An open letter to A Net regarding Favor

there is a big grain of truth in that before faction was brought into the picture but now a pvp can earn the same items in pvp only

I'm glad to know that NCSoft is doing something. Thank you.

Faction is painstakingly slow to get compared to PvE unlocks. A new player can play the least challenging form of PvE (presear) for an hour and unlock 12ish skills. A new player could also play the lowest form of pvp for an hour (Comp arena) and gain absolutely nothing. The only time it gets close to balancing out is with runes, but if you know decent rune farming spots, pve rune unlocks are still much faster.

kunt0r,

Thing is it needs balancing, this is something that should have been done long ago, what is happening is many PvPers as well as PvEers are moving to USA, and you generally move when you reach to the point of entering UW etc.. now whats happening is the experienced part of the population is going out, the newbie part is comming in, and so that is causing lack of competitiveness among Europeans, you dont simply have enough pro guilds to recruit and teach as like in NA. And what happens unltimately is few guilds which try v. hard just get plain frustated..loosing alot not due quantity of quality is very hard on the mind, lets not forget the tension and burden if you're the only few ones left defending the whole continent. We are only talking about PVPers ONLY and PVEers ONLY, now what about those who like to play both parts of the game? even they are being effected, the new PvPers will simply findit hard to learn anything, keep loosing, and then get frustated they cant do much to get into UW etc for PvE and well..they'll move to America too.

This is a whole cycle.

Dear Anet,
The best sollution IMHO is Depending upon the Total XP + Fame of all the population of the continent, the drops, the gold etc should be rewarded, less aggregate fame & XP = more drops of purple, golden items, more faction, more XP per kill and random drops from UW FoW areas in other parts of maps etc. What this will cause is a simply demand and supply thing...which will force everything back into equilibirium, This will motivate players to come back to the weaker part of the world...GW site can publish weekly sort-of figures suggesting population of the continents.

This is a no harm to anyone, its fair to all, it will remain fair to all, it will make the game more competitive...it was about skills and intelligence, lets force ppl to brainstorm..lets make it all exicting for everyone again!

Thanks.

When you and 7 other people get rank 1 on the ladder without using any skills, runes, or elites, I'll take that line as fact. Untill then it's not a fact, just something you made up.

Read above.

Read above. A fact is, I can get to level 20, with the best armour, items, and gold, without ever needing to set foot in UW or FoW. Why you ask? Because these are bonus maps for PvPers and not PvE maps needed to complete the game. Fact.


To the above poster: There is nothing to balance in terms of Favour. You can't balance something entirely dependant on a players actions without completely removing it, and in doing so, you'll kill the only ingame reward for PvPers.

I have to take issue with this point. I would say that the vast majority of groups in HoH do not care about which region currently has favor, most groups are interested in winning faction, fame, sigils, or simply the satisfaction of winning HoH. Rarely will two teams from america say "gang up on korea/europe", and even more rarely will they follow through on the plan. They try to make the best tactical decisions to give them the advantage, namely killing the opponents based on strength, not regional allignment. Not to mention, ever since the last major update, many of the multi-team maps in HoH generally only have 2 teams facing each other now.

So, I would really classify this is a myth that PvE players choose to believe. And therefore, there is really no advantage or disadvantage that a particular region has for the ability to win the hall of heroes. The only valid point is that there is simply a greater magnitude of american teams playing. But I'd say the point of "if you want to enter the bonus PvE areas, put together a group with a better strategy than your opponents and win HoH" is still valid.

Kuntor,

Gwahir used your own logic against your argument. Maybe no skills was stretching it but definitely spot on about the elite skills and runes (they are a bonus).

Runes and elites are absolutely necessary for competitive high-level PvP play.

Elite skills and runes are not bonus, and regardless, still need to be earned through a lot of PvP play. Like I said, get to rank 1 on the ladder without runes, elites, or mods, then talk. Possible? Sure. Likely? No, because you'll never beat a team that's using them.

I've seen a lot of replies posted about the quality of european players as compared to American players...

I'm in a european guild, when we go in the tombs, we win the halls, we don't lose to anybody unless we lose someone due to other circumstances, lag etc.
Infact, we're unbeaten when it comes to fighting all of the 'quality' American and korean guilds.
We've recently started gvg, unbeaten so far.

Which is why i would argue its the quantity NOT the quality of the players which is making the difference with the favor system. Obviously, due to this there can be more decent quality guilds around tombing more of the time due to the quantity whereas europe suffers here..

My point being the huge quantity of american players is the reason why they are maintaining the favor. I'm not saying i wish the system to be changed as i like the idea of winning the favor for your territory.. its great
..and to an extent, a lot of euro's don't have a clue what they're doing in pvp i agree with this.. but not us all. please bear that in mind before insulting the quality of our players...

The current favor system needs revision IMO, currently a region controlling favor has a huge advantage to the regions attempting to attain favor and since the update changes to the pvp system there are no longer any holding builds which were a stable part for gaining favor for many guild teams.

I still would agree that revision of the favour system should still contain a persistant need to hold HoH, but maybe to a lesser extent such as 3 wins to gain favor, also inclusive to this maybe a timed ammout for each change over of favor, the current system gives roughly 50 mins (10 mins per each round of HoH) from the the point that favor is won, so to give 1 hours access to UW/FoW from the time favor is gained for that region would seem sensible, this would also incorrperate a need to win favor back if it was lost, within a 30 min time period, so that the favour clock could once again be reset to the 1 hour window.

In addition, something else i would like to see added to the above idea is a /favortime command, the reason for is that when players are forming groups to UW/FoW they can check to see if they have time to wait for that "required player", other than forming a group for 10-20 mins and find favor has just been lost near the time they were going to access these area's.

As for the quality of euro players.. heh its probably around the same mark vs U.S or Korean in a statistical value of player numbers in each region, so i would lean more towards the quantity values being why the U.S holds hoh for longer periods.

Evil

***edited out a reference to deleted material***

Kunt0r is right about the Elites/Runes.

Elites were made because they all have a special function, they are more powerful than average skills, thus can only be carried, 1 at a time. Most builds use them to maximize the builds effectiveness, be it damage or survivability. Runes, like Elites do the same. You rarely see people using more thna 1 Superior Attribute rune, and that +3 Att can help quite a bit.

Also, UW/FoW is mainly there for exploring purposes, the whole of ToA is infact, just for exploration. You can beat the game and never even come close to ToA, because no missions lead you there, only non-essential quests, like Glarath.

So far, I havent seen a single build where no one at all using any elites or runes, because even the best team would probably die to an average team.

I'm still trying to work out why a pvp factor affects a pve factor in the first place. It does not make sense and is unfair to anyone who has no interest in pvp and doesn't see why it should affect those particular areas.

Nice work on the original post but I fear it was a waste of time.

All the ways in which ANet tried to tie PvP and PvE content together were a bad idea.

They know they were a bad idea but won't admit it and properly fix the problems. Instead we see a load of smaller changes trying to work around the problems. Like cheaper skill points, easier skill capping, storage in PvP areas, Faction etc etc and it looks like the update will give us more of the same.

ANet isn't going to scrap favor required to enter the UW and FoW, the work around is to provide new high level areas which don't require favor.

I have an account in America and in Europe and in my experience the average PvEer in America is far more usless and obnoxious than in Europe. Makes me laugh thinking of those brave American HoH warriors like kunt0r fighting for the right of the guy that just drew genitilia on my compass to enter the underworld.

While I agree that winning a high level PvP fight is very difficult with runes and elites, I do take issue with part of your above statement.

I don't PvP much, and I've unlocked almost ALL of my Elites and Runes through PvE play. I think in total I've bought maybe two skills and zero runes with the faction I earned. Those items are not strictly PvP items, either. They do have thier uses in PvE.

thats very true and now that Gray has said something about it you know its going to turn some heads in Anet

Thanks for this topic Shanaeri Rynale.

There are little things yet to say. But i would like to suggest 3 things:

1.
I think the 8vs8vs8 maps and the gang up have something to do with the current situation but i think there is a good resolutin, at least i think so

Every faction fight itself till threre is a winner. This team get entrance to the HoH. And as a result of this, there would be a Team of each faction every time a fight starts in the HoH.

2.
I like the idea that PvP affect PvE, but how about PvE affects PvP?

I know this is not a easy suggestion but i like it
Think about a Monster that apears on a Server that doesnt have favor. If the PvE players kill this monster the PvP players get a boost, perhaps a moral boost. Now it is easier for them to gain the favour. And when they do so the Monster apears on another Server.

3.
The WaW at the moment cause racism/nationalis or at least intensify it.

If there is any way to make ingame factions please please implement it. I dont mind if someone calls me a bad Ascalon Soldier (thats RP) but i dont like to be called a lazy European or a **** American etc.
Now the Server choice doesnt have to limited, but the choice of faction could be limited to only one.

Let's keep this real. None of the game is needed, it's a game. I have enjoyed being on an American server, but I can see how hard it would be for Europeans.

So, why do you want to keep Europe and Korea out of the Fissure/ UW? Does that benefit you in anyway?


Are you...............nevermind.

In order to play the game, you need some things, and you want others.

I want to keep Europe and Korea out of those two maps because it is my reward, it is my area's reward, and it is my gift to the PvEers in my area who do not enjoy PvP. My three wants are exactly what ArenaNET intended when implementing this Favour system. There should not be balance for the three area's. Favour should go to the area that deserves it. What sucks though, is since so many people are crying about it, ArenaNET will eventually take away the only ingame PvP reward, or "balance" it in such a way every area gets equal opportunity which defeats the entire purpose.

Those two maps are PvP content. They are entirely controlled via PvP. By changing the function of those two maps and/or favour, you are infact making the already sad PvP in GW even worse.

Frankly, I don't think it's a reward or a gift to you. The favor system gives PvP players real POWER over PvE players because they are totally dependent on YOU to get into UW/FoW. And the best thing is that the dependence is unilateral because PvE players have NOTHING similar in return that would make PvP players also a bit dependent on them. THAT POWER IS WHAT YOU ENJOY HERE AND NOTHING ELSE!