Equalizing Light Versus Dark Rewards

[Amara]

Before generation five wings, the only factor in selecting an alignment was personal preference. While the wings looked different, light and dark wings did the same thing as each other. Generation five wings changed that, introducing a factor other than preference that unfairly impacts your alignment choice. The inequality that caused this? Semi-invisible wings.

Wings have always been an extremely powerful piece of gear. They give doubled card bonuses, and have the stats of highly refined gear. The downside to this has always been that in a pvp/WoE setting, people can work out what card is or isn't in your wings, and exploit that. For example, you might be using a status armor card in wings for a doubled proc rate. Well that's fine by me because now every time I see you, I know you are freezable, stone curse-able and even asura/ADable. Similarly if you use ghostring or marc/evil druid I know not to waste my time using asura/freeze attempts while you are in your wings. This is a significant disadvantage to the otherwise stellar wings, and helps balance them.

With that out the way, look at how semi-invisible wings changed the situation. Light Siders with these wings make their wings visible only when attacking or using a skill. At a glance, you cannot tell if their wings are on or off. In between attacks or skills, you also cannot tell if the armor has been swapped. In a situation where a light side and dark side both have a ghostring card out of wings and marc card in wings, the lightside will have the advantage when a champion is walking towards them. The darkside wearer might swap to ghostring. The champ might immediately realize this person has swapped to ghostring and simply choose not to waste asura, or they might simply wait for them to swap to wings again and make sure they asura at that point instead. Likewise, a wizard in this situation knows they can land a freeze whenever they don't see wings. A light side character with semi-invisible wings in this situation doesn't have this problem. The champ approaches, the ghostring is switched to with no visual cue, asura fails to kill, then the wings go back on. This is just one example of hundreds to illustrate the root of the problem - however small or large the advantage is, it's definitely in your favor to have wings that are usually not visible, especially while walking around. Someone serious about being the best at pvp might feel pressured to join light side to get the absolute best wings possible - those the enemy can't always see. This seems like an unfair situation to place players in, especially those that are already dark side.

There seems to be two fair solutions to this problem, both equally simple. First, you might say that semi-invisible wings are 'too good', and simply give light side a visible alternative to the semi-invisible wings, requiring those with invisible wings to select a new set of those newly available. Alternatively, you may decide semi-invisible wings are perfectly fair, in which case the light side wings could be recolored to make the white shading a dark color, such as black or deep purple. Then, offer dark side players the chance to swap to these wings.

Please note in all this that I am saying nothing of the fairness of Dark vs Light in mass pvp, or the current population of light vs dark. Simply that the rewards for getting generation five light and dark wings are unequal, and it seems like the right thing to do to make the only factor in a players decision of light vs dark personal preference - not pvp viability.

[teOx]

lol thats a good point i never thought of that

maybe its planned that way for more people to join light side

[Motenai_Ronin]

how bout a shadow type wing for the dark people where wings can't be seen if you're approaching the person from the front of them, but can only be seen from the back? Just trying to take a crack at a suggestion ^-^

IE wings that blend into peoples shadows, or shadows of buildings for that matter.

[Aaronock]

I'm surprised actually most people switched to dark side because of the semi invisibleness of light wings, and the other light wings were god awful ugly.

I like the semi invisible light wings, best darn things ever, and exactly for what Amara said, I just never mentioned it.

[Kretzer]

I like the semi invisible light wings, best darn things ever, and exactly for what Amara said, I just never mentioned it.

I always tought those wings were the best for the same reason. But im still at First Gen u_u

[Aaronock]

I only got first gen cause ToH is at a crappy time.

[teOx]

this thread died fast

[Général_Argos]

+1 to Amara

[Izael]

this thread died fast

Yeah, it's kinda sad. I agree with what Amara has said. I hope the GM's are talking about it.

[Kadar]

this thread died fast

Yeah, it's kinda sad. I agree with what Amara has said. I hope the GM's are talking about it.

would be nice to hear confirmation from a GM *hint hint*