Inscribable Items?

Hey, just wondering if anyone shares the same feelings as I do about inscribable weapons/shields.

In my opinion, they remove all of the fun + rarity in items ingame.
The first week nightfall came out it was like:
"oh wow isnt this neat, now it wont be hard to do all that perfect item hunting"

Well...nowdays, that all kind of lost the cool-ness of it...it used to be something like this...

OMG A R9 (insert cool shield skin here)
NOOOO IT IS +45 ^ ENCHANTED AND -1 DMG ^ ENCHANTED
SOOOOO CLOOOOOSE

nowdays closer to...

OMG A R9 (insert cool shield skin here)
meh, it only has +43 ^ enchanted and -1 dmg ^ enchanted...
oh well, I will just stick a new handle and inscript on it....

So...which side will you take, easy mode, or the REAL hard mode 0.0

You think Inscrib items are the problem? Woah. Nice one.

Back then you'd just use greens with perfect stats. Now you can get perfect stats on any shield. Uninscribable items are just as rare as they always were. Guild Wars isn't about itamz, has never been, so i think inscribable items are awesome.

inscribable items are great

its hard enough to get a nice skin item with a q9 or below without having to worry about that crappy plant pruning prefix or any other one ruining it

Yeah people used greens, not any greens that looked cool then, if you wanted a cool item it would be
1. you bought it for a lot.
2. you worked hard to get it.

ex. if NF/EoTN items were uninscribable, would ele sword prices have dropped as much as they did?
Obviously the price would have dropped from the overfarm, but not quite as much.
I guess it is frustrating getting an ALMOST good uninscribable, but I suppose I kind of like it, it makes getting nice weapons more difficult, thus making the game more challenging, since that seems to be, in a lot of peoples' opinions, the problem.

ex: UW Ecto farm on sins. WAY too easy, and people BEG for its removal...sort of because of the market crash (lol) but also because while people are trying harder things, a handful of assassins are button mashing and making more than other people.
Guess KIND OF the same principle.

I also agree that inscribable stuff is great. It means you can create a PvE character that is PvP-ready and generate all sorts of stuff with the skins and stats you like - all without remortgaging your house.

It was far too hard to get hold of an item with the requirement, skin and inherent mods in Prophecies and Factions. It wasn't all bad with martial weapons but the chances of finding a gold req.9 20/20 staff is miniscule in those campaigns.

QFT. I seriously can't care more for rarity, I buy whatever skin I like - it's the stats that matter more anyways...

I like inscribable stuff, just think it was done wrong.

OP, how is it cool getting jipped on item mods? I've always hated farming in Proph/factions because of this.

Imagine someone getting a r9 voltaic spear, only to find out that it's not inscribible and it's inherit mod is +14% dmg while hexed. =\

I 100% agree with OP. The whole inscription system was imho the single worst thing that has happened to GW since release.

It absolutely killed the fun of finding and collecting rare stuff, made every random crappy drop just as perfect as everything else. Now instead of finding cool items you only find a skin and a pile of mods. Instead of having a perfect item drop being the OOOOH YEAH moment it's just /meh, just another perfect anyone can replicate by moving mods from 2 bad drops.

Total suckage.

PvE didn't need this kind of change at all, only PvP needed a better item creation panel, the one it got then.

Personally I have nothing against inscribable items. Convenience at an affordable price is a good thing. Some of us would rather be playing the game instead of constantly farming for that perfect item.

i'm hearing this as the #1 complaint about everything in gw and now gw2. "i dont want to have to grind for X"

people stop being lazy. sometimes in life you have to work hard to get something you want, be it that perfect item or w/e.

how is the game fun if everyone just gets perfect items for little to no effort, where is the prestige for having those items?

Inscribable items are good cause then you can change the mods around at will
who cares about uniscr cause no one can tell from the outside anyways... just a sense of personal achievement like some may have said.

The thing is, if there WERENT inscriptions, how much cooler would it be to have a r9 15^50 eternal blade that was not inscribable? it would be like having a 15^50 r8 Crystalline Sword. Basically, after you have lvl 20 of every proffession, beat all of the games MULTIPLE times, the game turns ENTIRELY into a prestige competiton...

@ Makosi: Ask yourself, why do you bring a PvE character into PvP?
The answer for most people is "well, prestige, I wanna show off my amazing black primeval and destroyer gauntlets cz it makes my derv look smexy"
From there, how does it make sense that you want
"a quick cheap weapon or shield so that I can use it in PvP"

@Nightow: Yeah, it would suck getting a r9 14^hex voltaic...but how much cooler would it be getting a 15^50 or +5 r9 Voltaic?

@ Gift3d: No, uninscribables are not worth the same as they used to be...maybe the rare skin ones were, but lets see...I had a nice dual modded (max mods, of course) holy rod, back in the days when there were just Proph/Factions campaigns, not a rare skin, pretty common, but it was r8, therefore it wasnt worth a LOOOT but was worth a bit. After NF came out, it was just as common as the r8 Holy Rod someone got in NF that had with +4 energy while enchanted once they modded it up.

So you want people to pay even more for crap? Great idea.... you're up there with the great minds like G.W. BUSH

*cringe*


ROFLOL! Voltiacs and other items are already rare enough as it is! Now you want to make it where such a high end item is practically un-sellable? xD

Inscribable weapons, Armor inscriptions, Heroes, and PVE skills are the best decisions that anet has ever made, and recently splitting PVE from PVP is also one of the best decisions that they ever made, however, anet should have kept both seperate right from the beginning.

I like the fact that inscribable items/inscriptions exist. I just think that something such as inscribable items that basically have more functionality shouldn't be more common than items that don't (ie. the non-inscribable versions). Getting a good skin/item should have more of a chance to it than it does now. Nowadays, you just buy a skin and build what you want. Basically, I think that most items that drop should still be of the "non-inscribable" variety (even in NF and EoTN, and from chests/endchests), with a rare occurrence (drastically more rare of a drop than they are now) of that "inscribable" one. I would never push for inscribables to be flat-out removed from the game, but just to make them less common than they are now.

Of course, I also think that there should be weapons with higher attribute requirements and a higher-level of stats to compensate (ie. req 14-16 stuff), but it's a little too late for that. Likewise, I can't believe there weren't ever mods added to the game for other professions/skill types (ie. ones that affect shouts/chants/binding rituals/etc.) In general the mods for PvE suck and lack variety. Really shallow stuff here. Not sure what ANet could add to spruce up weapon-crafting, but there has to be some sort of other gameplay mechanic/ability that mods can affect than they currently do. Most of the existing mods (for PvE) are worthless and not needed, as the 'general' all-purpose one has around the same level of power, with no gimmick attached. ANet should really consider buffing up some of the unused mods/inscriptions.

I actually agree with the OP on that point. Prices for rares are wayyy too low. Even if it means i never get a Voltaic, prices need to go back up. There has to be rare, perfect items in the game. I don't think inscriptions screwed that over (because the skins are still rare, besides it would give some PvPer's too much of an advantage if you could not get perfect items (skill wouldn't matter, and the rich get richer type deal)), I think overfarming with overpowered skills screwed the whole economy up (ie, permasins, Ursan, VwK).

Inscriptions=good.
Overpowered skills/builds=bad.

As per usual the people who have a problem here are the ones who are QQ over perceived lost profit.

This game is about accessability for everyone.

Quit being so freakin greedy.

This.

Inscriptions and PvE-only skills were 2 worst "updates" to GW ever.

I hate none insc weapons............I wanted a Dragon Scythes (before the rename hate the new name) for my Assassin badly but didn't want to pay the high price, I started chest hunting for it finally get one, Shocked that it was a Q9, but it was Merc food, when I finally got one it was an Inscibable, this is why I don't farm in Prophecies or Factions.

Quoted for truth.

Being able to get the mods I want on the weapon I want for less than 100k+XXXectos is a good thing.

I'm on the side of liking inscribable weapons. I mean, it's hard enough to get a weapon that you really like drop with a low Req, let alone getting one drop with the stats you want.

Besides, I'm a collector myself, and even though I have my inscribable weapons I still keep some of the non-inscribable gems that have dropped for me in the past.

I have to say without inscriptions half of my weapons would be sub par, meaning they would be either 13-14^50 or staffs with useless mods for the builds my casters use.

Inscriptions granted me the flexibility to create customized items for each of my builds rather than just a standard set that didn't work well with any build.

Actually anet never intended for weapons to sell for much over a few plat, much less 100K + E. That is why anet gave us inscriptions. The way it used to be, you had to be either a farmer or gold buyer to afford a decent gold weapon. Some weapons now are the way anet originally intended them to be priced, with the exception of rare skinned weapons, and those never did interest me. I can't understand why anyone would pay an arm and a leg for something, when they can get a weapon that works the same for a tiny fraction of the price.

Incriptions were a great addition to GW which gave players flexibility without having to farm bucketloads of cash to give to some greedy twonk. Lets hope for similar in GW2

For me it was never about prices and making profit. It was about the fun of finding cool rare weapons. The game was far more fun back in early 2005 when a gold max +13^50 was pretty rare, was much more fun to play with nonmax items that felt good AND being able to find something better, than to have instant perfection available and only finding 100s of items just as good.
Now instead of a rare weapon you can find a pile of building blocks, totally uncool.

I really hope they don't screw up the weapon system in GW2, so the moddability works only for making weapons fit your builds and playstyles, but there's no such thing as simply building an absolute perfect item out of cheap and common components.

Think about this.

No, it would NOT kill poor players...in fact, it would make more of a middle class in guild wars.

Example:
Although that cool shield you always wanted might cost a LOT uninscribable, so would the less rare skins. The current potential "trash" could be potential treasure.

Ex: you go farming, you find a r9 wooden buckler with -5(20%) and +30 on it (inscribable of course)
what do you say when you see it?
Usually something along the lines of "sweet, about 8k worth of mods"

If the mods were instead uninscribable, the shield would be much more rare (although most dont like the skin)
but in my opinion, the wooden buckler is prlly my fave shield skin, idk why lol...dream wep set has always been r8 long sword and r8 wooden buckler...kind of a oldschool combo ^^

Along the comment of "you want it just so you can benefit from it while other suffer" comment, I dont want this for my benefit.
I dont have a storage full of r9 uninscribables.

I just think it would be GREAT to have sephis axe at its former glory, amongst other weapons screwed over by the update.

"Back in the day" if you had a r9 max sephis axe, let alone one with cool mods, you were ballin'

Now the sephis axe has sunk to the value of "ill trade it for your mini whiptail devourer"

The main point here is...Guild Wars is currently about the OPPOSITE of real life economy. Instead of inflation, there is deflation...primarily because the source of items comes from air instead of from a consumable source like in rl, and weapons/armor in guild wars do not wear out over time.

I toyed with the idea of weapon corrosion, but in the end, it would suck for that voltaic you worked forever to get to turn into dust after using it for a month or two.

Primarily, I like the idea, because now, if I want a weapon, I just head over, buy one of the few in the search, stick mods in it, and there you go.

I kind of LIKE the idea of having to work for it, and each weapon being unique.

If none of you have made a perma-pre before (I am sure plenty of you have), the main FUN part about it is how much joy you find in getting the most AMAZING max dmg (for pre) sword. Even better yet...you need a 1337 salvage kit to salvage any good mods off of stuff. It just makes pre searing more of "what you see when you identify is what you got" kind of place, which makes it more of a fun place, for me...in fact, if it were my opinion, I would make all of Guild Wars like the pre-searing setting (not all low level monsters, of course) because if you look on presearing.com (not advertising, jsut example) you will notice that pre has a MUCH more stable economy than in the current mainland.

Well, that is all of my rambling for now.

Cheers,
Ethernet Runner

Basic access to equipment is a pre-requisite for a level playing field - the pre-inscription world did not facilitate this.

Having to grind for gear before you can start playing bites.

Simple. Once you beat all the games, EotN, and even the Bonus Mission packs, you start to grind for the sweetness.

Collectors? Greens?

There was absolutely NO need for any grinding to get weapons in the good old Pre-Nightfall times, never ever.

There were plenty of crafters and collectors with max inherently perfect stuff. And don't forget about the tons of perfect cheap overfarmed Greens everywhere. If you had to grind before playing you must have really sucked at the game. And I'm not even getting into the basic fact that PvE was a piece of cake even when you used random bad purples and never ever buy a weapon...

People who thing they NEED absolute perfection for PvE are so bad they will fail anyway.

Collectors did not really have useful stats (yeah, stance shields, wands that miss upgrade) The more anet had collectors usefull the more it killed value of perfect nonrare skins.

Greens usually come with lowest common det. stats. Sure, if there was full set of armor vs X shields ... but there is not. And i stopped counting 20/20-15^50-30hp hammers....

They are problem, im thinking exact same as the guy who posted this. Inscription ruined the game..

that have been my opinion since Nf came and is still, and Nf is worst Campaing becasue of Inscription, Heroes, dervish 3 lamest things i hate in gw well atleast it didnt give Uber PvE skills..

But yeah. because of inscription most of the fun left from game, thats because i dont play eotn & nf just factions & tyria, because Eotn & Nf are lame with their inscri drops so dont like em..

Yeah those collectors that give +30/+10 vs Fire shields are everywhere - there are countless other extremely useful combinations that aren't around.

Lets say you have a +14% when you the person you're racing against (of equal ability) has +15% weapon - every few kills it takes you an extra second to kill the opponent meaning you finish the vanquish 1-2 minutes after your opponent. Kind of goes against the whole skill>time thing doesn't it?

So many people claim that the only ones not liking inscriptions are whining high-end traders, rare item collecters, etc. that want their items to retain high value/rarity. The reason we have inscriptions in the first place is whining from the other side of the fence. People that want all of their weapons to be perfect, gold, and cheap. What valid reason is there for that side to have won out in the end?

There is no need for cheap, widely available gold weapons, so the high price of golds was never a real problem. It was only an annoyance to those who could not afford them. Collectors, crafters, and greens completely eliminate the supposed need for inscribable golds. And some of them are even inscribable. No one was ever left at any actual disadvantage because they had a blue Short Sword instead of a gold Fellblade. But the owner of that Fellblade is left at a loss of gold when the value of it is artificially decreased.

IMO, the only good thing to come from inscriptions is making gold caster items more equal in rarity to martial weapons. Wands/offhands have 2 mods and many more possible (useless) combinations compared to martial weapons. Getting a perfect wand was extremely less likely than a perfect sword. This was an actual imbalance, not an "I want things easier" whine. Even with inscriptions, many caster weapons are "plauged" with primary attribute requirements, leaving them impossible to get with the desired stats.

We are talking about PvE here, not about making PvE characters PvP-ready easy, which was completely unnecessary given the updated PvP item creation panel.
And while it makes the difference in PvP, in PvE you don't *need* absolutely perfect shields with all those hard to get mod combinations.

Again. We are talking about friggin PvE! Not some kind of extreme hardcore competition, turbo gridning racing olimpics where every 0.1 dmg might make you finish your run 2 seconds after your opponent.

W T F ? ? ?

What opponent?
What racing?
Are you sure you talk about PvE in Guild Wars?
Seriously, go take a 14% weapon and 15% weapon and kill some barrels in Isle of Nameless. You will see there's no difference in the speed of killing.

We're talking about making pve characters pve ready. If you want to beat people that have full access to these mods you need them too.

Being able to complete tasks faster than other skilled players is the only meaningful measure of success PvE has to offer.

People should keep in mind that one of Anets goals with GW was to keep all players on an equal footing. This meant that everyone was able to afford Max armor and Max weapons.

Inscriptions simply meant that all weapons had equal mods as well as max dmg.

Aside from R8 stats do not and should not be a factor in rarity of weapons.

This might be a different argument if our HP was 5000 and weapons damage range was more random with no set fixed Max or a Max that rarely dropped (PvE concept, not for PvP).