Curse

testbot · Oct 29, 2006, 03:39 AM // 03:39

I login today to find several changes to my Assassin armor and as noted on guildwars.com:

Updated the Assassin’s Saboteur, Infiltrator, and Vanguard armor suits to have +10 armor vs. all physical damage and an additional +10 armor vs. a specific type of physical damage. The Condition reduction bonuses were removed

In addition to these changes, I also noted several new runes available to purchase. One of such runes being 20% blind / 20% weakness reduction. After harassing the guild wars support team for several hours and getting the "post on a forum" run-around, I was provided the following answer:

Thank you for contacting Guild Wars Support. Occasionally, certain changes must be made after careful consideration of all skills as well as the skills of other professions. It appears that the developers felt that the armor that you are referring to was slightly overpowered and adjusted the stats to balance the game. We hope that this has adequately explained the issue. Please note that we are not the developers. We are only here to support the game as the developers intended. If you have any more questions, please let us know and we will be more than happy to assist you.
However inaccurate or accurate the given response was is irrelevant as the support team mentions they are not sure.

Given the information available to me, it seems like the developers wanted to create condition based runes and consequently having both an inherit 20% condition reduction + 20% rune condition reduction would be overpowered. Without much thought it seems, the developers removed the inherit condition reduction to quickly make way for its new rune based counterpart.

I pose the following question to the community and developers: "What effects does such a change have on your players?" and can only hope that others can relate or will be able to relate to my current dilemma.

Many months ago, I purchased FoW armor for my assassin and based my choices off those condition reductions. I did more pve than I had ever done and needless to say wasted countless hours investing in a product that I was more than satisfied with, a product that could be used at the competitive level, a product that I am now unsatisfied with, a product that can no longer be used at a competitive level, a product that I will have to replace. Hence, due to a fundamental change to the rune system and consequences unthought , I am expected to invest more time acquiring a new armor set.

Now that I have presented my case, I believe that it is only fair to list a few feasible solutions as I'm not the only person affected by this problem, nor will there not be others in the future.

One possible solution, much like the new pvp create armor (some method of armor swapping), would allow players to choose an equal skinned armor type. For example, if you owned Vanguard Obsidian Guise, you could now choose any other Obsidian Guise.

Another solution would be to refund the cost to players.

Please respond with your thoughts and concerns. No flames and no petty arguements please.

testbot · Oct 29, 2006, 05:06 AM // 05:06

bump -- looking for anything, even a simple "that sucks"

prodigy ming · Oct 29, 2006, 06:07 AM // 06:07

that sucks man...

but then honestly, conditions are so easy to remove anyways... should have stick with shourded or nightstalker IMO.

vojnik · Oct 29, 2006, 01:41 PM // 13:41

I'm actually in the opposite boat... I chose shrouded 15k armour because I felt it was the best at the time. Lo and behold now I get the option of +armour to pierce damage... but can't change!

My suggestion is that we should be able to remove "insignias" from any armour and replace with what we want... cause really, I spent all my money on the looks (armour + dyes)

BahamutKaiser · Oct 29, 2006, 02:57 PM // 14:57

I think the 10 armor vs physical with a 10 vs a certain type of damage was a significant improvement to armor ratio, and makes it much better against physical damage and a little better vs that one certain damage as well.

I personally think it was a good alteration since physical damage is alot more common than a particular condition, we came a step closer to defense which really needed.

My Nightstalker Armor didn't change at all, it is still 15 armor vs all wile attacking, and I intend for my next set of armor to be energy based. The difficulty I had was that the elemental damage was too damning, and partial condition reductions were not general enough to help me out in general situations.

I don't know how all the new runes work, or if certain inscriptions can stack with runes, but I think they traded off the condition reduction with a useful amount of armor.

bigwig · Oct 29, 2006, 04:49 PM // 16:49

Things get changed in this game a lot. Skills, armour, farming, whatever. I'm not saying you should be happy with it, but if you can't handle it, this is not the game for you.

testbot · Oct 29, 2006, 07:28 PM // 19:28

Base armor stats have not been subject to change that often and if you had wasted several months saving and choosing the armor that you had wanted, you would probably have a different opinion and perception of this situation.

+10 vs physical seems hardly decent to me. Players will simply use elemental switches while attacking assassins, completely nullifying this bonus. For my intended use, you can't even compare +10 vs physical to the old inherit 20% blind reduction torso.