The Recent Update And How Perfect Items Are Now Worthless

I recently acquired a Gold Tall Shield (Req 8 Tactics) Health +45 (while Hexed) and -3 Dmg (while Hexed). Before the update it was perfect and I spend a considerable amount of gold purchasing it, 100k + 3 Ectos to be precise.



Upon hearing of the recent update and how the health bonus on the while hexed shields had rose to +60 Health I logged in to see if my shield had its “old” stats updated to +60 -3.

I hovered over the stats to see that they had not changed and was horrified at how my shield had gone from perfect to no where near perfect. I contacted Anet who told me I should post my problem on a fansite for the Guild Wars community to discuss.

The problem I have with this is how they failed to take into consideration those who spent vast sums of gold acquiring the original +45 ones. I thought that they would update the old ones to have the new equivalent. I am sure if it happened to any more popular item there would be outrage. If axes maximum damage was increased to 29 as Anet viewed them as too weak and did not update the old ones many people who bought perfect ones would be furious at what happened.

In my opinion they did not bother to update the old while hexed shields as they did not think anyone would care. If a more popular item was altered they would be falling head over heals to ensure no one is angered.

I did not purchase the shield thinking it could be changed or removed for being too overpowered. I just thought it is a “normal” item which would make a “safe” purchase. I have been after such a shield for months and was really happy with finally obtaining one. The update has annoyed me greatly as my shield is worthless and no longer perfect.

I am now genuinely worried about making any more “high-end” purchases as they too could be altered and made worthless in future updates.

Anet, could this happen again and why have you ignored my shield? Is it not popular enough to change? Did you think no one would care about the maximum health being changed? All I ask is for them to be updated to be the new equivalent. And to know whether this could happen with other items?


For the Moderators: Anet stated in an email to post my query on a fansite so I am doing it here if that is alright.

I believe that all of them including inperfect ones should be updated.

I know it is not entirely about perfect items but those who collect only perfect items should not be left out and put at a disadvantage. The person who could only afford an inperfect shield would also be affected as their's is far from perfect and effectively worthless.

I am sure if you spent days on end raising funds for your armor/new build/favourite weapon for it to be unfairly altered making it worthless/useless you would be annoyed.

I am too and have yet to find an answer from anyone including anet. It is not like how people lost gold on the Scavengers of Ascalon Axe when they were abusing a glitch. All I had was a normal, average item.

Other than mine was the only Tall Shield skinned one in the game as far as I know...

Its kind of hard to understand what you are saying

Them's the breaks.

AMEN! i know what you mean.

Maybe they didn't bother because *gasp* this game isn't about having "perfect" items. Should they have improved every shield with a hexed bonus? Or just the perfect ones that people spent loads of money on? Yes, your shield is no longer perfect, but it's still just as good as before. And if you're worried about it losing value, well, that could happen with anything due to increased farming or a decrease in popularity of a build.

Ouch. After spending so much I can see why you'd be frustrated. Trouble is, with games that are online (and even offline) you have to be aware this can happen. I remember back in a game I play called Sacred they released a new patch which changed the stats on a lot of the set items people had for the worse. No one was very happy

To be honest, shields, offhands and rods/wands are the only things you should probably be worrying about purchasing in the future. If they change, say, a bow, then it *may* change the +15% to something else, in which case you just have to find/buy a clean bow and get the mods again, or they might only change a mod, in which case you just find/buy the mod. Still be a pain, but at least you can probably replace those with a fraction of the cost.

Am wondering why they didn't update existing ones... maybe it would have caused some weird error where all +45 ones from now on would become +60, therefore making 45 extinct? *shrug* its the only possible reason I can see for it. That, or as the above post says, because perfect items aren't that important in this game (though pvp'ers say they are, I wouldn't know, pve only )

The shield is just as good as before.. but it wouldn't be such a bad idea to update current shields, such that a +45 would become a +60 and a +15 (the lowest possible) would stay at +15.

121 grand for THAT shield? LMAO!

i am saying that you have the same shield with the same stats/skin that you paid for.

you bought that shield *as is with no guarantee*

you did not buy a *perfect* shield you bought the best available *at that time*

what Anet has done in effect is introduce a new improved shield and they are not upgrading the old shield.

you still have the shield you paid for

Anet states things in the game will change and you have seen many items changed or removed

HOD sword/helm ring a bell?

There's a sort of irony in this. It's basically the polar opposite of removing item sources from the game.

Rather than taking out something [HoD Sword] for example, and inflating the value of an item, they've added in a better version of the same item, devaluing existing items.
A more close approximation would be the HoD Helmet, which was downgraded in function, as opposed to the upgrading the stat potential on the shields. Except it's not a good one, since the HoD helms were changed universally.

All I can say is that this doesn't really worry me. The value of the bulk of the items on the market is mostly based around looks and shows of wealth, than practicality. Some items, like the +15% damage always mods without a drawback really are better, but a lot of sales are simply gold items that can be replicated by Greens or Collector's craftables.

If you bought an item because you liked the way it looked, has it gotten any worse? No, not really. The stats didn't drop. The only thing that changes is your perception of how good it is. It's have-not syndrome. Because someone else out there can get something better, it's no longer as good.
If you bought an item because of its stats, then this is annoying because you 're no longer min-max optimized. However, it's easy to go out and grab a max collector's. [Assuming the Collector with a Crimson Carapace while hexxed shield was updated]
Hybrid buyers are hurt the most by this, which are admittedly probably a larger player base than any other, buying items for both their looks, and optimizing their performance.

In short, I disagree strongly with this statement:
Your shield was neither changed nor removed. Everything you did with it in the past, you can do just as well in the future.
I'm not saying your shield's resell value hasn't been devalued, that you won't have to go out and get a better one if you want max stats ['perfect'], or that it's a fun thing to make a purchase only to have that happen.
But again, it has not changed in function or performance.

Edit: Bah, Loviator, that's about what I wanted to say.

I am making a post to avoid cluttering up my first post. The while hexed collectors shield was not updated

Anet does not care about who it screws nor does it care about the scammers in the game. It also denies participation in scams like the reselling of accounts, even though the accounts could not be transferred back without their participation. I was screwed by this new update as well. Anet does not care.

Sucks, but items are never get updated with new stats when they are nerfed or buffed (rockmolders, etc). Nothing you can do about it.
It really just isn't possible to update that many items. With over 1 million accounts, do you really think A.Net can run through everybody's account and check for this shield and update its stats? It's just not going to happen.

Well bah, that's silly of them. I hope it was simply a temporary lack of foresight. =\

Do you play more in vE or PvP? In PvE, that sheild is exactly the same quality, regardless as to whether or not a better one exists. IN PvP, its still the same, but other people might bring a better sheild now. Either way, you suffered from being the owner of an outdated item. Bummer. Its annoying when it happens, but there is nothing you can do about it, nor does ANet owe you anything for this happening.

For a real world example, lets say they release Factions. A few months down the road, demand subsides and they release a box set including both Factions and prophecies. Then Wal Mart puts it on sale for $49.99. Does ANet owe you Factions because you paid the same amount for Prophecies as some people will for both Factions and Prophcies?

And what? Do you have any idea of what I intend to use it for? Do you actually know what it WAS worth? Please refrain from attempting to place a value on something which I value alot higher than others. I bidded on the shield and "well respected" members of the gwg community also did showing that it is infact worth what I paid for it and has a use which reflects the amount I bought it for. This is not a price check thread and I have not asked for one so please refrain from poorly price checking my shield.

Don't worry about the new shield. I'd take your's over a 20% -5 anyday.

Why use a 20% at 1 out of every 5 hits will be reduced.

We have -2 stance, enchant, and hex having long durations. So at the 5 hits the -5/20% would have triggered once while the duration -2 would have reduced 10.

Your old sheilds are still better than the new one by a long shot. Just give the market time to figure it out.

Some facts for those who don't know what's going on:
1) These shields (meaning +60 while hexed) EXIST IN PvP.
2) The old ones were +45 while hexed at maximum.
3) The collectors shield wasn't updated.

The only way to get one in PvE (at the moment I hope) is to have it drop. Post more flames and you'll just get more user notes.

The only words that come to mind are...

...well said! Kane has no right to put you down because he has a different opinion about an in-game shield.

she's talking more about the added health, then the added damage reduction. it would still be perfect if the maximum health while hexed hadn't been raised.

if you think about it though, it was a good upgrade. the health should have been that.

Sigh... I get your feelings but please explain: Why did you pay so much for that shield when you could have gotten a shield with +43 health, -2 dmg for *MUCh* less??? Do you really think it makes that much of a difference in a team game?

I think the shields probably should have been updated on a % basis. If +45 was 100% before then your shield should have scaled to the newly raised 100% of +60.

As you say, you bought the shield because it was perfect and it should still be perfect.

This is not ANet nerfing the Lt. Helm or fixing an old incorrect stat that exceeded the max limitation this is them effectively raising the upper limit. If, and yes this will NOT happen, they raised the lvl cap to 30 yet told us that characters created prior to this new change cannot raise past lvl 20 and that we needed to delete our characters and start fresh to attain lvl 30 it would be prett crappy. This is the choice you are faced with, 'start over' and get the now perfect shield or be stuck at the previous mark of perfection that has since been raised.

I understand why this change was made but as I stated i believe a shield that had a 100% mod (ie. perfect) should scale to the new 100%.

What's next, raising the sword dmg to 26 and devestating those who've sunk huge amounts of money into perfect/near perfect Crystalines?

Here's the thing... THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. ANet has never changed the max on a mod thus their are no 'outdated' weapons and items. Sure, they've released the green items but a perfect sundering flatbow is STILL as good as Drago's it's just now easier to attain an item with those perfect stats.

The reason this is a big deal is because when they changed the maximum for the mod they altered a stat which was set in stone and which people never imagined could change, let alone would change. The market bore the price that was paid for that shield because it was perfect, if ANet sees fit to tweak such intrigal parts of this game this far out what's next?

This is a change to a fundamental stat that should be unchangable, yes +60 is a better number because you are hexed far less than enchanted and the bonus should be bigger. If they want to raise the stat then raise it but update the items as I suggested in my above post on a % scale.

I see is as an unbalance item either way. They just got done with the HoD helm then they toss this shield in.

Ouch, didnt even notice that.

Reading a couple of these posts, you have to actually remember that it works both ways; remember the 20/20 Rockmolder? That didn't get nerfed down, if you're lucky to own one of those, good on you. All that happened with your shield is the opposite; a buff was added but you have to keep what you have. Bad luck on your part, but if you require a buff, all those rockmolders require a nerf.

What is so wrong about this?

It happens every day that a product is upgraded and the former premium version of the product becomes technologically outdated and loses its status.

Just think about how much you spent for your computer when you got it... and how much it is worth at this moment and how many better computers for even less money you could buy now.

Until a PVE player shows a screenshot of a gold 60/3 shield, we have no confirmation whatsoever that such a shield even exists outside of PVP. It would stand to reason that since the health modifier varies from min to max, that we should have seen some 51/3 hexed or 48/3 hexed or 55/3 hexed shields by now. To my knowledge these haven't shown up yet. There's a possibility that in PVE 45 hexed, stance, enchanted, 30 unconditional, are still the max health bonuses. Until there's tangible proof that monsters / chests drop better shields, yours IS still perfect. The only thing that was confirmed by Anet is -5/20% as a new modifier. You can only have 2 bonuses on a gold shield, so at best, your 45/3 would have become a 45/5(20%), which personally I wouldn't take over a fixed modifier, or a -3 hexed / -5(20%).

Nice shield. Yep shame its taken such a big hit.

With the general proliferation and continued rollout of greens, I've pretty much decided that it isn't worth paying very much at all for rare gold items. Change of item stats is just something else to watch out for I guess....

Even though A.Net create goldsinks, these updates now make me leave my gold quietly accumulating in storage. After all, today's valued gold item is potentially tomorrow's green or merchant fodder.

Probably the same reason some people are satisfied with an Escort and other people may want a Mustang, even though both will satisfactorily achieve the posted speed limits.

There was one in the Pc forum.
+50 health while hexed -3.
do a search

While I will never pay 50k+ for any one item... I can understand the OP's frustration here. Imagine if they suddenly put in new weapons with higher max damage. I'm sure you'd get annoyed in having to aquire those weapons all over again.

For me, I dont care about the looks of items or that it even has to be perfect but if they're going to make people aquire items all over again and waste their time, the philosophy of "skill over time" just doesnt apply anymore.

I had farmed for bleached shells a while back to get a collector's +45 while hexed shield and it wasnt fun. Now I may have to do it again? And the shield isnt even updated on the collector.

Yes, my current shield hasnt changed but I happen to PVP as well. So my shield is going to be inferior to the PVP version. And please dont tell me that I shouldnt use a PVE character to PVP. The option is there and ANET certainly does want people to play both aspects.

I was tryin to look up that shield +50/3 but the
search is disable. Hear is a picture of a +50 while hexed
-2 while enchanted
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/9798/tsaka7ub.png

Didn't intend to "put anyone down", just commenting because I only paid 30k for the same thing. Sheesh! Sometimes I forget to add a smiley or a tongue-in-cheek emote to my posts, so go easy, would you?

Yes, 30K, and looking back, mine was a skeleton shield... not a tall.

And by the way, I had one of those 20/20 Axes and I didn't bitch when it was nerfed.

tough luck, but nothing more.

I agree completely. The effectiveness of your shield has not changed at all, unless you are preoccupied with pvp? But in that case you could get a shield of that callibur for free, couldnt you. The difference is so small, why make such a fuss?

Also, Eet Gnomesmasher, the collector shield for bleached shells is actually +45 and -2 damage while in a stance.

Welcome to the world of Upgrading. so basically what you're saying is that since the updated the items a little and yours was max yours should have been upgraded?

Its the economy flow..

Say you put out into the market a Graphics card and a bunch of people pay a bunch of money for them. Well as Tech gets better you make a Better card. Do you Really expect the company to say ok! We made a new card everyone who bought an old one come on in and we'll upgrade you for free! NO! why not you ask? that business would run out of money..

so in simple terms Doesnt matter what you buy in the future things will be better so expect anything you buy to drop in price.

I'm saying that suppose you bought what was a 100% shield, and now it's lowered to a 75% shield. That's what Anet did. Guild Wars is not about just simple numbers, it's about ratios. That's the whole point of balance. You don't just make everything more and more powerful because that doesn't make it any better when everything else gets better too. In other words, it is as though they decided to make his shield not as good as it was before. Have they done this before? Yeah, to things which were 1)Clearly exploits (Dual-wrap axe) 2)Somehow entered wrongly (20/20 rockmolders) and 3)Needed a re-balance (HoD helmet) The difference? This wasn't entered wrongly or an exploit. If it was balance, then yes, the HoD helmets were ALL reduced to 20% hex duration. Not just the new ones. Are there that many people affected by this? Not really since it's an unpopular shield mod. But say they raised sword damage to 16-23. Or spell recharge chances in an attribute line to 25% because they decided it wasn't good enough. As they say in sports, "The broken ankle only hurts if it's yours."

And Zerg, things in Guild Wars are not going to get better. There isn't going to be higher level armor than we have now. Since all the chapters can play together, it's not going to happen.

Non-max items are not completely wrothless u know.....

Kinda being an a-hole but "nothing lasts forever".

Runes before trader came out were fluctuating like crazy and were about 1plat a piece. Now what are they? 100g for a major? 1-2plat for superior (sans vigor/absorption)?

Seriously, I always consider my purchases and whether they are worth it. You took a risk and now you paid for it. If you had 100plat in money in real life it is like making an investment in a small house. Ten years down the line it might be worth 10% of what it is now if the neighborhood gets worse.

Another reason why I use collector's weapons. The most I will spend on a weapon/item is 10plat.

My policy is if you didn't find it yourself don't buy it. 15>50 isn't so much better than 13>50. Neither is 60 hp compared to 45.

If they changed the max damage of swords to 19-26 I would not break a sweat. All mine were bought for <10plat.

I dont know. I have traded ingame for a perfect FDS and perfect Stormbow and if all of a sudden they changed 15>50 to lets say 20>50, I would be royally pissed off...