Scrap favor item costs

what is the purpose of having a cost for favor items?
- to seperate the noobs from the pros? the losers from the winners?
- delaying the purchase of the most viable favor items available?

I think this game is all about balance (as are many games now). All favor items need to be roughly equal in strength.
If everything were balanced, it would add great diversity to character builds and unique playstyles without having anyone on the arena have an advantage over you.

Of course this would render the favor point reward (at the end of a match) as useless because you wouldnt need to "buy" your favor items anymore, but i think this would a well worth sacrifice to make the game more balanced.

 

 

14,219 views 28 replies
Reply #1 Top

Of course this would render the favor point reward (at the end of a match) as useless because you wouldnt need to "buy" your favor items anymore, but i think this would a well worth sacrifice to make the game more balanced.

Favor achievement points could still be in use in a way that they are being counting in avarege values for a player.

I mean that they are not counted in apsolute value, but rather in relative value - based on your average gameplay performance.

So ppl wouldnt have thousands of favor point but just in range from 10 - 220. That might also help in determinating who is good player, however not really in team, but rather in solo.

Btw, i agree with main idea, naturaly.

 

Reply #2 Top

I AGREE 100% 

I hope one of the upcoming mods will be to do just this! Balance the favor items against each other rather than having items clearly better than others. If someone won't do this in the community I'm going to do it myself. I just need to brush up on my LUA. 

Reply #3 Top

i dont agree. why?  this seems odd, but you are right and wrong. look:

1. for new players it is kinda motivation to achieve something. its like christmas earning a new item. i liked that. it motivated me at the beginning. they aren't heavy to get. you get favor pouints pretty fast.

2. new pople shouldn't fight singificantly more experienced  anyway. thus no problem with that as it makes no difference.

3.now, problematic this seems only for very new player against player that are not sooooo new. in this case they others have indeed some advantage. but as they are all still quite noobs it really does not make much of a difference.

 

briefly where balance is needed, they already have all the needed favor items. and for the beginners it is some extra "fun" to get them. i know not all feel it as fun. but it is no big thing to get them.

Reply #4 Top

Adding a persistance feature to the game helps keep things somewhat fresh, at least in theory. I like the concept of favous, and it while it places new players at a disadvantage, any game with persistance features do. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and it's sequel spring to mind.

The issue for me isn't the disadvantage that it gives to new players, it's the fact that once you've purchased one or two items, all Favour points and all other Favour Items are trivial and pointless. If all Favour items were relevant, balanced equally and cost the same, favour points would mean something.

Reply #5 Top

i see the "favor"-stuff as an early extra motivation. it is not intended to be usefull later on. but i liked it much when i started.

Reply #6 Top

Agree with OP 100%

It doesn't take too long for anyone to purchase the items they actually use, and then simply accrue points to no effect from that point forward.  All intent aside, there will never be an item influx strong enough to stem the flow of favor.

As for the favor awards at the end of each match.  I actually dislike them somewhat, the formula is antiquated.  Example one; my last LAN game with friends, I took 190 points to my team mates 80or90 I think it was.  Does that reflect the contribution either of us made towards the win?  Absolutely not, I barely edged him out in all the awards at all and I would even put a lot of it down to our class matchup.   Example two; a game where a friend put all his gold into his own char, stuck to a single lane, never pushed it at all, and simply farmed the opposition right through to artifact decking.  He took home damage/kills/kill streak/gold/deaths, contributed almost nothing to the end-result of the game and still won the highest favor by camping one flag on mandala.

In short, I don't think the favor awards are the right idea anyway,  I believe in a point scoring system that more accurately acknowledges contribution and distributes reward accordingly.  The winner takes it all is too open to intentional and unintentional unfair distribution.

Reply #7 Top

thx for all oponions on this topic but as you can see im strongly FOR "ridding of favor item cost".

Quoting CelMare, reply 5
i see the "favor"-stuff as an early extra motivation. it is not intended to be usefull later on. but i liked it much when i started.

ive can afford all favor items now, yet ive still only bought 3-4 favor items...

i dont agree. why? this seems odd, but you are right and wrong. look:

1. for new players it is kinda motivation to achieve something. its like christmas earning a new item. i liked that. it motivated me at the beginning. they aren't heavy to get. you get favor pouints pretty fast.

2. new pople shouldn't fight singificantly more experienced anyway. thus no problem with that as it makes no difference.

3.now, problematic this seems only for very new player against player that are not sooooo new. in this case they others have indeed some advantage. but as they are all still quite noobs it really does not make much of a difference.

briefly where balance is needed, they already have all the needed favor items. and for the beginners it is some extra "fun" to get them. i know not all feel it as fun. but it is no big thing to get them.

i think you missed the main point. ill try put it in short as best as i can...

Lower cost = weak item
Higher cost = stronger item

based on this alone, if im a new player and i know i have to save favor points in order to buy a favor item, i am going to save all my points for the strongest one that i feel is in the list. Meaning, all the weaker ones are disregarded coz if i buy a weak one as soon as im able to im gonna have to start building up favor points again for an even stronger one. This accumilation process goes on till ur satisfied with what u have. When youve finally bought an item like BotF u will never go back to the weaker ones.

For an experienced player (meaning u have ample amount of favor points), this cost AND weaker favor items become redundant as players look for the best way to balance themselves against an opponent.
If you can find me one experienced player that uses bejewelled goggles or brilliant bauble as their main favor item, let me know. Might as well get rid of the items altogether if theyre not being used.

> No cost = Equally strong items <

you can spend less time playing and spend more time on what you think will make your character strategically better than your opponent. Its all about balance. Then all items will be viable and i think thats what we want (which is what my main point is).

Reply #8 Top

I'm with gkrit on this one but I like being rewarded for playing well with favour. There is no reason why we can't have the best of both worlds.

1. All items are equally strong

2. All items cost the same, not necessarily zero. E.g., 1000 favour each item

Reply #9 Top

Quoting CelMare, reply 3
i dont agree. why?  this seems odd, but you are right and wrong. look:

1. for new players it is kinda motivation to achieve something. its like christmas earning a new item. i liked that. it motivated me at the beginning. they aren't heavy to get. you get favor pouints pretty fast.

2. new pople shouldn't fight singificantly more experienced  anyway. thus no problem with that as it makes no difference.

3.now, problematic this seems only for very new player against player that are not sooooo new. in this case they others have indeed some advantage. but as they are all still quite noobs it really does not make much of a difference.

 

briefly where balance is needed, they already have all the needed favor items. and for the beginners it is some extra "fun" to get them. i know not all feel it as fun. but it is no big thing to get them.

I agree with CelMare. i also want to add that for a new player, its only a race to Blood Of the Fallen. Once a new player aquires BotF he doesnt have a disadvantage vs good players, at least in favor item. lets be real guys: The really expensive favor items (i.e. Blade of the Serpent, HoB, Heaven's Wrath etc) are items for experienced players. A noob will not know how to use them properly. BotF is enough for noobs, as they start to learn what things work, and what dont.

IMHO, we need favor item costs. Or it could be like this:

1. All items are equally strong

2. All items cost the same, not necessarily zero. E.g., 1000 favour each item

But not 0 cost. it is kinda ridiculus. But the new favor items in 1.2, will make things unfair and unbalanced, a player in order to aquire SotF, will need 5000 favor points. Thats more than 50 games played ( assuming 100 favor points in each game), So a noob will  never have that 1000 HP that others will sure have from SotF.

Reply #10 Top

I generally agree with the OP (gkrit). Make favor items either cost nothing or all cost the same, then balance them against each other.  However, I do still like the idea of favor being given based on how someone did during a match.  Maybe in the stats overlay, it could list a person's average favor per game.  That way, you get a sense of how good a person really is, outside of just W-L ratio.  For example, I've seen many players get a lot of favor in a match even while being on the losing team.  An average favor stat would capture this kind of performance in ways that a pure W-L stat cannot.

Reply #11 Top

Quoting the_hunger, reply 10
I generally agree with the OP (gkrit). Make favor items either cost nothing or all cost the same, then balance them against each other.  However, I do still like the idea of favor being given based on how someone did during a match.  Maybe in the stats overlay, it could list a person's average favor per game.  That way, you get a sense of how good a person really is, outside of just W-L ratio.  For example, I've seen many players get a lot of favor in a match even while being on the losing team.  An average favor stat would capture this kind of performance in ways that a pure W-L stat cannot.

No a player can be really bad/poor in a game and still get a lot of favor.

Reply #12 Top

@gkrit

i read your response to my post. i still don't agree with you here. don't get me wrong, it is in fact a question of taste.

i found it better to take first a cheaper item not so good than to wait all the way for my dream favor. why? because the difference to the other players wasn't big anymore. it was much more easier to get the points for botf after i got this otehr similar but cheaper item.

it is even more motivating for me. i mean it is a bit like in a rolelpaying game. getting better, getting better favor items. for my starting time in dg i wanted to have the possiblity to improve my "equip". with all items the same prize it is like a one time fun. ofcourse you still need some of the others if you play more than one demigod.

i understand your point. but despite of our different tastes here, this is not an issue at all. you get your best favor item very fast. long before you have too fight such skilled players that favor items are a big diference!

Reply #13 Top

Maybe in the stats overlay, it could list a person's average favor per game. That way, you get a sense of how good a person really is, outside of just W-L ratio.

I basicly said the same thing in first reply.

However, RemV also quickly showed the downside of that kind of favor counting. But, its still debateble, and i think it could mean more than what favor points do now (we have number of played games & win/loose ratio, which makes the number of favor points totaly redundant feature (except for ofc using them to purcase the favor items))

 

Reply #14 Top

^You're right, Bobek_XY.  I didn't read your post closely enough.  We are basically in agreement.

I still do like the average favor-point stat as a way of making favor relevant over time. And I do think that people know enough about the game to know that such a stat would have to be viewed in the context of a demigod's traditional role.  That is, no reasonable person should expect the average QoT player to have an average favor above that of the average UB player. So, I think that it would be useful to include in the overlay both the player's average favor per game and the person's preferred (most played) demigod, which is actually information that is presently maintained at the Pantheon website.  Thus, for example, if a person usually plays QoT and has an average favor of 90 per game, that probably says something more positive about that person's skill than a player who often plays UB and has an average favor of 55. 

Reply #15 Top

i don't like that messuring the quality of a player by favor points. in fact i often observed that the most important player had the lowsert favor points at the end. this happends quite often for sedna, as she does not get kill so often, and even assists are sometimes only second. hence no gold award, no citadel upgrades award etc.

hell, i had games were it was so clear that it was mostly my work that we won and had even less favor points than one of the losers.

 

no really, this favor point thing is totally unbalanced among the demigods. with some of them it is much easier to gat some of the awards than with others. favor points avarage over many games is a worse ratio than W/L, by far.

Reply #16 Top

@Celmare: I do feel your pain, trust me.  I play QoT a lot, and it does get kind of old coming away from a game with the least favor after your Bramble Shield has made it possible for your UB teammate to pursue opponents through towers or allowed your Rook ally to push a lane.  Favor does not capture that kind of teamwork that can be essential to winning.  However, I would include in the overlay a player's typical demigod choice, so that people could compare apples-to-apples.  That is, it would be clear that a person plays Sedna a lot, and thus it would be clear that their average favor per game should be compared to that stat for other Sedna players. 

Reply #17 Top

if you still jump on favor points then let  me suggest something different:

for this messure take the avarage favor points the winning team had in total devided by the favorpoints the losing team had in total.

 

why is this better? of course in one game you may get more or less favor points than you may be wortth with this formula, because it implies the points of your mates. BUT doing this over all matches you were in will even this out..

 

BUT (again one big but^^) this is still a very bad messure because imagin a tied game of two decent teams:

in such a game often both teams get quite low favorpoints because it is too tight. but this will influence the messurement worse than having a bad player team palying a brain dead player team.

W/L ratio at least does not weighten such a win probably in a wrong way. it does not weighten the win at all, neither the loss.

Reply #18 Top

Quoting the_hunger, reply 16
@Celmare: I do feel your pain, trust me.  I play QoT a lot, and it does get kind of old coming away from a game with the least favor after your Bramble Shield has made it possible for your UB teammate to pursue opponents through towers or allowed your Rook ally to push a lane.  Favor does not capture that kind of teamwork that can be essential to winning.  However, I would include in the overlay a player's typical demigod choice, so that people could compare apples-to-apples.  That is, it would be clear that a person plays Sedna a lot, and thus it would be clear that their average favor per game should be compared to that stat for other Sedna players. 

I disagree. This would complicate things even more, thus adding more bugs. We have seen it with even the simplest of things. Even the smallest change small bugs. Right now the familiarity rate, is not to be trusted and sometimes shows very low % or sometimes too high %. Also it counts games played between 2 players, either with or against each other.

So please lets keep it simple. Better to have an overlay that works (kind of) than have one that is bugged and broken.

Reply #19 Top

Quoting CelMare, reply 17
if you still jump on favor points then let  me suggest something different:

for this messure take the avarage favor points the winning team had in total devided by the favorpoints the losing team had in total.

why is this better? of course in one game you may get more or less favor points than you may be wortth with this formula, because it implies the points of your mates. BUT doing this over all matches you were in will even this out.

I think that such a formula might be useful for getting a sense of how a team performs, but generally does not say much about the individual performance.  If we had a genuine team/clan match-matching system, I could see more usefulness for this formula. 

EDIT: Morpheas--Yes, my suggestion is based on the assumption that any new system would work as intended, as I assume the other posters are assuming about their suggested changes.  If any new system would introduce more bugs, it would, of course, need to be removed.

Reply #20 Top

no really, this favor point thing is totally unbalanced among the demigods. with some of them it is much easier to gat some of the awards than with others. favor points avarage over many games is a worse ratio than W/L, by far.

W/L ratio at least does not weighten such a win probably in a wrong way. it does not weighten the win at all, neither the loss.

I never said to remove win/loss ratio, i said/meant that it's maybe the best we have to determine who is good player. Read my post again. This 'new' favor counting would just be an extra, additional way to (maybe) help determine the stats.

Reply #21 Top

/signed

Reply #22 Top

Everybody knows that favor points are useless after u have the useful favor items purchased. So favor points later on only indicates how much u have played and not how good u are. It is really a matter of games played, to get many favor points.

This would not even give u a clue about how good somebody is.

I am happy with how things are right now.

Reply #23 Top

I'd just as soon agree with the OP (as I always have) as far as balancing them and making the costs -zero- but if accumulating favor is really 'that' exciting to people, I'd be all for putting every last one of them in the same non-zero bracket as well.

I don't want to see different tiers of items with varying costs, however.  I much prefer content that isn't made obsolete on purpose, especially when that change can easily occur within the space of a day or two of casual play.

Reply #24 Top

@Bobek_XY

and where exactly did i claimed you said you want this favor item INSTEAD of w/l ratio? and none of my statements imply such a thing.

 

i say this favor thing is a worse indicator. having it additionally to the stats will fuck up game finding even more than currently where you often kick players due to their buggy stats. now the get kicked due too stupid favor point messure too?

it is a useless messurement. it does not matter if you have it sole or in addition the W/L ratio. it remains a totally useless messurement, luring players into false interpretation of others skills.

 

very bad idea!

Reply #25 Top



i say this favor thing is a worse indicator. having it additionally to the stats will fuck up game finding even more than currently where you often kick players due to their buggy stats. now the get kicked due too stupid favor point messure too?

it is a useless messurement. it does not matter if you have it sole or in addition the W/L ratio. it remains a totally useless messurement, luring players into false interpretation of others skills.



very bad idea!

This :thumbsup: