Swirling Shadows the Bane of Shadowscream armor

[Lieyna]

Well I was floored the other day, a few things have changed on Test. I dont know if they have gone live yet or not.

1. The spawn rate in Hollowshade is MEGA fast now.
2. And hold on to your britches.....Swirling shadows are no longer no rent!

Now if this doesnt get changed this is a Huge boon to those still going through the farming woes.

Just thought I would post this. Dont quote, (just in case it gets changed :P )

[Lupoman]

woot great to hear! :P

[Bennan]

Wow that will be nice, I just hope it does not make the path too easy. As I consider the S.S route to be at a very fine balance as it is.

[Kingbobb]

If they're going to remove the no rent component, they should add No Drop, or SS will become too easy. We'll be up to our necks in 250 smiths overnight, as the shadow island, hill in SW Thicket, and the populations of both sonic wolves and Owlbears are hunted to extinction. Even making them no drop, Gm smithing will become a much more trivial thing.

On the other hand, I've had not one single skillup from making shadowscream, ever (well over 400 combines now). My largest runs are 15-25 combines, which usually earn me a skillup on other recipes. If the skillup rate on SS is thie slow across the board, then making them more available should be ok.

[kiztent]

If they're going to remove the no rent component, they should add No Drop, or SS will become too easy.

Too easy? I consider the 5 hour set up time to start farming to be the single most retarded thing involved in ANY tradeskill, with lots and lots of room separating it from the next most retarded thing (that being pottery skill ups post 200 and the need for fishing in Old Sebilis for crucibles of escape).

Sure if you think having to deal with spending 5 hours mindlessly killing greens to actually start farming no drop components to be easy, then I guess this is a good fix. Endlessly chasing sowed greens that don't drop what I want across the water while watching bogus zone wide messages just doesn't fit into my definition of fun or easy, guess I'm just funny that way.

This is really a fix for the powerskillers who want to do runs of 1000 at a time. They don't have to corpse lock any more. It's not going to make SS any EASIER for them, just less annoying (they already corpse lock the shadows anyway, the only difference it makes is the GMs won't have to reimburse lost SS - which they will do - lost in an unexpected server reset). Now, I'm all in favor of less annoying, but easier? No.

Meanwhile the people that want to skill up without the massive upfront investment of the broken for over a year HSM war get nothing.

In summary: SS not no rent. Less annoyance for powerskillers (good). No help for casual smiths.

My opinion of the change: If we have to wait a year for a change, at least make it a decent one.

It's not clear what the change in spawn rate means (point 1). If it means that we still have the upfront time but can farm faster once that time is sunk, it's still a worthless change for everyone except the powerskillers, who it helps.

Anyway, if you are worried about too many 250 smiths, why bother? Pretty much every uberguild skilled up a 250 smith during the great FS rush last May.

The blue diamond armour market has already been thrashed* (we have someone selling Dark Regent at 2-7k a piece - most smiths will sell a DP BP for LESS than a thurg MQ, fierce heraldic is currently at twice thurg MQ prices and will continue to drop) and the PoP market is doubly bottlenecked with rare drops AND shared components with other tradekskills - you can have as many 250 smiths on the server as you want, drops of pure rain won't fall any faster.

Looking back, I think the PoP model for smithing is the best one. Limit the entry of items by rare drops (in experience zones), not by stupid outside requirements. Sure it sucks for the person who isn't flagged or can't merchant mine, but at least they can actually put decent rewards on the items for a change.

Aid Grimel's quest is a decent quest with decent rewards.

* - It may not be yet on your server, but it will be.

[lyandras]

I actually was quite happy with SS skillups. From 189 to 210, and 228 to 233, I have averaged one skill up per 16 combines. This was at STR of 280, doing bracers, then boots, and using a geerlock.

[Menion]

Lord, some of you will cry about anything. I am DONE with SS armor and I still think this is a good change. I can't count the number of times in my 3 weeks of farming 2600 frigging shadows that I grew tired of the task but did not trust my server enough to corpse lock the shadows, and yet I wanted to take a break.

This change is good for both the powerskillers and the casual gamer who wants to farm 40 shadows in his/her free time. They dont have to worry about server crashes, corpse locking, patches, or anything else. They can farm what they want when they want and then do combines on their time.

As far as HSM is concerned I really never had a problem with the zone. Yes, I may have been an anomily, but the one time I had to have the zone reset, it wasnt that big of a PITA. What SOE should really do with HSM is disable the war, give each faction a camp and make the smithing components drop at the rate they do in the South islands in all 3 camps.

The war is great idea that was poorly implemented. (Maybe they will fix the darn thing 3 or 4 expansions down the road, Inner Acrylia Caverns anyone?) And if any spawn rate should be upped on anything dealing with shadow scream armor it's the Twilight Shadows. My 60 Ranger woud tear through that island easilly, and it would still take me 6+ hours for 200 shadows / 100 smithing combines.

[Velurian]

I'm pretty happy about this as well (both the increased spawn rate and the no longer being no rent), if it actually makes it live. In the small amount of SS farming I've done, the swirling shadows have been far and away the biggest bottleneck, and anything that eases that bottleneck (or makes it more practical for me to spend more time harvesting them, which the removal of the no rent flag would do) is a positive in my book. It's still going to take a long time to do SS; this just makes it a little more practical.

On a recent set of farming expeditions, spent about 2 hours each farming owlbears and wolves on the south islands, and shades on the hill. Came away with 55 wailing substances, 46 shrieking substances...and 18 shadows. I'm sure that was partially just bad luck, but I was rather annoyed that the portion that was by far the most trivial was being such an incredible bottleneck. Are those sorts of ratios what I should expect?

(And I can't nearly keep the islands clear -- that's just killing as fast as my animation will allow. But as near as I could tell, I was getting just about all of the shades on the hill...)

[kiztent]

As far as HSM is concerned I really never had a problem with the zone. Yes, I may have been an anomily, but the one time I had to have the zone reset, it wasnt that big of a PITA.

That's funny, I remember you carrying on in serverwide about it taking 5 hours in between having the zone repopped, then have the bears attack and get set up in the south island.

Either you are crazed from spending too much time farming for SS and don't remember that, or you don't consider 5 hours of sitting around waiting to start farming to be that big of a PITA but just felt like complaining about how much it sucked while you waited.

Either way, I don't believe you.

[Menion]

Yes, I was bitching, that was more of a nothing else to do(nothing was on TV) and the fact that I was 2 weeks into farmex 2003 so my tollerance was low, but I also farmed over 300 wailing substances that night in a 9hr period...5 of which was waiting for the zone to reset/bears to attack. 9 hours for 300 substances isnt that big of a deal IMHO.

And I had no problems farming 1000 of each substance the 1st weekend I started. So, hmmm...I guess my experience in HSM wasn't that bad now was it?

[Zeralenn]

I don't think there would be ANY problem with shadowscream being "too easy" if swirling shadows were no longer norent. I think you WILL start seeing outrageous prices in the bazaar for them, but that would be a great change, IMHO.

...Zera

[cattywumpus]

Losing the norent tags looks like a good thing but I'm not so sure about increasing the spawn rate on the islands.

Vah Shir have an epic level quest that requires them to collect items from the Grimlings on the islands. Fighting for these spawns with smiths who need shadowscream parts was bad enough but now making it harder to clear enough of the mobs to get to the casters for a shot at quest items is going to make these quests ridiculously hard.

If they only increase the spawn rate for Sonic Wolves and Owlbears on the islands that would be acceptable since the smiths would get what they need faster and leave more time for kitties to camp quest items but please leave the Grimling spawn rate where it is.

Or actually fix the war :roll:

P.S. Please be kind to the kitties. If you see kitties camping grimlings for quest items help them while you wait for the right message. The quest they're doing is rough enough without losing the camp for weeks at a time. At the level most of you are you could farm the parts they need in far less time than it takes for one attack whereas it may take them hours at the level they gain XP there.

[Kingbobb]

The other thing to consider is what other change will go with taking No Rent off shadows. SOE's been making noises about looking at trivial levels and skillup paths for the tradeskills, and we as a community have been saying that SS is too difficult (both in terms of trivs and time needed to acquire goods) for its level. So, if shadow loses No Rent, and SOE is thinking that any change needs to come with some cost, we may see SS triv levels dropping. If that's the case, I'd rather see them stay No Rent, and keep SS open as a skillup path.

As for not caring about the GM market since the uber guilds already have a GM smith, I don't see them competing on the market. Making 250 easier to get to cheapens the effort of those of us who are casual players who have managed to get to GM status without te aid of a large guild, under the current skillup path. I'm all for change and improvements, but not ones that cause large imbalances in the current game.

And I realize I may be oversensitve to this change, being that my main is a monk. Since I'm still waiting to see what, if anything SOE will do to improve the monk class after that last major change, I'm nervous that smithing, the main reason I keep coming back to Norrath, will likewise suffer a hit that has a direct negative impact on me.

[kiztent]

And I realize I may be oversensitve to this change, being that my main is a monk. Since I'm still waiting to see what, if anything SOE will do to improve the monk class after that last major change, I'm nervous that smithing, the main reason I keep coming back to Norrath, will likewise suffer a hit that has a direct negative impact on me.

Were you not smithing last May?

Personally, I find smithing it stupid to the point where I won't do it, so Sony couldn't make it worse for me. Therefore changes will either (1) not effect the fact that I won't smith or (2) make it worth investing time in.

[Menion]

As for not caring about the GM market since the uber guilds already have a GM smith, I don't see them competing on the market. Making 250 easier to get to cheapens the effort of those of us who are casual players who have managed to get to GM status without te aid of a large guild, under the current skillup path.

Thats not necessarily a true statement, a lot of players with Elemental planes access are going to end up boosting their respective tradeskills to do the Aid Grimmel quest.