Finally, something to cheer about!
Posted by: Snafzg
On: May 11, 2009 at 10:49am
Courtesy of Massively's Land of the Dead overview from Baltimore Games Day.
Holy jumpin! Let me know if I'm reading this properly of not. Kill a boss X times and you will actually get the PIECE OF WARD ARMOUR? Or is it just the sigil?
If its the former, let me shout out a huge hallelujah! If it's the latter, I think I'm going to have a brain aneurysm out of frustration.
Wards will now be pieced together to form character-centric sigils, which are placed inside of the Tome of Knowledge instead of on the armor itself. These sigils are always active, no matter what armor you're wearing, eliminating the need to carry the right wards on the right parts. Prior players who are loaded with ward gear, do not fret! Your wards will combine together to form sigils right off of the bat, so you won't be outdated when the new system hits. Even if you don't have the right wards to get a sigil, you can now unlock "pieces" of the ward by completing achievement objectives, like defeating a boss that would give you that piece of ward armor X times. So even if it never drops for you, you'll still get it eventually.
Holy jumpin! Let me know if I'm reading this properly of not. Kill a boss X times and you will actually get the PIECE OF WARD ARMOUR? Or is it just the sigil?
If its the former, let me shout out a huge hallelujah! If it's the latter, I think I'm going to have a brain aneurysm out of frustration.
Ergo you can wear your RvR inf items in Sigmar's/Warpblades (and whatever you destro guys call yours) runs, and LV runs, since the "sigil" is character based not armor based.
So even if you only get the "sigil" from killing a boss X number of times, I don't see the problem with that.
The wards were put in place to allow gear progression without overpowering chars in PvP anyway, so the gear isn't a significant advantage anyway. The only reason I want my sentinel stuff now is just for the wards.
At least this way I won't be held back from content because of my inability to get a piece of gear to drop.
Obviously, making it so that you don't need to wear a particular piece of gear to gain its ward once you've already unlocked its sigil is an awesome change, but getting an actual piece of gear to complete your set bonuses is just as difficult as it was before.
I'd rather have the 10% HP boost that one more piece of Sentinel will give me rather than its ward since I have no interest in encounters where wards are required. :(
Get a Conq drop... you get sigil.
Kill a boss X amount of times, get a sigil.
Do some RvR task, get a sigil.
Etc.
Now your character can do LV wearing all Annihilator if you want.
I have no problem with the set bonuses, there should be some benefit to wearing a full set.
Of course, in LotD... you'll be able to build your own weapons/armor with vessel's :)
This should make it so a LOT more people can see a lot more content.
And just to reiterate, I think the ward/sigil thing is great if that's your thing. I was just hoping this announcement would also usher in a better loot mechanic.
It would still be a little random in the way of "this boss can drop tokens for rings, chests, boots, or whatever" so you could get screwed in him dropping boots instead of the chest you need. But in the end, it would be far less time than waiting for him to drop a choppa chest when the only person that needs a chest in the raid is a zealot.
Secondly, since wards are something that will now be reliably attainable, the chances to actually get a specific set piece are greatly increased. More wards = easier runs = more characters capable of runs = less frustration.
I'm torn about it being purely tokens, because I agree with some of the comments above that there needs to be some work to get the best gear, but when we're talking about really high level instances some sort of way to choose which piece you get would be helpful.
I managed over a dozen Bastion Stair runs, complete clears, and I never won a single lesser warded piece of gear.
In the new system, I would have been fully warded and able to assist my guild runs at a much earlier stage, which may have saved my subscription (not likely, but it would of lead to less frustration).
Prices are still a bit steep, but at least there's a way.
These changes are great but really should have been in the game a lot sooner.
Good. I know people in our guild had to run LV 30 times to get the piece they were after. He deserves it. Let it be that hard IMO. Meanwhile, RvR gear is also rare. But the point is its rare for everyone.
All this change does is let everyone that puts the effort in have a fair shot at city sieges, instead of the lucky few.
I don't know what to think about this issue, on one hand I really hate not getting things that I think I deserves because of RNG, on the other hand knowing you will get X in Y time sound a bit boring.
I guess one way to do it would be making the piece repairable, but to repair it you need a number of "materials", which you get if you don't get any pieces. Allow people to trade the broken equipment, but not the material, so in the end you have to run a number of times, but you still need a bit of luck to get it drop/get it from another player.
As it stands now, you get a Warlord piece and the ward counts for all lower dungeons too.
So now with this system in place you get a Warlord piece and get ie a Warlord sigil for the next step of PvE above you.
Does that mean I get all lower sigils too or am I still getting my ass kicked in lower dungeons because I didn't get the proper sigil for ie the city dungeons? And what if I get Warlord gloves and LV gloves, do those sigils add together as 2 for the next step above LV or not? Questions after questions. My fear is that Mythic has enough imagination to create another teeth breaking grind out of this... .
I thought you are limited to the furthest progression of the player who has gone the least into an instance? Otherwise you can reach the final boss and bring someone into the group who has never been in the instance.
Higher level wards count as lower level wards. LV Dark Promise gear will provide Sentinel wards in the city level 40 dungeons (Blood/Bile for Destro)
Although I have doubts about this process. What if I have a low-RR character who obtained a number of high-level armor (eg. invader) but don't have it? Do they only give you sigils when you wear it, or when you have it in your procession? The devs are not very clear on this matter, even though I suspect it is the former case.
These news combined are awesome!