Talk:Elite Mission

Section 0
Does anyone else find this is a poor way of allowing access to this area? I mean it means that 99.9% of gamers cannot access this area. I for one love FoW and UW just because they are great areas for exploration and something to do when you finish the rest of the game. I was hoping they added a similar area for factions and it indeed seems they have. Farm for faction = access to the elite missions. I always thought the Dev's hated farming, isn't this just forcing it? --SK 01:54, 12 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Well since ppl aren't forced to play Elite Missions, just like players aren't forced to get Obsidian Armor, I don't see a valid argument of forcing ppl to farm. -PanSola 02:06, 12 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Your twisting my words. If you want access to this area you and your guild must come up with some hefty faction points.  The only way this is possible is to farm for it.  I'm not saying everyone is forced to farm but you are if you want access to the Elite Missions.  Is it really not clear what I am talking about since this is the "Talk" section of the Elite Missions? Sound's like you just wanting to be annoying to me --SK 04:33, 12 May 2006 (CDT)


 * After reading your response, I still don't think I twisted your words, though I may have misunderstood your scope of "forcing". Your last sentence in the original post indicated your expectation/assumption/understanding that the Dev's hated farming.  From the structure of the sentences I took it to me you believed the Devs hated any type of farming, as opposed to the Devs specifically hating farming to gain access to an optional area.  Thus when I responded, I drew an analogy with the acquisition of Obsidian Armor, something else that is also optional and hard to acquire.  Because I believed that your belief of Dev's hatred of farming is a general one, the analogy would hold despite the fact that Elite Missions is access to an area whereas Obsidian Armor is a in-game item to keep.  They are both optional and desired by many.
 * Now, the only way to acquire Obsidian Armor is to come up with some hefty amount of rare crafting materials and gold. The only way that is possible is to farm for it.  And because the way I interpreted the last sentence of your original paragraph, I made the unfortunate mistaken assumption that you did not consider acquisiton of Obsidian Armor to be forced farming.  Using that wrong assumption, I furture developed my argument that "if it is something optional to get, then even if the only way to obtain it is through farming, it is not considered forcing people to farm", which I mistakenly thought would be consistent with your definition of "forcing people to farm".  And thus, I used that argument which was based on wrong assumptions to argue that the Devs aren't forcing people to farm with respect to the Elite Missions.


 * After I have figured out where the misunderstanding came from, here's my revised response: "I believe the Devs do NOT hate farming, this opinion is supported by the need to farm in order to acquire Obsidian Armor. Thus I do not perceive an inconsistency in the Dev's stance/position on farming when the only way to gain access to Elite missions is through farming."


 * Apologies for my misunderstanding. -PanSola 05:25, 12 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I haven't played Factions a lot, but is this REALLY THE ONLY HIGH LEVEL CONTENT IN THE GAME? By high level content I mean: comparable to UW/FoW. If so, I am pissed off. I have nothing else to do when I have played through Factions but play on high level areas, so if there is no other high level area, I'll just quit playing and spend all my time in the wiki, waiting for the next expansion. There is no way I could ever get to those areas as I am not willing to change my guild and the alliances which control the Elite Missions are not taking new guilds, especially not ones who do not farm for faction. Please tell me there is something to do besides the elite missions? And I am NOT interested in repeating the same competitive missions again and again to no end to get a new highscore. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 05:41, 12 May 2006 (CDT)
 * I'm not sure if Challenge Missions are considered high level content. Heck, I'm not sure how to compare things.  For reference, is Sorrow's Furnace considered high level content, barely, or not even close?  If you mean having ot pay 1 plat to enter and get kicked out when your party or an NPC dies, FoW and UW are probably unique so far.  They are core areas too btw. -PanSola 06:04, 12 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Also, you can hope for generous guilds to hold control of the towns. I heard one of the guilds held HzH and was letting ppl into elite missions for at least a week. -PanSola 06:07, 12 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Your idea sounds like a small money making idea for alliances by charging say 2-3k to join thier alliance, thus making a profit & letting people get into elite missions --Jamie 06:12, 12 May 2006 (CDT)
 * You don't need to join the alliance to enter. You just need to be in the party of an alliance member. -PanSola 06:14, 12 May 2006 (CDT)


 * On another note, while the Taiwanese region have won a few HoH matches, they have not yet got 5 victories to gain the favor of gods or to gain access to FoW/UW. However some Taiwanese alliances have been able to gain access to the elite missions, so that's some kind of balance on the bigger picture. -PanSola 06:11, 12 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Favor:
 * A big problem with that concept is, that it is not really possible to scale it. With 3 regions, it was ok, but with 5 it is getting much harder. Would be better to have just one region asia instead of korea, japan and taiwan (3 hurra for european integration and a booh for asian nationalism hehe).
 * With regard to high level content (in PvE), if that depends on difficulty, there are a few things that can be thought of:
 * All explorable regions prior to the "entrance mission" (hatchery/grove) I'd put down as easy, the missions itself are fairly easy for old players as well. After the entrance misssion you get some regions that are a bit more difficult and with lots of elites in it (comparable to southern shiverpeaks). Then there is the unwaking waters explorable, which does return you to the outpost after dieing and features some heavier mobs. Like an all time FoW, just much smaller and always accessable. After that, only elite missions and challange missions. --Xeeron 06:23, 12 May 2006 (CDT)


 * They are elite missions because they have elite loot and therefore it is fair to assume they also have the hardest monsters. The system in place right now is a catastrophy and a sham and more importantly, a shame. We'll see how they address it. If they are satisfied with the current design, I'll quit the game. Not because I won't have anything to do in the game -I will- but to make a statement, that I will not support a structure that favors such blatant elitism. It confirms my perception that the Devs in Anet have no connection what so ever with the average players of the game and only consult those same elitists who benefit from "fame" and "ladders" and "elite missions." --Karlos 09:51, 12 May 2006 (CDT)


 * 1. Obsidian armour's a great analogy for the Urgoz and Kanaxai greens, all of which seem to be reskins of other, more affordable greens, but it's a horrible analogy for the missions themselves. The actual missions are analogous to the Fissure and Underworld.
 * 2. It looks like control of elite missions could be extremely vulnerable to faction farming bots. I've done some quick calculations and the numbers look pretty disturbing.
 * 3. Giving ANet the benefit of the doubt, Prophecies had no non-core, non-favour locked postgame areas until Sorrow's Furnace. As far as I'm concerned, they have until the end of summer to either open up elite missions for everyone on the right side or add a postgame area like a third divine realm, a Sorrow's Furnace type area or something similar before I get angry.
 * -- Gordon Ecker 00:45, 14 May 2006 (CDT)
 * shrug. With respect to the analogies, the original post I was responding to was enjoying the areas, and was commenting on getting access to teh area for enjoyment.  It would've been different if the original poster was talking about acquisition of elite mission greens.  My previous response to the response defended the analogy in the particular discussion's context (including the misunderstanding), and I think the analogy still holds in teh same context despite your rational (without any context though, you would have a very strong point). -PanSola 01:28, 14 May 2006 (CDT)

¨
 * I for one do not want any green items, but access to high level content which gives me new harder challenges. Not that it matters too much anymore, I don't enjoy Factions too much and haven't even played through it with a single character yet. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 01:58, 16 May 2006 (CDT)

Chests
Up to now, all chests I've seen opened in the Urgoz's Warren had rare (gold) items. have anyone got a purple drop out of a Stoneroot or a Deep Jade chest? Foo 06:16, 22 May 2006 (CDT)

On ferrying
Do I need a ferry every time I have to go to the "staging area", or can I map travel there after the first time I've been ferried?
 * Every time. --68.142.14.9 13:23, 23 May 2006 (CDT)


 * What my guildmates and I have found useful is parking one of our characters in the Elite Mission. From here, all you have to do is have that character go to the Guild Hall.  Any other characters that have previously been to the Elite Mission can then be ferried by the parked guildmember by joining their party and having them click 'Leave Guildhall'; which takes you to the last city they were in.--Xis10al 14:16, 23 May 2006 (CDT)


 * That's great! way to go. Foo 14:24, 23 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Interesting. Does that work across logins? I.e., I go to an elite mission, go to guild hall, then log out. When I log back in as that character, can I then "leave guild hall" to the elite mission? 149.9.0.25 14:37, 23 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Yes it does. 64.74.207.50 15:10, 23 May 2006 (CDT)

Do you guys (those who have access to the missions) take people you don't know with you? Do you charge for this? I know lots of players from different Guilds, but none has ever had access... can someone take me? ;o) ---Imoen

Elite mission critisism
I hate ANET for introducing elitism to Factions. It was perfectly good without having to worry about crap like this. Chuiu (T/C) 17:06, 6 May 2006 (CDT)


 * They introduced elitism with fame way back when. This is just the end product of a long embrace of elitism. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 17:18, 6 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm talking about in Factions though, Fame is more of a prophocies elitism since people just getting the game, factions, wont be as active in HoH. Wait ... can they even get to HoH without prophocies? Chuiu (T/C)  17:23, 6 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm sure they can, in theory. Dunno if anyone has managed it yet. By the way, you might be interested in this gwguru thread (now closed -- yay heavy handed moderation). All but the standard reflexive contrarians are dissatisfied with this design. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 17:30, 6 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Access to UW anf FoW is done through Zin Ku Corridor. The statues are at the back of the place. I do agree that this is elitism and I hate it and in fact, it has strongly changed my view of the game when I learned about it. More on that later. --Karlos 17:39, 6 May 2006 (CDT)


 * After nearly a week of alliances operating, it can be safe to say that ownership of towns has completely flopped. There is one alliance that has held Cavalon nearly continuously for nearly the whole time, and around three alliances that constantly switch hands in House zu Heltzer. In the case of Cavalon, the holding alliance has shown terrible community spirit, charging ludicrous fees for access to elite missions- on the order of 50k/head. They are the first alliance to have figured out how to keep the cost of Cavalon up in the millions of faction, and I predict that the alliance that will dethrone them will have figured out how to keep the cost nearly always maxed at 10 million faction. This will require a scary level of dedication as each member of the alliance will have to generate several rounds of 10K faction every day, but I am sure there are players who will do it. People who have not spent the last six months in the game networking with these mammoth alliances have no chance in hell of ever seeing these elite missions. Sad fact is I am sure Arena Net considers this exactly according to design. F G 12:11, 7 May 2006 (CDT)
 * They run the Luxon supply quest. You can get 400 Faction in about 3 minutes. Nothing else can compare to Faction gained per minute. --Ravious 12:18, 7 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Yeah I abused that quest during the FPE to help get a 15k piece of armor and bump up my guilds rating. I thought it would have gotten nerfed by the release though because any warrior, ranger, or even monk can do it.  Chuiu (T/C)  12:36, 7 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Interesting. You mean the Luxon Supply Lines quest? So they're pretty much an alliance of 24x7 package runners? If true, I've just lost all respect for them. F G 14:44, 7 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, you can read their forums. Looks like they've got some pretty exclusive rules about how things are run there. This thread sums it up: http://battleforums.com/showthread.php?t=118360
 * And actually, they don't charge to get into the mission- they have a strict policy of not allowing anyone who isn't in the alliance into the mission, and also a policy of not selling Zodiac items to outsiders. But then again, it's their alliance, they can do what they like. I just hope a more community friendly alliance takes Cavalon soon. Xaque 19:31, 10 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I actually was at E3 and talked with the designer who was in charge of the setup for the elite missions. It is not their intention to lock out any player from being able to attempt the elite missions if they wanted to. The designer praised the XoO alliance (who held zu Heltzer at the time), as they were very open to allowing others to try the mission. However, he predicts that should any alliance keep people out, animosity will build up against them and spurn angry rivals to ban together to take them out; backlash will hurt them in the long run. His long-term goal was that having access to the elite missions won't be as glorious as it is now considering hardly anyone has seen them yet. Once the novelty of being the sole occupants of the mission is gone, he predicts future alliances will not be as stringent about letting people in. However, should the trend continue and people are regularly blocked out by future allainces, they may consider adding in an alternative method to gain access. So while they created the tools to make it possible, it is NOT ANet's intentions to have content unreachable by anyone. --Thervold 16:42, 16 May 2006 (CDT)


 * This is the fastest way to gain faction, faster than even the quests. 8k faction in 20-25 minutes. :) But after beating both Amatz Basin and Altrumm Ruins and breaking our own records many times, we are starting to get bored. :(
 * [[image:New_high_score_Altrumm.jpg|thumb|Karlos' ginormous screenshot]]
 * --Karlos 10:52, 10 May 2006 (CDT)

Of course there is going to be some degree of "elitism" in Guildwars. 15k, FoW, Ranks, Titles, ladder rankings etc are all forms. The game wouldnt be very fun by competitive means if less talented individals received the same benefit. --The King Tarosian 21:17, 9 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Its not simply broken down to less talented 'individuals' so much as alliances filled with active individuals who daily contribute to the alliances overall faction. Say you have a guild, or even alliance, of casual gamers with a few active ones.  There is no chance at all for any of them to get into and experience the elite missions because their alliance will never have enough faction to claim even the smallest town let alone the 2 main cities.  Less active != less talented. --209.34.209.155 13:25, 11 May 2006 (CDT)

The BB allience requires 1 hour of faction farming from every member or they get kicked. yes, it is very scary. Isn't this thekind of thing anet said they were trying to take out of momrpg's? Luckily, there are team players like TC.


 * All I have to say to this is that it isn't true, and that I find it disgusting that so many rumors are flying around about both the TC alliance and the BkBd alliance.


 * It's not a rumor, it's straight from The Black Blades Alliance's forum... --theeth 20:46, 14 May 2006 (CDT)


 * No that is a lie. The faction farming was only required if you planned on going to The Deep.--71.236.97.221 07:06, 19 May 2006 (CDT)


 * It isn't a lie. We're talking about the elite missions, The Deep being one, and so yes, faction farming is indeed required. That's kinda what every post has been about for quite a ways up... -Auron of Neon 19:22, 31 May 2006 (CDT)

Crapy crap... it seems to me one has to be a power player to enter those missions... what about those players who have a real life next to the game? Not nice that this areas aren't accessable to everybody! Yeah I know its elite... butArgh! /shakefist ---Imoen 07:41, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Mission briefing NPCs?
Are there mission briefing NPCs at the mission outposts to tell you why you are entering the mission? The current article only says there's a storage and a merchant NPC.
 * Not in the outpost, but Eurayle and Vash, the elite mission access NPCs in Cavalon and HzH, explain the backstore and objective of the elite mission, but don't give any tips. -- Gordon Ecker 20:37, 3 November 2006 (CST)

Nightfall Elite Mission
Has anyone found access to a Nightfall Elite mission? Stygian keys are availble for purchase/trade but apparently cannot be used in game. Has anyone found a Stygian chest? Perhaps this would be the area where Razah--the mystery hero--resides...Crimson Butcher 23:29, 2 November 2006 (CST)
 * Nope. One of the likely access point candidates is the *spoiler* behind the gate in Chantry of Secrets, which would mean that it's not implemented yet. I suspect the outpost is the mystery island between Gate of Secrets and Gate of Madness and south of Gates of Torment is the elite mission's outpost. It's also possible that it's implemented and the access method is just well hidden. -- Gordon Ecker 05:26, 3 November 2006 (CST)


 * Where would one find a merchant selling said Stygian Key? Silentvex 20:01, 3 November 2006 (CST)


 * No merchants have been found yet. If they follow the trend of The Deep and Urgoz's Warren the only merchant would be in the elite mission's outpost. Currently the only known source of Stygian Keys is one of the Inscribed Secret collectors in Gates of Torment. -- Gordon Ecker 20:29, 3 November 2006 (CST)


 * Other candidates include Nightfallen Jahai's version of the monument to the defeat of Palawa Joko (which appears to be a gateway), the dark spoce that appears in the western ocean after completing Abaddon's Gate, the island to the east of Island of Shehkah and the Hunting Abaddon. / Good Demon Hunting quest. -- Gordon Ecker 02:42, 23 November 2006 (CST)


 * Gaile gray has said that the elite mission isn't added yet. http://guildwars.gameamp.com/forum/showTopic/48977.php


 * Now we just need an answer on Razah. -- Gordon Ecker 05:35, 6 November 2006 (CST)
 * I think he is also still in development.
 * Yeah, Gaile confirmed it pretty soon after she confirmed the elite mission was still in developement. -- Gordon Ecker 16:10, 7 November 2006 (CST)
 * TADAA!!! it's here!  Well, almost... Lu Zon 16:30, 1 December 2006 (CST)

Third way of access to factions elite missions
To be ferried there by a parked character, do you have to have the outpost unlocked with your character or only your account? The current wording sounds like the later. --Xeeron 06:13, 6 November 2006 (CST)

Prophecies
Well, unless you count Sorrows Furnace or Tombs should Prophecies get an Elite Mission?


 * I consider Ruins of the Tomb of the Primeval Kings to be the elite mission prototype. It's fairly painful with a PUG (though not nearly as hard as the true elite missions), it's quite long, and the bosses at the end are almost guaranteed to drop greens. -- Gordon Ecker 19:05, 1 December 2006 (CST)


 * Sorrow's Furnace, while not actually an elite mission, is similar enough. The first source of Green weapons... well, ever. While not a true Elite Mission, it's more like a Propheices-only Realm of the Gods (repeatable quests, good loot, et cetera). --Valentein 19:12, 1 December 2006 (CST)


 * And, interestingly, the Domain of Anguish has both a Sorrow's Furnace style section and a 'traditional' Elite Mission section. -- Gordon Ecker 07:21, 2 December 2006 (CST)