Items (A Suggestion on rarity)

Hey all,

I greatly enjoy this game, and I definitely don't find the 20 level cap to be a problem as I've seen some people suggest.

My problem is that I'm more into the RPG/MMO aspect than the PVP. Where I see a problem is that the game is centered on the PVP. And that's fine, really it is. They wanted the game to come down to skills more than the rare item you found, and I can respect that.

But, for me, that's very unsatisfactory. I like to adventure with my friends and people I meet in towns and be able to find cool stuff that isn't the same-old same-old top end. I'm not looking for an uberweapon or anything, just some variety.

The problem is that new items can upset that delicate balance in pvp.

For that reason, I suggest items that can only be used in RPG aspect. With a tag (in game code) that they deequip before you try to use them in pvp, or something to that effect. That way, we can have some rare and new items for the people like me to find in the RPG world, and they can't upset the balance of power in pvp.

I realize that the ebay crowd would start selling them, but that's already happening with money and items anyways, so I don't see how that makes a difference.

Thoughts? Complaints?

Hmm.. yeah, I, too am missing the Diablo days where I can have my uber axe of massive slaying. Good times.

But seriously, it is a good idea.

I agree, this is a good idea. I have never been really into PvP in games such as this. I love the RPG element though, so if you can use high lvl weapons but put the tag in there so they can't be used in PvP that would be awesome. It would help flesh out the RPG element even more without making the game unbalanced.

Great Idea!

It would be cool, HOWEVER exploiters would ruin the game .... Say they find this UBER-RPG only item. THey cant use it in pvp, so they use it to farm lots of mobs until they find something rare (high dmg weapons perchance?) that can be used in pvp. Also, they would be able to amass much more gold, and gain yet another advantage in game. Just my two cents.

I don't see how this is different from now, since in theory, a person could try and farm for "powerful" items.

In the future though, lets say in 3 months, practically all the high level guild people will have the same items because that was the goal of the designers. They wanted equal access to items so that it comes down to skill. That's fine for PVP I guess.

But for the RPGers, I'm not asking for uber-rpg only items. I'm just asking for a little uniqueness in items. Uniqueness need not mean "it's much better than other weapons", it could just mean "its different from other weapons".

Yea, but right now there are (as i have seen)
White (common)
Light-Blue (semi-rare)
Purple (rare)
yellow (pretty rare)
...(others between?)
Gold (uber rare?)
...(others rarer?)

As of now i have found the colored rarities to contain some pretty unique attributes every once in a while. Yellow items are nice

the problem is that some people think that after a whole week since the game came out and they dont have something special to show for it to make themselves *special and different* from the rest of the crowd the game is lacking

maybe that is why they are called *rare* items

EDIT

and the funniest part is that the super sparkley glow sword is not shown as they go to any population area so who are they going to impress?

This is over generalizing, as I've been playing through the betas. You can already see the trends starting to happen, and I just don't want to see the anti-Diablo = everyone has everything the same, aka No uniqueness at all once the game has been out two months. There has to be some mix of unique and balanced that people can handle.

As it is, you can go to the forge now with people asking "What armor should I get" and people telling them what sucks for pvp and what is good. Regardless of what you think of the intentions of the game designers, I don't think *THAT* was it either.

Perfect idea, in my opinion. Plus, what's more, if this game is geared to PvP, there would be less people looking for a RPG specific weapon. Not that I need a +100000 item, but a stronger not equal item would be nice for those of us with no inclination to kill fellow players.

Yeah. Generally, I've seen two camps on ideas like this. One camp is the PVP focus, the ones who want balance in their pvp and don't want to see the game break down into Diablo item messes. And I totally see their point.

The other wants an rpg experience to last (like myself).

I don't see any reason that a careful plan couldn't balance to us both. I'm hoping some designer sees this idea or has a similar one.

Really, I think that the game was designed for PvP and you kind of have to grin and bear it off hand. I can understand your point, but I think anything done specifically for RPG value kind of takes away from the PvP aspect so heavily tied to the game. Alot of the end game missions are all about giving you an advantage or taking back equal footing for PvP. Giving someone an axe that is say 10-36 and only usable in PvE won't unbalance the PvP world obviously, but I think it really draws away with over-expectation and attempts to balance all of these RPG items so you can't merely harvest what you want for PvP, it does make it alot easier realistically, while what you could do is merely balance out new equipment for the game as a whole.

Then again, maybe just have an RPG rank akin to the PvP staff current for lots of fame, most people will complete quite a few quests, but if you are a person who has gone through and done almost all of em, found each little stupid side mission, and completed bonus missions for the actually Missions themselves, then you deserve a bit of a reward that everyone can see, it won't do anything for you, but, it lets people know you've run your ass off for em, and see, no imbalance. Don't care if you just offer an effect to someone, say a swordblade, axehead, hammerhead, arrow, staffhead, or wand, can blaze with fire, or have lightning going up and down, won't do a thing but, looks count.

methinks keep the same stats on items as we have already. but make a ton of new graphics.

e.g. right now we have that super cool looking fiery sword like Rurik wields. So expand on that. Sacred did it, they added new sets and things (ok so sacred IS about uber weapons but shhh) but they also added cool new graphics for regular items, and now you get people who will only use a sword that looks like such and such because it goes with their armour/char personality etc.

Make the graphics rare drops. Example you could have bows that have 'animal carvings' on each end, of the different creatures you can tame. So i may find one (after a few months) with a stalker head on it... but i have a strider as my pet. So then I go and find someone who has a strider bow and trade with them. Things like that. They'd be cool. But the bow would be no better than that longbow that the ranger over there has. It'd just look cooler And not only would it look cool, but you could say "I had to battle through such and such area to get it" so people would realise you had great skill to reach it in the first place. Perhaps only find the new-graphic items in the 'uber' quests that the hall of heroes opens up?

the whole idea of rpg only stat items will not work

what are you going to use them on in the rpg world?

you either have 1 hit kill boredom or you have to have higher level content to accomodate the higher stat weapons

the purpose of the level cap is to provide a lot of level 20 content with high quality instead of the extra work of multiple layers of different level content

New graphics are fine. Making ultra rare weapons that have the same exact stats as existing ones but look great is a good option for those who need to have the thrill of finding rare items. Objects with only cosmetic features; gigantic quests vs unstoppable odds for a chance to drop a necklace to wear. I won't bother with them, but it gives bragging rights I guess (look what I got for managing to do such and such). Special armour sets that you need to collect the pieces of and have the same stats as existing armours, but look neat/have effects (Wow! what neat armour! It's still only 60AL, but it looks cool! and you have to find all the pieces from bosses in the underworld, with <1% chance of a drop from a boss! It's D2 all over!). In addition to runes add some rune-like items that can be added to weapons and armour to make them shine/glow, trail sparks or whatever. As long as you stick to not altering the PvP you'll keep that side happy, and if you give things to hunt for you'll make the other side happy.

I don't really need any of that stuff, but it is cosmetic and rewards time spent, not skill, so it will appeal to those who want visible signs of their addiction.

True, but they have attracted many Role-players, and I do not think it was done by accident. There may have to be changes in their plans if this was an unwanted (but welcome) outcome. I will not pass judgement on the game until I have actually had a chance to play it, but words themselves indicate on this board that the game has attracted both pools of thought in nearly even amounts, and where most MMORPG-type games focus on PvP later, this has focused on PvP now. However, if all it was was about PvP, I have to seriously doubt that there would be a role-playing option at all. (also, some of us like the occasional 1-hit kill. It's a measure of how far we've come since we began. It shows us we haven't wasted our time.)

How is there an advantage in PvE if one player has a strong-as-God weapon? It's not like we fight against other groups on the actual quests. Let PvP be balanced, give PvE players something to shoot for. Use Final Fantasy single player games for an example, especially Final Fantasy 8. As the characters level up, so do the enemies they encounter. So, if you're playing a level 80 warrior using a god's war hammer of uber defense that does 800 points of damage to most enemies, give the enemies 2500 hit points at that level. it's that simple.

or leave the cap at 20 and make the monsters a real challenge for level 20

why do you have to have big numbers for it to be exciting and a challenge

more top quality content for everybody not a new tier of top content for level snobs

Why bother though? It works out the same. Instead of scaling them up they are just holding it at a level, but the difficulty can still be adjusted. I'm sure the content in expansions will get tougher. There is no reason to turn GW into every other game - if you want to play "inflation RPG" there are plenty out there, and I like GW the way it is. Or pretend there are extra zeros after everything, you're level 200! with 4800 health! Yay! And everything does 10X the damage to you, and you do 10X as well, and so on.... That's scaled up, I don't see the thrill. I played D2 for ages, I did the uberitem searching, I don't care for it...

one hit kill in guild wars: stay in pre-searing until level 7. Go find an aloe seed. Use a normal attack on it. Kill it in one

Seriously why do you need to kill the super dragon of slaying to get a good weapon? Surely killing the super dragon of slaying to get a cool looking but NORMAL weapon still works; people still see the graphics and think "wow, they killed the super drag!"

edit: don't forget, the cap is there because monthly fee games almost bully you into playing every day so you're not wasting your money, and so even a 'casual' gamer on there will quickly gain levels. The point of this being free is that if you play once a month, great! And if you play once a month, you can still enter into pvp and not have someone against you that is way higher.

I understand the points, maybe I'm just not far enough in the game to notice a difficulty increase. I do notice though that even in Old Ascalon my warrior can have serious issues against the swarms of gargoyles and devourers, because of the hexes they cast. I guess it's engineered well, but I was more thinking of the super weapons and armor that show individual accomplishments rather than the same armor and weapons everyone else has at that level. Sure, make them look different but have the same stats, that's fine. How about making the add-ons show up on the weapon you're using? Like Sword hilts: If you get a hilt of warding or whatever, give it an aura, etc.

Sigh. As I pointed out in the other thread I'm discussing this in, why is it that people assume that items have to be uber items. People keep missing the point. I'm just tired of seeing every person with the same items all over the place. I didn't ask for awesome stat items. I want to be able to find something that every single person doesn't have on some great quest so I have a story to tell about it "I rounded the corner with my friends, we engaged the enemy, and one of them had this...." I'm not asking for "UBERDEATHSLAYER 10000-10000000 pts of dmg.

There isn't one good reason why there can't be more variety or rares that make me feel I'm not cookie-cutter warrior in two months. More to the point, you didn't answer my question why this wasn't feasible or was horribly unbalancing to the PVP game balance... you just basically said "What would you do with your uber weapon?" THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M ASKING FOR AND I'M TIRED OF REPEATING IT.

just something that jumped into my mind when i read this sentence. This is a game that is geared towards playing in groups, even in PvE. Now you may wonder how a strong-as-God weapon can be viewed as bad in a group situation. Let me just explain

A guy i used to play Sacred with quite regularly was a great guy to play with. He was usually 10 levels below me but we both had fun slaughtering things together. One day he gets hold of a ring tht was given to him. It was hacked to do +10000 damage (sounds a lot but in sacred at higher levels you can legitimately do up to 1mil damage easy ) Immediately this 'lower' character was one-hit killing everything. What was the point in me grouping with him? Nothing. I just stood there, i'd target something and before i could shoot, it was dead.

This is why uber weaps are a bad idea. People will not want to party with you unless they are level 8 in a difficult place and they wish to sponge exp from you.

Please note i'm not having a go and saying that everyone wnats uber weaps in. Its just this sentance made me think of this point

If you want a rare item, try fur squares. Still haven't gotten any out of 49 expert salvages of charr hide.

My god, this is ingenious. I really think that this idea is something that could TRUELY extend the replay value of the rpg aspect of the game, cater to the non-pvp players of the game (who must feel a little bit of a hurt considering the focus on pvp), and clam up anyone complaining about the level cap by giving them something to really work for after they hit the cap while keeping it more creative, fun, and challenging than a level grind. I honestly CAN NOT see how ANYONE can oppose this. Frankly, I think this is some petition-worthy jazz lol. I truthfully CAN'T see any downsides to this idea and it should be thrown in there.

I just want cool looking stuff so I can look special. More variety in the looks of everything. Doesnt need uber stats.

/agreed. Variety in appearance would be fantastic, variety in quest rewards and drops would be excellent too. Novelty items that aren't worth a damn for anything but their RP value.. why not? That's part of the fun.

Personally, I'm sick of Protective Icons. I'm surprised the streets aren't paved with these things. Knights and peasants alike seem to have dozens ready to throw at any adventurer that will slay a couple rats. You have to wonder where they all come from.

the thing is a weapen or an item dosent have to be powerfull to be rare, if one out of one-billion drops was a "white dye" (dosent exist in the real gw world, but pretend it did) it would be rare, its not powerfull the least but its rare

I hate the idea. What makes the PvE part of the game so good to me is that the game is designed for PvP team combat. This means items and skills are balanced, which makes PvE combatr much more interesting. It also means that monsters play in teams as well, and the AI try to mimic simple PvP team strategies.

Which again implies that we PvE'ers can go into occational PvP as is, without feeling totally lost.

I want that to continue.

This does *not* mean that we can't get more variety on the item side. There already is plenty, with all the upgrade components to the various weapons, as well as intrincic modifiers. There is also plenty of variants in appearence, especially as you get further in the game (lots of people complain about the lack of variety in armor and items, even though they haven't left Ascalon yet!).

It *does* mean that new variants should continue to be balanced, just as the existing variants are.

It is very tough to add items that are stronger without upsetting skill balance in PvE. So you got that +blah sword that does more damage than current standards. Certain skills that are pretty useful now that don't factor in current weapon damage are only going to become less useful later on, because the skills that *do* factor in weapon damage are going to become flat-out better. So you say this: ok, give more items that increase maximum energy or increase attribute add-ons or have +damage on items to bring it in line. However, such items will also affect balance, as certain skills will become better or worse if one has, say, easier access to a high attribute or with a higher overall max energy pool.

Botton line: Throwing in more powerful items than what exist now will only muck up the delicate skills balance that has been tuned for years. By throwing off this balance gameplay quality isn't increased, it's decreased. This is more than enough of a reason to not include more powerful items.

However, if new items were kept in line with the current balance of items (big if here) I'd say go for it. And I definitely would not say no to more armor/weapon appearance customization options...

What? I don't see how this unbalances PvE. The environment doesn't change if I'm holding the base axe from ascalon or I have a rare axe from near the "end". The AI strategy isn't going to change based on the weapon. So how does a PVE only item drop affect PVP? It *could* have an effect on PVE in other ways, but since its instanced, I view this as less of a problem.


You'd be lost HOW with a PVE only item? It wouldn't affect PVP, other than you couldn't use that item. If you're interested in "balanced PVP" as others on the board have suggested they are, this won't bother you very much. You just won't be able to use that item, but since you can (austenisbly) make a new PVP character and be competitive, then you have nothing to worry about.

I personally feel the people who make "new" pvp characters are at somewhat of a disadvantage in PVP, but that's my opinion on it, and I certainly could be wrong at it. But suppossedly the game is balanced on items in pvp, so I fail to see how your PVP experience is phased by the idea that I (and others) have suggested.