The problems with the Favour and Territory systems.

This is quite a long thing I sent to the NC Soft Customer Support desk. They asked that I post it on a fansite; so, obviously, this was the best one to choose. I apologise in advance if there is already a topic on this subject, and I appreciate any non-flammatory input.

This concerns two matters: Switching Territory, and the Favour system. They are interlinked, so I shall simply let the structure form itself, rather than separating the two issues; and relay what I have to say in what I hope is an understandable manner.

A friend and I, who both play on the American servers, decided that we would like to start a farming operation in the Underworld. Since Europe nearly always have Favour, it would only be practical, given that I am English and he is American, for us to switch to the European servers, so that we could play the Underworld area at a time beneficial to both of us.

It has come to my attention, since then, that this is not fair. Europe currently holds Favour 90% of the time. I have been awake at such ungodly hours as 4AM GMT after particularly long jaunts in The Underworld, and yet Europe still has favour. Europe seems only to lose favour for maybe two hours in any twenty-four-hour period. This means, of course, that anyone wishing to enter the Realms of the Gods can only do so under two circumstances: Switching to Europe; or in this two-hour window. The latter is clearly impractical, given that it means that those in the other Territories can only get through one trip per day; two if they're very lucky. Switching to Europe is the only efficient way to get into the Realms.

This means, then, that the oriental Territories are the most unjustly treated: they *do not have* this Switch option; and, when Europe does not have Favour, America does. I have only seen the oriental Territories gain Favour maybe three times this week; and I know for sure that their hold over it did not last for very much more than the 30-minute minimum period.

This problem is not all directed at the other Territories, though: Europe suffers too. Because Europe has grasped Favour with near-perpetuity, it means that much of its population has taken residence in the Entrances to the Realms of the Gods, and do not ever leave because the Realms are such profitable places. This means that the other areas: Missions, both competitive and cooperative, such as Fort Aspenwood; and Towns & Outposts where one picks up other quests, are almost entirely deserted.
My personal experience of this has only been realised today, when I tried, as a Monk, to form a group for the series of Storyline quests starting at Seitung Harbour on the English Districts. (I try to form a group here because it is so difficult as a Monk to use Henchmen for any quests after this point.) To my deep surprise, I received almost no interest whatsoever. This is particularly extraordinary when one considers how often, on American servers, Monks are invited to groups because they are such a high priority.

The other problem I have is with the limit imposed on Territory switching. A maximum of five for the entire life of one's account is insanely restrictive. I understand, of course, the reason for it: Anet does not wish people simply to abuse the Favour system by switching automatically to whichever Territory holds Favour; but this could be done by less restrictive measures. Five switches per month, for example, would have the same effect. (Provided, of course, that the maximum Switches one can have at any one time is five: That if one has zero switches at the end of the month, they gain five more; but if they have three Switches remaining, they regain only two).

This change, while it may be linked to favour, is necessary regardless of whether Anet chooses to change the Favour system or not: It is simply unfair to expect people to only require 5 Switches for the life of their account. I hope, of course, that Anet wishes Guild Wars to grow and grow for years to come. As such, it is necessary to allow people to breathe properly. It is necessary for them to be permitted to explore the benefits of the other Territories without fear that they will never be allowed to return home. Just as Human Beings do not wish to be tied to one place in real life (particularly when they are aged 16-30, which must be, surely, the dominant demographic in Guild Wars), so, too, will they feel smothered if they are forced to remain in a single Territory for said "Years to come". The 5-per-month system is not so much that it allows Favour abuse, but not nearly as restrictive as the current allowance.

Regarding a solution to the horrid imbalance of Favour: It can only be resolved, I believe, through a solid Rotational system: Giving Favour of the Gods to each Territory in an equal amount, such that it is the Peak time for that Territory. For example, rotating it such that when Favour is with Territory X, it is evening in Territory X. Since, I believe, the timezones of the Eastern servers are quite close together, perhaps it would be most beneficial, for ONLY the purposes of this Favour Rotational system, to tie those three Territories together. Then, it works out that Europe has 8 hours of Favour; America has 8 hours of Favour, and the Eastern Territories have 8 hours of Favour.

I understand that the most likely reason for Anet to have set up the Favour system the way it is currently operating is that it adds an extra benefit to the PvP aspect of the game: Fighting for your country, et al. But, under the current circumstances, I believe it is strangling the PvE game, which it directly affects.

The only drawback I can identify with this change to Favour is that it will make Heroes' Ascent worthless. However, I feel confident that Anet could come up with a different reward for winning in the Hall of Heroes. Suggestions for that are also welcome.

As the game gets bigger in both population and content, it seems highly restrictive to only ever have five territory changes. Surely if you needed to change territory at all, then you'd need more than five in a life time? Five a month IS fair. It avoids just changing as the wind blows, yet it's not so restrictive that you can never change again.

HA currently drops sigils and various other loot already, as I understand it...

They're awful and should be done away with entirely?

Yeah pretty much.

Ussually people that HA aren't doing it for the favour, there doing it for the pvp experience. People that heavily farm UW/FoW aren't the same people that go and win in HA (i'm saying this in general terms, i'm shure there's many HoH winners that go and farm these places and viceversa). The idea of having favour change timezone during peek times seems to be a good idea, except that japan/korea/taiwan are all in pretty similar time zones and would therefore have similar peek times.

I'd prefer having the ability to change territories reset after X period of time. Once a month seems to short for me, but once every 2~3 months seems to be a good amount.

perhaps there could be some rule that one territory can only hold favor for X amount of time before another territory gets it. And then europe can't re-gain it again for X amount of time. I realize this would mean that HA would no longer be what would determine favour, but like i said before the people that win HA aren't normally the people that recieve the benefits of having favour.

The flaws in the "worlds at war" system have been noticed from the beginning. In all honesty, it's never going to change. Anyone that's been here long enough rembers when favor used to always go back and forth between America and Korea, now it's just Europe and eventually America.
(unfortunately it seems most of us Americans only want to iway...)

dude i remember cursing out the koreans lol. i got so many hate PMs LMAO. anyhow, i forget, they did make it so that prices in each territory are the same right??cause i ALSO remember having a lot of friends that had friends in the European servers where, for some strange reason the prices were ALWAYS MUCH higher than on the american server so they would all go over to the european servers to sell mats and what not. if they havent fixed this(which i seem to remember them doing but it would have been a long time ago) then 5 times a month is WAY too much(if they have then 5 times a month is fine). however i do think 5 times for the life of the account is far to spread out. i know that as a military kid i moved around a lot so if someone moves 5 times out of the US their screwed. and it says in the user aggreement that its impossible to EVER get them back even talking witha support guy wont help you. which i think is wrong. if youhave a good reason you should be allowed to switch to wherever it is you live.

that's funny...

i am on european servers, but whenever i log on it always say

abc team has just won a battle in HoH and holds the favor of god for America...

Ah yes. Forgive my senility there.

That's a real shame, then ... At least I'm not alone in my realisations, I suppose.

Log in more often, then. We need Favour. :P

I agree that the favor system has been a little unforgiving recently (I'm American), however I remember when I first started playing over a year ago and we always had favor. Course we had better drops, chests that didn't require keys, etc. I'm mainly a PVe player and enjoy trapping UW or forming a good group for FoW, however if we don't like the favor system the only thing we can do about it is start PVPing more at HA and getting creative with our builds as you pointed out.

From what I see, Europe holds favour only during Peek times on there servers, and latter ion the nigh (during there morning) We hold favour. It looks pretty 50/50 to me. Maybe 60/40 for them, but not the "Two hour gap" that has been talked about.

And yes, Korea is very unfavoured That seems to be the real problem, and soemthing should be done to remedy that, What? I don't know how they could work out a specific algorythm to keep everything balanced, but if you ask me three 8 hour shifts centered around peak times seems more then fair.

Alot of people only play PvE. Having anything in the PvE side of the game controlled by the PvP side of the game is rather stupid. I say that this needs to be balanced. Maybe they could make an international mission that would control GvG battles or something, if your territory doesn't have the highest score in this mission then you cant GvG.
Yeah that is a stupid idea and I am sure that it will get flamed but that is the point. If this were in effect then almost every PvP player would be crying about it saying it was unfair. The favor system should just be done away with totally as far as I am concerned.

I will agree with the 8 hour for each territory idea though as that would be much better than what we have now. /signed
I see no need to change territory unless you move to another territory and need to change it. so I think the 5 you get now are more than sufficient. So that idea will be /not signed

lol maybe i should change my district into am servers.... damn everyone prefers fow /uw... no one wants missions... =(

Do what i did, i played in America for 10 months thinking it was better.


When i changed back to Europe( and i live in europe) i was glad to find good humoured people, less complaining kids that cry for gold and complain needlessly etc etc.

I was also happy to find other types of people and seeing people speak french and other languages wasnt that bad. You CAN learn something .
Anyway theres alot more of language diversity, but in overall its pretty good.

And even though i originally only changed to it in order to have favor, now i see that even if america had favor most of the time i would still be happy in europe servers because people are in overall, nicer there. ^_^

The original author won't be able to reply to any comments as he's busy for most of his life now. However, I feel this is at least a topic that should be discussed and kept alive.

So He's Either in Jail - or married?

Both....?

One thing I dont understand is that Anet separate Korean from Taiwan? Why dont they just make Asia as a territory that might help Asian gamers.

This makes me think of what's going to happen when GW goes live in China. With the Chineese goverment being communist and very strict over what people have access to; they will have their own servers completely unconnected with the rest of the world. Does this mean they will be able to go to fow/UW 24/7? Will they even have a HoH? Well I guess it doesn't really matter as they can't affect the economy of the rest of the game or anything......

They should just scrap the whole Favor system, period.

Absolutely no one ever makes a Tombs teams after thinking "We need Favor to enter the UW so let's make a Tombs team and win HoH five times in a row so we can get it!"

My point is that the act of winning favor is based merely on happenstance, not a deliberate effort or success by a team of those wishing to enter the Favor-specific areas. The one thing has absolutely no relevance to the other whatsoever.

Therefore, the Favor system is fundamentally broken and might as well be scrapped altogether.

This would make the territory switching point moot and be a more sensible overall solution to the problem.

I am going to have to disagree with you. You dont have to do FoW or UW, it is something extra. I think that is what Anet intended to do, just like Elite Mission in a way. Yes it is not appealing, but I think it is like a gw tradition and should not be remove. Heh this is probably because I dont do Fow, UW, and definitely not elite mish.

I agree. I have been in UW and FoW once each. Maybe I would care more if there were more missions.......nah prob not.

/notsigned changing favor system


I do cheer for America when we have favor though.

~the Rat with his Pom Poms~

agreed

Just bringing this up again. From God knows what page.

Since of the moderators of this forum can't read the forum's description, I do want to see this problem changed, and this evidently is the place to seek answers from Arena Net (this is the first forum listed on the fansite page as linked from http://guildwars.com/support/contactinfo/ under "Suggestions"), I am going to revive this thread so as to continue the discussion in this other thread -- http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10099369 .

Please take the time to read the other thread and continue sane discussion. I still want to hear some sort of response from "the inside" as regards this issue.

Hahaha I just read that locked thread and holy shit. Every single person in that thread missed the point. That's awesome.

There is no reason, no justification--save for flavor--for Halls control to directly control access to the Underworld and Fissure. None.

jsumners, you can cry and whine about this issue as much as you like, but it's pretty pointless. I agree with you that the system isn't ideal, but do you seriously think Anet is going to change it after xx months? no way.

/notsigned for reasons in which have already been stated

Warning: This post was not re-read before posting as it would probably be twice as long as it is now due to train of thought fixes.

A common sense solution would be to switch Heroes Ascent back to 8v8, and do away with the unranked guild battles from the Guilds Hall and have an "Enter Mission" ability from Heroes' Ascent where you could choose to either enter into the Hall or par-take in an unrated battle, which would use the party leader or guilds Guild Map as the map for the battle. This same menu feature could be used to start rated battles as well and have a true "Guild Hall" that would display that guilds cape in large forum from the ceiling, like a true guild hall would be. Something smaller in size would be nice to load to get into your own hall instead of loading more data than you do in any other place besides PvP maps outside of Guild Hall Maps. This also gives the ability for different combinations of people to try different build strategies in a GvG stand point with other people who want to see such a build. I know you are duplicating a lot of what Heroes' Ascent already does, but this expands upon the ability of finding 8 people for a battle in both the Hall and a GvG without having to resort to henchmen in both cases. Which both heroes and henchmen should be removed from, but that is for another thread.

The second would be to allow all members of any territory to enter any elite mission area, as if you want to go fight for the better stuff, then the ability to do so should be there. This was probably the worst idea ever to limit the ability to enter an area based upon, yet again, the amount of PvP you do against other people for control of towns from faction. This was yet again another idea that would be nice, but it would have been better to have the ability to have "different" bonuses from controlling towns in Factions instead of the ability to travel to an explorable area. Why pay for the game if you limit the ability of the player to play the game? I just can not fathom the understanding of whoever it is that comes up with ideas based around this game model.

No rant/raving on the HA change to 8v8, that is for another thread, this was just a suggestion to fix this problem, that is quite stupid if you think about it in a logical structure. They have been breaking PvP ties to all the rest of the PvE scenarios, so why not break this one as well?

lets c.. thres about 300mil people in america.. out of that 300 id say about 1mil(?) has GW.
there about god knows how much people in erope and i KNOW over 1mil people has GW in europe. most of our "european" teams that enter HA is actualy mostly american players that just happend to have a euro-leader. ive done my share of HAing nd on more ocasions that 1 i have had 3-5 americans and maybe 1-2 europeans,

if u realy want it to be fair...try getting all of the american players in OUR servers instead of the international server

thaz my 2 cents for the day

I think favor should be won by alliance battles, Example if the Luxons on american servers are winning then those who are loyal to Luxon should have favor and vise versa. Favor should not disappear from a whole country for long lenths of time. As far as Guildless players it should be made availible at least twice a week at peak times, favor should be availible in all countries based on Alliance battles, not by present system .

stop making threats about this...

Guys instead of just saying "lol no" how about actually addressing this? I've never seen a response to this at all.

that would be cool (and lots more fun in ABs), but it wouldnt be avalible for people without factions, and people would probably all get angry about it..."Omfg! My team just got paired with some pve noobs again! /ragequit!"...at least the way it is now, we dont have to deal with so called "elite" players in ABs

favour is broken. europe has it 95% of the time with america getting it three or four times a week for an hour or two. i don't really see any of the other territories geting a look in. this is both unfair and easily fixable: get rid of favour. it only serves to stop people from accessing content they paid for, ultimately. if i want to go and fight in the underworld i shouldn't have to wait for a randomly assigned time where the gods of fate decide that there are finally some decent players in ha and america gets favour back for five minutes.

Favor is broken. But is has been for a long time and many complaints have been raised. It's meant to stay. Sadly.

It's just ironical that the PVP->PVE Dependance was completely removed with the introduction of Faction and the new Armorcrafting System. Yet, PVE depends on PVP to gain access to these areas. If PVP were affected they would scream bloody murder but as it is just "loloLOLOolorofllol pve" all they do is spit out their usual "l2p NoobZ0r lol an get hallz for urself lol!".

Favor should be removed. It should have been back then when Balthazar Faction was introduced. It wasn't. It is still here and thus it won't be changed anytime soon.

You cannot currently enter the GVG arena, to play GVG you must first win favor by beating X PVE mission.

That would be funny.

You're not the only one to say it has been broken for a long time and that the issue has been raised before. I understand both to be true. But if we all collectively give up, and quit talking about it, there is zero chance of it being addressed. The more it is discussed, rationally discussed, the bigger the issue becomes. The bigger the issues get more attention. That's the way things work. So, to suggest that we should just forget about it all together is not acceptable.

I don't know how things work in Factions. I don't own that chapter. I have Prophecies and Nightfall.

I cant say ive ever really played FOW or UW or ever done PvP, so I may have missunderstood what the post was about.

I do how ever know what you mean when you refere to the favour system.

I cant comment as to whether the favour system is just or not as Ive never contributed to PvP and done my piece for Europe.

But from I do understand I dont think its thats unfair or at fault. I think the system is fine.

I think the fault is due to the lack of Americans playing GWs. Which obviously isnt America's fault personally. More perhaps the lack of adversiting by Anet in the US.

It could also be that Europe has more of a taste for MMOs then America. Hence why its more popular here.

But the game has only been around for about 2 years, and MMOs can take a while to fizzle out and catch on. The problem will eventually sort itself out as more Americans start to play the game and more Americans exist to compete in PvP and to gain favour.

But I also suspect your talking about playing FOW and UW in factions?

Ive never really known it to be too popular in Cantha. Perhaps try moving to Tryia and playing it from the TOA. There is always alot more people there. Perhaps even more American players to join you.



Ofcourse I have nooo idea what im talking about, so please dont assume that I do. That was all from my very limited understanding of the favour system

I've done my share too, but played with like 10 different americans in 12 months of HA. Go figure.