Why inscriptions are the worst thing that happened to GW.
Fawxy Lawxy
Mfw this thread should have been made in 2006.
Plutoman
Gotta say I agree with him.
Essentially, his point is that max gear is pretty easy. Not just pretty easy, but really easy. And that's WITHOUT inscriptions. Essentially, collector's items, green weapons, they are all worthless. You merch them along with the rest. Who goes out to visit a collector? Absolutely no one.
I do remember the feeling of seeing a good gold weapon drop and thinking, heck yes! There's no reward in the drop system anymore. There's only a few wanted skins because ANet had to cut the drop rate to small decimals of a percent to keep the pricing high. I see a gold drop, and I think, another for the wisdom title. I'm pretty anti-grind, but there's a lot of ways to get max weapons without a grind, and I'd love to see the drop system actually bring rewards as you're playing.
My idea would be to have an inscription trader (mentioned above, I believe?), and make collector's items all inscribable. Including tormented, and etc. However, then I would want to have all the gold dropped weapons be uninscribable. It's still a piece of cake to get perfect weapons, and to have them the way you want, but then gold weapons that are good would actually feel like it.
Essentially, his point is that max gear is pretty easy. Not just pretty easy, but really easy. And that's WITHOUT inscriptions. Essentially, collector's items, green weapons, they are all worthless. You merch them along with the rest. Who goes out to visit a collector? Absolutely no one.
I do remember the feeling of seeing a good gold weapon drop and thinking, heck yes! There's no reward in the drop system anymore. There's only a few wanted skins because ANet had to cut the drop rate to small decimals of a percent to keep the pricing high. I see a gold drop, and I think, another for the wisdom title. I'm pretty anti-grind, but there's a lot of ways to get max weapons without a grind, and I'd love to see the drop system actually bring rewards as you're playing.
My idea would be to have an inscription trader (mentioned above, I believe?), and make collector's items all inscribable. Including tormented, and etc. However, then I would want to have all the gold dropped weapons be uninscribable. It's still a piece of cake to get perfect weapons, and to have them the way you want, but then gold weapons that are good would actually feel like it.
Swingline
For once I actually somewhat agree with you bright but whats done is done. I would actually like inscriptions if Anet didn't release all the desirable skins with inscription slots. That's what really killed this aspect of the game.
As for using heroes as an excuse to justify inscriptions, its all a load of bs. If inscriptions didn't exist then you could just craft the weapon for 5k and spend another 5k to mod it or use a green item.
There is another thing that suffered heavily because of inscriptions. The green Item was once the coolest weapon out there besides a 100% perfect oldschool gold. Now the best ones are used on heroes and the less popular ones are merch food unless they have a completely unique skin to them.
I really hope Anet sees the mistake they made by making inconsistencies between Prophecies/factions and NF/EotN. Im also pretty sure Anet was smoking crack during the creation of NF.
As for using heroes as an excuse to justify inscriptions, its all a load of bs. If inscriptions didn't exist then you could just craft the weapon for 5k and spend another 5k to mod it or use a green item.
There is another thing that suffered heavily because of inscriptions. The green Item was once the coolest weapon out there besides a 100% perfect oldschool gold. Now the best ones are used on heroes and the less popular ones are merch food unless they have a completely unique skin to them.
I really hope Anet sees the mistake they made by making inconsistencies between Prophecies/factions and NF/EotN. Im also pretty sure Anet was smoking crack during the creation of NF.
ruk1a
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Originally Posted by aspi
Meh I totaly agree with Bright, weapons should be unique and you should use what you find/buy.
The no player left behind thing is old, when you want something go work for it. |
Elnino
The inscriptions partially filled a hole in guild wars that needed to be filled at the start. Anet's philosophy is that every player should have access to every possible modifier in the game (this makes things balanced you know) and that the price of any item should only be dependent on the rarity of its skin, not it's modifier.
I do however believe that it was very lazy of Anet to kill the value of certain weapon skins by adding it to Nightfall and Eotn. If they had just added completely new skins, the market for all tyrian and canthan skins would still exist today.
I also believe that Anet needs to fill in the gaps that are missing within some of the weapons in this game. Everyone should have a choice of what skin they'd like and currently, that freedom is not present for wands and staves.
I do however believe that it was very lazy of Anet to kill the value of certain weapon skins by adding it to Nightfall and Eotn. If they had just added completely new skins, the market for all tyrian and canthan skins would still exist today.
I also believe that Anet needs to fill in the gaps that are missing within some of the weapons in this game. Everyone should have a choice of what skin they'd like and currently, that freedom is not present for wands and staves.
urania
inscriptions, next to pvp-only max level character creation option, are one of the best things about GW.
if you think differently you shouldnt be playing a pvp game to start with.
go play lotro or wow and farm them raids with special OP loot round the clock, if thats more your cup of tea.
if you think differently you shouldnt be playing a pvp game to start with.
go play lotro or wow and farm them raids with special OP loot round the clock, if thats more your cup of tea.
Bright Star Shine
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Originally Posted by Horus Moonlight
???
If aesthetics (and not functionality) comprised the market, there would be no rare mods; any mod that could be found should have a corresponding collector/green/weaponsmith. I agree with you about the blues and purples. However, this can be fixed within the inscription system. Just make it so that perfect inscriptions cannot be placed on blues and purples. |
Lord Natural
While it has taken something away from the mystique of seeing something good drop, it was good for the game. The reality is it lets casual players have some fun with decent looking weapons, while the hardcore players will have the resources to do what they want regardless. Casual players who don't have hundreds or thousands of hours to devote to the game shouldn't have to be stuck with Droknar's weapon-smith weapons. Let them have some fun too.
Brian the Gladiator
I'm still trying to find 40/40 caster sets.... and I don't give a damn what they look like. That's the problem with the market. People assume they are so easy to get that they just merch them emediately. If they were worth something, I might be able to find one for sale.
low demand dictates low supply and with no way of finding the obscure salesman for my obscure want/need, I am forced to go without.
P.S. if anybody reads this I need a 40/40 inspiration set, 20/+60hp resto staff, 40/40 air set, 40/20/enchant air staff, 40/40 water set, 40/20/enchant water staff, etc - the list goes on and on for just about every weapon type except fire magic and domination magic.
low demand dictates low supply and with no way of finding the obscure salesman for my obscure want/need, I am forced to go without.
P.S. if anybody reads this I need a 40/40 inspiration set, 20/+60hp resto staff, 40/40 air set, 40/20/enchant air staff, 40/40 water set, 40/20/enchant water staff, etc - the list goes on and on for just about every weapon type except fire magic and domination magic.
Tom Swift
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Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator
I'm still trying to find 40/40 caster sets.... and I don't give a damn what they look like.
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Certainly the air and water 40/40 sets can be bought there. For inspiration set you can get the focus there but not the wand - however the droknar's insp scepter has the stats you want and drok keys are not terribly pricey to buy.
This really is one of the major reasons the demand is low - unless it has a great skin or is a forget me not ins that can be transferred to a desired skin, the 40/40 functionality is available for about 12k for a set. So for function's sake alone they just aren't worth all that much.
Bright Star Shine
The post about 40/40 sets brought something to my mind though.
I have to admit that the biggest flaw the non-inscribable weapons have is that 20/20 versions or any half decent versions for that matter of wands and foci are near impossible to find. But there are tons of collectors out there who give 20/20 wands and foci, same goes for weaponsmiths. But changing the droprates of those from 10^-100000 to something like 10^-1000 wouldn't have hurt that much I guess, and I would certainly encourage it.. (these numbers are completely made up of course..)
Also another flaw is the singlemod shields. Although it would take away a lot of the rarity of decent shields, it's still a flaw to have only 1 mod. But this one doesn't really bother me.
I have to admit that the biggest flaw the non-inscribable weapons have is that 20/20 versions or any half decent versions for that matter of wands and foci are near impossible to find. But there are tons of collectors out there who give 20/20 wands and foci, same goes for weaponsmiths. But changing the droprates of those from 10^-100000 to something like 10^-1000 wouldn't have hurt that much I guess, and I would certainly encourage it.. (these numbers are completely made up of course..)
Also another flaw is the singlemod shields. Although it would take away a lot of the rarity of decent shields, it's still a flaw to have only 1 mod. But this one doesn't really bother me.
qazwersder
I agree with bright star shine. As he said pretty much all combo's of stats were already available, there just wasnt that much reason for it.
I'm quite glad they never changed prophecies and factions drops to incribable (apart from deep/urgoz end chests), it leaves some valuable (and rare) weapons able to be dropped. Shame they added some skins from those campaigns in others as inscibable.
This comes from a guy who uses collectors, greens and weaponsmiths. I have no weapons of any significant value.
I'm quite glad they never changed prophecies and factions drops to incribable (apart from deep/urgoz end chests), it leaves some valuable (and rare) weapons able to be dropped. Shame they added some skins from those campaigns in others as inscibable.
This comes from a guy who uses collectors, greens and weaponsmiths. I have no weapons of any significant value.
LifeInfusion
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Originally Posted by slowerpoke
Usability is better than greed.
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Adam Smith's invisible hand idea is always at work. Even if there were no inscriptions things that are sufficiently rare will be expensive.
My only problem with inscriptions is that you can put max mods on non-max blue crap that isn't even rare and have an unconditionally better weapon than people that don't customize. That's a problem with people being dumb, not inscriptions.
Arato
It's just as easy to get cheap perfect armor, why should weapons be restricted so that only the rich can acquire perfect weapons?
I love inscriptions, hell I love that Anet changed the way armor works, making headpieces universal dependant on what rune you put on it, and making insignias, so that you didn't pick your armor by stats, but by how you wanted to look.
Because let's face it, it really SUCKS in a lot of other games where you choose the stuff with the highest stats and end up looking terrible because of missmatched gear that all looks terrible, but it has the best stats! Weapons same way. I hate having to run around with a lame looking weapon, but it happens to be the best weapon to use stats wise. I play Lord of the Rings Online, and my first age legendary weapon looks like garbage, can't customize the look at all, but hey, it's the best weapon I can acquire.
But here's the fact, Guild Wars has been about vanity from the very beginning. Even before inscriptions, people had perfect collector weapons that looked like garbage, and farmed and farmed and paid loads a money for that perfect Chaos Axe or Storm Bow, just because they looked cool. Hell before inscriptions, the gold, purple, blue thing meant NOTHING. You could find random drop blues with maxed mods, which isn't the case anymore.
People are generally happy with getting "perfect" gear easily and paying extra for vanity (and in some cases, rarerity, there are some skins that don't look too great in most people's eyes, but since they're rare, bling bling)
Besides, doesn't it make your day when you see that low q rare weapon drop out of the chest in a dungeon? I know it made my day when I had an Emerald Blade drop (q10), back then they were pretty pricey, but because I liked the look so much (and knew it was valuable, didn't know the price would go down so much.. otherwise maybe I'd have changed my mind) I kept it
Going to Spamadan, I still see people selling rare weapon skins, or weapon skins that can be dedicated in the HoM, and they go for pretty good prices, over 100K worth of ectos usually. The market is there. Apparently the OP just isn't looking hard enough, or thinks that his "perfect" weapons of undesireable skins should be worth more.
I love inscriptions, hell I love that Anet changed the way armor works, making headpieces universal dependant on what rune you put on it, and making insignias, so that you didn't pick your armor by stats, but by how you wanted to look.
Because let's face it, it really SUCKS in a lot of other games where you choose the stuff with the highest stats and end up looking terrible because of missmatched gear that all looks terrible, but it has the best stats! Weapons same way. I hate having to run around with a lame looking weapon, but it happens to be the best weapon to use stats wise. I play Lord of the Rings Online, and my first age legendary weapon looks like garbage, can't customize the look at all, but hey, it's the best weapon I can acquire.
But here's the fact, Guild Wars has been about vanity from the very beginning. Even before inscriptions, people had perfect collector weapons that looked like garbage, and farmed and farmed and paid loads a money for that perfect Chaos Axe or Storm Bow, just because they looked cool. Hell before inscriptions, the gold, purple, blue thing meant NOTHING. You could find random drop blues with maxed mods, which isn't the case anymore.
People are generally happy with getting "perfect" gear easily and paying extra for vanity (and in some cases, rarerity, there are some skins that don't look too great in most people's eyes, but since they're rare, bling bling)
Besides, doesn't it make your day when you see that low q rare weapon drop out of the chest in a dungeon? I know it made my day when I had an Emerald Blade drop (q10), back then they were pretty pricey, but because I liked the look so much (and knew it was valuable, didn't know the price would go down so much.. otherwise maybe I'd have changed my mind) I kept it
Going to Spamadan, I still see people selling rare weapon skins, or weapon skins that can be dedicated in the HoM, and they go for pretty good prices, over 100K worth of ectos usually. The market is there. Apparently the OP just isn't looking hard enough, or thinks that his "perfect" weapons of undesireable skins should be worth more.
MithranArkanere
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Originally Posted by slowerpoke
Usability is better than greed.
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The outmoded system with fixed variable properties existed to compensate the lack of variety in skins. It was an 'artificial rarity'.
Have you ever compared the number of sword skins there was when Prophecies was released with the number of sword skins that Nightfall added? Well, now there are daggers, spears, scythes, staves for another 4 attributes for the ritualists, staves for primary attributes that didn't have staves, plus shields with attributes for paragons.
When in the area you are playing there are just 3 different skin drops for 5..7 different weapons, of course all skins drops look the same.
When you get to the merchant to sell the stuff you picked, you'll be selling ascalon long bows, long swords and shinning mauls all the time.
But when you can get more than 10 different skins for more than 11 different kinds of weapons, you no longer need artificial rarity to prevent you from getting the same weapon all the time, when you get to the merchant, most of the merchant fodder will be several different skins, and on top of that, your many, many heroes could use some of those things.
Anyone expecting all players to waste time to equip over 30 heroes in 10 characters with greens, collector weapons or outmoded drops is plain... well... you know. I'd rather get some usable drops to give them on my way to the End Credits, without detours.
And remember that inscriptions and other upgrades don't have a trader and are not laying around in big piles, maxed variable upgrades still drop only from rares, and unless you solo farm, you won't get enough of those to say otherwise.
Bright Star Shine
This post made me very confused.. I don't think you got my point. Or anyones for that matter..
Euhm, anyone can get perfect weapons. Hello greens/collector/weaponsmiths. No inscriptions never stopped this.
You do realize that this game was built on the idea that people would have easy access to perfect gear, but if they wanted pretty gear, they had to pay for it. Like you know, exactly how you described it.
This just doesn't make sense.. It's the other way around, NOW you can find blue gear and make it perfect, as to you couldn't do it before. You know, that thing that is flawed?
Again, you're agreeing with me..
I'm not talking about rare skins, there can be rare skins, I don't care, it's the inscriptions that bother me..
I don't want to make money, I have plenty, but a new player just starting off, struggling to maintain 20k in his storage would be incredibly happy with a nice drop that can set him up let's say 30k. But now he's only gonna get 300g for his q9 sword, because who cares, everyone can have perfect gear now. If anything and everything can be made perfect, you lose the purpose of having the weapons, and they all become worthless. You know, that thing that happened to the game in '06?
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Originally Posted by Arato
It's just as easy to get cheap perfect armor, why should weapons be restricted so that only the rich can acquire perfect weapons?
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| But here's the fact, Guild Wars has been about vanity from the very beginning. Even before inscriptions, people had perfect collector weapons that looked like garbage, and farmed and farmed and paid loads a money for that perfect Chaos Axe or Storm Bow, just because they looked cool. |
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| Hell before inscriptions, the gold, purple, blue thing meant NOTHING. You could find random drop blues with maxed mods, which isn't the case anymore. |
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| People are generally happy with getting "perfect" gear easily and paying extra for vanity (and in some cases, rarerity, there are some skins that don't look too great in most people's eyes, but since they're rare, bling bling) |
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| Besides, doesn't it make your day when you see that low q rare weapon drop out of the chest in a dungeon? I know it made my day when I had an Emerald Blade drop (q10), back then they were pretty pricey, but because I liked the look so much (and knew it was valuable, didn't know the price would go down so much.. otherwise maybe I'd have changed my mind) I kept it |
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| Going to Spamadan, I still see people selling rare weapon skins, or weapon skins that can be dedicated in the HoM, and they go for pretty good prices, over 100K worth of ectos usually. The market is there. Apparently the OP just isn't looking hard enough, or thinks that his "perfect" weapons of undesireable skins should be worth more. |
agrios
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Originally Posted by Outerworld
It would have been better if the inscription system had been introduced at the very start of GW imo.
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Inscriptions should be in it from day-1.
melissa b
I don't see the point to people making a qq thread about a functionally superior form of weapon customization. "Worst thing" - trying to make your qq thread dramatic?
Customer goes into restaurant...
I want number 1
Cashier...
Do you want to change any of the preselected condiments in your order
Customer
WTF? Why do I get to pick my condiments, that hurts my head, just go back to the old way where we just accepted whatever the f was tossed on the burger.
Cashier
???
Inscriptionable weapons have superior function customization...what's the drawback?
Customer goes into restaurant...
I want number 1
Cashier...
Do you want to change any of the preselected condiments in your order
Customer
WTF? Why do I get to pick my condiments, that hurts my head, just go back to the old way where we just accepted whatever the f was tossed on the burger.
Cashier
???
Inscriptionable weapons have superior function customization...what's the drawback?
byteme!
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Originally Posted by melissa b
I don't see the point to people making a qq thread about a functionally superior form of weapon customization. "Worst thing" - trying to make your qq thread dramatic?
Customer goes into restaurant... I want number 1 Cashier... Do you want to change any of the preselected condiments in your order Customer WTF? Why do I get to pick my condiments, that hurts my head, just go back to the old way where we just accepted whatever the f was tossed on the burger. Cashier ??? Inscriptionable weapons have superior function customization...what's the drawback? |
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| I don't want to make money, I have plenty, but a new player just starting off, struggling to maintain 20k in his storage would be incredibly happy with a nice drop that can set him up let's say 30k. But now he's only gonna get 300g for his q9 sword, because who cares, everyone can have perfect gear now. If anything and everything can be made perfect, you lose the purpose of having the weapons, and they all become worthless. You know, that thing that happened to the game in '06? |
jimbo32
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Originally Posted by byteme!
Read between the lines. Every argument and debate about this subject comes down to $$$. Case in point.
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I realize that not everyone cares about what weapon skins they use, and that's fine. That's what collectors and crafters are for. But those of us who enjoy hunting for rare non-insc weapon drops are pretty much limited to Factions since the release of NF. Unisc still drop in Proph obviously, but those are mostly core skins which are all available with inscription slots elsewhere. They're also (imo) mostly kinda ugly.
The Halloween quest "Commandeering a Mortal Vessel" created a bit of a stir with weapon collectors due to EotN-only weapons dropping without inscription slots. The people that spent time farming there didn't all have dollar signs in their eyes.
Anyway, I agree with Bright - the inscription system as it's implemented wasn't ANet's best idea. However, I do think that uninscribable stuff with two mods (ie: shields, wands, offhands) should *always* drop with two mods. Or at least have a much higher chance of doing so. They're much harder to find with good mods than (say) a 15^50 sword or axe.
Arato
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Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine
This post made me very confused.. I don't think you got my point. Or anyones for that matter..
Euhm, anyone can get perfect weapons. Hello greens/collector/weaponsmiths. No inscriptions never stopped this. You do realize that this game was built on the idea that people would have easy access to perfect gear, but if they wanted pretty gear, they had to pay for it. Like you know, exactly how you described it. This just doesn't make sense.. It's the other way around, NOW you can find blue gear and make it perfect, as to you couldn't do it before. You know, that thing that is flawed? Again, you're agreeing with me.. I'm not talking about rare skins, there can be rare skins, I don't care, it's the inscriptions that bother me.. I don't want to make money, I have plenty, but a new player just starting off, struggling to maintain 20k in his storage would be incredibly happy with a nice drop that can set him up let's say 30k. But now he's only gonna get 300g for his q9 sword, because who cares, everyone can have perfect gear now. If anything and everything can be made perfect, you lose the purpose of having the weapons, and they all become worthless. You know, that thing that happened to the game in '06? |
Me, I like customizing my stuff, so no, I don't agree with you in the slightest.
Taking away inscriptions would just mean 99% of the weapons you got would be absolute garbage, instead of the currently about 80% that are, because hey, if it's Q9 and it has a desireable skin, there's a market for it. Without inscriptions, it not only has to be a desireable skin, but also a perfect mod, otherwise it's garbage, and places like Slaver's Exile would just plain rot (it's already fairly skimpy compared to DoA, and ToA), because when you're already going on the chance that a voltaic spear will drop (not guaranteed obviously), that has a q 9 (like a 25% chance IF you get a voltaic spear at all), now when it needs to be q9, AND have the maxed mod, forget it, people won't play those odds, they'll just farm DoA or UW instead, where there's guaranteed money basically out of gems and ectos. Dungeons? Who'd farm ANY dungeon if the chances of getting a weapon worth trying to sell was cut to like 10% of what it is now?
Arato
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Originally Posted by LifeInfusion
This.
Adam Smith's invisible hand idea is always at work. Even if there were no inscriptions things that are sufficiently rare will be expensive. My only problem with inscriptions is that you can put max mods on non-max blue crap that isn't even rare and have an unconditionally better weapon than people that don't customize. That's a problem with people being dumb, not inscriptions. |
Bright Star Shine
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Originally Posted by Arato
No, before factions, blue gear could drop with maxed mods, so could purple. An update later on made it so that blue and purple could not get maxed mods, only gold could.
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| Taking away inscriptions would just mean 99% of the weapons you got would be absolute garbage, instead of the currently about 80% that are, because hey, if it's Q9 and it has a desireable skin, there's a market for it. Without inscriptions, it not only has to be a desireable skin, but also a perfect mod, otherwise it's garbage, and places like Slaver's Exile would just plain rot (it's already fairly skimpy compared to DoA, and ToA), because when you're already going on the chance that a voltaic spear will drop (not guaranteed obviously), that has a q 9 (like a 25% chance IF you get a voltaic spear at all), now when it needs to be q9, AND have the maxed mod, forget it, people won't play those odds, they'll just farm DoA or UW instead, where there's guaranteed money basically out of gems and ectos. Dungeons? Who'd farm ANY dungeon if the chances of getting a weapon worth trying to sell was cut to like 10% of what it is now? |
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Originally Posted by Arato
I put max mods in a blue raven staff that I crafted for my necromancer because the raven staff fit the character's name and look I was going for, so you're saying I shouldn't be allowed to do that?
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Xiaquin
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Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine
I realize this, don't worry, I don't take the game too seriously...
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In your mention that poor players will stumble upon R9 weapons not worth anything, you should also make clearer that players, now dependent on finding these perfect weapons, will be lucky to ever see one (I've never gotten a perfect, non-inscr weapon in the game, ever).
But there's another glaring omission: the trade system. It's entirely catered not to the average player, but market savvy individuals who enter it for career profit. You think a poor player would even know what he/she has once it gets picked up? People on here talk about scoring super rare minis or Emerald Blades for cheap because the market is so full of power traders that it takes research to find out how much items are really worth.
So I'm sorry, but while your vision sounds like it would be beneficial to everyone, it really wouldn't. 98% of the time I get a max weapon, shield or focus only to have junk mods on it. I do now, I did less than a year after the game came out. And guess what? Not a lot has changed. I still pay for mods and I still pay for skins I want. I finally have enough to get a Silverwing Bow, which I'm sure you could wipe yourself with if you wanted to, but don't talk about how inscrs killed the weapons market when most people would agree there are tons of weapons/skins/mods they cannot afford or have to work toward getting.
MithranArkanere
Some things must be made clear:
- Inscriptions don't make items drop perfect. Even when an item drops in the standard system, it still has requirement, damage and inscription slot fixed. All swords that drop won't be 15-22req9 inscribable, you will get waay more stuff like 15-21 req10 non-inscribable whites.
- Inscriptions don't make items less rare. Drop rate does. A drop being inscribable won't reduce its rarity, it will increase its usefulness when it does drop. To increase rarity, you don't remove inscriptions, you reduce drop rate. But, here's the thing, Prophecies didn't have enough different skins to do that. You need some skins to make some of them drop less and turn them into as rare skins, otherwise, nothing would ever drop! Prophecies didn't have that, more skins where added later, but they were added only to new content, almost never to already existing content.
- Inscriptions don't make items worth less. Players and HM do. If you check prices of skins, the most expensive are things like Dryad bow, Silverwing bow, Bone Dragon Staff, Frog Scepter, Celestial compass, Eternal Blade... and, oh, yes. All of those drop inscribable.
If you really think about it, you'll see that what has actually reduced rarity the most is not inscriptions. It's overfarming in HM.
HM has increased rare drops, and when they added loot scaling, wails and whines from the community made ANet decide to make rare drops exempt from loot scaling.
Now, if you ever see a the 20 slots f a backpack filled after farming in HM and picking everything, you'll see more or less half of it is whites commons, some blue commons, a few uncommon (if any at all), and quite some rare drops, while in NM it would be lots of whites, quite some blues, some purples and a few golds (if any at all).
That difference is what really hit rarity so much, not inscriptions.
You may lie to yourselves as much as you want, but deep down you know that's true.
- Inscriptions don't make items drop perfect. Even when an item drops in the standard system, it still has requirement, damage and inscription slot fixed. All swords that drop won't be 15-22req9 inscribable, you will get waay more stuff like 15-21 req10 non-inscribable whites.
- Inscriptions don't make items less rare. Drop rate does. A drop being inscribable won't reduce its rarity, it will increase its usefulness when it does drop. To increase rarity, you don't remove inscriptions, you reduce drop rate. But, here's the thing, Prophecies didn't have enough different skins to do that. You need some skins to make some of them drop less and turn them into as rare skins, otherwise, nothing would ever drop! Prophecies didn't have that, more skins where added later, but they were added only to new content, almost never to already existing content.
- Inscriptions don't make items worth less. Players and HM do. If you check prices of skins, the most expensive are things like Dryad bow, Silverwing bow, Bone Dragon Staff, Frog Scepter, Celestial compass, Eternal Blade... and, oh, yes. All of those drop inscribable.
If you really think about it, you'll see that what has actually reduced rarity the most is not inscriptions. It's overfarming in HM.
HM has increased rare drops, and when they added loot scaling, wails and whines from the community made ANet decide to make rare drops exempt from loot scaling.
Now, if you ever see a the 20 slots f a backpack filled after farming in HM and picking everything, you'll see more or less half of it is whites commons, some blue commons, a few uncommon (if any at all), and quite some rare drops, while in NM it would be lots of whites, quite some blues, some purples and a few golds (if any at all).
That difference is what really hit rarity so much, not inscriptions.
You may lie to yourselves as much as you want, but deep down you know that's true.
Arato
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Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine
Never heard of this, and I'm pretty sure it's straight up BS, unless someone else can confirm this.
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| 99% of the weapons you get are already absolute garbage, because no one cares about them anymore. Everyone who needed perfect gear -unless they're making a new character- already has it. And the last thing they're gonna do is turn to the market to give them their gear, cause it's so easy to get anyway. Only the mods they might have to hunt for. |
The weapons that WOULD be on the market would just be random skin weapons with perfect mods, that people wouldn't farm for they just happened to come out of a chest. That's apparently what you want, people not to pay for vanity but for the stats, which goes against the design philosophy of the game.
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| There is nothing wrong with this, because that's a crafted staff, I'm talking blue drops here. |
All the desirable skins are usually gold drops from dungeon or elite area end chests, or locked chests in HM
Blue weapons now with their inability to get maxed mods, are often just identified to see if they have higher sale value to sell to the vendor for more money, or highly salvageable mods to get more mats, or remove the inscription to transfer to something like a ruby hammer to try and salvage that for rubies.
Some skins, like ancient scythes, alter their appearance depending on whether it's a blue, purple, or gold.
In the past before factions, people DID use blue and purple weapons instead of golds, because like I said, it was possible for one to have maxed mods.
Now, people only use golds, occasionally greens (and greens are so common their value is low)
Kanyatta
I see that most people are anti-OP's suggestion, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here:
I know when I was initially trying to get all my PvE characters ready for PvP, I was mostly going around grabbing perfect collectors weapons. I'm not sure if you can anymore, but you used to be able to get perfect 20/20 wands/off-hands from collectors. Sure, they were blue and had the basic skins you get when you first roll a PvP character, but they had perfect stats. I wasn't at any disadvantage when I had a 20/40/20 staff for my monk in GvG, because I know the monk on the other side had the same modded staff, but his was a BDS, and mine was a standard Divine Staff or whatever it's called. It was ugly, but it worked the same. But he got his through whatever method to get the 100k + x-ectos for the modded staff 4 years ago, but I got my staff through getting 6 Grawl Necklaces or whatever.
When GW was initially released, it was intended that you could get whatever perfect mods you wanted for cheap, putting all players on an equal playing field, but to get sweet skins would be difficult, and that would be what people would base status on.
Now, with inscriptions, I went and bought a Runic Blade and totally pimped it out with perfect mods, and it cost me less than 15k total. If I wanted that in Prophecies-only time, it would have been at least 25 ectos.
I definitely see OP's argument. Inscriptions made valuable skins worthless. He's not saying that inscriptions are letting everyone have good mods, because you could always get perfect mods for dirt cheap. I think that's what most of the haters think he means. He's not saying perfect mods should be harder to attain, just that having perfect mods on whatever skin you want shouldn't be as easy as it is now.
I know when I was initially trying to get all my PvE characters ready for PvP, I was mostly going around grabbing perfect collectors weapons. I'm not sure if you can anymore, but you used to be able to get perfect 20/20 wands/off-hands from collectors. Sure, they were blue and had the basic skins you get when you first roll a PvP character, but they had perfect stats. I wasn't at any disadvantage when I had a 20/40/20 staff for my monk in GvG, because I know the monk on the other side had the same modded staff, but his was a BDS, and mine was a standard Divine Staff or whatever it's called. It was ugly, but it worked the same. But he got his through whatever method to get the 100k + x-ectos for the modded staff 4 years ago, but I got my staff through getting 6 Grawl Necklaces or whatever.
When GW was initially released, it was intended that you could get whatever perfect mods you wanted for cheap, putting all players on an equal playing field, but to get sweet skins would be difficult, and that would be what people would base status on.
Now, with inscriptions, I went and bought a Runic Blade and totally pimped it out with perfect mods, and it cost me less than 15k total. If I wanted that in Prophecies-only time, it would have been at least 25 ectos.
I definitely see OP's argument. Inscriptions made valuable skins worthless. He's not saying that inscriptions are letting everyone have good mods, because you could always get perfect mods for dirt cheap. I think that's what most of the haters think he means. He's not saying perfect mods should be harder to attain, just that having perfect mods on whatever skin you want shouldn't be as easy as it is now.
Bright Star Shine
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Originally Posted by Arato
Can't prove it, but it is truth, smart players knew that people only looking for golds were idiots, because the color of the text meant nothing except higher vendor base value, and a higher "chance" at max mods. But you could get blue drops that had 15^50 or +5 energy^50 or with perfect salvageable mods like +30 health. I used to use a purple butterfly sword that was 15^50 on my first warrior that has since been deleted (damned 4 character slot limit and me with no ability to predict the future..)
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| Then why do I still see people farming and selling BDS, Obsidian Edges, Emerald Blades, Voltaic Spears, etc. Those skins still go for 20e or more. If they weren't inscribable and you had to get lucky and get a maxed mod to be able to sell it, they wouldn't be on the market, because people wouldn't farm them, because the chance of getting a perfect mod would be terrible. |
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| The weapons that WOULD be on the market would just be random skin weapons with perfect mods, that people wouldn't farm for they just happened to come out of a chest. That's apparently what you want, people not to pay for vanity but for the stats, which goes against the design philosophy of the game. |
My point is that you SHOULD be paying a lot for vanity and for nice skins. That's the entire idea of my post. There is nothing in the inscription weaponry that's worth the slightest bit of cash. And don't come qq'ing about BDS'es being 100e, cause 100e is nothing.
I'm gonna say it so that you can understand it, cause it seems you're having trouble with that. If you want a nice skin with nice mods, you SHOULD be paying your ass off. If you don't want to pay that much, you should be using other skinned items that are JUST as good, they just look less pretty.
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| In the past before factions, people DID use blue and purple weapons instead of golds, because like I said, it was possible for one to have maxed mods. |
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| Now, people only use golds, occasionally greens (and greens are so common their value is low) |
Xiaquin
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Originally Posted by Kanyatta
He's not saying perfect mods should be harder to attain, just that having perfect mods on whatever skin you want shouldn't be as easy as it is now.
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Bright Star Shine
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Originally Posted by Xiaquin
And that's the "worst thing that happened to GW" how?
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Kanyatta
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Originally Posted by Xiaquin
And that's the "worst thing that happened to GW" how?
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But I'm not lobbying for OP's idea saying that GW was totally and completely ruined by inscriptions, just that the implementation of them got away from the original concept of the game. They got too hasty with giving the players whatever they wanted for basically no work.
Arato
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Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine
This is complete and utter bullshit, and you know it just as well as me. There used to be a time where +4e on purples was possible, but that was nerfed so long ago. Until you prove it with old SS's or any developer notes, I'm just gonna ignore this crap and pretend you never wrote it...
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The update was April 26th, 2006:
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Weapons, Shields, and Focus ItemsEdit Significantly improved the quality of rare (gold) and uncommon (purple) items. Restricted Vampiric and Zealous weapon components to occur only on rare weapons. Upgraded Sundering weapon components to provide a maximum Armor Penetration of +20% (Chance: 20%). |
Prior to this update (which came basically right before factions), you could also get gold salvage items that had minor or major runes, and blue salvage items that had superior runes.
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| Well, guess what, if inscriptions didn't exist, people would STILL be farming BDS's and all those ugly ass "rare" weapons, because if you got one with a mod you wanted, you would be set for life. Imagine no inscriptions, and you getting a q9 prot BDS 20/20 prot. Imagine howmuch that would be worth. Quite a lot, don't you think. So people would still farm the chests, they would just have to farm harder to get the perfect weapon, and they would get about 10x the amount for them. Given, it's not perfect, but if you want pretty and good stuff, you SHOULD be paying for it. If you don't want to pay for it, get the collectors weapons.. |
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You are also a very good selective reader I have to say. My point is that you SHOULD be paying a lot for vanity and for nice skins. That's the entire idea of my post. There is nothing in the inscription weaponry that's worth the slightest bit of cash. And don't come qq'ing about BDS'es being 100e, cause 100e is nothing. I'm gonna say it so that you can understand it, cause it seems you're having trouble with that. If you want a nice skin with nice mods, you SHOULD be paying your ass off. If you don't want to pay that much, you should be using other skinned items that are JUST as good, they just look less pretty. |
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| This is still bullshit until I see hard proof, or get convinced by a player that I know and who's opinion I respect (Yawg, time to jump in buddy). |
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| Greens used to be worth quite a bit, because they were perfect and not too hard to get, and everyone wanted them, for above stated reasons. Now they're about as useless as anything that drops, cause who cares about greens? You can make them yourself easier and with skins you like more. |
Even without inscriptions, greens wouldn't be worth anything due to how easily they are farmed and many of them don't have desirable stat combinations much less a desirable skin.
Hobbs
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Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine
And don't come qq'ing about BDS'es being 100e, cause 100e is nothing.
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Chthon
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Originally Posted by MithranArkanere
Some things must be made clear:
- Inscriptions don't make items drop perfect. Even when an item drops in the standard system, it still has requirement, damage and inscription slot fixed. All swords that drop won't be 15-22req9 inscribable, you will get waay more stuff like 15-21 req10 non-inscribable whites. - Inscriptions don't make items less rare. Drop rate does. A drop being inscribable won't reduce its rarity, it will increase its usefulness when it does drop. To increase rarity, you don't remove inscriptions, you reduce drop rate. But, here's the thing, Prophecies didn't have enough different skins to do that. You need some skins to make some of them drop less and turn them into as rare skins, otherwise, nothing would ever drop! Prophecies didn't have that, more skins where added later, but they were added only to new content, almost never to already existing content. - Inscriptions don't make items worth less. Players and HM do. If you check prices of skins, the most expensive are things like Dryad bow, Silverwing bow, Bone Dragon Staff, Frog Scepter, Celestial compass, Eternal Blade... and, oh, yes. All of those drop inscribable. If you really think about it, you'll see that what has actually reduced rarity the most is not inscriptions. It's overfarming in HM. HM has increased rare drops, and when they added loot scaling, wails and whines from the community made ANet decide to make rare drops exempt from loot scaling. Now, if you ever see a the 20 slots f a backpack filled after farming in HM and picking everything, you'll see more or less half of it is whites commons, some blue commons, a few uncommon (if any at all), and quite some rare drops, while in NM it would be lots of whites, quite some blues, some purples and a few golds (if any at all). That difference is what really hit rarity so much, not inscriptions. You may lie to yourselves as much as you want, but deep down you know that's true. |
Which brings us back to the heart of OP's argument. Stripped of all its "it would be good for the economy" BS, it really boils down to "I don't want other people to get good drops, so that they have to buy my good drops instead." Being one of those "other people," I don't much care for this idea.
Bright Star Shine
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Originally Posted by Arato
It's true, but I don't even have the same computer that I had in 2005, much less screenshots from that computer. This was before factions, did you know there was a time you couldn't freely respec your build and you had to grind attribute refund points? Or a time when minion masters could have unlimited numbers of minions?
The update was April 26th, 2006: Included in that, was making it so that blue and purple weapons couldn't get any max mods, or that might have even come later, but this change was definitely along that lines. |
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| 100e is more money than most guild wars players will ever have at one time, more than some players will ever have over the entire time they play. It's not "nothing". I'm currently farming ectos for my necromancer's obsidian armor, and because I don't have the patience to stand around towns spamming trade channels to sell (why Guild Wars still has no in game auction house system, I have no idea, but it's pretty bad, really), and I can say it goes pretty slow at 3-4 ectos per clear of labyrinth and getting bored of repeating the farm pretty fast. |
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| I don't know WHY I bothered looking through an entire year's worth of updates, but I did, and found where the change was rooted in. April 26, 2006. |
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| Even without inscriptions, greens wouldn't be worth anything due to how easily they are farmed and many of them don't have desirable stat combinations much less a desirable skin. |
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Originally Posted by Chthon
Which brings us back to the heart of OP's argument. Stripped of all its "it would be good for the economy" BS, it really boils down to "I don't want other people to get good drops, so that they have to buy my good drops instead." Being one of those "other people," I don't much care for this idea.
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Arato
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Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine
I started playing the game in early '06 I seem to recall. I was quite young at the time and didn't realize a lot about the game until like 2y in, so that update completely passed by me. But I still don't see any proof of blue 15^50 weapons as you claim. The thing about sup runes being blue at first I know. All that stuff you said I know existed, but never experienced myself. The thing about perf blue weapons, you'll have to get some hard proof.
Ok, given, 100e isn't little money, that was a bit exaggerated, but most of those weapons are worth no more than 25e atm, because they are so overfarmed. And that isn't a lot of money at all. Your update just says "significantly improved the rare drops". The update you quoted is the one that made 11^50, 12^50 and 13^50 on golds impossible. It does not say "removed the possibility for common or rare drops to have perfect inherent mods". They used to be worth at least 10-15k/ea and more for the better ones, which can make a new player very happy. But now it's just 40g, or slap on a hero.. I still never said anything about me making money. I don't give a toss about money or ecto's, I've got plenty. Also, I wouldn't be the only one getting potentially good drops, everyone would, thus being a fair system to everyone. The uninscr weapons were the reason I enjoyed chest running so much, the thrill of maybe getting a good weapon that maybe worth a little bit. Never got really good stuff, but a few half decent drops came out of it... |
It's literally the same thing that happened with the runes, where you could farm giants in Riverside province, get blue giant's boots, and come out with a superior vigor, that was how I got my superior vigors in fact.
There was a time before that, where a popular farm was the gates of kryta mission, the drakes in the water, they could drop golds and items with max modifiers because they were high enough level. You'd use it to farm for +30 health salvagable mods.
In the first year of the game, the only difference between blues, purples, and golds was the color of the name, and the perceived value that dumb players had for them.
I wasn't young when Prophecies came out (24), I remember.
Bright Star Shine
Still, you can claim max dmg for a sword was 1337, until I see SS proof, I don't believe anything of it. And this is going way off topic anyway..
Chthon
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Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine
I still never said anything about me making money. I don't give a toss about money or ecto's, I've got plenty. Also, I wouldn't be the only one getting potentially good drops, everyone would, thus being a fair system to everyone. The uninscr weapons were the reason I enjoyed chest running so much, the thrill of maybe getting a good weapon that maybe worth a little bit.
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If you really, truly didn't care, then you'd put perfect mods on whichever skins you think look best, be happy with them, and never give a second thought to how easy or hard it was for other people to get the items they want. Clearly, that hasn't happened.
KamikazeChicken
I am almost exclusively a monk. Inscriptions made any Nightfall/EotN staff drops basically unusable due to my taste in staff stats. Highly disappointing, indeed. 
Other than the staff issue, and thereby an accompanying focus/wand issue, I find inscriptions great for martial weapon choices.
Other than the staff issue, and thereby an accompanying focus/wand issue, I find inscriptions great for martial weapon choices.
Chthon
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Originally Posted by KamikazeChicken
I am almost exclusively a monk. Inscriptions made any Nightfall/EotN staff drops basically unusable due to my taste in staff stats. Highly disappointing, indeed.
Other than the staff issue, and thereby an accompanying focus/wand issue, I find inscriptions great for martial weapon choices. |