Storm volaas hair

[kekenewah]

I highly doubt this willl ever be changed given how long they have left it as is.

[Maevenniia]

Ngreth is busier than a one-legged Ogre in a gnome-punting contest, but reviewing and adjusting disparities in DoN cultural drops IS on his "to-do" list.

[mewkus]

One of the comments that I've heard regarding fixes for stuff from old content is somehting along the lines of 'it's 4 expansions old it's time to move on to newer things rather than wasting time on old stuff'. DoN is already a year and a half old. Master armors are for people who are in their lower 60s. We are entering the age where anyone worth their salt is gonna be into their 70 and people in their upper 60s are just gonna be laggards and who cares about those in their lower 60s anymore.

There's an old saying that goes 'You gotta strike while the iron's hot'. Back a year ago there could have been enough interest in getting these fixed. But we've gone through DoDh, PoR, and now TSS. If you're holding your breath waiting for the drop rate on these hairs to get fixed (or the component needed switched to something better), you may as well give up. It's not likely to happen.

[kekenewah]

lol

Although if you whine long enough they may fix it like they "fixed" manaburn for wizards.

[mewkus]

Except manaburn was an ongoing problem. If it hadn't been 'fixed', we'd still have roving bands of wizards running around instakilling all kinds of stuff. And everyone would be rerolling a wizard just to keep up. Master level DoN armor is just about blasé. Once TSS is out and everyone's into their 70's, Master level armor will be as popular as Kunark class armor. The time to have made enough noise about this was back before DoDH came out. You have to figure the next month they're all going to be busy trying to get TSS out the door, then the following four to six weeks will be going back and making adjustments to TSS, then they're gonna move on to the next expansion. And to be honest, if the devs go back and start addressing stuff from four expansions ago during the the four to six weeks when they should be making the TSS adjustments, then we'll be right back in the same boat 18 months from now with TSS stuff still broke.

Dev time is a limited resource. The expansion release machine keeps running regardless of external influences. We need to keep the devs working on trying to make each expansion as good and bug free as possible. If the devs fall behind (by doing things like fixing problems and bugs with old expansions), they'd start cranking out new expansions that are nothing more than maybe a new patcher skin and a couple of square featureless zones w/o any npcs or mobs in them.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

No, he means the "fix" to the nerf. It only took them a couple years and its still just as crap as it was right after the nerf. Only now it costs more AA.

[Ndaara]

As to fixing old content... i'd be MUCH happier if they WOULD fix the old content instead of releasing new content. I've been playing since December of 99 and there's so much i haven't seen yet.

And apparently some of you hadn't noticed, anyone who needed the storm volaas hairs (and/or a few other master's level items that were hard to get, Great Reptile Tooth anyone?), we HAVE been making noise about this, since it was released. A fix was promised many many months ago, "when we get time to look at it" or something. Just that, the powers-that-give-devs-duties don't see these things as significant to fix.

i personally gave up on the storm volaas hairs and spent a fortune on Glossy Drake Hides, skilling up exclusively on them (except for that one stack of Otter hides someone sold my /buyer). 252 to 300 tailoring on Glossies was very expensive, but very effective, and i made back enough money with early successes to keep buying them. i am not sure this would work these days, GM aug sales have slowed dramatically.

[mewkus]

As to fixing old content... i'd be MUCH happier if they WOULD fix the old content instead of releasing new content. I've been playing since December of 99 and there's so much i haven't seen yet.

And apparently some of you hadn't noticed, anyone who needed the storm volaas hairs (and/or a few other master's level items that were hard to get, Great Reptile Tooth anyone?), we HAVE been making noise about this, since it was released. A fix was promised many many months ago, "when we get time to look at it" or something. Just that, the powers-that-give-devs-duties don't see these things as significant to fix.

i personally gave up on the storm volaas hairs and spent a fortune on Glossy Drake Hides, skilling up exclusively on them (except for that one stack of Otter hides someone sold my /buyer). 252 to 300 tailoring on Glossies was very expensive, but very effective, and i made back enough money with early successes to keep buying them. i am not sure this would work these days, GM aug sales have slowed dramatically.

It would be nice if this were a choice. I would be thrilled if they'd take a time out from expansion release and fix stuff instead. I'd gladly, even pre-order, the expansion 'Age of Content Fix' if they'd really do it.

Sadly, that isn't the strategy SOE follows. Instead of fixing problems with old content, the devs are busy working on getting the new expansion done. I am hoping that they are doing a good job at it. All you have to do is look back at the dark age of norrath (think Gates of Discord & Direct X 9.0 double whammy) and you'll see what happens when stuff is pushed out without enough work being done on it. The GoD+DX9 nearly killed EQ. 93% of my guild quit the game altogether because of that mess. None of them have returned. I tried to get some back with when the progression server started up, but they all just hissed at me and reminded me of what they went through with GoD+DX9.

As long as SOE's doing the release a new expansion every six months, I think the they should concentrate solely on that so we can get as good an expansion as possible. Because once it's release, they're gonna be busy working on the next. I'm just wondering how SOE sees $20/account every six months for expansions as being more than $10-15/account every month for access as being more important.

[Fonceur]

One of the comments that I've heard regarding fixes for stuff from old content is somehting along the lines of 'it's 4 expansions old it's time to move on to newer things rather than wasting time on old stuff'. DoN is already a year and a half old. Master armors are for people who are in their lower 60s.

Then again, the coarse spider silk are in the exact same boat and effect any level 70+ int caster interested in getting a bazu/discordant/last blood aug... People been making noise and someone even suggested an NPC to cycle components between the various races (a whole 30 minutes of coding)... But we're still waiting on those drop fixes...

[greebmushroome]

Dev time is a limited resource. The expansion release machine keeps running regardless of external influences. We need to keep the devs working on trying to make each expansion as good and bug free as possible. If the devs fall behind (by doing things like fixing problems and bugs with old expansions), they'd start cranking out new expansions that are nothing more than maybe a new patcher skin and a couple of square featureless zones w/o any npcs or mobs in them.

that's fine, but master's armor was designed also as a skillup path. high elves (and other races that use non-level-appropriate components) are left without a skillup path, yes, three expansions on. if we're getting another tailoring skillup path in TSS, that would be just fine. otherwise, yes, i would greatly appreciate some dev time spent on fixing the disparities in the skillup paths of the various races through DoN armor.

-greeb

[mewkus]

Then again, the coarse spider silk are in the exact same boat and effect any level 70+ int caster interested in getting a bazu/discordant/last blood aug... People been making noise and someone even suggested an NPC to cycle components between the various races (a whole 30 minutes of coding)... But we're still waiting on those drop fixes...

If SOE wanted casters running around with GM gear, they prolly would have already made an adjustment. Maybe SOE has something lined up to TSS to make up for not having GM silk gear. Maybe they think casters are already wearing gear that surpasses their intention and have deliberately toned it down. Considering Ngreth posted back in November(ish) that he wanted to make adjustments to the DoN drop rate but higher ups have made it a low (or no) priority for him, I wouldn't count on this getting done. Remeber, once TSS is released, they have to start picking up the pace on their next expansion.

that's fine, but master's armor was designed also as a skillup path. high elves (and other races that use non-level-appropriate components) are left without a skillup path, yes, three expansions on. if we're getting another tailoring skillup path in TSS, that would be just fine. otherwise, yes, i would greatly appreciate some dev time spent on fixing the disparities in the skillup paths of the various races through DoN armor.

-greeb

You seem to be making the assumption that they want there to be a skill up path for tailoring. Let's look at the history of what's been added for the tailoring skill up path (non racial)
Wu's armor - provided a means of reaching 158 - this while all other tradeskills could reach 250
Rockhopper armor - provided a means of reaching 188 (flawless went to 242 but they're too rare to consider viable) - again, all other tradeskills easily got to 250
LoY ribbons -Gave foragebots a means of reaching 187 w/o farming along with those who dumped plat to buy the supplies of the foragebots.
Solstice Robes - Yippie everyone can get to 250 now
Velious - Foragebots can now collect those yew leaves. Looks like just about everyone can get to 250 if they do a little work at it.
DoN - Caps raised to 300. Everyone can get tailoring to 300. Life is good people are happy.
DoN Patch - Devs claim they are playing with trivials and somehow they slipped out on to the live servers. They don't know how it happened, but it did. Velious GONE. Solstice Robes GONE. Skill up 252-300 path GONE. They could set the trivials back to what they were so they'd match trivials for other tradeskills, but that would only cause players more aggrevation (their words, not mine).

Some races (humans, wood elves, and vah shir) were able to somewhat avoid the DoN tailoring nerf by using shissar scales for their master level tailoring. So, apart from the humans, none of the other caster races have a viable means of getting up to 300 in tailoring. If you consider this point to be two and my response to fonceur to also be two, when you put two and two together... [well, I wont totally spoil SOE's secret].

And, looking back on the last couple of posts i've put up on this thread, I can start to get the impression that they're starting to turn into more of a rant, which wasn't my intention. All I'm trying to do is forewarn peeps not to expect much in the way of tailoring support. I think that's the way SOE wants it to be. And afterall, it is their game.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

At the time of Wu's armor being new (Kunark), Fletching (235 off trueshot longbows) and Pottery (188 off sealed poison vials) did not go to 250. Baking did technically but the only recipe beyond 162 (wedding/birthday cake) was dragon steak at 242 which required dragon meat. Brewing only went to 248 (KC and the champagnes were Luclin). Maybe less... MHB and Faydwer Shaker might have been Velious also leaving it at 168 with Ginesh.

Actually, dragon steak might even have been a Velious recipe now that I think about it.

Solstice robes were mid Luclin era.

Othmir fur and holgresh fur have been available to all since Velious.

Tailoring is hard... no dispute... but also for most of that time its difficulty was rewarded with valuable things to make from it.

Its still easier than Research.

(I could be wrong about fletching... anyone remember when shadewood bows went in? Also)

[Luvimt]

[QUOTE=

Tailoring is hard... no dispute... but also for most of that time its difficulty was rewarded with valuable things to make from it.

Its still easier than Research.

[/QUOTE]

It took my half elf 7 years and hundreds if not thousands of hours farming wyverns/kobolds/rockhoppers/othmirs/holgresh to max tailoring, it took my tinker bot less than a year and about 10 hours farming to max research (and she started after you couldn't get to 200 with guildmaster). There is no way tailoring is easier than research.
I have made far more money from research than tailoring also - please tell me what valuable things you have tailored as I cant think of many.
Unless you're a shissar using race, tailoring is horrendous and no other tradeskill comes close in difficulty.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Going off eqrankings, there are more 300 skill tailors just on my server than there are 300 skill researchs across ALL servers. There are in fact, zero 300 skill researchers on my server. Obviously eqrankings is not a complete list, but its fairly representative.

You have the most extraordinary luck imbalance I've ever seen if it honestly took you thousands of hours to farm for tailoring and only 10 to farm for research.

Suffice to say that most people don't experience what you did.

As for profitability, tailoring has ALWAYS been lucrative if you had the high skill in it. Quivers, Wu's, Velious leathers, Solstice robes, PoP silk/leather, Tae Ew leather, DoN armor have ALL made big big money in their time periods. Tailoring has always been difficult and always been lucrative. Research was an utterly worthless skill pre LoY. Post LoY it was mildly profitable on a very few spells. Its only been hugely profitable since DoD. Coincidently also about the same time that it got very difficult.

[Luvimt]

I bet at least 90% of those 300 tailors on your server are shissar scale users.
My researcher was at about 210 when DoD research came out, so she missed out on most of the incredibly easy solution skill-up path. Even so, the only thing she had to farm was raw-hide armour - laughably easy.
Virtually everything you need for research can be bought in the bazaar/PoK/CC. Virtually nothing for tailoring can be. Hence the thousands of hours farming compared with very few for research.