about having ascended armor. So the only suggestion i have to this new system is to mayb bring back experience to PvP matches in addition to the faction.

Felbryn · Jun 30, 2005, 10:26 PM // 22:26

First of all, note that the act of actually unlocking something by spending your faction hardly counts as an accomplishment. Yay, I can visit the NPC and click a few times!

Earning the faction in the first place might count as an accomplishment, but only insofar as it involves winning at PvP against challenging opponents. That challenging PvP is exactly the same regardless of how the faction system works, so any argument talking about new players having "accomplished" everything that experienced players have simply because they've unlocked everything is simply a red herring. The unlocking or faction systems have nothing to do with how much players "accomplish" in the game.

If the goal is to make it so that you can flaunt your accomplishments, that can be done without slanting the playing field. Give out some sort of badge, or icon, or flashy equipment--it will distinguish accomplishments much more clearly and won't give people any advantage over others. Heck, just make the PvP ranks people are already earning more obvious, you don't need to screw up the faction system to perform a redundant function.

You can make a game where everyone's character is on even ground and the only advantage comes from strategy and skill, or you can make a game with a long leveling curve that rewards people who play for hours on end and new or casual players can't expect a fair fight, but sitting half-way in between is perfectly absurd, and if Guild Wars isn't trying to be the former, then the marketing department needs to be fired.

Xeno Demachilo · Jun 30, 2005, 10:38 PM // 22:38

GvG dont last hours...Atleast ours dont..Ours last 5-10 minutes..Maybe thats why we have a bad rating..And are facing other bad ratings..But hell..It took me maybe 30 mathes to get 100 faction in the arena..Thats bologne since those 30 matches took me well over an hour..

Zuggy · Jun 30, 2005, 10:50 PM // 22:50

You have to take into account the level ability that goes into the different PvP aspects. GvG is the most difficult. I played one match that lasted an hour with most lasting 30-40 mintues in my guild. Also your math doesn't take into account that you get 2 faction for every unique kill. I was playing for about an hour in the competition arena and have over 250 faction.

Mu Lao Hu · Jun 30, 2005, 10:55 PM // 22:55

I agree with felbryn. It doesn't matter if you're playing GvG or arena or team arena, this will benefit the people who spend the most time playing. Someone could be in a sucky guild or team and still manage via kills and win here and there to earn factions. This could take a while but in the bottom line is that kind of team or player who spends the most time will be able to unlock more things.

Also, the strong guilds will only get stronger because they will be able to get factions faster. Over time, i'd say this would get balanced as more guilds will have more players with unlocked stuffs but the stronger guilds will probably have time to gain rank/fame/whatever by the time other guilds catch up. And for those guilds that are small, like the one i'm in, forget it...no way we're gonna be able to compete. Of course, there's the argument to join another guild but where is the fun if you can't play with your friends...or play with your friends only to get whooped?