Reward Fissure Armor for skill over time played

Yeah right... I ebayed my FoW armor, IWAYed r3, AFKed the LB title, ran the cartographer title, leeched for protector, leeched for friend of ..., and used an auto-clicker for drunkard.

Can we forget this stupid talk now?

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Back on topic. Getting FoW armor is obviously grinding, and was meant to be grinding when it was introduced. The point was to give something to do to bored PvEers. Is it a contradiction with the statement "skill over time"? No. Because FoW armor has the same stats than any 15K armor, that has the same stats than any 1.5K armor. As said earlier, this is purely cosmetic. It doesn't make the game imbalanced, and it's not in contradiction with anet's philosophy.

Stupid = Reality ?

Many people have used eBay to get fow armor
many people have used IWAY to get rank
many people Afked the LB title
many people leeched for friend of
many people used a auto for drunkard,
etc etc


Get real.

It's irrelevant whether it imbalances the game or not. Again the quote in the OP says:

There is no "fine print" in that quote that says: "Oh, by the way, if you want the best looking armor in the game then instead of using skill you have to either grind for years and become a hardcore trade spammer to get it, or use farming "exploits" to play the game in a way it was not intended".

Definitely a contradiction based on what the quote says.

Ok, wannabe designers.

What would be a skill-based aproach to FoW acquisition?

Tokens? You mean, like an insanely tough quest area, that you need to complete 4 different zones in, and where you finally get a token at the end?

Kinda like DoA?

Oh, wait. DoA sucks big-time. It's just a massive grind and requires cookie cutter builds and attracts only the greatest idiots in GW or something like that. But apparently, some severly dislike the difficulty (pardon, grind) that is DoA.

So, Sorrow's Furnace? A quest system that takes a 4 person farming build to run in 12-14 minutes? Is this skill based?

Or should we simply cut the discussion and say that FoW should be simply a version of 15k armor. Possibly a 20k armor, and spare beating around the bush discussing skill > time yet another time, when it's about a completely different thing.

If you ask for tokens for FoW armor, you get DoA. Are you sure you want that?

If you're looking for FoW armor as a status symbol, realize that it's only worth something, because it is so hard to obtain. Make it easier, and it suddenly becomes worthless. Nobody will ever consider primeval armor an acomplishment. Make FoW simpler, and it's just another skin.

FoW armor isn't best looking, isn't better in stats, isn't more prestige. It shows something. If you eBayed it, fine. If you grinded, fine. If you traded, fine. Unless it means something to you, it won't mean anything to anyone. And this is why it doesn't matter how you obtained it. Because nobody cares. It's to signify your personal acomplishment. Be that acomplishment $49.95 sent to eBay, a severly beaten up 55 monk, or storage full of trade items. But whatever it is, unless that armor signifies something for you, then that investment was wasted.

Nobody really cares about FoW armor. Unless you're proud of how you obtained, no way will ever be good enough. That, is the truth of FoW armor.

Thats 2 easy. If it were like 1 voucher from fow, uw, the deep, Urgoz and DoA, .. then maybe half price.

many people have already stated that fow armor is purely cosmetic. its there as a long term goal for dedicated gamers. if you dont have the time to farm for fow, or just dont have the patience to farm for it, be content with what the game has to offer you for the time youre willing to put in.

and why stop at fow armor? if you want an easier way to obtain fow armor, why not create easier ways to obtain everything in the game that is deemed rare? how about we start a voucher system for all the rarest weapons in the game as well. sound good? req8 15^50 crystallines, elemental swords, perf magmas shields, perfect 20/20 staves in the nicest skins.

"best looking armor in the game" is very subjective as there are people who dont like fow armor at all. and as far as your quote is concerned, "Guild Wars is a competitive online roleplaying game that rewards player skill more than time played", why are you automatically assuming that rewards is something tangible? maybe rewards is referring to something intangible like a sense of accomplishent or self-fulfilment.

people who dont have the time to "grind" or are simply unwilling to do so, dont deserve fow or anything else that is considered rare.

stop quotting guild wars " Guild Wars is a competitive online roleplaying game that rewards player skill more than time played"

competitive = pvp.
competive does not = omg i got fow armor and u dont, u suck!!


The reward they do is Hero rank, Champion points, glad points etc.

reward = pvp


to be honest, dont think they care much about pve, and no fow armor and crystallines is not a reward its a luxury, you dont need fow, droks does the same job, and you dont need a crystalline when a machete does exactly the same.

Guild Wars is certainly accessible to people to who don't want to spend excessive amounts of time playing it. That's why there are collectors weapons so if you need that +5 Energy Sword, you can go get one at the Divine Path. Whatever it is functionally, you can get it in the game. PvP characters are another great example. You don't have to do a single thing in PvE to be able to play a good PvP character.

I agree with this idea, with some of the harder FoW/UW quests giving you an ecto or 2 shards. The idea of simply having a voucher to get FoW armor is absurd in my opinion. I don't have FoW armor, I probably never will, but the reason you want it is probably just because it's expensive, and even if the vouchers were customized, it would still be way too easy to get a full set.

/not signed

FoW armour is prestige armour. It shows that you are dedicated enough to amass the cash for the materials. It shouldn't be something that everyone has, and if you used the voucher system it would be. All it'd take is setting aside several hours on some weekend and you'd have it. So not much skill, and it penalises people who may not have several hours in one sitting.

Plus it also has the problem of getting runs. Plenty of guilds spend time just hanging around killing things there for fun, so I guess it'd give a good source of income if we can offer to run people through for cash. But that does nothing for your skill = reward thing.

There's also the question of what else you're going to put cash into? After you got several armour sets for each character and greens for you heroes, then what? Start looking for crystallines for Koss? I'm sure some can, but after that?

Well, you'd pvp I guess, but really, in pvp, skins mean nothing. Free pvp armour is the same as FoW in keeping you alive you know...

What would be a skill-based approach is having to beat all of UW and all of FoW, as the original post states.

It would not be like DoA at all because DoA's "hardness" is as a result of unfair environmental effects and monster skills and ludicrous pumping up of monsters' stats. Whereas UW and FoW's "hardness" are not based on that but rather are more based on a legitimate "hardness".

I'm all for FoW being "hard" to obtain, but currently the only thing "hard" about obtaining it that in order to do it one must conform himself to becoming a farming "exploiter" and massive grinder. Farming "exploiting" and massive grind does not equal "hardness" therefore FoW is not currently hard to obtain. But it should be, or at least there should be an option for it to be obtained in a hard, skill-based way in keeping with Guild War's stated theme.


Don't know why so many people keep saying Fissure armor is cosmetic. Yes, we all know that, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the point of this suggestion.

As for the "be content with what the game has to offer", what else is one supposed to do when he has mastered all of the missions in the game? Pretty much the only PVE thing left to do at that point is to acquire Fissure armor. It seems illogical that the game should at that point suddenly change into a philosophy of: "We are flushing skill over time down the toilet as of now, if you want the best looking armor you are gonna grind for months or years for it!"

I agree with your point about "Why stop at FoW armor?". Indeed there should be skill-based ways to acquire everything in the game, so as to keep with the officially stated theme of the game.

Ahahahaha.

"55/SS team running armor service: 150k for UW, 200k for FoW. All quests, all rewards. 4 hours for each area. Pay after each token. You can be afk. Also capping spider. 4/8, self invite"

Please. The ultimately exploitable area hard and challenging? UW is *THE* joke of GW.

FoW and UW are a joke. A bad joke at that. Completing all quests might not really be possible with merely a 55/SS combo, but it's runnable and it would be runnable.

But for eternity now are FoW and UW neither challenging, nor demanding or require any skill. They require the perhaps most abused builds that ever existed in GW.

I think the only rewards you will get out of PvE is time invested. You don't need to invest time in PvE to be a competent and skilled player, you can get the best equipment and any skills you need without much investment, so the reward for spending time is pretige items. So that is just the way it is, there is grind in this game, but not mandatory grind.

If you want reward for skill, play PvP.

Here are your two alternatives:
1. Stop playing GW, and play another game.
2. Play PvP.

The core gameplay and philosophy of Guild Wars shouldn't be altered just because some people thought it was a WoW without monthly fee.

Skill > Time Played does not apply to vanity items.

/notsigned

(And no, I dont have any fissure armor)

as much as i kinda like this.../notsigned

Anet orginally intended for 15k to be very, very hard to get, and for FoW to be nigh on impossible. i know a girl that got her first FoW 1 month into her play time. i did teach her to farm and all..but still. wow. here i am at 1600 hrs in 12 months and i only have 1 set of 15k. course...maybe if i didnt give away 100's of plat to newbies and spend so much time in AB. aw well.

/notsigned

FoW armor is for people who want it and put in the time and effort to either buy or farm the required materials and/or gold. The problems that you see with the current system for attaining this armor is one that can be said for how people attain all expensive items. The solution that you put forward to solve this doesn't take into account that this will not curtail the illegal activity of buying gold.

I'm sorry but just because you 'farm' doesn't mean you exploit or you're doing something that would be considered an illegal act under your user agreement. And if you feel that you're dirtying yourself by farming or going out into PvE with the purpose of attaining items/gold then by all means don't play. But do not think that just because YOU cannot commit the time and/or effort into getting something that you want that should mean that they should somehow lower the bar just so that you can get what you want.

Actually it has everything to do with this suggestion. The purpose of FoW armor is to show off how much money you spent on your armor. It has little or nothing to do with your own personal level of skill. You seem to want to equate your own skill in PvE with vouchers that would show that you got FoW armor. If you want to show off your own skill level then get rank or get a championship/glad title. It's a personal choice that the player makes to spend time and effort in getting gold and materials in-order to buy armor so that they can say 'look at me I got FoW armor!'; just like someone who stands around for 10,000 minutes in a drunken state says 'look at me I'm an Ale hound!'

And the reason people keep saying this is because you seem to fail to understand that there are other things you can do to show off your 'skill' in the game.

If you have the time to do everything under the sun the pertains to PvE, other than get FoW armor, then you have the time to grind and work your way towards FoW armor. And it's supposed to take you a long time to get, it's not supposed to be a round trip of UW and FoW that can be hammered out in a single sitting. Doing what you propose does not show skill.

There is also no fine print that says "rewards are armor, rare skinned weapons, titles, etc.." So if you find so much of the game that you disagree with why don't you quit playing and find a new game. And yeah you did pay money for the game, but that doesn't entitle you to be pampered as much as you feel that you should be. Customer service only goes so far. But hey who knows, you might be the kind of guy who writes a 10,000 word letter of disapporval to the president of Hostess because the 50 cent Twinkie you bought was a little too moist.

/notsigned

Skill over time spent applies only to competitve aspects of the game. A guy with a white max sword can still beat a guy with a victo's blade with the right skill set up and game knowledge.
Fissure armor provides no stategic advantage.

Fissure is the ONLY true grindable object in the game. It is expensive to give those die hard fans true MMORPG fans something to do. Take that away and it will kill a lot of motivation for that.

/not signed

you &$^% moron lol sorry for the language.
FOW HAS COST ME SO MUCH TIME AND DIFFICULTY
you planning to make it easy to get? You forget that there are people that really tried hard hard for fow. Not everyone used Ebay or anyother noob shit.

With all the advanced farming techniques, anyone who can't earn 1.5 million in a few weeks isn't trying very hard.

I am sincerely happy with my FoW armor. Why? Because I spent months saving money/farming UW/selling items/completing missions to acquire the money for the crafting materials. I know I put a great deal of effort in it to obtain it. That's why I like it, it's an personal achievement. And to be honest, I enjoyed farming
UW, farming ettins. All because I knew every ecto, every 1k brought me closer to my goal.

I'm saving now for a second set, farming occasionaly, but most of the time just enjoying the game. I will get my second set in due time, and when I do, I have achieved another of my goals.

I don't think the acquirement of FoW armor has te be made easier. It will remove all the value of getting it. For me its shows dedication. True, some players just Ebay it, but I know some people haven't.

And about the Anet quote: Guild Wars is a competitive online roleplaying game that rewards player skill more than time played. I think of this as it doesn't give a certain player an advantage when they put more time in their character. Skill determines of you are succesfull (like coming up with strategies or builds). And as FoW armor (= time) doesn't give you an advantage, it really doesn't contradict the Anet quote.

/notsigned

Definitely /notsigned.

My guild is about serious PvE gameplay. We occaisionally do some PvP, but for the most part, we're together in group grinding through tough areas of the game. As often as we can (favor depending), we go into FoW or UW in 8-man groups for 2 reasons: 1) To beat a tough set of quests as a team because we enjoy playing together and 2) hope we get some drops. Granted, as an 8-man group, we don't walk out with 10 ectos/shards each or anything, but that's why most of us have solo builds as well.

To turn FoW armor into nothing more than a quest reward would make it worthless. My guild can beat FoW in less than 3 hours and has done so several times. If they were to implement something like this, there wouldn't be any point to doing FoW more than once per character. I think what you would see happen is what went on for a while (long time ago) with the Black Widow pet: People standing around in ToA spamming for a run to get their armor and people charging exorbitant amounts to lead the runs. Of course, I guess there really wouldn't be any need for them to charge money for the runs since there would be nothing to buy except maybe a high-end weapon.

Talk about crashing an economy. No farming to save for FoW armor -> No market for ectos and shards -> market crash. The argument that people could choose to farm it anyway is idiocy. Once people start seeing n00bs with FoW armor, it's no longer a vanity piece. It's commonplace and useless and hardcore players won't want it anymore. Honestly, it'd be like suddenly dropping the price of Bentleys (or any other extremely expensive car) to the same price as a Toyota Corolla. The attraction of a Bentley is as a status symbol. Sure, you can get a Cadillac for about 1/5 the price and it's a great car, but to own a Bentley is to show everyone that you are at the top of the heap. If everyone had Bentleys, they'd be worthless as a symbol.

Are there people who ebay their way to FoW armor? Yes. IMO, people who spend real money on virtual stuff are idiots. (I know, we all paid for the game, but I think that's entirely different) Should they be stopped? Yes, but that's the responsibility of the admins to find these folks and stop them. And should everyone else who plays the game the way it was meant to be played suffer? What about the folks who are 3 ectos away from getting their set? What about the folks that are ready to get it and just need to make the run? When the ecto and shard market implodes, are you going to buy them at the current market value so their time wasn't wasted?

This is a bad idea that should be flamed and ridiculed. If you don't want to farm and grind, don't go for the armor. As has been stated a few times, it's no better than 1.5K or 15K armor when it comes to damage, so if you don't want to invest 1M+ into a set of armor, then don't. Don't destroy the value of a set of armor that people want to strive for.