GW needs an item sink.

I quit GW last year but have now been coming back little by little. However the problem that I left GW for is still around.

For the limited storage we have, we're faced with the grueling task of logging into this toon or that to find a home for our latest, greatest gold weapon find,.. on a hero. This is because it's become to hard to sell these items to a community who is facing the same problem. In between the lack of storage and nary the possibility of an item to break (well, you could break it yourself, but that's about it), we've ended up with a pile of golds that once upon a time would have fetched a small fortune. However now, no one would buy it simply because they don't have room for it.

So, here it is. I think items just flat out having a chance to break in battle would be beneficial to us all. I think that doing so would rejuvenate all the old farming areas like Tombs, SF, The Deep, Urgoz and more. It may even put some value in collectibles.

It certainly would shake the cobwebs out of my storage anyway, that's for sure. I mean if I lost my perfect gold air staff while out on the trail,.. well then by gosh I'd just hafta play until I got me another one.

Or ragequit. This would be ESPECIALLY bad in the case of mods that are required for specific builds breaking, and on the whole would be putting pressure on all the people who aren't uber-rich.

If you really are that short of space and can't sell things to a player... well, the merchant may not offer much, but (s)he's always happy to take stuff off your hands. Better than breaking it, no?

Furthermore, if items can break in combat... wouldn't you then want to be carrying spares so that a weapon breakage doesn't completely destroy the expedition? People would end up with their inventories clogged more as they filled the spaces up with backup equipment, not less.

If it wasn't already obvious... so very /notsigned.

Yes i agree, you would have to carry around extras which would waste more room. There is a storage problem in this game but that isn't the answer to it.. I would be pissed if my Q9 saurian scythe that i had to BUY with perfect mods that i had to BUY broken on me. You put together certain weps for certain purposes, if they were always breaking you wouldn't have the exact inscrip or zealous or w/e when you needed it.

/no

Because an item breaking that breaks a build and thus somehow leads to a total party wipe would be,.. catastrophic?

I suppose you could carry backup items, if you feared the loss so much, yeah, but then given our limited storage capacity, then no. It's always been a game of choices, my friend. What's one more?

The benefits of giving back all the forgotten areas to farm again far outweigh the mere inconvenience of losing an offhand with some certain inscription on it, and I think this idea would, when faced with the possibility of losing an item or two, wake a party up when that extra mob got aggroed and provide a sense of excitement that some have lost in the game.

Ragequit? I'm sorry if somehow I came off angry.

I don't understand how this would bring people back to old areas in any way, you can get the full range of stats on held items and mods in any expansion/campaign. Unless your referring to certain skins, thats another story. Rare skins would not be worth spending time obtaining if they are just going to disintigrate in front of you. Why not just modify the first max item drop that you can use, since its going to break anyway?

Honestly i just think its a bad idea, no offense. But good luck finding support for this.

ah, no! lol, i rather merch it.

Well, I didn't come here thinking that the idea would be popular at first, but once you get around the initial shell-shock and see that breaking items will create sales of new items, then you might see a way to move all those perfect and near-perfect items you've had in your storage just sitting forever like I do, lol. For my part, I'd just like to see my items go somewhere else than the merchant. He's gettin way to fat offa the sweet stuff I sell him for beans.

Random item destruction is idiotic suggestion, especially in GWs. Just like other "durability" ideas, but this one gets extra points for being extra lame. I think that OP Imagines himself selling all those useless items he has, but does not imagine himself having his weapons disintegreted randomly.

I had this idea:

1)
[rare weapon merchant] -> trades "Golden Token" for one gold weapon
[unique weapon merchant] -> trades "Green Token" for one green weapon

2)
[collector] npc that turns 3 gold tokens to 1 green token
several [collector] npcs that offer interesting rewards for theese tokens:
rangeing from 1 item for one token collector (potent booze and party/sweets items, lockpicks, superior kits)
thought several quantities (3, 5, 25, 50) collectors all the way to 250 token collector offering unique armor set.

i see this becoming a suggestion from WoW.
Armour taking damage that has to be 'restored' and the same with weapons.
this is not the way to fix the economy rather destroy it, why sell a weapon when you need it in case of a brake. imho i believe that we need to get rid of inscriptions and then it makes it harder to get perfect weapons.

Not one game has ever done item breaking well. It's a stupid idea, it doesn't work, all it does is increase grind and reduce fun.

/NotSigned

Oh god no. That's one of the things I like about this game; no stupid money sinks like that. I HATE having to buy multiples of something i've found that I love just because it won't last. I just want to have fun playing, not worrying about how much life my weapon has.

Hey look, it's just an idea. But if you're too far attached to your perfect w/e it may be, regardless of how silly the idea of you dying but it magically staying with you is, then so be it. There's no need for you to devolve yourselves to words like stupid, idiotic, or whatever other words you trolls use to make yourselves feel like you're smarter than the avg video game player.

And no,.. the idea was not spawned by WoW, as I've never played that game.

GW needs more item sinks, but item wear is just too horribly annoying to be a good alternative.

I think this is a terrible idea, no offence to OP though. I just thought that it would spur more people to leave the game due to frustration.

It's not "just an idea," it's a practiced and proven technique used by developers as a time sink and and an item sink, well known by players to reduce game enjoyment and increase grind, and those who advocate it deserve the accusations of stupidity that come their way.

Forgive me for not reading the entire discussion, i am short on time, and i just wanted to say what i had to say on the item sink issue.
Sorry for the long post but please read it.


Guild Wars has very few item sinks.
One is item (weapon) customization, which is only done by physical damage dealing charracters, as casters have no use for the extra 20% damage on their staves. But i feel this isnt something that is commonly (enough) practised, as most of the damage done comes from skills, not actual weapons, thus people feel that a slight performance increase (which is actually much less than 20%) isnt worth it, instead, non customized items are used as assets, in case of an upgrade with another weapon, the previous one can be sold.
This whole situation loweres the ammount of items that are taken off the market.

Second used to be item (mod) salvaging that broke the items, but with increased chance of item not breaking in the proccess via titles, and the introduction of the perfect salvage kit, few items break anymore, items and mods are recycled multiple times before they are broken, thus again not taking much off the market.

There are few gold sinks. Skills are the major gold sinks, dyes, runes and crafting materials used to be viable gold sinks, but prices are now so low their effect as sinks is negligible.

Because of all this, over the years, there has come to be an imbalance between the ammount of items and the ammount of gold produced by the game via drops, and the ammount of items and gold that are taken out of the system.

This has created a saturated market, where items are more and more devaluated as time passes.

I remember a time when it was not only possible to trade items of blue and purple quality, those items were of actual use to players, because gold and green items were what they were meant to be - rare. But over time the market has been saturated with golds and greens, devaluating not only blues and purples, but themselves as well.

The items that retain their value are now only rare skin items. But this is also subject to changes. As these are the items of value, they are also the target of farming. They will soon loose their value too, because of the topic of this discussion - few sinks.

I hope you see my point. Item sinks are needed, needed very bad.

I am going to resort to an unpopular measure to further demonstrate my oppinion - comparing to WoW. : )) (although, keep in mind that i am not doing so because i considder WoW to be 'the' game all others should look up to, its just that WoW is the only other MMORPG that i am experienced enough with in order to make such comparisons)

In WoW, every item that is not gray or white in quality binds on being used. This means they are possible to sell, but when they are used, they 'bind' to the user, the equivalent of the customization in GW. This creates a balance between items produced by the game, and the items taken out of the system. I dare to say its in perfect harmony. Gray items have no actual use, and white items are so inferior or they are used as reagents in crafting recipes - destroyed in the proccess, effectively, these two cathegories of items are virtually no threat to the ballance.


In the current GW situation, ArenaNet has to be open to at least considder unpopular changes, such as the suggested item breaking. Although i agree, it is not the best thing that can be done, but something has to be done to prevent the impending doom. (a little drama never hurt anyone lol).

In fact, most, if not all the thigs that can be done concerning this issue are going to be painfull to some. Thus i can understand the reluctance.

Possible solutions would include a WoW-like system, where every item is customized when used. An unpopular measure, i am sure. Furthermore, heroes being considdered separate entities, what i mean is items customized for one entity - the player - cannot be used by an another entity - his hero. And vice versa. Another unpopular measure. Salvaging having a base chance of 50% for not breaking items, that is unmodifiable by any means. Yet another unpopular measure...

But i belive that it can be worth it.
Rejuvenation of the economy, reemergance of forgotten weapons and a renewed popularity of forgotten areas can be the possible outcomes.



I really hope i didnt write all of this in vein. Id like it to at least be read by someone, and considdered. Preferably by someone from ANet.


Cheers 'till then.

PS Also sorry for typos. English isnt my main language. But im good arent i?
Kidding...

if it's really that useless, that's what the merchant and heroes are for.
/notsigned

Increase grind? Do you see what people are doing in the game now? Nothing other than grinding,.. for Titles.

I didn't come to Sardelac to share an idea to better what I feel is a stagnating mechanic in the game to be attacked by obvious trolling. And if you're not trolling then you should give a concrete reason why the idea is a bad one, or else I'm just going to assume that you're just having a kneejerk reaction to the idea of introducing the possibility that your beloved pixelated internet item could be lost. Awww,.... use a collector.

In the course of playing this game, items and gold are constantly generated with no possibility of loss if the player doesn't want it. Combined with the limited storage we have, this is a general flaw in the game design. Our bags fill up, we keep what we want and merchant the rest, and after a time our storage is filled with stuff we don't want to get rid of.

Game over.

You have to introduce the possibility of losing 'the items we do not want to lose OMG, in order to keep the cobwebs out of storage.

The above poster, enxa, knows what I'm talking about, and he's right. There was a time when purples and even blues were traded. Perfect blues were sold for a good amount before the Wikis were complete and disseminated where each and every collector was (wandering collectors, anyone?). You could get a very good amount for certain green weapons as well. Now I have heroes that are carrying weapons that would have fetched 100k+30ecto when Factions was young. Now it's seems almost shameful to have a recognizable green on a hero.

We do need a solution I agree, but come on...breaking weapons? I'm never gonna use my uber haxxorz crystalline sword again! Except when I make it into HoH to show off...this is too extreme.

Oh but wait, we have three sets of armor, let's have those go break on us. Bye bye runes. >_> For a better item sink, why not just delete storages server-wide randomly. Now that'll get people going! Why should people even buy good weapons if it's going to break on them? I honestly don't see the reasoning behind this idea.

1)Get a lot of items
2)Have them break in battle
3)Go get a lot of items again
4)???
5)Profit!!!

Or we could continue to beg A-Net to give us bigger storages for more in-game gold.

Sorry, but a random chance for an item to just go poof is a horrid idea. I can't even begin to mention this system in PvP applications.

You could always give these items to newer players or guild mates in need. Sometimes I'll give newbies "quests" in return for req9 max weapons. Want a max damage bow? Give me 10 Charr Carvings and 5 Lodestones or meet me in Piken Square. During special events I'll even host GW trivia quizzes with tomes and weapons as prizes.

That's good to know. I'm tired of people thinking that WoW came up with every single MMO concept...item durability/breakage is nothing new. Ultima Online? Dark Age of Camelot? Ah, but the kids just don't know what they missed...

/notsigned

Mid battle your only weapon breaks. What do you do then. "brb guyz i haz to fix meh items"
If you could attack with fists then yes it would be worth it. "lulz i crit for 50 with meh fists."

OK, OP's logic is so flawed that this thread should be closed.

Item's prices are not determined by someone's storage space. There are somewhere between 9 billion and infinity "MOAR STORAGEZ PLZKTHXLOL" threads, and the reason they aren't put in is simply because, normal people do not need them. I've been playing over 3 years and have at least 3 armor sets for every char and about 8 different weapons per character and I've never had a storage issue, and most of the casual players have never had an issue either (don't respond with "I'm casual though, and I have storage problems", if you're posting on a fansite, you're not casual). I've seen many pictures of people's storages that claim they have too little and I see piles of useless junk that should be sold to the merchant (17 below 50% inscriptions, Inspiration Magic +1 19% mods, monster drops for every collector in the game, etc.)

The reason items are so cheap is because inscriptions are readily available for almost every skin in the game, and now with the ability to choose which mod you want salvaged, you can always pick the 20/20 sundering off the 20/20 sundering longsword (+14 vs hexed) of troll slaying, whereas back in the early days, you're chances of getting iron ingots was greater than getting a mod. That's the reason for item devaluation, don't blame it on storage.

Kanyatta this thread is about the need for an item sink in the game, not a whine about low prices because my storage isn't big enough. I'm still very grateful for the expansion to the storage Anet has given us.

Sigma I guess I hadn't really thought that far ahead about that. I guess in order to get the item sink then maybe have some fuctionality left in the weapon so that you still have something but take it away after you reach a town.