Suggestion for Ngreth

[Lenowill]

Would it be possible to tweak the Breakdown in Communication augs and some of the other augs of yester-year that originally "fit in all slot types" so that they would be usable in type 16 and 17 aug slots?

Especially type 17. The reason I ask this is threefold:

(1) They would provide (non-overpowering) filler augs for slot 17 for people who don't raid and get to the point where they don't need further foci from the newly craftable ones in Underfoot.

(2) Doing so would let the BiC augs and others continue being useful in an era in which even regular one-group augs are rapidly moving toward surpassing them (or already have).

(3) They were already usable (in a non-overpowering way) like this in the previous cultural armor slots of type 11 and type 12. Unlike the Bazu/Lastblood Seals, there's nothing devastatingly powerful about these augs, but it gives players who kept them (or worked hard for them, in the case of BiC) a nice bonus.

As well as I can tell, it would be functional, friendly, and traditional to do this.

The "Stone of Recovery" aug from the Tipt trial is another one I can think of that has the same pattern of available slot types (my bard has one stuck in a vacant type 12 slot on his Elegant cult armor). There are also some from way back in LDoN.

It would be nice to see a few new augs of this sort somehow, too, since not everyone in the group game (e.g. pure fighters) is going to need to fill _all_ of their type 17 slots with focus effects.

Food for thought. :-) Great looking expansion so far. My guild is going to call up one of our 2100-club officers who quit to let him know there is a sequel to the Coldain Prayer Shawls in the works.... LOL

[Aldier]

Let BiC go already. It is still used by so many as an aug it does not need to be altered to maintain its over powering nature any longer, imo.

[Lenowill]

The only people still using it as a main aug would be people who actually have the final verion(s) of it, which means they actually managed to get a drop from Tacvi. As far as I'm concerned, I don't mind if they have the advantage of continuing to get to use it exactly where they want to. *laughs*

I'm just a grouper who only has up to the Kod-Taz rank of the BiC aug--which is significantly worse than just about any modern aug I could put into its place in a Type 7. But I still -like- the aug and figure that its quest is one of the handful of things people still occasionally consider worth doing in Gates of Discord, despite how incredibly long it is. It's a good, interesting quest line that doesn't really feel dated when I work on it. I don't expect to ever get past the Qvic part due to not having raider support, but it would still be nice to be able to justifiably use the aug somewhere.

The stats on the final BiC aug don't seem overpowering to me at all by today's standards, given how much time went into (and would still have to go into) acquiring the thing.

It's just a suggestion; Ngreth will take it or leave it at his discretion I'm sure.

Even if BiC isn't kept in the pool of options for the new crafted gear, having some sort of group seals (or other augs) that would fit in the Seal slot and add minor stat bonuses (where more foci aren't needed) would be nice.

[Aldier]

Even if BiC isn't kept in the pool of options for the new crafted gear, having some sort of group seals (or other augs) that would fit in the Seal slot and add minor stat bonuses (where more foci aren't needed) would be nice.

While I don't think letting people use the BiC aug would solve the problem, I am somewhat saddened that the crafted armor is as weak as it is for the grouper. Especially for those who do not need a lot of focus effects. It would be nice if the group seals provided a little bit of stats to help it out compared to what is probably going to be a weak armor set in a month after people get deeper into the expansion.

[Lenowill]

Aye, or some other perk that would make the choice between using a set of crafted armor for a moderately long term (versus immediately trying to farm up a full set of dropped stuff) a bit more difficult and interesting.

I realize Ngreth doesn't like Min-Maxing when it comes to equipment, but the fact of the matter is that difficult equipment decisions were a part of the original game and were a part of it that a great many of us enjoyed having to make. If you had an item with good AC but no stats, and an item with +10 strength and terrible AC--and both used the same slot--you had to make a choice between them. Did it allow for Min-Maxing? Yes, but it also allowed for meaningful specialization of one's equipment and character.

If even a modest amount of that were possible through the group seals, I don't know of anyone who would complain. My mains are a bard and a druid so most of mine will be taken up with foci as it is, but the few slots that are left would be interesting to play with.

Being able to stack up some uncommon mod2s/3s using them would be interesting. Like if there were seals that added +5 Spell Damage and nothing else, and others that added some AC/HP but nothing else--etc.

Right now, even most of the useful type7 augs available to groupers are of the "give more survivability" variety. The choice is between AC and H/M/E which is sort of like choosing between carrying a shield or developing a thick wall of blubber to absorb more blows: regardless of which you pick, you're still picking defense. It would be interesting to see more offensive aug options that sacrifice the usual defense in exchange for enhanced damage output. I've started noticing a bit of stuff that sort of goes in this direction with a few of the SoD augs, the Cazic Thule temporary revamp augs, and the Giants Giants Giants augment, and I'm hoping to see more.

At any rate, I want to thank Ngreth and the other devs for the level of work and polish that has obviously already gone into this expansion. It's looking very nice so far. :-)

Cultural armor for the win! :-)

[Ngreth Thergn]

No. We have no intention of having anything else fit in cultural.