Curse

Ctb · May 01, 2006, 07:43 PM // 19:43

The obsessive-compulsive farmers of the forum will now descend upon me and claw out my eyes....

As it stands now, if you want certain high-end items, you have basically three choices:

1. You can go earn it (see #3).
2. You can buy some gold somewhere and buy it.
3. You can go farm gold and buy it.

The increase in in-game drops should help some things. For example, if a lot of popular weapon upgrades drop regularly, then the prices will go down. This will lessen the demand for ebay gold because people now need to weigh spending real money against taking a few extra minutes to earn the significantly lesser amount themself. QED.

But it's not fair that low levelers should be able to easily access high end items that are now much cheaper. So, my question - why doesn't Anet just auto-customize certain high end items to the person that it drops for?

I mean, right now certain skins for items are absolutely ridiciulous, and if you want one you're either basically forced to grind for it or to go do illicit things to get the money to buy the skin. But why be able to sell certain very rare skins anyway? Doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose to be carrying a status symbol that any yahoo in Ascalon City can buy? I know it doesn't make ME feel good to have earned my kewl new blade when I wind up Pugging with some goon with the same thing who keeps echoing mending.

I would like to see such a feature. That way, high end items only drop in certain difficult areas at lower rates than other items. People can get items they need to advance in PvP and PvE, and if they excel at their play, they can get rare vanity drops to symbolize their success.

Flame away.

Hunter Sharparrow · May 01, 2006, 08:03 PM // 20:03

So to sum it all up, what your saying is that rare (as in high end, rare skinned) weapons should drop customized to truely show ones accomplishments. I agree with that but there is a flaw in it. The flaw is that it would show ones luck rather than skill or accomplishment. I think an improvement may be that the rare weapon drops should only have near max mods and bonuses at best but the skins would still depend on the enemy that drops it. If you want to obtain rare weapons with max mods and bonuses then you should have to earn them through questing. The skin depends on the quest. These would be customized upon receiving them.

However similar this may sound, it would be different then the suggestion for a super difficult quest that gives access to a weapon smith that can craft you a weapon with the mods, bonus and skin of your choosing (depending on craft materials) with a name you get to type in. A weapon that would be customized, unsalvagable and can only be sold to a merchant for like 300g or trashed.

Love the smell of flame fest in the afternoon.

Ctb · May 01, 2006, 08:14 PM // 20:14

I could agree with that extension of the idea. The point is that there should be hard-to-obtain items that aren't statistically better than other items, but are different and show that you mastered a certain area (green items would fit this idea perfectly). Since they show that YOU mastered the area, they should be customized to you.

Who cares if you carry a Chaos Axe, after all? All that means to me is that you either farm too much or you're buying gold on eBay. As it is now, you can't tell between the people who earned vanity items and those who are just buying them from farmers.

Hunter Sharparrow · May 01, 2006, 08:26 PM // 20:26

I agree.
/signed

Wolydarg · May 01, 2006, 09:13 PM // 21:13

What if you were killing some monsters on your warrior and then a very nice staff dropped that you know your other character could use. But then, it's already customized for your warrior!

And having pre-customized weapons kinda makes the game a bit odd. Why would a monster carry around a weapon that it couldn't use?

Hunter Sharparrow · May 01, 2006, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Well if the maxed rare skinned weapons came from quests then the quests could give two weapons. One for your primary and one for your secondary. You would never get a maxed weapon customized to a character that can't use it.

I still think the Master Weapon Smith idea that has been brought up is the best choice. A smith available only after completing a quest that is only obtainable when you have passed certain mile stones in the game like getting ascended, being infused and completing all the missions. Maybe even complete a certain percent of the quests as well. A reward available to those that play the game and not to those that just farm or take shortcuts.

Dougal Kronik · May 01, 2006, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Wolydarg sums it up nicely.

/Not signed.

Witchblade · May 01, 2006, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Wolydarg Wins

u want customized crap? drop gold items and pay 10 gold at the weapons shop
then u will have an untradable item...

dont kill the trade.. it's an important game component for lotsa ppl

Ctb · May 01, 2006, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Quote:

What if you were killing some monsters on your warrior and then a very nice staff dropped that you know your other character could use. But then, it's already customized for your warrior!

A good solution to that would that you can only take high-end loot off bosses of the relevant class. Besides, the point is that you're being rewarded for excellence, and giving you irrelevant rewards like useless weapon drops would defeat that purpose entirely.

Quote:

And having pre-customized weapons kinda makes the game a bit odd. Why would a monster carry around a weapon that it couldn't use?

They do that anyway. What difference does it make if an Elementalist drops a 12 Tactics shield or a customized staff? Either way, from the monster's perspective all the item is a little gold.

As a combination of the various solutions: provide another set of points you can earn for completing high-end quests that can be traded in at the master crafter for special customizations. I like that idea a lot.

Quote:

dont kill the trade.. it's an important game component for lotsa ppl

Yea, gold-farming sweatshops. :\

M C H A M M E R · May 02, 2006, 12:15 AM // 00:15

z0MFG...Chaos axes are the new wammo weapon

Zui · May 02, 2006, 12:42 AM // 00:42

/unsigned

IMO even if you farmed the gold and bought somthing, you did still earn it. EBAY doesn't count as earning anything, but hey people want to ebay, let em ebay. Before they impliment anythnig of the kind they should fix "random" drops, like when you goto FoW clear the place 5 golds(non-chest) and 20+ shards drop, all are assigned to one person.

Before you go off wanting high end items for skill only, please take into account there's no way yet of determining individual/team PvE skill, only team PvP skill, where's there's only tangible 'PvE applicable' rewards for winning in the Hall of Heroes, or winning/placing in the GWWC.

Oh, and FYI it's possible to make 15k/hour easy without farming or getting lucky drops, buying low and selling high, or scamming people.