Upcoming changes to DoN cultural armors

[KyrosKrane]

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted here yet.

Ngreth has made a couple of posts saying that he's made progress on revamping the DoN cultural armors. The full thread is here, linked to his first post from the last few days:

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/po...=49109#1534619

I have a bit of news on this front.

While I still do not have a date for you, I have actually been actively working on this for the last three weeks. So progress has been made.

As I have mentioned before, the first step is going to be fixing the issue with the acquiring of the parts, the next step will be to make the quests more equitable.

With that in mind.


The drops needed will be changing. With that in mind, use up all parts you may have stored. I understand that some people do not read the boards, and some people go away for a while. Unfortunately there is only a limited amount I can do for those folks, and I will try to be as fair to them as I can under the limitations I will have. I will go into it in more detail when it is less likely to cause hoarding and price gouging.

And later:

It is changing for armor and symbols, from journeyman to grand master, for all races. It is all changing

And yes, this does mean that some races will be "adjusted down" while some will get a big boost. It is an overall evening of the availability of components. Every race will have the same difficulty or ease of getting components as another race will.

Basically the drops will be generic, with more of the racial differentiation being what you get from NPC vendors in your home towns. There were many issues with trying to balance various drops over the different zones and different NPC's and different NPC levels that just became pretty much unsolvable without other massive changes that would be worse than this. And then only "some" races would have the inconvenience of having their components change, while others did not. This way it is equal on the inconvenience and the target drop rate.

And as I mentioned, I will be addressing the quests at a later time.

And on a side note: Possibly before this change goes live... the names of the cultural items will be changing. The names were leaving me without room for growth, so a new naming scheme was implemented that will give me some leeway.

When asked about the possibility of creating an exchange NPC:

Ngreth, I take it as great news that you have the time to look into this matter. I look forward to the final resolution.

If I may suggest, this news has inspired some amount of panic. Prices for components have plummeted by 50% so far on my server, and
they're still in freefall as the news spreads. I'm assuming that the new components will serve roughly the same purpose as Glossy Drake Hides, Metallic Drake Scales, Piles of Gravel, Shissar Scales, and so on. Would it be feasible to implement an exchange NPC who takes one of these old components and returns an equivalent new component? If folks have some assurance that their stockpiles won't be rendered worthless, it might help to stave off the panic and stabilize the market. It doesn't even have to be 1-to-1. For example, the NPC might take two Shissar Scales (which are relatively common) for one of the new component, but maybe one Coarse Spider Silk would give back two of the new ones, to make up for the past rarity.

Yes and no


If I could actually stop all of the existing drops from dropping... I could do so.

Unfortunately many of the drops have other uses, including quests so they cannot be removed. If there is a trade in vendor, then they become extra sources of drops, and we are trying to balance the drop rate, not create a flood.

Now what may be posible is a trade in of some sort for the swatches / bars / sheets (just going to say swatches for all) as I can disable the recipes to make those. But in the end that creates some of the same type of hoarding I am hoping to avoid. It is just hoarding of making the swatches.

And yes, the current GM pieces are generic, but we are doing something that will allow us to expand where they pieces drop, and fix the silk issue at the same time.

Part of this change does lead to existing swatches no longer having a use, so an exchange for them is useful. That is why I am thinking of an exchange.

To keep things consolidated and easy for Ngreth to read, I suggest keeping most of the discussion on the linked thread.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Actually. I am planing on making a new thread on Artisan's way on Monday., and had planed on a similar thread here. The other thread is already buried in both a sticky (which are not as noticed on those forums) and is deep in a long thread. I am awaiting approval on a post. I talk about a few more things in that post and I want to wait to get heavily into the discussion until then. I am willing to make some minor comments tomorrow, but I am going to reserve my major conversation on it for after that post (I just have to put a fire under someone to approve the post)

And no, not all of my posts have to be approved, I was just asked specifically in this case to pass it through someone first.

[Strokker]

Personally I would like to see Player made arome scaleabl upward and each piece with a tradeskill tag so a player can make it better as tehy go along...just a thought...But this news is great for tradeskillers who make and sell Don Cultural...emphasis on the sell part.

[Eggborn]

Just trying to figure out if I should try and farm more metallic drake scales and get my own armor finished or wait. I am thinking , farm, as these are not so terrible to get.

The hubby, on the other hand has managed to collect three coarse spider silks in six months, and needs some more to make what he wants. Last blood rotting in the bank. Not sure about what to do on that one.

[Anexkahn]

I really hate to sound negative, but i hope your detailed post has some good explaination as to WHY such massive changes were needed. Yes, the droprates were a bit out of whack on a few items, and possibly some drops needed to be moved to other loot tables.... But i can't for the life of me understand why a complete revamp like what it sounds like is needed... and i hope there is a good reason why.

On another note, changing the names so that cultural can be expanded upon has me excited!

[maybeso1]

OK....

From where I look at it, alot of the drops are from specific "mobs". Storm Volaas Hair, ocean giants in postorms. Night mare arachnid silk, again, a specifc type of mob in a specific zone.

Without creating "enclaves" of mobs of those types, outside of their specific areas, its pretty difficult to keep the drops within the storyline.

Personally, I found the idea that there's silks dropping in dodh, n por, that have no TS use to be..... appalling. If Ngreth is going to revamp those drops, and include them in DoN TS applications, it opens up 3? 4? expansions of mobs to be ABLE to get the drops from. As it is, unless you KNOW where to get the drops, and CAN get to them, DoN GM silk is like..... hen's teeth. Its there. W/ level 75, and general character power increases, those silks are alot more "available". But, consider..... there are ALOT of toons out there w/ GM leather, chain, plate...... All my toons that wear silk that CAN wear GM gear, have master's silk armor.

If you notice..... The crushed diamond dust isn't dropping any more commonly in velious era zones. It IS dropping in pretty much every expansion since DoN. To achieve that kind of change, alot of the pieces are going to have to be either justified for why they are now dropping on mobs, vs the storyline, OR revamp the whole darn thing n make it happier cause now tons more mobs CAN drop the bits. Explaining why a mob in TSS is suddenly dropping Storm Volaas Hair to them folks that manage the story line, might be a little rough.

That said, I have no idea what I'm going to do with the stack of CDD, purescale ore, my stockpiles of GM waters, expert's waters, etc.

I very much like the idea of an exchange NPC for completed pre-combines. Things like starglow swatches, grand master's water of _____ just to name some. Annoying, but, a modest amount of compasion for those of us that keep stuff around for new guildies, friends' new toons, etc. Yes, it's extra coding work. It's also much happier customer service. Much happier.

Thank you for your efforts, Ngreth.

As far as hording of components goes...... There's stockpiling the generic forms of the items vs future needs / desires, and then there's other "commercial" approaches. Its taken me since DoN launch to acumulate the bits I do have. I've used some, I've collected some more.

TTFN,

Maibesow

[Verdandi]

As far as alerting people who don't read boards to use up their components, maybe a patch message at least a week or two in advance of the changes? If people choose not to read those, that's their own silly fault.

[Liwsa]

As one of those hoarders(I have been saving everything for a long time until I can get races up to where they can use them) Is there any time frame on WHEN this might happen, like 1 week , 1 month, next expansion??

If possible can we get a timeframe so I know that I have x amount of time to burn through the 1000's of different race combines I have been saving until my chars got their skill high enough to use.

Guess my next xxx weeks will be doing tradeskills only since it seems I have quite a few stacks of supplies to use up before it becomes useless.

[Fonceur]

As far as I'm concerned, the glossy drake hides and metallic drake scales are the only components that have been fair so far... They should be tradeable on a 1 to 1 basis for the new components. The coarse spider silks could be traded for the equivalent of the new swatches.

To keep it simple, don't exchange the other components but have a warning in the patch message for a good 2-3 weeks in advance. This way the lucky races that can use shissar scales will be able to use them up by then...

[Aetemius]

Ouch, if there isn't a 1 for 1 trade - that is just plain ouch.

I've been hoarding MDS for the past 8 months to prepare for the time when I would be comfortable enough to put my skills on the market to make GM armor and augments. I've spent so much time farming and buying these things that to see it all get changed is heartbreaking. All of my pp that I have made farming augs and random drops in EQ went into smithing and MDS. I now have 126 MDS in my bank that I hope won't go to waste. I don't think that I should be forced to "use them all up by said date" or put in extra hours in EQ to finish my smithing skillups just because this was sprung on us.

For the longest time I heard references to "increasing the drop rate of xx component" and making the drop rates for other DoN armor components "even", but nowhere did I ever read that a complete rehaul was going to be researched or implemented. Where did that come from? No warning until now?

Just disappointed. Not all of us go out and conquer a tradeskill in a few weeks, I don't see why I should be forced now.

[Yroc Morf]

Dev-Ngreth posted on EQlive:

I have nothing exact. 95% of the design work is done. 50% of that has been tested. The remaining is waiting on a code change. That code change is being done by the same person as is doing a much higher priority code change. No that higher priority code change does have him waiting literally hours while it runs, so in his "wait" times, which are frequent, he is working on the code change we need for the tradeskills. With that in mind the *estimate* (estimate is not a promise, not a guarantee, not exact... etc... it is an estimate) is two weeks for the code change, then it probably needs a few days for testing by QA. While QA is testing I will be able to finish the rest of the design changes that are needed, then QA will need to test that. Then it will need a full patch to go in. I expect NOT the next regular patch, but the one after that.

Your BEST bet will be to make final armor. An exchange vendor is NOT likely to go in right away, but they are also something that can be livecopied in and do not need to wait for a full patch. We want to see how things are before we start an exchange vendor. We will *NOT* be exchanging raw's, especially since we cannot stop the drop on all of them, and allowing an exchange of the raw will ruin the balance we are trying to attain. That said we will be considering an exchange of "swatches/bars" but we will be keeping in mind the ones that are currently more common than we wish. This included shissar scales. Thew would likely get a 2 to 1 exchange because of how common they are.

As for the Dead Horse... maybe it can get a proper burial?

[Unapuma]

Looks like I'll have to burn up what I got so far.

What about the quest to get the armor and aug books? Are they staying the same or also being changed? I would hate for my extra stuff to get another armor book be obsolete as I still have a good book and nearly 200 in each patterns and molds.

[Ngreth Thergn]

The quests will be changed, but NOT with this, it will be at a later date. But just the quests used to get the books. Those books are staying, and the patterns they make are staying.

[Maevenniia]

I'm excited, much and to Ngreth for this, esp considering the most recent news from EQ live:

There are many changes coming to the culturally tradeskilled armors.

The first change that we'd like to announce is a change to the names of the armor sets and symbols. The current names did not facilitate future expansion for higher level armor sets and symbols, so... The armor sets have been given a prefix that will more appropriately describe how ornately decorated the armor is. The symbols have been given a prefix that will more appropriately reflect the level of deity-specific connotation associated with them.

Level Armor Symbol
20 Simple Blessed
40 Ornate Revered
60 Intricate Sacred
70 Elaborate Eminent
80 Elegant Sublime

The second change we'd like to announce is the introduction of a new skill-up path for both Tailoring and Smithing. This path will required dropped components, as has always been the case for these skills, however, they will be more widely available and spread out over much more of the known world. This path will consist of making armor templates that, while unable to be used themselves, will be used as the base used to craft other armor, including cultural. These templates range in difficulty from 15 to 465 and can be sold back to NPC merchants for the difference in merchant greed, allowing for a much more economical skill-up path.

The third change that we will be making is the possibility of changing the word "trivial" to "difficulty", in an effort to make everything as consistent as possible between you guys and us. The goal is to help remove some confusion as to why the combine is not no-fail when you reach that ‘trivial' level, and the word ‘difficulty' doesn't carry with it the same implications.

Now, back on track.

The fourth change that we'll be making is to change the cultural armor recipes to use the above-mentioned templates in the process of crafting the base cultural armor piece. The cultural armor will still require the quested books, as their patterns are what you will use to apply the culturally specific designs to the armor. This will require a new drop that is generic for all races, as well as either ore or thread (for smithing or tailoring, respectively) that is specific to your race and sold by NPC vendors. The symbols will receive a similar treatment and will still require the quested books in order to craft.

This change will nullify the usage of all existing drops in the cultural armor crafting process.

Those of you who have stockpiles will want to make use of them as best and quickly as possible, as once the changes go in, the currently existing cultural recipes will no longer work.

There will be no exchange of the drops. The entire goal of these changes is to balance the drops, not create a surplus of the drops.

There will be a means for you to ‘learn' the new recipes easily as a means to prevent you guys having to ‘experiment' to learn all the new recipes. This will be provided via books in game that you can ‘scribe' by right clicking them to learn all of the recipes associated with that book. These books will start out inexpensive, though we are considering increasing the price in a couple months to something more appropriate, so you'll want to make sure you get them as soon as possible.

There is no current ETA for the launch of these changes, but we are working diligently on all the changes listed above (actually, they're about 90% complete!). There are still a few loose ends to tie up, some code to be implemented and tested, and a host of other ‘small' things for us to do.

The majority of the changes are in and we're in the process of evaluating what drops what, and how often. The recipes themselves have already been converted and tested via our QA department. Once all the loose ends are tied up, we'll make another post to let everyone know that the changes are up and available on the Test Server for you guys to check out, as well as letting you guys know the tentative launch date for the new changes.

For safety reasons I have not yet put in the changes that will disable the old recipes, so if there is a patch in the meantime, all of the existing cultural will still work.

Xodar-Tribunal wrote:
Does that level 80 tier indicate an addition to cultural armors for 75+?

Meaning specifically, are we going to see a brand new tier now to reflect the new levels we have gotten since OoW?

Could be... No comment

Level 70-80 armor...maybe..possibly..sometime...oooooooooo

/shivers in anticipation

[KyrosKrane]

Ngreth just posted that here too:

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?t=29417

I suggest closing this thread to consolidate a bit.