Make Ectoplasm and Obsidian Shards more available

BigTru, What part of "extraordinarily rare" don't you understand?

Do you people read? I'M NOT ASKING FOR A DOUBLED DROP RATE! Making it a bit more reasonable to get and a higher drop rate does not mean everyone will have it. If the cost of all the Obsidian Shards and Ectoplasm added up to say 100-400k a piece, it would still be quite rare.

They've oncreased the drop rates of Obsidian Shards before. I didn't see anyone complaining then, why should Ectoes be any differant?

100-400k? No, it would be fairly common at those prices. At 400k for all materials it would be 1/4th of the current average price. To get it down to that price they would have to more then double the drop rates.

Now if you meant 400k for all the ctos AND another 400k for all the obsidian, thats still close to half the current average price. And actuallly 120 obsidian (120 for full warrior, less for others) will run you 360k at current prices.

So, once again, your just complaining about not being able to get what you want, and only WANT, because you do not need it in any way to be competitive in PvE or PvP.

Huh? Where do you get that figure?

It takes 45 Ectoe Plasms and Obsidian Shards for the body piece of every Fissure armor.

Current price of Ectoe - 10k x 45 = 450k
Current Price of Obsidian - 3k x 45 = 135k

450k + 135k = 585k

400k is not 1/4th of 585k.

You're talking about one piece, BigTru, he's talking about the whole thing.

I'm in agreement with this. but of course they should ONLY ever drop in the underworld or fissure of Woe. Or available from a ghostly trader in those place (thinking the Ghosts Village in the Underworld would make a good place for a Spirit Trader, so you go to the underworld to buy materials, and its not easy to get too, AND you go to Fissure to Craft the Armor). This would make more sense to me. Finding those in the overworld seems a little silly. but whatever blows your skirt up.

If fissure armor set is considered extraordinarily rare and as one of a few "endgame" items, then nobody has the right to cry about not being able to afford it. Because once you have it, then the game is done, and for some, the cry about "lack of contents" starts.

Ah, but they do want people to have it and there are people who do have it. They just don't want everyone or even a majority of people to have it. It obviously is accessible. From a designer's perspective, I'd say they would want to make the rarity such that it is obviously quite an accomplishment for a person to get it and such that a only a minority of the playing population will have them. It is accessible, but NOT by everyone. It is there for certain segments of the playing population to strive for. After only 3-4 months of game release, there is already a leading edge of the playing population that has already put it the requisite time to acquire it. With more time, more will acquire it. However, and this is a cold hard truth, it is probably designed so that for a majority of the playing population, they will not attain it. It would defeat the purpose of having 15K armors and obsidian armors if the intention is make everything equally accessible. From the perspective of achieving the intended purpose, I'd say the rarity design looks good so far.

Unlike other games where rare items gives greater power, here rare item give no benefit in power. They've addressed the "need" issue in that you don't need to get this to be on an even playing field. The perceived need to grind is one that you've put on yourself because of your own desire for vanity, not game play. It's your choice to make. Strive for it or don't strive for it. You know what it takes to distinquish yourself. You decide whether you want to strive for it. Either decision you make, your character will be at no functional disadvantage. Heck, the designers were even nice enough to have multiple levels of distinction so it isn't all or nothing. At the very basic level, you can get the same functionality with collector's armor with very little effort. Practically 100% of the playing population can get that. You can spend some effort and distinquish yourself with ascended armor. Vast majority of the population will be able to accomplish this. You can spend even more effort and get the 15K armor at higher level of distinction. Currently a minority of people have that. Or you can be a fanatic and strive for the obsidian armor. Only a small slice of the population will be able to accomplish this.

The calculation you post does not show that it is not achievable. Obviously peple can and have achieve it. There will be more people that will achieve it, albeit at different rates. It is more that at the current design level, the cutoff is such that it it will require more than you believe to be willing/capable of putting into the game for it, which leads to your opinion that it is an "unreasonable" requirement. That is an opinion, not a fact that shows the design to be broken. There are, of course, those that believe the requirement is reasonable. Having an unachievable goal is a design flaw. Having a very difficult goal that some deem "unreasonable" their opinion, is nothing that needs to be fixed.

Current figure on full FoW armor is around 1.7 mil, correct? Current TOTAL gold held on an account is 1.4mil, correct? FoW armor should be stabalized by the Devs to a specific price, but they won't do this anytime soon. While everyone is complaining, rich ebayers are buying. Prices will drop, people will get their armor, and they'll only have to wait a little longer.

Just farm UW since it's the easiest way to gain skill points and gold. I avg. 2 ecto per run, and nearly 3k in gold on exit. No point wasting gold on it now when it'll halve in price later.

[Fissure armor is optional, and doesn't really give you an advantage in stats over someone else with Droknar's Forge armor.

That said, if you dont like the grinding, then why bother get Fissure armor, it's only optional after all, so it makes this particular type of grinding purely optional too.]

Amen to those statements you said it soooooo well, fissur armor is "optional" it's not a requirement thus there is only a grind if YOU want to grind, A-Net isn't forcing you to grind, you are taking up the OPTION they give you to grind.

Some fissure armor used to be special and have +5 extra armor to them. Warrior and Monk. but I think it was nerfed cause they wanted to keep PvE and PvP builds balanced. But because Fissure is SOO rare, and PvE needs more encouragement to come to PvP normally. it may be a good enough incentive for them to quest for Fissure Armor builds if they put the +5 extra AC back on fissure builds.

Thinking of Disabled Dragon and Silk armor builds. 85 AC and 65 AC retrospectively for the Warrior and Monk classes. I'm not sure if the other classes had a Disabled Armor build that had the +5 to them or not. But they may have. I know there are like 5 armor builds that are disabled, some because the graphics for them were not complete at release, and others for balance issues I believe.

The easiest way to afford Fissure Armor is to be successful at PvP and farm Sigils.

At least, it used to be. I guess people pay for it with UW soloing now.

Peace,
-CxE

please Anet, make a default skin, with no face, no hair and wearing only their underwear (with real normal armor stats)

I think maybe GWs reasoning behind this is because its a bonus to the game made available by gaining favor with the gods if it was made easier then what else would be gained by having favor
maybe if the cost of FOW armor was dropped then what be a good idea for the ones with favor to do or to gain by it to hold interest in the game?

Maybe unlocking skills can only be done when we have favor?
Maybe new areas open when we have favor? once done tho what else

Or maybe making it so shards and ecto can not be traded can only be sold to merchants instead of needing more gold to buy them buy them at a lower price matching demand for them so you wont need to grind farm for gold as much either


No no plse Anet dont make us run around in our underwear!

It seems to me that if GW is supposed to be a 'skill' based game as opposed to a 'grind' based game, that the requirement for 'elite' FoW armor is all wrong. It should be available to those who complete a very difficult quest, say, or win X victories in HoH. The present system seems ridiculous. If I seem someone wearing FoW armor I usually only conclude that either they got it early, when drops were better, or they have a LOT of time to farm/grind.

ok, when you get fissure armor handed over on a silver platter, what can you grind for, if you feel the perverted need to do so?

Grawl Necklaces? Griffon Wings? Trull tusks?

I don't get what you're trying to achieve with this. Increased drop rate, but not by double? Would that really make any difference? It seems to me that you are bitching about not finding any ectos and/or shards. Get out of the UW/FoW for a while, do something else, and then come back and see what drops for you. Anet has anti-botting procedures in place that tracks how long and how frequently you visit certain areas. Switch up your farming spots and you'll be fine. Farm gold a few days of the week, then go back to UW/FoW to farm for globs and shards.

Now quit bitching and go back to grinding for your cool looking armor.

Drops are fine the way they are. The armor shouldn't be any easier to get.

Again, what does spending 120 hours farming for 1 piece of armor have to do with it being "hard" or "easy"? Farming is not difficult. It takes no skill. This is supposed to be a game based on skill, not hours spent - remember?

on a side note : the "based on skill" argument is intended for pvp, not pve

Farming is not difficult? I can't do it. Not that I can't actually kill tons of mobs and grab the loot. I just can't physically sit there and do the same thing over and over and over again.

A few nights ago I, along with a group of 7, cleared the entire UW, and only 2 ectos droppped. If that isn't scarce, I don't know what is. I thought the UW was suppposed to be an area of challenge where one is rewarded for their efforts. From what I've seen, the UW is challenging, yes, but not rewarding.

My suggestion is make the monsters more difficult, but up the drop rate. Hell, add in enchantment strippers to prevent soloing so as long as the drop rate increases.

the underworld only ever has at max 4 ectos drop in 1 run. usually there is 2 ... sometimes there is none. With 7 others or soloing it doesnt matter ... thats there reward ... imo I want more too but i dont think it will happen.