Faction Diluted?

chessduffer

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2005

Brotherhood of Bandits

R/

With the new PVP vs. Computer in Zaishen Challenge, is Faction going to become diluted to who ever put's in the time will rack up the points. I am not all that good at PVP and with my ranger can take 3 henches usually (Mage, Warrior, and Healer) and just select the Mesmer Opponent. I then take 2 traps and favorable winds. While the counter is ticking down I lay down 2 traps, make my spirit , then lay down 2 more traps at the entrance. then just wait for them to come, they hit the traps, and then it's just a matter of seconds before they all go down. In like 10 minutes I make around 2k faction, which is far greater then i did out in the random arena or team arena.
I am not complaining, getting faction is great (so I can unlock those elites and stuff for my guild pvp characters) but i am wooried that faction will become this rinse and repeat tactic like any other farming.
I guess I'm wooried that there will be more and more people choosing to just go out there and play this method to rack up faction, rather then the old method of joining up with a group of people and having fun.
I admit that I am following down this dark path, and therefore probably being hypocritical.

CKaz

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Feb 2005

Well 2 major points here-

Zaishen Challenge is gone
You stop earning faction

Once you've milked the zaishen stuff on the battle isle for a little bit you stop getting faction of any kind - I believe the only exception being if you go farther than you have previously in the zaishen elite arena, and only for those fights that exceed where you had gotten previously.

And who knows if it'll re-appear and in the same way.
Quite frankly I think people got more faction throwing snowballs

chessduffer

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2005

Brotherhood of Bandits

R/

Not sure what you are talking about, but if what you say is true then someone needs to tell A-Net, because I just went on right now and had 1672 faction, after one match of flawless vicotry in like 30 seconds i now have 1802 faction. So I don't think you are correct in your statement.

Dzan

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

The Black Dye Cartel

YOu stop gaining faction in Zaishen Challenge after 12 matches.

chessduffer

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2005

Brotherhood of Bandits

R/

Okay, then there is something wrong here. Because I am definitely past my 12th challenge. I have done like around 50 times, if not more. So something is a miss here.

dorn

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2005

Each seperate pvp "mission" has an associated amount of capped faction. 1000 for the first one 2000 for the next one and etc. So in essence it's nothing more than a few skill points worth of faction. If you keep doing it soon you'll see that you don't get anymore unless you move on to the next mission.

Ensign

Ensign

Just Plain Fluffy

Join Date: Dec 2004

Berkeley, CA

Idiot Savants

You can gain up to 1000 faction per day from repeating Zaishen Training, Zaishen Challenge, or Zaishen Elite NPCs, as I understand it.

I don't think people getting their Zaishen faction every day is a problem. Personally, I only touched the Zaishens when I didn't have enough guildmates or friends around to do Team Arena with. But honestly that faction was largely irrelevant for me. The people who really stand to benefit from the Zaishen faction farm are new players who don't have a whole lot unlocked. It's a slow process at 1000 per day, but I'd guess that's a lot better than languishing in Comp Arenas with a premade or similarly limited character.

The PvP in this game is hard enough to get started in - the lack of options for a new player was the most common complaint I heard all weekend from people testing out the game. Anything to make that a bit easier on them would be a clear step in the right direction.

Peace,
-CxE

chessduffer

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2005

Brotherhood of Bandits

R/

well I've gathered over 5k faction from just playing the mesmers. I will keep playing and see if it stops.

yangster

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Oct 2005

Asian Syndicate

Me/E

It depends I guess, first time I was capped around 1k, next day around 3k, and yesterday I started to get 2k, thought I was capped but then I got more after 20 mins later.

chessduffer

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2005

Brotherhood of Bandits

R/

I guess your right about new players needing easy faction to get started. I just hope A-Net doesn't ban my account for exploiting anything, like they did with people who exploited the 50k xp by fighting the doppelganger over and over again.

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by chessduffer
I guess your right about new players needing easy faction to get started. I just hope A-Net doesn't ban my account for exploiting anything, like they did with people who exploited the 50k xp by fighting the doppelganger over and over again.
in your case you are usng something they put into the game and using it as they provided it not doing something like the xp exploit.

i would not worry.

twicky_kid

twicky_kid

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2005

Quite Vulgar [FUN]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzan
YOu stop gaining faction in Zaishen Challenge after 12 matches.
Yes after a while you stop gaining faction with that character. What's stopping you from deleting that character and making another one? It does work I use it all the time.

This is another way of anet battling grind. I'd rather spend a few hours killing some very easy AI to get faction for 2 minutes tops per battle then spend it killing real people and have to chase the occasional runner for 10 minutes.

Orbberius

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2005

Hey, easy faction is fine by me

EternalTempest

EternalTempest

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2005

United States

Dark Side Ofthe Moon [DSM]

E/

Someone did report this in Gaile's official bug report "we will look at this" tread forum post not that long ok so they should be aware of it.

I do agree with Ensign and other's about keeping this in.

chessduffer

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2005

Brotherhood of Bandits

R/

Okay, I decided to create a PVP character and test this out from beginning, and it does seem to stop at a given point. Not sure how many matches it was, but 12 does seem about right. But my PVE Ranger can play over and over and over and over again without any CAP. Is this normal, or is something wrong?

NatalieD

NatalieD

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Aug 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by chessduffer
is Faction going to become diluted to who ever put's in the time will rack up the points.
How is that different from what faction has always been?

chessduffer

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2005

Brotherhood of Bandits

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by NatalieD
How is that different from what faction has always been?
Well for my example, i put in lot's of time in PVP arena (random, because team arena was too long to get part of a team that wanted me) and maybe at most got 2k faction since it started. In a span over the weekend with actuall very little time put in i have gathered probably 10k faction maybe more. Don't get me wrong I am not complaining, my original fear was that it would hurt the game, but as another poster already made me realize this may be good for new players who want to get a jumpstart in PVP.
My other fear was that I may be exploiting a bug, since others here posted that there was a CAP, and although i experienced that CAP with a PVP character, my PVE doesn't seem to have an issue.
I think this is a diffrent kind of exploit, since i could quickly gather faction with absolutely no skill what so ever. Maybe they need to crank up the AI on the PVP Mesmer Build, they continually fall for the same tactic (where i lay down like 4 traps and wait for them to come on in for the slaughter). I am gathering faction for Elites so i can bring a ranger into Hero (what used to be Tombs) so i can actually be part of a group. I feel i am a good PVP Team Mate but because of the limits of my PVE Ranger, I don't have the elites that they want me to have, I only have Poison Arrow, Practice Stance, Barrage, and Escape (I have these because they are easy to get with Henchies). The ones they want me to have like Oath and some others require me to go out with a Human Team and I always feel guilty of bringing Signet since it takes up a slot that could be better used to help team.
So now I am able to unlock those elites, make a pvp Ranger and join in those Heros groups. Which is a good thing I guess, i was just wooried that i was exploiting something and did not want my account banned because of it.

Sagius Truthbarron

Sagius Truthbarron

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jun 2005

Animal Factory [ZoO]

A/

This exploite, the so called 'faction' must be stopped! It is causing players to unlock skills and items THROUGH PvP! This is an outrage! You can get almost 1/10th of the way to unlocking one normal skill in just one battle! In just 40 minutes you could have enough for one skill!!

My point is, even if there weren't a faction block after a certain point, you would still need to do ALOT of farming.

I see what you mean, though, about encouraging farming. Then, I guess you'de have to be really crazy about farming to spend that much time at it

Grimm

Grimm

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Nov 2005

N/

From my experience, you can get 1000 faction from fighting NPCs. I did the first training mission 3.5 times and stopped gaining faction after 1k. I then tried the Zaishen challenge for the first time and got no faction at all.

And I think this is a good thing, as it's a slow but steady way to gain faction, especially for those who are fairly new to PvP.

And I think the idea that people will just farm faction instead of doing actual PvP. The point of getting faction is to unlock things to have more options in PvP. Plus, you can only save up 10k faction before you stop getting more.

Then again, in PvE, money and items are a means to an end, yet people seem to think the whole game is about making money and getting items.