Kohan vs Ufkar in Rahu

[Tagamogi]

Looking for opinions: Which of them did you decide to befriend and why?

I've been avoiding both of them because I hate making decisions but I think it's time to give in and raise my augmentation. :( I find both sigil scripting and calligraphy occasionally useful, so staring at the list of available recipes from them on the Wiki hasn't helped at all so far...

[ShieldBreaker]

It is my opinion that the rival system is broken, at least for me, I am friends with both of them. If you can get all of one thing from 1 guy and then work favor with the other and get all the things from from him, that is the way I'd go. Now the question is are you suppose to be able to befriend one and then befriend the other, while turning your old friend against you. It only partly worked that way for me.

I considered myself a swordsman at the start and so went calligraphy first, but I really, really want one of the sigil scripting spells now. I also changed my opinion on which type of gadget I wanted as well.

[Tagamogi]

It is my opinion that the rival system is broken, at least for me, I am friends with both of them. .
Hm, interesting. I just got done flipping my mental coin and got to close friends with Ufkar which dropped me correctly to Hated with Kohan, one faction level lost for every faction level gained. I'm too cheap/lazy to go further in testing for now. It seems that if negative faction stops at Despised, it would be possible to do Comfortable/Comfortable with each but I don't see how Friends/Friends is possible.

The augmentation pricing system seems a bit odd, too: It looks to me like it would be far cheaper to gain favor with one of them to train their 2 cheap augmentation unlocks, and then switch favor to the rival to train the other cheap augmentation unlocks. Unless I'm way underpricing cedar...

[Khaylara]

I went for the one who teaches Sigil scripting, I have never leveled sword so the other one didn't interest me beyond the very basic "let's see what this guy teaches" stage and learning the lowest gadgets from him.
Because of the augmenting unlock prices some people befriended one, learned the cheaper augments then befriended the other and did the same. I'm lazy so I'm sticking with the sigils guy, I'd rather lose 100 k than work up the favor over and over.

[Tagamogi]

It is my opinion that the rival system is broken, at least for me, I am friends with both of them.

I think part of what's going on here is that you only lose favor if you gain a positive favor level with their rival. So, going from neutral to comfortable with one causes a favor loss with the other, but going from tolerated to neutral does not.

I switched favors on a Saturday morning when I was half asleep and didn't pay as much attention as I'd intended. I raised favor with Ufkar to get his cheap level 60 augmentation unlocks, then dumped him for Kohan to get his level 50 augmentation unlocks. I'm pretty sure I was Despised with Kohan when I started the switch, but I'm not certain about Ufkar. I want to say Best Friends. I definitely did not get a message about losing favor with Ufkar until I got Kohan's favor past neutral. However, I think I got the favor loss message twice when raising favor with Kohan, but last I checked I'm still Close Friends with Ufkar. So, something still seems a bit off to me... I still have some favor levels left that I want to get, so I will really try to pay more attention then.

[cr00cy]

Im at pretty high favor with both of them. I think its related to fact that there is less negative favor levels, than positive ones.

[Tagamogi]

While this thread is on my mind again: How does everyone feel about the rival system in general?

I don't really like "pick a random side" choices in games. Part of that is definititely just that I don't want to make a choice, but it also usually feels to me like the rivalries are artificial and only exist to force the player to make a random choice. Players will pick a side based on the associated rewards and not because they are actually interested in the conflict itself.

When I think of either/or faction game choices, the first thing that comes to my mind is aldor vs scryer rep in WoW. However many years after the TBC release and after I stopped playing WoW, I still remember that healers should pick aldor rep, and scryer is good for crit dps. I also have some memories of a guildie deciding they'd made the wrong choice and laboriosly buying up endless signets to change their faction. What I do not remember is what the conflict was about, or if I ever even knew why the two sides were fighting. I'm quite certain I never cared, at any rate.

The Kohan vs Ufkar conflict is certainly much nicer than that, especially since you can be vaguely friendly with them both without too much effort. Still, it doesn't really add much to the game for me. I'm much more interested in NPCs like Shirogin or Ashk who actually have a background story that's more than just "I hate person x." Maybe if Kohan and Ufkar gave unique quests, or you could talk to other townspeople about the conflict and either try to get one of them thrown out of town or get them to kiss and make up, the conflict would feel more real. (One of the Rahu NPCs - can't remember who at the moment - does mention that he supports Ufkar in whatever he does, so I thought that was a nice touch.)

Right now, it mostly feels like the main way to distinguish Kohan from Ufkar is by which recipes they teach which isn't that exciting story-wise. I'd also like to point out that I'm the only person who's bothered referring to them by name in this thread so far. :p