Cultural Nerfage? (unsubstantiated rumour)

[Palarran]

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.

Kiss of Erollisi Marr.

I have it, and would have no problem with it being nerfed regardless of time away from the game. (Well, okay, I'd be mildly disappointed at first, but that would pass quickly.)

As opposed to mid tier guilds, that use 100 people that show up from 40-50 seemingly randomly,

This is by no means exclusive to "mid tier" guilds. I'm in a Solteris guild with over 100 active members. Our turnouts vary significantly from day to day too.

[Bedavir]

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.

Then they need to go find a new game, because I have a feeling that every raid expansion henceforth is going to require extensive factioning/keying/flagging.

[Archus]

As for bumping everything else up so that New cultural fits, I hope you understand how silly that suggestion is.

Sorry, no. I don't understand why that is any sillier than nerfing a great many existing items and making a large percentage of the playerbase unhappy. Don't understand it at all.

[Bedavir]

Sometimes unpopular decisions have to be made to maintain the integrity of the game.

[Woland]

Sorry, no. I don't understand why that is any sillier than nerfing a great many existing items and making a large percentage of the playerbase unhappy. Don't understand it at all.

Lol at "great many existing items" and "large percentage of the playerbase unhappy".

8 items and all those with LBs that wanted and could afford to buy armor.
If all the people who scream on EQ board quit EQ will lose 2 dozen accts tops.

Again I hate to see anyone go, I have a vested interest in seeing EQ prosper, I love this game and want to continue playing. Just don't make this into what it is not.

[gggrant]

Lol at "great many existing items" and "large percentage of the playerbase unhappy".

8 items and all those with LBs that wanted and could afford to buy armor.
If all the people who scream on EQ board quit EQ will lose 2 dozen accts tops.

Again I hate to see anyone go, I have a vested interest in seeing EQ prosper, I love this game and want to continue playing. Just don't make this into what it is not.

If there are only 8 pieces of Elegant/Sublime/LB in game, then SOE is wasting a lot of time for nothing and you are wasting everyones time for defending it.

[Woland]

8 items have a potential of seeing change. I did not say there are 8 of these items in game.

[gggrant]

8 items have a potential of seeing change. I did not say there are 8 of these items in game.

So, "Lol at "great many existing items" and 8 items means more than 8 items.

kk, I can live with that.

{Edit:} Btw, if you are referring to unique items there are 7 unique items for each race and 7 unique symbols for each diety worshipped.

[Archus]

Lol at "great many existing items" and "large percentage of the playerbase unhappy".

8 items and all those with LBs that wanted and could afford to buy armor.
If all the people who scream on EQ board quit EQ will lose 2 dozen accts tops.

Again I hate to see anyone go, I have a vested interest in seeing EQ prosper, I love this game and want to continue playing. Just don't make this into what it is not.

By great many existing items, I meant all the last bloods that are going to be changed. Yes there are many across all servers. By large percentage of the playerbase I am only going by the number of angry posts in the last 26-48 hours over on the EQ live boards. I also never said I was threatening to leave. I still have fun with my friends no matter what SoE does to the game for now. However, I do know many people who are extremely upset (not just those who posted on the boards, but in game friends). If most of my friends were to leave the game, then the game would no longer be fun for me, and I would probably leave it as well.

I think you are deceiving yourself if you think only a few dozen accounts will leave over this. It probably still will not be a substantive number, but if friends of these people leave, there could be a snowball effect that could be quite bad. Am I predicting this? No. Is it possible? Yes.

[Archus]

Sometimes unpopular decisions have to be made to maintain the integrity of the game.

Funny, I could use the same fortune cookie wisdom to defend leaving the items un-nerfed. The 'integrity of the game' is quite open for interpretation. YOUR definition of it is most likely NOT the same as mine.

[Xanathol]

Sometimes unpopular decisions have to be made to maintain the integrity of the game.

Integrity? Like posting "we've reviewed the items and they are fine" and sticking to it?

[Ngreth Thergn]

Lets please stop naming particular people here. This was a TEAM decision. Not Ngreth's, nor Merloc's not Maddoc's, nor Rashere's. It was a team. Within the team are different opinions on it, and individual opinions on it do not matter.

You can call on my integrity all you want. I certainly don't think my quitting will help this situation at all. It will certainly have little to do with the outcome except maybe make it take longer as someone else would have to come up to speed.

If you want my personal opinion. I was wrong that it was "fine as is." Do I think it was a bad problem? No, because really sure these people may be getting from these 8 pieces more of the holy grail of AC and HP/MANA/END than solteris raiders... but the focus is underpowered. But I do have a worry about the mods. The mods bring them so close to cap, that just a few pieces of decent non-visible do negate the fact that the mods are less powerful.

At the same time. While I sympathise with the Mid teir and the tradeskillers, I am really not sure that it is proper balance that they get equipment that has even just AC HP/MANA/END better than solteris, for doing two year old content and slapping it in two pieces of equipment that can be bought in the bazaar.

I am sorry that I created this problem, but now this problem exists. I am sorry that Mid Teir raiders are getting hit so hard by this, but I am really going the way that continues to support groupers. These changes improve the group game, which is an even larger group than the mid teir raiders. Mid Teir raiders STILL have an upgrade over what they had before SoF launched. I will be working hard so that overall it is still an upgrade over before SoF.

Admittedly some of these changes will also affect people that only upgrades Symbols as they may also need to upgrade the armor. But in the end I think that is healthier for the tradeskills themselves.

[Archus]

Do I think it was a bad problem? No

Then why antagonize some of your playerbase? This problem if left unchanged WILL NOT BREAK THE GAME.

I am really not sure that it is proper balance that they get equipment that has even just AC HP/MANA/END better than solteris, for doing two year old content and slapping it in two pieces of equipment that can be bought in the bazaar.

You want us to believe this was a TEAM decision, then you basically quote verbatim what Frodlin and Battleblade have been whining about on the EQ Live boards. "Balance" changes with every expansion. Gear gets obsoleted in every expansion. Just because this particular rebalancing somewhat cut into the 'lead' of bleeding edge guilds, it was deemed excessive. Guess what though. You could outfit entire DP/DK guilds in this gear in every slot and they still could not jump past TSS into Solteris. TSS guilds outfitted that way could finish TSS faster, but guess what? Solteris was next on their progression list anyways, and I don't think those guilds are going to skip Solteris farming to focus exclusively on SoF.

Mid Teir raiders STILL have an upgrade over what they had before SoF launched. I will be working hard so that overall it is still an upgrade over before SoF.

These last two sentences really give me pause. They seem contradictory. In the first sentence you assure us these will still be an upgrade. In the second, you indicate they might not still be an upgrade unless you 'work hard'. Does this mean you will have to twist the arms of devs that are gung-ho for a severe nerf?

[Wyvernwill]

I can't even fathom a civil response atm Ngreth.

Somehow justifying this as a "team" decision doesn't lessen individual faults for every single member that even uttered that this is working as intended and has turned back on their exact statement regardless of the numbers and statements made through beta and post SoF coming live.

You have absolutely no idea how disgusted I am with the entire dev team after this last beta, in general, this was just more icing on the cake.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Then why antagonize some of your playerbase? This problem if left unchanged WILL NOT BREAK THE GAME.

Becuase that was my opinion, not the team opinion.