Cultural Nerfage? (unsubstantiated rumour)

[Bedavir]

It's not truth/fact - it's your opinion

QFT is a ubiquitous acronym that basically translates to: "I agree with the aforementioned". No need to put the cart before the horse.

Looking at the sample chart Kyros posted, seems to me that the progression of equipment is just fine

If you take the chart at face value, I'm still not sure how you can consider the progression of equipment 'just fine'. Tradeskills occupy 3 of the top 5, and one of them requires you progress no further than DPoB. If Kryos had bothered to plug in the CoA equivalent of Tradeskill + bazu, tradeskills would occupy 4 of the top 6 best sets in the game (coming in just behind Solteris quality). This set requires you progress no further than CoA level difficulty. I'm guessing since the goal of the the groupable type 12 is to bring the armor in line with Tier 4 groupable, the stats on the groupable type 12s will be inferior to bazus stones. None of this makes sense, because the tier4 gear was supposed to bring hardcore group content in line with TSS/Solteris level raiders. This has compeltely and utterly failed because they still end up behind CoA/DPoB level raiders.

It would indeed seem that there is no consistency with this new system. It fails on every front that it's tried to deliver ... all it has accomplished is introduce an incredibly unwarranted level of mudflation everywhere except where it was intended: casuals.

Since we're talking about Kryos's chart, I'd like to point out a major flaw. Why, on his chart, does it show sunshard having more ac than bloods/serpents? They've all 3 got the same ac. That's the only flaw I see at the moment, but that's only because it jumped out and hit me in the face. I'm sure there are other problems as well.

[Woland]

Kyros,

These statements need to be true following your logic:

70 Armor + 75 Symbol + 75 Serpent's < TSS armor
70 Armor + 75 Symbol + 75 Sunshard < Solteris armor

After all this is using 70 armor.

Another point, you say Cultural is balanced at R3 level. What Seal are you using? Have you seen THIS. I am not even sure there isn't an even better seal.

[Ratblaster]

These statements need to be true following your logic:

70 Armor + 75 Symbol + 75 Serpent's < TSS armor
70 Armor + 75 Symbol + 75 Sunshard < Solteris armor

After all this is using 70 armor.

Another point, you say Cultural is balanced at R3 level. What Seal are you using? Have you seen THIS. I am not even sure there isn't an even better seal.

75 Serpent aug comes from TSS; if someone wants to drop it into elaborate armor to get TSS level stat, or drop it into elegant for stats that exceed normal TSS molds, I dont see that as a problem...in order to get the Serpent aug to begin with, you already need to be raiding TSS...if both a mold and serpent aug drop, raider has a choice of which armor path to go, but in a typicall TSS raid, far more molds will drop than serpent augs...you see 2 molds per named every time....you may only see one serpent aug per 2 clearings of AG.

And when looking at TBS armor or SoF armor, be sure to count the effect of energian orbs. When I compared my elegant armor + sublime aug + last blood against a friends TBS robe, stats were close until they added the energian orb. Even with the TSS serpent aug swapped in, the TBS armor won out, with higher stats, better focus effect, and better type-8 slot. There are plentiful 150-200 hp augs for raiders to drop into slot-8. The options for great augs to drop into slot7 (which is what cultural has) are far more meager.

In general, I'm ok with the armor progression in SoF (both group and raid). There are some places where groupers may choose to go with cultural armor over SoF group armor, even without type-12 aug, and raiders who choose to go with cultural + slot12 raid aug in place of some earlier tiers of SoF raid armor, but the difference is not so huge peopel will stop raiding TSS, or SoF...asside from the fact that this is only 8 slots, not all 20, there are not enough type-12 augs floating around for everyone to fill every slot..they are not falling from the sky like rain, and guilds progressing in TSS & TBS are not puttin TSS farming/progression on hold to go back and raid razorthorn and ToB in the hopes of picking up an extra 3-4 LBs a week.

This is the primal scream room, but I think this topic has been screamed to death, & the horse we're beating has long since turned to glue. SoE may still be lookign at some tweaks in this area, but I think any changes here will be minor...time for us to move on to the next great debate.

[Woland]

Ratblaster,

70 Armor + 75 Symbol + 75 Serpent's is much better than TSS armor!!!

Re:

"When I compared my elegant armor + sublime aug + last blood against a friends TBS robe, stats were close until they added the energian orb."

To be able to compare the two is funny to most people. I am sure this will come as a shock to you.

I find the whole thing compleatly out of whack.

One thing we do agree on is "time for us to move on to the next great debate."

[wayshaper]

in short, this is what im seeing being said by those complaining of the power of the new items, that no tradeskill items should ever be better then raid gear.

if that is true, then no tradeskill items should be better then the class armor from plane of hate or armor acquired via raids in temple of veeshan. those after all were raids only at one time.

[KyrosKrane]

Ratblaster,

70 Armor + 75 Symbol + 75 Serpent's is much better than TSS armor!!!

And sadly, that is flat out wrong. The 75 symbol didn't exist at the TSS era. Despite being level 75, it was added after TSS, so you can't use it to justify TSS-era gear. (Otherwise, you'd have to claim that TBS armor shouldn't be better than TSS armor, since both are level 75 expansions. Same logic, but the result is more blatantly absurd.) You have to use the level 70 symbol. The Serpent's seal was added in TSS raids, so that was the right one to choose.

70 Armor + 70 Symbol + Serpent = 3040hp / 3040mana
TSS armor = 3535hp / 3705mana
70 Armor + 75 Symbol + Serpent = 4000hp / 4000mana

Looks right about where it should be for me. If you choose the in-expansion option, you get a substantially weaker set. If you use the post-expansion option, you get a stronger set. Again, that's how it should be.

http://www.kyros.info/Tradeskills/Magician_Full.htm

That's the full list of armors, every possible permutation I could think of.

[KyrosKrane]

Since we're talking about Kryos's chart, I'd like to point out a major flaw. Why, on his chart, does it show sunshard having more ac than bloods/serpents? They've all 3 got the same ac. That's the only flaw I see at the moment, but that's only because it jumped out and hit me in the face. I'm sure there are other problems as well.

I found and fixed a couple of calculation errors in the sheet. Sorry about that. I was getting a little cross-eyed by the time I was done with it, so I didn't see the errors on first pass.

[KyrosKrane]

None of this makes sense, because the tier4 gear was supposed to bring hardcore group content in line with TSS/Solteris level raiders. This has compeltely and utterly failed because they still end up behind CoA/DPoB level raiders.

It would indeed seem that there is no consistency with this new system. It fails on every front that it's tried to deliver ... all it has accomplished is introduce an incredibly unwarranted level of mudflation everywhere except where it was intended: casuals.

Not quite. The tier 4 GROUP gear is supposed to be around tier 2 RAID gear. Adding a bazu or last blood moves it well beyond group gear. And if you look at the chart, you'll see that elegant + sublime is indeed around Tier 2 raid gear, which in turn is around the same as Demi armor, minus the focuses.

This means that "casuals" as you put it, or more accurately, non-raiders, now have access to low-end raid-caliber armors. (And yes, Demi is now mid-to-low end raiding these days. It's how many expansions old?) Raiders who were in those tiers get a boost that puts them at roughly Solteris level armors pre-SoF and after you account for the power source. Solteris raiders get a boost even past that. In other words, people across the board get a lift with these new items.

[Bobaten]

The problem is we are comparing Magician armor (I do understand mages are superior of course). Hit points and mana do line up ok (mostly) but the AC is way out of whack (moreso with the caster armor since caster armor as a whole had huge AC upgrades this expansion). For classes that look at mana and hitpoints first, the progression is fine. For classes that look at AC and hit points first it all goes topsy turvy. My main is a ranger, I am in a guild that has not yet broken into DPoB. I upgraded my 5 slots that had Elaborate+Bazu to Elegant+Bazu, then added another piece of Elegant for my BiC. If you look at the EQplayers ranking by hitpoints, I am 16th on Prexus. If you look at it by AC I am third(the Ranger in second place is Anguish geared wearing 8xElegant+Bazu).
But that's me as a (perhaps too much) AC obsessed chain class.
So.. Warrior Plate, just looking at AC and ignoring HP's mod 2's etc.
Elegant+Serpents(or Last Blood, etc.)=1001 AC
TBS Raid (with Metal Powersource)=1001 AC
Elegant+Bazu=881 AC
TBS Raid (no powersource)=857
Elaborate+Serpents=812 AC
TSS raid= 754 AC

So a Plate tank that goes all out for AC will come up even using level 80 vs. TBS raid. In doing so he had to forego hp on his powersource, which leaves him with 4225 hp, vs Elegant+sublime at: Last Blood 4810, Serpent's 5130, Sunshard 5530 and the lowly Bazu at 4570.
I honestly think the level 80 gear + Serpent's and Sunshard is ok being better than TBS raid (because it is 5 levels and one expansion later). But bazu and last bloods really are too good from the AC perspective.

My solution?
Nerf me. Take some of the AC off of the Elegant armor, and put it on the Serpent's, Sunshard, Faycite, and the group seals. At the same time take hp off of Sublime/Exalted, and put it on the Elegant. And finally, throw in a tier 1obtained group seal that contains the AC that is taken away from Elegant, and 40-50 hps and a few stats and saves to be about the level of the DoN type 12 augs (it could even be a tradeskill combine involving the ABAA).

End result:
Group geared people end up the same place, maybe slightly ahead depending on the ease of obtaining a tier 1 seal vs. finding radiant crystals.
TSS/TBS/SoF raid geared people end up in the same place, for the same effort.
Bazu/Last Blood geared people lose AC, but Elegant+Sublime is still better than what they had before the expansion.

[Bedavir]

in short, this is what im seeing being said by those complaining of the power of the new items, that no tradeskill items should ever be better then raid gear.

When tradeskilled gear occupies 4 of the top 6? That's a problem. When 2 of those 6 require no progression beyond 5 expansion old content and the bazaar? That's a bigger problem.

I'm not saying tradeskills should have no place of power, but right now they hold a veritable monopoly. The raid dropped armor is not definitively better until you crack tier4 raiding. That's a 5-expansion gap that tradeskills holds the market on.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Well. We at SOE *DO* think that the 70armor + 75symbol +TSS (or TBS) need adjusting.

I have warned that we are looking into that.

I will be making a post about something else we are considering outside of Primal.

[Woland]

And sadly, that is flat out wrong. The 75 symbol didn't exist at the TSS era. Despite being level 75, it was added after TSS, so you can't use it to justify TSS-era gear. (Otherwise, you'd have to claim that TBS armor shouldn't be better than TSS armor, since both are level 75 expansions. Same logic, but the result is more blatantly absurd.) You have to use the level 70 symbol. The Serpent's seal was added in TSS raids, so that was the right one to choose.

70 Armor + 70 Symbol + Serpent = 3040hp / 3040mana
TSS armor = 3535hp / 3705mana
70 Armor + 75 Symbol + Serpent = 4000hp / 4000mana **WRONG**

Looks right about where it should be for me. If you choose the in-expansion option, you get a substantially weaker set. If you use the post-expansion option, you get a stronger set. Again, that's how it should be.

http://www.kyros.info/Tradeskills/Magician_Full.htm

That's the full list of armors, every possible permutation I could think of.

I can't seem to be able to stay away from this issue

Accorrding to your chart the above number for 70 Armor + 75 Symbol + Serpent = 4320. That is 77 mana and 102 HP per slot. This is with 70 armor and 75 Symbol. You think this is reasonable? Of course it is not!

Ngreth is trying to step away from % based upgrades. I have sympathy for that but only if it does not create type of issues that it does. I am all for New Cultural armor, I sunk ton of plat into TS and it is good to have a chance to recoup that. However, situation where only way to go is TS armor is not healty, it will backfire and it is not something this game can afford.

Ngreth you are playing with fire. This is not the way to help TSers. There is a huge chunk of population that simply belives this is some sort of conspiracy. Lets face it, with fiasco that LoN was it does not take much.

[Woland]

Ngreth,

I do not want to lecture you about Economics but I feel this needs to be pointed out.

You are reducing drop rates on TS components. This means you are trying to balance the situation through supply. Problem however is not supply, it is demand. Demand is so high because Cultural Armor is just too good. Only thing you will achieve is increase prices. That is not what you want to do as it will only increase resentment of those who cannot afford Cultural Armor. This is exactly what you do not want.

You need to increase supply and lower demand, this will bring prices down and make majority of your customers happy.

[KyrosKrane]

Accorrding to your chart the above number for 70 Armor + 75 Symbol + Serpent = 4320. That is 77 mana and 102 HP per slot. This is with 70 armor and 75 Symbol. You think this is reasonable? Of course it is not!

You're right about the figures, I apologize. =/ It's indeed 4320. I mentioned in a previous post that I'd found some problems with the chart and fixed them. This was probably one of them. I was writing the last post as I updated the chart, and I probably copied the figures across before I spotted and fixed the problem.

Nevertheless, that doesn't invalidate my point. SoF is a gear reset at the high end. It's immediately obvious that the intent is to bring players up to a much higher standard using SoF gear. So I don't really see a problem with it. The only difference is that the boost is now more or less linear, at roughly 600-ish, give or take, between the three levels I posted.

Now, Ngreth has posted that he's preparing some sort of announcement, so I think I'll wait to see what he has to say before continuing this discussion.

[Bobaten]

They reduced the drop rate for the parts for the Exalted, not the Sublime/Elegant. Exalted drops are so plentiful that in the Prexus Bazaar, Exalted Augs are selling for less than the Elaborate armor people are using them in.