Factions: A look at a flawed mechanic.

Dear Anet,

so the new feature is an alliance?
Apart from the total inability to join battle as a team of 12, rather than a team of 4, there are several other reasons why the alliance feature can be totally ignored.
If we wanted to do 4 man battles we could do them before, ok, so there is a new way of setting it up, but that's it.

Why should we trade in points to capture towns? Obviously there is a constant drain of faction points. This drain is always a percentage of the total points. So basically if 10 guys farm 10k a day and spend it they will hit a point beyond which they can't advance. At 10% drain everybody can calculate that they won't get noticeable beyond 1.000.000 points.
Their daily loss is their daily income.

If you got 20 guys, the figure doubles, so it is easy; the Alliance with most faction farmers wins every time; period. So I take a look at my alliance, there I can see no persons willing to grind away endless hours. If I was to advance my dreams of holding a town or even entering an Elite Mission I would have to leave them for the biggest HC-Factions farming alliance out there. Now, that would really make me some friend, wouldn’t it?

Speaking of elite missions, since all you need to enter them is to know ONE guy of the alliance who holds Cavalon or Heltzer, the incentive to farm for factions is at an all time low. Simply talk to a guy inside the balcony, if he is nice he will simply smuggle you and 11 friends past the guard. There you can form a party and enter the elite mission WITHOUT any persons of the Alliance holding the town. Later, you sell the stuff off for 200k or more. Right now, I'm wondering why nobody is standing around muling people inside the elite missions for 1.000 gold per person. I would consider that a cheap price and those crazy enough to farm 3M points sure need something to hold onto.

All of this would not make me feel so bad if it wasn't for broken promises. The community was lead to believe that an alliance could reward itself through "skilful playing" (I think those were Jeff's exact words). However today I must admit that no skill at all is involved. Getting the reward (towns, elite mission) is simply a matter of numbers and the willpower to grind, and grind, and grind......

All while we are just waiting for the first guild that turns the system of entering a bonus mission into a business model.

But I do not want to talk all bad. There is a solution to the problem:
1. Delete the Duel of the Houses, Supply Line Quests without Mercy. Those are the backbone of perverting the game mechanic into a grind.
2. Reshape the requirements to enter the Elite Missions, right now everybody can go in, if the Alliance holding it allows for it. That is not a reward for "skilful play"!!! Instead let any Alliance which offers a factions sacrifice high enough to please the gods or whomever, enter the dam thing and lock all others out again. Then 100% of the playing population would have a chance of going there. Right now only 10h a day grinders stand a chance. Why, cause only they will meet the joining requirements of the alliances which are likely to form soon.

Right now, only 1% of the people who bought the game have a chance of entering the most prestigious part. Under the current system they might “cheat” their way into it, but will most likely to never EARN Cavalon/Heltzer by SKILLFUL PLAY.
That also means that first Anet is waving a reward in everybody’s face, only to lock them out. So 95% of players feel like the little brother who has been shafted by his parents. Considering that Anet wants to continue selling its merchandise to these 95% (rather than to the 5%), it was probably one of the worst ideas of all time, to create a play mechanic which is that discriminating.
And even if Jeff says a million times that those items aren’t “mightier” than others, he fails to see the main point. GW is also about vanity and those items sure look good. That and only that, is making them valuable, NOT the stats.

So please Anet, stop thinking about rewarding the top 5% of gamers with fancy capes or fireworks. Piss them off, not the majority. You won't even notice it when they are gone. Instead give ALL players a fair chance anytime. They are your customers and they do like progressively difficult challenges. Making them compete agressively against each other will only corrupt the spirit of cooperation which forges a strong community.

Sincerely,
Klaus

Dare I say amen? I can live with the alliance battles with the 4 party but it is entirely true, alliance with 10 guilds with at least a few faction farmers in each will always hold the flame, cavalon has been held by the same alliance the past few days. Anet went on about how they thought it would benefit everyone and here comes these awesome zodiac items (which are for vanity it is true and quite special). Half of the articles i read didnt stand to their word. At least for fireworks anyone can see

i think you'll find those who get faction through pvp will earn more than those who redo a 400 faction mission over and over again

dont suggest nerfs so readily when they arent even the problem

I rarely post, and for good reason, people rip you apart on these forums, but I have to put in that I agree entirely! I have been one of the lucky ones to get smuggled in, but I think it is completely BS about how this town holding thing works. I don’t have the solution, but something has to change because this game is about skill, not grinding!

the thing that really pisses me off is that quests dont seem to give skills anymore. you have to buy all your stupid skills. and here i am two brand new characters and 60 platinum later. bored with playing because i dont want to farm anymore in the same old missions and no interestest in playing my low skilled new characters. nor really wanting to play my old characters through missions that i dont really like anyway.

The solution to the problem everyone has with the elite mission lock-out is simple: Rebellion. And I don't mean we rise up against ANet. Put an NPC in each capital that sells rebellion for faction. Only guild leaders can vote in rebellion. It would cost X amount of faction (I don't know what an appropriate amount would be). If enough guild leaders spend their faction to vote in rebellion on a single day (again, not sure what an appropriate amount of votes would be), then the guild controlling the capital is stripped of all faction (they are shamed in the eyes of the faction NPC leadership) and cannot acquire alliance faction again for a week (or maybe just a day, whatever).

So, guilds that are "for the people" and allow more players in to elite areas are likely to stay in power longer. Lock the rest of us out (or charge too much for rights to enter) and it will be see ya next week. If nothing else, it will increase the churn of who has control.

Here's an idea. Why not charge a fee for entry into the Elite missions (similar to FOW/UW), and anyone can enter at anytime. But the fee goes to the Alliance that owns the town, and is evenly divided between its members?

That way, very large guilds (who are most likely to own a town atm) will, per member, not really earn that much. Whereas a small group of super-hardcore faction farmers will get plenty of gold from it. (and more power to them, if they can pull it off)

But either way, it wont affect the majority of players, who pay to enter just like in FOW/UW.

Sounds cool to me...

How about Elite mission bea about battle...those holding a location have to battle another group for control, if you win you hold it for 24 + however longer you can hold it after that but you have 24 free hours after the first time you take control

Gotta say that I agree with this. Even without having played faction yet. (it hasn't arrived yet, still waiting on it) It is obviouse that something is wrong here.

I agree. I should be skill that gains you access to these areas, not how many people you have grinding faction in your guild. An infinitely better mechanic for town control could have been implemented. This one just rewards guilds who go out and recruit players they know nothing about. I think it costs something like 3 Million faction to take control of Cavalon, at the moment. Will casual gamers ever own Cavalon? Why don't EvIL and WM have a town while XoO does?

Hey, gimme a break, I'm trying to get Kurzick 15k armor! I've already given up hope of ever being able to own a town.

Last I checked WM have harvest temple.
Yea it could be better and Duel of the houses is pretty uh dumb and too easy. Takes 2-4 mins, while doing any of the battles takes more like 15 mins. Quest gives you 400 faction, while the battles only give you 600-750 if you win.

Awards are a bit messed up. I dont mind repeatable quests per say, but it should reward you in faction equivilant to the amount of effort. Right now Duel of the houses is too easy and completely farmable. Needs a reduction down to 50 faction for beating that quest, 2k exp and 150 gold is fine.

i told u anet will always favor pvp if you dindt like the hoh in prophecies fow uw you were going to HATE factions
i was right

The faction farming quest Duel Of the Houses and supply lines should be alot more longer, alot harder and alot further from the NPC that gives the quest.

I dont say i want those quests removed because it's a faction source for those who want armor.

Elite mission is BS. Can't wait for some1 to find a legal way to sue Anet for this really stupid idea.

It's like when you buy a XYZ online game but the developers wont let you play if you play less than 1 hour daily.

Anet it's denying content to the casual player (again, the much apreciated casual players). There is no reasonable way of getting into an elite mission unless you are smuggled in or you are a member of the alliance that controls the elite mission access.

Nothing of this scale was present in any part of the Prophecies chapter. Althou Europe/America shares the access to FoW/UW, players Taiwan and other regions could switch to America/Europe and enjoy the unavailable FoW/UW zones.

It's just ridiculos. Since an alliance has control they will only grow stronger since many of those who are craving for the elite stuff will join them if it's possible. Thus more faction influx.

Of course, you could say that lets wait and see what happens. Yep, we can wait. But untill we wait, im denied access to parts of the game.

I paid for the game just as the others did and althou i dont play 24/7 i want the expreince of the elite missions.

Dang, I almost got worked up ready to go ...

Absolutely. The guy that thought of this probably was responsible for refund points and the sundering mod (look:20% now). Instead of firing him they promoted him to be "Chief of Ideas" in Factions. Silly title, indeed.

in terms of Rebellion, we could organize some sort of fansite alliance, and create a petition which deals with our view on the issue with reason. clearly we have to do the thinking here. Just like with the guild hall upgrade thing. the only thing a Guildhall REALLY needs is changing your secondary profession easily before combat, not weaponsmith to customize your chaos axe.

I love it how people throw around random numbers. I don't know how many people will end up playing elites and I'm fairly certain you don't either. I do know that Anet keeps fairly good track of these numbers and is more than willing to adjust if they feel rewards are too small.

When it comes to month 5 or 6 of play, you mostly have farmers and hardcore pvpers playing. Elite missions is truely high end content for those groups. If you think the same group will be holding for 6 months, you clearly haven't payed much attention to how things cycle in guild wars. Some material has to be designed for a longer cycle of game play. Clearly this reward has peoples attention and is sufficiently rare that it keeps peoples attention. The award type is unique and doesn't require a single style of play from members. There are several things that are very good about the system for the long term.

I personally feel 6 elite missions would have been better for the community, but considering 6 extra top-level regions is signficant work and testing I understand the cause of the short coming. While it is impossible to know that future of elite missions, it is likely than there will be minor adjustments to the system.

Seing as elite missions are supposed to be worked for i don't see what all the fuss is about, they are there as a reward to those who can be bothered to put in the effort and if you don't have the dedication to do so then you don't deserve it. same with the design a weapon items, you have to work through and complete the game just to get one.

Also if you realy wanted to control a town you'd be there making it happen rather than ranting on this board.

But it isn't about the reward. It's *how* you get the reward which is bad.

For instance. If arenanet changed how HA works, that the only fight you ever play is the initial fight with the Unworthy. And that the team which wins most times against the Unworthy over a week earn the right to hold Hall of Heroes. Is that a good game mechanic? Hell no! But that's unfortunately how the territory/city system works. There's very very very little skill involved. Time and amount of active players in an alliance is the sole factor of who controls a city.

When I first heard of the territory control system in Factions I thought it'd work in a completely different way. I thought alliances could specifically fight for their own selected territory, and only a few daily fights would determine who gets to hold that territory. The system we got feels so extremely meaningless... alliances can't choose which territory or city to control for, and the way you earn them is a total grind. If they had just removed all the territory and city controls, and only left the alliance missions and pvp missions intact, and made elite missions open for everybody... that would actually have been a much *better* system.

I really hope arenanet learned their lesson, because it's unfortunately too late for them to completely fix this faction system. I can only hope that future ideas will be much better. They should remember their own motto... skill shall determine the victor, not time spent.

Okay, let's compare the 2 systems. If I were to control a city, I'd need an alliance filled with people constantly playing alliance missions and constantly replaying the supply quests. I'd need at least 100 people giving 5,000 faction to the alliance each day. And to set a good example, I'd of course need to do the same. And well, doing the same quest over and over again... that is not fun. And while alliance missions are a lot of fun, there's also a limit how many times you can bother to do those.

Now then, if I were to find a cool specific weapon I was after which is at the end of the game. I'd play through the game... which would be playing through different fun missions as I progress the game, finding new fun skills, doing a ton of different quests... well, I think you can see the difference here. Grinding for faction is not the same as playing through the game. If you want a fair comparison... imagine that playing through the game would be being forced to do Vizunah Square 25 times each day. Sure the mission is fun to do sometimes, but being forced to repeat it so many times to get access to an elite mission... that's frustrating, the skill involved is limited and it simply destroys a lot of the fun.

Delete duel of the houses? 0.o well Im not in an alliance, but it took me 5 non stop days to get 15k armor nerf duel of the houses and 15k armor in factions turns into an armor class just below FoW, only for the ridiculously rich.

Perhaps only each member of a guild can donate 10k faction per 24 hours? or something to stop farming for alliances.

That still won't hurt alliances like XoO with their 500+ members

in the end only those with the largest number of players and the most efficient means of gathering factions will win.
neither the number of players, nor any efficient way of farming factions relate to ANY SKILL on behalf of the player.

so stating that one goal of factions was to reward skillful play is a bitter lie.
I still can't see ANY reward for skillful play out there that hasn't perverted by farmers, or doesn't put me up against 1:1.000.000 odds like HoH, or GW World Championship.

Bottom Line: Play as skillful as you can, but don't expect ANY rewards.

/agree

Grinding here we come.

Two things:

-First, I think that having the Elite Missions being exclusive is a good thing.
-Second, I don't like how faction farmers can keep one team there forever. And I don't like how you can smuggle in others who aren't on the winning team.

even if you would redesign the smuggeling in a way that it would be no longer possible, one would still have the possibility that the Alliance is selling off guild memberships for short amounts of time; effectively achieving the same.

you got the money and the contacs, you will get in, one way or another. and if you know somebody who farms 10k a day for these alliances, you will find he is very susceptible to earning a quick 12 amber for slipping your team through.

and paying one amber to enter is really a small price...

...compared to regular means of entering elite missions...

...so this whole system IS dead already.

its just a room. A room with monsters in it.

but still, the fact that groups can have 12 players is annoying. Other areas should have 12.

you forgot to mention the highly sought after Ub0r cool looking items and the only difficulty setting which does not bore me to death.

Why is everyone complaining about the system? There's nothing wrong with it. "Boo-hoo, I can't enter elite missions because I'm not a farmer, fix it Anet!"

Well, time to wake up. Elite missions are made FOR hardcore farmers. If you're not one, you won't get a chance to play. And yes, it is fair. Look at Hall of Heroes. It's made for hardcore PvPers. If you're not top 1%, you won't get a chance to hold halls. Same thing with elite missions, anet is just catering to a different 1% of players.

So stop whining.

In my opinion it is not the same thing. You can TRY to get to HoH. You CAN even suceed if you have 8 skillful players.

Monopoly Missions are something truly different. You CAN NOT get in if you don't FARM enough.

I must admit the most flawed thing is the fact that after being smuggled in, as long as you never leave you can stay. There are more random people there than people from my alliance. (We have been holding house for a while)

i have to agree, in HoH you got chance, i've almost reached it 3 times with my guild, and my guild isn't even that good. but elite missions isn't gonna work out this way. maybe they should have something similar.. could help.

Please note that I said "hold", or "win" HoH. Anyone can get to halls by simply being on at ~3 AM EST and being persistent. Or just timing your wins with halls timer. You'll get that jump from underworld eventually. And then most likely you'll lose to a team that got there legitemately. Getting to halls isn't the measuring stick.

But yes, you do have a chance with a team of 8 good players. In fact, that's who wins halls: teams of 8 good players. And elite missions are held by alliances of good farmers. In both cases, the highest level content is accessible to the elite in their respective category. I fail to see how the two are different: just substitute "PvPer" for "Farmer".

the only minor detail being that Jeff Strain actually promised the elite missions being a reward for skillful players, NOT stupid farmers.

so I take the liberty of pointing that out.

the only minor detail being that Jeff Strain actually promised the elite missions being a reward for skillful players, NOT stupid farmers.

so I take the liberty of pointing that out.

see, there's a problem with this. the problem is it's a slippery slope. make 12 player groups, and they'll either a) wipe out everything that crosses their path, or b) you'll have to make zones more difficult to accomodate the larger group.

if you do (b), then you eventually reach a point where you can't *do* 1- to 8-man groups anymore, you get mobs that are so tough that it takes 50 max-level characters with huge coordination on teamspeak, specific builds, etc etc etc to take down like on WoW or Everquest.

no; some limitations are in the game for a *reason*.

eudas

Well, that's an entirely different gripe - anet breaking their promises and BSing customers.

But conceptually, I see nothing wrong with rewarding the farming elite.

I also had a vastly different idea of how this would work.

I thought alliance battles were going to determine who held towns. Almost like HoH.

They talked about more of a merje with PvP and PvE, so I thought we could lay siege to a town or something.

I'm part of a very friendly, but very casual guild. No faction farmers there.

Except that this game (Guild Wars) was marketed on an "anti-grind" plank. Now we see that these words were truly marketing words: hollow and meaningless.

There are so many other games out there that encourage grind: EQII, Lineage and WoW. Why ANet wants to go in this direction is mind boggling. Especially because they seemed to be doing so well catering to the casual/non-farming player.

Meh... I figure I'll do what I always did... PvP, farm for crafting materials for my armor and GvG with guildies. What I won't be doing is the elite missions. I won't be buying chapter 3 either if things don't change.

I see something wrong with that reward being access to entire missions.