Cultural Nerfage? (unsubstantiated rumour)

[Aaneras]

I'd leave it alone. The entire thing is fueled by a small handful of Solteris raiders. Shifting from armor to symbols has complex effects because the armor relies on very rare drops, similar to sublime. So the net effect will be to reduce the more readily available 75 sym/70 armor combo in favor of the more difficult to obtain 80/80 set.

[Woland]

Ngreth,

Whatever your reasoning, there is a lot of controversy surrounding this issue. I think that most players have respect for you and will give you benefit of the doubt if you make an appropriate statement.

It is not just handful of high end raiders that are upset, there is plenty of resentment to go around in all population segments.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Well. We ourselves have an issue if the 70 armor + 75 symbol + TBS seal is BETTER than solteris armor. Which it is in a few ways currently (not all, but a few)

so the adjustments will probably be minor.

What is harder for the solteris people to swallow, is that I do not have an issue with the 80 armor + 80 symbol + TBS seal being better than the Solteris armor, because well... you are putting some level 80 pieces in there verses level 75 armor.

[Aaneras]

Well. We ourselves have an issue if the 70 armor + 75 symbol + TBS seal is BETTER than solteris armor. Which it is in a few ways currently (not all, but a few)

so the adjustments will probably be minor.

What is harder for the solteris people to swallow, is that I do not have an issue with the 80 armor + 80 symbol + TBS seal being better than the Solteris armor, because well... you are putting some level 80 pieces in there verses level 75 armor.

I'm interpreting the cultural armor as a mechanism for permitting midtier folks (and groupers) to catch up to the content that you're actually designing now. We have entire servers where no one enters raid content for 8-12 months after it's released. This is not healthy long-term for the game. I'd think that 70 armor+75 symbol + TBS raid aug should be comparable to Solteris gear, in the same sense that 70 armor+70 aug+ last blood is comparable to Demiplane gear. The Solteris folks probably have a bigger issue with last blood + 80 + 80 being comparable as well.

Personally, I really think that you need a mechanism that permits raid forces behind the bleeding edge to catch up (e.g. they should progress through content faster than bleeding edge guilds). This makes the game competitive and lively. I'd prefer doing this through reducing time sinks like factioning once content is no longer current...but if big gear upgrades is what SoE will do, that works as well.

This expansion has been a boon for tradeskillers and revitalized the bazaar. Well done in my eyes.

[Ratblaster]

I dont see it as a big issue with TBS seals since you have to be raiding Solteris already to get them. When a TBS seal drops ona solteris raid, those in raid have 2 choices, they can go the cultural route or they can go the solteris gear route. I currently have 80 armor (elegant) + 80 aug (sublime) + TSS Serpent Seal (our first one dropped last night after 9 non-aug AG-north events), and when I compared gear with a solteris geared person, they still had better stats when using their energian orb...add an extra 50 hp for TBS orb vs TSS orb and stats would have been about the same...plus there are better raid level augs available for type-8 armor than for the type-7 slot in cultural.

Personally I dont think its a valid complaint to say 80+80+TBS > Solteris because the TBS augs come from Solteris (or so I thought). Now if 80+80+TSS/LB > Solteris, then I think it would be more understandable why some would complain if TSS guilds start passing TBS guilds in stats.

Also, I do not think the number of Serpent or Sunshard seal augs in gear is significant...they are not available to the general non-raiding guilds other than those macroquest hackers that everyone knows about but which SOE doesnt appear interested in stopping/banning, and even for the raiders they do not seem to drop to often (we have one orb in 3 ag north clearings). The last bloods are more readily available, but again only to guilds raiding Demi/ToB/Rage/Razor.

One thing I do find kinda funny is that peopel we know are using MQ to hack AG raids & gain full TSS gear overnight are now tossing some of that gear in favor of the new cultural...though their plat is tainted due to being obtained by charging people to hop into those AG instances for loot, but trader mode cant weed out the trash

[Ngreth Thergn]

I'm interpreting the cultural armor as a mechanism for permitting midtier folks (and groupers) to catch up to the content that you're actually designing now.

That is exactly why we are looking at it because right now, it exceeds the Solteris armor. So we need to adjust it to be a better match.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Personally I dont think its a valid complaint to say 80+80+TBS > Solteris because the TBS augs come from Solteris (or so I thought). Now if 80+80+TSS/LB > Solteris, then I think it would be more understandable why some would complain if TSS guilds start passing TBS guilds in stats.

I agree, and it is why we are comparing 70+75+TBS and not 80+80+TBS.

If they want the full level 80 raid stuff that is better than the 80+80+SoF then they will need to go to level 80 raid content for it.

[Ratblaster]

Well, if there are changes to either the sublime augs or elegant armor, I'd hope they'd be very minimal. Ditto on exalted as they are already 70 hp/mana below sublime. Lots have already made significant gear decisions (dkp/etc) based on the current stats of the new cultural. I have banked my old non-cultural TSS & DK armor "just in case", but I'm sure there are others who delete replaced gear.

[Woland]

Well. We ourselves have an issue if the 70 armor + 75 symbol + TBS seal is BETTER than solteris armor. Which it is in a few ways currently (not all, but a few)

so the adjustments will probably be minor.

What is harder for the solteris people to swallow, is that I do not have an issue with the 80 armor + 80 symbol + TBS seal being better than the Solteris armor, because well... you are putting some level 80 pieces in there verses level 75 armor.

80 armor + 80 symbol + TBS seal being better than the Solteris armor is problematic but I am sure that most would understand if this was done to balance armor down the line. Trouble is that 70 armor + 80 symbol + 70 seal makes Solteris comparable armor.

[Woland]

Well, if there are changes to either the sublime augs or elegant armor, I'd hope they'd be very minimal. Ditto on exalted as they are already 70 hp/mana below sublime. Lots have already made significant gear decisions (dkp/etc) based on the current stats of the new cultural. I have banked my old non-cultural TSS & DK armor "just in case", but I'm sure there are others who delete replaced gear.

Even if you consider the worst case scenario you will still come out better off than anything you looted in TSS.

[Ratblaster]

80 armor + 80 symbol + TBS seal being better than the Solteris armor is problematic but I am sure that most would understand if this was done to balance armor down the line. Trouble is that 70 armor + 80 symbol + 70 seal makes Solteris comparable armor.

The ac/hp/ac might be comparable, but the focus effects from 70 seal will be lvl 70 focus which is essentially useless when casting spells near level 80. At least the true TBS gear will have lvl 75 focus which will only degrade 50% at lvl 80. Melee dont have a lot of needed seal effects, mainly cleave, dodge, ferocity...stuff they probably have on multiple gear items. But casters often need a dozen different focus items due to splitting detrimental and beneficial effects, so you have beneficial mana pres, detrimental mana pres, plus ben & det for range, duration, haste, plus focus for heal, fire, ice, poison. A caster with a lot of LBs casting SoF spells will take a significant hit...that 50% poison focus at lvl 70 degrades at 10%/lvl and so is only a 5% focus on that lvl 79 poison dot..as one example. and 20% mana pres at lvl 70 will be 0% mana pres at lvl 80.

So there is more to consider in comparison than just raw hp/mana....the solteris gear has superior focus efects to the 70+80+70 setup mentioned above. I ran into this on my own armor as well and did not go cultural on a few pieces until picking up some new 75 focus items in recent AG raids.

[Bedavir]

What is harder for the solteris people to swallow, is that I do not have an issue with the 80 armor + 80 symbol + TBS seal being better than the Solteris armor, because well... you are putting some level 80 pieces in there verses level 75 armor.

Do you have an issue with 80 armor + 80 symbol + 5 expansion old raid content being better than Solteris? One would assume that you don't because that's clearly the case as it stands.

DPoB is separated from TSS by 40hp and a trivial amount of mod2s. DPoB is separated from SoF by 90hp and a trivial amount of mod2s (anyone at that level already has no problems capping them). They have the same ac.

[Aaneras]

Do you have an issue with 80 armor + 80 symbol + 5 expansion old raid content being better than Solteris? One would assume that you don't because that's clearly the case as it stands.

DPoB is separated from TSS by 40hp and a trivial amount of mod2s. DPoB is separated from SoF by 90hp and a trivial amount of mod2s (anyone at that level already has no problems capping them). They have the same ac.

Last Blood AC is too high, and has always been too high. There are other classes, and other implications for rebalancing. Last bloods have markedly inferior focus effects for casters and priests. A caster or priest who passed up a 65%/level 77 focus in favor of a 50%/level 70 focus for a bit more hp/ma/ac is a caster or priest who is a fool - or one who prioritized a few percent on his raw stats over 15% on his spells. So you cannot claim that there is problem with cultural for spellcasting classes. However, let's say that the Solteris gang get their wish. Here's another balance point to chew on:

Groupable and tradeable gear in tier 2 SoF (the Scratched Leather class) is truly comparable to Demiplane visible gear, and it *really is* purely buyable in the bazaar. 35% at 80 really is comparable to 60% at 72 (which degrades to 36% at 80). By contrast, Last Bloods are raid augs. So, by the same logic, one can presume that the group gear should also be "reigned in". Personally, I'm glad that there are upgrade paths for groupers, midtier raiders, and high end raiders. I also trust Ngereth implicitly, of course, and we'll see where he lands.

[Bedavir]

Simply acknowleging the ac is too high does not fix the problem.

Currently Bloods + new 80 plate has more ac than Raid Elemental Powersource'd solteris Rugged Energiac + the Polished 20 purity augment. If you toss in a metal powersource, rugged energiac pulls ahead by a dozen or so ac for the whole set, but then falls behind by a staggering many hundreds less hp.

If the armor/aug total power is going to remain unchanged, then the ac components of bazus, bloods, and even the TSS type 12's needs to be dropped. The only drop 'worthy' of the 45 raw ac would be the SoF type 12s.

I also trust Ngereth implicitly

I'm glad someone here does, because I sure don't, and neither does the majority of the raiding community. We took an aknowledged problem from 5 expansions ago ... a problem that we were told it was too late to fix but wouldn't happen again ... and made that problem considerably worse. Thankfully, we're only 2 weeks into the launch. It's not too late to fix it now, but I won't hold my breath. It's easier to ignore the problem isn't there or pretend it doesn't exist than actually try to fix it.

There are any number of ways this issue could be fixed. Let's hope a move is made in the right direction.

[Ratblaster]

The only drop 'worthy' of the 45 raw ac would be the SoF type 12s.

The AC has been unchanged since DoD...if you thought it was too much AC then the time to have changed it would have been 4 expansions ago. I have no expectation or desire to see ac dropped on drops that are 4 expansions old...SOE has acknolweded the AC was high and thus has held it steady with the new TSS serpent augs instead of increasing it. I'm confortable with that decision and have no complaint.

I'm glad someone here does, because I sure don't, and neither does the majority of the raiding community.

I think the above quote more appropriately needs to say the majority of the TBS/Solteris raiding community. There are lots of guilds raiding TSS and lower content who I dont see complaining. The main complaint I think is that TBS raiding guilds dont want to see others catch up in gear without hitting TBS. But crystallos gear will have heavy inflation of stats also. Even some of the non-crystallos gear has significant inflation...we've already a weapon coming out of bloodmoon raid with over 1000 hp...and I dont see the guilds getting those drops asking to nerf them due to too much hp...How much higher will Crystallos raid armor go? 1000? 1200+ with elemental attributes? Thats double the hp on 80+80+LB. Perhaps any nerfage should start with the new raid gear instead of the cultural.

If there will be significant inflation at the top some has to be expected in the middle. Many of the pre-tbs guilds had previously expressed concerns well before expansion that the overall inflation planned was enough that some guilds migh choose to bypass TSS and TBS...but the cultural armor is only 8 slots out of 20 and the demand for TSS raids is still there due to the need to fill all the other slots...and not everyone has the LB augs anyway...there will not be an overnight conversion to 80+80+LB gear since only so many LB augs can drop for a guild in a given week..and in 3 ag north clearings now we've only seen 1 serpent aug.