Upcoming Cultural Changes

[Ngreth Thergn]

While I welcome these changes wholeheartedly, one thing that has always bothered me about DON cultural was the inequity in vendor sold required parts vs the appropriate level to wear the item in question.

In other words, why does my level 20 non twink on a new server who can barely earn enough to buy his spells (or a new player just starting eq excited about the chance to make his own items) have to spend the same amount as the level 65 character does to make substantially lower tiered gear?

When you are looking at this revamp I hope (though I don't think I've seen it mentioned) that the vendor bought goods are getting adjusted as well. 83pp may not seem like alot to a high level toon, but that's days of play at level 20 and that's just for one combine of Journeyman's Daybreaker Bars or whatever it is you are making (the 6 return combine, not the 1). With all the changes to the dropped components, I hope you are going to make it a bit easier for newer players to get into tradeskills and not continue to relegate things like smithing and tailoring to the rich and/or bored.

That changed We also did not like it.

[Yaldin]

If you're going the global approach, the one thing I will request will be this:

Please keep an eye on what models will be dropping some parts, and trying to make it so that there are a fair number of spots that those drops can be camped, but not one that is so much easier than the others (with many more spawns) that it becomes the sole place to camp that component.

For example - if you relegate it to spiders of X level - there are not that many spider models that were released with TSS/TBS (actually I can't really think of any place they are) then the place to camp them becomes DON again, maybe a few select spiders in CT. Similarly if you make it sirens, then only one zone in TBS will drop it plus the sirens in Siren's Grotto (but imo while it's only 2 spots, they are comparable in difficulty with equitable spawns).

Just remember people gravitate to whatever is easiest, and like with shissar scales, if there's one place where it's absurdly easy with many spawns vs. a few places with some xp that are comparably low in spawn or drop rate.

Global only works if the model it's being assigned to is available globally.

[Tassrin]

That changed We also did not like it.

Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and ev'rything I would like to be?

Thanks!

[Ngreth Thergn]

Although the new level 80 augs/armor is making me tingly in the greaves.

Bad image Bad Image! Where is the clorox to clean my brain!

[Ngreth Thergn]

If you're going the global approach, the one thing I will request will be this:

Please keep an eye on what models will be dropping some parts, and trying to make it so that there are a fair number of spots that those drops can be camped, but not one that is so much easier than the others (with many more spawns) that it becomes the sole place to camp that component.

For example - if you relegate it to spiders of X level - there are not that many spider models that were released with TSS/TBS (actually I can't really think of any place they are) then the place to camp them becomes DON again, maybe a few select spiders in CT. Similarly if you make it sirens, then only one zone in TBS will drop it plus the sirens in Siren's Grotto (but imo while it's only 2 spots, they are comparable in difficulty with equitable spawns).

Just remember people gravitate to whatever is easiest, and like with shissar scales, if there's one place where it's absurdly easy with many spawns vs. a few places with some xp that are comparably low in spawn or drop rate.

Global only works if the model it's being assigned to is available globally.

It will probably be a multistage process. Put it in as we think it should be from NPC counts, and then evaluate.

[Telorea]

Just a couple of questions:

1) Will the AAAA recipes be changed at the same time as other cultural recipes or will they be unchanged?

2) When you add the TBS Raid Stone recipes, will they use AAAA's as well or something else? Is there a plan to tinker (sorry, small pun there) with all the Raid Stone recipes a little so that the Chronal and Discordant Stones use something cheaper/easier to make than AAAAs? (and hence make them more likely to be made, currently most people consider it a waste to use up an AAAA on a Discordant/Chronal Stone)

3) When you are deciding on the mobs to drop the new armour and symbol ingredients, do you have a rough idea of the level of the mobs in relation to the level of the armour/symbols made with them?

[Fonceur]

While you are making those changes, what about introducing some kind of cultural power source? Something like pure melee "sacrificing" all that mana for some more ac/hp/resist/atk/etc... To me, it has always felt like cultural armor is lacking a bit for pure melee classes...

[Yaldin]

yeah right..

um that suggestion has several things wrong with it:

a) Asking to give pure tanks something for nothing instead of just saying you feel melee cultural is underpowered or that tanks need more AC on their gear (huge sacrifice for a warrior to sacrifice something they derive no benefit from in the first place).

b) It has nothing to do with the cultural changes.

I'd suggest starting another thread either discussing melee cultural advantages/disadvantages or problems with Tradeskilling power sources...I'm not a mod but that sounds like a derail waiting to happen.

[uncleshmoozo]

Bad image Bad Image! Where is the clorox to clean my brain!

Not yet in game. I heard it was pushed back another expansion or two until after the pizza recipes go live.

[darcmater]

ok so im tryign to take all this in and it seems all of don cultural stuff is changeign but it has also been stated from what i read that tinkering is not really beign messed with, so does that mean the combines useign tinkering are staying the same? Specifically the ones useing the yttrium ore

[uncleshmoozo]

There is no additional skillup path for them, But I did not forget them in the making of the actual cultural armor.

At this time I did not feel that
#1 it is appropriate for tinkering to be making "Armor Templates" (most tinkered armor in the game is attached to a "template" or a sort if you look at it)
#2 is in dire need of skillup path adjustment.

I am not saying that it could not use skillup path attention, but I do not feel it needs it as badly as tailoring needs it. And Smithing just happened to benefit because it made sense to do the same thing for smithing, especially since we wanted to use the "templates" in the cultural. Tinkering can be used in the final combines for both the armor and the symbols.

I'm a little bit troubled by this. It sounds like the DON "master" level equivalent cultural recipes for tinkering will now require 2, rather than 1 farmed item.

It also sounds like I may need to raise my tinker's smithing skill even more than it is now (his smithing skill is currently at 199) to make the "armor templates" required for the final cultural combine, unless, of course, I can make the templates on another character with high smithing skill and transfer them to the tinker for the final tinkering combines. I really prefer not to raise his smithing over 200 for now, because at level 16 he cannot get the AAs needed to raise another trade skill above 200 should that become necessary in the future.

In my case this is about recipes for leveling up my tinkering trophy to level 7, and I'm concerned that some of the recipes that were viable for this purpose may wind up being greatly less so for some of us.

In my case, for example, my 300-skill tinker is level 16. He's obviously not capable of farming items in high level zones, so any recipes that require no drop components from high level zones are unavailable to him.

Up until now he was capable of using the recipes for Master's Servolinked Greaves and Master's Servolinked Cuirass (both with "difficulty levels" of 304) for leveling up his trophy because the one dropped item required isn't "no trade." I was able to farm the small bricks of yttrium ore over in The Deep with my level 75 rogue and transfer them to him.

I hope that situation isn't going to change with the new recipes. I mean, it's bad enough that I'll now have to farm two things (one for the template and one for the cultural combine) without having the entire process become completely unfeasible because at level 16 he cannot farm some no trade item required in the new recipes.

Can you help me out by clarifying the situation he's going to be facing without giving away any details you'd rather not reveal at this time?

[Bobaten]

Not an answer to your question, but you might want to look at sunshard ore for your tinkering trophy. The 2 precombines for the sunshard armor are made with either tinkering or jewelcraft. Chances are very good you could find someone to buy the unfinished product from you since it is then used for 300+ trivial tailoring, smithing, or research.

[Minyeni]

2) When you add the TBS Raid Stone recipes, will they use AAAA's as well or something else? Is there a plan to tinker (sorry, small pun there) with all the Raid Stone recipes a little so that the Chronal and Discordant Stones use something cheaper/easier to make than AAAAs? (and hence make them more likely to be made, currently most people consider it a waste to use up an AAAA on a Discordant/Chronal Stone)

votecount += 1;

I have a chronal stone in the bank. The odds of it becoming a wearable aug are zero when an AAAA costs what it does. Even if I farm every farmable component, the ore alone costs thousands and thousands of plats for what is really a weak aug. Cost of the conversion widget should be proportional to the benefit to the toon and to the player level REQUIRED by the aug.

[Neranya]

One thing I noticed about the DoN cultural armor is that when my Dark Elf SK was ready (lvl 55) to make the DoN Master's armor, it was, for all practical purposes, impossible to get the Midnight Stones I needed by myself. It has been my experience that getting people to help you farm DoN armor components that don't drop very often is, at best, very difficult. And the prices I see for DoN armor components in the bazaar make buying them not an option. Luckily someone in my guild was soloing in PoN and saved some Midnight Stones for me. Even so, I was in my mid-60's before I was able to effectively farm the MS's by myself.

To use Master's armor as an example, since you can wear it at lvl 55, I don't think you should have to wait until you are 15 levels higher before you have a reasonable shot at farming the components.

Another thing I noticed was a big difference in the difficulty of getting the cultural drops for DE and Ogre Expert armor. DE Expert armor requires Acrylia Ore which I found I could farm reasonably well from the Tribals in DSP in my mid to upper 30's. Yet to make Ogre expert armor I needed Dark Ore, which is farmed mainly in the Turigan (spelling?) mines, which was very difficult in the low 50's. There may be other examples of this, but this was the one I noticed. I hope the changes will address this type of problem.

A final question I have is concerns the number of combines needed to skill up in a given tradeskill. I heard that one person did 700 combines to get from 296 to 300 in Smithing. Will the changes address that? Or will doing those 700 combines not be so painful because the components needed will drop more frequently?

While I don't believe obtaining the Grandmaster title in a given tradeskill should be easy, I also don't believe it should be a mind-numbing experience that tests the endurance of a player more than anything else.

Neranya

[Ngreth Thergn]

Just a couple of questions:

1) Will the AAAA recipes be changed at the same time as other cultural recipes or will they be unchanged?

The seal recipes are changed to go with this, the rest of the combines are the same.

2) When you add the TBS Raid Stone recipes, will they use AAAA's as well or something else? Is there a plan to tinker (sorry, small pun there) with all the Raid Stone recipes a little so that the Chronal and Discordant Stones use something cheaper/easier to make than AAAAs? (and hence make them more likely to be made, currently most people consider it a waste to use up an AAAA on a Discordant/Chronal Stone)

Same AAAA. Currently not changing the chronal/discordant stone, but that may change at some point. Certainly not with this change.

3) When you are deciding on the mobs to drop the new armour and symbol ingredients, do you have a rough idea of the level of the mobs in relation to the level of the armour/symbols made with them?

[/quote]
roughly +- 5 levels. That is still a work in progress.