Possible Cultural Armor Changes

[Roanne]

I agree, but the rebalance should be all in the group aug, not in the base armor.
Also, no stat adjustment for level 75 or 80 cultural parts needed (unless defiant armor for those levels is eventually released as well).

This will remove incentive to boost 70+ stats by keeping level 65 base armor but putting level 80 group augs into it. Some people may do this anyway because of difficulty in obtaining both level 80 base armor and group augments but it would not give a stat boost beyond what is already possible.

[Aaneras]

Level 20 armor:
Simple Cuirass/Blessed Symbol: 11 AC, 20 HP/MA
Simple Defiant Leather: 19 AC, 23 HP, 22 MA, 1 mana regen (MaReg)

Level 40 armor:
Ornate Cuirass/Revered Symbol: 18 AC, 40 HP/MA
Ornate Defiant Leather Tunic: 39 AC, 73 HP, 72 MA, 2 MaReg

Level 60 armor:
Intricate Cuirass/Sacred Symbol 26 AC, 95 HP/MA, 1 MaReg
Intricate Defiant Leather Tunic: 49 AC, 161 HP, 149 MA, numerous mod2s.

Level 70 armor:

Elaborate Cuirass, Eminent Symbol :AC 50, 145 HP/MA, 2 MaReg
Elaborate Defiant: AC 57, 262 HP, 241 MA, numerous mod2s.

It is only with raid slot 12 augments and exalted/sublime symbols that the cultural comes out ahead (and not by that much: a bazu seal in level 70 armor/seal is 325 vs. 262 hp/ma.)

The defiant is also infusible (can benefit from power sources), and has nice focii on other slots. To reach parity between cultural and defiant, you'd need both to simplify the armor (remove racial restrictions for 70 and less base armor, deity restrictions for symbols) and add a slot 12 groupable augment with the following properties:

Level 20 set: level 20 focus, ~10 AC, ~ 10 HP/MA;
Level 40 set: level 40 foucs, ~22 AC, ~ 35 HP/MA;
Level 60 set: level 60 foucs, ~23 AC, ~ 65 HP/MA;
Level 70 set: level 70 focus, ~10 AC, ~ 125 HP/MA. (Note: Bazu stones are raidable at this level, comparable foci, and somewhat more HP/MA at 180. Might be sufficient for this level of armor.)

Might be sensible to make them all of order 10 AC, groupable, and add the 20/40/60 group symbols. I'd argue that the cultural should be better than the single drops given the hassle and assembly factor. As the above comparison indicates, the slot 12 items don't need to be crazy powerful to fit the bill.

[thomenthechanter]

Aaneras, you keep harping on the deity restriction on the symbol. As stated before, that combine is not deity restricted --- anyone can make any deity's symbol.

Otherwise, I tend to agree... there needs to be some way to add the focii effects onto the cultural armor from a group perspective, because I know of at least four folks who'd arranged for me to make cultural for their alts before Defiant arrived. Once it did appear, there was no reason for me to make said gear.

These aren't raiding toons, so Bazu+ raid augs aren't really an option. But with the player-made power sources, the Purity on the Defiant comes into play.

[Roanne]

I'd also like to see a way to equip type 8 augs in cultural gear once it becomes "raid" gear with the type 12 aug added. I think the easier solution would be for all pre-SoF type 8 only augs to have type 7 added but I dont expect either will happen.

[Zatz-Combine]

There are Chronal and Discordant slot 12 augments (required 65 to use) that take a small raid to acquire [over the risk vs. reward curve for the level of bonus] making these groupable drops would solve this dilemma, then maybe apply a small change to the effects, slightly better than defiant armor effects. I personally would take defiant over elaborate cultural simply to have the increased effects {and mod2s}. There are no augs that can replace a single piece with a 35% increase in DoT or DD damage that is found on the Gnollish armor drops. So the question is how does a non raiding character get this type of effect into cultural made armor, answer is you don't, you buy gnollish [whats left of it available] and bank your elegant/exalted armor and pray for an open raid (never seen one on Combine) just to get a chanced to roll for a Bazu drop against 53, or less, other people.

No other change to the rest of cultural needed beside these 2 augs.

[Dutchy]

Chronals and Discordants still require an ABAA + Mechanoinstructions to craft, not sure what they run for on other servers but I spend 150Kish per aug on mine.
Im a non-raider myself (but a hardcore single grouper), so the augs provided a better type 12 option for me then the DoN/Crafted augs, but the cost of making them were high enough for 4 out of 6 people in my group to not want any of them lol.
But Id consider the fights single groupable, we took m down with mostly katta ally faction gear/weaponry when we hit lvl 80 (war,pal,clr,shm,bst,brd all with a decent amount of AAs).

Focus wise... /agree for non-raiders its just impossible to get it on cultural armor. Our casters are currently using pieces of the tier 3 SoF armor set for it, and only wear a few pieces of cultural. We did manage to single group Shyra and the Council and have been farming those for Bazu augs, but those focus effects only work up to lvl 70 spells so theyre not an alternative for the casters either.
I have heard stories of people 1-grouping last blood seals (though I have no clue if any non-raiders have pulled that off yet) but same story on those, they only work up to lvl 70 spells.
So if you upped the chronal/discordants to work for spells up to 75, it would have to effect the higher seals as well. And since those were already considered overpowered as they are, it would probably cause mass chaos.

New expansion coming out pretty soon though, Im hoping we will see some of the current armor focus effects on non-visible slots to give casters an alternative.

As for the lower and mid level cultural, most elaborate defiant armor goes for 100-500pp here atm, even if we got type 12 groupseals, I dont see how we could ever compete with that =(

[Stewwy]

I would love to re-evaluate cultural.

To do that the raid augments have to be adjusted like I wanted to in the first time, I.E. the raid augments need to be adjusted down, then the group stuff can be adjusted up.

But the community wants me to leave it alone, so we are stuck with what we have.

Or since more groupers use cultural armor than raiders, one might consider actually adding in crafted type 12 augs that are useful for groupers instead of the stagnant, nearly worthless (except the melee abilities) and still insanely rare type 12's that are found in OOW only.

[Paloverde]

Vaguely, I remember a statement that what is on my mind may be addressed in the forthcoming expansion. But just in case it is not in the works, here goes….

One big barrier in cultural armor is inventory space consumption. Specifically, armor crafting takes two general slots, one for tailoring and one for smithing. Furthermore, crafting augmentations demands as many as twelve general slots (the 6 levels times the two trades). I am aware that it does not matter by which trade the augmentation is created but you or the customer may have more materials for one skill or the other or you may wish to develop both skills through crafting augmentations.

For solution, I suggest the following. Regarding armor let the template determine the place the armor will be worn and the category of armor and type of type of combining container. Let there be a token added to the recipe to identify that the quest has been completed. Regarding augmentations let the body part for the augmentation be identified by an item purchased from a merchant. Let the quest completion again be identified by a token and the combine category by the materials placed in the container. That is, only forges receive coal and only tailoring containers receive filaments. So then, instead of fourteen general slots, there are seven tokens. /Cheer

[Aldier]

From what I remember Ngreth saying, there will be no extension of the cultural armor into SOD in its current form.

To go back and change all of the old recipes would be a massive undertaking, and since the stats on those items are not going to change (per player feedback) there is little likelihood that the entire system, including the recipes for all the existing parts will be redesigned.

It would be nice to be able to cut down on the bank space/bag space required for cultural currently, but that does not seem as likely. However, for the most part, if there is not a new level of cultural then people will start to phase out the lower tiers of armor and it would not be as necessary to keep supplies at all times, and perhaps be ready to create a new set of patterns/molds as needed.

[Ngreth Thergn]

It is still one of the projects I want to do someday, but it is very time consuming and I have given other projects higher priority.

I was thinking I might actually do a compromise between now and the other plans I mentioned.

I never liked the fact of turning the patterns to 2000 generic patterns and people just using the "1 item" templates to skill with.

I may instead compress the 7 (maybe 8 if I do the charm one too) patterns to three patterns... 1 for each "size"

Not as much of a savings but still a savings.

[Ricroc]

From what I remember Ngreth saying, there will be no extension of the cultural armor into SOD in its current form.

To go back and change all of the old recipes would be a massive undertaking, and since the stats on those items are not going to change (per player feedback) there is little likelihood that the entire system, including the recipes for all the existing parts will be redesigned.

It would be nice to be able to cut down on the bank space/bag space required for cultural currently, but that does not seem as likely. However, for the most part, if there is not a new level of cultural then people will start to phase out the lower tiers of armor and it would not be as necessary to keep supplies at all times, and perhaps be ready to create a new set of patterns/molds as needed.

I agree with this quote: above

I really wish Culture would follow the path it has always taken, but perhaps now some of the changes can be made to augs for the 80 - 85 sets?

I enjoy the fact that I can make my own gear for my main as well as my alts. I'm currently making armor for Dwarf, Halfling, High Elf, Iksar, and Gnome. Seems like a lot, but I enjoy playing the classes associated with the different races. Lazy people would request (as noticed above) that any race should be able to make culture for other races. I disagree. When the race and class was selected....perhaps then attention should have been considered on how evolution of the character would evolve, not later.

The thought of loosing culture because it was decided not to be included in an expansion is horid (And very possible as explained above). Are the creators of this game we play being lazy? Why leave it out? They now wish to change something that has always worked by simply ignoring it?

I have invested a lot of time into tradeskills, all because of culture armor. To not continue its evolution is a means of doing away with it as newer armor comes out.

Thus....causing me to give up on tradeskills all together.

No need for new culture (80-85)....no need for tradeskills.

Where is this game going?

ADDED THOUGHT: Perhaps people should have trusted Ngreth when he wanted to change the augs last year.

[Roanne]

Are you suggesting its the players' fault there is no cultural pathway past 80 because they didn't "let" the devs change gear stats? It's some kind of punishment?

What was presented as a selling feature of the cultural revamp (the ability to mix and match pieces as you progressed) became corrupt because of poor vision and planning. The majority of people against the retroactive change were people who already dumped considerable resources into cultural specifically because of that point. I don't blame the devs for wanting to change it once they finally figured out its impact and I dont blame the players who didnt want it changed after they already progressed down the path of being dedicated to it. However, it wasn't players with a profession livelihood and input before the fact who missed this mark.

There's still the problem of type 8 only aug incompatibility with cultural gear, even when that gear is "raid" gear. By itself at conception that wasnt a big deal but when group gear stats took a giant leap forward in SoF, casual progression raid guilds couldnt make the same leap in content and cultural wearing characters are now stuck mostly clearing content in TSS and TBS raids that neither upgrade their visable armor slots nor augments.

Any way you look at it, cultural gear will disappear from popular favor with this next expansion as better group options appear for the mostly melee classes who still use it and already has disappeared for group players and casters because elaborate defiant foci are so much easier to get.

Ngreth has promised more utility for tradeskills in the next expansion but the question remains whether whatever it is will generate the interest in tradeskills brought by cultural gear in all its many aspects as this concept fades away.

[Ngreth Thergn]

It is not punishment

It is not "lazyness" on my part (any more accusing me of being lazy ends the thread and gets a report to the Denmother for possible banning)

It is the FACT that there is imbalance with the armor, continuing it as is will just cause MORE imbalance. We NEED an expansion of growth in group and raid gear in order to have a spot to place cultural without continuing the imbalance.

I have repeated this over an over. I am sorry that you do not like it, but that is the way it is.

Cultural cannot continue the way it was, changing it to a new way needs more time and more other gear coming out.

[Ricroc]

Nagreth please forgive me. I'm not trying to point you out as an individual and say you're lazy. You of all people I respect and admire for your hard work.

Correct the imbalance. Please

We as players are only pointing out the obvious. Tradeskills will take a very hard hit without Culture Armor.

New armor is already out and in play, but some of us appreciate armor we can make ourself. I made a complete set yesterday for my level 70 SK.

It's a matter of pride wearing something we made.

What happens to that pride when its gone?

[Sorkin]

Well, I still disagree that raid type 12s are unbalanced, but I won't open up that can of worms again.

I still don't understand why groupable type 12s are out though. By definition, if you are using a groupable type 12, then you can't be using a raid type 12 and therefore the supposed unbalancing raid type 12 is not a factor at all in determining the groupable type 12.

If the devs put in groupable type 12 augs that brought the elegant/sublime combo up to par with current groupable armor (Crys equivalent that dropped in SoF, whatever the highest group zone is in SoD that drops in SoD) with current foci, then people wouldn't desire the raid type 12s nearly so much and you could continue to introduce cultural.

Cultural requires significantly more resources than click/loot gear. It requires a massive amount of tradeskilling clicks/plat to get skill up, big money/time in the AAAA box, in addition to just getting the drop. Therefore, in order to balance the extra effort involved, cultural needs to either have equivalent stats to the click/loot gear in an expansion and allow choice of current focus, or needs to have some extra hp/mana/stats with old/useless foci.

I'll use druids as an example since I am one. Currently, an elegant brambleborn BP has 91 AC 80 hp/mana. The sublime symbol has 330 hp/mana and some mod 2s. That totals 91 AC 410 hp/mana, some mod 2s and no focus. Druadic Crys armor (with only 1 essence) has 109 AC, 525 HP/545 mana and can use a cheap group powersource for an extra 27 hp/mana without any slot 13 aug or anything. The type 15 slot increases this a bit more, but I can't find exactly how much right now.

Therefore, a groupable type 12, using the AAAA, but with a no drop item from, say, the elders in Crys, along with the mechanoinstructions from SoF/DoDh that makes a type 12 with 18 AC, 152 hp/mana plus whatever a type 15 aug with only 1 crys armor equipped gives, and a current level 2 SoF focus, would bring groupable cultural up to balanced without doing anything to unbalance raid cultural.

You can also introduce SoD augs in the same way. Balance groupable SoD with the high end SoD group stuff, and SoD raid augs with SoD raids and assume elegant/sublime.

It would keep cultural alive and the warriors wouldn't all complain about the AC being too high on cultural stuff.