Cultural Nerfage? (unsubstantiated rumour)

[Grizabelle]

Several thoughts occur to me on this one, I raid 2 toons both in cultural at this point.

I do sympathize with the lack of foresight at balancing not only to the tiers in SoF but with TSS and TBS. I think it was a pretty grevious error to have overlooked but it does happen. The mudflation on hps/ac/mob damage output was astronomical with SoF and trying to balance to the future thats so inflated vs the past which isnt inflated isnt an enviable position but my biggest concern about this nerf is what it is going to do to the abilities of the mid-level players to play in tier 2 and 3 of SoF. With this Nerf, Im really expecting to go back to AG when it first came out and no one but the ubers could play there for the first several months because we just couldnt tank it. Is this nerf going to put us back into a spiral where the mobs in the expansion will be nerfed in a few months to put it back so that average players can still go there? If thats the case I think you should look forward and not back. I know we will still do TSS and TBS ( just breaking TSS now) because of the other pieces available there and its better to leave it be than rile everyone up and break things even more trying to fix for a mudflated discrepancy.

[Gaell Stormracer]

Demi-plane visible armour is already practically obsolete vs TRADEABLE drops in SoF.

This complaint of the high-end raiders that their (past) achievements should not be surpassed by newer content is surely less relevant than that of mid-tier guilds whose CURRENT and near-future raid achievements are superseded by SoF group gear? It's been characterized as "I beat Solteris and all I got was this T-shirt", but that's exactly what they (and, apparently, the Dev Team) are telling the Blood Raid and Demi-Plane Guilds right now about the content they are fighting, with lesser numbers and few "hard core" players.

[Gaell Stormracer]

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.

/applaud (and KyrosKrane's response to Ngreth too) - a perfect summary of where my guild, and it seems a lot of other guilds are.

[Havensdance]

I do have a wonderful question for anyone who already beat TSS / Solteris. How do we expect Demi-level guilds who farm the tier 4 group armor which is already better then TSS and nearly as good as Solteris to progress quickly through everything if they still have to trudge along learning events for DPS increases? The group content weapons in SoF are anguish / low demi level. You can't jump content with the crap dps these guilds produce. The majority of these GD events require huge dps that you only get trudging along. So now everyone can go get 450-500-550 hp items and watch all of these things STILL rot. It doesn't matter one bit if the number on the armor says 690 or 590. They still won't loot that crap armor and will still be forced to raid there for weapons.

[Aaneras]

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.

Be honest. You don't care a whit about Demiplane raiders; you're a Solteris level raider and what you care about is making sure that your own gear is better than those of lesser raiders. I at least respect the honesty of the Solteris folks who have said precisely this in other threads; don't be disingenuous.

[Woland]

Aaneras,

You are wrong, you cannot see past what suits you. I have multiple made LBs in bank. I can take advantage of Cultural as is far better than almost any Demi level raider. Most in my guild have banked LBs. I would use them instead of bidding Solteris armor and gain instantly. There is not 1 foci I have to lose, lvl 2 Mods are better than what I have, I have no issues with purity augs, my PSes last lot longer.

You have this idea that this is some sort of class warfare. That loudest oponents happen to be from Higher lvl guilds is just because they are active on boards. High End raiders can use this stuff more readily for an imediate inpact than Demi raiders. When they tell you this is not good it is far more objective than when someone who stands to gain 2kHP and 300 AC tells you it is well balanced.

[gggrant]

Aaneras,

You are wrong, you cannot see past what suits you. I have multiple made LBs in bank. I can take advantage of Cultural as is far better than almost any Demi level raider. Most in my guild have banked LBs. I would use them instead of bidding Solteris armor and gain instantly. There is not 1 foci I have to lose, lvl 2 Mods are better than what I have, I have no issues with purity augs, my PSes last lot longer.

You have this idea that this is some sort of class warfare. That loudest oponents happen to be from Higher lvl guilds is just because they are active on boards. High End raiders can use this stuff more readily for an imediate inpact than Demi raiders. When they tell you this is not good it is far more objective than when someone who stands to gain 2kHP and 300 AC tells you it is well balanced.

Even if what you say it true, it is largely irrelevant.

Truth is for the most part less important than perceived truth. What you stated could be a the absolute truth, it could be a misunderstanding of reality or it could be a bald faced lie. It doesn't really matter. If it is perceived as being untrue (unintentional or intentional), then it IS "some sort of class warfare".

[Regnad]

Originally Posted by Leonis
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.

I am a 9 year veteran, we all know EQ is dying slowly; Sony did this to themselves making new games then pushing people to those new games. They don’t even advertise EQ anymore and many places don’t sell it. They have also made petitioning so hard most people don’t’ even bother doing it anymore, much less having to wait days to get a response once you do finally figure out how to get your petition in. The endless zone crashes with roll backs and deaths lately haven’t help. They are enough alone to make one want to retire.

Nerfing culture now after we’ve had it this long will only hurt EQ more. It seems Sony is on this big push to make everyone quit EQ1 for new games or something. I really don’t understand their reasoning. Everything in EQ lately is Spam for money on this lon stuff. It’s getting old, they don’t seem to care about what goes on in the actual game over lon.

What gets me more though is that so many servers can’t find the correct classes to fill their roster with more and more people retiring yet you often see people shouting in PoK for member to form up for yet another new guild. This really bugs me. The old guilds can’t get the people they need, why try to start yet another new guild?

[Leafslasher]

They just need to leave cultural alone, it is fine the way it is, its only 8 slots, not every slot there is, and nerfing it now after saying it was not going to be nerfed is going to cause major problems with most of the players.

[Twistagain]

Be honest. You don't care a whit about Demiplane raiders; you're a Solteris level raider and what you care about is making sure that your own gear is better than those of lesser raiders. I at least respect the honesty of the Solteris folks who have said precisely this in other threads; don't be disingenuous.

Even if that is true, then you need to be honest. Mid-level raiders are the only ones that are upset. So, a minority of a minority are mad. The higher raiders don't care, because they already had better. The casual/groupers don't care because they are actually getting BETTER equipment (we DON'T have LBs...and WON'T for a long time. Any arguement on your part about "just go do it" is equivalent to us saying "just go do Solteris." It doesn't hold water on our part, and it doesn't hold water on yours.)

[KyrosKrane]

So, a minority of a minority are mad.

It's more like a majority of the minority. There are FAR more "casual" or mid-tier raiders than there are top-tier post-TBS raiders. Raiders as a whole are a minority of EQ, this is true, but they're also the showpiece of EQ, the poster boy held out for the world to see, both as a goal for other to strive towards and as an attraction for new players who enjoy raids.

[Woland]

Kryos,

I bet you anything that 80% of all LBs are in hands of those raiding TSS and above. 20% of those that have LBs are ones screaming murder. Point is this is a minimal help for those guilds and is a huge issue for those above because it creates situation where people do not bid natural progression upgades. That in turn creates problems in motivating people to raid content.

EQ is somewhat in trouble, lots of people left. It is hard on all guilds in all tiers. If any part of food chain is not healthy, noone is healthy. You can look up servers and see top guild on each. Where they are in progression has very high correlation with health of that server. No high end raider has interest in seeing lower tier guilds disintegrate. It is their lifeblood.

[Grizabelle]

The problem to that argument is that the new cultural actually invigorated those people that many guilds ( including mine) were close to leaving over the TSS factioning fiasco.

You cant tell me its bad for my mid-level raiding when we have more people more positive about our abilities than in a long time. People thinking we might actually be able to advance largely in spite of TSS because we might be able to slide around it now.

Im all cheers for getting rid of a road black that lost us members and letting us get into something new. This argument that new cultural hurts raiding isnt an accurate portrait at all for my guild at least.

[Archus]

Last Bloods have been around and fairly overpowered for 2 years now. It seems ironic to me that none of these high end raiders were calling for LB nerfs when they were benefitting from it in their gear, but now that those LB's are banked and raiders behind them are benefitting and 'closing the gap', they are screaming bloody murder. If LB's are suddenly 'broken', it isn't because they have changed in any way, it is because the cultural has changed and become overpowered. Therefore, if a nerf _must_ happen, it should really happen to the cultural armor and symbols, not to an item that has had the same stats for 2 darn years. Don't give me BS about this 'set' or that 'set'. There is no such thing as a set except in the minds of people trying to justify a nerf. I still think the best solution is to bump Solteris visible armor AC/HP 5-10% across the board to compensate for this 'design error'. Then everyone wins and is happy. So the devs might have to tune up some of the SoF raid encounters. Big deal. They probably are not currently tuned properly anyways.

[Woland]

Grizabelle,

It is a huge overstatement to suggest that New Cultural is making your guild more capable. Add up all the HP and what not and it's a fraction of what level 80 has given you. Look at your raids DPS, it did not go up due to New Cultural armor one bit it is all due to level 80. There is no way that you would notice if 100 HP were taken of every piece of cultural armor in your guild, and that is by far the worst that can happen.

Archus,

Noone called for LBs to be nerfed because they never were the issue till now. Noone is asking for LBs to be nerfed now. Most belive Symbol to be the issue. Ngreth however has strong feelings about not nerfing the Symbol and LB is the only other way to make this little more balanced. As for bumping everything else up so that New cultural fits, I hope you understand how silly that suggestion is.