Make items dropped in HM inscribable in all campaigns.

You obviously haven't been playing very long if that's what you think.

Basically, perfect weapons were rare back in the good ol' days. Now they're just too insanely common, and now everyone has one, because they're cheap, and now no one wants them, because everyone has one.

Basically, you need to learn Supply & Demand, because inscriptions destroyed a finely-functioning weapons market that we had in Proph + Factions.

You can't really call me an elitist, because I've never had more than 40k at once, and I only had one perfect weapon... ever, before inscriptions, that is. I just know that times were better back then.

You have a different view of the "good ol' days" than the rest of us then. Everyone having easy access to perfect weapons is a good thing. Each person has to put a bit of effort into getting their perfect weapon, but it's not determined by blind luck, and it's not unreasonably expensive.

The good ol' days were good for various reasons, but the weapon price wars were not one of them.

I'm still not actually sure why you can't use shield handles, focus cores, and wand wrappings on Tyrian and Canthan items...

Everyone having *waaay too easy* access for perfect stuff is bad. It totally kills the fun of finding something good yourself.

I'm having way more fun playing Prophecies and Factions with a chance of finding something truly rare or even unique than playing Nightfall and knowing all I will get will be LAME.

If you don't want expensive stuff just buy the cheap inscribables that are overfarmed everywhere else, but leave us the ability to FIND something cool rare and expensive, don't touch my favorite old games.

I repeat that again, to all greedy but lazy, PvE doesn't need perfect weapons at all! GW is NOT a game about grinding for next 'tiers' of gear to be competetive and accepted in pugs and to progress in game. The difference in performance of a character using dirt cheap Purples and one using perfect gear is less than 1% - all that matters is player skill, skillbar, teamwork and imba consumables. And the difference between superexpensive vanity items and common but perfect gear is ZERO. You DON'T NEED perfects to play and if you want you can choose from a huge list of ones that are supercheap.
There's nothing wrong with having a small bunch of weapon skins still worth something.

The game was a great fun in the old days when no greens and no locked chests existed, when getting any gold was a woot moment. Now, when the best drop is just as good as any random drop it's just meh, pfft, lame.

Oh. No. Everyone having 'faster' (NOT easier) access to perfect weapons is good.

We already have collectors. Should we remove collectors? Oh... that allows players to have perfect weapons easier... we should remove them, then.
And crafters! A perfect weapon just for 5..10k and some materials? Wow...

In Factions, Nightfall and EotN it's a bit harder to find 'farmable' mobs, because groups are more heterogeneous. There are much less bunches of 30 enemies exactly the same (there are still, but just less), not like in Prophecies, where you can find a lot of Hydras, Trolls, Drakes or Minotaurs and aggro them all. Yet, although it's a bit harder to farm heterogeneous groups, people still managed to get builds to farm those, forgetting about Prophecies and Factions mobs. Why? Because people want inscribed weapons.

Clinging to and ould outdated and depreceated system that do not match the GW philosophy like inscription does, it's like pretending everyone to use Trains because you don't like Planes, because there are 'too fast'.

All the arguments I see here area against inscriptions. But inscriptions are already added. This is not a post suggesting to add inscriptions. It's a post that suggest to remove the existing illogical difference between campaigns.

Again, I must commit those that do not like inscriptions to open their own post asking about the inscription removal, and do not come where complaining about how inscriptions are bad and should not be added, when they have been already added.

Now... there's nothing wrong to have a bunch of skins worth something?
So... which skins can't be found inscribed? It's not like after the release of Nightfall, when Factions unique skins where still unique and never inscribed. Now all skins can be found inscribed. And Prophecies has lost most of his unique skins, they have become 'core' by dropping in all campaigns.
Bu even if you can find all skins inscribed already, that's not the problem. The thing it's the difference between playing in one region and another.

The game was much more boring in those old days when no greens and no locked chests existed, when getting any gold was a 'woot' moment. Now, when you play in Prophecies or factions and you never see an usable drop unless you mindlessly kill and kill for months, it's horrible compared to Nightfall and EotN, where you can just play normally and can use the things you find without farming.

You said it, Yawgmoth:
Yeah, it's not. So why you are so much against inscriptions? Because they completely remove the 'grind for the gear you like'?

So far, the reasons against inscriptions worldwide are:
- "Because I like the old times better". But... old times are that. Old times. The game goes on, and you can't live in the past. Anyways, they have been already added. You hate, them? Sorry, the damage is done. Now there's an inequitableness between campaigns to be fixed, and sice inscriptions will NOT be removed from the new campaigns, only adding them to the old ones is left. And they have already started to do so with end-mission chests... but that's not enough. The job must be finished.
- "Because my items devalue/lose rarity/whatever". That's not a reason and you already know why. No need to explain. The Zaishen chest it's a good explanation without any words.
- "Because I hate inscriptions". Well... they are already here and they will staty. It's better to get used to that.
- "Because inscriptions make rare skins common". That's a lie and you know that. The inhenrent modifiers are the ones artificially altering the rarity of skins. An elemental sword it's rare even with inscriptions, and Shortbow will never be a rare skin, but it's much more rare to find one with decent stats in Prophecies and Factions.
- "Because makes way too easy to get stuff". Even if that where true, that is not, that would never be something bad. With the old system a single player without trading could have to spend more than a year to get a certain drop. With inscriptions, a single player may get something in less than a quarter. With the current flawed and slow trading system, forcing someone to trade it's a mistake, and on top of that, someone that try to get things by trading depends on other selling them, so if you are looking for a certain modifier that people usually never save to sell, you will never be able to find it. And 'you will never be able to' it's one of the things Anet has trying to remove from the game.

Inscriptions worldwide, weapon upgrade traders and the Zunlai Market being real. That would completely fix the things. Not going back to the past. The past it's something to learn from, and Anet did so, so they added inscriptions.
Now it's time to go forward and to the next step: Inscriptions worldwide.

Just think about it and you'll see that can't be in any other way.

Locked strongboxes existed in the Southern Shiverpeaks on release. Though Dwarven keys were obtainable by drop only. Those were removed after a few weeks.

And for golds being rare.. the doppleganger dropped a rare everytime you beat him in bonus time.. many people farmed him for unlocks and merched the items without even looking at their stats (before Balthazar Faction was implemented).
I unlocked most of my Runes by farming Twin Serpent Lakes Tengu.

Your "good old days" started a month after release, when the first nerfs to drops were introduced (no more locked strongboxes, doppleganger not dropping stuff, Mesmers added to Tengu & White Mantle groups, removal of the Arid Sea chest).

The real "good old days" right after release were different from what you remember.

That inscriptions killed rarity is a misconception. Dead Sword were rare and sold for high price until farmers found an exploitable quest. Colossal Scimitars and Elemental Swords were rare until the introduction of Hardmode.

Farmers & Hardmode killed the rarity market not inscriptions!

Poll Added .

There is a fifth possible option: Inscription coexisting with inherent drops.
I'd go for inscriptions only, but both kind of drops tghether would still be better than having such radical differences between campaigns.

Will you please give up on the God damned "But it be faster!!!!!!" argument. You have lost that one 50x over.

What you're lobbying for is "easier", because the facts are, it is HARDER to get a perfect inherent mod w/o inscriptions, thus meaning it is EASIER w/inscriptions.

Basically, the general consensus of the community is no, inscriptions are not good for the game.

Game. Set. Match.

wow what a terrible pointless poll.

Of course "All drops across all campaigns should NOT be inscribable." - the whole inscription system was completely not needed for PvE, it was the single worst thing Anet has done to GW, it beats loot scaling and every single unnecessary nerf that happened, it's even worse than the new "Victory is Ours" thing that happened to GvG...

But it's too late. A change back is impossible at this point, the massive damage done cannot be undone. At this point changing the drops in Nightfall and EotN to Non-inscribable would be AS BAD as changing Prophecies and Factions to inscribables! Each case would cause a massive part of the player base to get hurt, each case would be taking away from them something they enjoyed.

So I voted "No change should occur; those campaigns without inscribable drops should remain so."

Both systems CAN coexist and there are multiple benefits for everyone, for every type of player from having those 2 working systems in place:

**There are huge loads of incredibly cheap stuff, cheap and easily accessible for everyone, for the newbies and for the lazy, but worthless for everyone who cares about value/rarity/uniqueness/coolness.
**There are still some cool rare and even unique items possible to be found, a small group of skins which doesn't have common inscribable versions. Something to go for after you got all the cheap easy stuff, it's called vanity.
**The existing inscribable versions of those Tyrian/Canthan/FoW/UW weapons make great valuable rewards for achievements in the form of End of Elite areas reward chests, Hall of Heroes Chest and Zaishen Chest. If they changed the common drops to inscribables those rewards wouldn't be any special anymore, they would suck as much as getting a Nightfall skin from Zaishen chest sucks now!
**Occassional unusual combinations of mods that can't be copied can still be found in Tyria/Cantha, removing the possibility of them dropping would greatly increase the value of existing ones and would further move the economy into the state of 'old stuff = the money', 'new stuff = common merch food'.
**PvE only items such as shields with +Armor vs mobtype or weapon mods 'of mobtype-slaying' drop only in the non-inscribables lands (1 exception is 'of Deathbane' mod appearing everywhere).
**Having inscribables as common drops everywhere would hurt the PvP players as their rewards wouldn't be any special, Zaishen Key prices would drop lower than Lockpick price... The fact some skins values are protected by having their mass farmable copies not inscribable makes the inscribables a worthwhile valuable rewards.
**... this could go long and long on ...

Your whole huge post is so bad I can't just respond to every utter nonsense that is there.
You want a complete list of skins that are still worth something?
Also, stop with that "core" nonsense, you can't just say something is "core" and something is not. There are some basic common skins that just drop everywhere but they don't matter, they will never be of any value except when found in Tyria/Cantha with a combination of mods that's not possible to copy.
And one most important fact you miss despite me repeating that all the time in this thread - the fact there are inscribable versions for (almost) all skins doesn't automatically kill their value! The key is balance and in their cases Anet did it right - the inscribable versions are RARE while the farmable ones are not! This coexistance of both systems in a good balance makes those skins still valuable, both perfect noninscribables and the limited inscribables.
Balance is good. Making everything equally common is bad.

It's both inscriptions and hardmode uber droprates, they're both the rarity killers. Without inscriptions the damage done by hardmode overfarm would be far smaller. And the existance of hardmode and the ease of farming and/or chestrunning HM Tyria / Cantha / FoW / UW is the exact reason why those areas should remain inscription free.

I enjoyed them.

a 15^50 drop meant some plat in your storage, whereas now it doesn't mean anything.

Poll, unless you bring all your 'friends' to vote here or something like that, says the opposite.

It's just that I'm the only one to stand so many nonsense trying to make you understand. They call it 'patience'. I have planety. I can wait years until they make what it needs to be made.

Since I started playing Factions I waited for somerhing like the insignia and the inscriptions and they added it (although some people told me that it would never happen, that it would 'destroy' the market or some nonsense like that)

Those drops ARE core.

What is Core? Something that can be obtained in all 3 campaigns or something that drops present in the Realm of the Gods. Like core skills and skins.
It's general consensus.

Yeah, there are a lot of stuff, but there are no unique Prophecies skins and unique factions skins can be found inscribed only in elite end-game maps.
That's an illogic inequitableness, like the not having NPCs to statr missions in Prophecies and Factions.

You alrady know the drill, but if someone that has played Nightfall and FEotN before, they would have get used to 'talk to start'. Then, they start in pre-Searing... talk to Start with Sir Tydus like in Nightfall and EotN, and when they get to The Wall, some people think 'What have I done wrong?' until they notice the Start button.

Guild Wars is a game, and so, its system must be homogeneous in all campaigns.
Imagine that you have to Click to Move in Prophecies, Use the Arrows in Factions and use the WADS in Nightfall.
Nonsense, isn't it?
Drops are the same. It's a system, a basic Guild Wars system, it's not like rewards or Heroes or monsters or available skills or skins, that can change, it's the intuitive environment the players get used to, and you can't have so huge differences between campaigns, and that's why the updated armors to insignia, and that's why they must update weapons too.


It's a system, the new core system, and so it must be present in all campaigns in a general way.

Single gold drops being paid for more than 100k it's not a logicl reason to maintain an illogic inequitableness.

Erm , personally I think that prophecies and factions could drop some inscribables, but they would still have to be rareish .

God forbid you rely on more than blind luck now-a-days for "Plat in your storage".

The Inscription system was a major improvement. Why do you think it was implemented into nightfall versus the old system? The old system was far too much pure chance.

If it had not made things better, I doubt Arenanet would have made the next implementations with inscribable weapons, these being Eye of the North and The Bonus Mission Pack.



I think this poll has given us a fairly good idea of how this goes. More people agree than disagree, they just don't want to post because they fear being chewed out by the people who drive the stereotype "Elitist". Or they are just too lazy.

Personally, I prefer +1's, but whatever.

Things are good the way they are. People who need good weps cheap (for themselves or heroes) can get them with inscribable items, and people like me who want "leet" items, can get them in the form of tyrian or canthan items.

And there's no such thing as a core drop. This term cannot be used to describe a weapon drop, like stuff like dyes, skill tomes, lockpicks etc. which are core as they drop in all campagins equally. Weapon drops differ between campagins, you won't find a Mursaat Hammer anywhere but in Tyria, you won't find a Demonslaying mod anywhere but in Cantha, etc.

Zaishen Chest is definately a 'core' feature but it drops a lot of different skins exclusive to just one campagin. That doesn't make them 'core'.

And inscriptions aren't core, best proof is UW and FoW where common drops are not inscribable, only the end chest drops are (which was a the best design decision at this point, anything else would be bad)

So stop with the 'core' arguments, they don't make any sense, they are just a proof you got no idea about what you're talking about.

There are unique Prophecies skins - Mursaat Hammer and Mursaat Hornbow, Magmas Shield is a Prophecies skin too (with a small exceptional chance of it dropping in NF under very specific circumstances)
And yes it's exactly like not having NPC to start missions - realize that they're different games! There are many people that enjoy the fact Prophecies is so open-ended with no closed gates other campagins got. Maybe you want retroactively implementing such gates just because they are in newest games? Using your (terribad) reasoning it's "an illogic inequitableness" aswell!

Very false statement. Guild Wars isn't one game but 3 different separate stand-alone games. They have different features and many of the differences will never be changed. And some just shouldn't be.
Drops can't be compared to things like game controls, not even to the update of old armors. Reasons should be obvious for anyone with at least half a brain.
Very dumb comparisons indeed.


I really hope that the devs do know that a large and significant portion of the community (be it 50% or 10%, doesn't matter, it's definately a large group) is totally against messing with their drops, against dumb pointless changes like this, against the whole new system which is bad for the game, and that they just prefer their old favorite games to remain untouched.

To say this poll shows the general consensus of the community is laughable. How can <50 people give you an idea of where people stand on the issue?

The economy has been forever destroyed by inscriptions. Weapons can now be obtained for stupidly cheap prices, which sucks a lot of fun from the game. Now, any B.S. player can get a perfect weapon, whereas with the old system, you at least had to spend time getting gold, or get it from a drop (which was not a very good chance at all).

Basically,

Inscriptions System = Buffs for noobs

Old System = Some amount of skill/time is required to get decent weapons.

Ever heard of sample surveying?

Businesses use this all the time determine the consumer report on a question the company wants to ask without surveying the entire population. They take anywhere from 50-100 people and ask them the question. Normally, it works, unless those people are all linked by ethnicity, groups, etc. Last time I checked, a lot of people on here were unlinked. The vocal part of the community of Guild Wars can stand as this sample surveying. We see the result. Those who are not vocal pay that price. If their opinion is not known, it won't count for anything in decision making. That's how a small number shows you.

Simple chance. If you flip a coin 10 times, the probability is that it will be heads 50% of the time. Even if you flip it many more times, it will still be a fifty fifty ratio. Same will often prove true for a small sample of a group as we see here.

Now, if you want to argue about how large businesses handle things that work very well as a marketing tool, you go right ahead.

And by the way, your little equasion is flawed, as luck of drops requires no skill, and in many cases, no time.

Less than 100k it's not a cheap price. It's a normal price.

It's the price always meant to be. The 100k limit ingold for trades was not there as a mere

Yet still there are inscribed drops that are sold for more than 100k.

The inscritptionsystem removed a fixed variable property like Insigniad did with armors. Yet there are still drops with fixed properties, like the Fiery Dragon Swords. Such variables are perfectly logical to be kept fixed to the item. But not things like +15% damage or +5 energy, they are variable between drops, and so, they must be replaceable with other variable properties.

Inscriptions do NOT make all items drop max damage req9. And you put it like they do.

I've been lately farming for Glacial Stones before the Canthan Festival to pay some tickets, and I found that not more than 10% of the gold drops where req9 and perfect, and none of them where 'rare' skins, they were all skins you may find in the PvP item creation panel and in collectors.

10% and rare skins being still rare makes much more sense than... 0,001% and rare skins being pure crap most of the time.

The only SKILL that is related to weapons is in CHOOSING the right combinations, not in getting them. Maybe most people would choose the typical ones, but with weapon upgrade traders we would make sure they have to pay or wait for that.

One good example is Fronis Dungeon. Which one is the bes inscription there? +15% -5Energy. With inscriptions, you can get one of those once in a while. Without them, you'll have to wait until you find someone that not only saves 15^50% and +5 energy ones.

Choice in upgrades it's something that should be a matter only of the user of the item, not the sller of the item, just like with armor.

Agreed. Also keep in mind that the poll has only been up for ~24 hours. It will get more votes.

Anyway, the poll shows the general concensus is very split on worldwide inscriptions, which everybody who pays attention to these forums arleady knew anyway. 22 for, 20 against.

True. It will give the sad people a chance to go to their guild mates and beg them to come to this poll and vote no so they don't suffer major E-Peen shrinkage.

There's no skill involved in weapon drops (anywhere), only luck.

It's not about skill but fun and having valuable rewards in the game.
I enjoyed the game much more when I had selffound nonmax golds, and later max but far from perfect, then near perfect but pretty unique ones. I never felt the need for absolute perfects, they're not essential to the gameplay. But knowing that I can get something awesome
Now in inscription lands it's all about supereasy perfects that mean nothing, have close to no value (only the mods value), and where the best drop isn't any better than just any drop. It's extremelly LAME.

And this poll is a joke.
Even with 500 people it will be meaningless.
All that we know for sure is that there are pretty large groups of people on both sides.
But all those lazy and jealous lamers who want everything the best supereasy superfast already got their Nightfall and EoTN. But they can't stand the fact others are actually getting good drops in Prophecies and Factions, they want just to go and open 1 chest or kill a group of titans and bam! get a perfect Magmas Shield, no metter that it will be worthless then. LAME people want to destroy what others value just to satisfy themselves.

So your entire backing to your argument is that you expect everyone to enjoy the same aspects of gameplay and style of wealth that you do?

And your second paragraph makes your stand look even worse. "I think this way, and all the rest who think this way, even though they are as large as my group are stupid impatient ingrates!"

Honestly, you're not impressing anyone.


A luck based class system in Guild Wars may have worked, but it worked for the wrong reasons. You should not achieve Higher, Middle, and Lower Class status just by luck. That's all the old system was. Luck.

Skill or time spent had nothing to do with money. That, in my opinion, is wrong. That was how the econamy worked. Luck drove the upper econamy. Now you must rely on more than blind luck to get into the higher class, and in many eyes that is a good thing. And you can whine that those eyes belong to imbisiles all you wish to, but no matter how many times you say it, it does not make it true in reality.

The reality of the matter is that the econamy functioned for the wrong reason. We may have killed it with inscriptions, but not doing so would be like leaving a government in a state of corruption because the people were still happy.

Believe it or not, my guildies and every other human being on the planet have opinions too.

You misjudged what I meant. I'm speaking of the people that will ask their guild to go vote to their personal opinion, even though many in the guild may not even care or may think differently.

Read my previous posts for more strong arguments, I really don't want to repeat everything all the time. But I can't stand malicious people trying to completely destroy a whole gameplay aspect I enjoy, one of the reasons I play this game, which is hunting for and collecting rare virtual treasures. I however do not enjoy collecting lego bricks that don't have any rarity to them (instead of cool rare weapons getting just a pile of skin+mods which can be treated separately, just as building bricks)

If you think the old system was all about luck, what do you think about all those random contests where you can win Minipets worth 1000s of ectos or that mini Polar Bear only an extremelly lucky few got, one drop worth 50,000++ ectos is moving you straight to the highest class of the rich. Want more massive wealth shift based on pure luck? Get a

You know nothing about the past if you say it was a luck based class system (rotfl), Bwahahaha.
I had to repeat that.
1 very lucky rare drop from a mob or chest didn't move one to a high class. Hard work, knowledge of the game, winning a lot of HoH, high-end powertrading or abusing certain builds/farms/exploits/opportunities did that. Not 1 perfect shield or sword drop.

The economy wasn't driven by luck (lol) but by rarity, as always, rarity is the key to existance of economies. Remove the rarity and the economy is dead!
It was not in a state of corruption, it worked perfectly fine but got killed innocent.

Hm... we could try and go back when it was much harder to get things... but it's not the case... Tomes, Scrolls, Lockpicks.... drops are very different now.

Going back it's against all I believe in. I' rather go to Flying cars instead of steam ones.


Back in old days, there were not much different skins, now there are much more of them. Yeah, Prophecies keep not many different skins, that's why I think more skins should be added to that Campaign.

Inscriptions drops are about luck too, but the chances of the old system are ridiculous. More appropiate of the Guild Wars that had skill gems and attribute buy points and no PvP characters. More appropiate to Diablo or WoW than to GW. Completely illogical and out of misplaced. Want a no fee WoW? Go to that Dungeon Runners, looks like an interesting title too. GW is not like that, it has been getting away from that since I can recall.

Now it's different. Now GW has inscriptions, and since Prophecies and Factions ARE part Guild Wars, they should have inscriptions too. Everywhere, not just in some end-chests.

What do I think of the new miniature?

I think it was a mistake by Arenanet.



As for your whole argument for the old system, FYI, getting a rare item is blind luck. Back then, getting a rare drop would boost you far more than it does now, and that in my eyes is wrong. Not totally wrong, but to that degree, it was wrong in my eyes. Nothing more to say to your two latter paragraphs there. I hardly think that you can fairly call people who are against a game retaining much of its old system malicous because you personally enjoyed the playstyle. Logically, a game company will change an aspect of the game if 2 people want it and one person doesn't. That's just the way it is, and all you can do is accept it.

Discreditting your foe in an argument is a very weak tactic, by the way. Saying I know nothing just proves to me that your arguments are even weaker than I originally creditted them to be.

And I have read your previous arguments, let me clue you in. They're not stronger in my eyes. They all say the same thing in the end, no matter how they're worded.

As for your playstyle and the way you enjoy, a game cannot retain everything to cater to the older players. I've learned this in many online games I play, but in the end, even though it is inevitable that all games will die eventually, I feel those changes are for the better most of the time. The inscription system was for the better in my eyes.


I don't feel I need to say anything else in reply to that.

No I completely understand.

My point is that my guild won't be bossed around by me. Each of them have their own opinion. If I told them about this poll, they won't vote just the way I want them to. You can't boss people around.

I'd be more worried about somebody making a bunch of dummy accounts to vote repeatedly to "prove" his point.

woah more nonsense.
There's absolutely nothing wrong and nothing not GW'ish with drops that are rare or even very rare! They're VANITY ITEMS! Their existance allows variety and an extra something to do for the more elite players. Don't be so selfish. There is a huge load of perfect stuff of all kinds that are supercheap. There are players out there that enjoy going for rare drops, that like them more because they are rare. Those rare items aren't functionally better than the cheap Nightfall/EoTN perfects and they were always a part of the game.

Taking the cool rare drops away from players that enjoy them would be as BAD as making all the drops Non-inscribable worldwide at this point, or even worse.
Both systems coexist for 1,5 years and it can remain this way without hurting any group.
In this case change is bad.

Again I must admit your knowledge on the subject is low. It was never all about luck. Don't forget trading. If you just played the game you would get a nice rare drop or two, if they weren't exactly what you were looking for just trade. And in great majority of cases players found their first high-end item after finding a bunch of mid-range ones, so it wasn't such a jump. But at least the veteran players who cared could have something to aim for, they could at least find something nice rare and expensive, which is impossible in a system where just any gold drop (or worse, purples and blues count too!) is as good as the best possible one, which makes the best one worthless.

No, even if 90% players support some idea and 10% don't, they will not make a change if they don't consider it good for the game. There were plenty cases like that in the past where the vast majority of playerbase wanted a certain change. Example - Loot Scaling! The single most widely hated change to the game was never reverted despite the hundreds of pages written about it by those who wanted the change.

The Asian minipets were a fiasco from day one, as was the polar bear (not to mention last weekend's pig debacle)...

All armors are vanity items, not only the prestige ones, yet you can find cheap and expensive armors.
Same goes for weapons. Having a pretty common skin dropping with a fake rarity is the nonsense here. It's the SKIN what makes a Short Bow common and a Storm Bow rare. Which make a Short Bow better than another? Damage and req, the BASE properties, NOT the variable ones.
Variable properties should NEVER be fixed to the weapon. Why? Because they are VARIABLE. Like rune and insignia in armor.

It's already hard to find a rare skin, even by farming, to make it worse making most of the drops fixed to bad modifiers.
Of course, what I call hard it's one or two months farming one hour a day in the same spot, while you may want to have to spends a couple of years.
That's just senseless in GW.

It's ALL about luck, even with trading, you MUST depend on other's luck and be lucky enough to find someone that sells what you are looking for.
Where's the skill in waiting until someone that has what you are looking for appears?
Hm... let's see...
Nope. There's no skills. There may be some 'skill' to get better prices, but that's not related to the game mechanics. It's not part of the system.
But inscriptions are part of the system.

Loot scaling was a change that affected not much people. Those that farm to trade still get rare drops and average H/H and 8/8 party players felt no change. Only those whose only task in GW was to gather gold by farming found any problem in there? Oh... no more tons of white drops when farming... what a loss...

I still can't manage to understand why some people cling to an old mistaken system that do not fit at all the GW way.


You can't pretend to have a fixed number of skins all over the game. Since the first Crystalline, thousands of them have dropped so far.

It's completely NORMAL that prices drop. And has nothing to do with inscriptions.
Inscriptions just remove the price spikes.
Instead one people getting 800k, 8 people get 100k.
Is that bad? NO. It is NOT.

The problem is with minis in general. A.net thought they were just a nice looking, cosmetic birthday gift at first. I don't think they realized that people would be paying 100k+20 ectos (back when ectos were worth 8-10k) for a mini bone dragon. It has to do with the lack of unique customization possible in GW. Any cool little thing you can display to set your character apart from the crowd will get a monatery value attached to it.

There's nothing that can be done about dropping prices of items that continue to drop in game, it's normal and obvious. But implementing a change that would make prices of a pretty large group of vanity items drop to minimum in a few days is BAD.

Using your example - Instead of 8 people get 100k, 800 people would get 1k, that is if they spent a couple hours trying to sell that item nobody wants anymore for 1k.

It's exactly the opposite! Some variable mods should be fixed to weapons to make them differ, to make them possibly cool rare rewarding findings, give a unique feeling to them. Without that everything is the same, everything is boring and there's no possibility for an unique drop.
Variability makes things cool or not, when everything is equal, everything is equally lame.

When I open a chest in Nightfall I know for sure that the best I can get is just a mod, zero excitement.
However in Factions I can still find an amazing weapon, now and that's exciting! That's the wonderful effect of unchangable variable mods!

Still I used loot scaling as an example of a change that was hated by a vast majority of forum communities, easy to be observed in various threads.
Personally I've always thought loot scaling should have been in the game since beginning and my only complaint about it is that it doesn't affect gold items (at least in hard mode, which makes it possible to solo produce large amounts of golds per hour).

WRONG!
You can't understand the basic concept that NOT just the skin makes an item rare!

I can farm more gold max (Tyrian) Magmas Shields or (Canthan) Celestial Shields per hour than "common" "Core" Wooden Bucklers!

If all of them dropped inscribable they wouldn't be worth more than just the mods on them!

Inscriptions don't just remove price spikes, they totally kill rarity.

Would you really prefer if it was all about rare skins and nothing else? Think about this ::

Imagine that they indeed changed all the drops in Tyria and Cantha to inscribables, but replaced all the copies of {pick a high-end skin, for example Magmas Shield} that would have dropped imperfect with a common core skin instead!

What would happen to prices and price spikes?
HA! Nothing!
A perfect one would be still exactly as rare and hard to get, so rare that most people would think they stopped dropping at all!

So I repeat a Big ROTFL piece of yours::
Bwhahahaha!
comletely nothing to do with inscriptions, yeah right.
Prices drop over time, that's normal, but inscriptions are what caused massive price droppings in the past, and combined with hardmode overfarm caused total destruction of the market for most items that commonly drop inscribable.

Let's take your example of Crystalline Sword!
Before inscriptions a perfect req9 one was 1500+ ectos
After they started dropping inscribable in HoH the price dropped under 500e almost instantly! Now r9 inscr. ones are around 250...
Clearly price drops have nothing to do with inscriptions. LoL.

I hate inscriptions.. They ruined the game..

Yeah, it's not the skin, but the drop rate of the skin, but the modifier has nothing to do with the skin, any skin may drop with any modifier, so there is no reason to keep that fixing. You don't want to pay more than 1k for an inscribed weapon? Fine, oke, suit yourself, tell so to one selling an inscribed Jitte for 100k+25e. Let's say if will put that price for you.
With inscriptions people can already get things sold for more than 100k.

You example with the crystallines is a reason FOR the change, not against it.
Yeah, they are around 50..250k depending on base stats (damage and req). That's just perfect. With the loot scaling, without farming and not spending a single gold coin, you get 250 without farming by playing normally in around 4..5 months. Isn't that good time enough to get a single skin when whe have hundreds of them? It's not that you can get any skin anytime. It still takes time.
Prices of 1500+ectos where never meant to be, so you can't complain about losing something that you where never given. It would be like complaining about losing the fast lightbringer farming. Hey, you got it, you enjoyed, but sorry, it was a mistake, now its fixed.

Armors went through 3 steps:
* Fixed variable modifiers linked to the skin. Slow and anti-aesthetic, slow because you have to get a new piece ofr a small change in builds and anti-aesthetic because you are forced to combine different sets that may not combine to have the build you want.
* Fixed variable modifiers unlinked to the skin. Slow.
* No fixed variable modifiers, only base properties and variable modifiers linked to upgrades. Fast and versatile. What a quick emergency change in an armor build? You just need some headgear and then you can change

This is Guild Wars, is the player the ones that chooses the mods, the one that chooses the build. Appearance is not important for the mechanic of the game, only for the player. So appareance and functionality must be unlinked.

It's alike with weapons and inscriptions.
Let's say now that you just want a vampiric upgrade to make 'something' in Dunes of Despair... would you pay for the full weapon or just for the mod you want? If you cannot find the upgrade alone you may buy a weapon with it, won't you. But you'll rather pay 10k for the mod than 20k for a full weapon, when you just want the mod don't you?

And imagine PvP with that: "Hey, this guy has a vampiric weapon, put him degen, one free degen pip, yay", "Hey, this another has a -10 armor while attacking, while until he starts to nuke him".
That would be gross. And that's why there are no longer armos skins with the fixed +armor double holy damage property.

You cannot make a game meant to work in one way work to farm farm farm and them sell sell and sell. People have to play. And with inscriptions, a sensible amount of things that drop while playing may have max stats, while without them, only a ridiculous amount of them more apropiate of other games do.

The best example or a rare skin that would be horrible without inscriptions is the The Silverwing bow. Just imagine it... making Frostmaw Burrows... getting to the end after one hour and a half... and ah! You got a Silverwing Bow! Yay! ... but it's +10 damage (while Hexed). You made the hard work, you go to the end and you deserve the reward to be REWARDING. Not merchant fodder or just a skin to show off.
It's not like you will awalys get a max req9. The bow may be 13-27 req 13, or even much less. No need to decrease chances even more with a fixed variable property. A couple of months is time enough to get anything. NOT a couple of years.
No item should drop in any game with a drop rate inferior to 0.01%.
And once they drop, they may still be non perfect with high req and even have no inscription nor inherent modifier slot at all (I got some of those myself).
Inscriptions do not put things on a platter for people, just make all the shelves have the same max. They turn 300 shelves 1meter high and 1shelf 300 meters high into 301 shelves 150meters high.

It's not exciting getting drops or opening chests in Prophecies in Factions, because you know that when you open that chest you'll get either a crappy gold or a crappier purple that will go directly to the merchant, because you cannot mod it to use the way you want it with you heroes. I don't think 'what it will be'. I just think 'yay, another point for treasure hunter'.
When I open a chest in Nightfall or EotN, it's completely different! "Hm... would it be a cute command shield for my paragon, my paragon needs a cute command shield, would it be a hornbow, I could use a hornbow with my ranger... yay! A nice couple of daggers! In some days I'll get it modded nicely for my Assassin!
I see no excitation in 'How much would I be able to sell it" . I only see excitation in 'How nice would it be dyed green with my ranger' or 'I found an item I could use' or 'This will look great in Jora!".

Plenty of inscribable weapons are very valuable, like the stuff that comes out of the HoH chest...

But that is only because they don't drop inscribable elsewhere. If Mithran's idea went into effect, well say goodbye to that.

Yawg, loot scaling is a piss poor example. The reason they changed it does not apply to this argument at all.

Mike is right. Variables should not cause rarity as they should be abel to be changed. If you disagree, fine, but the opinion of the people who want this done is worth far more than the dirt you throw on it. But I'm done taking the high road and not laughing at you where you're wrong. Allow me to show you what I mean.

I won't laugh at you that the prices did drop because of inscriptions. What I laugh at is that you think it shouldn't be that way. Let me clue you in. That's how business works, mate.

When a company comes out with a new model that is easier to use that the old one, and is more conveniant, it totally overshadows the old model. Why would you hang on to the old model because it was totally over priced?

I have a great example for this one. Factory processes.

Say I'm running a factory, right? I make my products using an assembly line. I pay my workers over Ten Million Dollars a week. If a company comes along and offers me the oppourtunity to buy their machinery for one million dollars, which, mind you, will cut my workforce into one hundreth of what it was, which means I only pay about One Hundred Thousand a week for the rest of my life, I do not keep my workers because they enjoy getting paid. I buy the machinery.

You have been taught to think that a base mod is worth by the econamy of Guild Wars. I, through my experience in other games, recognize that this should not be the case. Fixed Variables create false value which creates crashes like you saw with the introduction of inscriptions. If the weapons had not been fixed ones, then the econamy would have functioned far better from the start.

Here's another example for you. A phone company introduces a brand new phone that has a system that can actually find your car by installing a finder on your car. This finder will cost money, but the phone can trace it, and it is still amazing. However, another phone company introduces the same caliber of product, but since they use a sattelite system instead they can offer the phone for much less. The old company does not stay in business. They have been outdone.

The bottom line was that rarity generated by fixed variables was a system that did not work for the right reasons. In fact, many would have said it shouldn't have worked at all. People were paying far too much for convenience, and people on an average salary would not have been able to afford homes, cars, or even gotton good jobs. Those who found gold by moving to the west on blind faith knowing nothing of it's existance would have been rewarded just for striking dumb luck. That sort of econamy is nothing more than a steaming pile of garbage.


It's an odd metaphor, but try to understand.

I'm sorry. Every word you type shows how little you know about economics. Every time you laugh at someone, it seems that you are pulling yourself into a hole of ignorance.

The bottom line here is that the rarity of 1500+ Ectos was a sacrifice that needed to be made for the good of the majority, which is the average player. Like it or not, that was the situation. Now that we've seen that more people reap benefit for the right reasons with this new system, there is no reason to keep the old one, much like the factory workers, and the old phones I told you about. No matter how much one player gains through a single 1500 Ecto Crystalline, the gain of two more players will always outweigh it. If you run a country, you do not cater to the minority and leave the majority. In an election, the president with the least votes does not win. In a system, the option with the least gain is not used. This is life. Like it, agree with it, support it, accept it, or not.


You can argue, but you'll have a thousand years of study from early economics to modern business against you.