Various suggestions to improve Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry

/signed

increase award, and make it influence faction boundary.

Thank you for all the replies.
Your feedbacks are invaluable and is much appreciated.

SpeedyKQ, Loquetus brought up a good point regarding the "individual faction rewards" which will be quite unfair to support characters.

Hence, I believe that idea will need to be revised.

Let's look at what I wrote previously:
Indiviual Faction rewards:
- 5 Kurick / Luxon faction for each Luxon / Kurzick NPC killed
- 10 Kurick / Luxon faction for each Luxon / Kurzick PC killed
- 15 Kurick / Luxon faction for each Luxon Turtle / Kurzick Juggernaught killed
- 20 Kurick / Luxon faction for each Luxon / Kurzick strategic point you helped to capture

Instead of being "individual rewards", make these accumulative towards the total team factions rewards?

For example:
1. Fort Aspenwood
2. Kurzick vs Luxons
3. Luxon failed to kill architect in time, Kurzick won
4. Standard 600 Kurzick faction awarded, plus bonuses
5. Kurzick team killed 100 NPCs, +500 Kurzick Faction
6. Kurzick team killed 50 PCs, +500 Kurzick Faction
7. etc...
8. Total Kurzick faction awarded: 1600+
9. Total Luxon faction awarded: ....

Well, get the picture?
The numbers can be adjusted to be deemed "balanced".

Now, instead of those "rewards" being "individual", why not let them add up to the total faction awarded to everyone when the round has ended?

Discuss.

Feedback, in any form, be it positive or negative, is much appreciated.
Thank you for your time.
Cheers.

P/S: There are 4 polls in this topic, please indicate which poll you are voting for Yes or No.

I think I need to revise the "individual faction rewards" poll and replace it to become "individual actions add up to total team faction rewards awarded at end of battle".

My votes: A big fat yes to increasing the faction rewards. I'd say a win should gain you 2000 faction. People farm easy faction with Amatz Basin. Also, there's the repeatable quest outside of Brauer Academy which trapping teams have been farming recently. During the preview, people didn't think of this build yet, and Amatz wasn't even available. These missions should be somewhat comparable and have added faction to compensate for the fact that you actually need to win something to get the rewards.

I'm on the fence with allowing PvP characters. The equipment arguement doesn't concern me, as weapons generally don't make that much of a difference. Nor does the arguement that PvPers would overpower the PvEers. I know PvPers are always thinking about PvP and use words like "metagame" that us PvEers don't even care about, but really, during the preview it became apparent that the enemies you have to worry about are the NPCs, not the PCs on these missions. But the idea of these missions is to get PvEers interested in PvP by bridging the gap somehow. Allowing PvPers here may just take away that effect. Also, PvPers couldn't care less which faction owns which town. But all-in-all, I guess I don't really see the harm in it. I think my vote is yes.

Individual factions rewards is a no-no. It would encourage people to fill only those roles that gain rewards and not those that the team needs. Although since you are suggesting the rewards are very low, its no biggie... but then, why go to the trouble of putting them in if they're not going to amount to a lot? Vote: no.

If you're going to allow PvP characters to use them, then sure, make them unlockable to your account for your PvP characters. Vote: yes.

/signed for:

1 increase faction rewards (particularly for jade quarry) - but if they implement 3, then not as much

3 implement individual faction rewards

2 Access for PvP chars? Maybe - put a yes for me, but I don't think they should get L/K faction for it, just balthazar (or else someone could unlock the stuff needed for a great build using faction, with perfect mods, and use it to get lots of cash)

/sign for the team based accumalative rewards aswell

cause atm it's hard enough to find a monk in aspenwood (i'm normally the only monk @ the kurzick side)
(besides that one time where this awesomely useless smiting monk joined us)

But A.net insists that these areas (gasp) aren't PvP areas in their bid to try to force PvEers into PvP. Allowing PvP-only characters in would nullify that argument.

*sigh*

Since this is alive again and with new ideas (cool):

/signed for more and higher rewards
/signed for being able to choose party members
/not signed for PvP only characters for access

Some issues I have come across:

The low population on these areas: Why so few people in these missions? I asked in a few zones if people had played these missions (Jade and Aspenwood) and the answers I got were pretty blanket. I ask others to ask around as well and see if you get similar answers:

Jade is unbalanced towards the Kurzick side.
Rewards are too low and not worth the time.
Not interested in PvP gaming.
Can't select my own team and RA is lame.
Don't like getting stuck with people who may just go afk or rage quit.

Those were some of the answers I got, though some were questionable towards the topic of the question. I was careful not to load the question and I worded the question like this: "Has anyone tried Jade/Aspenwood? And do you enjoy it? and why or why not?"

/signed
The current balance in faction earning is pathetic
Alliance leader ask ppl to be a farmer so they can earn faction quick and have a chance in owning city.
It suck hell, but how can you blame him...the fact is those repeatable side mission is the fastest, easiest way to earn massive faction.

The low population can be explained in other ways.

I've played those missions as a monk and warrior and every time one of the 2 sides would be really crappy.

Reasons for aspenwood:
1. Kurzicks/luxons send "spies" to the other side. Then these spies go afk and then the fight is 4 vs 8 which will guarantee a 600-700 faction reward for the cheaters.
2. Nobody knows what they're doing. Rarely does kurzick gain control over an amber mine and when it does, nobody runs amber back and forth.
3. Kurzick never has monks unless I monk myself. But if I monk then nobody runs. And if I run, then nobody monks.

This leads to frustration and that's why I don't like playing this mission anymore.

Not only that, the luxons have a MUCH EASIER job. They only need to kill stuff. They don't have to worry about repairing gates, taking over key positions or anything.

I was running amber as a chargewarrior yesterday, keeping the luxons out. After a while, the luxon warriors start calling me noob because "I don't fite like a worior, a worior is suppsed to fite, not run away al time" (nobody speaks english either X.x)

It pisses people off and then they don't play it anymore...

I agree with raising the Factions rewards as many people have said. It'd encourage more people to play those missions opposed to just doing Alliance battles where it's easily accessible and everybody is a winner and gets Faction.

Thank you all for your replies.
The feedback you have all provided are invaluable and is much appreciated.
Together, we will strive to make Guild Wars a better game.

Right now, my main concern is the low amount of Kurzick / Luxon factions awarded at the end of these missions, I am sure many people would agree with this fact.

Comparing the repeatable "faction farming quest" - "The Luxon Supply Lines" with either of these "Competitive Missions", I can earn 2,000 experience points, 150 gold and 400 Luxon faction in 2 minutes with the "The Luxon Supply Lines".

A battle in Fort Aspenwood could drag on for say, 10 minutes or more.
If we win Fort Aspenwood as the Kurzick's side by defending the Master Architect, the Kurzick Faction awarded at the end of the battle is only 600, even if you spent like more than 10 minutes in the game.

The very same 10 minutes or more can be spent "faction farming" the "Duel of the houses" quest for Kurzick faction, plus experience points and gold.

ANET really needs to increase the Kurzick / Luxon factions rewards in these competitive missions outposts significantly.

PvP means of getting factions should offer way higher amount of factions compared to PvE, because you are competiting against other live players.

I've updated the original post to include the recent votes.
There are now 5 polls, but please do ignore the 4th poll, which is about "invididual faction rewards", that idea is broken.

Instead, take a look at the 5th poll.

Keep those feedback coming!

Thread revival since there is demand.

/signed

Poll 1:Yes
Poll 2:Yes
Poll 3:Said to disregard
Poll 4:Depends on how you unlock, if its money like the GH npcs, NO.
Poll 5:Yes

Updated original post to include 2 issues and polls, in which I believe are relevant to this topic regarding these competitive missions.

Remove the "Random Arena" concept of these competitive missions, replace with "compulsary enter mission in teams of 4 players" like the current way Alliance Battles work
Why this? Recently I saw a thread with a heated arguement regarding this issue. I believe this implementation would resolve the issue of leechers or AFKers (people who join the mission but do nothing) in these competitive missions.

Why teams of 4 and not teams of 8? Well, if it is to be teams of 8, the time required to form a team might be longer. Forming teams of 4 ought to be much quicker.

If the leechers still dare to join in as a team of 4 leechers or AFKers, I believe ANET will need to make necessary adjustments to the Rules of Conduct, and other players would have the right to report these abusers (leechers, AFKers).

NOTE: Party screen will have 8 players, unlike the current Alliance Battles which only shows 4 players.


Revise the Rules of Conduct, give players the right to report abusers (leechers, AFKers)
The "Random Arena" or "ability to click 'Enter Mission' as a single individual " concept of these competitive missions need to go. In its current state, it simply invites leechers aka AFKers into the games, ruining the gaming experience for others.

I say drop the current "enter mission as 1 person" system and change it into "enter mission as a 4 player team". I believe this method could actually help stop the leechers aka AFKers from doing what they are doing now to these competitive missions.

If them leechers aka AFKers still persist in joining these competitive missions as a 4 player team of leechers aka AFKers, I suggest that ANET revise the Rules of Conduct and allow players to report these abusers (leechers aka AFKers)

http://www.guildwars.com/support/leg...sofconduct.php
Questions:
1. Did the "leechers aka AFKers" respect the rights of others?
2. Did the "leechers aka AFKers" respect our rights to play and enjoy the game?

Feedback, in any form, be it negative or positive, is much appreciated.
Thank you for your time.
Cheers.

P/S: If you voted Yes or No, perhaps you could let us know why you voted Yes or No? Thank you.

Reporting leechers is a tricky business. For one thing, there are so many that I doubt ANet would be able to keep up. For another, people can appear to leech due to lag. Some people may think 30 seconds is enough to detect a leecher from a lagger, but that really isn't the case.

I've known people to lag so badly they were able to move about 1 or 2 steps every 10-40 seconds. This is especially bad on missions where there are lots of connections and new patches streaming through at the same time.

Plus, there are plenty of people that have no patience at all. I wouldn't be surprised to see people report leechers after only 20 seconds. After all, I've seen people leave the game for such retarded reasons.

Unfortunately, there just isn't a good way to deal with leechers.

The only way to stop or lessen the afker is too make alternate quests more rewarding and more inviting to them. This of course would mean fewer people wanting to do these missions. This is due to the flawed system at play though, time over skill to gain faction points.

The question on the afk issue is really what do we want: Do we want more rewards thus having more afkers? Do we want a more pure PvP game and less rewards? Can't have both as the system at work wont allow it.

I think that by giving more rewards to the PvE quests the Jade/Aspen missions will have only those that desire to play those missions there. Therefore they would have less people leeching. By lessening or making the PvE quests more difficult* Anet is creating a griefing situation where the leeching is more profitable to the players.

*By more difficult, I mean in terms of time spent to gain, ie making the gain slower. Factions is backwards in that it is time over skill in the way it is built. Hence I say "a flawed system".

A possible solution would be to add more repeatable PvE quests and a more dynamic rewards system to PvE. New idea for PvE faction gaining and Dyanmic rewards quest rewards. Input on both ideas would be wonderful.

Perhaps the best way to deal with AFKers is to let the player decide by allowing them to kick them. Here's a thread on that.

Kicking opens up too much room for abuse. Especially if they are too add the ability (eventually and hopefully) to group before entering. With the kick in place, groups of friends can kick a player when a good drop falls so the "friends" can get it and not the person that got it.

There are also issues where someone is being a jerk and has friends in the group and they just opt to kick someone so they don't have to hear a response back.

And then, worst of all, someone trying to learn the mission (a noobie) gets kicked by elitest jerks with no patience for those trying to learn.

Kicking also doesn't serve any point but to further slow the faction gain. It would simply create yet another form of griefing elsewhere (remember, the players are pretty ingenous when it comes to working around the system to get what they want).
If Kicking is added, it's really a moot fix, here's why: You kick someone they don't get the rewards. So, they just enter again and repeat. It's still faster than some of the quests out there. It also does nothing for your team in the mission, you are still down that person (whether they sat there or they get kicked). So the "fix" would be to make them not want to enter to begin with unless they are validly wanting to play the mission.

I'm not defending afkers at all, they bug me to no end in PvE missions. You spend 20 minutes getting a PuG together and some fool goes afk at the start then leech through the mission. There's nothing that can be really done that can't be abused other than know who you are grouping with and when that can't be done, make the reasons for afking worth less than playing through.

Frankly I think when people say kicking will be abused, I think they are being alarmist. But that's really a discussion for a thread about kicking.

For the immediate mission, no it does nothing to help your team. But people hate AFKers and they would kick them if they were able, just out of spite.
AFKers would surely get kicked every single time they tried doing something that inconsiderate. If that's the case, it isn't worth trying to do it, since you will only be kicked by your teammates.

There's your incentive. So eventually people will know they cannot get away with it, thus it will stop.

If it turns out that way, yes. But it may not. Look at two other situations that may come up:

Alliance members kicking "team mates" of members of other alliances so that they can't get the points - we are competeting against each other via points after all. And it's not faction vs faction in PvE, it's alliance vs alliance.

And how long before the afkers figure out that going to these missions in huge numbers so they can kick the legit players (allowing the Ai to run the mission through) just out of spite or in response to them being kicked?

It's a problem that can only be fixed by making other areas more rewarding. After all, if players are feeling "cheated" by playing Jade/Aspen due to low rewards, then those missions aren't fun enough to warrant the trade off; points over fun. PvP brings it's own content, competition. Further rewarding it favors it and will bring in the rudeness of afkers and leechers. That's the system Anet brought with Factions.

I still stand by the idea of making other areas more rewarding so the afkers stay away from these missions. The final solution I can think of is to move the Jade/Aspen to battle isles. PvPers are wanting PvP characters to have access to these missions and players are wanting to compete in these. So moving them there and removing the faction rewards all together might be a good option. That way, the PvPers can get into the action there and there will be no reason for afkers and leechers to go there.

Lastly, I don't think people are alarmist when not wanting a kick option in place. We've all seen the amount of jerks and elitest fools this game has. The second a kick is added (even in a vote form) it will be abused by those with swollen egos and attitude problems.

The only problem is, these missions are fun and I want to actually be going somewhere by doing them. Maybe just increase the rewards for winning and greatly reduce rewards for losing?

I highly doubt it. Sure, the basic, stipped-down, unrefined kick system that many people seem to think us kick-enthusiests are proposing can have some issues if you get enough collective jerks together (which really isn't that easy to do in the first place), and you completely abandon all faith in humanity. But when you look at the details it really is nowhere near as bad as "abuseable."

I'd also like to point out that every other mass multiplayer game out there has a kick system in some form or another. But as I said, this isn't quite the thread to discuss this.

/signed for upping rewards a bit.
/not signed for allowign pvp characters in it. I've never really doen much pvp in guildwars ( though i have in other games), but a coupel fo days ago I needed a little bit of extra luxon faction ( the FF luxon mission sucks), tried out fort aspenwood and had a blast. I can't imagine that I'm the only one who is enjoyign having a place where I can try out pvp in guildwars without being utterly outmatched. if you think abotu it, you'll probably see my point, that having an rp character only pvp area will help involve more PVE only players in pvp.

Poll 6:Maybe make it like TA works, you can make a group or enter alone.
Poll 7:Yes

BTW, I think they should make the reward for Jade Quarry the same as Fort Aspenwood in the meantime. Last time i checked, people said Jade Quarry gave less faction.

Random Composition is what invited "leechers" or "AFKers" into Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry in the first place. As long as the "Random Composition" aspect remains, "leechers" or "AFKers" will always have the luxory of pressing the "Enter Mission" and leech or AFK away, at the expenses of others.

By making it compulsary to enter the mission as a team of 4 players, "leechers " or "AFKers" will not have the luxory of simply clicking the "Enter Mission" button and leech away. Worst case scenario is that a team of 4 "leechers" or "AFKers" team up and enter the mission as a team of 4 "leechers" or "AFKers". If this event should come to pass, I believe the other team of 4 players have the right to report the 4 "leechers" or "AFKers".

Other possible solution is instead of teams of 4 players, make it into teams of 3 players, and 3 teams of 3 players make up into 9 players per Kurzick or Luxon team in the Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry competitive missions.

Jade Quarry is also faster than Fort Aspenwood, hence the "lower" reward.

Random, and easy entering to the mission is probably also one of the things behind the popularity of them. Even if you'd only be required to team 3 people, nothing stops the botters from teaming together into a group of 3 afkers, making the situation even more worse.

If the botters really have the balls to do that, I'd say the other players have every right to report the abusers to ANET.

Problem is, that EULA and Rules of Conduct don't have anything against afking, so they really aren't breaking any rules. Of course, if they are using bots, then they would be banned, and they should be banned already.. But not everyone of these afkers are bots. Some of them actually speak every now and then :P

http://www.guildwars.com/support/
http://www.guildwars.com/support/legal/

I doubt many people would pay attention to what is writen in here:
http://www.guildwars.com/support/leg...sofconduct.php

Take note the underlined and bold sentences:
Questions:
1. Did these "leechers" or "AFKers", "respect the rights of others", and "respect the rights of others to play and enjoy the game?
2. Did these "leechers" or "AFKers" caused "distress" to other players?

I think your interpretting that rule wrong to fit your argument.

Example

Person A offers an item for sale.
Person B agrees to buy.
Person A changes their mind.
Person B gets annoyed and threatens person with the rule you've mentioned. By saying their distressed.

(See where i'm going with this.)

If that is the case, then please do prove me wrong.

So you are telling me that by

1. Joining the mission
2. Doing nothing for the whole period of that mission, aka "leeching" or "AFKing"
Is considered as "respecting the rights of others to play and enjoy the game"?
And such an action will not "cause distress" to the other players?


Regarding your "example":
Person A offers an item for sale.
Person B agrees to buy.
Person A changes their mind.
Person B gets annoyed and threatens person with the rule you've mentioned. By saying their distressed.

If A and B have signed a contract that is enforcable by law, then A is in breach of contract and can be sued.

Furthermore, your example is about buying and selling, it is not about violating the Rules of Conduct.

OH come on. You're really reaching there. Yes the EULA is pretty vague but common sense will tell you that the scenario you painted is ridiculous.

And people going AFK in a COOPERATIVE mission is clearly causing others "distress" and not respecting the other teammates' right to gameplay. Again, that's using common sense.

The context in which you put it. Does not count as true distress. It's more annoyance than anything with this matter. When you actually feel true distress then try telling me it matches your argument. Liberally interpretting rules in such a way for your own argument without actually understanding anxiety is pitiful.

It is up to the player to feel whether or not he or she is "distressed" or "annoyed".

For example, take a look at this thread:
Is this even allowed/tolerated? (Page 3) (by Sagaris)
59th Post (by josh axiom)

The image involved:


Of course, we are not talking about swasticas in this topic, I was using it as an example.

The symbol in the image was clearly not a swastica symbol, but as for josh axiom's reaction to it, well, read his post to find out more.


Another recent example of a player being "distressed"
Need an official word. (by Vermilion Okeanos)
7th Post (by wolfe2dale)


Anyway, we are a bit off topic I believe.

The purpose of this topic is to come up with methods in order to improve the competitive missions "Fort Aspenwood" and "Jade Quarry".

Initially, I thought that the extremely low faction rewarded was an issue, plus the denied access to PvP-only characters, so I started this topic.

As time passed by, a new issue emerged, thanks to Ira Blink's thread, I have learnt of the current problem that these competitive missions are experiencing, mainly speaking, the problem of "leechers" and "AFKers".

Hence, I proposed a couple of ideas, one of is to give the players the right to report these "leechers", the other is to disable solo entry into these missions by making it compulsary for players to form teams of 4 players and enter these competitive missions as a team of 4 players.


However, it is mentioned that a possible worst case scenario might occur, which is a team of 4 "leechers" enter the mission.

Therefore, I believe the best solution would be to remove the "Randomness" of these competitive missions entirely, making it compulsary to form teams of 8 players in order to participate in these competitive missions.

By doing so, it would completely eliminate the issue of "leechers".


I am certain that people would scream and say that this would destroy Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry, claiming that such a move would turn Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry into another Heroes Ascent.

That would not be the case at all, because Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry can be seen as a Cooperative Mission (storyline mission) as well, why?
In each mission,
1. There is a story scenario involved
2. There are many NPCs
3. The mission can only be accessable by RPG characters (PvE characters)

In fact, I believe such an implementation would "save" Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry.

I have added this poll (compulsary team of 8 players to enter mission) to the original post of this topic, those who wish to support such a change, please do cast your votes.

Thank you for your time.
Cheers.

Poll 5: I like this idea, a lot. Actually adding to the idea some:

Make it so that damage done, health healed, repairs done, damage reduced (protection monks and spirits)... pretty much anything that alters the health of a players or item should be counted towards the end result of your performance.*

Poll 6: Yea, I don't care much for PvP, but if I'm going to play it, it's gonna be with friends so we can laugh about how bad we are at it.

Polls about keeping randomness there: Yes and No. I can't stand it when I even do a PvE missions and some putz goes afk in those. In these, they are worse cause you need the help. Yes; if they find a way to "shoo" the leechers and afkers. No; if they can't do something about them.

*I also believe this is a good way to make the missions less inviting to afkers and leechers as they will have to do something for that faction.

Awesome thread btw. I'm hoping Anet hears some of the requests here and puts them in soon.

Edit: Teams of 8 is too many IMO. Takes too long to get that many people together, I feel anyway. With teams of 8 I just see more "gfl 2 monks" and "SS Necro" or "MM needed for group". I don't like how many players pigeon hole classes into playing a specific build all the time and groups of 8 seem to encourage that (yes, that bugs me in all missions and quests through out the game - hehe).

With groups of four, we can go in with friends and people we know wont go afk on us (unless they have something pressing in RL - which is fine). If the otehr team, a group of afkers gets together and just sit there, that's fine by me as I might actually win the mission with my friends. hehe

/signed
anet did listen to ppl's suggestion about making a 8v8 that acted like random areana, but obviously afkers and leechers are a big problem tat no one in game can do anything about. making organized grp can easily prevent this.

making organized grps can also make ur team work more effectively.

also the 4 mission towns are pretty empty, on a normal day i'd have to wait through 10 no opposing parties or more, just to go in and find 2 afkers.

if pvp were able to come to this place and organized grp were availible then there will definitely be some variation to the standard glf ss, mm, nuker and monk(dont mind the # of ppl, just pting out some meta game pve builds).

The problem with this is that as soon as you allow organized teams, you alienate all the casual PVE players that Anet seems so bound and determined to get hooked on PVP. As soon as organized teams are allowed your going to get the same rank/emote crap that goes on in other PVP areas. Casual players that do eventually get into a group will fail miserably and never come back. Keep the randomness as is. To satisfy the organized PVP players, make a seperate area with the same mission that allows full teams to enter and play against each other.

"Casual" PvE players are required to form teams of 8 players in the storyline cooperative missions. Are they alienated? These competitive missions are basically cooperative missions, except that you are competiting against another team. Rank crap is limited to Heroes Ascent only. It is not that hard to find 3 others like minded players to join your group.Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry is not Heroes Ascent. Have you even played these missions before?There is still randomness if players are to enter the mission as teams of 4 players, your team will still get randomly paired up with another team of 4 players.This idea is already listed in the original post of this thread.

I cannot understand why people would object to ideas that would serve to improve these maps. I am refering to those ideas which would help to reduce, or even eliminate the problem of "leechers" or "intentional AFKers".

Sometimes, I wonder if these people who object these ideas, are "leechers" or "intentional AFKers" themselves, trying to defend their "easier" way of faction farming.