Upcoming Cultural Changes - Next Full Patch (Estimated End of September)

[Ngreth Thergn]

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.

These changes should currently be available on the test server. You can find the new books on historians in Abysmal Sea, Plane of Knowledge, and Crescent Reach. You can simply scribe these books to automatically have the recipes added to your recipe containers.

I will change the title of the thread (if I can) when I have a more concrete date for the patch.

[hiyawathadan]

I know this is premature, but do we have any idea how much different(Better) stat-wise the new armor for lvl 80 will be as well as the symbols? Just curious really. I know AC was being left basically alone due to that the current GM was AC heavy but we also were told it would not be nerfed, rather the new stuff would just not go up on AC much if at all....

[Ngreth Thergn]

Too early Sorry. The stats have not been decided upon yet.

[Zopharr]

Just DoN Cultural, or all Cultural?

Just checking to confirm . . . .

This change is only affacting the DoN cultural recipes, right? The 'old' cultural (to include the old 'Blue Diamond' cultural introduced with Luclin) will be unaffected, right?

Just want to make sure that I don't need to worry about getting a nasty surprise if I don't get a chance to use up all my earthen tempers, ecnhanted brellium and celestial tempers before the patch.

Thanks,

Zopharr

[olhoss]

I remember Ngreth posting a while back that the AC would not get much better on the new symbols because it was overshot for Last Blood augs. (I can attest to that..my Enchanter walks around with over 2K AC).

For the actual augs, etc one change I hope they make is to put higher level focus effects on the cultural augs, and make some differences in effects by deity instead of having them all the same. (Agnostic should finally penalize you a little)

What I would really like to see is Cultural armor that does not require a raid drop to be viable. I have an alt in all cultural with DoN augs in them, and she isn't awful but I wouldn't dare use her in a high end raid or even most higher end zones. My hope is that between the armor and a DoN aug, that Cultural would be as good as you could get in the game without raiding, and that it would be a little better at filling in gear spots until you get a raid drop.

[Tattedsoul_Zek]

What you just described sir is basically JoA mission gear, pretty much on par with CoA gear and is 1 groupable, or even soloable by certain classes. To ask for anything better without raiding is unethical =).

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Don't fool yourself... it's only as good as CoA gear on paper.
In reality it has a tragic lack of mod2 effects and other perks of raiding.

[Aldier]

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.

Does this mean it will copy over the recipes I have already learned or all the recipes? I have not yet made an Elaborate Tunic but will it be in my recipe lists after I use the new book?

Also, I thought the AC comments on the augs were only directed at the Bazu/LB vs the next level of them. I would hope the symbols get an AC boost.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Just checking to confirm . . . .

This change is only affacting the DoN cultural recipes, right? The 'old' cultural (to include the old 'Blue Diamond' cultural introduced with Luclin) will be unaffected, right?

Just want to make sure that I don't need to worry about getting a nasty surprise if I don't get a chance to use up all my earthen tempers, ecnhanted brellium and celestial tempers before the patch.

Thanks,

Zopharr

Yes. But that very old stuff is obsolete and will get NO changes at all and will remain "stagnant" If a FULL revamp of smithing and tailoring is ever done it may go away or have large trivial changes, but for now, it will just stagnate.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Does this mean it will copy over the recipes I have already learned or all the recipes? I have not yet made an Elaborate Tunic but will it be in my recipe lists after I use the new book?

Also, I thought the AC comments on the augs were only directed at the Bazu/LB vs the next level of them. I would hope the symbols get an AC boost.

All recipes.

And the symbols have no AC currently, all the AC is on the armor. The SEALS will not see a huge AC boost.

[Wyvernwill]

What you just described sir is basically JoA mission gear, pretty much on par with CoA gear and is 1 groupable, or even soloable by certain classes. To ask for anything better without raiding is unethical =).

To ask for anything better (than CoA?) without raiding is unethical...

CoA is obsolete with this next expansion, as such group gear will surpass it in hps/mana. On top of that, Demi-Plane will be close to low end raiding as well and be close to being pushed out the door completely. Praetorian Armors were exceptional when it came to group gear, and put groupable armor on par with anguish loot. In a lot of cases, similar ac, better focii and the mod2s were decent enough to be passable as well.

If level 80 group gear can't pass up level 75 group gear, that's an extremely poor way to itemize a game.

And before any whining starts about Anguish being obsolete... where's the championing for Plane of Fear/hate, Naggy, Vox, NTOV, VP, VT, Plane of Time? They came, were farmed, and then abandoned. The same will happen to CoA as well.

[Catweazel]

To ask for anything better (than CoA?) without raiding is unethical...

CoA is obsolete with this next expansion, as such group gear will surpass it in hps/mana. On top of that, Demi-Plane will be close to low end raiding as well and be close to being pushed out the door completely. Praetorian Armors were exceptional when it came to group gear, and put groupable armor on par with anguish loot. In a lot of cases, similar ac, better focii and the mod2s were decent enough to be passable as well.

If level 80 group gear can't pass up level 75 group gear, that's an extremely poor way to itemize a game.

And before any whining starts about Anguish being obsolete... where's the championing for Plane of Fear/hate, Naggy, Vox, NTOV, VP, VT, Plane of Time? They came, were farmed, and then abandoned. The same will happen to CoA as well.

Although I almost agree, there are some clarifications required.

CoA is unlikely to be obsolete until all groupable gear has been discovered and purchased, which for the average group geared toon, would be more than half way through the expansion life cycle, almost 9 months away.

CoA is unlikely to be obsolete until comparable augs with approximately 100HP and decent mod2's start dropping in groupable content. TBS groupable augs are less than 50% of the way there.

CoA is unlikely to be obsolete while resist stats on the armor still exceed the best Katta groupable armor by approximately 30%. Enhanced powersources available in SOF might accelerate the decline of CoA.

CoA is unlikely to be obsoleted until non-visible slot armor equivalent to Anguish drops are dropping from groupable content. For example, the top (best) groupable ring slot apparently dropping in TBS is the Solteris progression ring which maxes out at 300hp/mana and some decent stats and mods. It is debateable whether someone who has Anguish rings would replace them with it. I would also argue that very very few group geared toons have completed all 8 progression missions at this time.

Finally, CoA is the source of class epic 2.0's. As no epic 3.0's have yet been announced, presumably, Anguish will remain as a viable zone for any class who would like to complete their 1.5 to 2.0 upgrade.

By November 2008, CoA might be very close to being obsoleted by the best that SOF has to offer those toons who group rather than raid. Note that degrading caster focus items are a different story, and as a melee, my opinions don't stretch that far.

I would probably agree that by the end of SOF, Anguish would relegated to an entry level guild zone with only a few (epic 2's, augs) reasons to try and get flagged.

[Bobaten]

Don groupable chests (cultural+type 12 aug from Don merchant) was at 185 hp/mana. By TSS, the groupable chest (Tenish) was at 240 hp/mana. In TBS it went up to 310 (Katta gear with light powersource). I expect the cultural upgrade (with something groupable in the type 12 slot) to hit 350 hp/mana if not 400.

And Katta gear actually does quite well on mod 2's compared to Anguish gear. It has superior resists, but is a bit weaker on hp and AC though. The big difference is level 75 focus effects for casters which make most of the Anguish level 70 focus effects obsolete. The melee side is the reverse though, with level III melee focuses on Katta, and level IV on Anguish. Overall if you are a caster you are better off in katta gear (comparable spell shielding/dot shielding/avoidance, superior saves, weaker AC, slightly smaller hp/mana pool, better focuses). Melee classes are better off with Anguish gear..but for any class the best choice is to pick and choose between the 2 on a slot by slot basis.

[Tattedsoul_Zek]

I'm not saying that group gear shouldn't increase in stats etc..with incoming new lvl caps and expansions. I'm simply stating, that at lvl 80....Not being much of a jump from 70-80, do you honestly think lvl 80 group gear should be better than lvl 70 raid gear? I mean look at the differance between the Tacvi-CoA jump. was what 25-35hp and 8ish ac on most items. While both zones were (raids) imo even for lvl 80, group gear should not exceed 300 hp, mana period. Even that is a bit much. The better gear should always come from raid targets, while the grouped gear remains less appealing but yet keeps the people that don't raid interested in the game.

[Bobaten]

CoA was the "early" level 70 raid gear. The comparable level 65 raid gear is from Time, not Tacvi. And CoA gear exceeded Time gear by 200+ hp (when you consider augments). Time level hp/mana was reached by groupable gear at level 70 in DoDH, and surpassed with groupable level 75 gear in TSS (on all fronts). So yes, I expect level 80 groupable gear to surpass 3 year old level 70 raid gear. Since that is how things have worked in the past (TSS gear passed Time gear, OoW group gear surpassed VT gear, PoP group gear surpassed ToV gear). I would have those expectations even if the devs hadn't announced that group gear was going to 500hp, and raid gear was going to 1k hp (both including powersources). What I don't know is if the cultural gear is going to be part of the path to reaching 500hp groupable gear, or if it will be a separate (lesser) path.
BTW just for reference.. the current cultural bps (with symbols and DoN augs)are:
level 70 99 ac/185 hp
level 60 51 ac/120 hp
level 40 36 ac/40 hp(55 hp at level 50)
level 20 22 ac/20 hp

So level 80 gear sitting at 120 ac 275 hp looks about right on that path. Which would basically be putting Katta equivalent gear in the Bazaar. I am pretty sure they can't make it infusible, since I think the augment slot limit is 3, and cultural is already at 3 slots so no room for the invisible slot.