Favor... It Does a Body Good

[TFPAQ]

Given the activity I'm seeing in the forums concerning the upcoming merger, I thought I might as well throw out some thought fodder for people to ruminate on...

The question has been raised before with lots of good insightful comments and ideas from both sides, so I'm hoping that some fresh eyes will give it a go...

I believe that favor should be accumulated by account, not by character. Each character can only obtain the favor/quest like they do now, but it is cumulative towards your total; be it 400 (Drow), 1750 (Tome or 32-pt build), etc. If you are the guy who has 1 toon with 2400 favor, congratulations, but to the player base, I would rather you had 6 characters each with 400 favor. Why? Because there is 6 times the opportunity for me to quest with you in the low-mid level quests where grouping is sparse and would provide greater variability on the high end as more characters obtain their levels.

More and more I'm seeing LFM lvl 14s zerging through low level content to build their 1750 for tomes. How much more play would quests get if any favor you obtain counts towards your favor reservoir? Want to play your lvl 4 but don't because you are trying to get that +2 Strength tome, relax.. it counts to your cashing it in when you have enough..

Complaints before that were raised were people saying that it would allow a person to obtain multiple tomes for the same toon. My reply was and is.. who cares? This isn't Guild Wars where the ultimate end game is PvP. I don't care if the people I'm questing with has a 32 point build with a +3 tome for every attribute. I don't care. We are questing together for our common cause (yeah I know you all are thinking loot, xp... nope: for fun!)

More people playing multiple characters creates greater opportunity for finding interesting chars to quest with. Not every run should be POP... More people playing more characters, and consequently more classes, improves DDO with greater variability and versatility.

Thoughts?......

[joker965]

I think that your general premise is good. I'm not sure how the details could work. I think the best idea might be one set of "rewards" for individual characters and another set for total account favor.

The possibilities are there though.

[Dariun]

I think that your general premise is good. I'm not sure how the details could work. I think the best idea might be one set of "rewards" for individual characters and another set for total account favor.

The possibilities are there though.

Yeah, I like it (admittedly, having 4 characters with between 400-1000 favor probably influences me a bit).

"Account" based favor rewards like unlocking drow or 32 point builds could be based on cumulative favor.

"Character" based favor rewards like +2 tome or backpack space would be restricted to the character that earned the favor.

[Girevik]

Without going into the details of the rewards, I agree with you.

I know the institution of the 1750 favor for 32-point builds stopped me from playing all of my characters except the one with the highest favor. Combine that with the fact that I don't play enough for that one to have reached 1750 yet, and you have removed lots of low- and mid- level characters from circulation.

[MysticTheurge]

It would largely defeat the point of favor, which was originally to encourage people to do the less-played quests. If you could achieve the same results by just doing WW/STK/Stormcleave/etc on 6+ characters, well what would be the point?

[bobbryan2]

It would largely defeat the point of favor, which was originally to encourage people to do the less-played quests. If you could achieve the same results by just doing WW/STK/Stormcleave/etc on 6+ characters, well what would be the point?

Presumably because there would be some even niftier reward for getting to 1750 on 6+ characters.

But I just like the idea probably because I'm sittin around 6000 favor or so.

[Arnya]

I did a bit of a test on Crankey - not trying to go N-H-E on quests to fill in favour on the way to lvl14. Now he is there, I check his patron list and OMG! he has 1384 favour WITHOUT EVEN TRYING!!

The secret is - don't run the staples more than once!!

Never done LOTD; desert, whisperdoom, only half GH, no CO6...

Really, it's not that hard anymore, try doing it when cap was lvl12 before LOTD2 - that was a grind!!

So, in summary I think the rewards, per character, are placed at the right levels - a week of running obscure quests and i'll have another 1750 character (3rd, with Grumpey at 1724)

And I work and have a family and although I'm a powergamer, I only spend 2-4hrs daily playing

[Kethir]

I like favor the way it is. I have 4 characters, and I hate running the same quest over and over.

Of course, I may be a minority. All 4 of my characters have 1750, and all except the first were done naturally – without favor “grinding”. All I have is a preference to join favor quests and a preference to suggest them instead of loot quests – if you suggest favor quests 80% of the time, you’re going to still be doing loot runs 90% of the time anyway, since most people don’t want to do favor.

[TFPAQ]

It would largely defeat the point of favor, which was originally to encourage people to do the less-played quests. If you could achieve the same results by just doing WW/STK/Stormcleave/etc on 6+ characters, well what would be the point?

You make a valid point, but I think that the favor concept was additionally designed to also get more players over a broader quest base. I don't think they intended it to be a vehicle by which players skipped over the less played quests, while cranking the same old power/xp quests to level up and then have them come back as lvl 14 to just zerg all of these.

[TFPAQ]

Yeah, I like it (admittedly, having 4 characters with between 400-1000 favor probably influences me a bit).

"Account" based favor rewards like unlocking drow or 32 point builds could be based on cumulative favor.

"Character" based favor rewards like +2 tome or backpack space would be restricted to the character that earned the favor.

I've talked with alot of people in game who really want to make 32-pt builds as their high priority with taking a tome reward pretty far down their lists. So I think you really summarized a good solution/fix.

Thanks for posting

[TFPAQ]

I like favor the way it is. I have 4 characters, and I hate running the same quest over and over.

Of course, I may be a minority. All 4 of my characters have 1750, and all except the first were done naturally – without favor “grinding”. All I have is a preference to join favor quests and a preference to suggest them instead of loot quests – if you suggest favor quests 80% of the time, you’re going to still be doing loot runs 90% of the time anyway, since most people don’t want to do favor.

That is part of my point Kethir. People don't want to run favor quests 'cuz of the perceived return on investment, i.e. if it isn't the char they are pounding for 1750, they would rather go run for loot.

If the favor was cumulative you would get more people running the "favor" quests instead of always pushing to the same old loot runs. You said it yourself you are still running loot 90% of the time when you would rather be running favor 80%.

[Hafeal]

Without going into the details of the rewards, I agree with you. I know the institution of the 1750 favor for 32-point builds stopped me from playing all of my characters except the one with the highest favor. Combine that with the fact that I don't play enough for that one to have reached 1750 yet, and you have removed lots of low- and mid- level characters from circulation.

I agree with Girevik.

I would like to see the OP idea fleshed out a bit more but I think it has promise.

[TFPAQ]

I agree with Girevik.

I would like to see the OP idea fleshed out a bit more but I think it has promise.

So start "fleshing" man. I'm liking the get your Drow, 32-pt, etc as account favor rewards and I'm fine with tomes or whatever (i.e. bank space) being individual favor rewards.

Doesn't seem like it should be that tough to implement on Turbines part. They already track your total favor as evidenced by the ability to delete the char you earned the favor on while maintaining the rewards.

[Mr._Dna]

Yeah, the idea is fine in principle, but if you make it just unlocking 32pt builds/drow, then once an account has that unlocked, there's yet again no reason to run for ACCOUNT favor, only individual favor (same scenario as now). Not to mention, I think it would be unfair to allow the new threshold to stay at 1750 b/c some of us had to grind a single toon up there. Alternatively, it's not fair for people who aren't there yet to raise it up higher, either.

So...um, leave it like it is.

[PurdueDave]

I'm thinking we've seen the last of the account-based favor reward. Just my gut feeling.

[ZePawnFuhrer]

I think if anything they should add-on some more higher favor rewards.