Making old cultural worthwhile

[Quinner Sparrowhawk]

While I realize times change in the game and what was valuable yesterday is trash today, I think it a waste of data to allow the old cultural recipes rot as curiosities that no player would ever want to wear. While they do offer some stat bonuses, the lack of HP or Mana make them less desirable than the new cultural armor.

My solution is simple. Give the old cultural armor new augmentation slots with jewellers or potters getting new augment recipes for HP, mana, and even stat augments that would fit only those new slots. No other armor would be able to take those slots and the numbers could be tweaked to make the choice of going with old cultural vs new cultural a matter of trading off one advantage for another.

The old cultural could be changed to having slot type 13 and slot type 14 to accept the new augments. The limit of only two slots vs the three slots of new cultural would create a sense of choice in players that could lead to some to wanting the old instead of the new while others would prefer the new.

Just something to spice things up and make the old stuff more useful than something to twink out an alt until it reaches lvl 20.

[Ndaara]

good grief! i'm tired of all the different aug types. i'd rather have FEWER aug types and make my choices based on other differences. the type 12 augs are already very limiting, you can only put the one type of aug in there and only in one slot of armor and only for your deity.

adding another slot to old (blue diamond, right?) cultural is a great idea, i'm just confused by all the different types of slots to sort through.

i need a new brain for all this.

[Kcalehc]

What about updating banded, or fine plate, they are old and unused? Or how about ornate chain, that could be useful again, or even bronze armour, it'd be great to see that in use once again!

Sorry didn't mean to mock, but they did update old cultural; by introducing new cultural! Its quite simple really, make the new stuff, its better (well ok it's not necessarily better in all circumstances). No one is forcing anyone to use it, if you want to make it that's cool, if not - don't.

Theres alot of unused stuff still in there. Some people might call it 'depth' or history. Quests, dialogue and items that are no longer used, desirable or even known about by many people. As you say, times change, and so too should people change (not just in responce, but to effect further change).

[Angelsyn]

"Old" Cultural still has plenty of value...

1) It is often a very good skill-up path, or adjunct to your skill-up path.

2) It's better than Expert's, but not better than Master's... which, given the Recommended Level of 45, suits things just fine.

3) Boots & Bracers are still moderately high demand items.

4) BD Cultural is worth Tribute. If you do your research, you can find the best "bang for your buck" when working with BD Cultural to get your skill up.

[Quinner Sparrowhawk]

With every new expansion comes new stuff. I thought this would be a great way to reuse old code. I also meant for ALL of the old cultural, not just the BD stuff.

Good Grief, I thought jewellers and potters would be excited over the prospect of new augments to make.....

I am one of those who likes choices, especially when it becomes a chocolate vs vanilla argument. Adding augments and augments slots to the old cultural could be done in such a way that the "experts" become split as to which is better.

BTW, I always thought fine plate should be retrofitted with options to make it more useful.....

Maybe there is something odd about me but I have always hated how some items are only made to be destroyed or sold to vendors, never to be seen again, just for the sake of skilling up.

[Zaltak]

Some HIE old cultural doesn't tribute for anything like bracers:-(

[Angelsyn]

Some HIE old cultural doesn't tribute for anything like bracers:-(

I only noted BD Cultural in my post... "old cultural", IMHO, is not a cost-effective skill-up path. Especially since you need the Tempers (and Morning Dew, for High Elves) for BD cultural.

As for the rest...

Well, honestly, times do change. While the Romans (and others) used Bronze to make armour for many years, everyone quickly switched to Iron when that became cost-effective. And then to Steel, and so-on up to modern Kevlar, Ballistic Cloth and other things that have made previous armours obsolete. Nobody ever said "hey, maybe there's a way we can make this ultra-heavy Bronze armour better instead of just using Iron or Steel."

For those races that have BD Cultural, be glad you have an extra skill-up route when working on Smithing or Tailoring.

Besides, if you did improve the Old Cultural & BD Cultural... you'd be leaving Vah Shir Bards, Warriors & Beastlords out in the cold. And leaving many people up in arms that only a some people could have access to making the armour... just like it was when Cultural armour was introduced. (Not to mention the other messed-up situations... like Halflings being able to make BD Plate for their Paladins, but not their Clerics... who'd been around longer!)

[Ishwar]

DoN armor design is much better than old cultural. Only having some races be able to produce cultural, and having stats differ as much as they did accross dieties, was not a good thing.

It is much easier to make new stuff and correct the errors than trying to correct the existing items.