Increase in ornate drops and its effect on smithing prices

[Eumerin]

3. Again, Molds drop in Tier3+. You require lvl 62 to zone in without the proper flags or mini-quests...so why shouldn't this lvl cap apply to Bor?

IIRC, molds DO drop in Tier 2 planes. I'm fairly certain that the dragon in PoV, for example, drops them in his loot table. Now its true that killing the dragon is supposed to flag you for tier 3, and a level 55 probably shouldn't be along for ANYTHING in PoV, but since Bor no longer checks flags, the devs probably decided to cover all of their bases just in case.

[Ryna]

On my server most of the cultural is being worn by rich alts. These people CAN afford ornate sets (no BP, and maybe not pants), but the alt needs to be 55+ to make it. Also it has 0 resale value once you made it (no drop) unlike cultural.

Cultural is the ideal twink armor, you can buy it, throw it on at level 1, it'll scale up as you level and you don't need to upgrade till your mid50s or even later. So far I bought 2 sets of cultural both for alts, and ornate won't stop me from buying future ones when I level new alts because it is a VERY convenient way of putting good long-lasting gear on a sub-55 alt.

[Taraddar]

I don't think this is gonna be an issue.

I looked at the cleric armor its very nice but not overpowering at lvl 55 and even if prices do come down would cost well over 200KP to attain

Also the enchanter stuff does seem overpowering until you look at it

ex.


Silken Augmenter's Pantaloons
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: LEGS
AC: 14
DEX: +3 STA: +6 CHA: +6 INT: +8 AGI: +8 HP: +50
MANA: +85
SV FIRE: +10 SV COLD: +10
Recommended level of 60
Effect: tranquility (cast time: 12.0)
WT: 0.7 Size: MEDIUM
Class: ENC
Race: ALL


Well tranquility is better then a KEI but guess what? this is not agroup spell or a MGB spell. And although the cleric armor does not have a recommended level all of the enchanter does level 60. Which would seem to me to indicate you cannot use the clicky effect until lvl 60. In fact someone on another board said this was the case.

Might be on the legs but sure isn't on the helm or arms my 59 enchanter is wearing. Even if it was 60 thats still before you could get the spell. The spell is a group spell but it isn't targetable or MGBable. So it isn't gonna be very useful on a raid but in an exp group it's fairly significant.

So nice? Yes
Overpowering? Heck no

As far as the cleric stuff if I had it all. The main benifits to me would be FT4 for the 2 bracers, a good bit larger mana pool, and a clicky hammer pet. Nice but not overpowering

-Byelka

The Mana pres on the boots and Imp healing 4 would be more important that a couple ft IMO.

As far as prices go they seem to be in a free fall. Silk caps are listing at under 10k in the bazaar now and there are alot of other peices at 40k or less.

[Koru]

I just bought some cultural armor for my main. Now that I see the prices on ornate I'm... still gonna save up for the cultural arms I'm missing. Even as I write this I'm looking at the ornate prices on another computer. I will be 65th lvl before I can afford a single mold. I'd rather not end up repeatedly mushed (am tank) in getting there if I can avoid it. Having reasonably appropriate armor for my level will help with that.

If the prices dropped to 1/4th of what they are now it would still take me about a month before I could buy one mold. Assuming I bought the cheapest one which right now is the helm mold. Caculating how much money I make in a week on average it will take me at least 4+ months to save up for a greaves mold at their current price. I'm not in a raiding guild and quite frankly I'm really not interested in joining one right now. So I'm more or less limited to what I can buy and what I can afford. Before the change I didn't even see ornate molds up for sale and when I did they were always over 80k.

I hope they don't change the drops too much, because one day I want to be able to upgrade my cultural. It won't happen for a long time most likely because darn, quite frankly 40k is a good deal more than I've ever had. And yes, I'm very close to 60th lvl right now. But I'd like to know that I can upgrade my armor without having to sacrifice all my free time to raid raid raid and the lack of molds up for sale before increases was a little absurd. I always checked if any were up for sale and almost never saw any (what can I say, I like windowshopping). Right now I'm not saving up for ornate molds, I'm saving up for the missing cultural arms I need for the AC boost. I need that upgrade much more right now than I need ornate helm mold in two months time. Maybe if I had a 65th lvl elemental flagged raiding main with 300k in the bank it would be different, but I assure you, people like me will still be buying cultural.

[Reflan]

Like Ryna, I find it's mostly rich folks who buy cultural for their alts. Last arms I sold were to a guy who has 7 alts he plays and equips. An awful lot of people I know use raid gear on their mains and whatever they can buy on their alts that gi ves real value for the dollar.

These people can either afford to buy ornate outright or can do so with a bit of loot camping and selling, and certainly will be able to do so if a big supply of ornate makes ornate prices plunge further. It is very much the case that many people basically have a choice between buying ornate(or looting it!) and buying cultural, as how much money they spend is not the deciding factor to them -- getting the best gear they can afford(or loot) is.

My sale of cultural plate has plunged, personally. Seems logical to me, though I wish it were coincidental.

[Spikehammer]

I don't think this is gonna be an issue.

I looked at the cleric armor its very nice but not overpowering at lvl 55 and even if prices do come down would cost well over 200KP to attain

Also the enchanter stuff does seem overpowering until you look at it

ex.


Silken Augmenter's Pantaloons
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: LEGS
AC: 14
DEX: +3 STA: +6 CHA: +6 INT: +8 AGI: +8 HP: +50
MANA: +85
SV FIRE: +10 SV COLD: +10
Recommended level of 60
Effect: tranquility (cast time: 12.0)
WT: 0.7 Size: MEDIUM
Class: ENC
Race: ALL


Well tranquility is better then a KEI but guess what? this is not agroup spell or a MGB spell. And although the cleric armor does not have a recommended level all of the enchanter does level 60. Which would seem to me to indicate you cannot use the clicky effect until lvl 60. In fact someone on another board said this was the case.

So nice? Yes
Overpowering? Heck no

As far as the cleric stuff if I had it all. The main benifits to me would be FT4 for the 2 bracers, a good bit larger mana pool, and a clicky hammer pet. Nice but not overpowering

-Byelka

A 56 enchanter in my guild has these, not flagged, and it works for him he loves saying c4 in my pants and it is a group spell. If we are on a raid and no 60+ chanter with us he just moves around groups till all done.

[Kingbobb]

On E'Ci, prices on ornate molds/patterns have started to come down, and seem to be hovering around 3X the price that cultural (Fierce Heraldic in particular) used to sell for. Add in the info. that Fierce Heraldic has stopped selling at those old prices, and seems to be stagnant at 2/3 to 1/3 the old price, and it seems that the smithing market at least has taken a huge hit.

I managed to sell a couple of Hurricane chain arms just before ornate molds started appearing in the bazaar. I've cut my prices from 17K to 12K, and don't even get asked about them any more. Cultural breastplates went from 18K to 6K (rare, low price, most seem to be around 10-12K now), and there's not much market.

While cutural was and is a twink item, ornate isn't so much a twink item, since it has a level requirement of 55. While cultural doesn't really become effective stat wise until the high 20s, that's still 30 odd levels to get through before Ornate even becomes an option. So, I'm uncertain as to how much of the drop in the cultural market has to do with the release of Ornate armor.

However, this does severely imbalance tradeskills. Once again, the "best' available armor is not player made, but essentially dropped. The fact that the ornate armor is itself No Drop tells me that SOE sees this as a way to permanetly remove Plat. from the game economy, thus marginally increasing playing time required to generate more plat. to buy more stuff. By taking away the smithing (and tailoring, to the extent they existed) markets removes a way for Plat to be transferred to GM tradesmen, essentially removing the reward for spending the time to master and GM those skills, until new items are added to the game that Smiths and tailors can make that exceed the value of ornate armor.

[Kronepsis]

Your chanter friend can click Tranquility before 63?

I smell a nerf on the horizon...hope he levels up fast :/

[Perseverence Rewarded]

My sales of 1st/2nd Tier items has slowed abit yes but I am selling stacks of Ethereal Silks and Sheets. Ethereal rings aren't moving at all . The failure rates of these items is very low and it provides a constant influx of cash. 150pp -250pp per unit is small change but with everyone needing them it is one after another day in and day out.

And of course I have purchased the ornate helm/gauntlet/boot molds. Love them

[kiztent]

While cutural was and is a twink item, ornate isn't so much a twink item, since it has a level requirement of 55. While cultural doesn't really become effective stat wise until the high 20s, that's still 30 odd levels to get through before Ornate even becomes an option. So, I'm uncertain as to how much of the drop in the cultural market has to do with the release of Ornate armor.

However, this does severely imbalance tradeskills. Once again, the "best' available armor is not player made, but essentially dropped.

The second paragraph answers the question in the first. There are 3 factors that have resulted in the cultural markets being trashed.

First is Aid Grimel. 250 smiths everywhere, cultural is dead easy to farm components for - it's 'trivial' to make. This has been a major factor on the stormhammer market. Someone was skilling up on dark price and selling it for 2-3k a sheet. Blew the bottom out of the cultural market.

Hurricane plate takes (some would say excessive) effort to farm for, which keeps the price up - sort of.

Second is mudflation. People get better drops (pre-PoP the only upgrades to cultural were Velious and Luclin Bosses) and cultural starts to fall behind the curve. Once it's not the 'best' buyable upgrade the people with the plat who only want to buy only the best stop buying it. Then sellers start dropping prices to move inventory (and let's face it, for the cost of parts, BD cultural sells way high, there's a lot of room to squeeze prices and still make a profit) and the cycle starts headed downward.

Third is mudflation mark 2. Once people start getting replacements to the cultural they bought when it was the best armour, they resell the cultural they had. This increases the supply pool at a time when demand is dropping. Prices fall to the floor.

The people who pay top plat for the best gear don't care about levelling to 55 - it's a trivial task. Someone determined could get to 60 in a week (how long did it take to get the frog to 65?). I've got 4 characters that could wear ornate and I'm not motivated enough to level one of them to 60 yet.

[Aleena]

Be aware, the 55 level cap is a bug. It is/was supposed to be 62 and will probably be fixed in the next patch or 2, although with LDoN looming hard to say.

aleena

[Impudent]

One of the biggest reasons for the nerf to the drop rates of Ornate molds is that basically ONLY the top guilds were getting the drops.

That caused a HUGE rift in the "rich get richer, poor get poorer" aspect. For the most part, before the drop-rate nerf to Ornate, the only people getting a decent amount of drops, were the guilds in the elemental plains, and even then, they were getting elemental drops.

While it may in fact trash the market for player made gear, there will always be a market. As smithers stop selling player-made gear for insane amounts of cash, they will stop paying insane amounts for the tradable farmable stuff. (trickle down effect)

While spiderling silks are selling for 5-10pp PER silk, and MQ and LQ skins are selling for 10-20pp per skin, things a re still pretty hard to find in the bazaar.

I tried to buy 'ling silks the other day, but there were none to be found, so I logged my ranger on and hunted down hundreds of 'lings. After gaining 4+ stacks in just a few hours, I had folks offering me 1200 for all my 'ling silks. It is a shame that I am still trying to work up my smithing

[Reflan]

Umm...cultural will NOT always sell, at least not to the point where it's worth making, as both Kiztent and I pointed out, for the reasons we did. Also important, it's not worth making if you can't charge a lot for it becuase it takes a very long time to do the subcombines for in any kind of quantity at all, and the failure rate is very high, and you lose a lot of blue diamonds on the pre-combines before you even get to the final combine.

And dropping component prices will not have any major effect. Spiderling silks getting cheaper, whatever. That cost is trivial. It's the blue diamonds, the velium, the tempers. That cost isn't going anywhere just because ornate started dropping more.

Cultural is pretty much dead.

Personal experience? I stock lots of it. It absolutely does not sell anymore, even with prices much lower than a week or so ago. Very few people actively make or advertise to make most cultural armor. Are either of these two things coincidence? No. I won't be making anymore either, and may even try to sell my celestial tempers(not the cheap essences) and padding. The cultural tempers, however will most likely just be a complete loss.

[Fenadin]

My HIE cultural is still selling quite well. The pricing on Veeshan is 8,6,4 for the most part. I am finding that Full Mithril actually is selling as well if not better than Blessed Full Mithril.

Tae ew is now around 3500 for shields and 5k for tunic/legs, but bloods are now under 1k on occasion.

Just sold my first pair of hurricane chain sleeves for 10k.

Certainly the prices are getting lower, but there is still a market if you are patient. I have also noticed that the ornate pricing has kinda levelled off atm.

Bottom line, prices are gonna drop. I remember making my first cultural less than a year ago and selling BP's in the 30-40k range. They sell for 8k now. Everything is dropping in price. If you run a smithing business, just make sure you always keep some cash and I think there will always be the opportunity to make some money.

[Gruupi]

Well I wish prices were dropping on Tarew Marr for Fine Heraldic. Only one smith regularly sells it and bp is 22k, legs 20k. That doesn't sound affordable to me yet. Maybe it's just my server. A few people sell the deity based cultural but prices are not to much cheaper than this. I wonder if anyone on Tarew Marr offers package deals on Fine heraldic sets? Granted 22k for a 51 ac bp isn't bad but doesn't sound cheap to me?
What is the cost to make that piece?