Porous loam Exq Fluid/Marrow

[MareeTP]

I think many are looking at it from the point of January 2008.

This expansion is designed to last (give you something to work towards) until November 2008.

Because many cannot yet beat the toughest end zone mobs in the current expansion with average, mid-level gear from the old expansion is no reason for the overall drop rate to be adjusted, if you are looking at the big picture.

You cant change drop rates and mobs every month to suit everyone at different levels of ability.

Elegant armor is not the only option for plate classes to gain hps and ac and foci... not even in Crystallos. People are regularly killing the Squires... and complaining that they mostly drop melee/plate gear! The loams drop in other zones if you cant kill in Crystallos. The big picture is balanced.

[Ngreth Thergn]

We are actually getting reports of groups CHOOSING golems... because you get three times the experience.

Sure, these are certainly not solo-able... but this is not really intended to be a solo zone. Even if some people are able to do so.

And on top of it, because of the "splitting" there is actually 3X that amount of porous loam than I thought (I did not know about the splitting)

when the split happens the extras are "spawned" when the npc is spawned it gets its loot. Despite the odd nature of the split... they still go through the normal spawn process, and during the normal spawn process they get their loot.

When I looked at the numbers there were about the same amount of each of those mobs plus or minus about 30... but with the golem split there is about three times the amount of golems.

[Zazel]

I've never grouped in Crystallos but got that nasty golem surprise one time while kiting a golem. I don't go in Crystallos anymore, but a quick check in the bazaar last night on Tunare showed ~12 porous loam going for roughly 325k a piece and an equal number of exquisite fluid going for roughly 300k. I didn't check exquisite marrow but know there was one buyer offering 330k for them. Whether or not all three come into the world at equal rates isn't for me to decide, but the bazaar would seem to indicate they are relatively equal, both in number and price.

[Ratblaster]

I've never grouped in Crystallos but got that nasty golem surprise one time while kiting a golem. I don't go in Crystallos anymore, but a quick check in the bazaar last night on Tunare showed ~12 porous loam going for roughly 325k a piece and an equal number of exquisite fluid going for roughly 300k. I didn't check exquisite marrow but know there was one buyer offering 330k for them. Whether or not all three come into the world at equal rates isn't for me to decide, but the bazaar would seem to indicate they are relatively equal, both in number and price.

Actually, I think it was mentioned before that Porous needs to really come in at the rate of exq spinners & marrow combined....there are 3 leather classes that use marrow in armor, 4 silk classes that use spinners, and 9 plate+chain classes that need loam. This is further exacerbated by the fact that the melee classes who most covet the AC gain in elegant armor are mostly plate & chain. To get around this supply problem, myself (and other tradeskillers that I know) use loam ONLY for armor (not for sublime augs)...making all sublime augs from exq spinners & marrow. Thats really the only way to keep up with demand for plate elegant armor...though perhaps that demand may drop if/when new lvl 75 armor is added as was previously suggested would occur.

[Bara]

Actually, I think it was mentioned before that Porous needs to really come in at the rate of exq spinners & marrow combined....there are 3 leather classes that use marrow in armor, 4 silk classes that use spinners, and 9 plate+chain classes that need loam. This is further exacerbated by the fact that the melee classes who most covet the AC gain in elegant armor are mostly plate & chain. To get around this supply problem, myself (and other tradeskillers that I know) use loam ONLY for armor (not for sublime augs)...making all sublime augs from exq spinners & marrow. Thats really the only way to keep up with demand for plate elegant armor...though perhaps that demand may drop if/when new lvl 75 armor is added as was previously suggested would occur.

A good example of players addapting to the situation as best as possible. Now if more would do it as opposed to ... insisting the game MUST be broken because they have not gotten everything they want 2 months into a 12 month expanssion.

And that interesting fact from Negeth about golem split spawns having possible loam drops ADDING to the numbers of loam entering the game pushing it above intended... kinda blows some of the complaints out of the water. Guess some folks just don't understand that the pre-expansion drops were a GLITCH; not the intended drop rates from the right mobs.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Also number in the bazaar are not necessarily indicative of drop rates.

Since the need for loam is higher it is more likely to be bought, therefore lowering its supply in the bazaar.

[Catamander]

Also number in the bazaar are not necessarily indicative of drop rates.

Since the need for loam is higher it is more likely to be bought, therefore lowering its supply in the bazaar.

I'd venture that porous loams will be higher price and higher demand also because plate tanks tend toward a special kind of obsession with maximizing their itemization. Not that some folks in other classes don't likewise plot, scheme, and plan their itemization out in great detail, just that plate tanks are especially prone to this behavior.

Our caster and priest toons tend to obsess more about focus effects with a stable concern about base stats. Our tanks tend to obsess about base stats with a stable concern about mod2s and focus effects being an important addition. That difference in priorities will make the cultural more broadly and compellingly attractive to plate tanks than some other classes, even if it has great base stats for any class.

Additionally, the major functional difference between elegant and elaborate is really in the AC. For the BP, for example, Elegant+Exalted+LastBlood is 122% the ac of Elaborate+Exalted+Lastblood but only 108% the hp and mana. A difference of 31 ac in a bp is huge, but a 40 mana difference is kind of minor at this level. Plus, the AC gains are a huge advantage for the tank classes. Bottom line is that right now the plate tanks are going to get a lot more bang out of Elegant armor than casters and priests.

So, in the end, the porous is going to be a higher priced and better selling item, creating an effective status of scarcity even if it was to drop at 4x the rate of the other pieces.

That came out a bit abstruse but hopefully makes sense.

[Aldier]

I think what Ngreth means is that the available items in the bazaar represent the items people are NOT willing to pay the price for.

Because 2 loams are listed at 500k+ and 3 marrows are listed at 400k+ does not mean loam is not dropping as much as marrow. It means people are willing to pay more for the loams. Someone might have sold a loam at 400k that is not reflected in what is showing in the bazaar. That is also the 3rd question I posed above.

Are the drops making it to the bazaar or are they being saved and used up by those farming the drops?

[olhoss]

What I do not get at all is who cares if they are more common? Who cares if people are able to get good drops and make decent gear from group play/tradeskills? I think the rarity of these items has caused more grief from plat farmers and dupers and hacking and everything else. Want to stop some of this? Want to kill some of the plat seller spam in game? Don't make stuff so rare and hard to get.

I keep hearing people complain about plat buyers being able to get really good gear by going to the bazaar and buying it. So what? Make it less rare and people won't need to buy plat to get it. Make it the result of difficult, time consuming quests that make you show your skill. Time sink farming for rare stuff chases people from the game.

Or make the stats a little less so they aren't so overpowering, instead of talking about nerfing the hardest to acquire/make piece of the whole armor set.

I don't understand why there is this religious aversion to having people be on equivalent gear bases so that they can simply enjoy the game, instead of making it a constant chase after the next best piece of gear to keep up.

A friend who gave up on this game referred to it as Equipment Quest. For Gods's sakes I wish the developers would think outside the treasure chest a little more often.

[Polt11]

Bazaar supply changes

Anyone else notice that either at or a little before the proposed changes was posted, that suddenly there was a LOT of added supply of porous loam? It appears that people who were hording it started unloading it immediately (or perhaps with some fore-knowledge).

Polt, CT

[Bedalin]

someone said it drops of a mob in katta :
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=68843

maybe they reverted the changes made on lvl 80 drops with last patch?

[Aldier]

They didn't revert them.

There is a .03% chance for porous loam to drop from level/race appropriate mobs outside of Tier3/4 SoF. That sounds like what occurred.

Or, the mob that dropped it is normally drops Alkalai Loam and this person got that rare time when they drop one level higher loam than normal. Not sure if that was changed though but used to be a possibility.