Maybe we can't fix favor...but can we make it less broken?

Ok, ok...I gave this thread a presuming title. Probably most of you reading this thread saw my rabid raving in the Favor taking the fun out of GW thread. I know most of you either 100% support or 100% despise the favor system (me being the latter) so we'll leave the bulk of the complaining there. I did a search for the suggestion I'm about to make, and while I found several threads related to the favor issue, I didn't find one suggesting what I'm thinking. So without further ado...

Right now the way favor works, you have to get 5 consecutive wins to gain it. Starting from scratch, that's a wait time of about 3 hours or more. If Europe holds favor and America wins HA 4 times and Europe wins after that, then America has to win ANOTHER 5 times. Doesn't anyone see a problem with that? (Yes...I know some of you don't).

The way I see it - the gods are fickle. They'll support whoever is whooping the most ass. If America has 4 (or 3 or 2) straight wins, shouldn't that count for something? Shouldn't that turn some heads up there in wherever the gods live? The way the current system works, if Europe holds favor, all they have to do to keep it is win once every 5 matches (in the most severe scenario). America could win 20 times and Europe 5 times and Europe will still hold the favor. You can probably see by now where I'm going with this...

The favor should be more like a tug of war (albeit a 5 way tug of war, but stay with me). If America has 4 wins and needs one more, and then Europe wins, America should then need 2 more wins instead of starting all over again. Basically the meat and potatoes of my suggestion is that whenever one region wins in HA, instead of resetting everyone's progress it should only subtract 1 win from the progress of the other regions.

It's probably asking too much for everyone to just agree with me...but leave your comments anyways. I'm trying to find some kind of middle ground here (if I can't have my way outright).

-Jessyi

i agree with you. but i really dont have a problem with how it works now. so i guess i am in the middle. but either way is good for me. but i do like what you are suggesting.

This sounds like how the factions lines in factions will work. It is lame that it takes so long to get. Why bother fighting for favor if you won't have it for another 3-4 hours? You'll have to leave by then anyway.

Let me get this one in before the "nay sayers" start lobbing fire balls.

I agree that this sounds like a much better way to do it.

I applaud the creativity and initiative that the op shows, however, I still can't sign off on something that does not fix the inherent problem with the favor system. For a game that is supposed to promote team play I find it nearly impossible to organize a guild trip to the underworld/fow when our guild members are scattered throughout several time zones and only have a few times available on weekends when we can get 8 players together and even then only have a few hours to play as a group. Until PVP play no longer affects where we can PVE then the system will remain broken.

Europe holding, E-0 A-3, Europe wins. America goes again fighting, I see no flaw.

Jessyi, I wanna know your partake, are you a Fower/Uwer/Farmer, or are you a HOHer?

/signed

This idea has some merit if they are not going to find a way for PvE players to earn their own rewards for access to the UW/FoW. It would allow the transition of favor to swing more often.

I agree with Quozz. The op's idea is excellent, but it still doesn't address the actual problem.

This wouldn't fix the problem, only make it a little more bearable.

That said, even if they did fix the problem, this would still probably be a better way to dole out the reward. One of the many reasons some people hate HoH is the enormous and frustrating timesink it can become because of the "all or nothing" approach.

/signed

Tug-of-war VS 5 in a Row is MUCH MUCH better!!

It would certainly create faster turnovers and remove the instant shutdowns.

"4 wins...1 more and we get favor"
"Europe has won and keeps the favor"
"Son of a......"

I would propose merging this idea with this one:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3013938

Make an area that is difficult to get to (good suggestion is between Beacons and Droks) that ALWAYS grants access, but is more expensive. But also provide a place where favor determines cheap access.

I like the tug of war idea, or maybe even modify it so that every time you zone wins it for the 5th time, you gain favor. That would allow the smaller/newer zones to get access more fairly. What I mean by this is over the course of the day (or week or whatever), America wins HoH 4 times. Not consecutive times, 4 times total. When they get the 5th win, they will have favor until another zones wins it for their 5th time. After the 5th win, the counter drops to zero. If this feels to frequent, maybe the wins count increases to 10.

Seems like the combinoation of these two ideas creates a PvE environment that does not rely on PvP for acces to the best places, it is simply rewarded for cheaper/easier access to them.

/signed

.. despite the fact that 1/ I'm european , 2/ I have no problem the flavour system as I said in the topic the 1st post refers to. This idea should be implanted since the beginning, it's just common sense and justice. However I diagree with xarchitect but that's another debate :P

First off, I think the OP's suggestion has some merit. It still wouldn't change the domination of europe though, as alot of people switched servers of late. Also, there's nothing in there that will help Korea or Taiwan. The five total throughout the day idea sounds viable, but again it's going to be pretty unreliable.

I think the main problem is that most of the pvp crowd really do not give a damn about the uw or favour, we're just playing to win the halls. Also, you have to remember that these days most of the pugs that are going to take the halls are formed in the IDs. This means that the group's 'nationality' is going to be a roll of the dice.

The solution that will please most people is still probably unlinking pvp and pve, but that's really not what anet wants to do. My suggestion would be something along the lines of a hybrid system. Have underworld access determined by another arena, similar to the RAs, that pvp characters can't access. It doesn't necessarily have to be random, but pvp characters definitely shouldn't have access. This would allow pve players who have never heard of words like 'metagame' a chance to have some fun pvp experience and give them a chance to take favour for their region. This would also have the side benefit of keeping the one serious pvp area besides gvg 'pure' if you will.

I support Jessyi's first suggestion to remove the damn thing altogether.

Barring that, his more recent suggestion in this thread, combined with the idea that xarchitect brought up from another thread sounds like a decent improvement.

I like the OP idea as long as the "tug of war" has a cap. Example. If Europe wins 15 in a row then America or any other shouldnt need to win 15 to get it back. Cap it at 5 so you never have to win more than 5 in a row to get favor.

Separate idea, changing it to 3 times in a row instead of 5 would help some too.

You need 5 consecutive wins so that no team only has favor for 12 minutes.
Since it usually takes more than 12 minutes to make a GOOD group for UW/FoW

Well, the important thing is that lyra_song agrees with me.

In answer to fiery's question, I am a FoWer and a UWer, though I have done solo and 2-man in these areas. I have certainly farmed in these areas vastly less often than going with proper full, or near full teams. I don't want to turn this into a farming thread so I'll just say this: on the occasion that I have done solo FoW or 2-man UW, the reward has matched the challenge. I like the me vs. the world challenge of it. There is no margin for error. I would like to be a HOHer, but it's something of a distant dream. I simply don't have the people for it, and I won't abandon the friends in my guild.

That said, I agree with Quozz, Ctb, and Undivine. If *only* it could be that way. It'll always be the dream.

Also, yes, the tug of war cap would remain at five. If it was implimented that a region would need 15 wins to gain favor, that would be a nightmare. Whoa...scary thoughts. Thanks for the point there though - I should have mentioned that more explicitly in my original post.

Well, I only have two things to say to that. First, when I'm standing in ToA while America has 1 or 2 wins left to claim favor, teams are already forming in anticipation. Sure it takes more than 12 minutes to put a team together, but we have LOTS of notice that favor is on it's way, so we also have more than 12 minutes. You don't have to start your team after your region gains favor. That leads me to point number two: While it takes more than 12 minutes to make a team, it certainly takes less than 12 hours, which is right now about the average daily waiting time for America, and a hell of a lot higher for Korea and Japan/Taiwan (who I'm pretty sure still haven't seen the inside of FoW/UW).

-Jessyi

*throws fireball*

Err... actually, I like the idea. It's certainly an improvement.

Will people on american servers PLEASE stop complaining about this? I play on AS and I love going to FoW/UW, but europe owns america all the time. Think of it this way:
You play european server, and all the americans rant about favour. Would you not get mad that they want it to change cuz their jealous?
How would you feel?

Europe owns america, ANet should NOT change the way of favour cuz america is jealous.

Jesus did the Europeans on here whine as much as you Americans when we rarely had the favour?

The moment you don't get the favour you start ranting about how it should be changed so you can get hold of it. If you care that damn much go get a good guild, go do PvP and hold the frigging halls yourself!

It's official: the shelf life on this thread before it degraded has expired.

Bloody Death (and everyone else who has ever posted anything simlilar), do you know how...uh...illogical this arguement is? The one (I'm paraphrasing) where "those who are adversely affected by something have no right to complain BECAUSE they are the ones being affected"?

I know a lot of you complainers out there...those who won't even approach a middle ground with me here like to pitch this lame, lame story repeatedly. It doesn't occur to you that those affected have the MOST right to want change! Basically you're suggesting that when Europe suffered at America's hands, they had no right to complain, and now that the shoe is on the other foot, WE have no right to complain. As if, somehow, only those who have nothing to gain should be allowed an opinion.

Ok, well then. I guess all those movements out there...you know...women's rights, racial equality, and nearly any other social revolution you can name were all totally unfounded. You know, since THEY were the ones being affected I guess THEY had no right to complain. I guess nobody who ever suffered under an unjust system had a right to bitch about it. Of course, we could always adopt your solution and oppress everybody. Lordy what a rediculous arguement. I really, really hope I never have to hear it ever again.

I will repeat this again in absolute clarity:

The reason favor should be changed is NOT because America is complaining. It's because from DAY 1 SOMEONE HAS ALWAYS BEEN COMPLAINING. This doesn't have anything to do with jealousy! Jealousy and frustration make people talk, complain, cry out, yes! But that's NORMAL. That's TO BE EXPECTED. The squeaky wheel gets the grease dammit!

So how do I feel when people complain about the favor system? I FEEL THIER PAIN!

Please, please, please nobody EVER post this arguement again. It's SO terrible.

-Jessyi

I'm fine with the way it is.

If Europe can hold the halls and win every couple of matches vs hordes of Americans wanting to go farm, then all the more power to Europe.

Just don't plan your day around visiting a place like the underworld, it's like planning your life around winning the lottery by age 20. o.O

Nobody should complain about favour. Its basically a competition to see who's better. One day america WILL own europe and they will rant. Thats how it is. All I'm trying to say is that favour is fine the way it is. You have a problem with the favour system? my #1 advice. GO TO HA AND HOLD THE HALL YOURSELF.

What the hell do you expect? If you remove the favour affecting anything you'll keep PvE bot farmers happy and piss off PvPers who actually play for the victory.

Your right, someone will always be unhappy. Perhaps they need to learn, thats LIFE!

No way to explain that better

I'm sick of having this happen:



i support the idea.

Everybody hates that, both europeans AND americans.

People, if you started on european server you cannot say you wouldnt get mad at the americans ranting all the time. If you played GW around the time america owned europe you were probably mad at the europeans complaining, too. Everyones gonna complain no matter what.

Change favour system:European rants
Dont change favour system: american rants

The following response will be capatalized intentionally:

THAT IS, WITHOUT QUESTION, WITHOUT DOUBT, THE MOST *!*!*ASININE*!*!* THING EVER SAID IN THIS AND ALL OTHER HIGHER/LOWER DIMENSIONS!

How...many...times...must...this...be...said?

You might as well ask me to go to the moon and hold HA.
You might as well ask me to cure cancer.
You might as well ask me to solve the Reimann Hypothesis, or create a unified theory.

WHY...DON'T...YOU...UNDERSTAND...THIS!? I DON'T HAVE THE GUILD TO DO IT, AND I WON'T LEAVE THE GUILD I'M IN. PLEASE ENTER THIS INFORMATION SOMEWHERE INTO YOUR BRAIN FOR EASY ACCESS.

STOP...SPOUTING...USELESS...GARBAGE.

Yes. That is life. Indeed it is.

Life, is also NOT Guild Wars. Life is what happens OUTSIDE of Guild Wars. INSIDE Guild Wars, we have an ALTERNATIVE life. Ya dig?


edit:
I just...I can't...I mean, I don't know how...
*sigh*
I'm like...I don't have a way to explain this on a simpler level.
This isn't about who is bitching. Don't you understand that this was NEVER about who's bitching? You all have this idea that we're all whiners. That everyone who ever felt annoyed, or ignored by the favor system was 100%, absolutely, categorically wrong. And not only are they wrong, they're also whiney little bitches.
I don't give a @#%$ about who wins or loses from the system. It's not the WHO. It's the LOSING. WHY CAN'T I EXPLAIN THIS TO YOU?
All you ornery jerks that think the favor system should remain the same, just to spite the people who are dissapointed in it - you are the worst of all. That kind of mean-spirited and petty attitude makes me sick.


-Jessyi

Who ever said you need a guild to go to HA?


Ya, and from what Ive been seeing the life in GW is pretty damn selfish.

Approxemately 90% of all winning teams. The other 10% who win don't hold halls, making them an easy target for Europe (or whoever). Of course, I could be that 0.000001% of winners who make a PuG, and then spend 4 hours preparing for HA, so I can play for another 5 to hold the halls. Then after 9 hours, I'll be up and ready to go to UW! WOW! THAT'S NOT HAPPENING!


If selfishness = bitterness, then I concur. If I made some hollow claim that I champion this cause for all American players except myself, would that make my stance have more merit? Please think for a little bit about why I started this thread.

-Jessyi

/not signed for the above reasoning.
If favor was set up in that manner, favor could change on a dime between each of the 5 regions once every 12 minutes for the first couple of weeks(since the HoH map is a timed alter map always ending at a certain set time). That would be far more caotic then the current system.


Then there is the long term implications of the system. With no way to "reset" the number of wins needed to gain favor, one would have to determine a starting place (Europe has had 12 wins since 12 PST and America has had 10 for example). If the favor reset occured once every 24 hours, then there would be the problem of people getting favor instantly with one win at the reset point. If that occured, people would complain that the time of the reset would be biased towards a particular time zone and therefore region (if the reset occured during peak US hours, then America would gain favor and a huge lead while Europe slept, causing Americans to always have a chance to go to FoW/UW and forcing Europe to PvP more then America had to in order gain the right back later that day.).

Without a reset point and just keeping the system constant, the wins would accumlulate to an extreme point (Europe has won 13201 times since January of last year, America has won 10200 times, to win favor, America must win 3001 times...). They have to include a "reset" point to prevent a gap like this from developing and keeping a region from having favor forever.

The OP's idea may sound good at first, but you have not thought about the long term implications. The only sound and logical system is the one currently in place. As such, /not signed.

Um...no. The tug of war is capped at 5. It was mentioned earlier. It won't go to 10000 wins. This was addressed. We all agreed THAT system would be terrible.

I think the current Favor system should remain with just one small change.

Scenario: Europe has favor. America needs 1 more win to gain favor. All of a sudden Taiwan wins their only match of the week. America is reset to 5.

I think the only region that should be allowed to reset someone elses win count is the region that currently holds favor. In the above example, Europe should have to defend their own favor, not get lucky and have Taiwan defend it for them. Therefore, if Europe wins, America rightfully resets back to 5. If Taiwan wins, America still only needs 1 more.

I have another idea..how about a race of who reach the 5th win fastest?

For example, at the beginning, all servers are set at 0 win.

1.) The first server to reach the 5th win gets favor

2.) All victory counts reset, and the race restarted.

3.) The next server to reach 5th win will take/keep the favor.

EDIT:

Regarding the idea in OP, this tug of war seem to be based on "only" two opposing servers, how will this mechanism fit the other servers (e.g. taiwan, japan, korea) at the same time?

doesn't that mean who ever wins more than the total of all other 4, will forever hold the favor?

I agree the Gods should be more fickle. 2 wins instead of 5. And every now and then if a particular region hasn't had favor in 48 hours... the gods grant 'em favor during their prime time.

5 wins is suffcient. It takes about an hour to get favor this way during your primetime, providing you have decent PvP players playing at HA for your side. If favor changed even more often, people doing a mission/quest ect would be tempted to abandon what they are doing just to goto FoW/UW.

If a region hadn't had favor in 48 hours they'd get it during "primetime"? That wouldn't work for say Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, since they're all relatively on the same time schedule. Also, determining "primetime" would be diffucult, as it probably flucuates from day to day. Not to mention giving people favor for not winning would be totaly against ANETS view that FoW/UW are purely reward areas for succesful play at HA.

/signed

I think the "tug of war" idea has great merit. And for anybody who says "Go to HA and win halls yourself"...right and good for them, but not everybody that plays GW plays for PvP...may are pure PVE... Maybe some people can't grasp the idea of the concept placed before them, but really it's nearly the same as the current situation, only difference being that when X region needs only 1 more win, and the X region currently holding favor gets 1 win...the former region working towards favor then needs 2 wins rather than restarting at 5, and if the current holder gets another win, the other region has to get 3 to reset the other region to needing the full count once more, but couldn't go any higher than that point. This *isn't* something that would just benefit America.

/signed

I Agree with Jessyi's idea.

This tug of war will work between two opposing regions. But there are more than 2 regions participating in HA..how will this concept fit several regions at the same time? I have yet to grasp the full idea .

Thanks for the support from those of you who are a little more sensible, and a little less rabidly critical. I was starting to rip my hair out over this one.

As for the 5-way tug of war, I didn't post the idea until it made sense in my head. Basically the premise is that when one region wins, it subtracts one win from the 4 other regions. The cap for wins of course remains at 5, not 10,000 (discussed above) so the theory of the idea would look like this:

First, let's look at the current system, using this as our theoretical starting point:

America - 5 wins (holding favor)
Europe - 4 wins
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

Under the current system, if America wins then it resets Europe to zero. ie:

America - 5 wins (holding favor)
Europe - 0 wins
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

Under the current system, if another region besides the defending one wins (lets say Korea), then it looks like this (keep in mind that under the current system, the number of wins that the defending country has essentially stays at 5 until it is reset to 0 by the next country to win favor):

America - 5 wins (holding favor)
Europe - 0 wins
Korea - 1 win
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

So if Korea wins when Europe is at 4 wins, Europe loses all it's progress and America remains untouched. Under the system I've proposed (we'll go back to my original model here) if America wins, then the progress looks like this:

America - 5 wins (holding favor)
Europe - 3 wins
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

Note that the natural cap of 5 wins is kept by not allowing America to go to 6 wins. It is preserved by subtracting from the other regions instead. Alrighty, if you've made it this far, I'll illustrate a step-by-step of how my system would theoretically run. Here's our starting point:

America - 5 wins (holding favor)
Europe - 4 wins
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

America wins once:

America - 5 wins (holding favor)
Europe - 3 wins
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

Taiwan wins once:

America - 4 wins (holding favor)
Europe - 2 wins
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 1 wins
Japan - 0 wins

Europe wins three more times to take favor:

America - 1 win
Europe - 5 wins (holding favor)
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

Alright, so under my proposed system a country holds favor until the appropriate 5 wins is earned by another territory. Theoretically other territories could keep winning reducing the holding country to zero wins, but that holding territory would continue to hold favor because there is no suitable region to replace them. Bear in mind that that is exactly how the system runs now before you get all critical. Let's continue the experiment and see what happens:

America wins twice:

America - 3 wins
Europe - 3 wins (holding favor)
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

Korea wins twice:

America - 1 win
Europe - 1 win (holding favor)
Korea - 2 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

Japan wins once (hey, it could happen):

America - 0 wins
Europe - 0 wins (holding favor)
Korea - 1 win
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 1 win

America wins four times:

America - 4 wins
Europe - 0 wins (holding favor)
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

So, as you can see, right now Europe still holds despite having no "favor points" because there's no suitable replacement territory. All America has to do is win one more time to get the necessary FIVE wins (no more, no less, as is the custom) to take favor again. Like so:

America - 5 wins (holding favor)
Europe - 0 wins
Korea - 0 wins
Taiwan - 0 wins
Japan - 0 wins

And that's how the system would work. Yep. I think I did a fine job of explaining it. Feel free to let me know if I F'ed something up.

-Jessyi