Incoming Nerf to Elegant and Last Blood?

[Zopharr]

So what?

What did you expect when you let them drop from stuff like dodh missions and katta missions for a MONTH before release?

-->snip<--

I didn't try and farm, but had 38 exalted symbols worth of components on release day. I made around 180 or so symbols from one of the bazaar wheeler and dealers who had purchased ALL of the components.

Someone on this forum (can't remember who) mined Lucy and posted that Alkalai loam were the next step after Soluble and Porous the next step after that. So I had my buyer buying alkalai loam for 200pp for almost a month before release, had like 45 on release day.

I'm sure lots of other folks saw that - 100 exalted sysmbols after release didn't reflect the drop rate for a day or two - it really reflected drop rate over the preceeding weeks.

Garshok

[Zopharr]

As almost a 9 year veteran, I cant say how sad I am about this. I understand the spot Ngreth and the Devs are in, but they should not feel the pressure from a bunch of folks who have not even seen the final raid content. I am hopeful that the response proposed is reconsidered and or muted as much as possible.

I'm pretty disappointed too. After saying that the last bloods had been loooed at, and that it had been decided that the older focii on them was enough of a drawback, SOE is being swayed by top-end raiders representing a miniscule percentage of the server population. I think the attitude of a lot of them is summarized by what one said on the shadowknight boards a few days ago:

When new content comes out, who generally get their weenies stepped on? The people about 4-5 expansions behind the curve. Never before have we seen a universal boost to everyone except those raiding the final 2 expansions, but that's what's happened here.

And somehow we're supposed to roll over and accept this? We might lose the war, but I'll be ****ed if I don't go down without a fight.

The fact that folks who may not be 'bleeding edge' may have gear somewehat comparable in a few slots - for a few weeks/months until they pull away again - seems to be unbearable to them.

And that seems to be the part of the playerbase SOE wants to listen too.

<sigh>

Garshok

[wayshaper]

from what i gather, this is mostly affecting the tank class's, ive yet to sell any silk of anykind hardly at all,

my guess is that casters, for the most part, are going for their class armor from what ever zones for the focus effects.

catch is, that main tanks (and healers) are the cornerstones of guilds, so if they get nurfed, then all heck is gonna break loose on the baords.

[Gaell Stormracer]

from what i gather, this is mostly affecting the tank class's, ive yet to sell any silk of anykind hardly at all,

my guess is that casters, for the most part, are going for their class armor from what ever zones for the focus effects.

catch is, that main tanks (and healers) are the cornerstones of guilds, so if they get nurfed, then all heck is gonna break loose on the baords.

This is true for the Armour, but less so for the symbols: I've had a lot of orders from all classes. Even if "the solution" involves forcing people to use a level 75 armour set with level 75 symbols (AND with the drop rate for those just reduced), you've just made an awful lot of people very very unhappy - far more than the whining of the small number of people that are capable of farming Solteris, especially when SoF was announced as a deliberately big jump in the power of all players.

About the availability of materials -- yes, like a lot of other people in this thread, I had buyers getting alkalai loam and such well before SoF went live - so it's entirely unsurprising that there would have been an initial "glut" of the Exalted symbols -- is this really such a major cause for panic among the Dev team?

EQ's population certainly isn't rising any more, and this whole episode is really not going to bring in any new players or help retain them.

[Kross]

without the cultural+last blood combo its going to really hurt tanks. solteris raiding guild or not, this has been a standar for most tanks for a long time. the new elegant and sublime seem over powering but if you attempt to hit up a sof tier 3 or 4 zone its not going to happen. crystallos has 4k hitters in it, and golem overlords that hit for 10k. whats going to close in the gap? i can only imagine the sof raids being tougher than a groupable zone heh. crystallos is by no means a xp zone, and thats with elegant/sublime/last blood.

i see this nerf as being a game breaker for eq. its too early for raiders to whine about it without seeing the quality of raid gear, and without the new cultural using last bloods you're limiting where folks can go in sof even more so. when people are finally able to get into crystallos the gear that drops will be rot. no one is going to use 450 gear when you're in 1k gear. thats what it comes down to, making a gap so big in gear that the end game raiders are happy and the rest of the population suffers.

[Kemie Dreamshadow]

About the availability of materials -- yes, like a lot of other people in this thread, I had buyers getting alkalai loam and such well before SoF went live - so it's entirely unsurprising that there would have been an initial "glut" of the Exalted symbols -- is this really such a major cause for panic among the Dev team?

I can't do anything but agree. I've just now begun the Exalted Impressions quest on my main (don't have SoF yet so had to wait til its release from that expansion), but I have 20 alkalai loams and 49 flawless spinneret fluids sitting in the bank from pre-release scrounging for cheap. Yet on my server (Seventh Hammer) there doesn't seem to be a glut on the market for Exalted Symbols - someone is always begging either in general chat or out of character for anyone able to make them.

At the moment the ONLY thing those drops are good for is making symbols (unlike the other levels of cultural). If they do indeed give us a set of armor for 75, any surplus will swiftly disappear and with the recent lowering of drop rate materials will be overly scarce.

I mentioned the potential "nerf" of last blood augments to one of my best 4A customers last night, a very hard-core raider. His response? He told me not to worry as he'd soon have higher level ones anyway. So yes, it's the mid-level guilds and raiders who will be hurt, not the "uber" set.

Oddly to me, this hard-core raider still wears mostly elaborate armor. And is anxious to find smiths and tailors who can make it for his other characters. This is NOT because of the rarity of the drops themselves (he could easily afford to buy from others if he doesn't have it, and sports sublime symbols) but is entirely due, I think, to the fact that people who were able to make elaborate before cannot at this point due to the skill level restrictions on the recipe books. I've never seen so many people/characters trying to raise their tailoring or smithing skill high enough to at least make themselves what isn't even the highest tier of cultural armor!

You will continue to see lots of exalted symbols. ANYONE with tailoring, tinkering, or smithing skills high enough can make these. ONLY the right RACE can craft your actual cultural armor.

I personally will continue to resent the fact that the cultural drops are not vendorable. As a druid in a non-raiding guild, my main may never see the marrows I need to make myself any armor higher than elaborate (and it's not because I lack funds to purchase anything I might care to in the bazaar). No matter the supposed drop rate this item is not making itself into the market on my server (The Seventh Hammer), presumably rotting or being destroyed on the spot as useless.

[Aldier]

My concern is that the only people who benefit from nerfing LB, Serpent, and Sunshard augs are the top end cutting edge raiders that are getting better gear on raids and the casual groupers that do not raid at all.

From the groupers perspective, they are getting a boost to the armor and the symbol and losing nothing.

For the top end person, they are regaining their distance from the rest of the player base.

For the mid tier guilds, which in this case extends from DoDh through TSS (and possibly TBS) they suffer because these augments that they have been using for 5 expansions now are getting nerfed because the newest expansion has too much inflation in the stats on gear. Any guild that raids DP is having problems finding places for loot to go because you can get better gear from just Elegant + Sublime. Also, for non-tank classes, the focus effects on LB augs are near useless. Serpent and Sunshard foci are still mostly useable but not the best.

If you look at the numbers, if only LB and up are to be effected, then LB augs cannot go down by more than 15ac and 30-40hp otherwise Bazu will be stronger than LB.

Also, Exalted are going to receive a boost from the Serpent and Sunshard augs going down. Also, it was mentioned that Elegant will get a slight boost from Sublime. There is only a 40-60 hp difference between Sublime and Exalted as is. Now you are not only lowering Sublime but raising Exalted. If the COMBINED change between these 2 adjustments is more than 40-60hp or so, then Elegant + Exalted will be better than Elegant + Sublime.

The Serpent, Sunshard, and Faycite augs were not given any more ac than the LB augs because the LB were considered, after the fact, more ac than they probably should have been. The result was the newer augs were not much higher in stats. People accepted this. Now, not only are the newer augs not higher, they are going to nerf the whole line so that Faycite is the only ones left at 45ac?!?

[Ngreth Thergn]

Hmm... I seriously hope the House ogre made a booboo and wrote down the wrong name on the symbol.

The EMINENT symbol is the lvl70 symbol from DoN that used to use metallic drake scales. So no wonder you find bazaar mules with hundreds of those.

The EXHALTED however, and the SUBLIME however are hard to find. At least on Antonius Bayle. 8 sublimes for sale as i speak,0 exhalted and yes, hundreds of eminent.

So basically my next question would be, did the house ogre make a booboo here on the board or here on the board and in the research he made to adjust the rates?

Yes I meant Exalted. The level 75 symbol.

And we will continue to evaluate it.

If it needs to go up again, I will happily make it go up again.

[Evram2]

My main concern is that many people destroyed their old armor to make room for the new cultural armor. If the cultural gets nerfed, they'll have to scramble to win the armor that they destroyed all over again, just to get back to where they were before the expansion came out.

I know this is going to be my problem

[Wyvernwill]

Contrary to a couple server's situations with Exalted Augs... my own numbers alone are staggering. It wasn't just Alkalai Loam dropping, it was Flawless Spinneret Fluids and Superb Marrows. Between all three, I had over 400 combines by the time I had my Exalted Book finished on Day 2 or 3 of the release.

Within 72 hours, I had used almost every single supply. Even now my trader is up with over 60 Exalted augs for sale. I still have the supplies to make another 130 more augs. That's not rare in the least.

Sublimes, those are an entirely different beast. But due to the issues with the Exalted drops from before the expansion, that caused a huge amount of problems.

[Quaras]

Reposting this post I made on the SOE boards -- literally I have posted 11 total messages on the SOE boards in 8.5 years:

I have not posted on the SOE boards in several years. This is the first time that I have been galvanized to post my opinion on what I consider a radical change to the game I have played for almost 9 years. As both an officer of a mid-tier guild which is a "casual" raiding guild and an avid tradeskiller, I am highly concerned about the proposed changes.

Our guild is at a crossroads and are perhaps the perfect (or disastrous depending on your perspective) test case for the changes that are proposed. We are about to break into the Demi-Plane after farming Anguish for an extended 12 month period. The advent of SOF was exciting for us as we thought that the extra levels would allow us to leapfrog certain content and avoid the headbutting difficulty of Sendaii/Vule. The new cultural armor was a significant driver for our ability to forge ahead in EQ. Our guild formed a raid force to assist its tradeskillers to complete the Exalted Quest and I was personally the first person to be able to make augs. Now we are facing a serious dead end. If the nerf goes through and Last Bloods drop to 80hp/mana, there will be almost no incentive to farm the Demi-Plane. On the other hand, if we don't farm the Demi-Plane, we are completely stuck as we are underpowered for the next series of content. This in my opinion is a disaster that could really affect the health of my guild.

Such a serious disruption to existing content will wreck our ability to progress in the traditional ways designed into EQ and may really cause the mass exodus that the agitators for these changes predicted. I ask the developers to please reconsider this course of action.

I am reposting this here because I believe Ngreth understood this from day one and have a great deal of respect for what he has done for all of us as avid tradeskillers. I also hope that reposting it here means that it will not get lost in the shuffle and that we can perhaps express some of the concerns of the "silent majority."

[Gaell Stormracer]

Excellent summary. /applaud

[Pootle]

My main concern is that many people destroyed their old armor to make room for the new cultural armor. If the cultural gets nerfed, they'll have to scramble to win the armor that they destroyed all over again, just to get back to where they were before the expansion came out.

Just keep petitioning to have the destroyed armor given back to you. There are logs of what the character owned. If the game nerfs something to the point that your old armor is better, then I would expect to have that old piece returned.

Once the numbers of petitions starts to rocket... maybe someone will take note?????

[Deviator]

no attuned gear will be un-attuned, and plat will not be reimbursed on attuned items... it is not possible according to a GM i petitioned about my flail of redemption being changed after i bought it. i am also pretty sure they wont give you back armor you destroyed.... and to be honest, even if they destroyed it for you i doubt they would give it back, unless you are in the top guild then they would kiss your arse and give you everything... probably even cash if you so desired.

[Bobaten]

Nah, they return destroyed stuff all the time...though you might want to beat the rush and petition now if you think you would prefer your old gear.