Is it a bug or a feature?

One thing thats bothered me of late with Guild Wars is the ambiguity of different parts of the game. Take for example the recent changes to absorbtion in the last updates. Some people have said that this was a bug fix. If so, thats all well and good, but how were we supposed to know this actually was a bug? I know many people with a set of armor with one piece from Knights/Ascalon. I did this with a 1.5k set, so its only a minor annoyance, but I can sympathize and I feel very sorry for anyone who has done this with a set of FoW. None of them thought they were exploiting any sort of bug.

So, I went to look into how exactly we were supposed to know this. Aside from the update notes in question, I could find no page from the official website on how absorbtion really was supposed to work. I know of no such information on my manual. I did however easily find links to various fansites. One of them, Guildwiki, has a nifty feature that shows the history of a page. Here's what their absorbtion page said before this update:

That makes it sound like it wasn't a bug, but an intended feature. So, the question is, how exactly are we supposed to know what is an intended feature and what is a bug? I'd like to get FoW sometime soon, but I don't want to regret my decision because I made it based on widely accepted functionality that really shouldn't be happening. I've also heard one or two people stocking superior absorbs runes, suggesting that they might not be global either. While it might seem silly, with the latests updates, I wouldn't really put it out of the relm of possibility, and they stand to gain a lot if their theory proves true and people start buying multiple superiors to cover their armor completely. What else that we take as normal behavior might really be a bug?

I'm guessing that it (bug/feature) is going to stay a point of debate for a long time (Until people get tired of it & move on to other things). As for absorbtion Runes: ALL RUNES ARE GLOBAL!!!!!!

Hmm, Clone that info is from a player controlled sources. Anyone can edit a wiki site.

Kook, runes are not Global, they only affect the armor part they are on, thats the reson it was recomended to put the abs on chest piece, it being the biggest armor piece and taking the most hits

It has always been known as a bug, you'd know if you followed the forums from back when the game was released.

As a counter argument I could say nowhere in the description does it say the reduction was global either.

GW-wiki is just information collected by ordinary players of the game that post their findings.

Yeah, I'm aware that guildwiki is player maintained, but it seems to be respected by the community as usually accurate. After all, it was accurate. Thats how the armor was behaving. It isn't a matter of an incorrect guildwiki page, it was a matter of us trying to devine Anets intentions that the way that it was behaving was considered to be a bug. Without any official comments on this, it seems hard to think everybody just somehow knew it wasn't working the way it should.

As for runes, well we've got two differing opinions and my "not sure" from the first three posts. A perfect example of why more official explanation of game concepts would be helpful.

The knights/ascalon absorption is gone, and i believe the runes is still universal, will ahve to go test it though.

Then it becomes a matter of what third-party forums you follow. I only started using guru more after photics closed his, and I don't recall much of a discussion on the topic there. Yes, I'm aware that wiki is mostly all player created info. But, so is every other third party fansite. If it isn't on the official guildwars site, why were we to assume that its old behavior was somehow faulty? You're correct, it didn't say it was supposed to be global or not. Therefore, my best guess was that how it was working was supposed to be the correct behavior.

except that, from a design point of view, that makes absolutely no sense.

why have an entire set of armor in the game be considered totally obsolete when you can get the full effect with only one piece? warriors who knew what they were doing never wore a full knight's/ascalon set. they could get the full benefit with only one piece and could still get the benefits of other types of armors at the same time. balance wise, this made full knight's/ascalon utter crap. making it locational justifies the existence of the entire armor set and balances it out with other armor types.

as far as the runes are concerned, those should still be global. armor pieces are physical, thus making the absorption location specific. runes, however, are in a way "magical".

Sorry, that makes absolutely no sense since other than absorption and vigor all runes increase an attribute at the cost of health (for major and superior).

They are all global, increase to the attribute is global, health gain and loss is global and absorption is global.

In response to the OP:

Well, look at it this way:

If it was a bug, it has now been fixed, like it should have been a long, long, long time ago. This fix hasn't actually been completely unexpected, mainly because Knight's/Ascalon armor has worked inconsistantly from the rest of the armors in the game since it's release last year. You yourself have said in your original post, if it was a bug, it is now fixed and that is all well and good.

Now, if it was a feature, the change that has been made needs to be looked at as a balance issue. Obviously, Knight's/Ascalon armor and Absorption in general either was overpowered in Anet's eyes, or it wasn't working closely enough to their original concept of the mechanic. Either way, the recent update has fixed something about the game that needed to be fixed for balance purposes, continuity, to keep the game running smoothly, or all of the above.

Be my quest, do what I did go and test it. There is training facilitys at Battle Isle(i think thats the right name).
Global=5 pieces off armor. Inmo

go to shing jea monastary, outside in linnock courtyard right of master togo and read the tablet that says "armour" it explains that attacks will ONLY HIT ONE PIECE OF ARMOUR, they hit most often in this order: chest, legs, boots/gloves, helm. the reason that they changed the (non-stacking) of knights/ascalon is so theres a reason to get full knights/ascalon! because before you could just put it on the boots, get the rest as glad and be uber runner!(which ANet hates btw). and notice how the abs runes DO NOT SAY (non-stacking)? that is because they are NOT GLOBAL!!! whatever piece of armour the abs is applied to, is affected and whenever the foe hits that piece, the damage is absorbed, so that is why people say to put it on the chest piece as it gets hit the most...unlike attribute runes wheres they DO SAY (non-stacking) and are therefore, GLOBAL. i hope i finally cleared this up and all u bug-exploiting-tank-runner-soloers can GO GET full knights/ascalon and BE HAPPY!

Honestly man, have you actually read the tablet yourself? Here, I'll post a pic of it for you:


To make my point clearer I'll quote the part of the tablet right here:

Note that some defenses, such as shields, absorption runes, item upgrades, and spells will give you additional armor on all body locations simultaneously.

There the info right from the game tell you that the Abs runes are GLOBAL i kinda knew that from the beggining

I was your guest, and tested...

In a Controlled Experiment on the Isle.

Test 1: In Dragon Armor, No Abs. Rune What so ever, No shield. Balanced Stance used to rule out Criticals.

The Weakness condition warrior did 2 damage consistently. (tested 20 hits).

Test 2: Same Setup but with Superior Abs. on the Chest Piece.

The Weakness condition warrior did 0 damage consistently, showing that the Sup Abs. activated on every hit. (tested 20 hits).

Test 3: Same Setup, but with the Sup Abs. in the Boots.

The Weakness condition warrior did 0 dmg consistently, showing that the Sup Abs. activated on every hit. (tested 20 hits as well).


End Result: You shot yourself in the foot...It is Global.

Then what are everyone screaming about?(regarding abs)

There are two things:
1. the one piece of knights no longer provides a global bonus -- this isn't what people are so upset over. most acknowledge it was broken and now fixed.

2. absorption only affects physical damage now -- This is what most people are really upset about. All knights/ascalon, absorption runes, and shields with damage reduction only reduce physical and not elemental damage. This is what the multitude of threads about this and warrior striking, etc are about.

Former -- Thanks for the confirmation testing.