Balance between Type-12 Seals and other Raid Gear

[Telorea]

I am puzzled about the supposed balancing between the type-12 seals and other raid gear.

One of the biggest power factors of any piece of gear is the power and level of the focus effect it has. Thus although Bazu and Last Blood Seals have quite nice stats, the fact that their foci cap at 67 and 70 is a significant disadvantage to using them - thus (in their current pre-nerf state) they are balanced.

I understand now however, from details on another thread, that Sunshard Seals are being given weaker % foci and lower level capped foci than is on other gear *that drops from the exact same raid event*. Presumably it is also similar for the Serpents Seals.

I am trying to understand how this can make sense. Why should one item that drops during a raid event have significantly weaker powers than another item that drops from the same event?

Is this a bizzare and unwarranted attack on items that can be used with tradeskilled armours?

[Niphreedil]

Let's say you raid Solteris and loot a Sunshard. With some effort browsing the bazaar and finding the right people, you can obtain a piece with 700 HP/mana instead of 550.

Why would you loot the phosphene item instead of the shard if it gives you an inferior piece of armor? The focus has to be better on the armor you buy with phosphene. If it wasn't, there would be no question, the cultural piece would be better in every aspect.

I know it's not that easy. Porous Loam doesn't grow on tree, not everyone can drop millions of PP on their armor.

However, in EQ, the reward depends on the difficulty of the fight to obtain it. We might want things to be different but that's how it is. So, regardless of the number of steps you have to complete to obtain the cultural armor, if the hardest fight you need to win is a Solteris event, it has to be of Solteris quality.

[Aaneras]

I am puzzled about the supposed balancing between the type-12 seals and other raid gear.

One of the biggest power factors of any piece of gear is the power and level of the focus effect it has. Thus although Bazu and Last Blood Seals have quite nice stats, the fact that their foci cap at 67 and 70 is a significant disadvantage to using them - thus (in their current pre-nerf state) they are balanced.

I understand now however, from details on another thread, that Sunshard Seals are being given weaker % foci and lower level capped foci than is on other gear *that drops from the exact same raid event*. Presumably it is also similar for the Serpents Seals.

I am trying to understand how this can make sense. Why should one item that drops during a raid event have significantly weaker powers than another item that drops from the same event?

Is this a bizzare and unwarranted attack on items that can be used with tradeskilled armours?

Solteris raiders convinced the developers to ignore all aspects of the armor set except HP/MA/AC, and they also explicitly excluded any comparisons to SoF armor.

[Wyvernwill]

Let's say you raid Solteris and loot a Sunshard. With some effort browsing the bazaar and finding the right people, you can obtain a piece with 700 HP/mana instead of 550.

Why would you loot the phosphene item instead of the shard if it gives you an inferior piece of armor? The focus has to be better on the armor you buy with phosphene. If it wasn't, there would be no question, the cultural piece would be better in every aspect.

I know it's not that easy. Porous Loam doesn't grow on tree, not everyone can drop millions of PP on their armor.

However, in EQ, the reward depends on the difficulty of the fight to obtain it. We might want things to be different but that's how it is. So, regardless of the number of steps you have to complete to obtain the cultural armor, if the hardest fight you need to win is a Solteris event, it has to be of Solteris quality.

Then why hasn't the Jonas aug been nerfed yet? Let's see here, not one single fight challenged me in a group, and best yet, I know people who solo'd almost the entire thing. Yet it still houses some of the best stats in the game for a single augment. Why does the Model XLII Spatial aug exist? Afterall that IS the best AC/Hp aug in the game considering that it is very comparable to the 15ac 200hp 180 mana Augment from Ayo Ro. Nothing to that quest has even challenged me nearly as much as getting into Deathknell has.

Why was the dropped gear in Demi and Anguish completely made irrelevent by groupable mobs that are definitely not challenging to the level that the scripted events in either of those zones are?

As for the Shard vs Armor... why did people (specifically tanks) at the Demi level still loot fallen saints though in 6 of 8 slots, there is no comparison that GM/LB was considerably better, often by 20ish AC + raw. Yet numerous tanks still used Fallen Saint over Elaborate LB. Why? Because it requires absolutely no extra work.

That's what people ignore. They like to point at "Buy an AAAA in the bazaar and the mechanoinstructions and the Goo and you have your aug! Oh and while you're at it, buy the Elegant armor piece, as well as the Sublime symbol"

The fact remains there's far more parts to assembling an aug that detract from the "I must have the best stats from the bazaar" for the mass majority of EQ. While things are easy for me, I put in work besides the fact of just logging in for raids, to max out all 11 tradeskills, regardless of how tedious it was.

It's exactly that crowd (that does not want to put in the extra work post raid), that is crying for the nerf because they can not just loot and item and be the best in EQ at this time, but even that will be changing within about 5-8 months when people are beating Crystallos.

[Ngreth Thergn]

I am puzzled about the supposed balancing between the type-12 seals and other raid gear.

One of the biggest power factors of any piece of gear is the power and level of the focus effect it has. Thus although Bazu and Last Blood Seals have quite nice stats, the fact that their foci cap at 67 and 70 is a significant disadvantage to using them - thus (in their current pre-nerf state) they are balanced.

I understand now however, from details on another thread, that Sunshard Seals are being given weaker % foci and lower level capped foci than is on other gear *that drops from the exact same raid event*. Presumably it is also similar for the Serpents Seals.

I am trying to understand how this can make sense. Why should one item that drops during a raid event have significantly weaker powers than another item that drops from the same event?

Is this a bizzare and unwarranted attack on items that can be used with tradeskilled armours?

The type 12 symbols are SPECIFICALLY supposed to be a slight step back from the actual raid drops. They are supposed to help the people in the raid with less DKP, or less priority on the loot order if DKP is not used, or whichever the loot order may be. It is supposed to help those in the raid force NOT at the bleeding edge get closer to the bleeding edge. It is not supposed to match the bleeding edge. This has always been the case with these since they were implemented.

[Aldier]

Then why are the level 80 armor + level 80 symbol + not-bleeding edge armor combinations being compared to not-bleeding edge armor sets. If that is the point, then someone using Elegant armor with Sublime symbols and LB-Sunshard augs should be compared with bleeding edge (SOF RAID) loot. SoF Raid loot is 1000+hp/mana. Elegant + Sublime + LB is 600?

Why do we need to NERF them again? They are too close to the "bleeding edge"?

[sziv]

The type 12 symbols are SPECIFICALLY supposed to be a slight step back from the actual raid drops. They are supposed to help the people in the raid with less DKP, or less priority on the loot order if DKP is not used, or whichever the loot order may be. It is supposed to help those in the raid force NOT at the bleeding edge get closer to the bleeding edge. It is not supposed to match the bleeding edge. This has always been the case with these since they were implemented.

I know it may make things more difficult for you, but I'd like to ask that you consider the progression server when changing things like this.

In this case, it will (probably) benefit us because there are maybe 1 or 2 last bloods in the game at all, so our Elaborate gear with DoN augs in the 12 slot will become better. Have you decided specifically whether this change is going to affect the Bazu seals? My guild has just started hitting Shyra as a loot target, specifically to gain Bazu stones to help gear us up to take on other content. We're probably a year off from ever seeing a Last Blood, depending on what kind of gear we're able to get when RoI opens PoR.

[Aaneras]

The type 12 symbols are SPECIFICALLY supposed to be a slight step back from the actual raid drops. They are supposed to help the people in the raid with less DKP, or less priority on the loot order if DKP is not used, or whichever the loot order may be. It is supposed to help those in the raid force NOT at the bleeding edge get closer to the bleeding edge. It is not supposed to match the bleeding edge. This has always been the case with these since they were implemented.

You have obsoleted all raid content prior to TSS with easily groupable gear. However, the raid forces in pre-TSS content still aren't flagged for (or geared for) TSS+ raiding.
If there was a single, simple thing that you could do to ease this transition:

1) Make the focus effects slot 12 augs the same as the visible armor from the same raids.

2) Create a pathway to turn in visible armor in TBS and earlier raids for the slot 12 augment that goes with their particular focus effect. This removes the particular source of conflict that motivated the original complaints: Solteris visible can be used to make armor better than Demiplane drops (either LB or visible armor), and DP/TSS visible armor drops have a defined function (and will be regarded as valuable).

I'd really appreciate your bringing this up Ngereth - it could, quite possibly, be a better path out of what looks to be a serious pickle. You changed the grounds of comparison with a radical inflation of group gear, and this should be adequate grounds for reassessing how you treat prior raid content. The developer proposed changes preserve structural imbalances; what I'm proposing retains prior raid rank ordering while avoiding ex post facto changes in items that are broadly available.

[penasi]

Well said Wyvernwill. I could not agree more.

I consider cultural gear a quest. It's either very expensive or time consuming. Either way, this new route to gear upgrades infused interest and fun in a game that, quite frankly, had lost some luster for me. I find it disapointing that the vocal minority have, once again, gotten their way.

Any chance of changing the games name to EverRaid?

[Tanise]

The type 12 symbols are SPECIFICALLY supposed to be a slight step back from the actual raid drops. They are supposed to help the people in the raid with less DKP, or less priority on the loot order if DKP is not used, or whichever the loot order may be. It is supposed to help those in the raid force NOT at the bleeding edge get closer to the bleeding edge. It is not supposed to match the bleeding edge. This has always been the case with these since they were implemented.

Obviously you are confused. See a slot 12 aug Only goes into TS made gear. It cannot be put on any other gear but Tradeskill made. Now in addition to that you need to have someone of your race make this gear, which is usually semi pricey. Then you need a symbol made for your deity, again pricey. Then after that you need to make the slot 12 into a an augment. Maybe you didn't realize this? It's not an aug you loot, it's just a rock, it needs to be made into an aug, that process generally costs around 100+K

So you have:

armor approx 40k
Symbol = 40-100k
Quad A + 100k

So what you are saying is that the person who doesn't have enough time to earn rpp DOES have enough time to make 200+ k pp?

Not only that but your specification breaks down at Every single level. Shyra drops 275 gear.

Elaborate helm is 59 ac 35 hp etc. Even with the old symbol (100 hp etc) and bazu ( ac 30 180hp etc) it's still an ac 89 315hp etc piece of gear.

Now shyra drops a helm, lets look at those stats and see how they measure up to the specification: ac 79 290 hp 280 mana/end

The whole point behind a slot 12 being better is the amount of BS you have to go through to make it something worthwhile. You can take the easy way out and just loot a piece of gear or you can invest a bit more time and effort, get the slot 12 and make it into something better.

[Bobaten]

Shyra is a flag mob. Everything she drops is intended to be "low quality" compared to what the raid force attempting her is wearing (Anguish gear). As I said in the other thread, its supposed to be the gear equivalent of a back flag. If you don't have the platinum (or guild support) to make the armor+symbol+seal, then you don't get it. But considering the thousands of these that have been made, I really don't think most people find it to be all that hard.

[Abazagaroth]

The type 12 symbols are SPECIFICALLY supposed to be a slight step back from the actual raid drops. They are supposed to help the people in the raid with less DKP, or less priority on the loot order if DKP is not used, or whichever the loot order may be. It is supposed to help those in the raid force NOT at the bleeding edge get closer to the bleeding edge. It is not supposed to match the bleeding edge. This has always been the case with these since they were implemented.

No, it hasn't. That may have been the original intent, but it wasn't implemented properly. Why else did last bloods go for more than plate BPs in demi in dkp in my guild when we were first in the zone?

Ever since they were initially upgraded early early in dodh they were superior in all ways except foci, other than the BP/robe, and mod2s for a few slots.

BTW, I'm still waiting to hear what the deal is going to be with bazu stones, which have the exact same melee foci as last bloods, and nearly as good caster foci, and only 30 less hit points.

You going to take stats from them and put them on the old master's armor, and claim that they are an intended "set" too? You know, considering bazu seals just like last blood seals have required level 70 on them.

Or what about discordant seals? With 120 hp and required level 65? Pretend they go with journeyman's armor?

The entire "Sets" idea is ridiculous. You should never have even mentioned it, you should have simply reduced the stats on exalted/sublime elegant, added some stats to tss/tbs/sof seals (to where you wanted them in total), and made group type 12s.

You guys should take a hint with how popular bazu/last blood were in the first place, see how much people like being able to customize armor in a meaningful manner (i.e. foci) as opposed to the ridiculousness of TBS era powersources.

[Abazagaroth]

Shyra is a flag mob. Everything she drops is intended to be "low quality" compared to what the raid force attempting her is wearing (Anguish gear). As I said in the other thread, its supposed to be the gear equivalent of a back flag. If you don't have the platinum (or guild support) to make the armor+symbol+seal, then you don't get it. But considering the thousands of these that have been made, I really don't think most people find it to be all that hard.

One of the least logical (or accurate) statements I've heard in awhile.

Shyra was not something that required anguish, which is why it dropped MPG trial level gear. Flag mobs are not "gear backflag" droppers, that's absurd.

The only flag mobs that aren't redone for loot are those whose RvR is out of balance in the first place.

[gggrant]

One of the least logical (or accurate) statements I've heard in awhile.

Shyra was not something that required anguish, which is why it dropped MPG trial level gear. Flag mobs are not "gear backflag" droppers, that's absurd.

The only flag mobs that aren't redone for loot are those whose RvR is out of balance in the first place.

And Shyra is done for loot. As the blood raids go that guarantee a bazu stone it is the easiest (at least in my opinion).

Shyra can be and has been single grouped. To the best of my knowledge, Shyra has never been single grouped by anyone that would consider her loot an upgrade. I am not saying that it can't be done but it would be rather stupid of the group to try it. The success rate on such a kill would be abysmally low. Those that would consider Shyra loot as upgrades and wished to farm her for upgrades would need to use two to three groups to ensure success. People that are currently single grouping Shyra are not doing it for the loot, they are doing it for fun. They may zone an alt in to loot but they themselves don't want the loot. People that are currently farming Shyra for the loot to use themselves are doing it in small raids.

[Tanise]

Shyra is a flag mob. Everything she drops is intended to be "low quality" compared to what the raid force attempting her is wearing (Anguish gear). As I said in the other thread, its supposed to be the gear equivalent of a back flag. If you don't have the platinum (or guild support) to make the armor+symbol+seal, then you don't get it. But considering the thousands of these that have been made, I really don't think most people find it to be all that hard.

Hi Fail!

Most of the guilds in content pre TSS farmed the hell out of Shyra. She was a farm mob. I was doing her long before we even touched an mpg trial. She continues to be farmed for one thing: bazu augs.

So next you're going to say that your guild only did the mpg trials once then straight into anguish. Did you only farm anguish once too? Raiding must be boring that way if you only hit content once for the flag then never again. I've got an idea! How about they make all of these flag mobs drop nothing? Just here have a flag thxdrivethru

A gear back flag?

If that was the case then why even back then did it make better gear then she dropped?

oh I get it, You want to get a piece of tradeskill gear named after you...