Cultural Nerfage? (unsubstantiated rumour)

[Wid]

OMG wrong focus people

I have been raiding for several years now. I like the updated DON type gear. I think that it has brought back tradeskilling to be a bigger part of EQ. Currently, I am wearing gear from several expansions from GOD all the way through TSS. My primary focus for getting a new piece of gear is the focus effects. My secondary focus is the stats. SOE loves to toss out improved HP and mana gear but neglect the focus needed. Great I can cast a level 80 spell. But my mana pres and fire focus only work to level 75? I need to raid in order to get these focus items upgraded. I am willing to sacrifice 100-200 HP or mana for wearing a raid item that helps me in other ways. If you are SO worried about stats great I am happy for you but there won't be a chain heal to keep you alive. IMO the solution to the issue is to not nerf the new cultural gear. SOE devs need to change the way that they look at raid gear. Instead of 1 type 8 aug slot, why can't we have 2 and a type 7? Or, 1 type 7, 1 type 8 and 1 type 11? Let people use all aspects of the game to improve themselves and in turn their guild. Some raid drops are rare and I won't get a particular focus for a very long time. But I can get a seal to get me closer and it will work just fine. All facets of the game need to be looked at when talking about gear. IMO skill and focus (whether it be mitigation or spell type) outweigh how many HP you have. But in the mean time to appeal to the stat mongers up the stats or aug slots on raid gear. Leave the people that have spent SO much time learning a skill and farming the drops alone. They HAVE earned the right to wear a great piece of gear the same as those who have spent the time raiding. Raid gear is superior and will continue to be. It is the raid gear that needs a tweeking and not the tradeskillable gear.

[Abazagaroth]

See that is one I don't understand.

if the Demiplane no longer offers "upgrades" why don't you just move on to the next ? Especially since the stuff you have may exceed Demiplane so you should be ready to move on.

The point to doing demiplane is to get gear that is an improvement... but you find another place to get an improvement... why don't you move on? Why does it move you to "quit" instead of moving you to just move on to the next thing where there is an improvement?

There are plenty of places to go raid for equipment better than this group stuff. Take the group stuff, and then move past Demiplane.

You and Rashere need to start playing the game again. You obviously you don't understand anything about what it takes to progress. You cannot beat solteris without TSS weaponry. You cannot skip demi and TSS. You can skip PoR (but no real point, since once you learn it its a fast clear in one night).

The weapon drop rate in TSS is horrible. There were HUGE threads on it at the sony forums for a reason. When TBS came out, guilds that had beat Lethar were going back to Demiplane for the sole purpose of doing Mayong for melee 2.5 epic pages, because they needed the dps to beat sisters and didn't get good drop rates in TSS.

People can't just jump into solteris.

The fact remains that you guys have created single group gear that is better than anything pre-solteris. The one benefit to this cultural was giving people in sub solteris guilds a reason to keep raiding (last bloods, serpent's seals) rather than spend their limited time doing group content.

Every raid night since release, my guild has seen this problem. 45 people in raid and 10 people off grouping somewhere in a new zone. There is no one to replace them.

You all dropped the ball on all the itemization this expansion, and your statement that I just quoted, and rashere's similar statement in beta show that you devs do not understand this game.

Group tiered armor should have been 250 hp dropped gear, steam cored to 330 hp gear, crystalos upgraded to 370 hp gear, and prismatic/chromaticified to 400 hp gear. Not 330 hp dropped gear, steam cored to 450 hp gear, crystalos upgraded to 550 hp gear.

Elegant armor should have seen ~80 raw ac total upgrade max on a set of 8, not 190.

Exalted symbols should have been in 150-160 hp range and sublime in the 180-190 hp range.

Group weapons should have started at Tacvi ratio at level 1, and gone up to epic 2.0 ratio at level 4.

Groupable type 12 augs that were mirrors of discordant/bazu stats should have been created that had level 75/80 foci that capped at 13% mana regen, 30% healing/damage, etc.

Raid gear should have capped at 700ish hp unbuffed and NOT used powersources, not the 885 hp stuff that uses powersources.

That would have maintained a semblance of sanity to this expansion. It would have given mid tier guilds help, it would have helped groupers, it would have encouraged grouping and doing content. It would not have trivialized everything prior to TBS like what you guys did. And now you are starting to go back and change everything, but only by nerfing one segment of the population.

This stuff isn't "sets". I'm sorry, but that's a joke and I can't believe you don't know it. There is nothing that ties them together, not expansions, not progression, not content difficulty, just rec/req levels that you plastered on them.

How can you possible go this route, when you had to retro put in tss/tbs seals? How can you tell us that you expect us to upgrade to tss/tbs seals when they drop so rarely?

Last bloods dropped at ~20 per month. Want to tell us how many TSS stones will drop in a month for a guild? Try 5-8 maybe.

[Abazagaroth]

I am sorry Kryos but your post is riddled with assumptions and logic that't self-serving.

First off, DPoB was designed for level 70 raid forces. Gains to both survivability and DPS at level 80 is HUGE. Caster spells in SoF do more DPS with no foci than spells did with best foci in DoDH. Disks and buffs that melee have are so far ahead of what they were at the time DoDH came out that it is a joke to compare. Just from leveling to 80 you get both HP/Mana and skill updates that are huge improvement. Saying that you must get 250 HP boost to visible slot on top of that is just shameful. And you are getting 150-200 anyway.

There is nothing that makes Cultural armor less viable alternative. With 80 armor and symbol it will be considerably better than anything that drops in 75 zones. This in itself makes it overpowered in my view but I am willing to accept the logic that it is 80 armor. That means that with 75 armor and symbol and a seal drop from that zone it will match other visible gear in that zone.

I agree that changing LBs is a tricky issue. However, alternative is Symbol nerf. I am pretty sure TSers should thank Ngreth for this. This makes TS more and not less important.

As for nerfing those that are using TS armor, while true it is still far better avenue to the stats than any other. Cultural armor with 70 Seal will still have potential to be better than anything but Solteris. But if you are in a Solteris guild you will have a clear opportunity to upgrade with seal from that zone for some spectacular gains.

SoF is not a gear reset. If it was all the players would have equal opportunity to get equal gear. That is not the case. Those with LBs, raiding outdated content, with currency in bank get wild upgrades, that is not gear reset.

They were also designed for guilds that raid 7 days a week and had beaten all previous content and would do nothing but pound their heads against it with the same 54 people day after day, and it was the only option.

As opposed to mid tier guilds, that use 100 people that show up from 40-50 seemingly randomly, have other options and don't do well trying the same thing day after day just to wipe after wipe.

The symbols (and ac on armor to a lesser extent) need to be nerfed, they never should have been that high. The raid augs need to be left alone. And there needs to be groupable type 12 augs for non-raiders equivalent to discordant/bazu stones.

As long as weapons and caster damage foci are so far behind raid drops, it doesn't matter if the gear has 200 more hp than old raid stuff. You still can't skip the old raid stuff. And how much fun do you think people will be having raiding demi for 90% rot loot just for 2.5 pages, or TSS for 60% rot loot (molds already rot as is) just for weapons that never drop?

[Leafslasher]

i want my million plat i spent on this stuff refunded when nerfed since it will be useless, ty.

[Zayix]

The only way I can see this is that we are talking about an aug here.

Obviously, this is a very special aug. However, it is old. This is like saying that putting a Duskstone of the Sand Flats

Into SOF groupable armor, which makes it have better stats than blah blah TSS/TBS or whatever, is wrong.

There is no reason we should not be able to continue using the same aug we bid for long ago, in the manner we looted it.

My range slot is Fabled Scepter of Calekor. Would I want some of the hp/mana transfer from my previously mentioned aug into that item? Heck, no! Even if it evened out to be the same hp/mana for me at the moment, I paid out the ass for that aug. I did not pay for the current gear combination; its just what I happen to use.

If this was new, it would be one thing - but Last Bloods have been out for a while, and changing them now is not just a good idea.

[Leafslasher]

changing anything is going to cause a major fallout

[gggrant]

I disagree that it will *Kill* it. You STILL get an upgrade, and any upgrade is good. Any upgrade will make the guild have a better ability to progress. Sure, it will be harder than it is today, but it will STILL be EASIER than it was before SoF launch. It is still an improvement over what the guild had before the SoF Launch.

I don't have any of this armor. I haven't even made any of this armor. But if I were wearing it today and I woke up tomorrow with something less, I would not consider it an improvement. Yes, it will still be better than the 70, 70, 70 but it will not be an improvement.

Frankly, I am unsure how to react to these changes since I do not have any numbers to work with. My range of options run from ignoring the changes and continuing on as if nothing had changed, to refusing to make any armor for anyone that may exploit it with a serpent seal or better.

[Xanathol]

Post-change, the problem most folks have ( that I've seen anyhow ) is "will it be worth what I already put into it?"

Basic example - Last Blood seal. Took a raid drop and farming to make an AAAA, the single most complex and involving tradeskilled item to date, but yeilded a 45 AC 210 HP plus mods / effects aug. Some folks didn't see these as "worth the effort / cost" from the get-go, when they were first introduced. If you make them less, even more folks will see them as "not worth the effort / cost". Same can be said for armor or seals, should they lose stats.

But the worse part of this is, there are folks who *already* 'payed' a certain 'cost' ( time / plat / dkp / whatever ) for the gear. For last bloods, this was years ago. For the new armor & symbols, its been since release, after - and this part is very important - being assured these items were tuned at where they were meant to be.

Its like owning a yugo, then buying a lamborghini for half price ( ~$150,000-200,000 depending on where ya shop ). Sure, you asked the seller "are you SURE you want to sell it for this price?" and you were told "yes". Then a month or more later, the seller comes in, takes your lamborghini, and leaves you a lotus. Nothing you can do. No refunds available ( particularly in the EQ situation, as how do you quantify time / plat / farming vs camping or whatever / tradeskilling to max skill, etc etc ). Sure, the lotus is better than the yugo, but its no lamborghini. Yes, you knew the cost was fabulous for the buy, but now you have something you didn't buy for the 'cost' you already paid and no possible way to get what you spent back. And you wonder why folks are ticked off?

[Woland]

Xanathol,

You need to understand that LB augs were mostly made some time ago and have seen a lot of action. Yes investment was substantial but they did get used. Time to upgrade, it's like any gear. Just because it's TS made it does not follow it's useful forever.

I would imagine Ngreth did not want to obsolete these augs and this is why we are having issues now. He tried to be a nice guy and people are insulting him now. That's not right.

Even after adjustments everyone will come out ahead. It's hard to argue this point since numbers are not available but I am willing to bet noone will regret buying Cultural.

[Leafslasher]

well most of my elegant is now gonna be useless if they nerf the seal more than 100hpish, gonna be a ton of people petitioning for their plat back and their destroyed armor pieces.

[Woland]

Ngreth said repeatedly that Symbol and armor combo will stay the same. Meaning, he may take away a little from Symbol and put it on armor. You will see an increase in demand for armor that noone was buying because upgrading just Symbol was lions share of stats.

Only thing that will see nerf is LB.

[Sklak]

Weapon ratios from ANGUISH to TBS are a small change - might be 30% at MOST. Weapon ratios from Demi to TBS were even less - 20% ballpark. Weapon dps does NOT take a big jump at ANY point after Anguish, untill you get to SoF - and even SoF weapons I've seen links to (including obvious high-tier raid drops listed in Lucy) aren't a LOT more DPS.

Although a slight sidetrack from the thread, had to correct this misimpression -- weapon ratio changes are roughly double what you claim above.

Example (using beastlord, but similar across all melee):
Anguish: 38+1 dmg / 23 delay (Epic 2.0: Spiritcaller Totem of the Feral)
TBS: 48+1 dmg / 19 delay (Ball of Sunlight), with at least +4 dmg aug available

Without augs, this is ~52% improvement in weapon ratio from Anguish to TBS, without even counting the additional 5-10% ratio upgrade available from damage augs. Total of ~60% ratio improvement (~15% in demiplane, ~20% in TSS, ~20% from TBS).

(Demiplane weapon assumed as 2.5 epic +4 dmg aug, TSS weapon is Brumal Fists of Whirling Sleet at 42+1/20, with same 4 dmg aug). As a sidenote, SoF is another step improvement of ~15% to 60/20 ratio (Flashing Prismatic Knucklewraps).

Unlike casters, these ratio improvements lead directly to sustained dps increase. Casters efficiency improvements have been very marginal, with only burst dps seeing large improvement on the spell side.

[Hammaclar]

Our guild is just breaking into DpoB at this time and members have a few bazu/lost blood augs and were looking forward to geting more. Cutting to the chase we are talking about 8 visible armor slots and the impact bazu/lost bloods or any higher seal have on the armor combinations. The high end raiders are miffed that those of us who are behind them can with a lot of work and raiding older content get enough of an ac boost to make our plate types more survibable with ac levels close to Soltaris Drops. That's what we are all talking about here make no mistake is AC for plate types.

Lost bloods were overpowered for ac when they came out but the game didn't die or fall apart because there were there, they provided a goal to to get. The game won't fall apart now because the combination of Elegant+Sublime+LB/Bazu increases the survivability of plate types. Everyone in game still needs to do the tradeoffs on focus effects, hp/mana on all of their gear as nobody starts out with a standard set, we upgrade one piece at a time. We still need to look at raid targets and opportunities to advance that will benifit the entire guild.

What can hurt and will be destructive to the game is nurfing the statistics and particularly ac on those type 12 augs that have been in game for two years. The time, money and effort expended in the months leading up to the release of SoF and since it's release has been tremendous. The player base made decisions based on repeated assurances by the development team that they had looked at and were comfortable with the new cultural gear and combinations. Anyone who passed up on a piece of gear at a raid, spent endless hours farming components or working quests will be rewarded with a slap in the face for expecting the development team to have integrety when they responded during beta that this gear would not change. I can think of no greater way for the development team to anger the player base than by proposing to change something downward after haveing assured us that exactally that would not change.

[Xanathol]

Xanathol,

You need to understand that LB augs were mostly made some time ago and have seen a lot of action. Yes investment was substantial but they did get used. Time to upgrade, it's like any gear. Just because it's TS made it does not follow it's useful forever.

I would imagine Ngreth did not want to obsolete these augs and this is why we are having issues now. He tried to be a nice guy and people are insulting him now. That's not right.

Even after adjustments everyone will come out ahead. It's hard to argue this point since numbers are not available but I am willing to bet noone will regret buying Cultural.

Name one piece of gear you own that if you logged in after a month of being away from the game that you'd be ok with if it was reduced, much less gear that is over a year old. 'TS made' doesn't mean it now 'decays', which is basically the effect when you've had a piece for years and when you log on next, its now less.

Yes, upgrades are part of the game and the new 80 armor & symbols were upgrades - not implementing access to armor & symbols correctly is the problem, not the stats on the seal. But now, >1 year old LBs are to be nerfed? After in beta and release the devs said all was fine, until this weekend? Yeah, THAT's not right.

Until we know the stats, we won't know if any 'cost' was 'worth it' or not, but what is 'worth it' to you may not be 'worth it' to the next guy, and that choice is retroactively being taken away, after they paid it.

[Woland]

Hammaclar,

You do understand that there is problem when you guys kill Zi Thulli and he drops arms that are 325 HP/Mana and LB that makes 600 HP/Mana item. How can you ever balance that. Guy that gets LB will not need to bid anything for the armor he makes for the next 2 years. How do you progress? With nerf, he make 500 HP/Mana item. This is not going to make your raid stronger or weaker. But it will make balance a little closer. For guilds little up stream from you it is going to be much more balanced.

I understand the excitment of getting such a big boost but it is not a happy situation no matter how it looks to you at the moment.