Cultural Nerfage? (unsubstantiated rumour)

[Ngreth Thergn]

One thing mentioned in other posts is the possibility of adding in lvl 75 armor to match the 75 augs... Smiths/Tailors may want to stockpile some alkalai loam, titanium ore, flawless spinners/silk/pelts, and superb marrow for January since i would expect any 75 armor to use the same materials as the 75 symbols, just as elegant armor shares ingredients with sublime symbols.

The posts in EQ forums seem to indicate that 70+70+70 may remain essentially unchanged, but that 80+80+70 set (Elegant+sublime+Last Blood) is going to see an overall decline (not sure how much of a decline it will get though)

You are correct that you might want to start saving

and yes. Complete SETS will remain overall similar to what they are now. Some small changes may be made, but it should not be anything large either way (the 80 80 80 set is getting a slight increase, the 75 75 75 a slight decrease (I had already said that it was a bit too powerful) the 70 70 70 about the same maybe the tiniest of increases...)

people with 80 80 70 will STILL see an increase over 70 70 70 , even the new 70 70 70. But they will loose stats from what they have before these changes are made (I.E. what that set is today). So they will still have achieved an upgrade from what they had before. Just not as huge an upgrade as they had before.

[Ngreth Thergn]

The new cultural was the FIRST thing I've seen in this game that appeared to give mid-tier raiding guilds a CHANCE to finally start progression faster than expansions were released. Nerfing it is going to KILL that chance, and from comments I've already heard from a lot of folks, is probably going to kill a LARGE number if not an outright majority of mid-tier guilds - and THAT will end up longer-term killing high-end guilds as well, as their "recruiting pool" disappears.

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.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Looking at what Ngreth posted on EQ live I imagine it would be along theses lines. I am sure numbers are different I just tried to imagine what would seem reasonable.

Armor Choices		Armor	Symbol	Seal	TOTAL
Lvl 70 Wrist		30	85	210	325
Lvl 70 Wrist Updated	50	135	140	325
Lvl 75 Wrist			250	250	500
Lvl 75 Wrist Updated	65	200	210	475
Lvl 80 Wrist		65	315	300	680
Lvl 80 Wrist Updated	85	295	300	680

What do you all think?

First before anyone gets any ideas... that is *NOT* actual numbers.

But that gets through the general idea of what is planned. It is a good illustration of what is being looked at.

THOSE ARE NOT ACTUAL NUMBERS But it is a good illustration of the idea. It even points out the overall idea of an adjustment to the 75 set since it was a bit high.

[Sklak]

Main problem I have is 1-group gear now will be better in every single slot, on every single item, than continuing to raid for anyone more than 2 years behind (basically any guild not already clearing most of TSS -- the handful whining for the nerf were *in every case* raiders either well into TSS or beyond TSS, and mostly tanks).

The top end members of mid-tier raid guilds will now have zero real raid upgrade uptions (other than 1 weapon slot for melees only), and without raid upgrade options, most mid-tier raid guilds will fold. DPS locks on TSS+ raids requires melee weapon upgrades not available from group content in SoF, but every other slot is vastly obsoleted by SoF group gear for anyone not already raiding TSS+.

The massive gear inflation in SoF was daunting, but having <ONE> signficiant upgrade option still remaining from raiding (via cultural/LB's & Bazu's) provided a bridge to have it continue to make sense to keep raiding from a gear perspective & progress in learning raids (and incidently getting melee weapon drops to upgrade raid dps, and filling in weaker / non-grouper slots on members)

I expect this nerf will directly lead to folding most mid and low tier guilds... and more than half of those members will end up as permanently lost subscribers.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Main problem I have is 1-group gear now will be better in every single slot, on every single item, than continuing to raid for anyone more than 2 years behind (basically any guild not already clearing most of TSS -- the handful whining for the nerf were *in every case* raiders either well into TSS or beyond TSS, and mostly tanks).

The top end members of mid-tier raid guilds will now have zero real raid upgrade uptions (other than 1 weapon slot for melees only), and without raid upgrade options, most mid-tier raid guilds will fold. DPS locks on TSS+ raids requires melee weapon upgrades not available from group content in SoF, but every other slot is vastly obsoleted by SoF group gear for anyone not already raiding TSS+.

The massive gear inflation in SoF was daunting, but having <ONE> signficiant upgrade option still remaining from raiding (via cultural/LB's & Bazu's) provided a bridge to have it continue to make sense to keep raiding from a gear perspective & progress in learning raids (and incidently getting melee weapon drops to upgrade raid dps, and filling in weaker / non-grouper slots on members)

I expect this nerf will directly lead to folding most mid and low tier guilds... and more than half of those members will end up as permanently lost subscribers.

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.

[Firecaller]

Re: Cultural nerfage

Ngreth, I really do appreciate you posting as much as you do on the boards and how well I thought SoF was rolled out tradeskill-wise.

While you write that the numbers changing are not solid and such, it does not matter how much the devs decide to change items because it means the developers caved to the whining of the hard-core raiders and strangled most mid-level raiding guilds.

And with this "post-release tuning", the devs will effectively let the base population know that 1) hard-core raiders' opinions carry more weight, 2) everything that is "working as intended" is only working as intended as long as it does not bruise the egos of a select few, and 3) all of the people in lower/mid-tier raiding guilds might as well kiss some of their friends goodbye because A TON of folks are angry over this potential change and some will probably vote with their accounts.

This change is the light at the end of the tunnel to keep the high-end raiders happy, when are the devs going to realize it is a train made up of the rest of the playerbase.

[Twistagain]

This change is also good for non-raiders. So, the majority of the player base is helped. I, personally, couldn't care less about how the high-end raiders are affected. They are a VERY small minority who are often catered to.

The groupers (those who don't raid...I'm not talking about someone who is in a raid-geared group) can only benefit from this. They either get better armor/symbols, or more money from the drops.

So, the only people who are hurt by this (in the long term) is raiders who aren't shooting for the best targets. And even then, they are only hurt if they don't WANT to shoot for better targets...because they are able to get gear that is better than their current targets so that they may move on.

[Woland]

Wasn't JUST mid-tier guilds having issues, though they were and still are having serious issues due to declining playerbase. Was AND STILL IS a lot of higher-tier guilds as well having to EAT lower-tier guilds(and then get them geared up) to even be able to handle the stuff they were ALREADY doing - and they're starting to run OUT of mid-tier guilds to do that with, even before SoF.

Povar alone has had 1 previously high-tier guild (Leviathan) flat out die, another (Forces Unknown) merge into a mid-tier guild to survive, only to have the resulting mid-tier guild (FoD) end up having to merge into yet ANOTHER mid-teir guild to survive (Darkova), Firestormers (longtime #2 guild on Povar) had to eat Lorekeepers (mid-tier) to survive, Triton almost disbanded, came back for a while, and is currently hurting enough that THEY expect Firestormers to pass them (Triton was for a long time one of the top 10 or even top 5 guilds in the GAME). Blades of Law hasn't progressed in a year and is slowly withering - the core of their raid force left a while ago. Final Empire gutted Catalysts' raid force to survive, Catalysts themselves had to eat at least one small guild to survive, Valheru/Sanity's Edge has eaten most of Defying Fate's raid force over the last couple months and is still marginal on survival.

MOST of the surviving Mid-Tier guilds have made more progression progress in the last MONTH, due in large part to gearing up via the new cultural, than in any 3 months of the last year. Nerfing the stuff is going to GUT most of those guilds - and I suspect that nerfing the stuff at THIS late date is going to GUT Everquest almost as badly as WoW=Guild Wars did 2 years ago.


The new cultural was the FIRST thing I've seen in this game that appeared to give mid-tier raiding guilds a CHANCE to finally start progression faster than expansions were released. Nerfing it is going to KILL that chance, and from comments I've already heard from a lot of folks, is probably going to kill a LARGE number if not an outright majority of mid-tier guilds - and THAT will end up longer-term killing high-end guilds as well, as their "recruiting pool" disappears.

You mention a name that conjures up images of great power for me so I have to respond. It is only a game but if there is such thing as having your heart broken in a game, fall of Leviathan was it for me.

However, way you use that name is very self serving an I will not let you do that. Leviathan disbanded like many other high end guilds not becasuse we did not get hand out gear. What you are suggesting is that guilds that are behind should be handed Solteris gear, level 80 and than they will beat Demi and catch up somewhat. That is against the spirit of EQ.

[KyrosKrane]

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.

It's really not that simple, Ngreth. Raiding requires two key factors: survivability and dps. As a realistic factor, and looking at how players play, everyone will level to max level and use their best spells, which typically are close to max. This increases both survivability and dps, but alone, it's not enough. (I'm ignoring raid tactics for the moment, but we can reasonably assume that the raid force is competent enough to learn and execute the needed strategies.)

Survivability is hugely influenced by gear. The new Elegant/Sublime gear provided an immediate and tangible boost to a raid's survivability, regardless of the level the raid was at. An Elegant/Sublime piece alone was better than a piece of Anguish raid gear if you ignore the focus. Raiding post-Anguish content (DoDH, TSS, and TBS) provided an upgrade path via Last Bloods, Serpents, and Sunshards. In other words, a large part of what allows guilds to move out of one tier of raiding is the ability to survive the next, not just a lack of interest in the rewards of their current tier.

Having said that, cultural is neither easy nor cheap. You've seen the complaints about the difficulty of doing the Sublime quest. The trivials on elegant and sublime are so high that only a select few tradeskillers per server have a reasonable chance of making them. And if a character wants a Last Blood or better type 12 aug, they will pay through the nose for the components to make an AAAA or AGAA, not to mention the time and tedium of making them and the other bits needed. Simply put, there is a massive, massive hidden cost behind the cultural option, and it's one that the raiders mostly dismiss or outright deny. They only see a person walking into a bazaar and buying an upgrade. They ignore the fact that someone else has put in a huge amount of time to make that upgrade happen. It's no different from saying 50 people must spend three hours on a raid for only three people to get an upgrade. That's the time investment on a typical raid. In tradeskills, the time cost is hidden because the tradeskiller has to do it alone, before the upgrade is produced, but that cost is still there.

The second aspect of moving to the next raid tier is dps. This is one that tradeskills currently has no answer for. There are no meaningful tradeskilled weapons of raid caliber, and spell research does not provide raid spells, or even current-level spells.

Spell dps is pretty easy to upgrade: rank 1 spells are mostly vendor sold, and rank 2 spells are dropped or from quests that have plentiful rewards for everyone. However, the lack of a focus severely degrades the benefits of these upgrades. If the casters stick with their old focuses (as would be the case with cultural armors), they are at a huge disadvantage. This is fine; there has to be a comparison and a trade-off. So, sticking with cultural armors for survivability costs the caster in terms of dps. With TSS and higher content having raids that are a pure measure of dps ("You must have THIS much dps, or you cannot win, even with perfect execution"), sticking with cultural is a downside. The caster has to get their focuses elsewhere -- effectively, by raiding.

Melee dps is even worse off. Their ONLY option for upgrades is to raid. If they don't loot a shiny new sword or dagger or mace, their dps stagnates, period. Again, type 12 seals provide outdated melee focuses like improved dodge or cleave. Getting these "focus-like" boosts to dps and survivability requires raiding to get the appropriate drops, which, if you're using cultural, cannot be in the visible slots.

The upshot is that the upgraded cultural is a path to increase survivability. This increases the chances that a guild can beat raid events, which in turns increases their chance to earn dps upgrades, which in turn allows them to move on to future tiers.

Now, let's talk about the changes you're proposing. Last bloods have been in the game since around October 2005, give or take a month, when guilds first broke into Demi. That's two full years people have been farming last bloods. Today, more guilds than ever are in Demi, and they will continue to break into Demi as levels and better groupable gear make the raiding easier. Cultural is a large part of this; even without a type 12 aug, cultural gear allows a guild the increased survivability I discussed before.

The change you're proposing actually hurts anyone who's in Demi (and later tiers, for that matter) at this time because realistically, people will only wear the level 70 armor if they can't get their hands on the level 80 armor for whatever reason. In the two months SoF will have been out by the time you complete your preparations for this change, countless numbers of people will have bought or made their cultural armors with the full expectation that they will be able to use it as an upgrade path. In exchange, they will have passed on group and raid drops that would otherwise be an upgrade, and they will have spent dkp acquiring last bloods instead of armor drops. They will have spent time farming cash to buy the armors, or drops to make them, rather than spending that time farming alternative armors they could use.

In other words, you're nerfing people who upgraded to cultural armor without providing a meaningful alternative, and even worse, you're negating all the time and effort people put into making and acquiring that armor in the first place. At the same time, you're making it HARDER for people to progress out of their current content and into the next tier, which directly contradicts one of the stated goals of SoF: to help people more forward.

As for those who say that Elegant with TSS/TBS drops are better than TSS/TBS dropped armors: Duh! Elegant and Sublime armors are level 80 drops. They're supposed to be better than past content, or it's wasting everyone's time! The same logic would mean that GoD armors shouldn't have been better than Time armors, and TBS armors shouldn't be better than TSS armors. It's malarkey on every level.

SoF is a gear reset, in every sense of the word. SoF-caliber gear makes everything before it look weak. This applies to group gear, raid gear, tradeskill gear, and more. This was one of the best things to happen to Everquest in a LONG time, and it's a large part of the reason that I was so excited over this expansion. Please don't backpedal now. Don't say, "Oh, we didn't mean it when we wanted people to progress." Cultural armor is a form of progression for tradeskillers, groupers, and raiders, with massive costs on top of the visible ones of getting the armor. It's fair and balanced, and the only people complaining so far seem to be folks who are upset that their raid-dropped gear is now obsolete. Guess what? It was intended for SoF to obsolete much of the older content. That's what it was designed for. Stick with the design, and you're golden.

[Woland]

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.

[Aaneras]

Ngereth, I'm looking at the dissolution of my raid force if you do this. One reason is that our tanks, who have invested enormous effort in following a certain path, feel that the rug is being pulled out of under them. A deeper reason has to do with the way that SoF undermines the raid game that the majority of EQ raiders are actually playing. Here's why:

Maintaining a raid force is a fine balance. You have to convince 45+ people to show up several times a week, and to jump through a series of hoops (building faction, finishing quests, looting items that unlock zones, etc.) You can't just decide "we'll raid expansion x instead of expansion y". Outside of raid times you have to get dozens of people to progress through multiple stages, and until 85+% of them have done them a given expansion is closed to you.

If you have 35 people show up, you can't do anything. If you shut down raids it becomes incredibly hard to restart them; you always lose at least a few people - and if you drop below some pretty firm benchmarks the content becomes extremely difficult. There is also the video game aspect - if people leave for awhile they get rusty, and demiplane+ encounters are designed so that careless play by only 1 or 2 players can wipe the entire force. People do this for a variety of reasons; personally I enjoy co-operative puzzle solving. But for a significant subgroup it's that the raid gear is better than anything you can get from grouping. TSS group gear was comparable to (much earlier) GoD gear; TBS group gear was inferior to Anguish. SoF group gear at the endgame, however, is competitive with TSS group gear and better than DP. That's a big chunk of content that just got leapfrogged.

Now let us fast forward to SoF. You've put in one-group attunable (not even nodrop) encounters in tier 2 that yield armor comparable to Demiplane. Add in a tier 3 source - and demiplane raiders can do both - and a group can achieve substantially better loot than they can get through raiding. Now you don't have to faction to group; you don't have to die repeatedly figuring out an encounter; you don't have to wait an average of a month for a raid item. Unless the raid gives you something nice, you'll lose at least a portion of your force. And if you lose 1/4 of your force you are stopped stone cold dead.

Without the last bloods there is nothing in demiplane that the raiders there can't get in groups, and at the same time there is a substantial hurdle between the demiplane force and tss. People won't group for awhile and then return to raiding..because the raid force won't exist anymore. A fraction of the raiders will join forces working on tougher content, and the majority will quit the game. Your median raider is in Demiplane, so this is directly and absolutely relevant. The Demiplane folks have no problem with improved group gear - it's stagnated badly in recent years. But without an upgrade path you'll deal a severe body blow to 2/3 of your raid forces.

[Leafslasher]

So at first it was said that this would not be nerfed and this is how it was intended to be, so that pretty much gave the go ahead that you can spend massive amounts of plat on this stuff for a sweet upgrade. Now it's getting nerfed to which it sounds like most of these pieces are going to be only like 30hp upgrade from a tss piece or maybe not even an upgrade at all anymore. So by nerfing these seals people just wasted millions amount of plat for pretty much nothing? So what if elegant+last blood+ sublime+ a type 7 is close to solteris level of gear, elegant is only for the visible armor slots, theres still all the non-visible slots +weapons that solteris is still good for. I fail to see the point in nerfing this.

[Yakk]

As an alternative proposal...

Consider the L 70 armor+symbols to be one "unit". Moving a bit of power between them isn't that important.

L 70 armor+symbol is denoted 70G.
L 80 armor+symbol is denoted 80G.

Last Blood is denoted 70R.
Sunshard is 75R.
and Faycite is 80R.

Stats other than HP/mana are not mentioned: they should move around a bit too.

1> Boost 70G by 5 AC and 50 hp/mana per slot.
2> Drop 70R by 5 AC and 50 hp/mana per slot.
3> Boost 75R by 5 AC and 50 hp/mana per slot.
3> Drop 80G by 10 AC and 100 hp/mana per slot.
4> Boost 80R by 10 AC and 100 hp/mana per slot.
5> Add ATTUNEABLE type 12 group augs that grant up to 10 AC 100 hp/mana in T1/T2 zones.
6> Add NO DROP type 12 group augs that grant 20 AC 150 hp/mana in T2/T3 zones.
7> Boost the T4 group type 12 augs (that nobody has found?) by 10 AC 100 hp/mana.

Results: (in comparison to current stuff)
70R+70G: no change.
70R+80G: -15 AC -150 hp

80R+80G: no change

70G+00R: +5 AC +50 hp
80G+00R: -10 AC -100 hp
70G+ATTUNEABLE12: +15 AC +150 hp
80G+ATTUNEABLE12: no change
70G+ATTUNEABLE12: +25 AC +250 hp
80G+NODROP12:+10 AC +50 hp

The ATTUNEABLE/NODROP type 12 augs provide a non-raider demand for the armor without making the gear pure-twinkage. Even the 70G gear will be decent with an ATTUNEABLE type 12 drop, which boosts the demand for 70G. 75G will be better. And 80G will be just as good as it is now.

Additional NO DROP group type 12s brings the pure-group armor up to "I like!" quality. Instead of going back and single-grouping bazu mobs, you XP and get not-quite-bazu-quality type 12 augs to drop in level-appropriate content.

And every time a type 12 NO DROP aug drops in an XP group, that means that a member of that group will want to buy the best cultural they can afford. This drives demand! And with the "slope" on L 70 to L 80 cultural armor reduced somewhat...

(Currently, it goes from 115 hp at L 70 to 370 at L 80 (!). Afterwards, it will go from 165 hp at L 70 to 270 hp at L 80. Still something someone will pay a premium for, but not so much that people will turn up their noses at the L 70/75 stuff.)

In addition, this increases the distance between LB and Faycite seals. LB loses 50 hp, while Faycite gains 100. The current distance is 150 hp -- this boosts the distance to 300.


Bazu would be dropped 50 hp and 5 AC like LB, or maybe a bit less. Sub-Bazu augs would get a smaller downgrade than Bazu:
Chronal: 25 HP (-0 AC -30 HP)
Discordant: 75 HP (-5 AC -45 HP)
Bazu: 25 AC 130 hp (-5 AC -50 hp)
Last Blood: 40 AC 160 hp (-5 AC -50 hp)
Serpent: 45 AC 250 hp (0 AC 0 hp)
Sunshard: 50 AC 350 hp (+5 AC +50 hp)
Faycite: 55 AC 450 hp (+10 AC +100 hp)

A nice, steady progression of power from one seal to the next. Each upgrade is a "nice" step.

In comparison, the group drops proposed:
ATTUNABLE12: 10 AC 100 hp/mana
NODROP12: 20 AC 150 hp/mana

NODROP12 is near Bazu level power.
ATTUNEABLE12 would be better than Discordant type 12 drops.

Downsides:
Someone in only L 80 cultural needs an ATTUNEABLE drop to keep their current power level.

The addition of two new sets of drops (ATTUNEABLE12 and NODROP12) to the game.

The ability for NODROP12+80G to exceed the current 80G power level.

[Woland]

Aaneras,

Are you saying that Developers should make DPoB drops such that they encourage people to keep raiding there forever? Are you serious? The new level and gear should easily propel you to TSS. Isn't this what needs to happen?

80 armor + 80 symbol + LB will make way better gear than Demi and better than TSS gear, no matter how this adjustment works out. I don't know what level of gear you think you should get from raiding DPoB.

This talk of large number of people canceling accts is just a joke, question for DPoB guild is if their LBs will make armor that is 60&#37; or 80% upgrade.

I guarantee that your tank will have 4k+ HP more than mine when I did DPoB!!!

[Aaneras]

Aaneras,

Are you saying that Developers should make DPoB drops such that they incourage people to keep raiding there forever? Are you serious? The new level and gear should easily propel you to TSS. Isn't this what needs to happen?

80 armor + 80 symbol + LB will make way better gear than Demi and better than TSS gear, no matter how this adjustment works out. I don't know what level of gear you think you should get from raiding DPoB.

This talk of large number of people canceling accts is just a joke, question for DPoB guild is if their LBs will make armor that is 60&#37; or 80% upgrade.

I guarantee that your tank will have 4k+ HP more than did mine when I did DPoB!!!

Explain to me the upgrade path for a demiplane guild. Remember that you have to have to something to do that motivates people to show up. The force isn't flagged for - and doesn't have the dps for - TSS+. Also note that, unlike when you did demiplane, people can drop plat in the bazaar for better gear than they can raid for in demiplane - or they could one-group it. (No, this isn't true for last bloods - which, remember, we're just in the process of getting; these aren't items we have piles of in the bank).

For bonus points, if you're wrong for 1/4 of the force then the remaining toons are too few in number to do anything. Double bonus: you're dealing with people who are, for the most part, delighted to be rid of Demiplane once the melee toons get the weapons and LB upgrades that will permit them to attempt DK/TSS raiding in a viable manner.