Faction Line....

Does the faction line really do anything? I thought it was supposed to be the centerpiece of Factions, a massive battle between luxon and kurzick for control of towns, where the side winning gaining both territory and exclusive "stuff".

Where is it? I've not seen one iota of difference in the overall gameplay. The line just sits there. Oh, it moves a smidgen down around unwaking waters, but even when it moves, it doesn't matter at all. Who cares of the luxon's have "control" of a particular town that hardly anyone bothers to go to, except to move further along in the story line? Can't buy anything there? So what?

Perhaps if this feature was working as intended the entire "elite mission" access debate may not be that big of a deal.

Well right now the line isnt moving too far because the victories are back and forth. If one side were to completely dominate, imagine having access to Luxon armor makers as a Kurzick, without switching sides.

which armor is the best....do u guys think? luxon or kurzick?

I wonder if one side gets all towns the mysterious glowing chest in Kaineing City opens

Well, there is one effect. The position of the battle line affects what Alliance Battle will be played.
If the line is around the middle, the Alliance battle will be in Saltspray Beach, which is balanced for the sides. When the line goes farther towards the Luxon side, the map is Etnaran Keys, where the Luxons have a slight advantage (easier access to the rez shrine).
Those are the only two maps I've seen so far, but there's probably at least 5 different battle fields depending on where the line is, so it gives an advantage to the losing faction by putting htem on a map where they get an advantage.
Basically, a balancing feature, so one faction can't just dominate because all of the top guilds decide to join it.

I hear they have identical stats.

Yeah, all max-level armor has the same stats. If it costs 1.5k or more, it's the best armor you can get. The only difference is what it looks like. People pay more for pretty stuff

Yes the dymanic world with ever changing borders basically means that you go to specific arenas and that merchants don't talk to you. It's more of a bother than it is a cool feature.

Also is it me or does the shape of the border seem random? There doesn't seem to be a logic to the shape of it. Sometimes it will have a weird curl in it... what's up with that? Any way to influence that? If you could choose where to launch an attack somewhere along the border for example, the idea would be pretty cool, say having a choice of a few different arenas to fight, or maybe even europeans fighting out one part of the border, US district people the other part etc, even that would be better. But right now it seems randomly generated and only appears to be a deep system, but just isn't. Kinda like most things in factions, it looks different but when you play it, it's not that different really. Alliance battles are great fun and I like the 3x4 idea just as much as the random 12 teams one, but we had the impression that this would be dynamic and the game experience would revolve around this, but the way it is now, it just limits the choice of alliance battle arenas and merchants, and gives you the opposite of a dynamic feel.

If you look on the factions box, it has a picture of the world map of cantha...and apparently Kurzicks were kicking some trash cause pretty much all the luxons had was Cavalon.

The line never changes because the whole concept of alliance battles is flawed. People are unwilling to devote time to these battles when that time is so valuable for farming faction.

Where is the incentive to move the border one way or another? If ANet wants to change this then make PvP/Alliance battles earn 10x more faction than doing those ridiculous repeatable PvE quests ever will. Right now its very simple:

faction/minute from repeatable quests > 12v12 > 8v8

I've seen screenshots from the beta and it looked like it moved alot then (taking entire areas of the forest. Quite a few people are still in the city area or working on finishing the game.

As far as Harvest Temple (Unwaking Waters are mission areas and will never change hands), I got boned by a change. I was in Harvest Temple and noticed the Kurzick Guards running outside. I had more Luxon Faction than Kurzick at the time. I didn't realize that the Kurzicks just took control and the guards were running outside to kill the Luxon Guards. Well, I went out into the explorable are awith henchies. The Shi'Roken owned us. I figured, ok the last henchie will die and I'll rez. Then the big Return to Outpost dialog popped up. There is only the Kurzick-controlled res shrine, which I couldn't rez at. As such, it was like a mission.

I've since done it while having more Kurzick faction. I've also run from Harvest Temple (after mastering Unwaking Waters Luxon) to Unwaking Waters Kurzick. While I was clearing, the guard wouldn't let me in. Once I went to the forest and did Eternal Grove mission he let me in from the other side (I still have the escort mhenlo to Unwaking Waters quest)..

The control of the towns will affect where you can res inside the nearby explorable areas. Some explorable areas have non-controlled shrines as well. A neat trick is to go out of Tanglewood Copse into Aborstone explorable with a luxon char (more luxon faction). You'll rez down near the cathedral and can run to Altruim Ruins (still can't get into House zu Heltzer).. This is because the other shrines are usually controlled by the Kurzicks..

Or is it perhaps the fact that the jade quarry and ft aspenwood mission areas are so lame, and that no one plays them (that I can tell) that the faction line doesn't gain any influence at all? Do those two missions have more of an influence over the faction line than others, but because no one plays them, the line never moves?

When I attended the release party in Seattle, we got to see the faction line where it was pushed up all the way to one side, with little islands of towns being held by the losing faction side - in other words, the faction line simply made a small circle around a town basically showing it was "under siege" as one side controlled all of the land around it. So far, the faction line hasn't displayed ANY characteristics of this.

Either it's broke, or we (as players) are missing some part of the game mechanics because we're too busy farming faction to control towns on our particular side.

That, and perhaps they haven't activeated everything yet for us to allow us to have more ways of playing the game and more adventerous.

so you can actually control towns with this line?

I saw those pics as well. I noticed after looking at them a bit that the ones that had the 'bubbles' around them were the missions areas. Mission areas aren't owned my alliances and I imagine that they can't be owned by the other faction either. The storyline missions are for the particular faction and the competitive missions are for the appropriate faction to move the line back. All of the non-missions were taken over. Maybe the Challenge missions were too since they are optional and don't affect the line.

It doesn't seem to work like that, I dont know of its a bug or what but it doesn't.

Last week or something the line briefly moved and Durheim(sp) Archives fell in to Luxon control, so I went theer when it was controlled think cool I can buy some Kurzicks Keys to my surprise the merchant tells me I'm not Kurzick and I should go away before she calls the guards.

I thought that the line wasn't moving because too many players were grinding Faction inorder to keep control of most outposts.

Give this man a prize.

ANet are you listening? You broke your own game with this ridiculous faction crap to enter elite missions.

I think another thing is that a majority of people still aren't that far into the game. Except for those who rushed it or played nonstop, the majority of the causual players are still in the city.