Favor Stats End Of Sept-10-09-05

It’s been 10 days since my last release of the favour stats, including a month end so they are a little late. Apologies.

The monthly chart is a bit big to put here, so here is the final stats for September

Region …..Hours…..%
EU……..…..87……..14.5
Korea…..….129…….21.5
America…..384…….64.0
No Data…..120
Total ……..720
Final Total..600

There is no need to comment on the values of those figures except that they refute any “Europe has had more favour recently” discussions. Korea is up on the first 2 weeks of the month, mostly at the expense of America.

Using the days of the week analogy we see that

Europe has favor from midnight Sunday to around 00:30 Monday
Korea has favor from 00:30 Monday to around 12:00 on Wednesday
America has favor from 12:00 noon on Wednesday to Midnight Sunday

The skills reset and ladder changes gave all regions a clean sheet so here are the figures



The largest change is the resurgence of Korea at the expense of America, but in spite of that America still holds favor nearly 60% of the time.

Using the days of the week analogy we see that

Europe has favor from midnight Sunday to around 02:00am Monday
Korea has favor from 02:00 Monday to around 21:00 on Wednesday
America has favor from 21:00 on Wednesday to Midnight Sunday


Onto some general comments and my opinion

The favour discussions have ran and ran and ran since their introduction and it is very clear that ANet is aware of peoples feelings and points of view on the matter. The reason behind me recording the favor stats was to find out what the real case was rather than peoples subjective views. E.g Europe has had more favour recently, Korea always has it etc etc.

I had really hoped that these stats would assist AN into resolving a system that is clearly to any unblinkered eye not working.

But with the world championships under way I do not expect any changes in the next three months. Why do I say that? Because any change in the WaW system would invalidate the championships and render the whole thing null and void.

One of AN’s biggest advantages yet weaknesses is that they listen to fans and respond. We had rampant price inflation so they fixed the traders, people were getting no drops so they bumped the rate, bots were becoming a nuisance so they introduced chests. In short AN listens.

I am therefore at a loss to explain why the favor issue has not been addressed. Especially as it’s the #1 reason why people have moved and the #2 most discussed item of the game across all the forums and players I meet(drop rates being the #1)

In its current form it unbalances the game(more easy repeatable quests that drop high value items) for both PvP and PvE, and gives America a huge advantage in both.

I have had various assurances that the favour issue was being looked at and the famous “It’s better for you to stay in Europe” and “if the Frog had a continent it would be Europe” statements now look, to my cynical eye as a an attempt to try and stay the flow of switches by using a very vague (and if my cynical eye is correct manipulative) method of promising something that will not arrive in the near future.

The closest we got was “We are looking at it and MAY make MODEST changes” statement in LA Int 2 by Gaile on Sept 9th. A statement which is as assuring as it is vauge.

I don’t think this was deliberate, but more of an attempt to answer a subject which is low on the AN list of priorities. After all a simple change in a constant from 5 to 3(for HoH wins) would alleviate the situation until a better one is found. A 10 second change at most.

Over the last few days a significant number of people have been getting error 7 and huge lag at peak hours in the EU servers. On one night everyone on the EU servers got kicked(and I’m not talking about the global one) and yet we had no apology, no explanation or even recognition. One wonders if that would have been the case had it happened on the American servers?? – Just an off topic thought.

Is Europe now a third class region as far as AN is concerned? No comment but I do wonder sometimes..

I guess what I am saying is that I am very disappointed with AN’s non reaction to this in spite of a months worth of proof that the system is not working. Clearly this issue has dropped from their focus enough not to perform a 10 second change prior to the ladder reset that will now pin something in place for the next 3-6 months.

That being the case I wondered if it is worth continuing to do this exercise. But maybe that’s what AN want. For the issue to go away from peoples minds so they don’t have to do anything. But I will continue to produce these in the hope that they will listen and resolve the biggest game play imbalance issue in the game.

Now please don’t get me wrong. I am not attacking AN, just wondering why there has been no firm statement or corrective action.

So to make it easy and quick

Dear AN please select one of the following options

1. We believe the favour system is fine as it is and won’t be changing it
2. We are looking at changes but will not implement them before chapter two
3. We are looking at changes but will implement them in chapter two
4. This issue is a low priority and will not be changed even after chapter two.
5. This issue is a high priority and will be changed within the next 3 months
6. No changes are planned in the next 3 months.

7. You are European so your opinions do not matter as you are in a minority (big )

There we go, just pick 1-6 and it’ll help put peoples minds at rest.

BTW I know you read these posts, so I’ll assume no answer to equal option 1.

Since other people read these too, they’ll know your answer is 1 and that will settle the issue.

Yes I know it’s an unfair question, but I’m a customer 4 times over so I’m allowed to ask them.

I love the EU servers, I have a whole load of friends there and the atmosphere is much better IMHO than the US ones. I would rather keep friends and have no favour. BUT why should I have to choose?

Shan

thank you again.

Thank you for the stats and numbers on this issue.
In my opinion this problem is more severe and fragile to a high degree than most would agree. There isn't only the problem about the favor and europeans not being able to enter those content areas, thus being put in disadvantage it is also a problem about a populational conflagration.
The constant lack caused a major emigration of european players to the american realms. Thus weakening the whole favor thing for europe some more. And now we have those whose half guild moved realms and the other half is still in europe. They now have the choice to switch over too or too stay and maybe split the guild up. Who can blame them, given that it is awfully hard to maintain a guild, that they most likely would also switch over?

Even less players on the european realm. The situation becomes more stale with every day passing. I don't have numbers and would be really interested in them. How many europeans are there on the american realm. Are there more europeans over there?

Why am i stating this? The problem would be that a small balance change in the favor system would probably cause another emigration. This time some of the europeans might consider coming back and thus populating the european realm again. HOWEVER... this is tilting the favor balance some more and thus putting other countries into a disadvantage.
Any change to the system... might it be even the most slight one would probably cause major changes. And to make things even more complicated there is still Korea wanting their share too.

Excellent Work!!
I agree with each and every word you have posted and wish you best of luck.

/just-another-european-player

Great stats as usual.

The only issue with favor is the UW/FoW. Both areas are popular and restricted. So far, WaW has mostly generated bad feedback, and a lot of frustration, not to mention xenophobic comments. I still fail to see the positive features of WaW (and I'm playing on the US server from Europe).

IMHO, the easiest fix would be to make both areas available to all continents (i.e to abandon the original concept of the Worlds at War), and to give the winning team/continent a special ascetic reward like a big statues/flags in the main PvE outposts.

Just my $0.02

To be honest, the prospect of shifting to the American servers is looking better and better every day. Unless something is done to improve the euro servers (which seem to kick people VERY regularly, and get laggy during peak times) and give Euro a fair shot at FoW and UW, I will put the suggestion to my guild to migrate to the American severs. I don't see why we should suffer an inferior service just because we are in the minority.

Just wondering, but how do these numbers compare to the player base?

I mean, if Europe only has 14% of the total players in Guildwars, why should you expect them to have favor more than 14% of the time? I don't have any idea what % europe actually comprises of the player base, but if I had to assume I'd guess no more than 20%.

I'm all for making it 3 wins to take favor though. It wouldn't change the total % of time that you have favor but it would increase the amount of times in the day you get favor, even if its only for a 3 match duration, which is better for the people sitting in the TOA.

In short, AN has not released accurate player figures so we have no means to compare. I would agree, they do seem to follow population sizes. But that only serves the favor system is broken argument as even IF the concept is correct(and if you search you'll see several arguments as to why its not) it should be about skill not numbers of players.

Anyway. still waiting feedback from AN as to which answer they will give(default is #1 remember)

aesthetic

I agree that skill should matter, but in a larger pool of people you are more likely to have more skilled player. Even if the average player in europe is better than the average american player there are still enough elite american players to outnumber elite europeans.

I guess it all comes down to what you want out of the system. If you want a system that reflects which region has more active guilds you'll be happy as it is. If you want a system that is balanced 33/33/33 then you won't be.

Correct me i I misunderstand, but does your use of the phrase "not working" mean to imply that since all the realms do not hold favor on a mostly-equal basis, that that means the system is broken?

If so,

Wouldn't it stand to reason that the exact opposite is true. That if all realms held favor on a mostly-equal basis, then the whole WaW would be an entirely moot concept and hence very worthless thing to have ever put into the game? I realize some people don't think it should have been put in the game. But my point is that given the core principle behind the concept is that the realms who win more, hold more, then the execution seems to be following in line with it's intended concept and hence on that basis, it would be unreasonable to call it broken.

In my view the WaW system certainly is not the "main" reason people left. Maybe a factor, but not the main one. Main factors are things like the horrible trade system that the devs have not done anything about yet even though it should have been their number 1 priority for ages, and bad drop rates for all players.

I think the WaW system was a good concept, but in reality flawed. It was one of those good idea that worked for a while but is now working against the best interests of the game.

The purpose behind the stats is to show AN and others reasonable proof that is actually the case

Link it to PvP rewards for the individual player who wins HoH not to the entire region population.

Even a 33/33/33 is unbalanced. Why?

I think the fundimental 'unfairness' for a better word is that someone who paid the same for the game as the next person, who chose a different click box on the game is denied access to the full content for 85% of the time?

Even if I was in the US I would say why was I being denied for 30% of the time? If someone offers you something and you only get 15% of it's maximum potential would'nt you feel ripped off?

Restricting game your content based on someone elses actions/or otherwise is a fundimentally broken system.

It's like denying you access to a bedroom in your own house because your neighbor lost a Tennis match... As I said, a broken system.

If one was to uncouple the WaW from PvE and make it into PvP that would make it a whole lot better system, that both fitted in the lore of the game and solve a lot of migration issues. AN partly did it by moving the Balthazzar Priests inside PvP areas so PvP characters could spend faction, so the precident is already set.

I.e If I want access a room in my house I should be able to do so. If I want to go out and try and win some prize in a Tennis match I should be able to do so without risking access to one of the rooms in my house.

You are correct re: the horrible trade and drop rates, tho I suspect they have driven people to ebay rather than to swap servers.

Bad.... drop rates? Where? I'm getting max damage 15>50 bows, great gold staves, sweet swords, etc, all the time from chests. Salvaged me a +5 energy head today, got a +21hp always inscribed chakram, and a 15>50 req 8 longbow of sundering 10/8. And that's just in the last 24 hours. No I'm not a farmer. I do various quests.

People already refuted you "bedroom I can't enter" argument last time. You never paid for FoW and UW. Those are bonus areas available as world-wide rewards for high-level PvP. And no team has inherent advantages over another. If you're bored with SF and want to play in UW, then put together a team and fight for it in HoH. Not to mention, the 'elite' PvP teams from Europe probably won't move to American servers....they don't care about FoW/UW anyway, plus it seems that the 'elite' players meet up in international districts anyway if they're looking for PUGs.

UW and FoW aren't gamebreaking areas either. You want good drops, buy keys and pop chests. You want high level PvE content, play SF/GF. If you want to have fun clearing UW or getting your fissure armor, then wait till Europe gets favor (which you proved does happen) or put together a team yourself.

The WaW system is fairly stupid just because it's a PvE reward for PvP. I'll grant you that. But it's not broken in any sense.

Actually I did pay for those areas. I did so when I purchased the game. They were not an add on pack that I had to buy seperatly, they came included.

I dont remember seeing the house thing being refuted. It's just a picture to illustrate how dumb the current WaW system is.

I think we kinda agree, and it's what my house and Tennis analogy is about. The PvE, PvP linkage

I don't mind working towards an objective and if I had to win HoH to gain access to those areas thats fine with me. At least it rewards something I have worked hard to do. But the current system does'nt. It rewards people who have done nothing to earn it except click a different box on the set up screen.

So either make these bonus areas only available to past and present HoH winners or do away with the link altogether.

My access to a part of the game I bought is being restricted by something completley unrelated to my actions. I.e a PvE reward for a PvP action. Something which yourself admits is 'Fairly stupid'

Now to me a 'fairly stupid' system is a broken system.

Anyway, this thread should'nt be about the favor system as there are loads of others that go into the detail to chose from(and yes i'm guilty of breaking this rule on my own thread). Now might be a good time to get it back on track and discuss the whys and wherefores of what has been observed.

And also in anticipation of a 1-6 answer from AN

That access to UW and FoW depends on HoH wins is like saying HoH access depends on players ascending...

The WaW system was a good idea (very good indeed, competition is always a way to push people to get things) but it's been proven to be unfair for Europe AND Korea. Why not making access to UW and FoW 'free'? I mean, 1k entrance fee and no need for favor.

I hope AN pick number 5...

i really laugh at the guys analogy that he paid the same 50 bucks as everyone else.

lets assume you are correct and there are 5x (arbtrairy number) as many people playing in the US as EU. The game costs 50 bucks. that means the US servers paid $833k and EU paid $167k out of every million. seems fair to me...

I have to disagree...99% of the people waiting for favor to go in uw/fow, do not even know how the Hall of Heroes looks.
And I dont think a winning HoH team just leave to go in uw/fow.
The things are totally unrelated.

If the winning team only gain the access to uw/fow, then yes, you are right.

I agree - without population information, your statistics is invalid in regards to this argument.

33/33/33 is NOT fair and illogical. Why should we try to attain such balance when I bet there is no balance in the population.

Point is, as MMORPG gets more popular and real world mechanisms are intergrated, you will get real world results.


Sorry I strongly disagree on the concept of 33/33/33

Another solution is needed.

Maybe allow access but no 'ghosts' (thus no quest and 15k armor Forge)??

I dont know if this is anets stance, but it feels like.

As long as America is happy who cares....

I am intersted to find out the result of favor rate 2 months after the release of Japanese and Chinese GW. It would be interesting indeed...

I am assuming Anet is working hard to bring as many area of the world as possible... creating a much more competetive WaW.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We care about all our customers, no matter where they live in the world. We released in America and Europe simultaneously (and into Australia as well), with Korea having an open beta at the same time. We currently offer 6 languages, with more on the way. We're working very hard on expanding our distribution throughout more European countries. And lots more as well, including our European office dedicated to serving Europe.

Let me repeat: We value our players, no matter where they live. And we value your feedback, no matter where you come from

The World at War system is part of the attempt to join PvP and PvE (which was a miserable failure and was to the detriment of both PvP and PvE.)

Something that could be done fairly easily without changing the status quo too much is make UW/FoW accesable all the time. 1k if you have favor, 15k if you don't. You can still easily make back 2125 gold each on a run with competent players.

Thanks for the re-assurance Alex.

My worry is that silence or lack of clarity can be interpreted as neglect at worse indifference. As seen from some of the comment above...

What are you talking about? xD Are you trying to say Anet values continents for the amount of money they made? Thats simply ridiculous. Lets see if you see things the same way if chinese players take it hardcore and gets the favor most of the time (and yes, with 1.5B population, they will surpass the american players no doubt...)

Its all fair. When you bought the game, that is the way is was. You had to have favor. They didnt change it after you bought it. The analogies are crazy.

Well, the whole comparision between Korea, US, and Europe is flawed simply by Timezones.

If Korea was consistently taking favor away from the US (or vice versus) during each timezone's peak hours, I'd say there was a balance issue. But that's not the case. The US holds favor far longer simply because we encompass many more timezones than Korea (for example). In addition, Korea is 8 hours different from the west coast, just as we're going to bed, they are starting to get into THEIR peak hours. Similar to European, but on a smaller scale. The European's only major problem is it's too fragmented by language and culture and the # of languages A-Net is supporting isn't helping the problem.

It's just not as cut and dried as most people think. I also think Korea probably holding favor throughout a lot of the gray "no data" periods on those charts, their % are probably much higher. That's just my opinion, I can't prove it of course, as I'm not up that late.

I doubt the Koreans are complaining about how little they hold the HoH, and probably swear at us when we take it just like we swear when it's taken away from the US.

The only real losers in the WaW are the european players, but that's not because the game itself is flawed, it's the fact that the EU is too fragmented and nationalistic to unite enough to make much of a difference.

And no one cares about the Chinese players - after all they are all bots anyway

no, im trying to say dont base the fairness of waw on monetary value.

now as far as your chineese analogy, i wish. i have enough stock options in intel to retire for the rest of my life if the 1.3 billion people in china who didnt have pc's decided to up and get one to play GW on.

BTW it costs a few mil/year for each of the 3 datacenters. if one becomes inactive anet will shut it down and show you just how much
no i dont want it to happen, no i dont think it will happen anytime soon, but unfortunately anet is a business.

Alex ,thank you for the response. But the reason i feel like that is because i have not been to Fow ect for a week now, and this kind of pattern has been occuring for months now. And others in my guild are in the same boat.

Last night i turned on and w00t we had favor, so i started getting guildees and a few pugs together, and by the time we had 7 party members we lost it.

Now 1 more of my guildees is talking about going to the american server.

And to be honest i starting to see no point on staying on the euro one myself.

(Edit. And another thing is i really dont like standing in TOA when we lose favor. All you see on the chat then is f***ing america ect ect ect for about 5 minutes, not nice).

what? You are still working on the stats... great!
I lost hope that something will be changed in the near future :/

Official response from Alex Weeks(from another forum)

"Am I allowed to diverge from your selection of answers?

We're monitoring the situation. And, as you say, we're reading your threads. I look forward to them, personally. We're always open to suggestions on how to improve any part of the game, and change is always possible.

You're putting a lot of time and effort into gathering the data and presenting it. You've obviously got a lot of passion on the topic. We value that. Please rest assurred that the design team have read feedback about the WaW issues your present, and will continue to do so."

From this I have assumed that Alex's 1-6 answer is number 6. I.e no changes for the next three months, as opposed to no changes at all(option 1). Seeing as Alex gave no 1-6 answer I leave it to you decide which is the best fitand how to interpret that statement.

Seeing as the strong feelings this topic has raised over the months it seems as tho the 'passionate' pursuit of changes to the WaW system is shared by several hundred people and read and discussed by thousands..

well that settles that

American server here i come.

Aron, I migrated around 2 months ago for favor and to tell you the truth, I haven't regretted it for a second.

Not only can you go to UW/FOW whenever you want to but also it's way easier getting a full team for missions like Hells and the titan quests.

I have 2 accounts now (1 on each server) and imo favor is now not the only reason to migrate to the amerikan server. the sheer scarceness of people in the higher end missions make it very hard to actually complete the game even in the weekends now.

the Amerikan server is soo much more populated the first time I saw that postsear Ascalon City has TWENTY-SIX distrikts...it litterally blew me away. I was mapping around all of tyria for a whole day just to get used to the crowdedness of the place.

Aron, once you switch you won't be getting bored any time soon hehe

i actually switched to the europe server for a while. i dont pve so i figured i'd help you guys get favor back since my pug includes a guy from scottland, one from the uk, and one from conneticut who got stuck on europe after too many switches.

the reason i switched back was exactly that, no people. i was helping my wife farm some faction and went to teams arena. there was no one in int districts and europe was even worse. maybe i will switch back after we both UAS but then when im bored i wont be able to 4v.

good work on the stats ...

i dont mind with the actual favor of gods system ...

i do mind with the districs system tho , im playing in american districs cose its a lot easyer to find people to do anything ... IMO if they merged european districts i would be good for the cumunity , some people may think the language is a big probleme , but we know everyone is jumping languages , even if they dont know that language ...
im sure they will make the same for korean territory , when taiwan and japan joins the game ... its ridiculus , 3 territoris is already a big separation , making sub divisions makes it unfair becose america is one single district , for far more acounts , makes everything go faster ... from market to char progression ...

we dont need language division cose we have "guild , teams and wisper to speak owr main language , dont need to separate everyone virtualy , becose of language !!!

I interpret it exactly as you do, Shanaeri. As a consequence of that, I am now motioning for my guild to make the move to the american servers. I can see absolutely no reason whatsoever to stay in the european region (apart from nationalism, which I do not subscribe to).

Hopefully I get the guys moving

Just out of curiosity, how many districts, roughly, are there in Ascalon in the US?

Aye. That kicked the pot.
I'm switching also. I've been loyal to europe for a long time, allways thinking and hoping something would be done about the World at Flaw System. But hell, all we get is the typical copy and paste answer "we've several languages!".
The problem is not the implementation of new GUI Languages (damnit!) it is the World at Flaw System. What is that language answer about? Sure you do care for europe... but in a wrong way. I'm quite sure most players don't give a damn about yet another GUI language... yay it might make some folks happy but what about the majority of europe? I mean.. come on... look at the italian or spanish districts. Can you spell empty without using the word empty? Aye... Italian District. Or likewise... Spanish District.
So aye... there are districts... aye a few folks are happy about all the new language stuff and whatever... however: what about the majority?

There was a case about a name not being allowed, posted by some random person with a lot of whining and bitching. Why i do mention it? Well the thread got a lot of attention from the developers and the answer basically was that things targeted at a larger audience are more important.

Where is the fix of the world at flaw system then? This IS a large audience. This stupid thing is global. If that is not large enough i don't know what exactly IS large enough...

I can't speak for everyone, but i couldn't care less for new languages or another little "bring xyz this package" quest. Hell, if the game would only have the english gui but instead a WORKING World at War system instead of the current World at Flaw... i'd be happy. And i'm sure lots of people would be.

It has been a real long time now and all europe gets is a "wait a bit longer... wait a bit longer... wait... we implemented new languages... yay for new languages". That was not what we were waiting for :/

Really? Not because there is an euro player for 10 americans?
And because a lot of good euro pvp'ers moved on american servers?


Imo, the favor thing is completely illogical.
Why sould 8 good PvP'ers gain the access to the 2 hardest PvE zones, for hundreds players that does not even know how the Hall of Heroes look?
These are totally unrelated aspects of the game.

And for this reason I laugh at people in ToA screaming "yeah we ownz". No, YOU own nothing, the guys winning in HoH "own", so they win rare perfect weapons and their guild's name is spread worldwide.
And this should be enough.



The link "8 pvp'ers win HoH"-->"hundreds pvers gain access" doesn't make any sense.

I think the biggest irony in World At Flaw system is:

FoW and UW are supposed to be high-end optional content zones for "real" pve. Victory not guaranteed, some skill required. Not Henchmen Precipe. Or Cheesy River. Yet people who dont live online 24/7 have no chance to schedule a 8 man team (which is hard enough if you dont have a live ...) for the 3-4 hours it would take to play the areas "the way they where intended to". Americans may not be able to relate, since you usually have to favor often enough - but just imagine that right at the moment you got your forum team together to finally solve the puzzle of gwen, some bored members from EW win the hall and keep it for the next 5h. There goes your once a month chance.

So instead of meeting up with friends who can only play 5h a week, you just log on, discover that you have favor, noone is on of course. How could they be, they dont know it in advance. You log your monk, maybe grab a necro (since duo is not as evil as "solo") and enjoy some good old UW farming. Or just switch over to the American Server.

Since when do pvp players care about explorable areas? Since when do people who care stand a chance at winning HoH?

Oh and:a pve player getting access to FoW/UW is like a fat man drinking beer in front of a TV watching world soccer championship feeling proud that "we" won