Incoming Nerf to Elegant and Last Blood?

[Zopharr]

If that was true there would have been a 75 level of cultural armor at launch. I don't have the links atm, but I recall Ngreth saying a couple times in the initial couple weeks post-SoF launch that there no plans to ever put in a level 75 armor level. The fact that they are going back to put one in tells me that this is all made up on their part.

There's a post on the Sony boards from Maddoc (IIRC) about how they thouight the system of 'mix-and-match' - 70 or 80 armor, 70-75-80 Type 11, and LB/TSS/TBS seals had the virtue of 'flexibility.' Kinds of tosses out the notion that they saw these as 'sets.'

I'll post it after the SOE boards come up.

[Zopharr]

34 AC more across the entire set when using the highest AC power source. At the same time it has 585 HP less across the entire set.

The cultural definitely does have better HP.

For the AC, I was going off the magelo of the poster with purity augs and a metal aug (can't recall the exact name). He did not have a full set, though - no wrists, for example - but the AC was better on those pieces he did have. This was per magelo, which could be wrong. (And, come to think of it, wrists are where the effects of the AC of LB seals are exaggerated the most compared with other gear - I'm guessing that's where part of the superior AC comes from.)

I bow to your superior knowledge on this. Even though I don't support a nerf.

[Aaneras]

The relevant quote about mix and match armor is

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/po...17183&#1647132

Ghost of Maddoc:

" The way the system is designed, it allows you to upgrade each part completely independently of the other parts, which means that you don't have to wait for three months for your turn to loot a <insert new type 12 raid augment here> before you can use your level 80 base cultural armor and symbol.

You can use them immediately, get the power increase from them immediately, and still have exactly the same effects and stat increases you did before. It's a fantastic benefit for anyone who would otherwise continue to wear their level 70 cultural armor at 75 and 80.

It seems a whole lot more flexible to me than the alternative. "

[Tattedsoul_Zek]

No matter how much we complain, Dev's are not going to change their opinions. We will eat the nerf, like usual. Almost everyone I know has at least 1 piece of elegant+sublime+last blood armor. There is a ton of great sorrow incoming in a matter of months, when they wake up and thier once ubber gear is almost equivelant to CoA gear with a CoA aug in it.

[Leana]

They knew about cross-socketing because the issue existed from using Bazu augs instead of LB augs. AND with the rarity of the silk armor component at the GM level (pre- cultural revamp) the coarse spider silk, MOST casters were just fine using the Master level armor with GM level symbol.

...

I think they had an idea of balancing the following configurations:
Elaborate + Eminent + Last Blood
Elegant + Exalted + Serpent
Elegant + Exalted + Sunshard
Elegant + Sublime + Serpent
Elegant + Sublime + Sunshard
Elegant + Sublime + Faycite

...

Interesting. You pretty much made my point for me, because you did pretty much what I think they did. You looked at the relavent (intended) sets and left off all the other configurations.

The issue isn't whether they knew that people could socket different configurations. Any moron could figure that out. The gear is indeed designed to facilitate that. The issue is if the took each configuration and compared it to all existing raid gear to determine if Elegant + Sublime + Last Blood was stronger against a particular raid gear in the game than they intended for it to be. That was what I think they failed to do.

The second part of the equation was the issue of degrees. Yes, they knew that the combination was stronger than they liked. They even mentioned the AC was strong at the beginning. When people started pointing out how strong it was, they considered, "Well, it's stronger than we intended, but considering the weak focuses, we can live with it being a bit too strong."

The relavance of the leader boards isn't what particular stat was shown, but that cultural armor became highly visible. It also showed just how potent the armor was when someone who sunk everything into it could jump higher in the leader boards than intended. I think this was a shock to the development team, because they never expected cultural armor to have that much impact.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe developers are dumb. I think they are hared working people who are working on a complex program with many working parts. It is not surprising that in all the things they have to keep track of and analyze when putting out new features and gear in the game that something will not work as planned. In some cases, the most damaging anomalies will not be known until the software is in the hands of the users. That is a given. No matter how they analyze things, they'll never be able to predice all of the anomalies. Especially if the have items or features in the game that are made up of multiple configurable parts that can be mixed and matched. They can analyze some of the data points, but it is likely they will miss some of them or will miscalculate others. Remember, they are a handfull of people designing thousands of items and features being used by a couple of hundred users. It is likely that people will use their software in ways they never considered.

[Aldier]

No matter how much we complain, Dev's are not going to change their opinions.

This is a point many have tried to make. The developers ALREADY have changed their opinion from "armor is powerful but balanced" to "armor is overpowered".

[Aldier]

Interesting. You pretty much made my point for me, because you did pretty much what I think they did. You looked at the relavent (intended) sets and left off all the other configurations.

The issue isn't whether they knew that people could socket different configurations. Any moron could figure that out. The gear is indeed designed to facilitate that. The issue is if the took each configuration and compared it to all existing raid gear to determine if Elegant + Sublime + Last Blood was stronger against a particular raid gear in the game than they intended for it to be. That was what I think they failed to do.

I was never arguing against you. We agreed on the same root cause of the problem. We agreed on the solution they have chosen to be a poor choice. I merely was responding to the comment you made

they didn't give any consideration to cross set socketing

Also, the combinations I listed I think are what they looked at pre-launch. After the release of SoF, repeatedly, people questioned the power of the Elegant + Sublime + Last Blood setup/configuration and were told by more than 1 developer that it was "powerful but balanced". Now after the whining of the top stat/elitists who no longer have the giant e-peen of being #1 by a huge margin, the developers have changed their position.

The second part of the equation was the issue of degrees. Yes, they knew that the combination was stronger than they liked. They even mentioned the AC was strong at the beginning. When people started pointing out how strong it was, they considered, "Well, it's stronger than we intended, but considering the weak focuses, we can live with it being a bit too strong."

The relavance of the leader boards isn't what particular stat was shown, but that cultural armor became highly visible. It also showed just how potent the armor was when someone who sunk everything into it could jump higher in the leader boards than intended. I think this was a shock to the development team, because they never expected cultural armor to have that much impact.

Further, the AC on the LB augs was stated it was "stronger than they liked" back a while ago, I believe during TSS, perhaps earlier. The effect being that the new type 12 augments would not see any additional AC because it was already high enough on those pieces. I do not understand the leaderboard argument as a reason for nerfing. That is simply the people use to occupying the top slots whining they are no longer the best because someone else got a boost (which is all they will realistically get for a year) while the top elite raiders have not hit their boost (the SoF raid armor that is not in game yet that has 1000+ hp. Again, only 2 stats are being looked at when saying the item is overpowered. The ENTIRE item needs to be considered for ALL classes that can use it. 3 classes in the game are looking at 2 stats on an item and determining for ALL classes and ALL aspects of the item (stats, foci, mods) that the item is overpowered. That is poor judgement on the part of the developers to put so much emphasis into those 2 stats and neglect the majority of the stats/players/users of the items.

[MareeTP]

The high end game is already hurting with the shrinking pool of well-geared players to pull from. The new cultural helped fill that pool a little more and gave people a new interest in the game.

There was a revived interest in tradeskills, the bazaar marketplace picked up, and there were other subtle effects through the game that will be torn down again once the nerf goes live.

I think the nerf is a bad business decision, but I do not blame Nygreth for this in the least. I like what he did with the cultural revamp. It increased the vitality of the game.

[Leana]

I do not understand the leaderboard argument as a reason for nerfing.

Aldier, as you said, I think we agree on a lot of things. As to your statement here, the leaderboard isn't the reason for the nerfing, it is the trigger.

Up until this event, the developers looked at the armor as individual pieces and said, "It is overpowered, but it's not that bad." They even had posts talking about the weaker focus affects.

When someone in cultural armor and mostly anguish gear jumped up into the top of the leader boards, the developers thought, "Woah! I didn't realize it was that good."

The reason was already there. It's the trigger that got the developers to look at it as an over all affect rather than on an item by item basis.


Here's why I don't think the developers have looked at the group gear in the same way. To break into Crysollys and get the gear will take some time, especially for the mid tier raider. I'll leave off the non-raider, because I think they are even less a concern, because it will take them even longer to get there. If the mid-level raider was able to get into the T4 zones and scarf up T4 loot at the rate they were able to scarf up cultural armor, I think there'd be a larger impact on the raid environment. That is because instead of improving 8 pieces of gear by 200-300 hp, they'd be improving 20 pieces of gear by 100-200 hp. The overall impact would be greater, and SOE developers would have to recognize that it would have a similar impact to the cultural armor.

The difference is that the crafters (us) were able to infuse cultural armor into the system much much faster than the developers ever invisioned (due to several causes). There are basically four lines of power growth from this expansion: high end raiders, mid tier raiders, non-raiders, and crafted. The growth rate of three of those lines of power growth are pretty much controlled by drops or progression. The fourth should have been controlled by drops, but due to some accidents in controlling drop rate, it burst out way faster than expected. Therefore, cultural was much faster to reach it's potential.

I think the balance will correct itself slowly if the developers let it. More stuff will enter the game and the value of cultural, while still high, will ebb. I also think that the power gain from cultural is really fast for people who already had the pieces. New LB/Bazu isn't entering the system any faster than it used to. In fact, I'd predict that a number of guilds have passed this threshold, so it is actaully entering the game a bit slower. As guilds gain power from the new gear and move on, it will have less of an impact on the game. Furthermore, for guilds in Demi, etc. I don't think that it will obsolete the armor drop pieces. Our guild raids Demi and Anguish, and people in the guild still buy the Anguish armor, though the Demi and LB way overpower it.

Yes, there are anomalies. Yes, cultural is now king. Still, I don't think it will hurt the game as much as the high end raiders think.

[Xenephex]

Well like most of us I will eat the nerf and not complain too loudly. I wish they wouldn't but it's not going to make me quit or anything. That doesn't mean I won't make some comments about it.

I agree that the whole 'sets' thing is newspeak and fairly disingenuous. I have, and will continue to have, a lot of respect for Ngreth and I think he generally shows the community the same kind of respect, but I wish they had never brought up this particular piece of 'spin'. Please just make the changes and forget about the rationalizations.

The other thing I'd like to comment on is --- what does this really have to do with tradeskills anymore? (or hunting for that matter?) A lot of the discussion here and particularly on the 'drop rate' threads focuses on both the components and the armor as if they were bazaar items only.

The 'reward' for tradeskillers appears to be an increased ability to accumulate large sums of plat. The rewards for other players appears to be directly proportional to their ability to accumulate large sums of plat. I don't know what can be done about that, but it seems... I don't know... wrong? Different than intended?

Test server, where I play, is kind of removed from that whole cycle. Yes, there are some people both buying and selling high end loams and stuff in the bazaar, but that's not really where the action is and I don't ever expect to see any Elegant armor on a bazaar trader.

I am, as far as I know, the only skill 300 Dwarven smith on the whole server. That will earn me somewhere in the neighborhood of zero plat over the next year or so. I will, like virtually every one else on the server, do combines for anyone who brings me the components and won't charge a thing. I don't know for sure, but my suspicion is that the people who are asking me to combine things probably went out and killed mobs and looted the loams and ore themselves.

That, I guess, is ultimateley the basis for the complaints of the raiders (and I am a raider, though at a test server level) - that 'other' people can get stuff with just plat. Once good tradeskilled armor became nothing more than a plat item, there's nothing really to distinguish it - nothing to make it special in regard to tradeskillers. I have no idea what to do about that, but I wish something could be done about it.

[Aldier]

Aldier, as you said, I think we agree on a lot of things. As to your statement here, the leaderboard isn't the reason for the nerfing, it is the trigger.

Up until this event, the developers looked at the armor as individual pieces and said, "It is overpowered, but it's not that bad." They even had posts talking about the weaker focus affects.

When someone in cultural armor and mostly anguish gear jumped up into the top of the leader boards, the developers thought, "Woah! I didn't realize it was that good."

The reason was already there. It's the trigger that got the developers to look at it as an over all affect rather than on an item by item basis.


Here's why I don't think the developers have looked at the group gear in the same way. To break into Crysollys and get the gear will take some time, especially for the mid tier raider. I'll leave off the non-raider, because I think they are even less a concern, because it will take them even longer to get there. If the mid-level raider was able to get into the T4 zones and scarf up T4 loot at the rate they were able to scarf up cultural armor, I think there'd be a larger impact on the raid environment. That is because instead of improving 8 pieces of gear by 200-300 hp, they'd be improving 20 pieces of gear by 100-200 hp. The overall impact would be greater, and SOE developers would have to recognize that it would have a similar impact to the cultural armor.

The difference is that the crafters (us) were able to infuse cultural armor into the system much much faster than the developers ever invisioned (due to several causes). There are basically four lines of power growth from this expansion: high end raiders, mid tier raiders, non-raiders, and crafted. The growth rate of three of those lines of power growth are pretty much controlled by drops or progression. The fourth should have been controlled by drops, but due to some accidents in controlling drop rate, it burst out way faster than expected. Therefore, cultural was much faster to reach it's potential.

I think the balance will correct itself slowly if the developers let it. More stuff will enter the game and the value of cultural, while still high, will ebb. I also think that the power gain from cultural is really fast for people who already had the pieces. New LB/Bazu isn't entering the system any faster than it used to. In fact, I'd predict that a number of guilds have passed this threshold, so it is actaully entering the game a bit slower. As guilds gain power from the new gear and move on, it will have less of an impact on the game. Furthermore, for guilds in Demi, etc. I don't think that it will obsolete the armor drop pieces. Our guild raids Demi and Anguish, and people in the guild still buy the Anguish armor, though the Demi and LB way overpower it.

Yes, there are anomalies. Yes, cultural is now king. Still, I don't think it will hurt the game as much as the high end raiders think.

I guess I do not see why it matters that someone in cultural armor made a leaderboard. Is that the end goal of EQ? To see who has the most stats? Or is the point to enjoy a game in whatever manner you see whether that be completing quests, hunting in a group with friends, or raiding the top end cutting edge mobs. So a person in cultural armor has higher stats now than someone in raid armor from prior expansions. In a short amount of time that will change. The cultural armor is not going to increase much under current setup as Faycite augs are only 140 more hp/mana than LB (don't have the numbers right in front of me but think LB is 210 hp/mana, Serpent is 250hp/mana, Sunshard is 300, Faycite is 350) where as people getting raid armor from SoF are going to get MUCH larger increases in stats. The person going after raid armor from SoF will get the big jump in stats when they get the gear. The reason the cultural "seems" currently overpowered, is the gear it needs to be compared with has not reached the players and become as widely known. The cultural drops ahve been adjusted already to "correct" levels as a result of the influx of drops both before and after SoF launch. You cannot fault the players (and they should not nerf the players for using what is available to them. Had the SoF armor been as plentiful as the cultural drops, people would be using it.

[Aldier]

Xenephex, there are a lot of people out there that do exactly the same thing as you. However, there are many also that have worked on their tradeskills as a way to help them obtain platinum. If I can sell a set of armor and afford to purchase the parts to make a set for a friend, or give a guildmate a discount or a boost, then I do that. Some people are just greedy and like to have millions upon millions of plat. Some people play the game to be buyers/sellers and work the bazaar economy. You prefer to play on the test server and I do think that Test, and Roleplay (Firiona Vie) servers are different than the rest of the normal servers because of their unique position in the EQ community.

The relevances to tradeskilling is that this armor is crafted. That would be like going to a manufacturers website and expect the discussion to only be about the process of making the items and not the end results.

[Leana]

Aldier,

I agree with you on just about every point on the leaderboard. It doesn't matter to you, and it doesn't matter to me, but it does matter to someone, otherwise there'd be no point in having a leaderboard.

[Brael]

What items have heroic AC?

Not heroic AC, heroic Str. One of the effects on heroic Str is adding to your AC softcap much like shields do, except it only increases the cap not cap+AC.

[Aldier]

The point then I guess I am trying to make is people bring it up as evidence to try and show that the cultural armor with the LB aug is overpowered and requires a nerf. I think it is rediculous that a few people whose sole purpose in EQ is to have the biggest stats are demanding a nerf (that will not even effect their gear) to make themselves feel better by further distancing themselves from the majority of the EQ player base on a leaderboard. They just want to feel good about themselves by having a list saying they have more hp than other people so to maintain that superiority they are calling for a nerf to other people. I am trying to further a discussion of logical arguments for or against the nerf. I just do not see how a person in cultural showing up on a leaderboard has any merit in this conversation.