Upcoming Cultural Changes

[Ngreth Thergn]

Any chance you can keep the current aug drops usable after the recipe changes? If the idea is to even out drops between the races, aug drops really shouldn't be part of the issue, as they're already even between the races.

Reason I ask is I have this large stockpile of Drachnid silks, which I decided to use up now, when it occurred to me I'd forgotten about lambent stones for the waters. So....back to farming, hoping I have enough time....

No, I need to just even it all out, get it all correct. As it is, some of the aug drops are overly rare, despite being even... so...

[Unapuma]

Check the merchants around the oasis lake and the gypsy camp north of that as well as killing the sand giants in both north and south ro. I usually got quite a few per run and once found over 50 on one merchant. They may not be cheap but sometimes it's cheaper than bazaar.

[beryon]

Any chance you can keep the current aug drops usable after the recipe changes? If the idea is to even out drops between the races, aug drops really shouldn't be part of the issue, as they're already even between the races.

Reason I ask is I have this large stockpile of Drachnid silks, which I decided to use up now, when it occurred to me I'd forgotten about lambent stones for the waters. So....back to farming, hoping I have enough time....

[Ngreth Thergn]

Still no ETA. I promise to say something when I have an ETA.

[Maevenniia]

There is no ETA.

[GrimwoodCT]

Have we any ETA yet as to when the changes will go live?
I have used up most of my hoarded materials for symbols but I am loathe to spend too much on a new stockpile if old recipes will soon be be defunct.

Thanks,
Grim

[uncleshmoozo]

Anyone can still make it if they can get the parts. No new restrictions have been made on the parts so this should mean no change

It sounds like all that faction work I did with my halfling druid back in the day will be paying off now. He can shop in every starter city except Grobb.

[Kaliaila]

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.

Um... you do realize that:

A) be multiple powersources, likely many more geared towards casters than towards melee (just like there are now for the TBS armors).

B) It is a question about if the changes might include or possibly have an addition of a CULTURAL power source. So it fits in just as much as any of the other questions or suggestions getting made anywhere in this thread.

So maybe you need to take your dislike for melee elsewhere.

[Ngreth Thergn]

I may have missed this, but does this mean that only tailors/smiths of the appropriate races will now be able to make symbols for particular deities? Or will high skill tailors/smiths of any race/deity still be able to make symbols for anyone else (as long as they have the Symbol Patterns) ?

Anyone can still make it if they can get the parts. No new restrictions have been made on the parts so this should mean no change

[Aldean]

The best place to farm sunshard ore is from vendors near mobs that drop sunshard ore .

Yes ? wich zone ?

[Gaell Stormracer]

Also not 100% sure on if cultural waters made using Jade Shards / Lambent Stones / Shissar Scales and Purescale Ore will be exchangable after the recipes change. From what I have seen here, new symbols will not require a separate JC combine to create the Water of xxxxx. Rather, the components for the 'new' water will be included in the actual symbol combine.

correct.

I may have missed this, but does this mean that only tailors/smiths of the appropriate races will now be able to make symbols for particular deities? Or will high skill tailors/smiths of any race/deity still be able to make symbols for anyone else (as long as they have the Symbol Patterns) ?

[Ngreth Thergn]

Has any thought been given to letting both the culturial as it is today and the new updated drops culturial run parallel?

What I mean is as you introduce the new culturial and all the changes, still allow the old components to work. This way as we start to get the new components and get the recipes down we can still make cultural armor. As has been said, the drops will be on a global scale NOT in one specific zone to be "farmed". Due to this there might be a lull in making new culturial armor. By allowing the "old" components to work, this would ease the transition period to the new components.

Example:
May patch, new components start dropping and new recipes available BUT old stuff still works.

June patch, "old" components no longer work. This would give tradeskillers a month to learn, farm, aquire the new drops and continue creating culturial armor.

Considered, but decided against it because it is the same as doing an exchange for the drops. It leaves races with too many drops in a super advantageous position.

It also will continue to NOT stop people from having things lost, really brings things in the game MUCH faster than we want, etc. Leaving both, for any time only adds more problems and does not really solve any of the problems that will continue to exist.

[Liwsa]

Has any thought been given to letting both the culturial as it is today and the new updated drops culturial run parallel?

What I mean is as you introduce the new culturial and all the changes, still allow the old components to work. This way as we start to get the new components and get the recipes down we can still make cultural armor. As has been said, the drops will be on a global scale NOT in one specific zone to be "farmed". Due to this there might be a lull in making new culturial armor. By allowing the "old" components to work, this would ease the transition period to the new components.

Example:
May patch, new components start dropping and new recipes available BUT old stuff still works.

June patch, "old" components no longer work. This would give tradeskillers a month to learn, farm, aquire the new drops and continue creating culturial armor.

[Tassrin]

Very interesting. Thanks for giving us a view into the "World of Dev".

For so many years seeing things so tight lipped from the powers that be got discouraging.

[Ngreth Thergn]

We atre discussing it a bit now, tryingt o deside on some code changes we want.

The first of 3 code changes for this were made, the only necessary one. The other two are "convenience" features.

We are using the "books to learn" method on the new recipes, and that is now done and going to QA for testing. Assuming it passes QA I could do the final steps to get the changes out, and get them tested.

But there are two issues.

#1 there is still a minor issue with global loot. Truly global loot (I.E. every zone), in its current incarnation, is currently a drain when we patch as it requires us to patch every zone when a change is made. this makes the patch longer, and more difficult and more likely to push out an undesired change to a zone, or push a change early. We are looking to get this change so fully global stuff is not a part of every zone's loot file, but is instead a single file that every zone will reference (zone specific global loot will still only be on the zone to make it have less stuff to search each time)

#2 currently the books do not give a visual list of what recipes are actually in the book. We would like to change this to give a listing of what is in the book. Though we can fake it with static text, that actually robs us of some of the space we could put text in the book and it is prone to extra errors as a manual step and being missed if something changes.

We have not decided if either of these issues is vital to us or not. At this point all the function (code - still some data we are holding onto because it would go live if we put it in, and it would be bad to have half live half not live.) we need is in game, but those two things missing still need to be considered.