Insignia in Chapters 1 and 2: they've come

First of all, allow me to introduce you to an item on page 2 of this thread:

These and other class headgear from collectors were perfectly equal substitutes for any craftable headgear, both in armor amount and inherent mods.


But now we have lost the inherent +1 energy on these items. Worse still, the energy bonus cannot be re-added with an insignia, since for some inexplicable reason Anet decided to exclude these particular items from accepting insignias.


To add insult to injury, the existing max headgear people have been using, which may already have been infused, dyed, or had runes added, need to be replaced. This is inexcusable.

(my bold)

I'm guessing that if it happened to your armour the answer to that question would probably be no. Also, is the "big grin" smiley really the appropriate one to put at the end of that question?

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre Learn to kite. See how I did that right there?

Learn to PvE: go naked.

Such silly arguments people have around here about such a straight-forward portion of the game.

Anyway, huzzah for the Insignias! Another huzzah for the retroactive application of the system! Subtract a huzzah for the way some Hero armors were screwed up with the update, and subtract a huzzah for how long it took ArenaNet to do this in the first place...

And add a huzzah because they actually bothered to do it at all!

(What, did you honestly think I was going to let that break even? )

You mean several hundred bots...

Again, deal with it

Not allowing insignia on collector armor was a flat out mistake from whoever made that design decision. All old armor was being grandfathered in, regardless of source, and the collectors would be giving out blank armor in the future. Previously max armor (particularly helmets) was slagged by the change. Are the runes invested in them at least salvagable now? I reject any of the points about price out of hand. The weapons given out by collectors regularly cost 5k to craft, and that's not considered any sort of economic problem - why is giving away a 1.5k piece of armor suddenly an issue?

Removing bonuses from lower leveled armors is more open for debate, and I'll give A.Net the benefit of the doubt there. It's not the intention of the update to give a big windfall to a level 5 character who just bought new armor. They do get hit with a bit of a loss, but you're looking at a temporary suit of armor anyway.

On the subject of putting Insignia on a market economy, I don't see it as being particularly different from having runes on a market economy, and it being a good change for the game overall. The only significant difference is the history - since Insignia used to be built in, they ended up being cheaper in a couple of cases, and the whining now is coming from the net price increase on those sets. That has nothing to do with the mechanic itself though.

I find the complaints funny in the face of the best PvE insignias almost universally being cheaper under the insignia system than the built-in system. +health is a PvP set, or a swap for when you're picking up DP - a luxury in the latter case. While +energy is useful for 55 farming, it's a scrub set a vast majority of the time during party play - no, going from 72 to 80 max energy during a crunch is not a strong use of your insignias. Virtually every character can get a strong +10 armor bonus for less 500g per armor piece - why they aren't taking advantage of that, I can only guess.

Peace,
-CxE

Given the 27.3% chance of attacks hitting the headgear when there is a high attack (according to the official wiki), I think I'm going to replace the collector's headgears even if it is going to cost me a boatload of money...

The only reason to ever use the collector's headgear was to alleviate the insane amount of headgears you need for swaps (since there are 4-5 attributes to swap between for every profession) not the Radiant +1 energy that is barely even affecting you.

It was nice to have 60 armor for essentially a pile of collector drops that you were going to sell to the merchant anyway.

O well. That's essentially 1plat a piece + materials + insignia each...times the number of collector headgears you had.

Yes cause its so hard for bots just to go ut buy new ones, while the players just easily replaces them.

Wrong I am talking about real players in the game as bots get a run to Droks and get the good stuff well real players use LA tats.I am just not talking about farmers here I am talking about any player who bought substandard armour put runes on and dyed it.Take a big drink of Coffee and read what I said.

When I saw the update and read the notes, I was still on the old build.

I know someone out there bought 50 pairs of Shing Jea gloves with the +1 energy mod on it. I was going to do the same thing. :]

Now, which is more fair? Someone making 70k, or someone spending an extra 1.5k?

I lost my +energy mods on my headgears, too, but it's totally worth it to me if I can have +hp Sacred armor. :]

There is a simple way they could have avoided this hypothetical "sell millions of pre-insignia items" problem - DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT EXISTING COLLECTOR ITEMS. They would still have their inherent mods, and no one "profits" from selling salvaged insignias.


I couldn't care less about someone making a profit from overpriced insignias anyway. As if those are a driving factor in the economy...


Spending 1.5k? Oh wait, I need 4 of them since I switch between different attribute builds. What's that? I need to do 4 infusion quests too? I'll just get right on that. They were dyed? Good thing those dyes are exempt from loot scaling... Ah yes, I had runes in those items as well. Glad I have all this extra gold laying around since it doesn't drop any more..................

So what exactly is preventing you from salvaging the runes from them? You so hard up you can't afford an expert salvage kit?

Not awesome at all. NF SUX,so does its bloody armour. Factions had it right.Insignias are not freely available. They are not always for sale.They rely apparently, on finders selling them to the rune trader. Its ok for runes,but how can you make a set of armour for a 55 necro or monk if the insignia is unavailable to stick on it?The insignia should have been left the way it was. It gave us a choice. Now it can only be done one way.What sort of improvement is that?

I'm overall pleased with the change, gives me an option to put right my mistake with my first set of 15k armor. I'm not sure about the issue with Collector's armor. In my experience, collecting the things you need for a whole set is a pain in the arse...especially in cantha, where you need 10 Venerable Mantid Pincers. If they were to make collector's armor inscribable my prediction is we would see a load of E/R Obsidian Flesh farmers farming the Mantids outside Nahpui Quarter, selling 5 pincers for around 800-900g anyway...thus making 2 pieces of collector's armor not a great deal cheaper than the crafter.

"Argue all you want about insignas being "better" since you can switch at will, but for people that DONT switch stats on their armor this market based crap is just putting extra cost into stuff a lot of us can barely afford as it is."
This was a quote.

Insignia can be switched at will? I thought it had to be salvaged,with the risk of breakage.

I didn't realize this before but this is really disappointing news. I was using multiple collector headgears on a lot of my PvE characters...

You're an idiot. No one uses Droknars Tats for 55 farming, because it's retarded. You need the lowest possible armour so prot spirit triggers every single time. They get run to Droknars to get power levelled.

Exactly. I sure as hell ain't gonna chance losing my 15k (or better) armor just to pull the Radiant off and put on a Stalwart. I will either have an entirely different set of armor (which defeats the purpose), or I'll overwrite the Radiant and effectively lose 1.5-1.8k in the process (the price of low-level armor/secondary set, also defeating the purpose).

Now, this would all be nice if we really could [interchange] the insignias, switching them out instead of overwriting them. Also, to add to that, let them stack. I wouldn't mind carrying a stack of 5 Stalwart, 5 Survivor, 5 Radiant, 5 Whatever-class-specific, etc. rather than each 'set' taking up 5 spaces. Thanks for the extra storage Anet, now how about stackable insignias?

You realise they've already dropped to 1.1k now, right? And they will keep dropping until they drop below 500g. The same thing happened when Nightfall released. All the scrubs rushed out to get radiant insignia, and the price spiked. After a week or so, they dropped back below 500g.

No, I don't realize, but how does that invalidate my actual point? Oh, it doesn't.

For the rare occasion you would swap insignia (mainly since there's no need), which will cost around 1k to do in a few days when the prices have settled, you'd rather lose 4 - 5 slots in your inventory, as well as need to buy new superior vigors for those extra sets?

Where did I say that? I said those are your options, lose the old insignias or have a chance of losing your armor. Are you denying that those are your choices, or are you just plain not reading?

I wasn't arguing options, just your argument on cost, where you complained about losing the insignia. The cost will be so insignificant in a few days when everyone has gotten over their hardon for radiant insignia, that as an option this is the best. The rare changing of insignia will cost next to nothing, and you save inventory slots because you don't need to carry multiple sets of armour.

Define insignificant. This system is by far not efficient, no matter how you look at it. I suggest stackable insignias and the option to swap them instead of overwrite. I don't care if the insignias cost 50g, the fact that you have to keep buying them everytime you want to change a build (that includes the changing of armor) is far from efficient, can become very expensive, and most of all annoying.

Having the option is nice, but I seriously doubt anyone's going to be using that option very often, most people will just slap on a certain insignia and forget about it - because it's a hassle. If it wasn't a hassle, if there were just a few tweaks (oh, I dunno, like the ones I suggested - what have you suggested lately? Deal with it?), this system could actually be useful.

oh this was an excellent update! now I can finally change the stats on some old fow-armors that has been in the inventory for awile
gg, anet!

but still no option to add inscriptions to the weapons. i have a near perfect shadow blade screaming for a 15^50 as it's only 14^50, 20/20 hp +30

Personally I like the insignia system, it cuts some part of the metagame by associating the armor skin with their bonus, and thus leading to some hint of weaknesses, builds, etc..possessed by its owner.

Plus...its good to have the skin you are fond of with the the bonus you need for your build. This is 100% freedom of choice.

But I wanted bloodstained insignias to drop more often. They're still overpriced imho.

You can still follow the old system and keep multiple amour sets in your inventory and effectively nothing would change. Only when buying a new set you might loose out when 1K + Insignia > 1k5.

Thankfully not. So far I've found no inscriptions that can rival with the stats on my collector and crafter weapons. If weapon insignia were available at npc-merchants like runes and armor inscriptions that might be another matter.

Insignia prices are dropping across the board. I can only assume this is because they're now dropping in Prophecies and Factions as well, spawning more to throw at the trader. We're very close to the point where max armor is cheaper across the board with insignias.

Peace,
-CxE

They do drop even in lower level area's.

Anet could just make all collector armor have no insignia when made on any piece, even the helm. But allow this armor to use insignias.

I agree with those who said Factions got it right with armor. I love the Krytan skin (same as Tyrian desert) for my warrior, and being able to buy it with whatever stats I wanted was very nice. The only Warrior armor I like in Nightfall is Vabbian, but the cost is ridiculous.

Not to be argumentative, but just how much energy does one think a 55 needs? On my monk I've run "clothes" armor (15AL from Lion's Arch) for the past year or so because I think tattoos are hideous, and I've gotten along just fine (and made hundreds of plat with her) using < 40 energy.

Like everything else that gets overfarmed (which is pretty much everything anyway), insignias will drop drastically in price soon enough. I get a Radiant practically every time I do a farming run, so they don't seem to be that rare.

I like that proph has insignias now, but I liked how factions was. Now I have to spend money on insignias.

I always thought insignias were always to much of a hassle imho.

It will be about a month when the prices come down a reasonable price I am not paying the going rate untill they are at 100g.It would be nice if there were a separate dealer for runes and insignias and insignias were at a fixed price.I really fell for those who are just starting out in the first time in GW and have to buy out inflated prices on insignias it is even worse than inflated gasoline prices around the world.These new players to GW who just bought insigniaed armour now have to buy back their insignias what a way to welcome some new player to GW.

It is not enough that ppl seem to escape the real world problems of their own finances but to introduce them to this is ok?This is great welcome to GW they just may think otherwise to the new gamer.I am not talking about myself here I am talking about the New Gamers to GW.You pll aren't thinking about them or even advocating for them as I am and that goes the same for Anet.

Love the update Anet. Best change for awhile.

As for costs, how many insignia's go for more than 500g? How many will go for more than 500g in a month's time? Not many at all. So in almost all cases you'd actually pay less for armour after update than before. I'd think that would be more of a help to new players than before, epecially since they can now pick the skins they like, rather than having to pick looks vs function.

Yes, I'm sure all those new players insist on getting Radiants on their armours. Will someone please think of the newbies?!

Haha, seriously now...