Aftermath of the free UW/FoW weekend ... I've changed my mind

8K for entrance fee and the price of ectos will shoot through the roof. Consider this, solo farmers play a big part in keeping the prices where they are now. Most solo farmers get on average 1 ecto per run. Ecto = 8-9K, an entrance fee of 8K would make solo runs pointless. This will greatly reduce the number of ectos available on the open market, driving the prices even higher. Not a good idea imho.

Oh, and please change the current favor system. The suggestion of free entrance when region has favor and 1K when not is a great idea.

I used to agree with this. But, this weekend has changed my mind (hence the title of the thread). Giving open access 24/7 doesn't appeal to me now, it take something away from the whole thing. However, I do agree that the current setup doesn't work and isn't fair on these regions that can't gain favour. I'm lucky, I'm in Europe so I can gain access pretty much when I need to thanks to those in HA. I could say "I'm alright Jack" and sod the rest, but I don't. I think there should be some change to the way it works, but I now think that it shouldn't be total access for all, just another way of winning favour.

The mention of AB battles deciding it could work, if these become core areas allowing those with NF and Prophs to have access to ABs. So either the kurzich or Luxon has favour, rather than an America, Europe or Asia . Maybe this wouldn't work, maybe there's just to much to do to impliment this. I dunno. How do you get those in Prophs to choose an alliance if they don't have Factions? There's plenty of things that would need working out. However, I think the HoH shouldn't be the place to decide it.

@Kuya , no cause 1K for a team of 8 is way to easy to get.
You are saying if the price of entrance is 8K without favor it would skyrocket the price.
Other people are saying that if we do this, there will be too many people in FoW/UW and that means prices of ectos/shards will drop.

If i see this i must say that ,it looks like it balances each other .
Also, tell me how it is different now with :
1K with favor and no access without favor or
1K with favor and 8k without favor.

It really doesn't seem that broken to me.

There's an unknown factor here that makes speculation merely that, a speculation. The missing information is: how are ectos most attained, and which type of player (solo vs. team) are farming them more.

Basing on my own experience, I would assume that solo is the most profitable, hence more ectos are attained by solo farmers. If this logic is correct, then the solo farming (1 ecto per run) paying 8K to get in becomes pointless. This will reduce the number of ectos available on open trade.

Another factor is ecto is rare drop. A full team of 8, assuming a single smite run, will more than likely net a profit for 1-2 people, and a loss for the rest. This in the long run will also discourage people from doing team farm runs.

The free week-end had almost no impact on the current price of ectos except for the 15K spike. That spike, as someone mentioned was due to people in other regions buying ectos at the rare chance of getting into FOW to get armor.

Another issue to consider is Europe. It seems like Europe has favor 2/3 of any given day. The farmers are already in the Euro server, if more people are farming equates to lower prices, it would have create an unbalanced ecto market where prices are cheaper there. I assume this is not the case, and even if it is it will even out in the long run. A reduced entrance fee would lower the price of ectos marginally, but an increase to 8K and ectos will skyrocket.

At least to some people, they learned how to farm UW for the first time

Usually u have to waste 1K per run for practice. Anet should make more events like this.

I hope we'll have a weekend that has every events that i experienced in the pas t(e.g UW/FoW, double greens/golds,broadwalk, etc...)

or just make it 1k acroos the board wether u have favor or not..

others wise ur still linking it to favor and to PvPers

Well, if you actually paid attention to the weekend, having free access, at all times, didn't do anything to the price of ectos either. It, maybe, dropped it by 0.5k.

Win.

Double win.

Doesn't it take some time for something to drop in price, though?? I mean, no one bought the Sup. Absorptions when they were 90k, and they stayed that way. Unless, of course, it's a dev controlled economy, like Rene stated on her old and awesome thread.

That would mean no favor for Cantha. Which isn't a bad thing. After all, it's the land even ArenaNET hates.

@curse you, im not sure but i think you agree with me?

I'm one of those people that really don't care what happens I'm happy any which way,cause when i want (or wanted ) to go to FoW ( don't do UW) and the place doesn't really interest me that much, i don't want to get FoW armor ( since i think they are not cool looking enough to warrant the cost)

I do enjoy the experience of going down there, same way as i enjoy doing urgoz ( hate deep -_-)

I'm just trying to give out ideas for people that want it changed.

Also i agree with the part you say the prices didn't change that much,but there are a bunch of people that are saying that that is because it was only a weekend.

@Bryant : That is the big thing i don't get, yes if more people can get in more people will get ecto/shard and prices will drop, but is that a bad thing?
I mean its not like the price is 10K today and tomorrow its free access and the price drops to 1K.

free with flavour, [insert number that can be divided by 8 here] when you dont have flavour, doesnt worry me what that number is, and Im sure others wont really care either

i disagree with teams being less viable then solo farmers. over the weekend i ventured into uw with a full guildie team, and we cleared everything but the spawning pools, did a few quests, and had a blast before our guild leader got bored and leroyed the four horsemen quest. have a look at the ectos we got :P
2 person got 1
3 people got 2
1 person raged (the only pug in the group) before we cleared the first area, no ecto for him
1 person got 3
i got 6.

so, for an 8 person team to spend 2 hours in uw = 17 ecto drops, thats 170k at 10k an ecto.(most people sold them during hte spike. i stupedly sold mine before, thinking ecto prices whould drop ) thats a little under 20 k per person (if the drops were even, which they wern't, but... mhhh) for 2 hours. certinly not worthwhile.

(ps, mindblade specters positively poop ectos, we got around 7 ecto from them.)

i really enjoyed the weekend event like most of us. getting a chance to farm and finish all the quests without the limitations was great. i really hope favor changes to something of a bonus or buff and not such a limitation as it has been for so long.

I'm in favor of making FoW/UW access dependent on the actions or events in the PvE realm, and I bet Anet wouldn't mind changing it except for one thing -

If they do that, how should they reward the regions that win Favor as it stands now? Elite matches for PvPers? Better drops?

Oh my, I actually just read this entire thread. I wasn't going to even post but then suddenly the answer came to me. Should access be free and unlimited? No because it would devalue the uniqueness. Should access be tied to PvP? Absolutely not because as stated most PvPr's could care less and besides wth does PvP have to do w/ PvE anyway?

So what is the solution? Simple, make UW/FoW access merit based upon PvE. For instance every time you level out (earn a skill pt) you earn access or credit towards access.

This way the relatively minor fee could stay in place as a gold sink and players could also store up access time to use at their convenience. That was the most impressing factor that I realized after reading everyones input. People want to play the elite areas at their convenience AND w/ their friends no matter what region they be from.

simple solution. once you have protector of Tyria,Cantha and/or Elona add a npc in the international district that will talk to you and grant you access to UW/FoW anytime with the usual fee. leave the favor system and cost to get in alone. sort of the same way DoA worked. with the npc only in the international district that would let guilds who have multi country players actually go into FoW/UW together. maybe figure a way to change the reward chests in FoW so that the kind of drops you get are tied to party size and favor. something like 1 item for every 2 people in the party and if your region has favor its guaranteed to be a gold item.

You do understand that the proposal is to have it be free (or 1k) when you have favor and 8k when you do not? Given that, the solo farmers will have the option of farming at the cheap price if they have the right "nation". Just like the current system. The 8k entrance fee for non-favored status allows groups and guilds to get into FoW/UW for the questing and adventuring they want. If they get ecto/shard drops along the way, well congrats

Again, if we were suggesting an 8k cost for everyone across the board to enter UW/FoW, then yes the price on shards and ectos would jump up. However, having an 8k price w/o favor and a 1k price w/ favor means that the disparity would be very similar to what we have now (1k w/, never w/o). If the market (on ectos for instance) got unbalanced wouldn't folks from Europe could go to International Districts to sell their ectos to the other "nations" - driving prices down on the other nations.

Think of regions that never or have very little favor. Prior to this, they do not have access to FOW or UW making ectos somewhat unattainable and useless. With access at 8K each, people in those regions will still pay and farm, but they certainly won't be selling for 8-9K per ecto.

With open access, the demand for ectos will rise particularly in those regions. The 15K spike is an indication of this, albeit short due to free access restricted to just the week-end. With higher demand and higher entrance fee (note Asian regions), the price will go up. If it's anything I learned about GW market over the weekend, it's that the prices are global. The effects of new access and higher entrance fee will work itself out to an increase in demand and higher prices.

To be fair, those regions that have in the past rarely gotten favor never had reason to obtain shards and ectos since the only usage (aside from ectos as currency) is for forgemaster armor. So the market for shards and ectos just didn't really exist in those regions. Yes there was certainly a spike in prices since folks in "those regions" couldn't farm the needed materials in the span of just the weekend but still wanted the armor.

Sure the demand for ectos in "those regions" would go up, but I'm very certain that the "bounty" of europe would make its way over to the gold mine of "those regions". If the regions were totally 100% locked off from each other then there would be a cost disparity between them but it wouldn't matter - since the regions would be 100% blocked off and the prices would be independant. Since you can buy and sell across regions (in the international districts) prices can never get truly out of balance.

Lets assume that the demand for ectos in "those regions" is so great that it turns the spike in prices into a persistent increase in price. Is this the end of the world? Not really as the devs could easily increase the drop rate on ectos. Notice that the price of admission to FoW has minimal effect on this process since it really would just become a small additional cost for getting to the forgemaster himself. Yes, there would be a slight premium on outside region farmed ecto, but I suspect that the increased supply of ectos caused by the region being open to everyone could act to counter balance this, especially if the drop rate was adjusted.