Curse

Rayne Nightfyre · Feb 07, 2006, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaserLight

Bad, in the fact that nobody's ever gonna get a town out from under alliances full of top 50 Guilds >_>. If the Factions versions of Underworld and Fissure of Woe are only accessible via Alliance control, then ninety-nine point nine percent of players of never, ever going to see it.

Gee, thanks Anet. I'm sure iQ and all the other World Championship-level Guilds are jumping for joy. The rest of us are kinda annoyed, though.

That's the first thing I thought of when I heard about this. It's kinda got me uneasy about this whole alliance thing

I'll wait and see before I start complaining, but I'm getting some sort of a bad feeling about this. It will bring the PvP element into PvE, and PvP is something I don't particularly enjoy. So I could see this whole faction/alliance thing driving many out of Guild Wars. :/

Mimi Miyagi · Feb 07, 2006, 11:34 PM // 23:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xonic

No, I am a 95% PvE player.

From what I've read from various sources, espcially from the latest issue of Computer Gaming World, Faction is (or can be) a stand-alone game, in which you can start new characters and level them up to 20 and unlock skills just like you did with chapter one.

It has more PvP elements built into PvE, for example, in certain missions, you'll be fighting real players for mission objectives. Remember the little battle when you are leaving pre-seering? I imagine it'll be something like that.

Then you didn't read the link provided by the OP, did you?

They stated it's a standalone game, that about 20% of the game will be for those new standalone characters to level up and collect skills.

The rest will be the alliance and faction fighting to control territory.

So, as I stated before, it's completely opposite of what we currently have, with the added slap in the face to casual PvE players that unless you're a member of a "top guild" you'll never get the top elite items.

mmm'kay?

Deathqueen · Feb 07, 2006, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sai of Winterland

I think other allianced guilds can visit towns that are controlled by the opposing alliance, because it said Elite Missions can only have the alliance guilds that are controlling the towns enter.

[Elite Missions, that are accessible only by members of the guild alliance that controls that town.]

Did you comprehend your own post? See that word up there "ONLY" by members of the guild alliance that controls that town. Not every alliance in the faction. It's been stated that guild alliances can contain up to 10 other guilds (stated by other players I haven't seen an official statement of this yet). Thus at a maxium only 1000 players of the same "alliance of guilds" will have access to the Elite missions of that particular town.

The little guy and little guilds and those that don't like guilds or want to participate in guilds are sol of ever seeing an elite mission. It's worse than TOA because all you had to wait for there was just a faction victory, now, you are put out not only by faction but also by alliances. Shame on Anet.

Thom · Feb 08, 2006, 12:09 AM // 00:09

"Casual gamer" in my mind is someone who puts 30-50 hours into a game initially, then picks up the game for a few hours a month. The casual gamer has several options... they can start a new character which will give them 10-20 hours of game play in pre-ascend stuff. They will also have 10-20 hours exploring post ascend stuff with either there new or old character. Add to that 10 hours in high level and random pvp areas and your casual gamer has their 50 dollars worth.

"Standard online gamer" will put in 50-200 hours until getting bored. Factions seems to focus this group and push them towards a guild to access more content.

20% referred to amounts of level<20 content. Considering no one really enjoys running around no drop land slaying low levels, it seems to make sense that the content should be high-level content. Much of the alliance related stuff will be open to anyone wanting to have fun. The faction access missions won't require anything from the casual player other than accessing the right location at the right time much like fissure/underworld.

Obviously if you refuse to join a guild you forgo content, but that is much like the current pvp game. I would argue that your average gamer will have more playable content than the first chapter.

Deathqueen · Feb 08, 2006, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghull Ka

I for one would like to volunteer my services as a PvE player to whichever of the PvP guilds will have me! Me and my friends form a smallish, 5 person PvE only guild. We'd be honoured to join a large PvP guild and head up their PvE department for GW:F!

*Fills out the iQ PvE Dept application* :-)

Brown Noser. (smile)

Deathqueen · Feb 08, 2006, 12:18 AM // 00:18

[Obviously if you refuse to join a guild you forgo content, but that is much like the current pvp game.]

No it's not, because I can gain faction in 4x4 random and 4x4 team without ever stepping foot into 8x8' HOH or GVG or joining up with any silly guild. Thus I can get all the perks that any other guild out their gets and do it solo in 4x4 randoms, unlock all my skills and mods. There is no advantage to rank and fame other than bragging rights, it doesn't unlock or open any other aspect of the game up to any players. Guilds have no control whatsoever with any portion of the content of the game either nor should they ever have control in my book. Even a fly by night PUG can takeover the HOH's thus even guilds aren't required to gain favor either.

Factions portrays something very different and it's even stated in the preview, if you want the Elite content then you better have a very "well rounded" GUILD key word there GUILD; key point "forced" activity to gain access to Elite content....very bad idea. I don't mind having to wait on favor to enter some elite content area, I certainly will mind that I can't ever enter that elite content area if I don't belong to a guild.

Karmakin · Feb 08, 2006, 12:33 AM // 00:33

Man a lot of you guys don't get it

The whole point of it, is to form Alliances. I think that most guilds are a bit smaller than what ANet intended for in the design of the game...they wanted large guilds that you could log-on at any time and do something with. Unfortunately, that really hasn't happened for a majority of players.

So they bring in Alliances, so the smallish guilds can join together and get the same benefit that was intended for the beginning. Will there be rewards for the top Alliances? No doubt. But I'm guessing that it's going to be done in such a way, that "leets" are not going to dominate. Can it be done? Easily.

Here's a mission. There's an alter in the middle of a clearing. Each team (out of 2? 4?) has a relic that they need to get to the alter. The relic causes slow walk, so running is out of the question, and there are a series of mob groups and bosses along the way. The goal is to be the first to get the relic to the alter. First to reach the alter wins, unless both teams reach at the same time, which results in a PVP brawl (or just give it to the first team if you don't want any PvP.)

Your team wins, then your alliance gains an improvement in faction level, you lose, you lose some. But you gain more than you lose, and this level goes to move back to "0" on a daily basis.

So a l33t alliance that only has 100 players, and only plays the mission 8 times winning each time, may hold it, but more than likely you'll see alliances down the food chain rising up to win it. You'd see quite a bit of variety, and with alliances forming simply to hold a part of Canthia....

Would be pretty interesting.

Phades · Feb 08, 2006, 12:43 AM // 00:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deathqueen

Factions portrays something very different and it's even stated in the preview, if you want the Elite content then you better have a very "well rounded" GUILD key word there GUILD; key point "forced" activity to gain access to Elite content....very bad idea. I don't mind having to wait on favor to enter some elite content area, I certainly will mind that I can't ever enter that elite content area if I don't belong to a guild.

Even *IF* you could go and attempt to arrest control of a town with a PUG, you will not outperform the top end guilds who are interested in the same town. It doesnt matter if its a pvp or a pve venue. In either the well balanced team who is used to working together and reacting to situations with a coordinated effort will always out perform the PUG.

In reality, it really doesnt matter if you arent in a guild or not. The reality is, can you compete with a top end alliance to gain access to that "eliete" content. Even if you did manage to do so, what makes you think its going to be easy enough to let any john doe pug group roll through it? Those "eliete" challenges could very easily be an attempt to setup neigh unbeatable situations that only the best could overcome.

The only thing i am is curious about how it will work out considering how trappers can basically use the AI stupidity against its self 9 of 10 times.

Masseur · Feb 08, 2006, 02:02 AM // 02:02

I will join in with the PvE players that if they start forcing the majority of players into PvP type of content, they will lose out on business. Most of us don't like PvP type of stuff at all. Hopefully we can do PvE type of content from low level to level 20 without PvP type of missions/quests and gain all our skills/attributes, etc...

awelcomecomatose · Feb 08, 2006, 09:01 AM // 09:01

Yes Anet is 100% retarded and completely overlooked the one thing every person who has read the article has thought about. Relax and calm the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO down. There is no way in hell anet would be that stupid.

Tiyuri · Feb 08, 2006, 09:49 AM // 09:49

The article is badly written and its making you guys are missunderstand what they mean by alliances.
When an alliance takes control of the town, thats not refering too a group of guilds, say 3 or 4 taking control of that town, it refers to an entire faction.

The game only has 2 factions, you join one of them, and then form alliances within that faction to do major battles.

i.e. if my guild (NiPE) joined faction A (i cant remember the stupid faction names) and 2 top guilds, such as IQ and VAL are also part of faction A, and these 2 guilds form an alliance and use that alliance to take control of town X. Then I also have access to all the content in town X.

so that content will be limited to 50% of the user base yes, but due to the fact that there are so many guilds per faction, all it takes is for some guilds from faction B to form an alliance and go take back town X so the other 50% gets to play with the elite missions there.

Does this make any more sense?

now this could be a problem if every single top ranked guild decided to join the same faction, however its very unlikely this will be the case.. why? because if they did, every guild in the game would also join that faction and then that one faction would win 99.9% of the time (due to sheer numbers) thus just about everyone in the game has access all the time to every mission.

This however is retarded, what is most likely to happen is that the top guilds will be spread between both the factions, so one day IQ might team up with VAL and take town X, the next day LUM teams up with WM to take it back.

The only purpose of guild alliances is to allow for larger scale battles, i.e. 16 v 16 without raising party size (because lets face it, its hard enough to get 8 people ready as it is, let alone 16.)

These guild alliances fight for their faction! not for themselves. You could be the crappiest guild in the world and still end up conquering the entire world of Cantha if other, better guilds from your faction are on some kind of crazy win streak.

To me it sounds interesting and fun, there are going to be some towns that are rarely attacked by the waring factions due to the fact that they are unable to push that far into the opposing factions territory without getting beaten back, then there are other towns on the edge of territory that could change daily. But can you imagine the feeling when your faction finally makes that push, after months of fighting over resources, right into the opposing factions territory and takes over a town the other faction has owned for months? their flags go up in the town, trade prices decrease.. etc etc.

cool..

(as long as they dont place elite skill caps in any of the faction owned content, because that'd piss me off

)

LaserLight · Feb 08, 2006, 10:28 AM // 10:28

I hope to whatever god the reader happens to like you're right, Tiyuri. Heh...if that's the way it works, then bravo; I'll be more than happy to be the grunt in the works, so long as I have a shot at the advanced content.

Hm hm...I don't need a guarantee of getting there, all I ask is that it's possible. After all, everybody likes advanced areas, and not just for drops. It's just great to have a place that can always challenge you to perform, eh?

SilentAssassin · Feb 08, 2006, 12:03 PM // 12:03

well tiyuri,

got to say nice post,.... if you are right that is

Sounds like alot of fun, I've red the chapter again with this content in mind and it looks like your right, this just makes alot more sense.

looking forward to this

Razorian · Feb 08, 2006, 02:36 PM // 14:36

This is all a bit confusing. As a PvE player will I or will I not have access to everything that everyone else has access to? Thats what I want to know. After all, I would be paying the same for the game as everyone else right? Or do I need to belong to an alliance that contains top ranked GvG Guilds? Right now as a PvE player i have access to everything that anyone else has access to...shouldnt it be that way?

If I am not going to have access to high end content, regular access, I'm not buying - why would I? If I am dependent on other players to gain faction in order for me to access high end content, then that wouldnt interest me very much either.

Thanks for any insight...I could be totally misunderstanding what the interview means.

SilentAssassin · Feb 08, 2006, 02:59 PM // 14:59

well razorian,

thats what all this discussion is about, there are 2 types of interpretations:

1) There are 2 factions, you can see this as the underworld but then in a much larger schale. If the city belongs to 1 faction (comparison to UW if you belong to europe-korea-america) you gain acces to this specific city where you can play missions and do alot more stuff in this city
For capturing an alliance needs to win a match, several matches (don't know about this one) to give acces to everyone who is in this faction (not alliance).

Basicly you got 2 factions so the world will be divided into different areas wich belongs to one of these factions... Offcourse this world changes the whole time.

Problems I see with this that all the best guilds are in 1 faction so the other faction will always (or almost always) lose and doesn't have much acces to these missions

2) The same as above but now these missions aren't for the whole faction but only for the alliance who won battles of the city

This is not a good thing imo, this will never work.

After reading the article again and again and again, I think they mean number 1 this makes alot more sense and this will be awesome.

Deathqueen · Feb 08, 2006, 03:00 PM // 15:00

You don't comprehend either do you Tiyuri

Well Ok I'll post it one more time:

[Elite Missions, that are accessible only by members of the guild alliance that controls that town.]

Now read closely Tiyuri: Elite Missions are accessible ONLY BY THE MEMBERS of "THE" (<~~~ see that THE) GUILD (<~~~ see the word GUILD doesn't say FACTION says GUILD) alliance that controls that town.

A Guild Alliance is a conglomeration of joined guilds; it is NOT the entire FACTION side. Else why have alliances in the first place if the entire FACTION is going to get the advantages that any alliance conquers? Nope, it's individual GUILD alliances. So If I join Alliance Guilds A-B-C & D, but, Alliance Guilds E-F-G & H conquer that town then Alliance Guilds E-F-G & H are going to have access to that towns Elite Missions and my alliance guild is SOL.

Also to PVE only players, you're not going to have to PVP, all of this FACTION WAR stuff is a completely different part aside of the Adventure game. You'll be able to level up, play your instant missions and go to all the Adventure/Story content of the game without having to worry about getting ganked by PVP players. But, if you want access to the ELITE stuff in the game that is part of the FACTION WARS, then you will have to "GUILD UP" and join other guilds that will have both pve and pvp players fighting in these FACTION WARS. Think of the faction wars part of the game as a separate entity all it's on, much like PVP is separated from PVE now, this is a middle ground where if you want to as a PVE player you can come into the faction wars part and participate for the LEET loot. This will be like TOA, but, on a different setup, more things are involved to open up Elite Missions than merely gaining favor for your country through HOH type battles. In other words it's going to be even HARDER to get to the LEET loot, and I'm pretty sure this has to do with solo invinci-monks, all of this is going to require TEAMWORK and not individualism. So, you can probably blame solo invinci-monks and 2 party teams etc. for this new approach to getting to LEET loot.

SilentAssassin · Feb 08, 2006, 03:08 PM // 15:08

[quote]By aligning with one of two warring factions, alliances can gain and hold territory by participating in Faction Battles. The outcome of these battles influences the progress of the war between the two factions. Current battle lines and control of cities and towns is visible on the world map.[quote]

[quote]Guilds can join together to form guild alliances. Allied guilds share alliance chat and can visit each other's guild halls. Alliances can also gain control of cities and towns in Cantha by participating in Alliance Missions, which gives them the ability to trigger events and gain access to exclusive areas.[quote]

So actually the 2 points I gave earlier are in the text, maybe its just a mixture of both...

Deathqueen · Feb 08, 2006, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Yes see the FACTION BATTLES, and the FACTION side with the most points gains control of the province. Then the individualism of ALLIANCE GUILDS comes into play for controlling the TOWN. Notice it doesn't say FACTIONS can gain control of cities and towns, but, only Guild Alliances.

Now, how the town is gained control of is not clear. If PVP fights for the town or if PVE fights for the town or if it's a conglomeration of both and on another point system. It's also not clear exactly WHO or WHAT they fight. Other NPC's/mobs or other PVP players. I would think that several guild alliances would be fighting for the town at the same time. Obviously the opposing FACTION will not be involved because you have to "own" the province to even fight for a town, so they will be doing the FACTION BATTLES again while the guild alliances of the Faction that just won the province will be fighting it out over the town. Sounds like some "infighting" is going to happen here and this could definitely be PVP only. So this is where the elite PVP guilds will have the advantage if it's just PVP to take over the town.

Of couse I am resolved to the "wait and see", but, that's just how the article reads to me. Everyone is interpreting it for their own benefit, but, I am interpreting it by how it reads to me. We all know how they did us with TOA/UW/FOW, now, really did you all like the way entrance to TOA/UW/FOW worked? Or would you rather have been able to enter it anytime you wanted? Think on those guidelines as you read that preview. Why would they change full swing and make it so SIMPLE to get to the Elite Missions now? Anet believes in elitism and challenge, all you have to do is look at the overall makeup of the game to see that.

Razorian · Feb 08, 2006, 04:52 PM // 16:52

Quote:

But, if you want access to the ELITE stuff in the game that is part of the FACTION WARS, then you will have to "GUILD UP" and join other guilds that will have both pve and pvp players fighting in these FACTION WARS

I am in a guild now and its a good one...we are active and have quite a few members. But we are mainly PvE...only a couple of PvP guys. But even if you are in a guild, which then joins an alliance, it sounds like you may or may not get into the Elite areas of the game. You would have to be lucky enough to join an alliance which has top ranked GvG guilds.

This almost sounds like...if you dont PvP, or belong to a good PvP guild / alliance, then you dont get to participate in high end PvE missions and therefore you dont get access to the "elite" loot.

If this is true, I doubt that I would buy the game. I am sure this will be a GREAT game for PvP people. And it will prob be awesome for alot of PvE people. But for people who like me who like to just PvE, but who would also want access to the high-end PvE Missions with the nice drops....this doesnt sound good.

Thom · Feb 08, 2006, 07:22 PM // 19:22

A numbers argument for this working: Currently in the game there are 2 competitive activities that a guild will take part in: GvG and Tombs. Lets say tombs averages 2 winning teams an hour(average holding legth of 2), so 48 winning teams a day. Each day 384 players have won tombs. If Anet decided to run 5 different versions of tombs (ie, 5 major towns run like tombs) you would have 240 different teams with access to the contected content given an average guild size of 8-20 that would be 2000-5000 players having access(with some duplication possible) to these 5 hypothetical elite areas each day. Say there are 3 alliance towns and the average alliance has from 40-200 members, if the town changes hands every hour at the very least 3000 people will have access to the content every day (that number could easily go as high as 7000).

All this was considering small guilds with 8-20 active players, numbers sky-rocket when you consider guesting and larger active guilds (who will be now recruiting numbers). Depending on the amount of challenges, it is easily imaginable that several thousand gamers will have access every day even if they aren't directly participating in a guild/alliance push for access. If all the top guilds are all competing in these areas at the same time, I'm first to admit that the casual guy is screwed. I've skipped to the hall of heros with bad teams enough times to know that the competition isn't that tough much of the time. Switch on the observer list and you see maybe 5-10 top 100 teams gvging at a given time. To suddenly expect that 100 teams will consistantly dominate several locations is ignoring the available data.

The only guy who is universally screwed is the kid who's parents don't want him to talk to/play with strangers and those adults who for some reason force a similar restriction on themselves. If you have some sort of objection to entering a guild alliance and compromising on when, where and how you want to play don't buy factions. If you don't mind helping out with guild efforts and just enjoy playing the game competitively (either PvE or PvP), this will be an amazing chapter.

Even if you are anti-social, pay a top guild to give you access then leech off the guilds success. I personally hate PvE, but my guildies got my most of my runes, weapons and I PvP...is a fair trade.