A plea to those in charge of changes (Daily Tournament)

This is about the upcoming changes and the implementation of the daily touraments that will be going on and small (as if I know how much of a hassle it would be to implement these ) improvements that I think would improve the quality of the game.

First, let me explain my situation: I've been playing Guildwars since the beta events way back in the day (Oh epidemic and backfire / empathy, I was so awesome). I enjoy guildwars PvP but I'm really only a fan of GvG and TA. Recently my guild has been on a downward spiral to inactivity and now is likely to be completely dead, also I normally don't post on the "high class" Guild Wars official-fansite forums and I don't hang out in Guild Wars (I reside on a vent server, if some PvP is going on I hop on for the duration), as such I'm fairly sure that except to a small group of individuals I am fairly unknown in the guild wars community. Being unknown in guildwars leads to having a hard time hopping to a new active GvG guild that will let you in the starting 8... As such it is quite likely that I will not get to play the GvG automated touraments anytime soon (And I have no desire to do the hero battle automated tournament).

This being said, my suggestions are not just to my benefit, but what I believe to be the benefit of the game as I believe that they would enable more players to experience the tournaments.

1) The 30 day down to 14 day period for being in a guild before you can participate in the tournaments was a great change, it will allow newer members to play while discouraging smurf guilds. However I think the exclusion of guests, or newly recruited members, will be detrimental to the number of teams that will be able to play (organizing 8 people, who have to stick in one guild across, time-zones can be rather difficult as made very clear to me during the celestial tournament).

I suggest implementing a point system with a set number of points (say 14): Each point will be worth a day so if you use all 14 points you can use one guest in the tournament, or you can divide the points and have 7 points go towards someone who has only been in the guild a week and 3 points to someone who has been in the guild only 11 days and have 4 points left over for someone else who has been in for 10 days.
The way I thought of it was having the party roster being set up in the guild hall and having the age any people under 14 days (or a guest) in the guild displayed on the party roster and an up/down point distributer (like there is with the attributes). If you have enough points to make everyone balance out to 0 you can play, if not, you can't with that group.
With a limited number of points you couldn't have an entire roster go smurf without 8 people sitting in that guild for at least 13 days, also 'younger' guilds that may not be able to get all 8 on at once will be able to play with only 7 people and a guest or play with a few of their younger members.


2) Players will be able to spend these Tournament Reward Points buying various tiers of uniquely-skinned items from the Tournament NPCs (Located in the Great Temple of Balthazar, the Hero Battles outpost, and every guild hall).

Having different skinned items (Or items that don't do their typical damage [Eg. that PvE hammer that does piercing damage]) for PvP created characters has been an idea that I've wanted for quite a while (A Balthazar's Faction sink for those of us who are UAX... Allowing those that don't PvE to use something shiny), unfortunately as it appears to be you won't be using Balthazar's faction for these. I was hoping that you would consider using both your reward points and balthazars faction to be able to unlock these, the faction that you would use would of course be significantly higher than the reward points as it is easier to get (say 10k faction for a skin unlock).

3) An automated tournament for TA. Maybe require that the same four accounts are used in each of the matches (I don't know how). I think TA is a more logical choice than HB (even though it would be harder to implement due to the 4 person instead of just 1) as guildwars has always been more about the team and less about the individual. GvG has: Prizes, titles, and capes. HA has: sigils, emotes, and titles. HB has: Prizes (soon) and titles. While TA will only have titles which can also be earned in RA.



Thanks to any of the higher ups who read this (I know it was long and probably convulated in some areas where it didn't need to be). Please take the suggestions seriously and hopefully consider them for implementation.

Well, technically you have to use both: You must buy Tournament Tokens or whatever with Balthazar Faction, then earn reward points. I like the system like this, because it keeps some random noob from wielding a super cool weapon- you actually have to EARN the weapon, just like in PvE. It isn't just handed to you because you won a couple RA games.

Initially, players will have access to a variety of skins from the first tier of rewards. To obtain items from future, higher reward tiers, players will need to purchase a certain number of the first tier items to advance their access.

If you require 10k balthazars faction for an item and you require a certain number of skins before you can advance the tier (lets say 10) that will still be 100k before they are second tier (Out of how many tiers before you get something really shiny?). That's 100 normal skills or 33 elites they could have unlocked. That wouldn't be just because of winning a couple of RA games.

You're basing everything you say off of assuming. "let's say 10" doesn't float in the real world. Ok fine, win a bunch of RA games. No difference. I don't think balthazar faction is a good method at all for deciding these unlocks, and luckily, Anet agrees with me as of now.

/unsigned to everything you suggested, it's all unnecessary.

EDIT: Noticed your note about posting in the wrong forum.

You're basing everything you say off of assuming. "let's say 10" doesn't float in the real world. Ok fine, win a bunch of RA games. No difference. I don't think balthazar faction is a good method at all for deciding these unlocks, and luckily, Anet agrees with me as of now.

Of course it "doesn't float in the real world", it is a suggestion, it hasn't been implemented, it can't be tweaked.

Why does it bother you so much that if someone grinds 50-500 RA games that they are allowed to have something that looks slightly different that the set PvP item? Does it negatively affect you? No. Does it positively affect them? Yes.


Why wouldn't balthazar faction be a good method to decide these unlocks? Because the unlocks are superficial and unnessecary? If they are superficial and unnessecary why have them in the game at all? People enjoy them, why would you limit those who can't compete (or don't want to do HB 1v1) from having them when it isn't negatively affecting you?

Why doesn't Anet give everybody a free 500 platinum? It wouldn't be "negatively" effecting anybody

I would negatively affect the economy and the other PvErs who trade with gold. Gaining gold is often part of PvErs (achievable) goals... Since you can't sell / trade PvP unlocks the only person it really affects is you.

Gaining victory in tournaments should be a PvPers goal. And note that it said "special weapons", perhaps it isn't an unlock but a physical item?

It's pretty ridiculous that a feature isn't even in the game yet and you are coming up with all sorts of suggestions to "improve" it. Maybe just wait a couple months and see if your changes are actually that necessary- because they look like they aren't IMO and the developer's time could be spent better working on more important issues.

It's pretty ridiculous that a feature isn't even in the game yet and you are coming up with all sorts of suggestions to "improve" it.

Yeah, that's probably right , but since they are doing an update I was trying to suggest things that they might have consider for possible implementation. Modificatons before something is done seem (to me) like they'd be easier to do that retroactive changes.

The point system for including guests / younger members seems like it would increase the number of guilds that could actively participate in the automated tournaments while still discouraging smurfing.

The TA daily tournaments seem like a better idea (to me) than the HB daily tournaments just because HB is 3 computers and 1 person which (again, to me) seems more like PvE than PvP.

The Balthazar faction for skin unlocks would add a faction sink for those who are unwilling / unable to compete in the automated tournaments (ABers, RAers, TAers, and HAers). While some of those PvP types rely more on luck than on skill there is still people who play those types and enjoy them, and it seems like a shame that they wouldn't be able to benefit from the updates. The 5k per tournament entry point is a nice sink, but only for those who intend to do the tournmant work (and 25k of faction spread across 8 people isn't likely going to be a significant sink).