Guild Wars 2

Seriously. Where in the hell is the statement or warning or whatever that says you can’t equip two identical items that are ascended? Was I seriously suppose to infer from the keyword "Unique" that I could only equip one? How was I suppose to know that keyword was fundamentally different from other keyword rarities. It’s not like rares or exotics have a limit on the number that can be equipped (aside from the number of available equipment slots).

Or was I expected to check the wiki before ever equipping any items to make sure I wasn’t making a blunder?

Because of the oh-so-brilliant soulbinding system I now have an ascended ring with a mighty infusion that is souldbound to a character that already has the ring and the second one is absolutely useless save the 4 silver and 95 copper for which I can vend it.

That is ridiculous.

Because there was no in-game warning whatsoever I just wasted forty days of my life and I have nothing at all to show for it. That is completely insane!

If you want to have a soulbound system, then fine. I don’t like it but whatever. That’s one thing.

But how can you justify having absolutely NO IN-GAME WARNING for stuff like this?

so you didn’t even have a suspect that there would be a reason for having multiple items with the same stats in an equipment slots that doesn’t show any skins?

The different flavors have different infusion types (offensive, defensive, utility). It’s perfectly reasonable to assume this is the only reason for the different flavors, even though this is not the case.

yeah i’m sorry you actually have a point, the only reason i said that is because i noticed at first only the stats, than it occured to me there was a different infusion slot (never payed attention to infusion until i had to, getting higher in fractals)

You should contact support. They have compensated several other players, who had this same thing happen.
Just explain it to them and maybe you will be lucky. :-)

For example:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-warning-about-ascended-rings/page/4#post1834804
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Can-not-use-the-same-Ascended-item-twice/first#post1889375

What else does unique mean? If you don’t know you ask before using.

emikochan.8504:

What else does unique mean? If you don’t know you ask before using.

We’ve been over this in several threads if you’re going to take the literal meaning of unique it means only 1 exists in the entire game world, when in reality a player can have 1 of the same item on every alt.

And yes some other mmos also have ‘unique’ items but one would have to have played those mmos to know what it means.

Its not unreasonable to have a warning or a more detailed description in the items.

There is a post like this every other day. Thankfully, I research and discuss with others before I make a mistake. Infuse it and wear both or else give it to an alt.

Chopps.5047:

There is a post like this every other day. Thankfully, I research and discuss with others before I make a mistake. Infuse it and wear both or else give it to an alt.

Doesn’t really matter. I haven’t made this mistake myself, but honestly you can’t blame others for making it when the game never mentions it. There should be a popup warning when buying them.

Doggie.3184:

Chopps.5047:

There is a post like this every other day. Thankfully, I research and discuss with others before I make a mistake. Infuse it and wear both or else give it to an alt.

Doesn’t really matter. I haven’t made this mistake myself, but honestly you can’t blame others for making it when the game never mentions it. There should be a popup warning when buying them.

Weird, I never said there shouldn’t be a warning. Why did you think that I was blaming anyone?

David Omega.5207:

Because there was no in-game warning whatsoever I just wasted forty days of my life and I have nothing at all to show for it.

While I am sorry you got burned, this sentence suggests that either your anger has gotten the better of you, or you take a game way too seriously.

You wasted forty days and didn’t even notice that for some reason there were 3 rings with different names, but that had exactly the same stats? That didn’t make you wonder, just a smidge?

Then, you went to all the trouble of buying an item, and didn’t think to equip it before putting your super special infusion into it? That’s like not making sure your keys work before locking yourself in a room; common sense should at least make an appearance.

Anet, or the game, didn’t burn you. You failed to do any kind of due diligence.
Maybe I’m just crazy, but if I’m gonna put 40 days worth of effort into anything, I’m kitten well going to look into it.

I am not going to argue whether it is the OP’s fault or not for not noticing what Unique does until it is too late.

What i am going to argue, for those who do ask questions such as “Why?”

What purpose does the Unique mechanic serve and why does it exist other than to cause this kind of annoying situation above?

I have asked the exact same question in 2 previous threads
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-the-word-unique-means/first#post1976689
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-Accessories-There-can-be-only-one/first

But I have yet to get a reasonable answer(or an answer that makes sense for that matter) from a Dev or from anyone else. So i am going to ask the question 1 more time, hoping to get an answer this time.

I simply dont understand why this mechanic is in place in the first place. Does it have a purpose? Does it seem Extremely Weird to you that someone is wearing two earrings that are exactly alike one on each ear?
Bad Mechanic = Unhappy Players

Example of bad mechanic:
Fractal Rings were “FotM10 + RNG + daily + untradable+ unique” before they introduced Pristine Fractal Relics, meaning you had half the chance of a chance at getting the correct ring) with 22 different types of rings.

who designed this and why?
When you design an item,
You should either do
1. Obtain a certain amount of tokens to get it
2. Randomly dropped from monsters
3. Account Bound
4. Put a time limitation on obtaining parts of the item
BUT NOT ALL 4 AT THE SAME TIME.

If an item is Randomly Dropped, then it should be Tradable to compensate for Luck.
If an item is Not Tradable then there should be a hard but sure way to get it, whether it be acquiring tokens or time limitation.
If an item has a Time Limitation on it(such as once per day), it should not have a random possibility of it dropping on it.

Compare with scenario below
“Try your Luck everyday to win a ticket to a random country.”
After 30 days, i got a ticket to England, my cousin got a ticket to France. I wanted to go to France and him to England. No Trading allowed. Neither of us go. I am unhappy, and so is my cousin.
How to fix? Allow trade. (RNG + Tradable = Possibility)

Didn’t you know? You’re expected to thoroughly read the entire online wiki before playing the game or else you’ll miss out on a ton of important information because the developers couldn’t be kitten to put it in the game. This is a fact.

I wonder why they haven’t still put a full-screen alert with flashing lights and a detailed description in a very large font. This issue appears, like, everyday in the forums.

Manuhell.2759:

I wonder why they haven’t still put a full-screen alert with flashing lights and a detailed description in a very large font. This issue appears, like, everyday in the forums.

I wonder why Unique is still in the game… I believe that would be a better fix than flashing lights.

Add there dumb protection and someone even more dumber will come.

MysticSquirrel.7180:

You wasted forty days and didn’t even notice that for some reason there were 3 rings with different names, but that had exactly the same stats? That didn’t make you wonder, just a smidge?

You know, he might have noticed that these variants do not, in fact, have the same stats.
Difference between offensive/defensive/utility slots might seem a reason enough to make a different item.

Honestly, both slot variants and Unique restriction were a dumb idea in the first place.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Manuhell.2759:

I wonder why they haven’t still put a full-screen alert with flashing lights and a detailed description in a very large font. This issue appears, like, everyday in the forums.

I wonder why Unique is still in the game… I believe that would be a better fix than flashing lights.

It would ruin my lore-immersion if I could have 2 of The Shiniest Shinies. Which one is the shiniest??! They can’t both be the shiniest.

Unique should be enough. I am totally okay with it that the game forces players to read.

Unique is dumb and vague.

Like Justin said, unless you’ve read about what it means on an online wiki or something – or worse, figured it out like the OP did – you probably aren’t going to know. For all the average player discerns, it could just be more flavor text. I’d expect this sort of status from a legendary weapon before I’d expect it from some random ring. Amulets and back pieces read “Unique” as well, and you can’t equip two of either of those, so if a player saw that first, it probably wouldn’t even occur to them. Offensive and defensive infusion slots don’t even make for a compelling argument when discovering this limiting mechanic, because to most they may well be as much a personal preference as the stat set itself.

Personally I don’t like the mechanic. It feels like something that is in place for the sole purpose of making you grind out yet another item (thereby extending playtime) if you should be so unfortunate enough to find a duplicate by chance. Have I run into problems with this particular issue? No. I figured out what the Unique status meant when talking to someone about the Ancient Karka Shell item. But it sucks to see my guildies or some poor player on a forum waste a lot of time because of it.

easy for database programmers – keyword ‘unique’ is self explanatory

Apparently it’s not very well so, in that you can actually acquire and see plainly two of the exact same item in your inventory, but can only equip one. I should think that a truly “Unique” item would be one of a kind, wouldn’t it? o_O

On that note, I’m so glad that some random ascended ring I found in a box is more unique than my legendary weapons, haha.

Saulius.8430:

easy for database programmers – keyword ‘unique’ is self explanatory

If you defined something as UNIQUE and you have two of them, you messed up son.

Leablo.2651:

Saulius.8430:

easy for database programmers – keyword ‘unique’ is self explanatory

If you defined something as UNIQUE and you have two of them, you messed up son.

add new UNIQUE field to (ring/accessory) equipped slot structure/table. when equipping – fill it with items id – if item has attribute marking it unique. otherwise leave that field null

and this is just one of possible implementations for – conditional unique constraint

sir, have my like for your attempt

I agree… Its hard to know “Unique” means that you can only have one of it equipped at the same time. It is kind of missleading

David Omega.5207:

Seriously. Where in the hell is the statement or warning or whatever that says you can’t equip two identical items that are ascended? Was I seriously suppose to infer from the keyword “Unique” that I could only equip one?

Saulius.8430:

easy for database programmers – keyword ‘unique’ is self explanatory

I think a good middle ground would be keeping the word unique but making it so that the item is unable to be bought if one is already in the player’s inventory or equipped. That way the devs have little work, and the player won’t make a mistake.

As far as drops go it can be changed or not and not make a big difference. You don’t really lose anything if an item you have drops. It’s all RNG after all, not like you spent anything to get it.

there’s alot that is taken for granted that players just simply know suddenly after every patch I totally agree. I spent hours the other night looking for new cosmetic items on google and guildhead trying to find out if they added new non-shop items to the cosmetic gear and couldn’t find anything so I had to post a forum post just to get that information from other players.

If they had a better guide for things that have been added since launch, with links like ranger pets, cosmetic items, minis, content starter locations, requirements for dungeons and new dungeon gear, etc they’d have an easier time getting people more informed it couldn’t hurt, it can only improve gameplay because people could easily see whats needed or where to start.

There were things about the last previous living story I didn’t know to do because I had no central location from which to find this info on the web.

Even Blizz has done this you can go to their webpage to this day and look this kind of stuff up for free (and not even as a player of their game) but one can see the additions they made and how to get them or what to do.

Never understood that about Anet they aren’t very good at keep in touch centrally with the public about anything. We had to complain to get patch notes, complain to get info in the main forums instead of reddit, complain to get someone to talk to us on the forums about major in game issues. Why.

Navi.7142:

You should contact support. They have compensated several other players, who had this same thing happen.
Just explain it to them and maybe you will be lucky. :-)

What exactly do you mean by “contact support”? Looking at the two threads you linked it looks like all they did was post about the problem in the same forum that I did. Is there something I missed?

emikochan.8504:

What else does unique mean? If you don’t know you ask before using.

Unique means, literally, “existing as the only one or as the sole example” — in essence: one of a kind. The fact that I bought one ring and then was able to buy another and have two identical “unique” items in my inventory at the same time tended me towards the conclusion that GW2 was not using the word literally. In plenty of other MMOs, it just means a lower drop rate than “rare” (Diablo II comes to mind). I thought that is what GW2 meant. I thought it was just more scarce than “rare” and “exotic”. It’s not like “exotic” means that the item came from a foreign land. It’s not as though “masterwork” really means that it was created by a master. There are also plenty of MMOs where unique means that you can’t equip more than one of an item per character and those MMOs actually explain that in the item screen (City of Heroes comes to mind; I miss that game so much).

IndigoSundown.5419:

While I am sorry you got burned, this sentence suggests that either your anger has gotten the better of you, or you take a game way too seriously.

A little of column A, a little of column B…. I’m a very angry man and I’m too invested in this game. You are right on both charges.

As I wrote in the second posted link:

Navi.7142:

Try it with “gameplay” or “refunds” (yeah, I know that is more for the game itself..). It seems there is no other appropriate section to choose from yet.
I think it doesn’t matter as long as you explain what happened and provide them with details. (https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/ask/)

Good luck!
:-)

It seemed that he/ she contacted as I suggested it above and he/ she was refunded with another ring.

Navi.7142:

As I wrote in the second posted link:

Navi.7142:

Try it with “gameplay” or “refunds” (yeah, I know that is more for the game itself..). It seems there is no other appropriate section to choose from yet.
I think it doesn’t matter as long as you explain what happened and provide them with details. (https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/ask/)

Good luck!
:-)

Thanks, Navi, really appreciate it. I’ll give it a shot; and I will even be less drunk and irritable when I do.

It seemed that he/ she contacted as I suggested it above and he/ she was refunded with another ring.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

stuff

I think that the whole "Ascended was planned before launch was a smokescreen. What I think actually happened is that ANet freaked from all of the “nothing to do” posts in September and October, coupled with declining log-on numbers, and implemented Ascended in a hurry.

The FotM/Agony aspect would have been brilliant if there had been a reason to go in there beyond just pushing the limit. Fractal weapons could have been that reason, but they weren’t about to resort to tokens given what happened with the regular dungeons and the RNG chance seems to be pretty low.

Unique, I believe, was put in as just another way to slow down players who blaze through everything at the speed of light and still want something to keep them logging in for their daily 8 hours + of video game. Once they put the rings on laurel merchants, they couldn’t change the Unique function — or imagine the outcry.

This has been brought up many times before, and it’s an issue that desperately needs to be fixed. Expect it to sit on the backburner for 8 months.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

What purpose does the Unique mechanic serve and why does it exist other than to cause this kind of annoying situation above?

Seeing as nobody’s seemingly answered this directly for you, I’ll just go ahead:

Unique forces you to use “Defensive” and “Offensive” infusion slots if you want two of the same rings at the same quality (infused/not infused). This causes you to have to spend much more to get an extra 5 points in offensive or an extra 5 points in defensive stats, as you need to craft a versatile infusion for the second ring/earring if you want the same stats on both (which is much, much more expensive than the regular infusion you can use only in a defensive/offensive slot)

Basically, it’s a grinding goal for min-maxers. If you want 5 power on both rings, it’s gonna cost ya. If you can accept 5 power on one and 5 toughness on the other, much less so.

The fact that it’s simply not explained to a player in-game until they’ve already made a choice they can’t un-make sucks, though. At the very least the “Are you sure you want to buy this item?” dialog should have an extra line saying “(Characters can only equip one [item_name] because it is Unique)”

So, Guild Wars 2 support was nice enough to replace the ring I had with a different one and politely asked me to be more careful in the future.

Not ideal, but a good resolution nonetheless. Thanks again, Navi, for the suggestion.

I am glad it has been resolved for you. =)

Although the word unique implies you can only have one.

What I don’t get. What is the purpose? Why make it unique?

I think the op saved me some trouble of my own :o

For those who don’t know why the mechanic exists, and how other games will simply not even let you buy an item if you can’t attain it twice…

Guild wars 2 has a feature where the majority of all items are account bound, giving you the ability to play on any character you want and earn gear for another alt.

If they were to prevent you from buying the same ring twice for example, it would cause troubles for those who use the feature on transferring items between alts on the same account.

This is why there is no warning, because of there was people would assume that because it can only be obtained once, they couldn’t send it to their alt either,

I know how upsetting it can be, but you can’t be stating the game didn’t think things out properly, because it did. There’s a reason why you can buy the same ring twice… it wasn’t bad development.

Chase.8415:

For those who don’t know why the mechanic exists, and how other games will simply not even let you buy an item if you can’t attain it twice…

Guild wars 2 has a feature where the majority of all items are account bound, giving you the ability to play on any character you want and earn gear for another alt.

If they were to prevent you from buying the same ring twice for example, it would cause troubles for those who use the feature on transferring items between alts on the same account.

This is why there is no warning, because of there was people would assume that because it can only be obtained once, they couldn’t send it to their alt either,

I know how upsetting it can be, but you can’t be stating the game didn’t think things out properly, because it did. There’s a reason why you can buy the same ring twice… it wasn’t bad development.

That still doesn’t explain why there is such a thing as “unique” on them at all. It serves no real purpose. Are the folks at ANet really that concerned that someone might have two rings with the same offensive stats on them? An extra +4 to a stat? That just seems silly to me.

And furthermore, with as many threads as there have been on the subject, one would think that by now something would have been done to change this (or at least that there would be some kind of official response). But there’s been nothing. That is mindboggling.

Chase.8415:

I know how upsetting it can be, but you can’t be stating the game didn’t think things out properly, because it did. There’s a reason why you can buy the same ring twice… it wasn’t bad development.

Yes, the ability to buy one than more is not where bad development lies. It’s in them having no warning whatsoever wbout what Unique means (especially since in GW1 the word had a significantly different meaning). It also lies in even using the mechanics at all – all the reasons for it ar very convoluted, and could be better achieved with much simpler and cleaner means.

To be fair unique has a lot of different meanings, a unique item can just be unusual / uncommon. It can be limited to a single outcome, limited occurrence, or it can have no equal or exist as the only one of its kind. GW2 makes all these definitions very … uhh.. confusing because it doesn’t really follow any of them imo.

But hey, we’re just magically supposed to know right? I personally knew from playing other MMO’s but it isn’t fair to people that haven’t before. Would it kill them to just add a “You can only equip one of these per character. Are you sure you would like to buy?”

I mean… it’s a freaking text box similar to what shows up when you delete / buy certain items.

The “unique” designation on an item isn’t unique to GW2

Bind on equip, bind on acquire, soul bound, account bound – these are hand-me down terms from mainstream MMOs, and people don’t (usually) claim ignorance of them. “Unique” is in exactly the same boat.

The reality isn’t that people don’t understand the term; it’s because unique items are very unusual in GW2 so people don’t tend to read the stats on the items THAT closely then when they find they can’t equip the item, they look closer and suddenly: Rage

Ryuujin.8236:

The “unique” designation on an item isn’t unique to GW2

Bind on equip, bind on acquire, soul bound, account bound – these are hand-me down terms from mainstream MMOs, and people don’t (usually) claim ignorance of them. “Unique” is in exactly the same boat.

You need to read previous debates on this, unique is used in SOME mmos (not inc. GW1) its not close to being a a universal term.

It´s completely irrelevant how-the-kitten-ever unique is defined in a game.

This is exclusively the fault of a shoddy programmed UI, that leaves the user alone at key decisions during the game.

OP has every right to rage and if only more would, then the UI team would finally “feel the whip”, so that this type of superfluous error would stop diverting valuable GM resources.

Fanboism and RTFM posts excusing and actually blaming the user on this are so counterproductive, it´s past ridiculous.

HawkMeister.4758:

It´s completely irrelevant how-the-kitten-ever unique is defined in a game.

This is exclusively the fault of a shoddy programmed UI, that leaves the user alone at key decisions during the game.

OP has every right to rage and if only more would, then the UI team would finally “feel the whip”, so that this type of superfluous error would stop diverting valuable GM resources.

Fanboism and RTFM posts excusing and actually blaming the user on this are so counterproductive, it´s past ridiculous.

Well said Sir!

HawkMeister.4758:

It´s completely irrelevant how-the-kitten-ever unique is defined in a game.

This is exclusively the fault of a shoddy programmed UI, that leaves the user alone at key decisions during the game.

OP has every right to rage and if only more would, then the UI team would finally “feel the whip”, so that this type of superfluous error would stop diverting valuable GM resources.

Fanboism and RTFM posts excusing and actually blaming the user on this are so counterproductive, it´s past ridiculous.

Sorry, you’re crazy. Unique is self explanatory and if you weren’t all that sure what it meant it was spelled out in the wiki. The OP blindly purchased multiple items that only one of can be used on his character at a time. Oops, lesson learned, move along.

Behellagh.1468:

Sorry, you’re crazy. Unique is self explanatory and if you weren’t all that sure what it meant it was spelled out in the wiki.

1. It is not self-explanatory, which you would know if you read through this thread (or other similar ones) carefully. For example, GW1 also had Unique items. The term however meant something different than in GW2. There are many other MMO’s where this term is used for other things as well. And of course the basic meaning of Unique (the “self-explanatory” one) is in direct contradiction of the fact that you can in fact buy more than one.
2. I’d prefer if this game could be played without having to use off-game resources.

Rozbuska.5263:

Add there dumb protection and someone even more dumber will come.

This pretty much sums it up. This game is pretty fool-proof already, any more and it will only become redundant.