Honest idea to fix smithed gear woes *forever*

[Arhallia]

Consider the following:

A "smithed" item is nothing more than a quested item which:

1) Has a readily obtainable quest container
2) Requires a considerable amount of "back work", on par with faction work for many quests, to have a *chance* of completing the quest successfully.
3) Requires "quest drops" from zones that are usually only readily obtainable by a character who is beyond using the "reward".
4) The item is almost always tradable.

Given those facts, compare the quest mace from Natimbi:

-----------------------------------------------------
Mace of Focused Flame
LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Weight: 0.0 Size: MEDIUM
Damage: 14 Delay: 23
Str: +7 Dex: +5 Wis: +3 Int: +3 Disease Resist: +5 Cold Resist: +3 Poison Resist: +5 HP: +50 Mana: +30 End: +30
Classes: Beastlord Ranger Paladin Shadowknight Bard Monk Rogue Warrior
Races: All Races
Slot 1: Type 7

Effect: Bolt of Flame
Type: Combat
-----------------------------------------------------
...with one of the best smithed weapons for most classes in the same zone:

Pale Velium Short Sword
MAGIC ITEM
Weight: 2.0 Size: MEDIUM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Damage: 10 Delay: 22
Str: +8 Wis: +8 Int: +8 Agi: +8 Fire Resist: +6 Cold Resist: +6 Magic Resist: +6
Classes: Ranger Paladin Shadowknight Bard Rogue Warrior
Races: All Races
Slot 1: Type 4
Slot 2: Type 7

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These both require drops of about the same rarity/difficulty. The smithed weapon is tradable, but also costs an additional ~600p to make, plus there's a chance of failure, effectively increasing the "average" difficulty of the drops for the "quest", and you had to work pretty hard (or spend a lot of money) to get to a skill level where you could do the quest.

First thought that comes to mind is what?

-----------------------------------------------------

I propose the following solution to this imbalance:

* If the NODROP flag is the "issue" behind the low stats of the smithed item (which is FAR harder to obtain on average) then....

Add three new augment slot types for Smithed Gear ONLY.

Type 9: Stat augments for tradeskill armor/weapons.
Type 10: Weapon damage augment for smithed weapons.
Type 11: Weapon proc augment for smithed weapons.

1) Make the augments NODROP, and reasonably spendy, AP-wise.
2) Make the augments a bit superior to the other augments at LDoN camps, or mildly raise the stats of basic smithed items everywhere. (Make a +3 damage augment for 1H, 16+ delay smithed weapons for 1150AP, for example, a 15 AC augment chest/legs/arms, a +10 Sta and +40 hp aug for smithed gear, a 250 point proc for 1150AP, etc.)

...voila. Problem solved.

[Flabbo]

Aside from the cestus, the GoD smithed weapons are so pathetically bad they arent even worth mentioning lol.

They need to reduce the temper requirements on elemental smithed armor. My guild has a lot more ele molds/patterns than them. Drop rate on temper components is pretty horrible on top of taking 6/7 for a single breastplate attempt.

[Cantatus]

Tradeskill augments were something I suggested back before LDoN that I really would've liked to have seen. It'd at least give you some ability to customize what you're making and also make it so there would be a larger variety of items available to make.

And Flabbo, keep in mind only the GoD weapons we've seen haven't been stellar. Some of the weapons made from harder to get stuff might be a lot more impressive. It might not, but we can't really right off the entire set of smithed weapons within one week.

[Daikoku Ashikaga]

Pale nehyte is going for 2k, how is this going to effect the price for the better ores?.

Tae ew has a 12/20 ratio, with HPs, a group of level 60s can farm Tae Ew blood for hours, there are a lot of 65's I would not group with , if they would be tanking in feb, or most other spot in the group. Would have to be a guildie's twink or another high end twink.

Basicly, if you are not an Uber, you will not see anyof this, unless you have uber friends, for myself, spending most of my raaid time in time, this has no effect on me, but I think this is very unfair, I did not like it in PoP, where the lower smiithed armor, the one people could hope to farm was such junk.

There should be a way to reward the out come of smithing persistance over raiding persistence.

Give my char name, as I have said before, I am in favor of, surprise, given my char's name, mutiple fold sword ('pale velium' katana, I could hope) same hilt recipe, but the blade requires a different on, some smithing or JC/smithing combo for a untempered velinum bar and needing 2-3 of those, using farmed, not vendor pucchasable velium, 2 untempered velum bars, folded use a powder made of say dark matter, out of natimbi, fold it some number of times, and take another untempered bar, 'hammer' it, then 'weld' it to the first blade, make these combines difficult so they fail alot, but not cost an arm and a leg,

give it the stats of the PV bastard sword, and ad the level requirement, AC, HP, and mana of the argent protector, then you have a competive, slightly superior blade to some old kunark drop at least (Well protector was vielous, post revamp.)


Something that would amount to more work then the average AGer would not do, but someone that that makes MTPs because they, in the end would rather make there own food then buy it, would not really think twice about.

Dai

[eniamn]

don't give all the subfolds 335 trivs too. also they should have their own stats. kinda like the prayer shawl everyone would get better but still useable.

[Daikoku Ashikaga]

Would not a 254-260 subfold combine, maybe 275-300, idea of this is to discourage my fellow high end raiders that are not tradeskillers by nature, I ca n think of my self, sonami, jeger if she comes back, many others that would still do combines of that type, but most of the Higher elemental people/time-god people would not do that.


Dai

[Turlo Lomon]

Review some of the other posts. A developer stated that we haven't even scratched the surface on player made items yet. Give it time. The expansion just came out, and there were over 1500 recipes added to it. We haven't even passed 500 yet.

[Daikoku Ashikaga]

He also saud in that same post, that it would be with the higher level ores, IE not something your level 61 enc/warrior/what ever is going to get invited to pleaces which to farm.


Dai

Again I will be ok, getting the good stuff.. just not everyone can play my playstyle

[Maddoc-the-Wayfarer]

They don't need your playstyle either.

With the items being tradeable, even those with very casual playstyles will be able to get the components necessary to make the higher end weapons.

You won't necessarily be able to get them tomorrow, but they're also not so rare that you'll never be able to get them. They will be available, just give it a little time

-- Maddoc

[Daikoku Ashikaga]

You won't necessarily be able to get them tomorrow, but they're also not so rare that you'll never be able to get them. They will be available, just give it a little time

Did we not see this in pop with fletching, the ability to make stuff, but you have to be an uber guilder (Or close) to aquire, or pour out 50K+ per one attempt to try?

Why is this coupling of Raiders to to be , well leeches off the tradeskill comunity, if any of these weapons turn out to be better then the WMBS, dealing here with 2hdrs, do you think that the raid crowd will not raise perices to unaffordability? Is this somethingthat is concidered good?

Third guild into elemental planes, third guild into time, I am going to bemaking out like a bandit if what happend in PoP is repeated here, but why must it be that way, why can not someone that has put enough workk to get 242+, that does not have access for the forces to do shei, be completely locked out of the ability do make themselfs something decent, something usable, relitive to the market fornear or less then what he pays for components.

I expect PN to be going for 200pp soon, meaning that a smith that is 55 250+ skill will end up 575 or so on velium, 400 on PN, plus other various bits to make a wepon that will not sell for more then 750?

Maybe I am the only one that would like to see a paradigm change, something that entails more smithing work rather then more buttering up to the nearst uberguild.

Dai

Edit: shei was for my shears, XTC does drop the hammer, I wont even go in to XXWEDYT or whatever is the accronym for the mob that dropped my gaunts in VT.

[Flabbo]

Right. We havent seen the end items. I just dont see why they bothered to makle the lower tier items at all, if they arent going to be worth a fraction of the vendor purchased components. Theres a pretty significant timesink of getting the materials, shelling out money, only to make a piece of junk. People who would use a 24/30 2 hander CANNOT effectively hunt for the components there. The mobs are way too mean. They either need to up the drop rate on the materials and lower the vendor component price, to allow a viable skillup path, or make them worthwhile to produce by raising ststs to be commesurate with the cost. As is, they are eating up database space.

The only light at the end of the tunnel is the new type 7 procs, so you can have a player made weapon with 2 procs. Until theres a 10 base damage damage, 50hp type 7 aug, I just cant see the lower end weapons being useful for anything, with SO much superior and cheaper weaponry being out there.

But hey, the whips are a joke as well, so at least I can tease my tailoring friend

[Arhallia]

I have to disagree with the "because they are droppable, even the average joe will see them" comment.

Like PoP tradeskill drops, they will be way WAY out of the pricerange for the average joe. Its been this way (we're talking 150k pp+ to make an elemental BP *attempt* on my server) for eons, and the elementals have been open for a while where I play.

The prices are like this because, frankly, the plat-garnering exploits that allowed some people to become horrifically rich allowed those same people to spend as much money as possible in purchasing the best tradable gear (or components for making said gear) possible -- which in this case tends to be elemental PoP armors.

Anyone who didn't benefit from the plat-making exploits would be doing themselves a huge favor by getting LDoN armor (which is superior to all elemental-smithed or -tailored gear), or Ornate armor from places like BoT. Earning 300k to *make* an elemental BP (when the Ornate BP costs 150k even) is well beyond the time commitment of most players. The LDoN stuff is just within reach... therefore the market for Elemental-grade armor (and these new GoD weapons) is limited to the filthy rich players who are very very good at trading, and have crazy gear (from uber guild raids usually) to trade, or who have exploited the game at some point in the past.

Alternatively, many uber guilds have grandmaster tradeskillers who make them "filler" gear (which gets placed back into guild hands, or goes to twinks after its done "filling") from these drops -- effectively making the items NODROP, since they never change hands outside of the guilds that can acquire them in the first place.

[Naelia]

Arhallia, I couldn't agree more with your assessment above.

The aug idea sure would be nice though. They could even let jewelers make augments, or something. Wouldn't that be cool..

[Eidolon Faer]

Frankly, another area I would like to see smithed items expand into:

Pet weapons.

I don't usually buy pet weapons in the bazaar, because all those mages are just bazaar bots run by Yantis, and I dont feel like aiding and abetting.

Furthermore, pet weapons are ****ed inconvenient unless you're a Mage. They're NoRent.

Frankly, I'd love to see a range of smithed pet weapons, of varying difficulty and cost to make. Give the top couple of them dropped components even, but give them superior stats to the Blade of Walnan and maybe a nice graphic.

Frankly, I think it incredibly silly that a 250-skill Enchanter Blacksmith has to buy summoned swords from a Mage in order to make them dance and fight for me. And I'd pay 100 plat in materials and farm a Sand Verbena or two for a weapon that gave my pet a cool graphic and a damage upgrade. It'd be situational but both an excellent plat-sink and not unbalancing. And skelly pets with particle weapons would be worth it.

And it would keep the Smiths happy too, they're consumable. The market wouldn't glut, like it has with Black Acrylia.

And it's not like it'll screw over the Mage class any worse than it already is. They still have a massive edge in convenience and price, they just no longer have a monopoly. I'd feel sorrier for them if Shamans couldn't make Clarity potions.

[aruvqan]

Originally posted by Eidolon Faer
Frankly, another area I would like to see smithed items expand into:

Pet weapons.

I don't usually buy pet weapons in the bazaar, because all those mages are just bazaar bots run by Yantis, and I dont feel like aiding and abetting.

squeeze me? i am not a yantis bot by any means, and i have relatively frequently gotten mage summoned pet gear to sell on my trade mule from a friend of mine when i needed to make some plat fairly fast to get something i wanted. i know i work my tail off getting things to sell in bazaar, including fishing until i was so bored my brains felt like they were running out of my ears to get cobalt cod for the oil...making innumerable zillions of combines for celestial essence, stat foods...running my ranger around fraging her little heart out for plains pebbles, tea leaves, cinnamon sticks, cabbages, baking and brewing and smithing and tailoring components... nope, i am *not* a yantis bot, and i resent the idea being flogged that anybody selling certain items is always a yanis bot. grrrrr!