Curse

Ensign · Jan 31, 2006, 03:03 AM // 03:03

The only real issue I have with unlocking is the startup. Once you have a decent amount unlocked on an account faction becomes self-sustaining. Once you have the basic tools for a few characters those will earn faction fast enough to tweak those characters frequently, or unlock new characters entirely. Sure you don't have the pure flexibility that comes from a fully unlocked account, but if you can buy what you need when you need it the vast majority of the time there isn't a big difference between the two. The gripe of an established player, at least to me, is how low the cap is. It takes significantly more than 10k faction to switch to a completely new character, and you really can't ride the cap without, well, running into it and ceasing to gain faction for a while. Basically you can't store up enough faction to make the big jumps, just the incremental tweaks, or you have to plan pretty far ahead and dump a couple faction caps into something before you can play it.

Anyway, the real problem is the startup, and that was demonstrated very clearly over the PvP weekend. For established players who have been sitting at max faction for a while, that faction cap was barely enough to unlock a new skillbar for a character we might want to try - even though you wouldn't have access to any runes on that character. In retail you wouldn't have access to any weapon upgrades either, you'd have to unlock those as well. For something like a 'preview weekend' it ended up being rather silly...you spent more time farming faction with established characters to unlock the stuff you actually want to preview than, well, previewing the new material. Even though previewing the new material, in this case, means previewing the one character you sunk the faction into to unlock.

I can only imagine what it was like for a new player who just picked up the game for the PvP weekend to see what it was like. Can you imagine going into character creation during a "preview" weekend and just seeing row after row of locked skills? Your only choice if you wanted to play was to pick one of the dreadful premades and jump into arena. I don't want to speculate about how long it'd take for a new player relying on those premades to get enough faction to unlock a real character, but I get the feeling it'd be longer than most people's patience would allow.

I think that these point to a couple minor changes in the faction system to clean it up for everyone involved. The first is a modest change to the faction cap. I feel that a player should be able to spend his faction from the previous night of gaming on the character he wants to play the next night, and right now that's just not possible even if the player has earned enough faction because he has to work within the cap. The other change is that a new player needs to be able to get a good amount of faction very quickly, without having to suffer through arena. Getting into PvP is going to be hard enough on a new player even if he can play whatever character he wants, so why not give him at least some control over his fate?

Thus I feel that the faction cap should be raised to somewhere around 25,000, and that a new player should have that cap filled or come very close to it simply by going through the tutorials. That would put new players and existing players on similar footing come a new expansion, with just enough resources to get started immediately with the new content.

A new skill bar is going to run you 10,000 faction; a full set of runes will vary upon what you need (4000 for all minors or 7500 if you want a super and already have the Vigor...8500 or 12000 if you need to unlock your vigor as well. You'd need 15,500 to unlock a full Warrior with 3 superiors, but I don't think you can set the cap for the extreme case). Weapon modifiers would run you from 3000 to 8000 depending on how varied you want to get. In the most extreme case, a new Warrior will need to earn up to 33,500 faction to unlock his first serious character - more realistically, you're going to need around 18,000 for an established player or 22,500 to get started on a new account. A 25,000 faction cap will let PvP players be more flexible with the faction they've earned, and will let them get started with new content right away - new players will at least have the benefit of starting the long road where they want to.

Changing gears, I'll have to disagree with those who say it is unfair that the PvP crowd has a faction cap that keeps them from unlocking instantly, while PvE players will have their stockpile of skill points to spend instantly. The only instant spending is faction. With faction, you'll get exactly what you want to start playing immediately. If you want to use those skill points, you're going to have to play through the entire campaign. I think it would be reasonable to expect the expansion to have a similar setup to the current campaign, with a good amount of skill quests, some skills that can only be bought in obscure outposts, and elite skills that you'll have to capture from bosses, some in the middle of nowhere. Some of you weren't around when the game first launched, but it took almost a month for people to figure out where all the elite skills were. I wouldn't expect it to be any different this time around. So the PvE side might have the skill points but still has to explore like mad to find the skill they might want, while the PvP side is going to just play a few games and unlock exactly what they need, perhaps before anyone on the PvE side even knows where to capture a key elite. Sure, some combination of PvE and PvP will unlock your account the fastest, getting the common skills and upgrades through normal PvE play and filling in the gaps through PvP and faction...but that's how the system has always worked.

Peace,
-CxE

Tarus From Taros · Jan 31, 2006, 10:53 AM // 10:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

For something like a 'preview weekend' it ended up being rather silly...you spent more time farming faction with established characters to unlock the stuff you actually want to preview than, well, previewing the new material. Even though previewing the new material, in this case, means previewing the one character you sunk the faction into to unlock.

Yeah, exactly. What was the point in beta if the decent players were using solid builds instead of trying out the new characters? Who wants to create a character in PVP who isn't going to stand a chance and damage the build? In all honesty I think the biggest mistake made in beta was even allowing the new skills and runes to be unlocked. we should have been able to preview all of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Changing gears, I'll have to disagree with those who say it is unfair that the PvP crowd has a faction cap that keeps them from unlocking instantly, while PvE players will have their stockpile of skill points to spend instantly. The only instant spending is faction. With faction, you'll get exactly what you want to start playing immediately. If you want to use those skill points, you're going to have to play through the entire campaign.

Well look at my posts and you can see how much more beneficial it is to obtain skills via PVE. Yes you will most likely have to play through the new campaign to get ALL the commons but do you think its really going to be that hard to accomplish? I don't expect it to be any longer then a few days for decent players to finish chapter 2. Hell, I wouldnt be surprised if ppl skipped quests and finished all the missions in just 1 day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

but it took almost a month for people to figure out where all the elite skills were.

True, but now with guildwiki.org I think the process will probably speed up. Also, now we will have players starting at level 20, so I'd imagine about a week or two to have ALL the elites figured out at latest.

JR · Jan 31, 2006, 11:23 AM // 11:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

For something like a 'preview weekend' it ended up being rather silly...you spent more time farming faction with established characters to unlock the stuff you actually want to preview than, well, previewing the new material. Even though previewing the new material, in this case, means previewing the one character you sunk the faction into to unlock.

Especially when you assume the Beta weekend was also an excellent opportunity to test skills. Without UAS on the new skills, how could they be effectively tested? Answer: They couldn't. One very broken build was created from them, due to a skill being bugged... There is almost certainly more where that came from that just haven't been uncovered yet.

Ado · Jan 31, 2006, 11:45 AM // 11:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarus From Taros

And no, he wouldnt need to make an Assasin, he'd only need to change secondary.....

Maybe it's not possible to change your secondary into assassin or ritualist.

dawnrain · Jan 31, 2006, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

You can't because one is random while the other is not. A more fair comparison would be an example of market economics within the pve realm for the runes. Considering the economy is rather non-existant, due to the constant influx of resources and virtually zero resources taken out, its a rather pointless comparison skewed in favor of faction. Solo farming skill points is faster than grinding the faction in most instances as well. A byproduct of the solo farming also nets a sizable amount of coin, which more than compensates for the skill costs.

So, you are saying its ANET's fault for including a pve side to the game? I cant say i agree with that at all, but people trying to compare direct competition to the grind are at fault here not ANET.

Calculations involving random factors are done all the time. I should have been more explicit in my initial post. Via normal RP gameplay unlocking, when can one expect to unlock a superior absorption rune? 1 hour, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year? I think this amount of time will be considerably longer than unlocking a superior absorption rune via faction.

I don't fault ANet on anything. My understanding was that the faction system came about because ANet realized that a significant portion of the player base enjoyed playing PvP only. The faction system was implemented so that these PvP only players had a method to unlock skills/runes/mods in a comparable amount of time as an RP character. ANet did not put the faction system to "reward" players. ANet (naively?) believed that the PvP players were playing PvP because they enjoyed playing Guild Wars PvP.

Phades · Jan 31, 2006, 07:15 PM // 19:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by dawnrain

Calculations involving random factors are done all the time. I should have been more explicit in my initial post. Via normal RP gameplay unlocking, when can one expect to unlock a superior absorption rune? 1 hour, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year? I think this amount of time will be considerably longer than unlocking a superior absorption rune via faction.

It cant be compared, its just that simple. You can have an unlucky person such as myself who has poured thousands of hours into the game and not get one to drop in pve at all for months. I have had friends get several though, so i know that they are dropping and werent bugged. One friend of mine had 12 drop before i got my first. I unlocked one with faction before i got my first superior vigor to drop. After i did that, i had 5 drop within the next couple weeks in extreemly casual play helping friends through various missions in pve. The only scalable reward comparison is what it costs to buy a rune with gold, because gold is neither rare and is not that random, similar to winning/killing in pvp. Considering a very simple solo desert run pulling down roughly 5k in gold per skill point, i find that to be the more fair comparison by far considering there are far more lucrative options for earning cash in this game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dawnrain

ANet (naively?) believed that the PvP players were playing PvP because they enjoyed playing Guild Wars PvP.

First off, a pvp character can not go into pve. A player who uses pvp character to pvp with obviously enjoys pvp. A competitive person will use every means available to gain an advantage or to level the playing field with the expected competition. Pvp players are competitive people. This is not to say that a pve player, who for whatever reason does not pvp, can not be a competitive person. The way a pve player will compete will be different and most commonly in the form of economics in this game, which i find the relative lack of resources flowing out of the system to be rather laughable in a working economy, but that is a different subject.

A pve character gains nothing from pvp. A pvp character does gain from pve play. You are trying to make connections and associations in both directions that does not exist. The point is to not create the only favorable option for advancement to be pve and have it be roughly equal in the upward preperation for equivilant gain. This game is more about the skills than the equipment, but the equipment can enable skill combinations to work together alot more efficiently. To say that it can take less time to get a superior vigor rune through faction (if you already unlocked the minor and major runes) is similar to saying its faster to unlock feast of corruption via faction rather than running out and capping the skill. That is a tiny snipet out of a very huge scale of options that can/will be unlocked and used by any player. This is where the quantity of storage for change matters, not in the obscure and annoying where only instance where faction is better. What that creates is just sucking up all the easy things through pve play quickly with established characters and using the precision of faction to target the harder to get items. The fact faction can do this is not a bad thing, but it does need to be able to compare more closely to pve storage and progression either by limiting what a pve character can store or expanding what the pvp character can store.

If you played the new professions in pvp, you would easily understand the statements that ensign and others, including myself, are making.

Tarus From Taros · Feb 01, 2006, 12:29 AM // 00:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by dawnrain

ANet did not put the faction system to "reward" players. ANet (naively?) believed that the PvP players were playing PvP because they enjoyed playing Guild Wars PvP.

That doesn't make sense. Isn't anything positive given to a player for completing a task a "reward"? How can you claim it isn't?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ado

Maybe it's not possible to change your secondary into assassin or ritualist

Yes it will be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

A pve character gains nothing from pvp.

Um, yes they do. PVE Chars will still get Experience and using a PVE character has several item benefits over PVP.

But I digress. We are getting off topic here. The purpose of this thread was to be more of a poll(yes or no answers) with some little debate. I see very few people agreeing either way and MUCH debate.

Phades · Feb 01, 2006, 01:41 AM // 01:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarus From Taros

Um, yes they do. PVE Chars will still get Experience and using a PVE character has several item benefits over PVP.

The actual exp gain is so trivial i overlooked it. I was more focused on the relative faction corrolation. If you really wanted to get technical about it, tombs rewards would effectivly equate over to pve characters as well. In most cases though, they would be better off just solo or duo farming somewhere.

Tarus From Taros · Feb 01, 2006, 02:51 AM // 02:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

The actual exp gain is so trivial i overlooked it. I was more focused on the relative faction corrolation. If you really wanted to get technical about it, tombs rewards would effectivly equate over to pve characters as well. In most cases though, they would be better off just solo or duo farming somewhere.

The exp gain isn't trivial. While you won't get nearly as much experience as soloing in UW it's a decent amount for sure. Apparently you overlooked me mentioning item benefits too, but you said you were "focused on the relative faction corrolation". Exactly how is saying "A pve character gains nothing from pvp." staying relative to the topic discussed? That has nothing to do with my question.

Phades · Feb 01, 2006, 03:44 AM // 03:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarus From Taros

The exp gain isn't trivial. While you won't get nearly as much experience as soloing in UW it's a decent amount for sure.

1 skill point per roughly 3k faction is a very minor gain to the point where i would describe it as trivial. If the goal is to gain exp to get skill points, time is wasted in pvp. If the goal is to gain faction within pvp, then pvp formats are the only choice. One noticable difference in the new areas, being the zaishen challenges, is that no exp is gained through the pvp format, even though it is in fact pve. People do not go after level 16 monsters to gain experience from. They go for level 20+ monsters for the best of their time spent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarus From Taros

Apparently you overlooked me mentioning item benefits too, but you said you were "focused on the relative faction corrolation". Exactly how is saying "A pve character gains nothing from pvp."

Running around heros acent or in a gvg battle is not the same as running around perdition rock with signets of capture for a pve character. Fighting to and possibly holding the hall of heros is not the same as jumping into a 2 man underworld run for a pve character.

I was also anticipating your next response. The general direction of how you would choose to use it, when you realized that it does in fact occur, i left up to you. The sigil aquisition is a logical progression in readiness towards gvg battles after establishing a group of individuals who are able to coordinate and create sucessful 8v8 build formats. Beyond that, there is really no rational explanation of its existance and everything that does occur with it and those items is the result of player influence. To try and state that it is a preferable means of tangible reward for a pve only character is rather laughable.

To someone who is pvp orientated and is opting to use a pve character is doing so for pve equipment advantages and is not the pve player that many are trying to state is the source of balance. In fact, speaking purely in terms of pvp, it is the source of imbalance. Pvp characters and equipment is standardized due to the unlocking mechanics and base line equipment available. Pve is purely based around the randomness of drops or the savy of people in trade. To say that a player interested in pvp must also be interested in the moving economics of the game, is not what this game is attempting to achieve. Other games such as EVE online does try to achieve that and it is blended into virtually every facet of the game.

Fortunatly the game is moving in a direction that is more distinct in what locations are available to different types of characters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarus From Taros

That has nothing to do with my question.

...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarus From Taros

But I digress. We are getting off topic here. The purpose of this thread was to be more of a poll(yes or no answers) with some little debate. I see very few people agreeing either way and MUCH debate.

This body of text does not contain a question. It is a rhetorical commentary regarding the overal purpose of the thread and assuming that people with different views will come to a general concensus, even when many individuals involved do not share the same goals or experiences. Simply stating yes or no does not change the information possessed by individuals that do not share the same experiences, even though it may have no change on the overal goal of the person involved.

Auturgist · Feb 01, 2006, 05:56 AM // 05:56

Wow, I can't even read through all these replies because the issue seems so mundane to me. Who cares about a limit on faction? Really, there's almost no practical reason to be upset about this because faction serves only one purpose: unlocking skills/runes/upgrades for PVP.

When you hit the limit, spend some. Alternatively, if you are like me, spend it as soon as you can, because then you have a much larger buffer for when you go on winning streaks in the PVP arenas.

It's not worth gold, and it can't be transferred, so you have nothing to show for it if you don't use it... so just use it and stop complaining about the limit.

I know several people who managed to unlock a lot of the Assassin and Ritualist skills using faction over the weekend they were available. What else would they have used it on?

Tarus From Taros · Feb 01, 2006, 01:35 PM // 13:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Simply stating yes or no does not change the information possessed by individuals that do not share the same experiences, even though it may have no change on the overal goal of the person involved.

Uh, the purpose of the yes or no is so anet can see there is concern over the issue. I'd like to argue with you on the recent comments you made but it's getting way off base of where this topics should be and i'm not going to encourage it to continue going off track, so if you would like to continue the debate lets take it to pm

.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Auturgist

Wow, I can't even read through all these replies because the issue seems so mundane to me. .

if your not going to bother to read the replies why bother posting? There are several good comments on why the cap should be raised. Obviously people DO care or nobody would respond

.

Daneish · Feb 02, 2006, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taros from Taros

Uh, the purpose of the yes or no is so anet can see there is concern over the issue. I'd like to argue with you on the recent comments you made but it's getting way off base of where this topics should be and i'm not going to encourage it to continue going off track, so if you would like to continue the debate lets take it to pm .

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=104111

A good chunk of issues being raised here have already been discussed in the above link.

Now, a simple yes/no poll really doesn't do an accurate job. Good, thoughtful debate will go a long way toward developing an informed poll base from which to grab your numbers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taros from Taros

The exp gain isn't trivial.

Yeah, yeah it is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

...

Taros, that's Phades-speak for, "Wow, you missed an obvious, glaring point and tried to put it off by pretending it's not relevant."

The fact that PvE players gain nothing but a pittance of XP from PvP yet still have little to no issue with skill and item attainment is paramount to the point that you, yourself are trying to make! You'll note that the PvP players here are looking for balance, not an advantage, and that raising the faction cap to a level Ensign and I have suggested, and not removing the faction cap entirely, would be the best route.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daneish

The Beta weekend offered a valid opportunity for significant account unlocking. Myself, I didn't play extensively, but I still unlocked the entirety of the new rune sets and a handful of skills otherwise. There will certainly be another Beta weekend or two before the release of the game; that's just how ANet does things.

The beta weekend provided a solid jumpstart toward players unlocking new assassin/ritualist skills for PvP purposes....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taros from Taros

Yeah, exactly. What was the point in beta if the decent players were using solid builds instead of trying out the new characters?

I wouldn't have quoted myself if that question hadn't been answered before it'd been asked.

dawnrain · Feb 03, 2006, 03:47 PM // 15:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarus From Taros

That doesn't make sense. Isn't anything positive given to a player for completing a task a "reward"? How can you claim it isn't?

But a player who only plays RP characters can also earn faction. Is it a "reward" for this player? He will never derive any benefit from it, his gameplay is not changed by its existence. I previously outlined why the faction system is an unlocking system, not a reward system.

The point about difficulties for the starting PvP only player are valid. But that may be better addressed with more PvP templates, better PvP templates and more varied PvP templates as opposed to increasing the faction cap.

audioaxes · Feb 03, 2006, 05:30 PM // 17:30

ya 10k is retarded, atleast up the cap to like 50k

Loviatar · Feb 03, 2006, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by audioaxes

ya 10k is retarded, atleast up the cap to like 50k

they analyzed the speed of unlocks and made increases in faction as they got more data leading to the 5X increase.

they have had the same amount of time to analyze the faction cap which they obviously found to be what they wanted.

as i have said from long ago

*faction is nothing more than a relatively fast way to UAS/EVERYTHING doing the thing you profess to love (pvp) avoiding any contact with the nasty pve.

it is an unlocking tool

IT IS NOT

a reward

something to hoard

something to use to get PVE rewards like 15k, FOW armor etc.

use your tool and when you are completely unlocked having the level playing field of utter bliss................put your faction away..........and............

PVP YOUR BRAINS OUT

it has done its JOB now put it away and play your pvp

Ensign · Feb 03, 2006, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Just want to remind everyone that a change to the faction cap wouldn't affect the speed of unlocks in the long run. It just gives people a slightly larger burst of faction when an expansion comes out and more flexibility in their faction spending. Unlocking all of the new skills from the expansion with faction would run you 450,000 faction. Runes and weapon upgrades would kick that number even higher. Basically the faction cap is going to be a small drop of what people need in any case.

Also XP in PvP feels like an artifact, something that was there before faction and they just haven't bothered to remove from the game now that faction is in. It wasn't there at one point, but was put back in after people complained that there wasn't any reward at all for PvPing...now it's so overshadowed by the real reward that it's basically meaningless.

Talking about rewards, though, I think that the ability to trade in faction for things other than unlocks would be a good idea. There are a lot of people with four PvE slots who go into arenas with their characters and get this meaningless faction because they don't have a PvP slot. I think those players in particular would appreciate the ability to trade in their faction for something useful like XP, or physical items. World of Warcraft has a nifty PvP reward system where they give out special items for PvPing, and I don't see any reason why the PvP reward system in Guild Wars shouldn't blow that away. The most valuable things in this game are in-game models and text color anyway so it isn't like they'd even risk unbalancing anything.

Peace,
-CxE

Carinae · Feb 03, 2006, 10:17 PM // 22:17

Why not just allow PvE characters to earn PvE unlocks via Faction? Now Faction is useful to PvE'ers and XP can be removed.

Loviatar · Feb 03, 2006, 10:31 PM // 22:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

Why not just allow PvE characters to earn PvE unlocks via Faction? Now Faction is useful to PvE'ers and XP can be removed.

as long as it was a PVE character that earned the faction i would have no objection to them using it for the PVE character that earned it.

Phades · Feb 04, 2006, 01:57 AM // 01:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Also XP in PvP feels like an artifact, something that was there before faction and they just haven't bothered to remove from the game now that faction is in. It wasn't there at one point, but was put back in after people complained that there wasn't any reward at all for PvPing...now it's so overshadowed by the real reward that it's basically meaningless.

I thought the xp was put back in to eventually stop the forge runners farming the ascalon arenas with end game gear and skills.