Curse

Shriketalon · Aug 07, 2007, 02:01 AM // 02:01

Red weaponry, PvE style: Using what we already have.

Weapons NPCs- currently, they produce one type of each weapon per campaign. Let's face it, we're vain. We like shiny blades, interesting skins, and other nifty stuff. At present, weaponsmiths aren't given much attention, as anyone can get a cleaver, but that elusive legendary sword draws attention.

Festival hat makers. Bring a customized hat, and it becomes unlocked for your account. Interestingly enough, however, is the condition that anything produced is automatically customized. Everything within the transaction benefits only the account in question, nothing is worth selling to others.

How about we combine the two?

-Bring a customized, high-quality weapon to a weaponsmith and that item will be saved for your account. By paying a moderate price, a pre-customized, red texted, inscribable weapon can be crafted by any character on the account. All weaponry would require a fee, both monetary and material, depending on its level of complexity/rarity, using the same tiers as the PvP reward skins.

Basic, Fancy, and Exotic weaponry are separated by craftsmen. Any weaponsmith anywhere in Guild Wars can construct basic weaponry. Fancy weapons are available only from more obscure locations, farther within the campaign. Some of the more random outposts, such as the Granite Citadel, Seafarer's Rest/Durheim Archives, and the Lair of the Forgotten would work, as would major towns in Vabbi, Drok's forge, and the two faction capitals.

Exotic weaponry would require someone greater, an absolute master of his craft, someone who currently serves no purpose, but is accessible to anyone from any campaign.

Eternal Weaponsmith, I'm looking in your direction.

Add a few quests for this dude, who's only purpose so far is to direct people to the forgemaster. By restoring the Weaponsmith's camp/citidel/smithy/whatever, players can present and construct Exotic-tier weaponry. A bit of a challenge to make this more than a walk in the park, a bit of history, just the kinds of things PvE is about.

What it solves.

-Useless gold items are given new life. 19% damage increase when health is below 50% dwarven axes, while hexed zodiac longbows, imperfect dragon scythes, all are currently fit only for sending to the oblivion that is the merchant for a bit of coin. This system would give these weapons a purpose, allowing them to unlock the weapon of someone's dreams.

-Inscriptions for old campaigns. At present, the inscription system is a better method of weapon modification, but 2 of the 3 campaigns lack it. Collectors want their nifty stuff, other players want a chance to get their own nifty stuff without suffering terrible odds. If all red weapons constructed are customized, the market should be less effected, as perfect Tyrian and Canthan weaponry is still very valuable, but everyone without such equipment has a process of getting their own shiny stuff. Hopefully this will mediate the debate, allow greater access to the common player, and not harm the market and hard work of collectors.

-Skins that are not available through normal PvE can be acquired. Certain greens, for example, have completely unique skins. While this is lovely, it is annoying that a blade like Lord Onrah's Sword, an Istan green, has a great appearance contrasted by its utter uselessness beyond early levels. Some people just don't like sundering, but might want to use something like Kanaxai's axe. This would alleviate the problem in a simple manner. Moreover, if the PvP reward points can unlock green skins, why can't PvE players do the same?

-Finding a weapon skin is all you need to enjoy that skin on your account. Let's say you find a platinum wand. Shiny, awesome, requires 13 Spawning Power, and you don't play a rit, you're a monk. Under the current system, it sucks to be you. With this, your amazing find can be put to use. Customize, hand it over to the Eternal guy, and your monk can reap the benefits otherwise useless to him.

-We've got several systems in place that can be molded together. If the festival hat situation has already been programmed, this system should be far simpler than a completely new modification to the game engine. Hopefully, this will make it easy to implement, and therefore more attractive.

Safeguards it includes.

-To make red weaponry, players must take a gold item out of the market. By ensuring that the player must customize the item, it prevents a huge group from unlocking powerful weaponry by tossing a single lucky find around. This also means the red weapon is only for you, as it has no worth to anyone else. Hopefully, this should protect the current market.

-Not just anything will do. Weapons presented to any given weapon smith must be of a certain quality, in other words gold or green. This should prevent a horde of white weapons from flooding the market.

-You have to have acquired a legitimate rare weapon before you can present it. If you have a red Willcrusher staff, it means you either beat up Korvald Willcrusher, or bought from someone who did. The achievement is still there. Red weaponry won't be a cheap shot towards a skin, it will actually mean you acquired one. And you won't have to shift to a perfectly modded yet boring weapon when combat starts, simply because probability dictated your amazing weapon skin received a terrible modifier.

Feedback would be greatly appreciated. For example, is the gold/green condition enough of a limitation? Is the concept of giving worthless (imperfect) gold stuff a place in the market a worthy cause?

Thoughts?

SRckt98 · Aug 07, 2007, 03:26 AM // 03:26

I think you may be onto a good idea, my only question is if there are any skins out there (dunno if they even exist) that may not have a gold or green (like some early weapon, or a pre-ascalon weapon), but other than that, I think there is some real credibility to this idea.

Phoenix Tears · Aug 07, 2007, 10:29 AM // 10:29

this stuff here sounds to me, like extracting a skin from a weapon, to be able to give the skn to an other weapon ...

in this order ...signet ... but,

only gold/green weapons usable for this extraction > unsigned.
Every weapon regardless how rare should be used and regardless how rare it is, it should cost then ever the same to extract the skin from a weapon.
But extracting the skin from a weapon means ever, the weapon that was used for extraction, will be gone (destroyed) and so taken out of the game.

when we do this with weapons, we can make skin extraction direct too with shields, fokus items and armors

Shriketalon · Aug 08, 2007, 09:15 PM // 21:15

The main reason to avoid allowing white/blue weaponry to unlock skins is the ease of acquiring certain rare weapons in a lesser form.

For example, the Prized Moa Bird quest in presearing yields a longsword with the crystalline sword skin. If this could be used to unlock an incredibly rare weapon, the crystalline blade would become worthless. Chaos axes, as another example, are everywhere in Fissure, but finding a decent one is difficult.

There are a few weapon skins that have no gold versions, yes. The nightfall steel daggers, for example, have blue, purple, and gold versions, all with a different appearance. A bit of scripting wuxia would be required here, perhaps allowing the gold to unlock the other two.

gameshoes3003 · Aug 09, 2007, 03:24 AM // 03:24

Been suggested before.
Can't find it, but there's a giant thread with more than 50% signs.