new armor since cultural will change next expansion

[ahrnell]

long title says it all. has anyone here thought about and made any suggestions on how to handle it? here is some of what i had thought might be good.

i spent alot of time and plat in both getting my skills up high enough as well as aquireing the raw materials to see them become virtually uselss in the next expansion. so i thought there are several things they could do to keep player made armor a realistic thing.

the armor:
make the stuff used to make the armor as well as the armor itself no trade.

keep that stuff common so that people are not spending hours in zones with groups trying to farm stuff that rarely drops and every monkey in the game wants regardless of wether or not they can actually use it.

make it so that it has no aug slots (why will be made apparent later.)

make it comparible with second tier group armor of the same expansion. (lets be realistic it is going to take alot of peolpe a long time to farm up the stuff to become masters at whatever skill they are persueing)


the augs:
current lb style augs can be smithed/tailored/tinkered/whatever into augs similar to the epic 2.5 aug.

they all have the same additional ac hp and stats (no effects), but the discordant and bazu augs open a single type7 slot, the lastblood and serpent will open a type 7 and type 8 aug slot, the sunshard and faycite will open a type 7 slot, type 8 slot, and a type 12 slot.

while the aug types do not have to be those exactly something like that would keep formor augs of some use and allow the playermade armor to keep up with both group and raid level armor.

converting the augs could be tricky, make a zone with a forge/loom/whatever that is guarded by say 3 monsters and you have to do a quest using smithing/tailoring/whatever in order to get a clicker that turns the guards off. similar to the way the ag guards are turned off. do not make quest impossible or overly long, because it would make sense that the guards would be killable by raid geared groups. in this forge/loom/whatever you combine a fairly commonly dropped metal/silk/hide/whatever and the lb style aug to make a blood ruby a dragon ruby or a transparent ruby which is the 2.5 style aug used to unlock aug slots as explained above.

to make the armor a bit harder to make/get you could require that the armor also be forged/sewn/whatever in this special forge/loom/whatever

any other ideas or suggestions?

just thinking maybe we as players/tradeskillers can help guide the developers to make something we will enjoy and still find useful in game.

[Aldier]

long title says it all. has anyone here thought about and made any suggestions on how to handle it? here is some of what i had thought might be good.

i spent alot of time and plat in both getting my skills up high enough as well as aquireing the raw materials to see them become virtually uselss in the next expansion. so i thought there are several things they could do to keep player made armor a realistic thing.

the armor:
make the stuff used to make the armor as well as the armor itself no trade.

keep that stuff common so that people are not spending hours in zones with groups trying to farm stuff that rarely drops and every monkey in the game wants regardless of wether or not they can actually use it.

make it so that it has no aug slots (why will be made apparent later.)

make it comparible with second tier group armor of the same expansion. (lets be realistic it is going to take alot of peolpe a long time to farm up the stuff to become masters at whatever skill they are persueing)


the augs:
current lb style augs can be smithed/tailored/tinkered/whatever into augs similar to the epic 2.5 aug.

they all have the same additional ac hp and stats (no effects), but the discordant and bazu augs open a single type7 slot, the lastblood and serpent will open a type 7 and type 8 aug slot, the sunshard and faycite will open a type 7 slot, type 8 slot, and a type 12 slot.

while the aug types do not have to be those exactly something like that would keep formor augs of some use and allow the playermade armor to keep up with both group and raid level armor.

converting the augs could be tricky, make a zone with a forge/loom/whatever that is guarded by say 3 monsters and you have to do a quest using smithing/tailoring/whatever in order to get a clicker that turns the guards off. similar to the way the ag guards are turned off. do not make quest impossible or overly long, because it would make sense that the guards would be killable by raid geared groups. in this forge/loom/whatever you combine a fairly commonly dropped metal/silk/hide/whatever and the lb style aug to make a blood ruby a dragon ruby or a transparent ruby which is the 2.5 style aug used to unlock aug slots as explained above.

to make the armor a bit harder to make/get you could require that the armor also be forged/sewn/whatever in this special forge/loom/whatever

any other ideas or suggestions?

just thinking maybe we as players/tradeskillers can help guide the developers to make something we will enjoy and still find useful in game.

First question,
http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?t=31816 is a thread someone started in the smithing section as you asked if anyone has talked about it.

Rest of your ideas... Making the drops and the final armor no trade is a BAD idea. The crafted armor is nice but the real strength of it is that I can make it for others.

The conversion you suggested for type 12 seals might be ok for melee, but is not an option for casters. There are very few type 7/8 augments out there that provide focus effects. Unless the crafted armor is going to have focus effects on them naturally, then there is no reason for a caster to use the cultural in the form you are suggesting.

I am not sure it is good to say it should have to be 2nd tier as we (and probably the devs as well) do not know how many tiers there will be.

SoF has 4 tiers of zones. If you assign armor drops based on the zone it drops in, then there is not really any tier 1 armor in SoF, but if you assign tiers to armor as levels of the armor, then there are 2 tiers (tier 3 and 4) that come from Crystallos as the single essence vs. the combined essence.

I like to refer to it as the prior, in that the Tier 2 armor comes from Tier 2 zones (this is the armor type generic pieces, Warped Steel, Alloy-Linked, Scratched Hide, Glossy Silk) and then Tier 3 is the Steamcore level. So you can see, changing the terminology of what is a tier and what is not can dramatically have an impact on the quality of the pieces. Further, if for some reason, they decide to put 6 tiers of zones in the next expansion, tier 2 will be crappy compared to tier 6 and crafted armor would be useless.

Also, just a note, I doubt that cultural in its current form will magically vanish from the face of Norrath when the new expansion comes out.

Elegant + Sublime + Faycite will still be a solid piece of gear into the next expansion until the upper tier(s) raid drops start to fall, I hope. And for those that are not already in SoF raiding will be moving into SoF raids and be able to use these drops.

[Nolrog]

Not everyone likes to tradeskill. By making everything no drop, means that people will have to do it themselves. Not only that, but the people who enjoy tradeskilling and selling their wares will be out of business.

I don't think this is a good way to go.

A far better and much cleaner solution to the problem would be to either change the augment slots, so the new cultural cannot take last blood and similar augments anymore, or discontinue those kinds aguments from being upgraded, essentially limiting (or flatening) their power (because new group armor will be better than new cultural + LB.)

[KyrosKrane]

At the group level, cultural armor was pretty fine. An adjustment in stats would just have shuffled stuff around, without being a massive nerf to anyone. Certain classes would lose out a bit because they could no longer optimize their configuration by selecting cross-set combinations, like elegant armor with weaker augs for tanks, or casters using sublime augs (for mana) in elaborate armors. However, this truly would be a readjustment, not an overall nerf. Both the "sets" and the cross-set combinations are pretty nicely balanced against other available group armors.

The problems with cultural raid armors were twofold. First, AC was grossly out of whack, creating a massive advantage for tanks. Second, certain cross-set combinations were more powerful than the developers intended. Same-set combinations were mostly OK (with the exception of the level 75 set), but cross-set combinations led to some relatively easy-to-obtain combos being stronger overall than comparable raid drops, which was never the intent for cultural.

Personally, I think the developers erred in two parts about the cultural armors. The first error was in the original vision which restricted cultural armors to being weaker than comparable raid drops. I think tradeskill armor should be stronger, as it not only requires a raid drop, it also requires a skilled artisan to craft the various pieces.

The second error was one of not fully comprehending the impact of the changes SoF brought. In one stroke, the vast majority of past raid and group armors were rendered obsolete. SoF armors as a rule were so much better than anything a player could get in past expansions, in both raid and group versions. Players approached this as a gear reset, a chance for group players to catch up somewhat to raiders in gear, instead of being so far behind. Top end group gear was now only 1-2 expansions behind top end raid gear, rather than being 4-5 expansions as in the past.

I believe the correct fix for the past armor imbalances was not to nerf cultural, but rather to raise the corresponding raid drops to stronger levels, to bring them in line with the new expectations set by SoF. However, the developers felt that would be too much work to justify the return.

Taking this vision forward, I would foresee future cultural armors being comparable in style to today's armors: base piece, group aug, raid aug. I expect that unlike the present form, new versions will have the group stats split more evenly between the base piece and the group aug. I also expect the raid aug to be more balanced, with probably three to four expansion's worth of future gear mapped out in cultural to avoid the imbalance that was seen this time.

I don't think the cultural armor philosophy needs a massive change, such as rendering drops no-trade. I do think it can be tweaked, such as making a second, upgraded set of armor that is stronger by maybe 5% but is no-trade. That provides a small bonus to the tradeskiller for wearing his own work, without being a balancing issue against other armor drops.

[Yakk]

Base Armor: Requires drops and a Tradeskiller to produce.

Religious Blessing Augment: grants small mod2s, differs by religion. LORE. Scales with your faction with the home-town priests of the deity in question (0% at max-KoS, 75% at indifferent, 100% at max ally).

Adventured Augment: NO DROP augment that you get while adventuring. Fits only in crafted armor.

[Zopharr]

I agree with most of the posters here. The biggest issue with the cultural was the 'forwards compatibility' of the raid augs with the new armor - being able to put in DoDH/POR/TSS raid drops into elegant armor to make gear better than TBS armor for tanks.

Simply changing the slot numbers for the new raid drops would fix that. Better yet, make a new slot on the armor, and make the new raid drops have that slot number and slot 12. [I don't see how it could be a problem if someone wears a post-SoF raid aug in elegant or elaborate gear, until they get the post-Sof cultural.] This preserves the flexibility of cultural, one of its strengths.

And frankly, even if the nerf proposed in January had gone through, all it would have done is delay the day of reckoning for slot 12 raid augs. If a delta between raid and group of 45 AC and 350 HP was considered 'balanced' for SoF gear, that gap would have to get ever larger each expansion for slot 12 augs to work...which makes it even harder to tune exp mobs to both groupers and raiders...making EQ even more of a 'raiders only need apply' game...further contributing to decline of the playerbase.

Simply changing slot numbers so older augs aren't 'forwards compatible' will prevent players from getting gear equivalent to near-current raid gear based on raiding zones designed for level 70, and will give the designers more flexibility in deciding (and tuning) how much of a gap they want between raid and group gear.

[Abazagaroth]

The easiest thing would just to make the "new" symbol for level 85 to be type 12. Maybe make 2 tiers that are equivalent (lower ac probably, and without any foci) to bazu and last blood seals. Then, in the 2009 expansion, make type 11 symbols again.

Raiders would only see a tiny upgrade to current cultural that goes with new armor. Non-raiders would see a big increase but still be worse than those using raiding seals.

No need for funky solutions when a symbol 11 to 12 change on new symbols would fix any concerns.

[Neebat]

Taking this vision forward, I would foresee future cultural armors being comparable in style to today's armors: base piece, group aug, raid aug. I expect that unlike the present form, new versions will have the group stats split more evenly between the base piece and the group aug. I also expect the raid aug to be more balanced, with probably three to four expansion's worth of future gear mapped out in cultural to avoid the imbalance that was seen this time.

I'm still convinced that idea breaks quickly.

First, right off at the start, you're giving tradeskillers an item which says right on it, "You must be a raider to fully use this armor." It's demoralizing to make ANY armor item with slots that say "Raid" which are available outside of raiding.

Second, there's no base for comparison to make the armor balanced. Raid gear is normally, 10, 25 or 50% better than the group alternative, but when you have an aug slot specifically dedicated to a raid aug, it will always be 100% better than what goes in that slot for a group person. That puts the full burden of group upgrades on the rest of the item, the base armor and the other augs. So you boost the armor or the symbol enough to make a new level of group armor, and suddenly the old raid augs make it over-powered.

You can get the benefits of the new generation of tradeskill item, AND the benefits of the old raid item, in the same slot. That's too powerful. A better system is to scrap the "raid aug slot" for tradeskill armors completely. The raid aug has to replace something that's already good and getting upgraded from one expansion to the next.

Take the new JC for a template. They have balanced the stats for group jewelry. Now they could add a raid aug that would fit the type-11 slot. It would be a "raid-taafeite", which would be no drop and cover the gap between existing dwerium jewelry and raid gear.

And in the next expansion, when the tradable "upgraded-group-taafeite" comes out for the rest of us, god knows what stats it would have. The people using raid-taafeite would have to choose between their old raid-taafeite from the last expansion, or "upgraded-group-taafeite" from the new expansion. They could not have both.

[KyrosKrane]

So effectively, you're thinking of having two versions of the type 11 aug: one for groupers and one for raiders?

Another way to approach this is to fall back to the traditional system, where you just make a finished piece of armor, with all base stats on it. That armor then has an aug slot in which you can obtain a group-dropped upgrade and a raid dropped upgrade. The group upgrade would be akin to taking current Crystallos group armors from tier 4 to 5 (elemental to prismatic): a small but noticeable difference. The raid aug would increase the armor stats to make it comparable to a raid drop. Tie each raid aug specifically to that tier of group armor, and you won't have the forward-compatibility problem.

[Shismar]

IMO a simple change of aug slot that prevents old raid augs to be plugged into new TS armor is all that is required for a new generation of cultural armor. That new armor may not be much of an upgrade to the current culturals, especially in the AC department, but since it does not seem possible to just gently tweak existing armor ...

What I would not want to see is a difference of augment slots targeted at either groupers or raiders.

As a casual raider myself, that whole slot 7/8 fiasko bugs me to no end. Currently I am replacing anguish armor with SoF group armor pieces and suddenly I cannot use my slot 8 only augments anymore. Since my guild is barely raiding in demi, there is no chance for me to get SoF raid armor and because SoF group augments are rare and mostly garbage I may end up banking great slot 8 augments /rude /rant off

Any such mechanism just screams future hassle to me, I hope they do not make the same mistake again.

[Zopharr]

So effectively, you're thinking of having two versions of the type 11 aug: one for groupers and one for raiders?

Another way to approach this is to fall back to the traditional system, where you just make a finished piece of armor, with all base stats on it. That armor then has an aug slot in which you can obtain a group-dropped upgrade and a raid dropped upgrade. The group upgrade would be akin to taking current Crystallos group armors from tier 4 to 5 (elemental to prismatic): a small but noticeable difference. The raid aug would increase the armor stats to make it comparable to a raid drop. Tie each raid aug specifically to that tier of group armor, and you won't have the forward-compatibility problem.

I like having the two aug slots on the armor. While the slot 12's were intended for raid drops, non-raiders can fill them as well - various DoN augs, the drop from the Ikky trial, or for the more adventurous BiC or the 35 AC aug from the LDON raid.

Not to mention the OOW augs that allow you to tailor focii. OK, the OOW augs are better for tanks than for casters, but I was wearing a haste aug on Garshok in a slot 12 a lot more recently than I would like to admit. If they ever add in groupable slot 12-type augs (or the weaker raid augs on Gates or OOW mobs) Katy bar the door.

Not to mention the lack of flexibility for a core-type system. Seeing some of the focii on warped steel, I'm not so sure I'd like to rely on the judgment of someone at SOE about what focii I need on my armor. I'm pretty sure that I'd want different focii in most slots on my SK and on my cleric.

While a core-type system would work, I like the idea of making the new raid augs 'backwards compatible' - making them slot 12/20, and making the new cultural slot 7/11/20 or something similar. I know many folks with TSS and TBS seals who can't afford elegant, and are putting seals in elaborate. And remember that we would not have as much elegant as we do now if the drop rates hadn't been borked the first month.

We need to ensure that old seals are not 'forwards compatible,' but I'd hate to see a situation where a raider wins the new 85 seal (or core), but can't use it for months because he's trying to get the level 85 equivalent of porous loam.

Garshok

P.S. If we do go with a core-type system, one option could be to have slot 7, slot 11, and have the core add a slot for a vendor-purchasable focus. That would mean that raiders would get the stat/Mod 2 upgrade from the core drop, but players could choose what focus they wanted.