User talk:Linsey Murdock/Zaishen Quests

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Zqeusts...

Hi Linsey. I would like to thank you for the content update. I see that GW is not dying, and you, with your team came up to awesome ideas that improve GW's gameplay. Now i am sure that august content update will be worth waiting, and future of GW1 is safe. But theres one issue in this update, and its Zqeusts.

Firstly, they should be account based. Why? Because people with many pve characters (with access to every area in game) will have a huge advantage among other people. Also people with additional character slots will have advantage (which have never taken place in GW, where in-game shop can make advantage). Secondly, the rewards must to be balanced. Lets take into account FB rewards from pvp qeusts: My friend Metatail yesterday, when TA qeusts came up, asked me "Hey Ele, lets farm fb?". I answered "No, i am <insert random thing here>". 3-4 hours later, he told me that he already got about 73 k fb. 70k+ in 3-4 hours. Thats crazy. Its 16 zkeys. Zqeusts are destroying game in this state. And its TA! Look at HB qeusts. I am sure everyone will roll. Roll for 5-7 k fb reward, then make another character and repeat? That will break economy much better than MOX qeusts, than retroactive books. QQers will say "stop qq and adapt, it does not affect you". But ohwait, it does affect me, as long as zkeys are tradable, and they are source of money to some people. Again, Account based Zqeusts could fix that problem. The other thing is, that faction reward are a bit crazy. Lets look at AB: it gives 7.5 k faction (if i remember right). Example: Theres double AB weekend, lets say win gives you 1,5k, but its double so its 3k of faction each win. He won twice, so 6 k faction. Now zqeusts, 2 wins. 1,5k x 2 so its 3k + 7,5k reward. Thats 10,5 k for just 2 wins in AB during that zqeusts. Its so much better than double AB weekend, since Zqeusts are about once a week, you have about 15 % chance to AB Zqeusts, and AB double weekend is much much rare. Now rewards: i don't know how you designed rewards, but if you taken into account multiple characters farming zqeusts each day, leave the rewards alone, but thats still not fair. This introduces grind (yes, grind in zqeusts, since to obtain good reward you have to repeat zqeusts on each possible character). If you designed reward for one character (only 3 zqeusts each day, one of each type), then rewards must be to better, by like 10/20 % of actual zcoins. But the main thing is: they MUST to be account based, otherwise, they will just break the economy, and destroy the fun factor.

You actually said, that making them account wide have made many errors. So let's avoid that, and make something to limit possible quests each day. Maybe half the reward for each qeusts completed more than once, and get rid of faction reward? Anything, anything, but it needs to be fixed. We actually don't see the effects, since they cant be put in storage, but after the fix, we will see how zqeusts will become pure grind to high end players, and how zqeusts will destroy economy by giving many zkeys around. And ufairness for people how received their FB by playing, against people that half their FB gained by zqeusts. Please Linsey, do something, while you can. But otherwise, great update :) I still love you. --Matt Ele 09:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is it that people blame content for "destroying the economy"? The economy is fluid, it's a matter of supply and demand. The higher the supply, whether through additional sources, or simply time, is going to make the prices of everything drop, this does not "destroy the economy". What it does is make it harder for some people to make easy money. People who "farm" are the ones who are more responsible for "destroying the economy" by flooding the market with the flavor of the month skin. I remember when Dead Swords were 100k+ now you can barely give them away, same with Elemental Swords. The economy of this game does not depend upon the price of zkeys, or ectos, or any other single commodity. You claim that "zqeusts will become pure grind to high end players". It simply gives people who have completed everything there is to do in PvE something new to work on. Personally I think the gripe is based more on the fact you can't get these rewards quickly and easily, but you actually have to work for them. I think that is a great concept. Oh, and since you already saw Linsey's answer to the above request to make Zquests account based, you should know what her answer is going to be. --Wyn's Talk page Wyn 09:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Wyn, i dissaree. the quests are grind tactic in every form and shape and it really dost help that they didn't release a bug fix for the coins being stuck. also the amount of effort one puts into some of thous quests is just annoying to get a meer 100 copper zcoins i mean 5 consecutive wins in ta on one toon is pain full and then doing 4 more matches is even more painful. i don't think it would be so bad if you could complete the quests and then and then retake it on an other toon and pick up were you left off but forcing you to only use one toon can be very painful especaly when that toon isn't a wildly useful class. i like the packs but i also think the 10 pack should = 50 copper coins 15 = 10 silver and the 20= 15 gold coins so then people who want to do a little bit and get a rather good reward 10 slots can and i want that for some of my more non main toons. and this way it would leave the 20 something to work up to still but makes it a lot less gridy and the other huge downside i with these quests and how its set up right now is its forcing me to play what the game wants me to play just so i can get a bag i mean a bag something you get for free on creation of a toon. i feel that i am ranting and that has to do with what time it is here.. 4am got up at 6 am and went to bed at 4 am the night before but no one but my self to blame for that. anyhow sorry for the rant and misspellings.76.121.95.90 11:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

This Z-nonsense as I call it is the bare minimum Arenanet could have done: it's just taking everything that it's already established and tacking on new rewards, but putting the rewards so far out there it will take an unjustified amount of time to get them. I also find it a bright move to be able to compare these z-coins to static prices, such as lockpicks, as it already shows how the player controlled market is handled.
I have 12 characters who are PvE (I don't PvP enough to do any of the PvP related content) and it would take me 6 days to get one Heavy Equipment Pack, so if I wanted one for each it would take me 72 days of constant z-nonsense gameplay. It's also interesting when looking at the current Z-reward market, which is player controlled and operated, that personally I was able to farm today enough gold to get what would be half an of ever-crate, which is over 3 times the z-gold coin value of an Heavy Pack, though I've been told they're not tradable, if this is true I'd be utterly disappointed in Arenanet.)
PvE rewards aren't stacking up toe to toe with the PvP either, which is a slap in the face for anyone who is PvE only. This Z-nonsense is, again, the bare minimum they could have done, and they should feel ashamed. It's just like a doll company taking last year's product and throwing on a new hat: you're going to get people saying why not just sell the new hat seperate. Same thing applies here.
"We believe this will encourage players to group up with those in the area attempting to complete this common goal of getting rewarded for that day's Challenge Quest." Non-sense. Utter and complete non-sense. 000.00.00.00 11:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
well at least it makes grinding titles a bit quicker with faction rewards.(marsc 11:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC))

I think Zquest shouldnt be acc-wide. I think only age of charracter will be fair restriction - e.g only characters older than one day could take ZQuest. It will stop farm (create char/delete char) at PvP zquest. Creating and deleting a tons of new characters wont be so profitable. --Titus andronicus 11:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

while I'm unsure if the latter is possiable (I would assume so considering they managed it for trading), I believe Linsey has stated that they can't make the quests account wide. as for the PvE not balancing up to PvP rewards, remember there's 2 PvE quests and only 1 PvP, yes both quests combined don't give you the same amount of Z-coins as the PvP reward, but the PvE ones have other perks (Experiance, gold and faction towards different titles). I'd say the rewards are pretty balanced. ~PheNaxKian User PheNaxKian sig.jpg Talk 11:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Furthermore, PvP Quests aren't profitable. While they give the most coins (moot point atm, can't trade them), and a lot of Faction (which is good, Faster UAX), unlike the other 2 types of ZQuests they're balanced out by the fact that their content isn't static. You go to kill Molotov Rocktail and you have a pretty good idea where he is going to be, his skill bar, and how to counter him, and it's pretty much impossible to fail. When you do PvP even if you're on top it's still possible lose, and all the PvP ones besides GvG have required more than 1 win to turn in anyways. Snagging even 2/3 wins can take time making the quests take a various amount of time. It depends on the game mode and such, but 3 wins of TA, assuming you lose a lot, could be around a 15-30 minute Quest. You can make 1k in PvE a lot faster than that. DarkNecrid 12:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Wrong. Look at RA/TA for example. Most teams are able to gain 3 wins in less than 5 minutes, and get 6k fb. Thats 1k+one zkey (assuming they are 4 k each). Its 5 k a 5-6 minutes. If zqeusts will be kept in current state, we will easy see them as 2-3 k each, if not less. --Matt Ele 13:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Sorry but I have to re-hash Wyn's logic because it's the same logic I use and tell everyone who QQ's about the economy. It's -normal-. When there's more of something, price drops. Less of it? It's expensive. I fail to see the problem.-- User Vanguard VanguardLogo.pnganguard 13:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
@Matt Ele, yes, and while doing that teams are losing too. Every match has a winner and a loser, so it's going to go slower for some people or faster for others. Z-Keys are going to go down in price, however having seen the numbers, it's potentially a very small loss, I could see them going down to 3-3.5k, which isn't bad all things considered. DarkNecrid 14:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh wait, so nobody see problem with ability to do as many DAILY qeusts as you like? With insane high rewards in terms of FB?--Matt Ele 17:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
You get to do the Daily Quests once per character per day. It's the same in every other game that has Daily Quests. They're quests. DarkNecrid 16:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
sup, except for the part where you can remake pvp characters and do them as many times as you'd like -FireFox User FireFox av.png 16:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Not that it really matters right now since you can't put zcoins in storage.~>Sins WDBUser The Sins We Die By Sig.png 17:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes FireFox, just like every quest in the game, new characters can do Quests they haven't done yet. Linsey already said (up above) they can't really make them Account based, and that they knew it would work this way, so the rewards are already balanced around the idea that they can be done multiple times per account. DarkNecrid 17:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Why most people that disagree with me think that its about zcoins. Its not about zcoins. Its FB and aliegance faction. Those are not balanced. Ok, i can shut up about making them account wide. But please, get rid of ability to delete and create new character, with new combat zqeust to do, with insane high reward.--Matt Ele 17:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) The faction rewards seem balanced to me. For Balth faction the highest was 9k. That's an elite and 6 other skills, so if you include your already unlocked res sig, it's basically a new build, which seems fair. As for the Alliance faction rewards, you can only donate to one, as you lose faction with the other when you donate to the first. So you only really gain half the reward, not to mention that the title requirements are high for the faction titles. ~PheNaxKian User PheNaxKian sig.jpg Talk 18:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

No, not like every other quest... Can you show me any other comparable quest? Oh wait... -FireFox User FireFox av.png 18:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The update has been out for 4 days. Linsey has told you that the zcoin storage problem is a bug and will be fixed. Why the rush? It's not like there is a time limit on getting these items. They will still be there when the bug gets fixed. Give Linsey a break, she has worked her butt off to get this update out to us, and deserves a weekend to just play and have fun (which she hasn't had in almost FOUR MONTHS). --Wyn's Talk page Wyn 19:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Firefox, I don't see how that is any different form what I said. New characters can do Quests they haven't done yet. Once you meet the requirements of that quest, you can do it, remake a character, meet the requirement, do it, etc. There is absolutely 0 quests in this game that a character can't do because another character on your account already did it. (Wyn, this section isn't about the storage bug though except for maybe 1-2 passing mentions, it's about PvP characters remaking to do the PvP quest a lot and if that's balanced or fair.) DarkNecrid 19:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Dark Necrid, I think Firefox has given that example as a qeust, that was abused like pvp zqeusts. And it got fixed by simply req. Why not make something like that on combat zqeust? --Matt Ele 19:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The only requirements quests have is: Level, Title, Require a Previous Quest to Be Completed, From a Specific Campaign. Quests are bound per character, anything that changes that would be kind of defeating the point of quests. What requirement are you going to put on them? Level? PvP characters are level 20. Title? PvP titles are account wide. Require a previous quest? Prevents PvP characters from doing PvP Quests which makes no sense. From A Specific Campaign? Makes no sense. Times per day? No other quest is like this, except for the Dailies, which are all 1 time per day per character because Quests are bound by Character. The PvP Quests aren't as bad as you guys make them out to be. The monetary gain is slower than PvE farms, Balthazar Faction is nice for UAX and if people buy Zkeys with them, the inherent cost value of them won't go down much (They're still 4k even after a lot of people farmed the GvG + TA Quests), and if you're going for ZCoins it takes awhile to net all 3 objectives for them. You're overreacting, basically. DarkNecrid 19:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) A possible solution to this would be to not allow PvP chars to do these quests. After all, isn't that the point of PvE characters? To do quests? Until now, there haven't been any quests available at all to PvP characters as they are restricted to the PvP islands. So why not keep the same restrictions as before. When I first read about these zquests, I thought they would be a GREAT opportunity for players who aren't very strong at PvP to have a way of earning faction to get rewards that PvP-focused players get. PvP players can stick to their PvP style of playing, while PvE players can stick to doing their quests, only delving into PvP when the quest requires it. This will keep people from deleting/recreating chars to "over-farm" the rewards, but at the same time allow PvE players to somewhat increase their faction. --MushaUser Musha Sigc.pngTalk 23:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Now answer me one question: how many times do you think a single person can remake a PvP character to repeat these Combat quests in one day? Realistically... Say 1 quest with all bonuses takes on average 1 hour for most people (some take more, some take less). Say you can spend 8 hours a day playing GW (very unrealistic for most, but bear with me). So that means you can remake 8 PvP characters and repeat the quest. How is that different from just having 8 different well-developed (PvP-ready) characters on your account and doing it on each of them? Some may say to just do the primary objective and not the bonuses, which is faster, but the reward for just the primary objective is so much lower, that it's actually worth the time/effort to get the bonuses if all you want are the coins. So please, stop crying about this already. A time-based restriction since character creation is not something that can easily be coded, if at all, and there really isn't a problem here to begin with. The quests change daily, so even if someone gets good at "farming" one of them, guess what, the "glory" won't last for very long. User Rose Of Kali SIG.jpgRose Of Kali 02:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Musha that defeats the entire point of the PvP Quests which were made knowing (and ergo balanced around) the knowledge that someone can remake a character and do them. DarkNecrid 03:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I think that not allowing new characters to do the pvp zquests doesn't make any sense. The whole point of having pvp character slots is that you can reroll them to play a different class. Most pvpers don't have a pvp character sitting around that they always use, you have to roll an appropriate class character for the build you're playing. I feel the same way about only allowing pve characters to do the quests. Usually pve characters don't have access to all the skills/equipment needed to be able to easily change builds. I know that there are exceptions to this, there are people who always use the same pvp character and there are those who make pve characters with the intention of using them in pvp, but removing the ability to reroll characters for all the rest of the pvp community isn't the way to solve any problem that may or may not exist. Very few people are going to sit around rerolling characters to farm balthazar faction from TA, and the few who do aren't going to make enough of a difference to break the economy. Additionally, there are much faster ways than AB for getting kurz/luxon title points even with the zquest, and if someone is really determined to get those titles they are probably off pursuing those faster ways. ;-) User CallistaSQ Flameeye.JPG Callista 13:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Daily zaishen quest - HA

Answered Answered. This section has been answered and should be archived by Friday, 15 May 2009 to resolved issues

So since I'm collecting zcoins on my monk, does this mean I have to monk in HA? eewww lame. You should at least be able to put them in storage. --adrin User adrin ecto sig.png 18:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

um, it has been said quite a few times on here that not being able to put zcoins in storage is a bug that will be fixed this week -Stu 18:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Zcoins can be put into storage now. - User Linsey Murdock sig.jpgLinsey talk 19:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Zaishen Coin Grind too harsh

I did the Z quests on multiple characters for most of the non-pvp quests (in hard mode as well). I have 10 characters and am in desperate need for storage. I now have 1 gold 3 silver and 8 copper coins. This is after many hours playing in Hard Mode to do long missions and obscure bounties, which I enjoyed, but at this rate it will be a very long time before I even see my 1st 20 slot bag, let alone my 5th or 10th. To make matters worse, Heavy Equipment bags are primarily PvE items, (as PvP players don't really need extra storage seeing as players don't have to pick up items or have multiple armours/weapon skins) yet most PvP players have an advantage with their Zaishen Quests. They are able to redo them as many times as they want with the same class/build by creating a replica of their PvP toon and deleting it when done. To add to this the PvP quests are also more rewarding than PvE quests. Now that I'm seeing how long it will take just to get the bags I'm starting to think it's not even worth doing the quests for PvE because the rewards are so small when compared to the cost of the items. 122.111.96.166 03:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I would have to agree - the way this system seems to be working, it is heavily biased in favor of pvp. I have pretty much given up on the mission and bounty quests in order to farm the pvp ones, as it is so much more effective. It seems kind of counter-intuitive to me that those who need the stuff least (tomes, xp scrolls, and storage?) have the best way of getting them. I don't know what a good solution to this problem might be (and if I did I couldn't suggest it anyway...), but I think something needs to be done. Don't get me wrong, I love 95% of the update, but this portion seems a little unbalanced. Ashes Of Doom Talk 03:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, for the time investment vs coins earned, it's almost fair. It doesn't take long to hunt down most bosses (not the dungeon ones...) and it can take a good long time to complete one of the PvP quests, especially considering the random arenas, like JQ. But I do have to agree that overall this system is still heavily biased towards PvP. A major step forward would be making the Combat quests (only, not the others) repeatable for PvE characters as well, so that if you have one primary character you can use that character over and over, same as re-rolling an identical PvP char. I'm wondering if Anet is trying to encourage players to learn to PvP? User Rose Of Kali SIG.jpgRose Of Kali 05:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
I do think the rewards for the PvE zquests need to be reconsidered a bit. IMO, Rragar's Menagerie dungeon is one of the hardest dungeons in EotN, if not THE hardest. 75 coins in HM for that degree of difficulty was just not worth it. It took me three days to get a group that was good enough to get through it on just one char! I abandoned that quest on all the rest of my chars. How is the value in zcoins determined for each zquest, anyway? I have no problem so far with the supposed "high cost" of the heavy epack, its given us all something to shoot for and has revitalized PvE like nothing to date. But in some cases, like the Rragar bounty zquest, the rewards don't match the effort. It's very discouraging. --MushaUser Musha Sigc.pngTalk 06:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the word "Grind" - as grind is something you do the same thing over and over again. As such, it is only grind if you do the quests on multiple characters. Which is your choice, and in my opinion much worse than farming. Which is why I wish the quests were account based (yes I know, could not be done). I do think the PvE ones need a little upping, but I guess them being lower equivilates the 2:1 ratio of quests per day. Could use a little boost though. 50 for Kanaxai in NM? I'd give 100 for NM... But that's me and I don't care if it is changed or not. It'll give me things to do for a longer time if they don't get changed. -- Azazel The Assassin\talk 06:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Or just wait for TA and run a team of
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Works like a charm. Quick matches, you either win, or die from over exhaustion. 175 z coins every 25 min or so. Then there is the bannable stuff, that many people don't get banned for anyways. HB Rolling (now red resigning apparently), leeching AB,JQ, and FA. Although sheer numbers prevent ANet from really taking action against the HB thing. Of course the smart pvp players will just trade in some z keys for cash and buy whatever they want from people who get the stuff that is exclusively z coins (although I'm not sure that equipment packs will be tradable). Actually, when you think about it pvp rewards have surpassed pve ones forever. Sigils, flames, weapon drops, z keys, now z coins. Interesting trend, not that I am complaining =P ~>Sins WDBUser The Sins We Die By Sig.png 06:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) The Zaishen PvP Quests should give out more Zaishen Coins like they currently do. Two reasons for this: The Zaishen Order is what currently runs the Battle Isles and who we spend Balthazar Faction with so it makes sense from a lore perspective, and secondly (and more importantly) it helps get PvE players to try PvP. Even if people "red resign" or just PUG TA, it makes people give these areas a chance, and if they like it, they'll come back and try it legitimately later on which is awesome (Met 2 PvErs who added me so we can do stuff so far!).

I will point out that the logic that PvP players don't need these is wrong. A lot of the top end spectrum of players use PvE characters when they PvP and need these items just as much as you do. I personally use 1 PvE character to PvP myself for my main class and she would love the Heavy Equipment Pack. Getting people to try PvP is important because PvP has advantages over PvE in the business sense. There's less that needs to be done to maintain the status quo, mostly just balancing (although new maps are nice every now and then). They don't need to create "content" for PvP because the players do that every time they hit Enter Battle. It's cheaper for ArenaNet in the long run and if they do whatever they can to try and get people to just try it, then I'm all for it. DarkNecrid 15:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. I use a PvE monk for PvP (Why? Well, I like my armor), and I use a good 20 slots for weapon and shield swaps alone (no, not all for the same build). While it's not that extreme on the rest of my characters (the exceptions being my warrior, who needs three of each warrior weapon, several shields, two spears, a bow, and several headpieces, and my ele, who needs 40/40s and 40/20/20s for each ele attribute, then 40/40s for other caster attributes on top of that), it's really a huge help on everyone. I bought a light equipment pack today and had inventory space for the first time in ages; I plan on buying a heavy one when I can.
As far as encouraging players to PvP, I heartily approve. TA districts with three teams (one being yours) get old, as does recognizing 3/4 of the players in HA at any given time (and on that note, anyone who sadfaces because they can't find groups in HA, yeah, new people are good for you). I don't think anyone would mind more players on the PvP scene. User Raine R.gif Raine - talk 17:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Why encourage players to PvP? People know what they like. People will play one or the other, as they prefer. The mind of the person playing one or the other tends to be vastly different. (Myself, I'm 98% PvE, 2% Random Arenas while I'm waiting for my friends to get together.) The whole concept of PvP, top down, left right, inside outside just isn't fun to me. Competitiveness, fast pace, etc. I play for exploration, interaction, and (sit down!) reading the quest dialogs. The reward could be 1000000 zoins -- you'll never find me anywhere near HA or GvG.
Back to the thread starter, yes, as has been discussed many other places, the coin costs for everything is way too high. I won't even see my first smaller bags until *months* from now at the rate the quests have been doable by a casual, for-fun player. (*Reminder: "for-fun" excludes hard mode, and most of Eye of the North from being considered.)
Finally, as an aside, I really think the bags should have *upgraded* from one size to the next. There's no point otherwise. Someone will save up and buy the largest, and that's it; they'll go from the 5-slot to the (theoretically, eventually) 20-slot, skipping the 10- and 15- slot ones. --71.240.11.243 01:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Because encourging players to try out all facets of the game is good. Some players don't know what they all like, and the 2 people I picked up because of these ZQuests never gave PvP a try because of a few misconceptions or misunderstandings about it and its community. They give people incentive to give it a second chance, and that's a good thing. DarkNecrid 02:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I can pretty much guarantee that when the bags start being sold, they will cost less than the money you could have made farming during the time it took to get all the coins. 76.84.34.210 03:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

If zcoins are too much grind, maybe don't do it? ~Shard User Shard Sig Icon.png 04:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Except they're now a core feature of the game (and not vanity), and, as such, should be reasonably obtainable by all cross-sections of players, not just the elite few (who have tons already out of reach of the average/casual players). --Emkyooess 11:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
People who say if it's too much grind don't do it don't seem to understand what grind is. Everything in the game is optional. Every single thing. Logging in is optional, to then say if you have a choice not to do it then it, you can no longer call it a grind is just wrong. Grind is requiring a large time investment of repeating something to obtain some kind of reward. Obtaining FoW armour is a grind because it requires you to save enough money to buy it. Even if you have the option of farming any area in the entire game for money to obtain it, it's still a grind. The Z Coin requirements for the Heavy Bag are waaay too harsh to not call them a grind. When the average mission on hard mode is a 30 min time investment (excluding time spent forming a party) for 50 - 90 copper coins with all bonuses it's going to take months for a single bag. This is ignoring the fact that I can create a PvP toon and be ready to AB within seconds but to get my mesmer far enough in Nightfall to do DoA would take a solid weekend of playing to kill the Stygian Lords, I say mesmer cause no-one wants to play with a ranger in DoA. It wouldn't be as bad if I could just redo quests on my preferred class as many times as I wanted instead of either giving up for the day or playing a class I don't feel like playing, which isn't a problem for PvP characters. As far as getting people to play PvP, I don't care if they do. The reason PvE has more people in it and PvP has less is because a lot of people don't enjoy PvP as much, or at all. Pushing them into Hero Battles, which they thoroughly don't enjoy, or HA or TA to obtain storage space (which is like cocaine to a GW player) isn't going to make very many people happy. Having said that we do have an option not to and many people have chosen not to. We can still get the bags without PvP it's just not as fast as if we did PvP. The argument you need something to work towards is true, but I don't think that should be storage space. The everlasting crate of fireworks is a good item. There are many different items they can add at a later time (and I wouldn't be surprised if they did) to create a use for Z Coins. You don't really lose out by not having them but they are cool enough for people to want to save up and buy them. The tomes alone will create disposable enough of a reason to keep down Z Coin numbers. 122.105.107.234 11:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive and/or non-entertaining gameplay in order to gain access to other features within the game -< Wikipedia's defenition of grinding. If playing missions, killing monsters and competing in PvP are a grind to you (i.e. non-entertaining and repetitive) then you simply need to quit and get a new game. But if something takes time (even a lot) then it isn't automatically a grind. Farming is a grind, something that costs a lot isn't (because you can earn it normally too, even if it takes like forever). Please keep your facts straight everyone. 145.94.74.23 11:04, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Read this whole section again, please, IP. Notice how many people say that the Z-Coins are obtainable in a reasonable amount of time because you can repeat them multiple times on different characters? And repeating a Z-Quest again and again on different characters is grind.
But personally I've stopped caring about this issue. I'm not going to turn myself into a slave of the Z-Quests. I'll just wait for players to start selling the heavy bags at a reasonable price (and with PvP'ers being able to farm the highly rewarding PvP-Z-Quests that shouldn't be too long anymore). User Xelonir sig.pngXelonir 11:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) If you're trying to get the equipment packs on multiple characters ASAP, then you'll probably be doing the daily quests on multiple characters, which makes it repetitive and satisfies the definition. On the other hand, it's entirely optional how much you want to make it a grind. A lot of my zoins have come from the PvP quests, which I can't honestly say is grinding most of the time since I'd be doing it anyway. Somtimes the daily quest influences which PvP I do, but other times I just grab the quest for another day. For instance, almost all my characters have the Random Arenas quest on them at the moment. I don't plan to RA ASAP just because they have it, but it's there for when I feel like it.
Really, the only reason it feels like a grind is because people want their packs NOW and Lindsey(iirc) has said that their aim was to implement this as a long-term goal rather than something everyone would complete quickly and never do again. Mr J 11:36, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
To say "it's optional" is irrelvant. It's a core feature of the game now (yes, where even playing is your so-called "optional") -- everyone should be able to get it REASONABLY. Months just for one is simply unreasonable. Bags were added to help alleviate some of the mess up they created when they added all these festival items and books willy-nilly and people ran out of storage. --136.142.214.19 17:20, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
If you've done every Zaishen Quest so far on just 1 character, you'd be more than half way there to the Heavy Equipment Pack @ 6 Gold Zaishen Coins in a little over 1 week. DarkNecrid 17:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Not everybody does PvP, you know. Those who don't have only 1/3 of that. User Xelonir sig.pngXelonir 17:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I know they don't, and if they aren't going to do all 3 of them, then they can wait a little bit longer to get the Heavy Equipment Pack. If you don't do all 3, it's going to take slightly longer than someone who does. That's to be expected. More effort = more reward. DarkNecrid 17:42, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
There are also those of us who don't play every day, and like to accomplish things when we do play, will not do hard mode (which cuts down the rewards by yet another 1/3). Please step out of your shoes for one moment to see the complaints from another perspective. --136.142.90.34 19:54, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Please explain why you need the 20 slot bag then and not the other 3? (And why you would even need those?) If you're that casual, you really don't need the space. DarkNecrid 20:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Some people's logic for that is that if you don't play that much, you don't need the extra storage (as DN said), which is somewhat flawed, but has a grain of truth. It is flawed because even casual players can have several armor and weapon sets to switch, but this is rarely the case. The main problem is that a lot of people do play a lot and have been farming these quests, so reducing the cost of rewards would completely flood the market. Unfortunately, you're in the left-out boat on this one when it comes to getting a heavy pack, especially for every character. It's a shame, but it's needed to balance out all the farmers from getting 5 heavy packs every week and making even more money by selling them, because in a month they will have every mule outfitted with one and will be getting extras. I got the 10-slot pack on my main character for my first gold coin, versus waiting on 15 coins for only twice the space, and I'm quite happy with it. Eventually I will get the heavy one, but for now, that gold coin was well spent. Even the 15-slot pack is still 3 times cheaper, so for the heavy pack you pay extra 10 gold coins for only 5 more slots. The point? Don't get the heavy unless you actually need maximum space. User Rose Of Kali SIG.jpgRose Of Kali 20:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) It appears that the players who PvP a lot don't have a problem with the zquest rewards. And, simply put, that is because they are able to get those rewards over and over again by rerolling new PvP chars. But that is not the issue here. The issue is this: does the reward match the effort when comparing the quests? As Dark Necrid said, "More effort = more reward." Well, yes, it definitely should, but lets look at the zcoin reward output. The rewards for the PvP zquests I've seen range from 105-350 coins, if all bonus objectives are completed. And those are repeatable by the PvP rerollers. And let's be honest, how much effort does it really take to set up a build and enter an RA battle, or to set up a good group for HA. While on the other hand, a one-time, non-repeatable reward of a paltry 75 coins for killing Rragar in HM, one of the hardest dungeons to beat, or a pittance of 70 coins for completing a mission plus all of its bonus objectives in HM, requires more effort. Yet, the lowest PvP reward exceeds that of the average bounty or mission reward, and those are the ones that are repeatable by the rerollers. I'm not saying we disallow PvPers to repeat the PvP zquests, or to make those quests account based, or even to lower the cost of the heavy epacks. What I AM saying is that the reward should match the effort. Some of the bounty and mission zquests are very difficult and offer little reward, especially when you see what great rewards the PvP zquests which aren't so difficult (I HAVE done them myself) offer. I would like to see this adjusted. Not to get the heavy epack NOW, but to feel rewarded for the time and effort I put into these quests. --MushaUser Musha Sigc.pngTalk 07:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Why do "casual" players need the big equipment pack? Well, let me take myself as an example: After 4 years of playing GW I'm down to an average of 3h/day on my main account (though it's more like 10h/week right now). So I'm far away from the 10h/day some people here seem to consider "normal" for "dedicated" players who "deserve" the heavy equipment pack. Still all my non-mule chars have 2-5 sets of armor, 3+ weapon sets per attribute and of course head pieces for each attribute. That summes up easily to 30+ slots for equipment per character. So at my current rate of aquiring Z-Coins I'm faced with spending 100 weeks doing nothing but Z-Quests to get a HEP for all 10 of my non-mule chars. Thanks, but no thanks.
I totally agree with what Musha said above, btw. User Xelonir sig.pngXelonir 10:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I would like to either get a better reward (eg ragnar HM, stygian HM, do not in the least come close to rewarding accordingly), or have the amount reduced a bit to 10gold zoins for the heavy pack (wich would still be allot of zoins). --Ellisia talk 10:42, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't mind if they improve the PvE rewards s'long as the PvP rewards are still the best ones to follow the reward scaling of Mission lowest to Combat highest, as this allows the Combat quests to still interest people into trying PvP and being rewarded substantially for doing so. I don't mind the Coin rewards not because I'm a "PvPer" (btw, I've only rerolled once and it was for the HB one, and I only rerolled 3 times as the same class, so I didn't get any tangible benefit that I couldn't have gotten by just playing on other PvP characters) but because when you do all 3 of the Zaishen Quests (since the Live Team obviously built the reward system around the idea that you will do this from comments on Linsey on how long getting the HEP will take) the "grind" isn't bad. Does it take awhile to get? Sure, if you've done each quest only once you're almost half way to getting 1 HEP since the update. Is having a long term objective in the game a bad thing? No. Especially when there isn't many of those left. DarkNecrid 15:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
DN, is it so hard to accept that some people just don't want to PVP, no matter what ANet does? And if this simple fact turns the long term objective into an everlasting objective (and just for some additional storage!), then yes: it is bad. User Xelonir sig.pngXelonir 19:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
No, it isn't hard to accept, I've accepted the fact that some people don't want to play PvP in a game that was built from the ground up to be a PvP game for 4 years now, is it so hard to accept that regardless of that ArenaNet might want to try (and is being semi successful, I might add!), and that the system is slightly biased (unlike a lot of other stuff) towards PvP? Just as there is people who refuse to try PvP no matter what, there's people who will try it out if the rewards are worth it and I've already met several people because of that. It is a long term objective if you don't do the PvP quests. You aren't supposed to get 8 HEP's on Day 2 even if you do all the quests. It's meant to be a long term investment. The Equipment Packs aren't there to be extra OMG MUST HAVE NOW storage per se, that's what the extra tab + buyable tabs are for. It's meant to be a slight conveniance for your own characters extra armor sets/weapons for weapon swapping, that's it. Also, it's actually better for you to buy the Large Equipment Packs as the HEP gives you 5 more slots at the cost of 10 more gold coins, whereas the Large Equipment Pack costs 5 gold coins (which if you do every quest, you'll have 1 already, if not, you'll be half way there) for 15. That's 3 armor sets for 1/3rd the cost a HEP is. I'll reiterate I have no problem with the PvE rewards being bumped up so long as the PvP rewards are still the highest. It's clearly intending to be that way to interest people into trying PvP/other modes, that's just the way it is. DarkNecrid 19:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Why must the PvP rewards be higher than the PvE ones? As you mentioned before, if we're going straight off effort required, then the PvP zquests are low to middle in rank, and should therefore have a lower reward. Then, add to that the repeatability of the quests. The mere fact that they are repeatable by rerollers should cause them to have a lower reward. You might argue that YOU don't reroll. Well, some of the PvEers might not have more than 1 or 2 main PvE chars with which to do the PvE zquests. The fact is, the PvP zquests are repeatable as many times as you want, or as many times as you can with the only limit being how much time you have in a given day, while the PvE zquests are not. So explain to us why you think PvPers deserve more of a reward than the rest of us. The PvE zquests require more effort and are MUCH more limited to the amount of times you can complete them.
So, now that I've played the devil's advocate for a bit... I think the PvP zquest rewards are fine just the way they are. But the rewards for the PvE zquests do not match the effort required to complete them. This does not mean that I think they should lower the cost of any of the epacks; I very much enjoy working for something that I really want. What this means (the only thing it means) is that the rewards for the PvE zquests should be raised, and as long as the reward matches the effort, or lets say, the degree of difficulty, then who cares if the reward for one or two PvE zquests exceeds that of the PvP ones. --MushaUser Musha Sigc.pngTalk 23:53, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
No' it's not bad to have longterm goals (on the contrary), but those should be in the form of everlasting tonics, mini's, everlasting summoning stones, etc. not storage in my opinion. I like to work for something too, but for example: getting about 100coins from HM xandrax, seems a bit low compared to the repeatable hero battles (resign wars?). I'l get the storage either way tho. --Ellisia talk 00:21, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

"No, it isn't hard to accept, I've accepted the fact that some people don't want to play PvP in a game that was built from the ground up to be a PvP game for 4 years now, is it so hard to accept that regardless of that ArenaNet might want to try (and is being semi successful, I might add!), and that the system is slightly biased (unlike a lot of other stuff) towards PvP?" YES, after 4 years of failing with incentives I think it is not acceptable to still be biased. So instead of learning from experience, they'll just continue with favoring PvP and I thought they learned after Nightfalls, EotN and the PvE split. Especially when most players play PvE. STOP SUCKING PVPers COCK, ANET!!

It is normal for a PvP-only character to get more rewards by playing PvP, since they can't farm to get booze or any of the other items they may need or use. IF they use the HH or ZChest, they may need ID kits and salvage kits, if tey are going for the festive items they may need the point giving consumables. So they have the same chances to get those party/alcohol/sweet titles. And most of other items or points for such titles can be aqcquired in PvE by other means, or at festival events. But excepting the everlasting crate, the most expensive stuff are the ones that PvE characters may need more, while they get less coins too. Ok, If you want a Tome, you can go kill a HM boss. And when i comes to flashy stuff like prestige skins, tonics or titles, it is normal to make them take some time to acquire, from a month to a year it's normal for them. But there are NO alternative ways to get the backpacks. NONE. Those PvE players that play 2 hours per day and have time only for the PvE missions, would never get a big equipment bag in less than a week. And those bags are not flashy stuff for shows. No one sees the bags you are equipping. Unless you plan to make the backpacks show like capes, more than a week to get them for PvE characters is WAAAY too long. Do you want to have something to go for in the gold ZCoin collector? Add an evelasting Zaishen tonic there. And everlasting alcoholic beverage so you don't need to care about booze anymore when activating PvE drunk skills and everlasting candy to run in outposts. People will surely go for them. But useful items like bags? No, they can't be slow to get. MithUser MithranArkanere Star.pngTalk 09:46, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
I think the point most PvE-players are complaining about is not really the amount of Zcoins you GET from the missions/bounties, but rather the amount you NEED for that nice, big bag. So maybe an option could be to slightly decrease the amount of gold coins needed for those bags, especially the bigger ones. It seems extremely odd, that the 5-slot bag costs 5 silver ZCoins, 10-slot 10 silver ZCoins (1 gold coin) and suddenly 15 slots are not (as one might expect) 15 silver coins, but 50 and the 20 slot bag 150 silver coins (so you could get 15 ten-slot bags for a single 20-slot bag.... very odd). I can see that PvP players might wish to get a chance to boost some titles (like sweet tooth etc.), no hard feelings in having them get more coins for PvP. I also enjoyed the idea of attracting more people to PvP, or rather I enjoyed it until the moment when a 'dedicated' PvP player started bossing the 'for-fun' players around in RA (wow!). Unfortunately my idea to just keep the Zcombat in my quest log and add on to it over time did not work, since I had to accept the reward before I could accept the PvE Zaishen rewards. In short, my problem is not so much with the higher rewards of PvP, but rather with the insanely high price of an item that is useful almost exclusively to PvE players. In addition it might be nice to tweak rewards a bit to reflect needed effort (cough - Verata - cough). And - yes - it would be great if the Zaishen could let the Asura build a portal on their isles. I'll save the rest for Christmas.--Iant 22:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I've never had a problem with long term objectives. I don't think storage should be a long term objective. If they wanted long term objectives they should have added more things like everlasting tonics/crates etc to the reward npcs. Storage isn't something we should be working towards for 12 months + doing daily quests to buy 8 bags. I'm only just half way to my first 20 slot bag, and that was with a lot of unhealthily large amount of play time. Most missions take at least 20 mins to complete and those missions usually only reward 30-50 coins unless it is an end game mission or EotN. That's not counting the time it takes to form a group (I think people are now remembering what guild wars was like pre heroes with all the groups needing a monk). Reduce the cost of the bags please. It would also have made more sense to make each bag size a different rune so as people gained more coins they could upgrade to larger and larger bags as they go along, instead of sustaining a loss if they choose to buy the 10 slot bag or 15 slot. This would also have eased the tension of having to grind for so long for the 20 slot bag (which is still too much). 122.104.166.208 13:20, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

One of y'all needs to break this section up a lil, it's over 32kb already --ilr 21:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Exchange?

Hey, speaking of grind, why can't we just trade SkillPoints for some odd amount of Z-coins? I KNOW this must have come up in their Design meetings... I dunno about y'all but I PvE this game pretty regularly and all my Chars are only averaging about 33.3 extra skillpoints and my main can't seem to get above 70, I keep spending them on skills and consumables faster than the rate I'm accruing Platinums. Besides, the Daily bounty/quests and stuff are already TOO EASY for the real farmers out there, it's not like skillpoint transfer would help those punks more than us casual peeps. --ilr 21:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Zaishen Quests

Are there plans to make the Z Quests repeatable for PvE to bring them in line with repeatable PvP quests? If not, why are the PvP ones repeatable while the PvE ones can only be done once per character. If you are unable to make the PvP ones one time only the PvE ones should be the same as PvP. 114.78.21.40 09:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Those PvP quests should be account wide. They are far too easily exploited by players re-rolling toons and doing the same daily quest over and over. --77.97.23.245 12:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
wtf are you talking about? The same PvP quest shows up so often because there is only a limited number of PvP arenas, while there are loads of missions and even more bosses. EVENTUALLY you'll be getting the same PvE quests again, but that will take a while. Mini Me talk 12:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
The PvP Quests are only able to be done once per character just like the PvE ones, but it's easier to reroll a PvP character to redo it, however their rewards are balanced with the knowledge that players would do this, so it isn't an issue and has been brought up about 10 times already. DarkNecrid 13:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Balanced with the knowledge that players are going to do this? I would have thought that would give the PvP quests lesser rewards, when in fact most of the time the PvP zquest rewards are much greater. 70 coppers for Rotscale HM, but 125 for a few easy wins in HB? That sure doesn't seem balanced to me. Ashes Of Doom Talk 17:51, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
PvP rewards should be > PvE rewards. Rewarding Skill > Time Played is good game design and that's how games should be. PvE can be done by all of your PvE characters, which is probably at least 4-5 for most people with all campaigns. If you can get 10 z quests done a day through pve characters there is nothing to complain about. People who have a problem with this system just think it's unfair that the better players are getting more rewards, but it is fair.~>Sins WDBUser The Sins We Die By Sig.png 18:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Let me do a quick overwiew:
Rotscale waiting AB Waiting Rotscale run time AB run time Rotscale Total (/run) AB total(/match)
2-5 mins/run 10 mins/match 15 mins/run 10 mins/match 17-20 mins 20 mins

PvP-er earns 75 coins/40 minutes (this is the optimal case, it's simply not worth it to do the 3rd objective), whereas the Rotscale player earns 70/20 minutes. PvE-er gets more reward. Boro 10px‎ 19:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

When was the last time you killed Rotscale, especially in HM? And how many of your characters are capable of doing so? User Rose Of Kali SIG.jpgRose Of Kali 19:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Most of my characters.The preceding unsigned comment was added by Borotvaltgandalf (talk • contribs) at 19:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC).
Your AB statement is true Boro. Assuming you do two matches in a row and get the first bonus that's 33.5 zcoins a match whereas the 2nd bonus is only 29.17 zcoins a match. But it doesn't seem like it even takes that long. In anycase PvP rewards have a better yield during TA, RA, HA, and GvG. The psuedo pvp types take too long and and don't reward well enough for the time they takes.~>Sins WDBUser The Sins We Die By Sig.png 20:09, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
This has been a very HOT topic since the update went live. It has been discussed many times on this talk page, including under the heading "Zaishen Coin Grind too Harsh" where I have added my two cents. :P I, too, believe that the zcoin rewards for the PvE zquests are not sufficient. I also believe that the mere repeatability of the PvP zquests by people who complete them, delete their char, create a new one, complete the quest again, repeat, repeat should cause the rewards to be not as lucrative as they are. I don't understand why people argue that the PvP rewards should be greater than the PvE rewards, except that it is coming from PvP players, who, of course, are biased in that direction. I think the PvP rewards are fine the way they are, but the PvE rewards need to be raised to reflect the degree of difficulty of those quests. --MushaUser Musha Sigc.pngTalk 21:15, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
[giggles to self] So, people are looking for some kind of... balance? [giggles] 000.00.00.00 21:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
PvP rewards should be greater because it gives people an incentive (one that I mind you is working) to try out PvP. I'd be okay if they increased the PvE rewards a tad (25% per ZCoin reward is fair, gives PvP a 5% advantage compared to the 10% advantage it has atm), but the thing nobody seems to keep in mind is that the PvP ZQuests aren't actually more profitable than the PvE ones over time. Each ZQuest rewards more ZCoins per turn in, but the only 2 PvP ZQuests that are profitable are HB and GvG. For HB to be profitable, every single opponent you face has to resign in the shortest amount of time possible. This isn't likely to happen. For GvG to be profitable, you need to beat or have your opponent's resign in 5 minutes or less. Not likely unless you're really good and getting paired up with low end players. Then you have to factor in matchmaking time (AB especially, had to wait 15-20 minutes to play each round). Then you have to factor in that you can Win/Lose which will slow this down, whereas if you're decent and actually trying (and therefore countering whatever you're ZQuesting for...) you can only Win the PvE ones. This topic has been repeated on Linsey's page for quite some time, she already said the rewards were chosen knowing rerolling will happen (and were probably scaled down a bit from what they were originally because of it), and it's not likely to really change. It's okay for PvP to have a slight advantage in something when the point is that it helps get people to try PvP, just like it's okay for PvE to have a slight advantage in something that helps get people to PvE. (including but not limited to unique weapons that can only be gotten in PvE like r7/8 items and special PvE only makeable mods before anyone asks) Should probably just archive this or something tbh since it's a repeat topic. DarkNecrid 21:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Yeah boreas seabed takes like 10 min in HM and that's 90 per character. Every bounty that is 70 z coins has only taken like 15 min in HM so far. GOLEM can be done in 20 min for 105 z coins. The time spent per z coin is highly in favor of PvE, only exceptions would be RA and TA assuming you sync in RA and know what you are doing in TA.~>Sins WDBUser The Sins We Die By Sig.png 23:09, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
You didn't count in the time it takes to make a PvE character and get him/her through the campaign far enough to reach the area. — Poki#3 My Talk Page :o 02:35, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
I have 5 PvE characters i can do this stuff with, I don't have time to do this on all of them anyways and I won't have time for more~>Sins WDBUser The Sins We Die By Sig.png 03:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Boro - here are the times I was using (all personal experience):
Rotscale waiting AB Waiting Hero battle Waiting Rotscale run time AB run time Hero Battle time Rotscale Total (/run) AB total(/match) Hero Battle total (/match)
6 mins/run 15 mins/match 0 mins /match 40 mins/run 10 mins/match 5mins/match ~45 mins 25 mins 5 mins
I know you have to do 6 HB's, but that is still 125 zcoins in 30 minutes, while it took me 40 minutes plus with a pug to do Rotscale HM. Rotscale HM took a decent amount of effort, HB is pretty easy to get a win. Ashes Of Doom Talk 18:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
HB is also the only ZQuest that can be exploited because it's 1v1. You can RPS or have a friend resign for you. Compare a better ZQuest, like AB, or RA, TA, etc. It'd be like using Molotov Rocktail as a comparison for the PvE ZQuests, you can beat it in like 4 minutes. DarkNecrid 20:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Tbh, rpsing and red resigning are not that common. I have had someone ask for an RPS only once in over 100 battles, and have never had a red resign for me. All of my wins have been (I like to think) earned, yet I still rarely play fro more than 5 minutes - people realize what the outcome is going to be after only a few minutes and /resign, I have no problem with that =P. And Using HB is a decent comparison, as unlike molotov, HB represents 1/8 of all pvp zquests, and so we can expect to get it most weeks. I'd be surprised if we see molotov again for at least a month. Ashes Of Doom Talk 21:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

"PvP rewards should be > PvE rewards. Rewarding Skill > Time Played is good game design and that's how games should be. PvE can be done by all of your PvE characters, which is probably at least 4-5 for most people with all campaigns. " So now HB needs skills?? So it is equally accepted as a true PvP format by most PvP players, like GvG?? No, I can not do all PvE quests, because I do not have all PvE characters in the endzones of all the campaigns. And unlike PvP I cannot just remake a PvE character and then repeat the PvE quest. So your whole answer stinks of ignorance. - unsigned

PvP doesn't take more skill than PvE. Unless you decide to abuse all the cheats PvE currently has. Just like the 2 game modes are different, the rewards should also be different. Not one less than the other, but both equal. Just like players should be treated equally, regardless of their skills or time spent in the game. The thing I always liked about Guild Wars is that anyone can get anything (even if it takes a while) as long as they are commited. The whole elitarian PvP crowd can jump to the next game for all I care. 145.94.74.23 14:13, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Just the positives

Sorry for making another subsection but all the main sections keep getting muddled in "Waah, PvP is exploitable!" Emo Rage. I just wanted to say that 4 or 5 years ago when I first started playing this game, I remember vividly going into missions and seeing emptiness, or worse: Multiple W+R PuGs trying to form but no Monks/Eles anywhere in sight b/c they were all in Bergan farming undead or whatever else. And no one wanted Mezs & Necs back then except in PvP. I guess back then there just wasn't any incentives to rerun any missions that couldn't just be bypassed. ...Then Anet started gating content in the next chapters to try and force mission participation which was even more Frustrating IMO. Tho YMMV on the whole Title system, It didn't seem to help much either. But this Zaishen deal seems like a much better system. In every mission area I go to, I see a really healthy balance of Classes and builds. So I just wanted to point out that this was a great first Step in finally making Missions (even Prophecies ones) a bit friendlier and more popular. GJ Devs! --ilr 21:54, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

They re-introduced the pre-heroes problem of "GLF 2 Monks" with Z Quests. Add to that the desire for many monks to run RoJ and there is a serious shortage of heals. Opportunity to buff restoration rits alleviating some of the viable/good healer shortage and make PvE more playable with PuGs. Kill two birds with one stone maybe. 122.105.107.40 22:48, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
I've got a Derv/Paragon that plays the same way (being derv/ solves Energy demmand issues, and /goon for unstrippable Buffs) but unfortunately PuGs don't advertise for "healers" or even "support", they always expect Monks and pretty much reject anything that isn't a Monk, atleast for HM. Now whether they're smart enough to distinguish a bad RoJ spammer from an Awesome prot/heal monk... let's just say I've seen conflicting evidence :p --ilr 02:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
I'd have to say, one of the annoying issues I've been seeing with Zaishen PUGs is the one where a monk joins, sees that there's only one other monk in a group of 8, and yet still INSISTS on going RoJ/smite. Everyone knows healers are what we have shortages of, so one would think the smiters would know that they're probably going to get the mission done faster if they 'take it for the team' and support rather than being Yet Another Damage Dealer. As for the monk thing in general, I have a few explanations. First, they have the only really viable hex removal - Mesmer hex removal is either too Energy-intensive, has too high a recharge, or is too Elite for most uses (unless the hexes being removed are monster skills). Note that the #3 request for Ritualists (behind making SP useful and making the ritlord build viable again in PvE) is giving Ritualists hex removal, but I personally think improving non-Monk hex removal would probably have a similar effect. Second, with Shelter nerfed to oblivion, other support professions don't have a good Prot Spirit analogue, which becomes important in Hard Mode. Combining these two, you'll usually want the Monks for these purposes, after which you don't really need the support Ritualist, Dervish or Paragon (although canny groups won't turn down the imbagon if one is available). Last, but certainly not least, People Are Stupid - a lot of PUGgers are married to the idea of a two-monk backline without knowing why beyond thinking 'it's better', and generally don't stop to think about whether they could get away with replacing one of the monks with a support character of a different profession. Draxynnic 05:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, i just wanted to say I agree. I can see a healthy mix of classes in all the missions/PvP areas I have been in so far, and it's great, just like 'the old days' hehe. (Except for HA, but can't have everything I guess.) I haven't had many problems getting monks into a group so far, one usually turns up if you hang around for a few minutes. As for smiters, if a player is coming into a Z mission on his monk, he/she has gotta be aware that they will be expected to heal. I would. --Tong2 22:31, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Repeatable Zaishen Combat Quests

"Why doesn't Anet just make ALL these zcoin farms repeatable for all the types?" Good question from guildwarsguru.com. Once again PvE gets the shaft. Epic Fail. Have the PvE players have to wait another 3 years for changes, just like they had with the stupid Favor system??? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.56.215.136 (talk).

You do realise that this change favors PvE characters right? Because PvP'ers just remade their characters to farm these quests, whereas PvE'ers without that PvP slot couldn't. Now they can! And even on their beloved PvE characters --62.199.191.51 08:10, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Most PvE character's aren't PvP ready. And how many players do you know that don't have a PvP slot? I don't know a single... — Poki#3 My Talk Page :o 08:20, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Well I don't think that's the matter :) I'm a PvP-only player and it's not like this change does a lot to me, as I would just remake my characters to farm the quests. But to a PvE'er who maybe had his main character ready for PvP and wanted to do the quests on that character, it's now possible, so I don't see why this is a bad change. Why Combat quests are the only ones who can now be repeated should be left for Linsey to tell though --62.199.191.51 08:26, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
I know some with no PvP slots, but that is kind of irrelevant. Part of me thinks that PvE quests should be repeatable too, but seriously, the boss bounty, some can be done on an E/A or a A/E in ~1-2 minutes in hard mode. The reward would have to be 1-2 copper coins to keep it balanced which would make that quest very ass for people who aren't power farming it. This would have likely been implemented to allow people to play the quests on their PvEs without penalty and remove the silliness of reroll to request. I don't know what the good answer is, PvE quests being repeatable would be VERY easily farmed, PvP quests are farmable, but at least other players can throw a spanner in the works. Misery 08:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
And at the end of the day, to counter the insanely PvP-favoured zaishen coin rewards ... they make it even easier to get them instead of actually giving PvE-focused people an equivalent option? *sighs*
- Kherec 09:26, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Misery, the quickest bounty-quest (even if it was repeatable) would never be able to amass the same amount of coins as the quickest combat-quest, because of the low innate reward of the PvE-oriented quests. But there hasn't been a single comment from anyone at Anet (correct me if I'm wrong) since the introduction of the Zaishen quests about the grind needed for this PvE-item and the heavy favour towards PvP-focused quests. And now this ... their actions and lack of responses speak volumes :(
- Kherec 09:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
So PvP peeps could already repeat ZCombat, because they could easily reroll a character, and this update made it possible for PvE peeps to repeat the same ZCombat quests too. Sounds good to me. --Arduinna talk 09:48, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Pretty sure Molotov Rocktail took me 2 minutes a run. I would like to know what PvP quest gave you 65 (or was it 55, I forget) coins every 2 minutes. Even running RtL spike I can't get that in HA, even if I never lose. There may be imbalance, but this didn't actually make it any worse. Misery 10:08, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
You're missing the point. Would you PvP-people be fine if the tables where turned and the PvE-quests were repeatable and yielding twice the amount the PvP-quests do? I don't think so.
And far from every boss or mission is a fast one, just like some matches can drag on for a long, long time in PvP ... but no point arguing that, as it's been done before and we're still having this argument ;)
- Kherec 10:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree, I think the PvE quests are undervalued, but the PvP quests were already repeatable for a vast majority of players. Someone else getting more doesn't actually screw you out of anything, you should be arguing for repeatable PvE quests and increased rewards. Both is probably not on the cards for the ease of farming reasons I mentioned earlier. Misery 10:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
One repeatable PvE quest would kind of explode the game. The mesmer boss that sins were kegfarming; what if that quest were repeatable? People were charging 500g to run it, and it paid 1k. Zkeys aside, they were pumping 8k into the game every 4 minutes per runner. Keep in mind that this wasn't zkeys, which have no "real" value, but gold. Remember the MOX quests? Yeah, this'd be like that times a billion.
Any quest with the potential to be cleared that quickly has the same issue, because of the gold reward. GW is one of the few games where you can actually accrue gold and, y'know, buy things. I'd really hate to see that gone. =\
To be fair, some of the PvP quests are pretty farmable (I'm looking at you, TA and HA!), and they've got the same issue. Now that we don't have to reroll (which took longer than the actual matches, what with re-making characters, gear sets, etc.), we can farm HA pretty damn fast. I think this may become a problem, but we'll see, I suppose. User Raine R.gif Raine - talk 13:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
(RI) Read this : http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Talk:Zaishen_Challenge_Quest#PvP_vs_PvE . Quit whining! --User Karasu sig.png Karasu (talk) 13:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Z Combat Why?

For a long-time players have complained about team match fixing and leeching in PvP,and nothing has been done about it that is till the April update, then you give us Zcombat something that made a problem even bigger , then just to rub it in you now make it repeatable, so what I would like to ask is what in God’s name were you thinking of?(or what the hell were you smoking)when you come up with the idea for Zcombat.--Kaiaba 09:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

PVP is dead, the Z quests were an attempt to revive pvp. ~Shard User Shard Sig Icon.png 22:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
PVP was in ICU for a long time but holding on. Zcombat was the Coup De Grace--Kaiaba 08:45, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Only an issue in RA, FA, and JQ which aren't exactly the highest points of PvP. RA team match fixing usually gets drowned out by the sheer additional numbers during the ZQuest (and if they sync in empty districts its w/e), and FA/JQ has tons of leechers anyways. DarkNecrid 09:29, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
OK as I have not spent a lot of time in pvp compared too pve i maybe missing something with Zcombat, so if I am then plz tell me what it is for I fail to understand how Zcombat was meant to help combat team match fixing and leeching or too revitalise pvp, as mach fixing and leeching are what is killing pvp. It’s about as smart as putting petrol onto a BBQ to put it out, pvp was in need of the kiss of life Zcombat is the kiss of death. But as i said plz tell me if I’m missing something.--Kaiaba 14:12, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
All we need to fix a large part of PvP is 1. a better report system and 2. more people that report --User Karasu sig.png Karasu (talk) 22:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I haven't spent a lot of time reading the content updates carefully, but I don't recall reading anything about Zcombat being introduced to combat team match fixing and leeching or to revitalise pvp... Maybe it's just your hours and servers but I found JQ and FA to actually have less leechers every time their quest comes up. -- ab.er.rant User Ab.er.rant Sig.png 15:21, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

At no time did I say that Zcombat was done to stop match fixing or leeching, The point I was trying to make is this, knowing as the team do that there are problems within parts of the game why then add something that is going to inflame the problem even more --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Kaiaba (talk).

Why the Disparity? Resolved??

One thing I'm noticing again, and again, while trying to find PvE groups for these Z-quests, is that almost no one wants to do these things on Normal Mode. Meanwhile 95% of the Hardmode teams I've joined weren't fun, infact they were very stressful and had a much higher failure rate than my attempts with H/H'ing (heroes and henchmen). Now I'm not saying HardMode is too hard here, I'm just suggesting that maybe the disparity between NM and "HM + bonus" Coin rewards are having a segregating effect. It forces minmaxing and pretty much defeats the whole point of getting random groups forming for a casual run through each mission. I'm not sure if this was by design, but it appears to be the ultimate result. And personally, I'm already getting burned out redoing it with H/H's in HM cuz it's just so lonely. But the Alternative of joining these bad PuGs who always fail in HM (because they all use PvX builds instead building specifically for each mission/hunt) makes the whole system feel even "Grindy"er. Why isn't Normal Mode more appealing to PuGs? --ilr 21:18, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Last time i said something like this, ihave been told that i have a narrow view... Yseron - 90.14.100.77 21:39, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
"Why isn't Normal Mode more appealing to PuGs?" Because the NM rewards aren't usually worth the effort. People want big or large EQ packs, and if you tried to get them by doing only NM missions it would take years.
Just like most HM dungeon bosses aren't worth the effort for the meager amount of coins you get for them, which is why a lot of people either skip them or prefer to pay a runner who does the work for them. User Xelonir sig.pngXelonir 06:48, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
People can't grasp the concept that doing more work or doing harder stuff requires more rewards. It's pretty hilarious when people expect more for doing less, and less for doing more.152.226.7.213 06:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Very simple. You get only 2 PvE rewards each day and it would be a shame not to get all the points for the same effort. By now most of those people have unlocked hard mode and still have to beat the mission for hard mode. I don't see what's wrong with time - in HM a half-decent group should be able to complete any mission rather quickly considering everybody knows their role. Here's my two cents for you:
Make your own team. You know what you need and you're sure you get the right ppl. Example: for the last dungeon our group was specifically looking for an OoA necro, a barrage ranger, a diversion mesmer and a perma sin. Ask people to ping their bars and TELL them what to bring and how many points in which stat. Equipment is a minor detail and people with experience will know what to bring for you. Beware though - this might take extra time but guarantees more chance to win. Also some people don't like it to be told what to take (even if they have no elite in a bar, no rez, no energy management and 25e skills - luckily this was an ele primairy).
Two: Lead your team. Read the wiki - try it out - get experience and know what to do. Draw on the map and say everything that has to be done in order to succeed. "Stay back, perma will lure and block at THAT spot. Interrupt the VoS. Call OoA to the barrager. Lost aggro on this target. Cast RoJ when the tank pings the ball.." If you have less knowledge over an area - ask someone else who knows and who wants to lead. In the UW for example you might want to ask an experienced UWSC to lead the way in normal groups.
Pugging isn't random. And nowaday's there's a lot of people because of the Zuests. Do the missions with people now you can. Select and lead them. If you can't find people on the spot - try to get your guild and alliance to join you. Guild and Alliance is a rich resource for PuGs.. --User Karasu sig.png Karasu (talk) 07:26, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Okay I get that it's "a bigger reward" and most under-developed primates will always reach for the larger piece of fruit. What I don't get is why so many people piddle away hours trying to get that bigger piece when they could easily do it in normal mode WITH the bonus and settle for half the reward in a fraction of the time. Think about it: That means you can play ALL of your alts on that mission instead of just your most pimped-out main, and you get a lot more wins under your belt without all the stress of repeated failures. In mathematic probability, it might look like this:
Where r = random * 0.5, and x = random * 0.125;  (5 * r)  >  (10 * x)
In other words, if a PuG has a 1 in 2 chance of complete victory in Normal Mode, but only a 1 in 8 chance in HardMode... then it should a lot more sense for them to take the easy and quick path instead of constantly biting off more than they can chew. But something about the Reward formula seems to be preventing that and I fail to see what it is... --ilr 23:14, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
In normal mode you only really need(barring elite missions) hero/hench to successfully complete any storyline mission or a dungeon. Thats why most groups are generally for HM. The only imbalance in rewards are for the dungeon bounties for HM, since every zaishen mission quest I've done with a PuG in hard mode has ended in success, if you're completing the missions and the non-dungeon bounties with a 1/8 chance you're really doing something wrong. (marsc 10:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC))
When a hard mission comes around most players are unable to complete them with PuGs in HM without at least one failure. For me this was most obvious with Zen Daijun (Factions re-lease flashbacks when I played this one for the Z Quest). I dread doing anything in the realm of torment for the Z Quest. So why do people who aren't experienced enough for HM keep entering? Because the rewards for NM are simply not worth the time. The large jump in z coins from NM to HM is too much to consider doing the NM option, and the demand for z coins compared to the amount you get makes playing NM very unappealing. The other reason I suspect is simply that heroes are able to pull it off without real people in NM. 122.105.107.40 22:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Thank you, that's exactly what I'm asking. And I'm calling BS on Marsc never failing any of these HM quests with REAL PuGs... Either that or he's the luckiest bastard on the face of the planet. The probabilities are just too far out there. --ilr 01:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Alrighty, since all rewards were all buffed by like 40% or something, it's probably time for some more math. Most of my left-over quests are now averaging about 50-75 coins for just normal mode + bonus, along with(rarely) a few quests in between that are easy enough in Hardmode to get full points on... for an average of 70 coins across the board. And that's just for missions, no bounty or PvP mixed in. So 500/70 = ~7 runs. That's pretty generous and we didn't even have to beg them to raise it, they caught it themselves apparently and more importantly, they caught it Early...
(continued...) Now Assuming I'm being pretty casual and only averaging 14 runs per week, I'd have a H.E.P. in less than 2 months. But I don't even want an HEP, just want 2 LgEP's and 3 Lights which will only take ~6 Weeks now. It woulda taken 10 weeks at the old rate. I'm pretty happy with that. Hopefully other players realize this too and aim their standards a little lower since Normal Mode will get them there pretty quick now and is a lot less stressful on most trickier missions where you have to protect an objective or race the clock. --ilrUser ilr deprav.png 08:26, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Who plays a game to be stress-free? Games are played in part for a challenge, which cause stress. If it's about being stress-free, I'd recommend a play style that included yoga on the Isle of Meditation. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:151.209.112.137 (talk)..
Challenge? Yes... Wanting to RAEG-Break your own Monitor b/c you keep ending up in teams full of LOL_UR_BAD Leechers who think they deserve Hard-Mode level Rewards?? ...I think not. And I say this issue may be resolved, b/c I've seen a 15%-27% increase in players doing Z-quests in Normal mode whereas it was a measly 5% before this update. --ilrUser ilr deprav.png 23:20, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Z Coins

i see there is a system to buy from bronze -> silver -> gold, but for next update maybe can there possible be a way to reverse that back to gold -> silver -> copper, or so you can buy lesser items with gold/silver coins. --Robot 13:49, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Or being able to trade tournament tokens for coins - I still have over 600 tokens on my main... nvm. ~Shard User Shard Sig Icon.png 23:25, 23 June 2009 (UTC)