Retroactive Luxon/Kurzick allegiance title track?

/signed
we got the amount of faction we got, no matter where we put it in, it should add for the title

If ANet did something like that with the survivor title, whoever made that call could probably be regarded as certifiably insane. That just seems like a no-brainer as far as upsetting players.

No, no and no. I totally disagree, I don't see why people that were farming points to earn money with amber or jade should have as points as those who farm for their guild, to help others, not thinking only to money.

Well this change is upsetting people too, not? I really don't care what they do. I would prefer less of a grind title track then retroactive gain of title through getting materials. It would be equally unfair to the ones who did go for the title, as they miss out on amber. Unlinking it from the title (as some people suggested, befriending quest would be enough), or changing the stats in the title track dramatically (as i suggested before) is the best solution to my opinion.

A lot of people are missing the point entirely. Especially those that have their titles and are somehow acting like they had amazing foresight that these titles would be worth the MASSIVE grind they require to get. They did NOTHING, there was no indication that they would ever do anything and most people are not in alliances that have the slighest hope of owning a town, so why not get Amber/Jadeite with their Faction?

I've never see anyone of them answer that question. The fact is that we were all taken off guard by these skills, we were given no warning that it might be a good idea to start building up those titles and now people are upset about it. Grinding should not be rewarded in terms of having skills that are very powerful. A.net needs to rethink this Kurzick/Luxon thing and no matter how much Faction Farmers complain it doesn't change that fact.


Edit: Oh and I find it extremely lame that in order to even get these skills at their lowest power level in a REASONABLE timeframe, I'm basically reduced to exploiting the game via FFF, the only way to gain faction fast.

AB takes forever to get into a game, even then victory is not assured, Aspenwood is filled to the brim with leechers even moreso than before, Quarry is a wasteland...

As it now works for title track, why couldn't the materials we bought in the past count? That's what we want.

What's happening here pales in comparison to what would be the case if something similar was done with the survivor title. With that title track, once progress is lost, a character can never (as in impossible), regardless of grind, etc., achieve ranks in that title. It would be lunacy or idiocy to do something like that.

In any event, ANet should address this issue pertaining to the new Luxon/Kurzick skills. It seems like something done with the best of intentions to improve and enhance the game, but just without thinking through all the considerations in how it should be made available to players.

If they did any kind of retroactive thing they would have to compensate both sides, fo the choices they made, It's quite simple,

If you traded for amber/jade then you get the title points for it,

If you traded for the title then you should get amber/jade in that amount

This is the only fair solution other than do nothing, which I still think is the right thing. New players don't get any benifits towards these titles, so they are in a similar position to those that traded faction for Materials. they have to grind to get the title. Is it even possible for those without the Factions campaign to get these skills? if not is it fair to them?

As I stated before I'm happy for it to stay as it is, but if they do change something then both sides of the factions community need to be compensated, that is only fair.

People who traded faction for amber/jade recieved rare materials.

People who donated faction helped their alliance and made progress in their titles.

These are the choices that people made.

Only one of the choices affected the "Friend of" title. Retroactivity would be fair.

ANet doesn't have to do anything. They don't have to try to go through massive hoops to try to do what's fair for everyone. Some group will wind up being a relative "loser". Of course, you just don't want it to be you, even if your perceived "loss" is relatively minimal in comparison.

As for those without Factions, I would think one of the reasons for these Kurzick/Luxon skills is to add something new to Factions (to reward those who have it and to encourage others to purchase it if they haven't). There's no fairness issue there. Each campaign provides a different set of benefits.

There are probably a lot of ways to address this. I think as some players have suggested, one approach to consider might be to apply a discounted ratio of Faction earned (percentage of Faction Earned minus Faction Donated) towards the alliance/allegiance title tracks. Those who donated outright will still be ahead, and those earned lots of faction, but bought jade/amber don't feel totally screwed by how these new skills work.

Completion of the quests, Befriending the Luxons/Kurzicks, probably would be a much better qualification to obtain the skills rather than rank 1 of the title tracks. Thus no grind necessary to get the skills (just incredibly massive grind in improving the effectiveness). It makes a lot of sense roleplaying-wise. It would also address some abuse issues since those alliance/allegiance titles are account-based rather than character-based.

If faction is given to those who took amber I think it would be necessary to give amber to all those who gave faction to guilds.

not signed/

This is simply quite wrong, I donated 90% of my faction and it did not help any guild i have been in and none have faction farmed, or even bothered with AB, the only benifit i gained from donation is title progression. Those going for amber/jade got the material, which could be traded for gold or turned into armour. What you are imply is that those that chose amber/jade should get title progression while i get no amber/jade. That is not fair at all.


I didn't say they had to. I in fact said I didn't want them to do anything

I don't see why, if anet did implement a retrosctive procedure, why there has to be any losers. What you are suggesting is that I should see losing 400 amber/jade as minimal if those that took amber/jade get a retroactive title boost, of any kind. Anet likes to be percieved as implementing fair and balanced upgrades, to maintain that image it is necesary that any retroactive steps are applied equally to both sides of the equation. even if its only partial on both sides. So, for example, if you could have had 1 million faction and only get 500k in an retroactive update, I should get 200 bits of amber/jade, that way we both get compensated for our choices before the update.

The point I was making was not that they are being treated unfairly, it was with regard to the original point that it was unfair that some had access to higher end Faction skills due to going for title progression rather than materials, and that it would make it difficult for the latter to gain groups in PvE. My point was that those without Factions don't have the skills at all, and that that could be seen as unfair to them.

What's with the and? The reality is simple:

People who traded faction for amber/jade recieved rare materials.

People who donated faction made progress in their titles. Helping their alliance was a consequence of title advancement. Was simply the way the title worked.

These are the choices that people made, and they were perfectly equal.

Absolutely.

I totally agree, people who were looking to make money were only thinking of themselves. Those who donated to a guild were not only thinking of themselves, if they now get the title it is a reward for not being selfish.

But even if ANet was generous enough to think along those lines, the ungrateful players that we are, some of those who would then be rewarded with amber/jade would probably complain that when they donated their faction, the amber/jade was worth x amount, much more than it is now (now it's only worth about 100-300 gold). Amber and jade just aren't worth that much now. Your "losses" from such a design change are probably relatively minimal now (maybe overall a good sum, but relatively considering the time and effort involved with generating that sum compared to the time and effort generating that relative faction is probably trivial). If amber and jade were worth a lot, that perceived unfairness could be seen as being more painful.

The new Luxon/Kurzick skills are a gift. You don't deserve it. Based on the design approach, you may have an advantage. Argue the scope of the advantage that perhaps is appropriate if ANet was generous enough to make the gift more widely available. I get the impression you're arguing that if ANet is being generous to others, you deserve a bigger gift.

ANet should just take these toys away. When kids are fighting over a toy and can't figure out a way to share, best thing to do is take it away.

but people said theyy should get amber because they didnt donate before, well people who got faction for amber didnt get any benifit from the faction to their guild.

Just in case it's not clear, these new Luxon/Kurzick skills have nothing to do with earlier choices made by players...zero, zilch.

The new Luxon/Kurzick skills are gifts. No one made any choices based on these gifts. Those who seem to perceive some entitlement to these skills...you may have a claim with respect to the titles and advantage in title ranks, etc., but not the skills, and not to amber or jade.

The design issue for ANet in releasing these new skills is how to scale their effectiveness, similar to the Sunspear PvE skills and how they scale with ranks in the Sunspear title. They arbitrarily selected those Kurzick/Luxon titles.

Personally, as evidenced by the discussion here, I don't think that was a wise approach. The fairest approach would've been a new title track. Everyone would perceive and acknowledge the novelty of the new benefit, and there would be no complaints about the undeserved advantage one group has over another.

It's a mess ANet did make, and whatever they decide to do, they need to address it. Whatever it is, the sooner the better as players start acting and relying on the information that has been provided already.

Yep, it would be quite nice to see dev to reply this thread and tell what they think about this issue.

Quite of number of these "selfish", "greedy", people, were just playing the game wisely.

Why would anyone in their right mind WASTE their faction towards an alliance that has no chance of owning a town. Your reward for donating towards the alliance was a title.

Our only other choice was amber. We didn't have scrolls before this. We didn't have the PvE skills.

It was A or B. Many people choose the most logical one at the time. And now apparently we are greedy and selfish.

I wish some of you could read, or actually would read posts like this.

We do not care about the title. You can keep your title. We just want the skills. Which should not have been based off this title track.

I have lost out on a year's worth of time to achieve this title, which I now must grind out everyday if I ever want to see these skills. You've lost out on nothing.

I am not opposed to giving people who donated towards their alliance amber. They deserve it. They've spent countless hours working on one of the most worthless titles in the game (until now).

Anyways, something needs to be changed. Both sides need to be rewarded. Both sides deserve the skills. Why hasn't ANet seen this or done something about it....its beyond me. Why they haven't even replied here is disheartening....I have a feeling we will be ignored on this.

Just something to keep in mind, they just started their workday about 3 hours ago. Just because something has been brewing over the weekend, they at least need some time to meet and discuss the issues with the appropriate people when they are in the office. Patience.

This guy is absolutely right. Some people chose to get money for their amber, others chose to work on a title/help their alliance. You made your choice, now you know the consequences.
You can't give out Jade/Amber because those people who have the higher ranks were donating to their alliance when Jade/Amber where 4-5 times the price it is now, and the prices are just going to get lower. Besides, with them lowering rank one of the befriending titles you can get to rank one in a single weekend if you wanted to, without fff.

This could be something as simple as Anet did not keep permanent records on the database for amber/jade. The game may of been verifying Faction points go "down", add +1 amber to inventory and that's it.

If the records are not in the DB... they can't figure out who did what.

I completely agree with this.

If they added a new title track it would really have to be based off of how much faction we've earned. I can't see it being any other way.

It would also be the best way to reward both sides. Nobody loses anything this way. If you turned in your faction for amber or for your alliance, you've still earned it and it will count towards this new title.

Actually, you are not asking for a fair deal. You are asking for more than that.

First of all, you received gold in exchange for the faction you redeemed into amber/jade. Given the choice, you opted to receive material possession and gave up the opportunity to get a tick on your title. The people that redeemed them by giving it to their alliance received no gold. They gave up the opportunity to have gold in return for a tick on their title. While you have extra pocket money to spend on whatever you wanted to spend, they did not. They got further on their title.

Now you want to keep your gold that you got and obtain the same reward that the others received. You want your cake and eat it too. Are you willing to retroactively give up all the gold you made from acquiring all the jade/amber in return for converting those faction points into your title track so you aren't getting rewarded twice for the faction points from the past while the others only receive it once for their title? Do you know how much that was? Does a database exist somewhere among the ArenaNet servers on how much every player made on converting faction to jade/amber so they can recalculate this?

Yes they have. They lost out on the gold/material they could otherwise have had. True, you lost the time. If you have the information now that you've had then, your decision may have been different. However, that would be the same for the other choice. If they knew that they could have received amber/jade back then AND get title progression, I'm sure their decision to donate to their alliance may be different. The people that chose to convert to jade/amber are not the only ones lost out on the opportunity cost of time.

Just like they cannot give you the opportunity to make a different decision a year ago, they cannot give back the opportunity to sell amber/jade at several plats a piece at the beginning of Factions release. Giving people that chose to donate faction to their alliance a truckload of jade/amber now is not the same as giving them a truckload of jade/amber through the life of Factions since it's inception. Now matter how you apply retroactivity, someone will get the short end of the solution.

Both sides were rewarded. Which side did not get rewarded?

They can do this, but it will still not make whole the people that made the choice to give up amber/jade in exchange for title progress. The problem is one of lost opportunity when the worth of these material was much, much higher. They cannot give this back.

In the end, ArenaNet cannot make it retroactive in a fair way to both side of the decision. The game with the rules then were played out and everyone played the same game. That game has come to an end.

This update changes the rules. The game is now different and everyone plays it. You now have new information. Lost among all this complaining is that the game is more rewarding now than it was before. Do people always complain about what you didn't get or how crappy the gift is when someone gives you a gift?

edit: deleted double post

If it's possible, this should be done.

People here are acting like trading for amber was extremely profitable or something. lol. Let's see... at current prices my total faction earned would be about 60k? A little bit more in the past, maybe twice that. Except I didn't sell any of it anyway. It was more like "hmm what am I going to do with this faction... well I can get amber... don't really need the money so I guess I'll get armor." So I actually ended up paying more to get the rest of the materials I needed.

My point is, there are FAR more profitable things to do than faction farm. If you want money, you could easily make the amount 100k faction would get you in a few hours, which is faster than farming the faction itself. So you say, "well it's not that hard to farm faction so stop whining and go do it", so maybe you should stop whining about lost earnings when you could make it back even faster?

Furthermore, how does money affect your gameplay? You can get everything you need for cheap. Money is only useful for getting vanity items, which have no effect on your gameplay whatsoever. The titles, on the other hand, are now linked to skills that DO have an effect on gameplay; the magnitude of effect is not important because ANY effect is greater than NONE.

So if this change were made, no, you would NOT be in a worse position than the people who got amber are in now. You would have less money, yes, but you would be equal in terms of gameplay, which is far more important than money.

I just don't get the money argument. Is it THAT necessary to have a mini kanaxai or crystalline sword? And if you care that much about it, what are you doing faction farming?

If you're jealous* because you think everyone who wants this change is rich, that may be true only because they spent their time doing things OTHER than faction farming (most people asking for this have far less faction than the title-seekers and town-holders).

But ultimately, skills are more important than money in this game. So I find it kinda odd that people are supporting a greater injustice done to others than a lesser injustice done to themselves. Although really, I guess it's not odd at all. It's just human nature.


*I don't mean to call any specific person jealous, I just suspect this feeling may be involved in some of the arguments because I can't think of any other logical reason. That's why I used the "if". Feel free to explain the real reason you're calling amber traders "greedy" and "selfish" if you feel I'm wrong.

Edit: Also consider this. Had you known that this was going to happen, and that it was going to be made retroactive (which probably won't happen anyway), and had you got amber instead of donating the faction, amber/jade would have been worth even less than they were, due to increased supply. And had you known this, and had everyone known this, FAR MORE people would have been farming faction and trading for the materials in order to prepare for the skills. So even if anet owes you money for this change that won't happen - they wouldn't owe you the market value that the materials were worth at the time.

I'm not sure how trading in for amber/jade instead of donating the faction justifies one person getting access to skills while the other doesn't. I know there are a lot of people out there like me that are in a guild that could care less about owning a town. What reason would anyone have to donate this faction to the guild if the guild has no use for it? I never went for the title since the title needed an insanely large amount of faction donated even for the first level, so I decided to work on other titles instead with my time. The faction I earned I just traded in for jade/amber. Jade and Amber has not been worth trading since Factions was first released, but I figured there wasn't much else I had to do with my faction, so I just traded it in for materials just in case I or a guildmate wanted to get some armor.

Imo, what this comes down to is that some people essentially had different motives and different goals. Some people had no reason to donate faction while others did. Neither perspective was 'better' than the other, both put in work towards earning faction for their own goals, but since the last update, one was rewarded with a bonus and the other wasn't.

Actually, the fairest thing would be a new title track where everyone starts at zero. New skills, new title track, new progress to be made on that title track. No credit received for achievements or points generated unrelated to the new benefit. Maybe something like the sunspear title track, and it could have titles like Redemptor, Clanleader, etc.

This is what I would prefer. Especially if the new title track was about equal to the sunspear track in terms of grind.

Yea, a new title would sound more reasonable. But if they are gonna do this, please still keep supporter of the kurzicks/luxons lol. I would like to get itIm at 53k right now

Yep, i think i would rather have a new title than retroactive faction. Easier in the long run to get the skills worthwhile.

Two more people who claim that donating would help others, yet don't explain how it would help people who are in a guild that doesn't have a hope of holding a town due to not having enough people interested in it. Instead they just keep repeating the same argument over and over, despite the fact that most players wouldn't of been in an alliance that had a hope of owning a town, meaning the donations would of been for the title only.

And for the people in a town holding alliance, they can make gold reselling things from the discount merchants they have access to, like some are doing now with lockpicks.

Absolutely.

Fairness goes out the window when the rules are changed while a game is running. Therefore, the question is, who is more important? The people who spent tons of faction on amber and are disheartened by the grind they're looking at to achieve their titles now, or the people who missed out on some gold because they transferred their faction. If I were to weigh each group's discomfort and what they need to do to make up their loss (title or riches) I would say the title-less people are in a much rougher spot.

a) Riches are practically meaningless in this game, whereas skills are the pinnacle of necessity. Being screwed out of skills is worse than being screwed out of some spare cash.

b) Catching up on riches is a less restrictive activity than grinding for faction. Gold can be made anywhere, whereas faction can only be gained in a very limited number of ways/locations. Catching up on riches one missed out on is a less uncomfortable activity than catching up on the faction. And, let's not forget that there are people who did advance their riches by transferring faction to their alliance.

c) The number of people in each group is also a consideration. If you must antagonize people, you should antagonize as small a group as you can. That's just common sense. I don't have any data of course, but I expect that the group who turned their faction into materials is the larger one. ANet will probably know the score, or at least be able to determine a very good estimate based on the difference between people's allegiance titles and their total faction earned.

Considering all that, a choice must be made who will be the ones to be screwed over. I know who I'd chose.

Actually, yes. If someone were to give me a kid's bike for my birthday next week, I wouldn't hesitate to ask: "Where the hell were you 30 years ago?"

And to those who transfered over 10,000,000? There are people that maxed these titles out. That is a lot of money they could have made.

They're far more screwed by the current update than they would've been if faction had been added retroactively. They farmed 5 million too much as of today's update. What is ANet thinking lately?

Why you don't accept it as its

some guild have 1% to own town so they work in donation even though they didn't own it but they still have hope and there reword was there title track, where other in the other hand farm for amber/jade and get reworded for gold and armor

those skills was giving to this title track to give it some meaning and now it id much easer to get it than before and in the end it is account base title mean that all our char get benefit of it so it is not a west to start getting it

I don't know why some people want to have every thing it is really sad matter if you were one of them

You need to learn to accept the deal you made back then

Let me put it sample Anet change the old Deal of A and BC and give you a new Deal AC and BC so in the end you are the winner

The people who donated without any chance of holding the town are either irrational or they wanted the title that had no impact on the game at all. The bottom line is why should some people get "rewarded" while others do not?

I think the main problem is not because of retroactive faction. Some people farmed to the max Sunspear title just for the title (and a little bit because of Sunspear Rebirth Signet). Now when the new Sunspear skills came out, they are at rank 10 already! But nobody is complaining, why? Because it takes a relatively short amount of time to farm the Sunspear title. You can go from zero to max in about 10 hours of farming.

The true reason why people are pissed off about the Luxon/Kurzick titles is because suddenly they need MONTHS of time to get their title up. People are more pissed that they can't use the skills or that they can't use the skills effectively because their title isn't high enough. Also, note that many of these skills are groundbreaking and revolutionary. Many of them are better than elites. This isn't like that 10% bonus on the Sunspear Rebirth Signet.

Everybody made their decision without knowing that these skills will come. When the game's rules changes, some people benefit and some people lose. However, in this case, the difference is several months of gameplay, not a few hours (like with Sunspear Skills). So of course a lot of people are pissed.

Based on the response on these forums, the general agreement seems to be that this title takes too long to grind (well, maybe except for the people who already have 5 million alliance points, and they just want to be "exclusive"). I'm pretty sure that ANet will change the title (i.e. add more tiers at lower levels, or make a new title, or make it based on Masters Completion of Factions campaign as someone suggested). ANet usually listens when the majority of the community complains.

I quite agree with you, its obvious from the posts that if they did do it people would still moan. The whole thing with this post is about people moaning about either not getting the title progression or not getting the material/gold.


I dont consider myself to have lost anything, I'm not interested in having Jade/Amber, I'm only interested in getting titles. The only reason I would get Jade or Amber would be to buy Armour, but then I would trade for it. I was getting these titles without any benifit before this update, and with or without it i would be aiming to get them too

I hope you are not saying that I personally don't deserve the skills, and what you actually mean is that the community doesn't deserve them. Otherwise I think you are being downright abusive. I believe we are all equal in this matter, the Skills were given to the community and nobody deserves them more or less than anyone else. And where you get off saying that I'm arguing that i deserve a bigger gift is incredulous. My argument has been primarily that I think Anet should leave this as it is, or if they don't then to give both sides the same treatment


Under that analysis Anet should just shut the servers down, since every aspect of this game has people arguing about it, with no idea of how to come to a common agrement. People argue about the professions, the skills, the difficulty, implementations and on and on and on,


Quite agree with you here too, would have been simpler to implement a new title related to Factions, and the way they have implemented it is a bit of a mess.

yeah that would work. and add an easy way to catch up for those that already beat factions and won't get reward from primary quests and such anymore (kinda like the Land Of Heroes quest that was added to nightfall for foreign characters)