Petition for the Omission/Removal of PvE effects for titles.

Reason: The game design of PvE effects for titles is contrary to initial (proclaimed) underlying principles of Guild Wars game play, initial (and ongoing) promotions for Guild Wars, and the player base, which Guild Wars (supposedly) sought.
Any change to game play, which yields a significant advantage for time spent in game over casual players is contrary to the claims of ArenaNet about Guild Wars, and should be prevented/rescinded.

From press release regarding Guild Wars debut at E3 2003 (http://www.arena.net/news/press/pr_22_apr_03.html):
"Mike O'Brien, the creator and architect of Battle.net, points out 'Our vision has been to create a game that rewards skill and inventiveness rather than hundreds of hours of play, so we've built Guild Wars from the ground up to be a balanced environment where players of all skill levels can compete for recognition and prizes.'"

From Gamasutra interview with Guild Wars producer Jeff Strain, in the online article "Social Game, not Social Life? ArenaNet on Guild Wars and the “Casual” MMORPG" (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20...len_01.shtml):
"JS: I think there's different types of rewards. You either reward them for time – that is, investment. The RPG reward. Alternatively, you reward them for their skill, which is the strategy game reward. Some companies reward people for money. There's some companies online which will power-level for you, which is just a conversion of money for time. I think that games that reward time, and particularly games that reward extreme amounts of time, appeal to a fairly narrow subset of the overall population. I think people appreciate a game where they feel their skill as a gamer and the choices that they're making are actually making the difference. I think that appeals to a lot broader group.

JS: You'll often hear us say that Guild Wars is a game without the grind. However, if you want to spend 100 hours trying to get a specific upgrade for an item, like a dragon-tooth hilt and a wyvern skill scabbard for your sword, that's fine. You have a specific goal in mind, and you want that item. What's not fine is “at level 20 I can access this dungeon, and at level 30 I can access that dungeon and there's a 1000 hours between them”. Obviously, the goals are shorter than that, or you just wouldn't do it… but we very much differentiate types of time sinks. And that differentiation is if it's for fun, or whether it's to arbitrarily take and stretch the 70 hours of content you have for game and stretch it over a thousand hours. Is it for fun or is it to try and get people addicted, so that you can collect another month of subscription fees?

You have to be able to make a judgement call. You look at the activities players are doing, and divide them into “People do that because it's fun” and “People do that because they have to”. Let's keep the stuff that's fun."

From online interview of Jeff Strain by "Finger" at Telefragged.com (http://www.telefragged.com/interviews/guildwars/):
"Jeff Strain: Player-vs.-player in Guild Wars is a tremendous amount of fun, but Guild Wars is not designed to appeal only to PvP players. The cooperative missions and quests in Guild Wars are the beginning of a story arc that spans numerous expansion chapters for the next several years. Since Guild Wars is a skill based game, rather than a game in which only those who have thousands of disposable hours will ever see the "cool" content, we can design each of these new chapters around the assumption that all players have reached the maximum level, or "ascension." This means that all of the ongoing content, whether through new chapters or streamed live into the existing game, is enjoyable by everyone, and we don’t have to water down the content by dividing it among the "elite" players and the more casual players. Gamers who enjoy cooperative or even solo gaming will find Guild Wars a refreshing change from endless FedEx quests and level grinding, even if they never venture in the competitive play areas."

From the Guild Wars web site (http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/synopsis/):
"You don't have to spend countless hours on a leveling treadmill to get to the interesting parts of the game, because combat is designed to be strategically interesting and challenging right from the beginning. You don't have to spend hours running around the world to prepare for a quest, because Guild Wars allows you to instantly travel to the beginning of any quest that you've previously unlocked."

"The game is designed to reward player skill and teamwork, not time spent playing, so you won't need to spend hundreds of hours leveling up your character to compete."

Compared to:
From "Guild Wars Insider - Issue #01" (http://www.guildwars.com/insider/issue01.html):
"Earning ranks in some titles will now give you in-game bonuses. One example of this new type of title is the Lightbringer. When displayed, this title gives you damage reduction and extra damage against demons. There will even be some PvE-only skills you can learn that become more powerful with each rank of the Lightbringer title.

We’ll also be updating some existing titles this way. For instance, after Nightfall releases, you’ll actually have a chance of successfully removing a magic component, like a Fiery Sword Hilt, without destroying the item it’s attached to. The Wisdom title (earned by identifying items) will improve your ability to do this."

If you agree that the implementation of PvE effects for titles are at best not in the spirit of Guild Wars game design, and potentially a significant disadvantage for casual players then please sign below.

If you disagree, please post a valid reason why.

I must say that I am not thrilled either about this new "feature". I have no interest in having to get a title so I can successfully recover a mod from a weapon and not destroy it.

/signed

/unsigned.
we dont even know actually how much will the titles affect gameplay, wait for the game and the new feature to come out and see how much does it actually changes.
we dont know how much will the titles really affect the game.
we know nothing about the lightbringer title nor the "skills it affects"

besides, the game is going to come out in a few days, wait until the game comes out and we find out actually what do they do, and after that (give it a week or two before all new title´s effects are found) and then you can grab the pitchfork and the torch.

pst, this probably will get locked.

I agree with AW. Let's see exactly how the Title effects work before deciding we don't like them. I don't like the sound of it either, but I'm willing to give the system a chance.

/unsigned.

It's sort of a yes and no case.

The salvaging, while I would prefer for it to be available for everyone, does fall into the category of things that don't *strongly* affect your power. Yes, it means you may be able to get slightly better equipment together by being able to mix and match your mods better than is currently possible... but at the bottom line, the base set by collectors items is good enough to be competitive. Grinding for a title is, IMO, not that much different to farming for that perfect mod - it provides a small benefit, but it's not something you have to do to be competitive. (That said, part of me does feel that it's a bit rude that something I hadn't been paying attention to is suddenly important, while those people who do do things like deliberately shift their rares to a particular character to push their Wisdom track are suddenly getting a freebie.) One thing I would like to see, however, is improved salvage kits that can imitate a particular level of Wisdom, just so that the benefit isn't entirely restricted to the title-seekers - they just get it a little cheaper.

The Lightbringer title is a bit more disturbing - I suspect the bonus to damage and the exclusive skills will turn out to be relatively minor rather than gamebreakers (I predict the skills will be on the same level of power as existing ones, so they're extra options rather than extra power... and it's already estabolished that you do have to work a little to collect skills in GW). The problem I see, however, is that it could be used as a form of discrimination similar to that caused by fame emotes in Heroes' Ascent - I can see groups refusing to allow anyone to join who doesn't have a particular level of the Lightbringer title, and depending on how the title is achieved, that could lead to being forced to grind to complete the story. And that would be a problem.

I don't care as long as I can play through the game without having any special title effects.

If the game forces us to grind for the title at some point in order to proceed with the story, then we'll have a problem.

/unsigned for lightbringer.

/signed for wisdom seeker.

Unsigned for lightbringer solely because we have no idea how to actually get the title. For all we know it's really easy to get and something that progresses at a reasonable level for everyone as the game progresses.

/unsigned for wisdom seeker, because I pvp and couldn't give a crap about identifying items other than to merely have the title, It's rather unfair that I can't choose what to salvage unless I start identifying some golds.

from GW main site:
so, players with the title will receive a small perk regarding players that dont have it. if wisdom is 5 and hunter one is five also (i believe, im not sure) then the max would be 85%

personally, i believe the percentages are not "high" enough to pick up the pitchfork and the torch, then again, im sure some people will be "Outraged" because of that.

/signed

GW should always stay: skill > time

/Signed

This goes against everything they've said in the past.

If they go back on this what's to stop them from going back on some of the other things that makes Guild Wars the balanced game we all love?

I'm seriously miffed about this.

/signed

We're talking about miniscule, % points per level of title. Give me a break. This effects the gameplay in no way.

Exactly. Nothing is suffering from this implementation and noones dying over this idea. Just leave it.

/not signed

Right there it shows why these effects should never be removed. There are almost no good player rewards in Guild Wars. They need to add more rewards, not make less. The title rewards are a good start but they need to give more stuff to title holders.

Yay I have a 50k faction cap yet I can't spend the Faction on any good rewards. How about some Fissure armor via Faction unlocks or Shards as has been suggested many times.

They need to give rewards for every title, and make them huge rewards.

Wisdom title being earned <~~that cracks me up (buying any golds 1k) plz

I'm going to give it a few weeks before making up my mind.

/unsigned.

Treasue hunter also does this. I spent LOTS of cash getting that title, and I apprecieate the chance to not destroy the weapon.

/neutral

This just goes against WHY I play this game, but I shall wait and see about how this affects gameplay.

/unsigned

how is someone with a 20% more chance in not destroying a weapon stronger than you?

/unsigned

This isnt going to force anyone to do anything. It's just rewarding the people that spent loads of cash doing loads of chest runs. The percentage isnt going down for the rest of us. Just going a LITTLE bit up for those that spent hours doing this.

/unsign

currently we have very little info on how this will work.

reduced damge vs monsters wow so what
small percentage increase for salvage, not really game breaking

lets see how it goes before people start cry ing

/unsign
Same reason with previous posts.

Off topic: I hate when people bragging about skill > time. It requires time to be skillful even if that involves some grinding (even in real life, doing math homework/exercise everyday makes a person better at math than who is not).

If you are playing once or twice a week, I doubt you are that skillful (I have pugged with people who are casual players and generally they suck)

/not signed

For 2 reasons:

1/ that's just a slight advantage, and teasure hunter/wisdom don't even make you any better against foes.

2/ characters without those titles are just as good as they were before. The new title effects don't penalize them.

/signed for the removal of title effects

"And so the rich get richer..."

/Partly signed

If the reward for the title grinding is a way to make more profit (high salvage chance, then they might just as well have been farming for money instead of titles. So it's completely fine.

If the reward gives extra damage and/or other gameplay/fighting related changes, then the answer is no. It's ruins the equal footing concept, that lies behind Guildwars.

/unsigned

For all those that have earned their titles, they deserve some kind of bonus. It's not a huge bonus, but a nice one nevertheless.

You are wrong, sorry. But because they didn't change, doesn't mean they aren't weaker.

In fact, when something is named "weak", it is a comparison to other.

So you if boost the others, the ones without the boost have become weak.

It's your point of view. For me it's about what one can do in the environement (as we're talking about PvP titles). And chars are still as good as before. Killing a mob won't be harder. Salvaging an upgrade won't be harder. So they're as good as before.

As far as I know, it is available to everyone. I have NO titles(not even Protector of Tyria, from doing all mission/bonuses), and I got the option to salvage either materials or a mod, with a 20% chance of destruction. Also, the site says 50%, so Im a little confused...

And there we have it. Players competing for for recognition (rank) and prizes (correct me if I'm wrong, but you get a prize at the end of HA)

There is three ways to be recognized in a technical sense within Guild Wars. Titles, Guild Battles and Ranks. Beyond that everything is word of mouth. And, any of the "competitive" titles are only gained in PvP.

The only time characters "compete" for prizes (lets just say items) is in HA, to get the chest at the end for being the winner. Otherwise, everything else is a random drop percentage. There is no way to affect that (contrary to some people's feelings )

Most of the game balances are in regards to how the skills are used in PvP as well.

So to me, it sounds like they're saying in a player vs player stance, that no player will gain an advanatage over another player in direct combat from anything other than personal skill.

I'm pretty sure my ability to salvage a mod won't affect my skill verses someone in PvP.

But, as everyone is saying, let's wait and see how it is implimented.

As far as I know, it is available to everyone. I have NO titles(not even Protector of Tyria, from doing all mission/bonuses), and I got the option to salvage either materials or a mod, with a 20% chance of destruction, which would mean that I had a +5% to salvage, which isnt the case. Also, the site says 50%, so Im a little confused...



Of course, Im a PvE only player, so the above may not apply.

/signed

skill > time/RMT

lol here we go again, this happend before factions release, they change somthing that ppl dont like and everyone throws a sissy fit. Most people know i dont salvage much anyway, and the people who do tend to identify golds alot to sell on the mods?

as long as it doesn't effect PVP competitive play, then why not?

There should be some rewards for time spent in game. I would have been playing more after I finished Factions, if there was more things to do to develop my character.

/NOT signed

When they say skill > time they are talking about in pvp battle. NONE of these title effects give you ANY advantage in battle. Not even in pve battles.

The main reason I have a problem with this petition is that Anet's original contention wasn't credible to begin with if you took it literally. It's very difficult (I claim impossible) to design an RPG that contains absolutely no practical rewards for time spent. You naturally amass more in-game wealth as you play, so someone who has been playing for a year will naturally have more money than someone who started a week ago, whether or not the person is actually more skilled. This is clearly a practical, in-game advantage for 'time spent' rather than player skill, but would you petition to have it taken out?

The only way to reward for skill only is to have a game where the only thing that can be accumulated from playing it is skill. These tend to be competitive games like strategy games, shooters, fighting games, etc. Every time you play these games, you start with a clean slate. If GW wanted to be a truly "reward for skill only" game, they would remove the need to earn access to content (such as the PvP faction unlock system). When you play Starcraft, you don't have to unlock Seige Tanks or Carriers. When you play fighting games you don't have to unlock moves for your characters.

My point *isn't* that GW should do this. I think GW is fine as it is. My point is that GW has *never* been a "reward for skill only" game. You have always, from the day GW was released, been getting rewards for time played. The fact that this title also does this is really nothing new.

That said, I would be happy if titles got emotes rather than practical benefits, but I also don't think it's a serious issue.

Doing a wait and see.

The reason, I don't know how far the advantages will be before I pass judgment.

/signed

its not Farm Wars, and the title affection gameplay in any way are making those who do not farm stand in a worse position than farmers. Even if the percentage is small, this should not take occur... Im for removing it or decreasing the effect even further.

Next time you are trying to tell a point, don't copy and paste all those useless crap. I didn't get a single thing you were saying because I don't want to look through all those words. I had to look at the first few posts to get the point.

OK, the title is about the same thing as quest completion. You have to go through missions and specific quests to advance in the game. Killing specific monsters is the SAME thing. Plus, you get those special damage and XP effect on specific monsters so it is NOT a problem.

Mission lengths are long too, I don't see you petition for "time wasted on PvE crap".

Your all wasting your time, ANET never listen to anyone.