Revamping Favor tiers

[nibel]

Long story short: Most favor rewards right now are a joke. No one cares about the Free Agents vendor, or House P/J buffs, or Twelve free bags (after they have enough bags on all characters), etc.

I propose Turbine to totally rework on the patron favor rewards to account for the new state of the game. I propose the following (in patron alphabetical order):

-Agents of Argonnessen
Stay as is. Just add all 5 types of siberys shards on the tier 1 reward instead of only the top 3. Draconic Vitality, while once necessary, is a drop on the ocean of people with hundreds of HP.

-Coin Lords
Also stay as is. The first two tiers are convenience stuff (VERY convenient stuff, but still convenience), and the third give a bonus small enough to not be a must have for non-powergamers.

-Free Agents
Tier 1: Start selling up to +3 tools instead of +2.
Tier 2: Start seling up to +5 tools instead of +4. Yes, everyone have access to those on the AH dirty cheap. Putting it on a vendor will make this triviality acessible to everyone. Convenience.
Tier 3: Grants a feat that makes any tools on your inventory to never be wasted while using Disable Device, Open Lock, Repair and Heal. (So, if you TR, you lose the feat and need to regain the favor.)

-Harpers
Tier 1: Change the Pin to a granted feat. Same effect (but if possible, not bugged)
Tier 2: Upgrade the Pin feat.

-House Cannith
Tier 1: Add to the vendor BtC Cannith Prototype Reconstruct Potions (100 base healing, -10% melee and ranged alacrity for 30 seconds)
Tier 2: In addition to unlocking the Artificer class, it also open up on the vendor the option to buy 5% success boosters and 10% crafting XP potions. Also add Cannith Lesser Reconstruct Potions (100 base repair) and Cannith Reconstruct Potions (250 base repair, -10% melee and ranged alacrity and speed for 30 seconds). All items of this tier are BtC.

-House Deneith
Tier 1: Stay as is.
Tier 2: Raise the ammunition/thrower enhancement bonus to +5. Keep the sturdy ones as +3. Add +3 <metal> type arrows.

-House Jorasco
All buffs are extended to 1 hour, to match ship buffs. Like ship buffs, those buffs are undispellable, and disapear only at death.
Tier 1: Add all spells currently acessible to Tier 2 acessible since tier 1. The buffer uses caster level 7. Add an option to pay ten times the base cost and have every buff cast at once (so if you have too much plat, you can get all buffs paying a lot more).
Tier 2: Add Stalwart Pact, Deathward and Freedom of Movement to the list costing 1,000 plat per cast. All buffs goes up to caster level 12.

-House Kundarak
Stay as is. The favor rewards are pure convenience.

-House Phiarlan
All buffs are extended to 1 hour, to match ship buffs. Like ship buffs, those buffs are undispellable, and disapear only at death.
Tier 1: Stay as is, except by what is written on top. Add an option to pay ten times the base cost and have every buff cast at once (so if you have too much plat, you can get all buffs paying a lot more).
Tier 2: The buffer get access to the spells Blur, Feather Fall, Heroism and See Invisibility costing 1,000 plat per cast. The caster level of those effects are raised to Caster level 12. Pendant of Time is scrapped, and changed to a permanent 50% town speed buff (stackable with 10% VIP town speed).

-Purple Dragon Knights
Tier 1: Give access to the PDK update vendor. He will allow you to upgrade the raid weapons to a Planar Conflux, and the demonweb armors to eveningstar sets. Key is scrapped. Instead, it will allow you to teleport to Eveningstar via spell/scroll or Guild Planescaler.
Tier 2: PDK vendor allow you to upgrade the raid weapons to a +8 enhancement bonus, and you can craft cormyrian dragonscale armors.
Tier 3: Spotted Wolf Pup companion, and PDK vendor allow the raid weapons to reach the tier 3 and 4 upgrade.

-Silver Flame
Tier 1: 50% discount on spells cast on taverns by silver flame (and surprisingly, Amaunator) clerics. Open the Silver Flame vendor with access to Ghost touch and Flametouched Iron ammunition/throwers.
Tier 2: Gives you the Blessing of the Silver Flame, and the Silver Flame vendor give access to "Silver Flame Prototype Healing Potions" (same as actual lesser potions).
Tier 3: Silver Flame Vendor give you access to "Silver Flame Healing Potions" (like the ones on live), "Silver Flame Lesser Healing Potions" (with no drawbacks) and Mark of the Silver Flame.

-Twelve
Tier 0: On live, if you go to the twelve immediatelly, you get a free small bag. Remove this reward tier. If you want a free bag, talk to the cannith crafters around the town.
Tier 1: Large Gem Bag, and open access to Twelve vendor with every spell component around (arcane and divine) with discounts on par with guild vendors. Meridia altar stops requiring Favor levels to access.
Tier 2: Large Collectible Bag, and the twelve vendor start selling Omnispell Dust (350pp base price per 10).
Tier 3: Large Ingredient Bag, and the Twelve vendor start selling Omnispell Stone (700pp base price each).

-Yugoloth
Stay as is.

--Total Favor
Add a free +1 tome at 1000 Favor, raise the free +2 tome to 2000 favor, and make it a +1 to +2 upgrade. Keep giving up upgrades at each 1000 favor step, up to current +5 upgrade at 5000 favor.

Opinions?

[LeoLionxxx]

-Free Agents
Tier 1: Start selling up to +3 tools instead of +2.
Tier 2: Start seling up to +5 tools instead of +4. Yes, everyone have access to those on the AH dirty cheap. Putting it on a vendor will make this triviality acessible to everyone. Convenience.
Tier 3: Give a BtC "bottomless" +5 tools, so trappers stop needing to buy thieves tools at all. Maybe even giving the option for infinite thieves tools, healer's kit or repair kit. We all know which one will be always choosen, but since they sell all three kits... Alternative: A feat that makes the tools never be wasted. So, if you TR, you lose the feat and need to regain the favor.

Opinions?

I really like this one for the tier 3. Every toon has returning throwing weapons (okay, not everyone), rangers and arties get returning/infinate bolts. casters and their echos of power might be worth a mention too. On this /signed

Some buff to the house J and P casters seem to be needed as well. They don't matter enough to me to formulate an opinion.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Long story short: Most favor rewards right now are a joke. No one cares about the Free Agents vendor, or House P/J buffs, or Twelve free bags (after they have enough bags on all characters), etc.

I propose Turbine to totally rework on the patron favor rewards to account for the new state of the game...


It was at that point that I failed my save vs Wall of Text. Sorry Nibel.

However, I fully support the "totally rework... patron favor rewards..."

[nibel]

Bump

[FestusHood]

One correction. The twelve patron gives you a free small ingredients bag. Different (bigger) than the tiny bag the crafters give you.

I'm not sure making the house p and j spell buffs the same as ship buffs is a good idea, as it would make the ship buffs irrelevant. As is, they are a poor man's ship buff. Adding deathward and fom sounds like a good idea though.

I'm not sure how making the large ingredient bags bound to character is any improvement. If the problem is that after a while you have too many of them, at least unbound you can sell them or pass them to alts. Large collectible bags, or a choice between the 2 might be an option. Still prefer they not be bound though.

There is another thread going on now about adding bonus xp at certain times to certain quests. The idea being to give people an incentive to run unpopular content. I think fleshing out favor rewards so that there is some reward for every tier for every house would help with this. There should be a 400 favor reward of some kind for free agents and coin lords for example. Something consumable i would think, so that if people tr there is incentive to get the favor again.
This way favor rewards would be an incentive to run unpopular content. The way necro is now.

[nibel]

One correction. The twelve patron gives you a free small ingredients bag. Different (bigger) than the tiny bag the crafters give you.

Thank you. Information corrected.

I still believe the Tier 0 reward should go. :)


I'm not sure making the house p and j spell buffs the same as ship buffs is a good idea, as it would make the ship buffs irrelevant. As is, they are a poor man's ship buff.

Not at all. They only are the same as the resist energy shrines. And to get the resist 30 buffs, you need the Tier 2 favor reward. They will become an alternative for people that isn't at a high-level guild. Outside of resists, they provide stat buffers (+4 enhancement bonus, not stacking with items) and water breathing. House P provides Jump and Mage Armor, and House J provides Shield of Faith and Protection from Evil. On my suggestion, they get better buffs at tier 2. Those are buffs that incentive people to make a quick run there to pay for it.

If you are in a high-level guild, you have alternatives. The ship shrines are free (while you have to pay on the P/J buffers). Also, you can use guild shrines since level 1, while the favor ones... requires you to get the favor. If your guild start using the buffers instead of the ships, they suddenly have more free slots for convenience ammenities, like bank, mailbox or auctionner.


I'm not sure how making the large ingredient bags bound to character is any improvement.

It is not. I deliberatelly suggested the item reward to be not too attractive after one or two TRs. The real kicker there is the new Twelve vendor.

The reason is exactly to not fill the market with unbound bags. If you want an unbound small bag, buy it at a vendor. If you want the unbound large bags, pay 150 Planar Shards, or find one at random.

[Lord_kNiels]

The deathward, fom and blur spells are too powerful to be available to all players with those timers, just like that. We shouldn't have favor buffs that save up peoples gear slots (blur) and while downright immunity to all forms of level drain and such seems nice to whoever has a hard time carrying visors or grouping with a divine it would eliminate a big part of the offensive capabilities of the npcs against unaware adventurers. Making these immunities part of your average buff package is not something I would back up. The timer increase in general I like though, as it gets hard to complete more than one long quest before they run out (including traveling and waiting for group).

As for the PDK favor vendor there are so many rewards packed in the last tier currently, and so little in the first two that I'll definitely support a change to this as well. At least make on tier of upgrade, be it armor or weapon, available at tier 2.

But in general I too think that the favor rewards should be redone. Also the +4 tomes at 4k total favor might encourage people to play a wider variety of quests throughout their lives, but might encourage too many to TR and loose focus on epic levels. 4k favor is a pain though so maybe people would just do +3s.

[FranOhmsford]

Free Agents Tier 3 definitely needs changing - The current Wpn/Armour repair in Zawabi's Refuge is a joke {does anyone bother running out there just to repair?}.

House J Tier 2 is exactly the same as House P Tier 1 {and in my view far far harder to get! - I can't stand Delera's} - This makes absolutely zero sense!}.

PDK Favour and House Cannith Favour were set up with ridiculously high requirements in my view {Elites should NOT be required - Requiring Challenges is just plain WRONG!}.

Silver Flame - Yes we have more Silver Flame quests FINALLY! But I'm firmly in the camp that 400 favour requirement for healing pots with a massive downside is Cruel and Unusual!

The rest of the favour rewards are fine as is {However...I'd definitely support pushing House P buffs up to an Hour}.

Now for Free Agents I like the OPs idea - Devs can work out the kinks.

For House J - I'd make the Tier 1 buffs last an Hour and add 40minute Deathward and FoM{Extended CR 20 - Dispellable and won't stay through Shrining}.

PDK just needs the requirements brought down to sensible levels.

House Cannith - We need more actual QUESTS! NOT Challenges! - Some of us Loathe the Challenges!

Silver Flame - Lose the Downside to Silver Flame Pots - Put the price up if u like {within reason} but drop the penalties.
Possibly also add an upgrade vendor for Catacombs and Necro 1-3 items - Some of these could be very nice high level gear if given the right upgrades. {add a min lvl reduction possibility to this vendor too - nothing over the top though}.

[Cyreonx]

/signed

I like the idea of staggering the PDK upgrades to all three tiers so you can at least get your demonweb armor upgraded before having to farm all 3 chains on EE, which is ridiculous to start with.

Perhaps hour long undispellable deathward and FoM is too much, convenient - definitely, but would take away from having to be cautious in the area they are needed.

Endless thieves tools would be nice, or sell +6 tools at tier 3 favor.

[nibel]

The deathward, fom and blur spells are too powerful to be available to all players with those timers, just like that. We shouldn't have favor buffs that save up peoples gear slots (blur) and while downright immunity to all forms of level drain and such seems nice to whoever has a hard time carrying visors or grouping with a divine it would eliminate a big part of the offensive capabilities of the npcs against unaware adventurers. Making these immunities part of your average buff package is not something I would back up. The timer increase in general I like though, as it gets hard to complete more than one long quest before they run out (including traveling and waiting for group).

Completely agree. Specially if they are charged "basically for free" like the actual buffs (30 plat each, IIRC).

Now think with those specific buffs costing 1~3k plat per casting. Useful? Yes. Taking the time to get it every time after it expires? Can get expensive fast.

Now think of the "all buffs per 10x the price", and people popping 30k for the convenience. It is a great plat sink, and completelly optional, since those buffs are all spells that are available to the players. Win-win.

[Vellrad]

-Harpers
Too new to change something right now.


No, this favor is worst of all. Pin needs to be fixed ASAP!



-House Cannith
Tier 1: Stay as is.
Tier 2: In addition to unlocking the Artificer class, it also open up on the vendor the option to buy 5% success boosters and 10% crafting XP potions. Those high level boosters are BtC.


Add reconstruct in bottle, with some drawbacks (like 100HP repair, -50% healing amp).




-House Kundarak
Stay as is. The favor rewards are pure convenience.


New house K quests, so we can get 6th tab!


-Silver Flame
Tier 1: 50% discount on spells cast on taverns by silver flame (and surprisingly, Amaunator) clerics. Open the Silver Flame vendor with access to Ghost touch and Flametouched Iron ammunition/throwers.
Tier 2: Gives you the Blessing of the Silver Flame, and the Silver Flame vendor give access to "Silver Flame Prototype Healing Potions" (same as actual lesser potions) and Mark of the Silver Flame.
Tier 3: Silver Flame Vendor give you access to "Silver Flame Healing Potions" (like the ones on live) and "Silver Flame Lesser Healing Potions" (with no drawbacks).

Mark of the silver flame is used in the most powerful shard in cannith crafting. It should remain at 400. Also, with 100HP no drawback pots, whats point of UMDing heal scrolls?



--Total Favor
Add a free +1 tome at 1000 Favor, raise the free +2 tome to 2000 favor, add a free +3 tome at 3000 favor, and add a free +4 tome at 4000 favor. Everything else stay as is.


+3 and +4 should be upgradeables, or else, 6TRs and you got all tomes in game.



Opinions?

Here's my thoughts.

[nibel]

Add reconstruct in bottle, with some drawbacks (like 100HP repair, -50% healing amp).

That is an awesome idea, but I'll fight for it after we win the fight for repair amp. Right now, with Healer's Friend III and PDK gloves, any warforged is over 100% healing anyway, turning Reconstruct obsolete, except for self-healing arcanes.


with 100HP no drawback pots, whats point of UMDing heal scrolls?

Heal Scrolls can hit for 143 HP with Scroll Mastery I (if rogue/bard/artie splashed). Also, it cures you from a ton of bad conditions, and stat damage.

UMDing Heal scrolls should not be a requirement for pure fighters/barbarians.

[Ungood]

The idea of "endless" picks have been around forever, so I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

But I think what would been even sweeter would be +6 or even +7 Picks. Would make earning the favor worth it.

[SirValentine]

-House Jorasco
All buffs are extended to 1 hour, to match ship buffs.
<snip>
-House Phiarlan
All buffs are extended to 1 hour, to match ship buffs.


/SIGNED!



-Twelve
<snip>
Tier 3: BtC Large Collectible Bag, and the Twelve vendor start selling Omnispell Stone.


Signed to this or something, as this favor level currently does nothing.



--Total Favor


Make the +2 Tome you get at 1750 Favor BTA instead of BTC.

[Matuse]

Also, with 100HP no drawback pots, whats point of UMDing heal scrolls?

Among other things, scrolls can be used on other people.

[nibel]

Made some adjusts to OP based on feedback. Also, free bump.

[btn2009]

Total favour, 1750 reward .. lives 1,2 and 3 = +2, 4,5 and 6 = +3, 7 and above +4. Or maybe completionist and above +5? ... encourages tr which is good.

Not sure if tome ml should apply, but still something to work towards without getting too much for nothing :)

[UurlockYgmeov]

favor needs updating.

[TrinityTurtle]

-Agents of Argonnessen
Stay as is. Just add all 5 types of siberys shards on the tier 1 reward instead of only the top 3. Draconic Vitality, while once necessary, is a drop on the ocean of people with hundreds of HP.

I disagree, vitality is still important for newer players. Not everything has to be important to the end game crowd. Leave the draconic vitality be. And leave the portable holes be, since the economy is crazy and people want 100k+ for them at various times. New players have no hope of that much cash for a long, long time unless they are unusually frugal and avoid the auction house trap.



-Free Agents
Tier 1: Start selling up to +3 tools instead of +2.
Tier 2: Start seling up to +5 tools instead of +4. Yes, everyone have access to those on the AH dirty cheap. Putting it on a vendor will make this triviality acessible to everyone. Convenience.
Tier 3: Give a BtC "bottomless" +5 tools, so trappers stop needing to buy thieves tools at all. Maybe even giving the option for infinite thieves tools, healer's kit or repair kit. We all know which one will be always choosen, but since they sell all three kits... Alternative: A feat that makes the tools never be wasted. So, if you TR, you lose the feat and need to regain the favor.


I don't care for this idea, as the thief tools can be crafted. And drop like water as it is. What I would rather see is thieves tools that are actually like thieves tools, which don't break each use. Give them durability and repairability. But if not, let the crafters have something useful. A lot of them worked hard for thier skills and are often being told that they're useless.



-Harpers
Tier 1: Change the Pin to a granted feat. Same effect (but if possible, not bugged)


Fabulous idea. Would love to see the phiarlan time pendant, eveningstar key, and other such things go the same route. From an immersion point of view, I get the choice to go objects, but from a players point of view, it's not the choice I (and I think others possibly) would prefer.


-House Jorasco
All buffs are extended to 1 hour, to match ship buffs. Like ship buffs, those buffs are undispellable, and disapear only at death.
Tier 1: Add all spells currently acessible to Tier 2 acessible since tier 1. The buffer uses caster level 7. Add an option to pay ten times the base cost and have every buff cast at once (so if you have too much plat, you can get all buffs paying a lot more).
Tier 2: Add Deathward and Freedom of Movement to the list costing 1,000 plat per cast. All buffs goes up to caster level 12.

House Phiarlan
All buffs are extended to 1 hour, to match ship buffs. Like ship buffs, those buffs are undispellable, and disapear only at death.
Tier 1: Stay as is, except by what is written on top. Add an option to pay ten times the base cost and have every buff cast at once (so if you have too much plat, you can get all buffs paying a lot more).
Tier 2: In addition to the Pendant of Time, the buffer also get access to the spells Blur, Feather Fall, Heroism and See Invisibility costing 500 plat per cast. The caster level of those effects are raised to Caster level 12.


I'd rather see them get rid of the spell buffs altogether, and find something entirely new to replace them with. We have way too much now on hour timers, there should be some challenge left to the game. I think deathward and fom are way too strong to have that kind of buff also. Feahter fall, blur, and true seeing are way easy to get on gear, it would be pointless to add them. Especially with the new augment slots. Heroism should never be buff like that. We already have shrines for our stats to add to our skills and hit/damage, we don't need more on top of that.




-Purple Dragon Knights
Tier 1: Give Key to the City and access to the PDK update vendor. He will allow you to upgrade the raid weapons to a Planar Conflux, and the demonweb armors to eveningstar sets.
Tier 2: PDK vendor allow you to upgrade the raid weapons to a +8 enhancement bonus, and you can craft cormyrian dragonscale armors.
Tier 3: Spotted Wolf Pup companion, and PDK vendor allow the raid weapons to reach the tier 3 upgrade.


I really like the way you have to actually EARN the access to the best gear in the area. And if you five star the six challenges (which is REALLY easy to do with a group, but if you are unable to send me a pm and I"ll try to help you figure out where you're going wrong), you can do any three pdk quests on ehard instead of ee and get the favor. So the ridiculously resource expensive belly of the beast and caught in the webs can be done on ehard instead. (Although of course I didn't know that and did the 8 hour marathion ee caught in the webs!!! LOL)



-Twelve
Tier 0:[/i] Silver Flame Vendor give you access to "Silver Flame Healing Potions" (like the ones on live), "Silver Flame Lesser Healing Potions" (with no drawbacks) and Mark of the Silver Flame. On live, if you go to the twelve immediatelly, you get a free small bag. Remove this reward tier. If you want a free bag, talk to the cannith crafters around the town.
Tier 1: Large Gem Bag, and open access to Twelve vendor with every spell component around (arcane and divine) with discounts on par with guild vendors. Meridia altar stops requiring Favor levels to access.
Tier 2: Large Collectible Bag, and the twelve vendor start selling Omnispell Dust (350pp base price per 10).
Tier 3: Large Ingredient Bag, and the Twelve vendor start selling Omnispell Stone (700pp base price per 10).


Leave the bag be, it's a slightly bigger version than the vender one, and there are way too many things that go into green bags these days. So many many things. *head swirls* The large bags can be earned by farming the subterrane. So no. Also, the twelve are not the silver flame, and should not have anything to do with thier potions. While potions needs to revamped on the whole, as it seems that everything but the healing pots has been mmo'ized, I don't think this is the right route. Also, omnispell dust is a pure convenience item that should stay as it is, store bought and rare drops. While I would love to see my inventory space clear up on my caster types from a bag of some sort if they could get the game to recognize one, mass omnispell dust isn't a route I would support. Either do away with the mats entirely and go purely on spell points, or leave it alone.

I did read entire Wall O Text, but the parts I didn't quote I had no strong opinions on either in support or dissent.

[nibel]

I disagree, vitality is still important for newer players. Not everything has to be important to the end game crowd. Leave the draconic vitality be. And leave the portable holes be, since the economy is crazy and people want 100k+ for them at various times. New players have no hope of that much cash for a long, long time unless they are unusually frugal and avoid the auction house trap.

So, since I said "stay as is", you agree with me?


I don't care for this idea, as the thief tools can be crafted. And drop like water as it is.

"Crafted" is technically true, but not feasible as the only fountain of +5 tools. And I agree that after level 14 or so, +5 tools drop all the time in random loot. So, yeah. Having it appear in a favor shop is basically convenience. My entire point behind my list. :)


I'd rather see them get rid of the spell buffs altogether, and find something entirely new to replace them with.

Like what?

I, personally, love he concept of paying a speciallized house caster to buff you before going into a dangerous quest. The main problem is that they charge too little for their services (seriously, 30 plat per spell?), and since the level cap raised from 10 to 12, their spells are not all that useful anymore because our own caster level gives better buffs, like resist 30 (except maybe for a Jump before Pit or so).

We need to buff them, so they are an option as important as ship buffs, with the disadvantage being that you have to throw plat at them every time you want to rebuff. I know, plat comes is shovels now, but as you said, not everyone have capped plat.


I really like the way you have to actually EARN the access to the best gear in the area.

And yet, people can just platbuy their epic GH dragon armor and helm without even stepping inside the Tor dragon's rooms.

Personally, I don't like how the PDK favor is ALL gathered at the last tier. After you get your key and puppy, you have zero reasons to even collect those reward tiers again. They need to put something there so we are not working only for the last tier.

This is my same opinion on the Silver Flame favor.


Also, the twelve are not the silver flame, and should not have anything to do with thier potions.

I didn't said anything about SF pots on the Twelve entry.

[redspecter23]

+1

Nearly perfect.

Turbine, copy this.