Balthazar Faction & Shards & Platinium Bars ~ Grenth Faction & Ectos

Hm,

I am totally for alternative ways of getting Obsidian armours. Absolute High-End armour should also be accessible by dedicated ways of playing, not just ebay gold, power trading or 24/7 human farmbots.

I'd be up for the whole deal, minus messing with balthazars faction. PVP players are a different breed and most of them could care less about ecto/shards. Also you can earn balths faction from ANY pvp battle now, including alliance battles, zashin challenges, jade arena and so on... so those are right now not specifically tied to UW/FOW. So no on the messing with balths faction. Perhaps if you were to mention some kind of reward for uw/fow quest completion outside of the current system, it would benifit the cause a bit better.

I laugh at those that are on about "promoting farming" in UW/FOW as an arguement against this idea. Haha, thats all people do in either! It's all about ectos and shards!!! To be blunt, i'd love to see more people actually trying to complete the quest logs in both, over just smite runs or chest/armor runs. Some of the UW quests are super friggen tough and are for sure the most challanging areas in pve, very rare that someone clears out the entire FOW, let alone UW.

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes

_,.-+=’* ♥ Aurelio Furor [AUR] ♥ *’=+-.,_
Ariana Of Damia (Mo/Rt) ♥ Electra Of Damia (W/Mo) ♥ Lexa Of Damia (E/Mo)
Lily Of Damia (R/Mo) ♥ Mia Of Damia (Me/Mo) ♥ Zarina Of Damia (N/Mo)

Im a Pvp player and Im hella poor...I still use my first and second PvE characters for PvP and I would prefer to get my necro out of a speedo, and into some of the canthan armor...

Alliance battles dont give out a whole lot of faction and zaishen challenges gave limited faction, and even if they dont now, not many pvp'ers(mostly the people who hang out in RA actually do these=.=) do them.
But I actually dont know why you care that they're not specifically tied to them right now...If you had read the thread he said that it was for pvp players that would want to gain some profit from doing what they love, just like pve'ers that earn money for doing what they love.

All question answers for me = yes.

I like em all

/sign

1a. Able to use Balthazar's Faction to redeem Obsedian Shards
No, shards are easy to get already
fow armors have become common as well
1b. Balthazar's Faction & Balthazar's Platinium Bars
No, useless to pvp-only players
RA d be more and more full of jerks leeching for gold
2. Earn titles based on amount of Balthazar's & Grenth's Faction redeemed
Yes, a bit more variety in titles is fine
3. Addition of Grenth's Faction
NO NO NO !!!
dont wanna see ectos at 500g !!

Again, I thank you all for the feedback you have provided, much appreciated.

Well, we have no control over this, Sardelac is just a suggestions forum. We present our ideas, discuss it with other members of the community, gather support, discuss and weed out potential problems that could be generated from this new idea, concept, proposal, and we will have to wait and see if ANET decides to do anything about it.

Successful examples would be Titles, abolishment of Refund Points, Pets and Henchmen with infused armor etc.

=========================================

But what about those who PvP using their RPG (Pve) characters?
Them PvEvPers are different from those pure PvPers.
I can understand why pure PvPers who constantly re-roll their PvP-only characters would not bother with ecto/shards, but for those PvEvPers who enjoy both PvE and PvP aspects of the game could benefit from this.


What is wrong with obtaining Obsidian Shards, in the Fissure of Woe which is Balthazar's domain, using Balthazar's Factions?

Both Balthazar's Faction and Fissure of woe are tied to Balthazar, that is all that it matters. Where we earn those Balthazar's Faction are irrelevant.


What about a token system? Earn 1 (easy quests) to 5 (hard quests) tokens for completing quests in the Fissure of Woe or the Under World.

Bring tokens to a NPC in the Fissure of Woe or the Under World, redeem Obsidian Shards or Globs of Ectoplasm.

Say 10 tokens per Shard, 20 tokens per Ecto.

I think I will list this out as a new idea, and see how the people react to it. Might not need a Grenth's Faction if the token system is implemented instead. But the token system is similiar to the factions system, except that tokens can only be earned in the Fissure of Woe or Grenth's Faction, which could be a better choice instead?

Discuss.

Sad but true, there are many interesting quests in the Fissure of Woe and the Under World, but the majority of the people only venture down there to farm ectos and shards.

This thread will serve to change this fact, if possible.

I would like to see that happen too. Hence this thread is born and maintained.

Agreed. Hopefully this thread will gather enough support, and the ideas proposed are balanced out, and ANET would consider making some changes.

=========================================

Just how easy are Shards to get already? And fow armors have become common? Do you have any solid evidence to back up your claims?

It would not be useless to PvEvPers, PvP-only players can use the gold to buy new Guild Halls, so it would not be entirely useless to them.

As for the issue with leechers in Random Arenas, that issue could be resolved if a "Ban List" feature is implemented.

From: Various Suggested Ideas to improve Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry
0. The Ban List (by GrendelScout1)
Refer the example for an idea of how this would work:
1. John know Mary is a leecher, AFKer
2. John adds Mary to his Ban List
3. John clicks "Enter Mission" in any random arenas
4. John will never be placed in the same team with Mary

5. Other players who did not add Mary to their Ban List could be teamed up with Mary

6. Friends of John who know and trust his judgement also place Mary in thier respective Ban Lists.
7. John and his friends live happily ever after.

The problem is that Balthazar's Faction will be maxed out if one's account has unlocked all skills, runes, weapon upgrades, and will no longer be able to earn Balthazar's Faction.

That would never happen.
Prices of Ectos would never drop to 500g even if this idea is implemented.

I Agree with the idea. I'd like to be able to earn gold through different means, that way it's less of a "grind". AB and Aspenwood are starting to drive me insane -_-"

So getting grenth faction is just farming random quests in UW, over and over again ?

No thanks..


I like:

1b
2

do not like:
1a
3

How about balth points for fame?
you tell me what would be a fair exchange scale....
just a thought....
but i have everything unlocked and 8000 balth faction in the bank.. so once it gets to 10k it sits there useless.... hmmmm
so i do all this honorable fighting and get no recognition OR reward?! Well thats not very good is it? Not very.... motivational.....

with this you will see more people going afk during battles.

Let me point the ultimate downfall for this thread, as this was obviously made w/ personal motives in mind.

1. trading in the factions from pvp in UW or FOW = well, if this was a way for pvp people to get ecto and shard, doesn't it beat the whole purpose? if you're a pvp character, why would you use it for? much less get in to fow or UW. Which is exactly comes to point, this was made for pve people who do pvp(obviously the OP and few people here), while this was guised as pvp oriented benefit, pure pvp people get balls = no benefit from it since their prices are to be fetched where they can't go.

2. Platinum bars is just a bad Idea, the fact that it has a set price, not even gonna get into it.

Needless to say, this plan of benefits are seriously flawed, the titles seem niche, might work, but ultimately, there are enough pvp titles out there, having specific god based titles means that we'll have to have all titles for each god to fit each classes as to call it fair for people.

/signed on all points

I don't see how adding this would ruin the game economy? Ecto would become like shards, something you use to get FoW armour. and the bars would become the 100k+ trading item.

Scenario: Fight until you have 1000 Balthazar faction

Now: Go to Priest of Balthazar and unlock 1 skill with the money.

Future: -Go to NPC that gives you a platinum bar.
- Sell Platinum bar to NPC that gives you 1k
- Buy (& Unlock as well) skill for your PvE character at a Skilltrader for 50g-1000g.

yes to it all!
i like the way that pvp would become a more productive method of farming (for the bars) and would therefore increase player interactivity, and therefore community spirit.
Tom

I'm kind of disappointed in this thread. Guild Wars is already downspiralling away from the PVP goal that it used to have and now towards cheap linear pve land pve and thier greediness for money is bringing in new expansions faster and faster... I'll have to say NO WAY to all of this. Maybe if anything, they should add a domain for the other gods like Lyssa, Melandru, and Dwayna.

Thanks for pointing this out.
Well, I believe that this system of handing out platinium bars which is exchangable to gold is not really that feasable then.

Plus, there is the unresolvable issue of leechers, AFKers.

========================================

What if we are be to acquire skill points using Balthazar's Factions?
What would everyone think of that?

For those who already unlocked everything with Balthazar's Faction, they will be able to continue to spend Balthazar's Faction, hence making the title based on the amount of Balthazar's Faction acquired possible to implement.

1,000 for 1 skill point? Too cheap?
5,000?
10,000?

Discuss.

1a, 1b, 2, - yes
3 - no

However, the amount of gold given for balthazar faction would have to be adjusted. Faction is way too easy to earn. And enable the conversion only after you're fully unlocked.

im not too sure about the trading faction for ectos or shards... but the titles and bars sound cool...

/signed

The more ways for me to aquire gold the better!

Hell, don't beat around the bush, just flat out give me gold for completing fow/uw quests or winning in PvP.


I see a few people every day that have a full set of Fissure Armor and I often wonder if they got it from ebay gold, or from honest hard work.

I only have 1 piece of fissure armor that I just aquired (fow pants for my monk), and it cost me approx 400k. That took countless hours of solo farming and trading, and all I can say is that it would have been a lot more fun if I had additional ways to make money in the game.

Its obvious with the release of Factions and Alliance Battles that Anet wants the main focus to be PvP competition, and not farming and endless trading. Giving us redemable faction to aquire jade and amber was Anets attempt to suck the solo farmers in to pvp i suppose.

It can provide me with an alternative to making money, but its pretty slow going compared to solo farming and power trading. If your lucky and have a winning streak I guess you could earn 10k in an hour of Alliance Battles, but it just doesn't compete with the 30-40k you can make solo farming or the possible 100k++ trades you can make in the same amount of time. Maybe you could do Alliance Battles for 100 hours and reach 1000k, but who the hell would have the patience to do that.

(/dusts off Touch Ranger, Alliance Battles here I come!)

/signed to all

This would make PvP a lot more worth it for people that moslty or only play Pve. This would also take away some farming and make trying to get something that is extremely expensive a lot more fun to try to get. As far as ectos becoming less than 1k, i hughly doubt that would happen. Aren't obsidian shards only used for the armor? As far as I know, yes, and they are still 3k at least. I personally don't see the point of balthazar faction unless you have a PvP character, which I don't, and since I like to play in Fort Aspenwood to get faction so I can get materails for my armor for free, I have plenty of balthazar factionction that will accually do anything for me. The only problem I have, is make each gold worth like 2 faction or something, not one. Everything else seems like it would make the game better and give more options to a lot of players.

And Aren't there 3 GW teams? Two that make the next chapters and one that makes the events?(I read that there was in a post somewhere here in the Guru forums) If so they could just have the events team make this and it starts as an event somehow but ends up permanent. Or they could just make it easier on themselves and add it in with an update, and announce it, but just don't have an event for it even though it would probably be make by the event team if it is made at all...

I like the ideas. Especially since I unlock skills and upgrades through pve anyhow...mmm diamond bars... Good ideas OP ^^

I also like the ideas, but the one about the ectos it might make the ppl who already bought FoW angry me thinks.

Yes on....everything

No,no,no,no,no,no,no,no and another NO, PvP = PvP and PvE = Pve should stay that way as for new titles, im fed up of titles there compelte crap. This game is turning into a title game :|

Alternative Idea:

- Freeing a Reaper in UW gives 1 Glob of Ectoplasm.

- Completing all the quests given by an eternal in FoW gives 1 Obsidian Shard.