More uses for Balth Faction! More rewarding PvP!

I and most of my friends or guildmates i regularly PvP with, have already UAX'ed (Unlocked All possible unlockables) or are very very close to it. I even have bought that Razah for 50k faction just because I had no other use for that capped faction anyway.

And what we get now? Another Double Faction event!! (the cheapening effect of the Champion title is a different topic)

I'm sure that the vast majority of the PvP players will also gain full unlock in a few weeks. And then we will stop gaining faction for long months to come and won't see that lovely '+40' when an opponent dies. And our Total gained faction won't reflect the real amount that would be earned.
The current system hurts also the PvP Edition buyers, as they will hit the cap at extremelly low faction amounts. This may be greatly discouraging to them.

There's so much potential in having Balthazar Faction to continue being a reward for PvP players!!
And it could be used as a form measuring one's general expierience in PvP, as opposed to those very specific titles (Gladiator, Hero, Champion, which should stay as they are)

Here are my suggestions on what could be done to the PvP reward system, based on Balthazar Faction::

1. Armor sets!
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Seems so obvious now that PvP characters don't need to be deleted anymore and are much more flexible than PvE characters. They only lack in customization of their looks. This is one change that would help it and be a great reward - unlockable armor sets! Just a few more sets would be enough, no need for FoW or PvE players would complain. Maybe in future add 1 set exclusive for PvP as an elite reward.

The current PvP equipment creation engine would support this change, so no need for any extra work at this. See screenshot:


Easy to add more sets on the list. Unfortunately it won't be that easy with weapons.

Not a single Elonian armor has made it into PvP, even players who bought only Nightfall can't use them!

There should be different 'Tiers' of PvP armor for unlocking, for example:

Warrior:
*The 10k fb set - Sunspear (1,5k)
*The 20k fb set - Gladiator (15k)
*The 30k fb set - Kurzick (15k)
*The 40k fb set - Imperial (15k)
*The 50k fb set - Elite Sunspear
*The 60k fb set - Primeval Armor (15k)
*The 100k fb set - Obsidian Armor / a new PvP exclusive set
(just an example, different sets could be used)

100k Balthazar Faction cap is doable but requires for example: Hero Rank (11), Gladiator(5), Champion(5).
The costs are for unlocking an armor set for 1 chosen profession. I think they are quite low and probably should be at least doubled but that would require having to pay two times, which may be too complicated to implement or annoying for players. So maybe it should just stay like that.

2. Black and White dyes for PvP
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Easiest to implement and an excellent reward for high-end PvP'ers - Unlocking those rare colors for your account.
These should cost quite much and require a high max faction.

The PvE fanatics shouldn't complain much as there won't be any dye mixing for PvP, only those basic colors.

3. A title based on gained faction total
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Make the gained total faction increase even if you don't spend them. Make a title reflecting the gained faction total and it will surely become widely recognized as the measurement of expierience in general PvP play. There may be even emotes connected to this title.

4. Spending Balthazar Faction on your Guild or Alliance
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A guild could have it's faction pool and members could transfer their faction into it. Then the guild faction could be spent on Guild Hall upgrades, decorations or running events like fireworks displays.

The whole alliance could also have it's faction pool but i can't think of any uses of that right now, need suggestions.

5. Other possibilities
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- unlockable weapon skins (would require changes in the current item creation screen)
- new unlockable emotes
- turning faction into items, for example 10k faction for a random gold max item (almost every skin possible, without the extremely rare ones). this should work like an occasional gamble, not a way to farm golds or flood the market.
- need your input here!

Got more ideas of possible ways to spend Balthazar Faction ?? Ideas to make PvP even more rewarding? Post them here!

Very very good, except for the alliance spending which has no ideas, but yeah.
/signed

/notsigned, pvp should be just about stats not looks. Obsidian armor has same stats as droks so what is the point of it then?

What's the point of titles or emotes then? They don't affect your stats in pvp...
Better suggest a more intersting REWARD for PvP play. The fact there's currently nothing to spend faction on is a serious issue and suggestions are needed.

I wouldn't really mind being able to grab some Primeval armor when making a PvP (I dont like PvP armors... at all..). I doubt that they'll implement Obsidian, it's kinda a PvE staple. But an exclusive PvP set would be pretty nice. Maybe make it have blood stains or something on it, to show that it is very battle-worn?

/signed a thousand times over.

/signed /signed /signed /signed /signed /signed /signed /signed

Saying this whats the point in Obsidian armour fullstop?? Or 15k for that matter? They have the same stats as Droks...
Its a way of showing off how "leet" you are, just like titles.
I like the idea, brings more depth to the PvP environment

/signed

Well, in pve it kinda costs like 1.5mil, and making it pvp available will make it much less sought after.

/signed

But it's only for PvP characters. But I do know where your coming from - "haha look at that PvP only guy with obsi armour, thinking he's all leet", when that guy really spent two years saving up. Its swings either way, depending on how you look at it

/signed*10^666

/signed

More armor styles is ftw.

/signed

But if they made it so it took a rediculous amount of time and effort to achieve in pvp I think it's a good idea. As long as it's pretty balanced with the difficulty of achieving it in pve i'm all for the idea.

/Signed

/ not signed

All the prestige armour is exactly the same stats as the other armours, it serves no real purpose in PvP, the same for the weopon skins.

Ill agree perhaps a title would be nice but since virtually all ways of earning faction have there own titles anyways (HA, RA, TA, GVG, AB) it seems a little redundant, (say wheres the Fort Aspenwood/Jade Quarry title line? or the hero battles one?)

Emotes perhaps i could understand being added in for the other PvP title ranges but i think they should be disabled on any non Battle Isle places.

However having said all that i know how people would love to have l337 armour on there PvP chars so why not make it unlockable via fame instead since unlike Faction u cant just afk farm fame.

eg. paying 100 fame for a non ascended armour set, 1000 fame for ascended armour, and 10,000 fame for Obsibian armour, this would make the sets as scalable as they are to buy in PVE since it should require time and effort into getting them.

/signed

I'm mostly pve, but even so I've come across this issue. Before Nightfall rolled, I was AUX as well from my pve characters. I didn't like not being able to use the faction rewards. It's easy to see why this would be a bigger issue for those who dedicate themselves to pvp. But in regards to the armour idea, I too, think FoW armour shouldn't be one of the rewards, but wouldn't mind a PvP only, extremely expensive set.

uhm...ale anyone? :P

I agree with you. But I agree also that there should be more reward in PvP, but rewards that are useful for your pve characters.

/signed


Why the heck would a pvp player want rewards for pve characters?

For all the people that say pvp is about stats not looks and having nice armor isnt any better than drok armor.....what is the point of the same thing in pve? You dont need FoW in Pve just like you dont need it in PvP. Its just to have some nice looking armor. Right now the main reason I play pve is to get nicer armor for my characters. Thats about it.


Nice armor on a pvp character is no different than on a pve character. If they must make the faction costs extremely high to make it comparable to the pve grind then so be it.

/signed
Surplus Balthazaar factions have to be used on "something", so do those surplus skill points in pve. They both represent a player's time spent in playing GW and deserve good return for that player's effort. In order to do so without hurting game's balance, armors seem to be a good choice.

/signed
This is never gonna happen . I don't think PvP chars should be able to have Fow or rare skin weapons, but some better looking armor & weapons can't hurt. Heck, we didn't even get new PvP armor with NF.

signed with a condtion

If a person really wants a piece of armor unlocked through pvp it should be done by one piece at a time like every other weapon. This means per profession type. And if a pver buys new armor only that piece is unlocked for pvp. I.e. mesmer sunspear elite leggings would be unlocked for both genders for one crafting but the rest of the armor would still be locked.

Yes it would be a grind to get X amount of faction per piece but pvers have that to, ever try to get 28 monsterus fangs for armor?

/signed

Balthazar should give REAL gifts for a change. The cheap.... I'll leave it at that

/unsigned

Armor (useless, i might add, since functionally its no better than what i make in my equipment panel for FREE!) is for PvE, Emotes are for PvP. PvP is about functionality, not your looks. Yes, maybe more rewards for balthazar faction would be good, but giving superficial upgrades is lame. If you really want your precious armor, then go make a PvE character... I sure as heck wont though, because what a character looks like surely doesn't matter to me in PvP and it shouldn't to any serious PvP player. Probably the best idea would be to give a collector who you trade faction for Flames of Balthazar or whatever those things were called.

The ONLY purpose of Balthazar Faction was so that we wouldn't have to PvE to unlock skills and stuff. That's why it was added in, because in the old days, you had to work for your unlocks. If you UAX and have more Balthazar Faction... play for fun maybe? Or go play a game you find fun and aren't just playing to increase the size of your e-genitalia. Once you reach UAX, Balthazar Faction has served its purpose- you just unlocked everything without stepping a foot outside the Battle Islands. Now go enjoy your rewards... get a higher rank... bring your guild to the top of the ladder... eventually, there are no more rewards and you can either play for fun or admit that you never played for fun, just to unlock things. This idea is the equivalent of a PvE player asking for 500k armor because he bought everything he will ever need and wants something else to spend gold on. Guild Wars isn't work... it's a game. Have fun or don't play.

First things first, I don't like how you started saying, "I and other people..." it's, "The hooker and I" not "I and the hooker" anyway, I'm not here to teach a grammar lesson.

I really like what you've suggested and I think it's brilliant. Now that the faction cap is raised, you can reward people who have earned higher titles with higher faction caps with buying more exclusive things. I have to say getting obsidian armor unlocked for PVP is a great idea at 100K faction. I definitely like your idea, and should be effective immediately (my faction cap is only 23K) and definitely add more rewards higher up in prices since titles can now raise the cap.

This is probably one of the better threads I have ever read in a while that wasn't my own, so congrats on that lol.

/signed to the power of 48754895747598278057857425809579032570423957294830 74509238075984320754325848289274758243957329857472 349579204802.1

Ignoring the rest of the post (since this is the only part I want to comment on), Flames of Balthazar give 1,000 faction whenever they are used. So it's pretty useless having a faction trade-in for something that gives you faction.

On the original topic, I don't care what Anet adds for new uses of Balthazar faction, but if they added ANYTHING, I'd be happy ^^.

Not really... then you can stockpile flames until chapter four and get massive unlocks ASAP. However, Flames of Balthazar wasnt the word I was looking for, I was referring to those medallions that unlocked firewater and stuff.

heh, what about my exact thread opn this topic? makes me want to bump it again

And the reason this is set in stone is.. ?

It takes quite a long time to unlock everything with Balthazar Faction, don't make it sound as if its easier than PvE unlocks, its not even close unless you are in an established GvG guild that plays every single day.

Why would looks matter in PvE if they don't matter in PvP ? I would say they matter a lot more in the latter because you face a lot of real people to show off to :P.

Being rewarded is always fun even if the reward is meaningless. It's built into our limbic system.

/signed as long as there are no pvp "exclusives"

This idea opens up skins for all players to use which is why I like it. Making exclusives kind of ruins the point.

/so signed!

I don't care if there are unique pvp-skins or not, I don't care if there are obsidian or not and I don't ask for as much variation as pve characters have as long as there is something to unlock I am happy. I am a vane pvper and would love to have new skins to play around with. As someone else mentioned, the only reason I see to do pve is to get some good lookuing armour and weapons to use in pvp.

Maybe if 15k armour cost 40-50k faction per piece, then maybe. But the basic idea of OA and 15k was to make a goal for people who enjoyed grinding through AI, so I'd be a good deal disappointed if someone could create and recreate it as much as he/she liked just because he/she won some PvP, while I can't get my hands on any respectable status symbols through PvE such as rank, champion titles, gladiator titles.
Don't start about Treasure Hunter and Seeker of Wisdom, since those are just automatically associated with chinese gold-farmers. :P

What I do like the idea of is faction pooling. Let people throw faction into their guild, and then using that faction, the leader can decide on customisations for the guild hall, such as additional NPCs (not combat NPCs, just random folk that wander around your hall outside of GvG), palette swaps for buildings, adding additional banners around the place. That would be neat.

/signed
I'm almost exclusively a PvE player, yet I think this is a fantastic idea. The high end PvP players deserve extra incentives.

Well if a pvp player want a nice looking armor, he can play pvp with his pve character and to the pve reward are there to avoid the pve grind.

This is a little problematic, in various threads on the same topic on different forums there seems to be some confusion about which would be more upsetting; Making new unlockable PvP skins (therefore a PvE skin would have the same merits it does now, but PvP skins would not be attainable for use in PvE) or making current PvE skins available (meaning PvP players get nothing unique, but difficult to obtain armors no longer require PvE).

Personally I can't understand why anyone would be offended. You bought GuildWars, not PvE GW and PvP GW. Everything PvP gets you get, everything PvE gets you get. Any addition can only benefit, it doesn't take away from a segment of the community and give it to the other side (if its ok to call them sides). There is a definite divide in the community, but this is not recognized by the game.

hi al
l i mostly a pve player but from sometime now i'm being play pvp and yes i have all balthazar stuff unlocked now i'm gaining faction and i'm not able to spend it and that is bad

so make more uses for faction...

/signed

Oh yeah? /signed 10^99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

This was the most rational PvP or PvE idea for that matter that I have heard so far. Hats off to you! Anyway, the armor sets should have slighty different charactersitics look wise.
eg: FoW armor should have different colored spikes or a different color for the part unchangeable by dye.

Also, they should have unlocks for all different skins of armor for lower prices/titles for the ones you gave.

The titles based on faction as a base pvp title would be amazing, and many more people would be drawn into pvP.

PS: ANET please please please! put this idea in at once! Gaile please look at this thread and all the posts in it!

btw Regarding PvP Exclusives... They would have to have something that wouldn't make PvE people want them and get mad that they cant have them on their PvP.
eg: dont make them that different, but still noticably different that people will only say: oh there a little different whatever.

People will get mad that PvPs get the same armor
People will get mad that Pvps get exclusive armor
What are you going to do?

/signed
though the armors should be slightly different; you must be able to see the difference between a pvp and pve armor.