Thursday November 13, 2008 - update notes

rollbak lawl

that way
the ppl who did missions 1 or 2 times within the past week will have their missions go unrewarded
and will get to kno wut it feels like
compared to those that did missions 20 or 30 times over the past 3 years



and mstarfire...
wtf!? who cares bout fairness??!?
ys it that even a question?

many ppl r complaining because they actually care bout the state of gw
and they want to see the game as good as it can be

all i see is that anet gave u a shiny penny
and u think all of gw's problems magically went away

new ppl tend to not notice the big picture
veterans have been in the game so long they can see the big picture
maybe thats y u cant comprehend y some ppl r complainin


and personally i dun care bout fairness either...
but only because i think anet effed that all up beyond all repair

Again, please explain where's the "greed" here.
I repeat :
We don't want more than what we're entitled to.
we don't want anything that "benefits us directly while screwing the other guy", as you put it.
We want equal, fair rewards, something that could be done quite easily.

The only greed i see here comes from your side, the only "reason" you ask us to shut up is that you don't like what you see.
Nobody will miss your trolling either.

Where in the EULA(The rules of the game) did it say that any changes in the game would automatically entitle long time players restitution for said changes? Fair or not fair I think it is time for people to accept things as they are. If it is such a game changer for some I am sorry, but it is time to move on. That's just my opinion.

This update was amazing, ok?

Get that - they did something right, and bugger me if I didn't resinstall the game yesterday because this update looked amazing, and was very nice.

Anet did something grand; they could've done something stupid like make KoaBD account wide or something, but no, this update was very well thought out.

In fact, it's well-thought out enough to make me worry why people are complaining about this. No, they didn't fix some PvP imbalances; this was a PvE update - they specified as such and thus far I have noticed it was well coded with no new lag or bugs.

When you buy a meal and you get a free cake, do you complain that you didn't get frosting on it? No, of course not.

Stop complaining and go play. It's quite remarkable how petty many of you are. MStarfire is being rude, but he/she is valiantly arguing the correct point, that is, this update was very nice and you should be grateful about it.

Bold 1: Honestly, who the hell do mission 20 - 30 times if that mission don't have an end chest of significant rewards or have some other benefits like a Voltic Spears or Factions Points? be honest, you would do Zen Daijun's Mission 30 times? and then 30 times again in HM? anyone at all done Great Northern Walls or Minister Cho's Estate or Blacktide Den 30 times in HM? (on one character)

Bold 2: lol your post obviously are trying to seek "fairness"?? no?

Up until recently, this thread did have a healthy back and forth of ideas and opinion. The goal of the trolls here are to destroy the thread with raving and insults and otherwise disruptive tactics, so if this thread is closed, the trolls win cause the mods let them win. Hopefully this isn't the case and the thread will remain active, the trolls will be banished, and civil discourse continues and hopefully greater understanding will be had by all.

For the people who are able to continue reading this while enjoying their bans, something you might want to consider is that people who actually care for the welfare of the game will actually have criticisms from time to time. If shortcomings and failures on behalf of any company aren't addressed and happen to fall on deaf ears, well, we know what happens to those companies. People who are paying attention will throw the bullshit flag on occasion, because a perceived foul has taken place and warrants a review, with the understanding that potential problems can be addressed and resolved.

To use a lame analogy, because that is what forum posters do, I'll tell a little story here. There's this restaurant my wife and I enjoy, they make an awesome mongolian filet, and their crispy beef is great as well. We bring our family and out of town friends here, and we get take out from them regularly. One time, the take out we brought home was nearly inedible. Having been accustomed to a standard of excellence, we called to ask what the deal was, had they got a new chef, had the recipe changed, what gives? It turns out that they did in fact have a new chef and they apologized for the poor quality of food, and to encourage us to return, they offered us a credit towards our next meal. Now while that was a nice gesture, it wasn't necessary. The apology and explanation from the owner went a long way, and we've since been back several times and continue to enjoy taking our business there.

Had the restaurant been this bullshit outfit that we were just going to try for a change, which we had no investment in, and had their food been mediocre or even terrible, we wouldn't have even bothered wasting time with telling them that their food sucked, cause we wouldn't have ever gone back regardless. Because we previously have had pleasant dining experiences with the original restaurant and were concerned when there was a significant change to the excellence with which we were accustomed, we felt it was necessary to let them know of our experience, so that they had adequate feedback with which they could do a variety of things. They could have ignored it and told us to RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO off, they could have offered to pay for the meal, they could have explained why the food was different, they could have done several things. Had it been the former, well, that would have been the last time we took our business there, but since they did something more along the lines of the latter, but more importantly, to me, they demonstrated that they weren't above making mistakes and readily took accountability for it, in my book, that goes a long way.

The implications that, as customers, we should take what we're given, be thankful, and stfu is folly. By that rationale, if Anet decided that your particular toon's head needed to be remodeled and what the remodeling resulted in was your character's head now resembling a large chunk of human excrement, you should, by your definition, be thankful that Anet is even doing updates anymore and shouldn't be complaining cause it doesn't affect the economy or anyone else for that matter, or most importantly, me.

Your clever and well thought out arguments against criticisms, such as “qq” and other petty insults, along with your severe impairment when it comes to reading comprehension, only hurts yourself and your gang of trolls, whom also seem to suffer from malignant narcissism. To suggest that anyone who “complains” is a greedy ingrate, along with a bunch of other ignorant, spiteful crap, and to imply that we should be thankful for every single last crumb Anet offers without question, well, all I can really say is that you need to go out and get a new bag to hold your clues, because yours has a hole in it and you've lost some.

So "handed to them" means "want the reward you get for completing something they've already done"?

They got the reward as it existed at the time.

Firstly "maths" is short for mathematics, hence the "s" which is used in a fairly large chunk of the English speaking world.

Secondly if you had read my post you would know that I was working on the assumption that a player, with 8 characters, has already got protector and guardian on all 8. 8 HM books at 120k = 960k, exactly 40k short of 1 million, or 4%. I'm sure that most people would agree that 960k is not that much short of 1 million, hence the "nearly".

I have not taken into account NM books which these characters would also earn at 60k faction (I think) each.

I have an MS in Mathematics. I was referring to this.

And you were working on a lousy assumption. I apologize for misunderstanding your math, however as we can easily establish, people hate grind. I doubt there's very many people out there who have done Protector and Guardian work on eight characters.

I'm not claiming this to be fact, I'm sure there ARE a handful of people out there who have done this. But I doubt it's a very large handful.

Besides, as I said before. They got the reward as it stood when they accomplished their feats. That should be good enough.

Actually, the fact that they didn't touch PvP is part of the reason I still haven't reinstalled...but that is off topic.

I have to disagree (which is odd because I don't think I've ever disagreed with your posts lol). What IS the correct point? My points are that the update was unfair and didn't complete what it set out to do. I still haven't seen the points legitimately refuted.

You talk about assumptions then proceed to make the assumption that people hate grind. As far as I know, there are several popular games on the market full of grind that people are willing and ready to pay to do.

So people who did the missions 8 times get the same rewards as those who did it once. Yea sounds good enough to me. All people are asking for is to be able to turn in for the titles they have. I don't see you or anybody elses problem with that other than the fact that you need something to troll about.

I almost want to get in.

If PvE players get a bonus reward for things they've already done, PvP players should get a ZKey for every 5k faction obtained before the addition of ZKeys.

After all, it's only fair for those with prior accomplishments.





ps: Where is your economy now?

Spot on Avarre.

I agree about Z-Keys. yet I see why they didn't make the Zaishen title track retroactive back when it was introduced: they had no way to count how many keys you could have got BEFORE it and then distribute points accordingly (same as with Party Animals items), while they CAN say wether you've done a mission or not now.

Except, you know, the faction counter. Though it doesn't take into the account the millions lost by any serious player to the faction cap before that.

What my example should be saying to you is that players can stop complaining. Much more skillful (arguably) and time-invested titles were not given retroactive advantages.

I see, my bad, I was thinking about the Zaishen Title Track - there's no way for them t know how many Z-Chests you've opened before the introduction of the title - not the keys themeselves. Sorry for misunderstanding your comment.

BTW yes, no reason to keep complaining. I doubt anything will change.

Now let's not turn this into another PvP vs PvE thread. I know a lot of ranked PvP players who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag. So don't assume PvP-related stuff necessarily requires more skill or time please...

I spent all my Balths faction on weapon/skill unlocks.
Does that mean I should get Z-Keys also?


On-topic:
The books not being retroactive just means I'll never get the reward from any book because I sure as hell won't be doing THAT again.

I think we can agree several million faction is more investment than completing some missions.

I think we can agree that three years spent going through 4 games with 15 characters is probably even more time consuming than 3 years spent repeating the Zaishen Training on the Isle of the Nameless or playing gimmick builds in AB or RA...

And in the same post:


I hope you know why I connected this two quotations.

Your arguments here are misplaced. Anet added something you do not have to use or even see. You got something more than you had before. You complain that it is not enough. It is different from changing something from good to worse. As I wrote before If they had not added any book there would be no issue. So far people are trying to avoid yes/no answer for this one.


I really like this post. QFT

Except that Zaishen keys mean £££££ so will unbalance the economy. Whereas the players who want retroactive books say they'll give up their money to get the XP/faction/rep.

So the two aren't comparable.

Well actually, the Z-keys do not create money, you can sell them to players for earned money, so that won't really unbalance the economy.

But I do agree that giving only the faction for the title would have been enough.

Hmm, maybe I didn't illustrate it clearly enough. The first statement of mine that was quoted was just an observation of the predicted course of the thread if the trolls were allowed to continue running amok unchecked. The second quote was another observation on troll behavior and an appeal for them to come to their senses, in so many words. True it could have been said more nicely, however, if you are implying that I am troll because I called out the non-contributing posters and their incitingly nasty rhetoric, then I would say that I disagree. To my recollection, I haven't attacked anyone who was trying to argue a position in a civil constructive manner, however, I do realize that these posts are subject to interpetation and ideas will be supplanted if the arguments aren't placed in a coherent manner.

As far as the Z-keys are concerned, that is indeed a fair point. However, I'd point out that the people seeking retroactive faction maintain that the retroactive money reward is unnecessary. I guess one could argue that allegiance faction could be turned in for jade/amber, which could then be traded in for money, but the impacts on the economy in this case would be negligible since firstly, the faction would be likely exchanged for the double reward by donating it to the alliance, and secondly, the jade/amber earned from a retroactive reward would have a significantly less monetary value than the Z-keys.

I've seen people insist that the Z-key rewards aren't real money, or a similar suggestion, yet the fact remains that the real world value of the keys approximate that of an ecto on a 1:1 ratio. Each mat brings in how many Z-keys each month? Thousands? Tens of thousands? If I'm not mistaken, the winners of the monthlies take home 4500 reward points, which is about 900 keys, which is approximately worth 900 ectos, give or take. Several thousand ectos dropping out of the sky each month for “free” somehow do not have a significant impact the economy, or rather the system in place which we refer to as the economy, and we're still arguing about the welfare of this economy in light of the repeated position that retroactive money rewards weren't desired.

Now I'm just going to guess here and assume that the argument for retroactive Z-keys was used to illustrate another perspective on receiving compensation for accomplishments previously obtained. I understand this position and see your point (I'd like to also point out that it's likely even the pve'ers would also have managed to accumulate a fair bit of balthazar faction over several years, albeit significantly less than the dedidicated pvp'er), and if it were possible for Anet to credit this previously earned faction without destroying the economy, I'd be fine with it. I'm fairly indifferent when it comes to matters with the market, but I understand that some positions have to be established in order for it to “function”, regardless of the presence of factors which contribute to its dysfunction. Unfortunately, in this scenario, the market has determined the value of the Z-keys which happen to be the reward for a balthazar faction exchange, and in order for Anet to credit people “fairly” it would require a lot of work. The position still stands, however, that Anet's implementation of retroactive faction could have been performed without a monetary reward, and all this talk of further disrupting the economy would have been eliminated.

I think my point still holds true. I was countering the position that because Anet gave us something, we should be appreciative of it and not question it because it's better than nothing. In principle, I would disagree with that sentiment, or at least be skeptical of it, because free doesn't always mean good. The good/bad aspect of a change is always going to be subjective, and while acknowledging some things might be mostly good, they might possibly could be even better or could stand for some improvement, which is much of what the people on this thread who are in favor of retro faction credit are advocating for. And you are probably right, that if the books weren't introduced there'd be a lot less dialog on retroactive compensation, yet the grind would remain an issue of contention, possibly even more so due to the absence of that alternative the books provide.

If you state it this way I entirely agree.


To turn around a bit discussion:

I have still one big concern about possible improvement suggested in this thread. What about prophecies only players? In case the solution of only xp and faction are given retroactively then prophecies players would be worse off than players of any other campaign. They are still worse off now but at least they get money...

Sometimes, too much of a 'good thing' can cause problems.
If ANet were to start making any and all awards retroactive at any point....believe me, many players will not see the challenge of the game anymore.
Sure, it would be like a windfall at first, but then the novelty would die...and players will go back to the whining.
Such a vicious cycle.

No, actually, giving the players who advocate for retro faction does not means improvement to this update, it just means we/you/everyone who has done the missions related to the change would get more factions, and giving players more factions does not equal an improvement to the update. It just that, giving more factions to players. It does not make the update anymore batter then it already is.

For those people working on reputation titles who were expecting a reduction in grinding, that would be an improvement.

Now i am didn't I read through out this thread, people who advocate for retro faction saying that Anet did not reduced the grinding but introduce more ways to grind?

I don't think there's much to argue here. Do you really think this update did anything against grinding?

"You can put lipstick on a pig, but that's still a pig". So, you can introduce new ways to grind a title, but that's still grinding. Honestly, I can't see how filling books by repeating once again missions done hundreds of times before o vanquishing an area over and over can be considered anything but grinding...

Sure, those new ways are probably more entertaining than planting flags or digging tunnels while in the mouth a giant worm, but grinding is still there.

Gill Halendt, I got Rank 8 Kurzicks in 2 days, which I have been unable to level up even with the last 2 double factions weekend because I have limited playtime, you tell me does that reduce grind... I was at early Rank 7.

see attachment.

It's meant to be a grind.

The only difference is that now actively playing the game is encouraged more than before.

You can get golden items from the Zaishen Chest that earn you money when you sell them to a merchant.

Hmm so in this case to remove the grind for this titles they should handle titles for free just like that with the update? Whatever they would introduce you can argue that this is just another grind. The point is the only thing which is not related to any grind is getting those titles for free..... I think "working" (perfect word for a video game) on the grind based titles and complaining that they are grind based is hmm quite unfair for me.

We got some faction for free and that already reduced the grind needed. Not much but still. Now vq can offer more faction per hour than hfff and it is not only for Kurzick but also for Luxons so the grind needed is reduced. So I dot not agree with the argument that update did not reduce the grind. Just by the pure fact of getting some faction for free it did. I can agree with the fact that the expectations on the grind reduction were much higher and they were not met but that seems not to be the argument here.

Now how far this grind reduction should go? If you give too much for free you help some players but at the same time harm the ones who had already the factions titles. Please remember they had to do all this terrible grind to get them. Now possibility getting it easier is already unfair for them. I am not sure if arguing where and how much grind should be reduced has any sense since it is Anet who has to evaluate the trade off between making happy those with 26-29 titles maxed and those with +30 like seems to be the case here.

Didn't you say the game is "currently in the phase of trying to artificially extend gameplay through grind"?

That's not what I'd call "actively playing" a game...

Not quite. You just got a one-off reward for a mission you've done before. Retroactively. Just because you couldn't technically get it now by just doing the mission again, since it's given only on the first completion and you already have completed it. So it's not "free" at all.

Grinding is not mutually exclusive with playing the game. Vanquishing, AB, etc are all playing the game.

I'd question whether easily botable things like hfff are on the same level of 'playing', or 'active'.

The issue that the vast majority of Guild Wars pve (and pvp to a large degree now) is pure grind is entirely irrelevant to the above point.

Vanquishing is. Doing missions is.

Having done them was.

Repeating them for the sole purpose of getting a reward is "active", but I wouldn't call that "playing". It's rather "grinding while doing something less idiotic than planting flags".

I play missions because I like it, not because I want a reward. This new system is encouraging repeated play to get rewards, which is exactly what GRINDING is.

Grind is not something new that arrived in this update though. There was grind before the update, and its still here - but if you're going to grind, this update reduces it and/or eases the pain for many titles.

So to remove incentive to grind they should remove the rewards at all or remove rewards for subsequent completion?

Nope. But I still don't see a single reason why they didn't make books retroactive. For a lot of players like me that could have helped reducing grinding sensibly while harming NO ONE, since all they've been doing in the last two or three years was playing the games with multiple characters. We've basically been said "Congrats. Now to reduce grinding, DO IT ALL AGAIN".

Why does the reduction apply only to new players? Why do older player need to GRIND MORE BOOKS instead of getting a retroactive one for the missions they've played?