Curse

Mariodood · Jul 01, 2005, 12:59 AM // 00:59

Basically, from what I understand, people like the new PVP Rewards system but don't like how long it takes. I think the Devs will problably lower the requirements anyway, because a lot of people are going to realize it'd take hours to get any points at all. However, there are 2 sides to this story..

The players want to PVP, and consider it the funner part of the game, and want to unlock skills without major amounts of time wasted.

The devs want the players to play through the PVE adventure at least once, to keep people hooked on the game and so they might buy the expansions and not get tired too quick.

That's why there won't be a UAS button, because many people would pretty much ignore the PVE adventure, because aside from the skill-unlocking component of it, it's pretty dry.

But the Faction requirements for everything is way too high. I think the fair way to make everything at a reasonable level is to divide the requirements by 10.

10?!!?!? Yeah, 10. That may sound like a lot, but think about it.

Minor Rune: 1000
This is a Minor rune, a simple +1 advance to one attribute. And it'd take 2 hardcore, highly rated battles to do it, these are tough, 1hour long battles. If you divide it by 10, it's 100.

Now think about this. An Arena battle will only net you a couple of points, so it's not like any arena-goer can just net one quickly. They gotta work for it. However, A half-decent tomb team can definetly unlock one. And a half-decent Guild who beats another half-decent guild can unlock two!

Think about it, here, in PVE, a skill only takes a little while to get, many people get multiple skills at the same time. Sometimes they do a quest for it, or they could buy it from a skill trainer and get it instantly!

Normal Skill: 1000
This is just like a minor rune. Now, I'm sure some people really need certain skills, but for someone who just wants to unlock all of the skills, 1000 is a mighty, mighty price. This isn't even an elite skill. It's a normal, any old day skill. Something you might not even need. If divided by 10, once again, it wouldn't be able to be obtained in a split second, but it's not going to take hours, either..

Now let's just think again here. I fight, say, the Sissy Boys. These guys are no easy fight. They completely owned my team in the HoH once. Let's say in some amazing way, I, say, defeated them. A HUGE BATTLE. Epic! And let's say they want a rematch, HOLY CRAP, I BEAT THEM AGAIN! I DEFEATED THE SISSY BOYS TWICE! My Guild is broadcasted throughout Tyria as the amazing guild that no one knew had such talent! Oh, not just that, but I unlocked this skill:

Antidote Signet - Signet
Cleanse yourself of Poison, Disease, and Blindness.

Not much of a reward for my two epic battles against the Sissy Boys.

Elite Skills : 3000

And at the very top of the food chain, an elite skill for 3000. Don't forget, I can also get an Elite Skill by walking outside of Talus Chute and walking a little bit left, killing it with some henchies, and using signet of capture. Or I can defeat the Sissy Boys twice, then wipe the floor with the Valandor a good three times, and maybe have a nice round of KOR. But I'm just an average Joe. I can't do all that!

When divided by 10, 300 points is no easy thing. If I was in the tombs, I'd get 20 for winning once, 40 for winning again, 40 again, etc, maybe a guild battle, and I'd have it. But that's something that still takes time. In fact, even that, I find, a bit too much, but I'm reasoning with you! I actually find 200 or 150 a more reasonable price. That, or give every skill/elite skill an individual price. Since some skills are merely slightly better versions of others.

Thank you for reading,

Mariodood

P.S. Until ArenaNet hopefully pulls through I'll be PVPing a couple of days straight to unlock an Elite Skill

DarrenJasper · Jul 01, 2005, 01:26 AM // 01:26

Look like good figures to me.

Shadow-Runner · Jul 01, 2005, 01:30 AM // 01:30

I believe the reward system is just fine, minus the fact that they got rid of the xp u gain from PvPing. As for the faction i played in HoH for about 4 hours after the new patch came out, and got 300 faction. That was 4 hours worth of play not pvping; an hour of that was getting people and setting up skills, another hour was losing battles and trying to find more players. So basically 2 hours of pvping with a pick up team got me 300 faction. Personally i think that is just fine. The price for skills is high, but if it was lower then it would be worthless. Before this reward system you would have to go out and find the mob that had the elite you were looking for and cap it. So for all the players who took the time to gather all the elites (ie me) would feel cheated now that someone can spend a few hours to get an elite, and not just any elite the specific one they were looking for. Now i dont speak for everyone but to me it feels like you just want to get everything for as little work as possible. No offense but where is the accomplishment there. I play games for the challenge, i dont want to pay $50 to get a game (good game btw) and just be sent to the end. Part of the game is getting the skills and equipment, the other part is using it. Already you can just get the skill points and buy skills. Now elites on the otherhand require a player to actually find the single monster to get the skill. To me it makes acquiring the skill that much more satisfying.

Well i dont wanna sound like im just shutting you down, but how would you feel if you spend all the time getting somthing the hard way and then someone just comes in and does everything you do for a fraction of the work. My opinion is that the dev team did a good job with this new reward team, and even if everyone else says its bad, i want them to know i like it. Keep up the good work.

DaRhino · Jul 01, 2005, 01:32 AM // 01:32

I do virtually NO PvP whatsoever, but I think that ArenaNet should definitely amend this as it takes way too long to unlock things. You may as well just make PvE character and get the unlockables like that.

Sniper22 · Jul 01, 2005, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Nice suggestion, although I would say it should be divided by 4-6 instead of 10, sometimes people like me waste lots of skill points on secondary professions (more than one) and have none left when they need them and it takes a whole 20,000 xp to get another one. To me 300 faction is way low for an elite,. It took my about three days to finally caputure Feast of Corruption, its not an easy hike to run way out in the middle of nowhere, and a lot of times fail.

A suggestion that I have would be to have an option to get the item for you, but have it customized so you can't sell it. Not everybody has pvp only characters (Well atleast I don't), and all this factor stuff I earn from GvG or PvP goes to waste. I don't care about getting skills and stuff its the upgrades, like a Bow Grip of Fortitiude +30 Health. These are really rare to get, and I don't want to spend hours, and hours, and hours of farming to get one, but its very unlikely that I will. Getting upgrades in PvP is based on skill. Getting upgrades in PvE is based on luck or your wealth. Usually, you wont get those rare items in PvE (Well I did get a sick max bone staff with 5 extra energy and defense while I was on my way to a materials crafter), unless you farm for hours, and days, and weeks, and maybe even months.

chobo321321 · Jul 01, 2005, 02:03 AM // 02:03

I suggested that the amount of faction points it takes to get something is rediculous and should be divided by 10, and was flamed and told to go play pve... I have no problem with the idea of earning faction points to unlock stuff but when it takes 5+ hours to get a lousy skill that blows.

I know this game must be heaven for players coming from EQ where I assume there was a lot of running around (I've never played it), but wasn't this game designed for players who don't want to play 5 hours on end, day after day just to unlock a couple of things? I know all the former EQ players or whatever full time job game they played will flame me for this because to them it isn't grind...

Warskull · Jul 01, 2005, 02:48 AM // 02:48

The greatest flaw in the system is that it has become an all or nothing system. It simply doesn't do what it says it will. Change the gain formulas to reward success appropriately.

Competitive Arena:
2/unique kills
6+(2*consecutive wins)+(2*consecutive win of the defeated team)

Team arena:
2/unique kills
6+(3*consecutive wins)+(3*consecutive wins of defeated team)

HoH (any 1v1):
3/unique kill
10+(10*consecutive win)+(10*consecutive win of defeated team)

HoH (survival matches)
3/unique kill
5+(3*consecutive wins of defeated team) bonus points to all remaining teams every time a team is defeated
10+(5*consecutive wins) bonus for last team standing

HoH (KotH)
3/unique kills
3 bonus points for each tick you hold
10+(10*consecutive wins)+(10*total consecutive wins of both defeated teams)

Guild:
4/unique kills
Rest fine as is

A system like this would allow a team on a streak to rapidly rack up points. Additionally if you defeat a team on a streak (a good team usually) you are properly rewarded. Then in the HoH in the multi-team matches you are rewarded by performance.

Examples:
You defeat a team in the team arenas on a 5 win steak, it is your second win:
6+(3*2)+(3*5)=37 faction

In the HoH (final match), you win. You are on your 5th win, your opposing teams are on their 3rd and 4th wins
10+(10*5)+(10*(3+4))=130 faction

This allows a team on a roll to very rapidly rack of factions (a team holding the hall of heroes could gain a lot very quickly.) Right now the rewards are not in line with the difficulty. In addition you gain the same amount for pounding on clueless newbies as when you fight tooth and nail against grizzled veterans. This would be like if you still gained 5 exp/kill no matter what you killed. A level 20 character has no motivation to kill anything other than the lowest level creature he can find in that situation.

The second major chance is that the skill system for unlock via faction points needs tiered. In PvE it is easy to unlock a bunch of skills early on, but becomes more time consuming as you progress. Make tiers of skills starting at 200 factions points/skill and increasing as the skills becomes higher tier. The skills tier is based solely on when it becomes available in PvE. Flare and Aura of restoration would be low tier skills, Deep freeze and Searing Heat would be high teir skills.

ubrikkean · Jul 01, 2005, 02:57 AM // 02:57

the biggest flaw in your reasoning that i know from personal experience is that arena battles aren't useful for faction. think about it... you get 14 points per battle won, and 0-6 per battle lost. it doesnt take very long to play enough battles to get a reward. you would be unlocking one or two rewards per hour by playing arena mode if you needed a tenth of the faction in order to unlock rewards.

and to chobo, why the hell would anyone grind for skills? its just nice to have something to work toward in pvp, and a way of getting rewarded if you play it a lot. the point is that a lot of people have fun playing pvp, and who wouldnt want to be rewarded for having fun?

Alathys Tylderaan · Jul 01, 2005, 04:25 AM // 04:25

I think faction is brilliant, and the prices are perfectly fine, if like you suggest, the prices were lowered by a factor of 10, I would have bought.. 18 elites and 2 normal skills today with the 2k faction i earnt from PvP since the update. 18 elites and 2 normals is a little much for a day and a bit's work i think

Also, you didn't take into account the skill points required with capture signets, which are the bigger problem sometimes that actually getting the skills.

deathwearer · Jul 01, 2005, 04:50 AM // 04:50

i play both pve and pvp ( i play way more pvp though ) and i think they should divide requirement for unlock stuff by 2. would still make people unable to unlock everything in short time but won't make it a huge time also.

Felbryn · Jul 01, 2005, 05:47 AM // 05:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alathys Tylderaan

I think faction is brilliant, and the prices are perfectly fine, if like you suggest, the prices were lowered by a factor of 10, I would have bought.. 18 elites and 2 normal skills today with the 2k faction i earnt from PvP since the update. 18 elites and 2 normals is a little much for a day and a bit's work i think

Also, you didn't take into account the skill points required with capture signets, which are the bigger problem sometimes that actually getting the skills.

Someone can't do math. If elite prices are lowered by a factor of 10, they're 300 each, which means to get 18 of them costs you 5400, not 1800. You could've gotten 6 elites and 2 normals. If by a day's work you mean playing PvP for about 8-10 hours straight, which is what most people would probably need to play to get 2k under the current system, I don't think that's too fast.

I'm pretty sure that PvE would be the preferred method of getting skills (if your goal is simply to get as many as possible, rather than a few specific ones) even if the current costs were cut by a factor of 10, up until the point that your character has exhausted all his skill points--at which point there's about 20 skills in your combined two professions that you haven't gotten, and they're probably some of the skills you least care about if you played intelligently.

But I think the point should be, "how fast is reasonable?" rather than "how fast is the present alternative?" If it turns out that the appropriate speed is much faster or slower than PvE, then we can easily change the drop rates or the skill point requirements in PvE to gain something like a balance, if such a balance is desirable.

To answer that question, we should be asking "why doesn't everything that's actually useful in combat start out unlocked, since the game is advertised as being about skill instead of hours played?" I can think of one possible reason that wouldn't mean the advertisers lied: they want people to have fun unlocking things.

Now, obviously, the optimal solution to those two competing forces would be to give everything tactically useful for free, and have a bunch of purely aesthetic unlockables. The problem there is that creating all the aesthetic unlockables takes more development time and money, whereas there's a large breadth of skills, runes, and upgrades that already exist, and since you only use a few at once, you can unlock a few of them quickly to become viable, and use the others as rewards to satisfy that itch.

Working on this theory, there are two things that should govern the unlocking rate. First of all, it's pointless unless the player always feels like he's accomplishing something, so the rate can't be too slow. I'd say probably a casual gamer should unlock something (be it ever so minor) every time he plays. Supposing that he plays 2 hours at a time and loses 3/4 of his PvP matches, if he needs 1k faction to unlock anything, then he should be making at least 500 faction/hour (and someone who wins a lot should probably be getting it faster). Obviously, this is only a very loose lower bound, and it could be much faster than that.

To put an upper bound on what's reasonable, there's not much point in letting the players unlock things faster than they can try them out. It's reasonable that when a player unlocks a small set of new skills, runes, and upgrades, they should make a new character to test them out, and play that character for a while. I'd say maybe half an hour is reasonable to try out a new elite skill alone, and an entirely new build might warrant I good 5-10 hours. Thus, at current prices, there's not much point in giving faction out faster than, say, 6000/hour.

So maybe something in the range of 1000-2000 faction/hour, which would be equivalent to cutting the current prices by about a factor of 10-20, would seem to be in line with those goals. (I made close to 200/hour for a stretch this evening, but that was from 30 consecutive wins, and I don't expect to duplicate that in a hurry.) At 2000 faction/hour, it would still take (according to my very rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation) somewhere on the order of 200+ hours to get enough faction to unlock everything (assuming you unlock nothing from PvE, but didn't need a PvE character to actually spend the faction)--not something a casual player is going to be doing in a hurry.

Now, presumably the game developers possess such things as calculators and basic arithmetic skills, and they know how long PvP matches actually take, so they cannot possibly fail to know that the current rewards are much slower than that. I therefore see the possibilities that:

(1) The current numbers are just to try it out, and it will become much faster as soon as they decide the current system is satisfactory (and possibly will be synchronized with a speed up in PvE).

(2) The developers are traitors to the supposed game philosophy of "skill, not hours played"

(3) There are some considerations in setting the advancement rate which I have failed to consider.

(4) Despite monumental evidence to the contrary, the developers are astonishingly incompetent

If anyone knows any likely candidates for (3), I'm very interested to hear them. In the mean time, I don't know what to expect, but I hold out some hope for (1).

chobo321321 · Jul 01, 2005, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Quote:

and to chobo, why the hell would anyone grind for skills? its just nice to have something to work toward in pvp, and a way of getting rewarded if you play it a lot. the point is that a lot of people have fun playing pvp, and who wouldnt want to be rewarded for having fun?

Um take a wild guess... You do realize that unless you use a template all the skills are locked and cannot be used, so you need to unlock them one way or another... I'm not a big fan of playing the same character day after day in pvp, sometimes it is nice to have the option of switching skills around and trying new things. I suggest you try it sometime.

Shadow_Avenger · Jul 01, 2005, 06:42 PM // 18:42

*edit* will test theory first.

Eclair · Jul 01, 2005, 07:37 PM // 19:37

I think the reason A-net is not going to lower the faction very much is precisely due to the reason the OP stated. A-net wants everyone to play through PvE first.

One play through PvE would unlock a lot of the minor stuff, not to mention many of the essential skills for your primary and secondary profession. Here is where the faction really shines. Instead of having to keep grinding in PvE to unlock something randomly and hope its the unlock you want, you can now go into PvP and unlock EXACTLY what you want. Basically, early game PvE totally surpasses PvP for unlocking, but late game PvP is considerably faster because you control what you unlock.

Here's how I see the current situation.

PvPers who have played since the game came out would probably already have 3 PvE characters who've unlocked at least 50% of the stuff. Now with this new faction bonus, they can now PvP instead of PvE grind and unlock the last few important runes/upgrades/skills that they need threw maybe a day or 2 of PvPing instead of maybe a week of PvE grinding. Plus, since the rune trader came in most of the runes could be bought for a couple hundred gold, even the elites! For the really expensive ones (vigor/absorbtion) the faction system makes it REALLY easy and fast to unlock compared to before. It's not hard or long to unlock a sleuth of basic and essential skills in PvE. With elites you can just take your PvE character and go capture it.

New players who just picked up the game would probably want to play through PvE first to get a grasp of the game first, which will allow him/her to unlock a lot of basic stuff, and then proceed onto PvP to unlock the last few essentials.

That's just how I see it anywayz =P

Thorivol Liadon · Jul 01, 2005, 07:48 PM // 19:48

Do none of you do guild battles? Hello? The name of the game is GUILD WARS not Random Arena wars. Yes you do earn faction for arenas - that was nice of them. But to realy earn Faction - tons of it, play GvG.

I played for a little while last night and earned over 500 Faction.

So if you get tired of spinning your wheels in the arenas try GvG for the real rewards.

See you all in the game,

Thorivol

Wizard1200 · Jul 01, 2005, 08:03 PM // 20:03

I agree that the costs for all the PVP abilities are too high, but i think they should divide the costs by 2. That is a great reduction in time and makes the PVE part of the game still good for unlocking your abilities.

More important is the option to unlock the ablities from the arena and not only from different towns that are spread over the full map. They could simply place the priests in the arena and everyone can spend their points there without the need of having a high level character to unlock the elite skills. This is important because with the need of having a high level character to unlock the elite skills the faction system makes not so much sence because you can simply change your class and capture the elite skills you want in less than a hour.

Nomad Ninja · Jul 01, 2005, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Yeah i aggree with eclair. I still think that a.net wants pve to be the main way to gain skills.
I see the PvP rewards system as a way to get an occational skill or two that was not found in PvE. Say i wanted superior vigor, i havent found it yet, and if it essential to my char, then ill spend my pvp point. I won't try to build a skill set though.

I am dissaponted that the GvG rewards are so much higer than the pickup group rewards.

For a small guild like mine i have no chance of ever winning a GvG match.

oh yes one more thing, there needs to be some way of gettning attribute refunds through pvp.
I like using my PvE char, but i generaly have to do a lot of attribute switching to match my group build. Then i am forced to run around and try to get enough refunds.

Nomad Ninja

CaptainGuru · Jul 01, 2005, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eclair

I think the reason A-net is not going to lower the faction very much is precisely due to the reason the OP stated. A-net wants everyone to play through PvE first.

No. Sorry, they made PvP reward for those who play PvP often.

One play through PvE would unlock a lot of the minor stuff, not to mention many of the essential skills for your primary and secondary profession. Here is where the faction really shines. Instead of having to keep grinding in PvE to unlock something randomly and hope its the unlock you want, you can now go into PvP and unlock EXACTLY what you want. Basically, early game PvE totally surpasses PvP for unlocking, but late game PvP is considerably faster because you control what you unlock.

Here's how I see the current situation.

PvPers who have played since the game came out would probably already have 3 PvE characters who've unlocked at least 50% of the stuff. Now with this new faction bonus, they can now PvP instead of PvE grind and unlock the last few important runes/upgrades/skills that they need threw maybe a day or 2 of PvPing instead of maybe a week of PvE grinding. Plus, since the rune trader came in most of the runes could be bought for a couple hundred gold, even the elites! For the really expensive ones (vigor/absorbtion) the faction system makes it REALLY easy and fast to unlock compared to before. It's not hard or long to unlock a sleuth of basic and essential skills in PvE. With elites you can just take your PvE character and go capture it.

New players who just picked up the game would probably want to play through PvE first to get a grasp of the game first, which will allow him/her to unlock a lot of basic stuff, and then proceed onto PvP to unlock the last few essentials.

That's just how I see it anywayz =P

I couldn't disagree with your statement more. Most PvPers have played the PvE, but did not like it. The PvP rewards wasn't made so people wouldn't grind much in PvE, but it was made those who don't like the PvE experience. ANet is aware that there is a huge complaint about how bad the PvE aspect is and that this game shinning point is the PvP aspect.

They created the PvP rewards to help PvP gains skills WITHOUT having to go through the game to get them. Why do think you get 1 point for PvP within the PvE arena and 6 to 500 point for all out PvP? The problem is they did not make themselves aware the community's current status in terms of PvP, which is why the goals for the runes, skills and items are so ridiculously high. Moreover, they've forgotten that this game is for causal players who play up to 3 to 4 hours a day. It would take months on end to get all those moves if I mainly play PvP.

Linkie · Jul 01, 2005, 09:47 PM // 21:47

1. It's gonna take too long to unlock everything through PvP only with the current system. Without PvEing you'll need a smashing 4.5K faction to unlock onesuperior.

2. To unlock skills, people will have to get to atleast Droknar's Forge (and not through Lornar's past). So they've nearly completed the game anyway.

Loviatar · Jul 01, 2005, 10:21 PM // 22:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptainGuru

Moreover, they've forgotten that this game is for causal players who play up to 3 to 4 hours a day. It would take months on end to get all those moves if I mainly play PvP.

3-4 hours a day is not casual at all

and a truly casual person will happily use a template (like Stumpys brother) and have fun playing the game casually instead of having to get everything so they can be world champions (if they unlock everything)

maybe most of the people who are playing the game for fun are losers because they are shooting for low goals like having fun win or lose and not treatind this as real life instead of a game