Opuses and Class 3/4 tomes suggestion.

So I'm still kinda on the fence at this point in the game's life on this issue. I've always kinda thought a casual player just doesn't play enough to be able to get the hardcore player rewards. If you didn't go to med school, you don't need an easier way to get the house, car, disposable income, etc. the doctor down the street has. That being said, things do need to change to turn the server around. I'm just not so sure as dramatic as some of the stuff being proposed.

Yale - You keep bringing up proof, numbers, etc., but aren't you on the side that's asking for something? You're the one needing the "proof" I'd think. I'm not even sure I'm not on your side on the issues at hand, but you're being pretty obnoxious about it (and yeah, so is Diashan...hey at least he's trying to be humorous in spots, heh...). It's making it more difficult to relate. For once though I actually agree with Moraelin on something (rarely happens, lol). TurRuj really isn't all about the gear. You mention it being huge unless you're already high tier....well, if you're in TurRuj...you're already high tier, lol. The gear there in general, obviously with a few exceptions, if you've actually worked your way to that point, really isn't that much to get excited about in most cases. It's a bunch of sidegrades and slight upgrades. Sure you want it, but if you're at that point, with the exception of a few nicer items, you probably want the books more. We rotted gear, or had to force some people to actually use an instance of them getting loot on it quite often there. We sure as hell never rotted a book, unless we had bad luck and got class tomes for an absent class (which made the ones you needed all the more attractive). tldr - calm down, heh...

Stuff needs to be done. I doubt anyone would disagree. The weaker Opuses probably couldn't hurt to show up earlier. At least maybe Class 3s probably couldn't hurt to have a pretty difficult way to get at them outside of a couple zones most of the people that have played this game may never see. Do we need to open it all up? I worry that this not only disregards the work of the high end, most of which already ran off, whether that be from running out of stuff to do, nerfs or whatever, but it also trivializes said high end content at least a little...at least more than a lot of the folks in this thread seem to want to admit or believe. Sure that gear looks great to someone that was wearing BoE gear a year ago, or is currently sporting the best T8-9 available, but unless they plan on jumping straight there, it really won't be that exciting when you're already decked out in the stuff right before it. Honestly that this server still does make you work for stuff unlike what live has become or what WoW is, is kinda a large reason why so many of us actually have stuck around for so long.
 
Yale1 said:
B.S. There are peices that drop in spires and Turj you do not need to upgrade on various classess. Getting +1 or 2% chance to something on a few of your raid characters is not even close to equal to the loot upgrades. Claims like this require real definitive evidence and I have yet to see any. As far as I can tell, aside from the tomes of power and maybe class tomes, the difference is not even close to noticeable and would require software to even determine, which I would Guess, would likely show that your choice of buffs or timing and choices on your character during combat would have a greater impact.

Yale
Click to expand...

1-2% power increase is HUGE in the big grand scheme of things. That is almost equivalent to +1 to damage increment or an additional 2 tiers of focus.


I will post a few different pieces of gear from zones lower than spires to spires/turruj gear and show how the differences stack up.

Tank Example
Prison Loot
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Arubboth,_Confine_of_the_Soul
85ac 285 hps

vs Spires

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Kaezul's_Gift
80ac 275hps
DI 7

vs Turruj
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Eclipse
90ac 300hp
MC 9
+10 Evocation

Caster Example

Prison
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Martivir,_Headdress_of_Introspection
245 mana
2ft

vs Turruj
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Elael's_Corona
275 mana
1ft
7% fire focus

Melee Example

Prison
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Grace,_Sleeves_of_the_Created
34ac 225hp
7 block
-2 aggro

vs Turruj
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Chaotic_Coil_of_Spikes
36ac 245 hps
DI 8

These are just 1 example for each archetype showing how little true differences there are in prison gear and turruj (end game gear). The difference isn't really all that great just 15-25 hps or mana * 20 slots = 300 - 500 hps or mana and it starts to add up.

If you look at pieces of gear from abyss then the difference is even more laughable.

Abyss
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Bracer_of_Tearing_Strikes
38ac 185hps
+10 1hs
Vorpal Strike

Spires
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Bracer_of_Flowing_Mana
40ac 215 hps
6ft

Turruj
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Strands_of_the_Severed_Fate
30ac 220hps
49% haste

Abyss
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Gloves_of_Aerial_Vibrations
38ac 215hp
7% magic focus

spires
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Gloves_of_Violent_Paroxysms
25ac 215hp
47% haste


Yes there are some items that are in the 30+ range in hp/mana upgrades but when you fight monsters that hit for as much as saitha who can 1 round the best tanks in the game see Jraul or Bango or Crynel those extra 300 hps are needed.

I am sorry for the long wall of text, but am providing specific examples. If you want I can go into more detail but think the point is fairly clearly illustrated that again 2 ranks of crit evo is far superior to say even 50hps 100 mana an 2 ft on a piece of gear. I would even go so far to say a lot of stats don't matter that much in a dps race. Look at taeshlin bracer:

http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Formless_Ribbon_of_Unbound_Power

That item proves that people will do and make sacrifices for some boost in dps. That is 250+ less mana than any caster useable bracer and pretty much any and all casters would want/wear one.
 
I am burnt out, talking about this tbh. Having people respond with juvenile comments for rebuttals is unacceptable, Now sitting around talking about this loot progression or this loot and that tome isn't going to convince anyone of anything. See I used to think like you do (Directed at the opposers), Hardcore, but then I raided, took a break, soloed, raided took a break, soloed and I eventually realized its just a game for fun, I found that when I was successful in the game, I was unsuccessful in life. So I decided to play the game, like a...well.. game, for fun. I have defiantly noticed a wind of change in the gaming community, steering more towards sustainable play and away from the flashpan MMO style were you play until you get kicked out of your parents basement or end up in jail.

I would change my mind about opus access if I was told by an authority figure "This is a raiding game, play it that way " I would say "ok, I see why its that way, you were right, now bye bye, good luck staying afloat".
Assuming I could prove to you opus's were less important or effective than turrj/spires gear, or that people put just as much effort into their characters overall as any current raider did their's, would that honestly change your mind? I think we both know the answer to that.

Yale
 
The gist of what I got from Yale vs. Everyone else is:

Yale: My time is precious, I don't have time to raid. I will spend my entire day posting on the SoD forums about this, and making sure EVERYONE knows my time is far more valuable then theirs."

SoD Community uses Defense.

Yale: "My schedule is too full to provide my own evidence for anything, so I will offhandedly throw out information as fact. THE ONLY REASON PEOPLE RAID IS FOR GEAR, AND THAT SHOULD BE GOOD ENOUGH. TOMES SHOULD BE AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE. GEAR IS THE ONLY REASON TO DO HIGHER TIER CONTENT, NOT TOMES. GOSH GUYS. ANY POTENTIAL SUPPORTERS I HAVE IN THIS HAVE BEEN DRIVEN OFF BECAUSE I MADE SURE THEY KNEW MY TIME WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THEIRS THOUGH. There that ought to do it."

SoD Community (Shimone) uses Evidence.

Yale uses Rage Comment!

SoD Community uses Flame Shield.

Rage Comment has no effect.

Yale is defeated!

You gain 120 experience
You earn 20 gold
You have found Potion x3
You have found a Waffle (better then Pancake)!
 
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Maybe we can stop beeing kids for a bit and hopefully get some input form a admin or dev that can tell us what the plans are to keep players in game. Casual and raiders, nomather what tier or tomecount.

If they are considering opening up ways to get tomes without raiding the highest tiers in game or if its meant to never happen.
 
Yale1 said:
Assuming I could prove to you opus's were less important or effective than turrj/spires gear, or that people put just as much effort into their characters overall as any current raider did their's, would that honestly change your mind? I think we both know the answer to that.
Click to expand...

Yes. Yes it would, especially if you could make your argument outside of a vacuum and factor in things such as supply and demand and timing of character progression in your argument, if you could actually prove this. I mean, it's kind of a big part of an S and R thread (which is why I don't make threads in here, lol...I'm usually too busy/lazy). And it would go a long way towards winning more people over if you just stop being so condescending and maybe even listen to what other people have to say on the whole thing.
 
I don't see what comparing t13 loots to each other has to do with allowing people with nothing to exp... something to exp. I wouldn't mind seeing statistics on how many class tome 3 and 4's have rotted in Tur`Ruj. I know for sure Exodus rotted a ton of them. (no jokes about how they/we farmed the lower tribes forever). The people want (access to [don't freak out]) something to exp that's going to progress their character slightly more than Tome of Inconsequential Stat 1.
 
To answer vitali about having time to read/post on forums vs grind sod for 4-8hrs a day, forums take about 10mins to read and post at your leisure.

What I can say though is if your argument is that you "worked for it" in a game and you really mean worked its time to step back and re-evaluate your stance on gaming. Games are meant to be played for fun not work, personally SoD grinding the last of my supreme is the only game I play that is more work then fun in its current setup.

Despite what people from my old guild believed I left SoD nearly 2 years ago because after almost 2 years of giving up much of my time "working" in a game for people I counted as friends I was told I NEEDED to give up more of my time (which I already had little of) and work more if I wanted to stay in the guild as any kind of raid spot that I helped build. That was the moment I re-evaluated how I spend my time gaming.


As is I agree with the posts saying keep the really good opus's to raids or stupid expensive vendor, keep 4's raid, but lower opus's and 3 should be bounty or vendor, and tbh I wont be around long enough to benefit from this I just think it could help the people who do play.

finale note this game needs way more fun things to do for the non-4-10hr a day players.
 
Replace the comments in this thread with the CoP the thread and you have the exact same discussion. What it comes down to is the devs philosophy on what they want the game to be. On one hand you have moraelin etc arguing for a steeper time investment. Nothing wrong with that, EQ lends itself well to being a large time sink of a game, earn what you work for etc. On the other gargate etc. arguing for a more casual time investment. Both sides are not without merit.

Observations made after being on the server for roughly a year is that there is very little change in the player base after the T9+ stage of the game. What exists are toons that have been on the server for 5+ years or recycled alts/powerleveled and geared friends. Nothing wrong with that per-say. Unfortunately people see the large wall/time sink that is required which leads to a stagnant server population - not only new folks but veterans such as gargate getting burned out. An important part of the discussion of casual versus hardcore is the availability of content or the lack thereof for casual players (T10+ consuming T5+ content etc), but that deserves a thread of its own.
 
So, are we grouping hardcore, heavy time investment players who choose not to raid t10+ for whatever reason together with truly casual players who log in for a few hours a week to kill monsters with friends for the fun of it? Because that seems like two pretty distinct groups to me. If you have 0 droppable tomes left to do, in my opinion, you are or were very hardcore and heavily time invested.

Doubt many of you currently consider me to be a casual player. I also doubt you would start to do that if my playtime was unchanged, but I just devoted it to grinding xp or tradeskilling instead of killing dragons.

I don't see this as a casual vs. hardcore player thing. I would like to see a route of progression for casual players. I don't think opuses is that route.

Let's be more creative. I can't be the only one thinking casual players and hardcore players (t12 raiders and t7 raiders alike) could benefit together from something different to do. Can I?
 
Vitali said:
The gist of what I got from Yale vs. Everyone else is:

Yale: My time is precious, I don't have time to raid. I will spend my entire day posting on the SoD forums about this, and making sure EVERYONE knows my time is far more valuable then theirs."

SoD Community uses Defense.

Yale: "My schedule is too full to provide my own evidence for anything, so I will offhandedly throw out information as fact. THE ONLY REASON PEOPLE RAID IS FOR GEAR, AND THAT SHOULD BE GOOD ENOUGH. TOMES SHOULD BE AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE. GEAR IS THE ONLY REASON TO DO HIGHER TIER CONTENT, NOT TOMES. GOSH GUYS. ANY POTENTIAL SUPPORTERS I HAVE IN THIS HAVE BEEN DRIVEN OFF BECAUSE I MADE SURE THEY KNEW MY TIME WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THEIRS THOUGH. There that ought to do it."

SoD Community (Shimone) uses Evidence.

Yale uses Rage Comment!

SoD Community uses Flame Shield.

Rage Comment has no effect.

Yale is defeated!

You gain 120 experience
You earn 20 gold
You have found Potion x3
You have found a Waffle (better then Pancake)!
Click to expand...

I did not rage.
The loot he linked was not much different than any other progression from lower tiers, 15 hp here 15 mana there, so it does not really prove anything. If so what does it prove? that the gear is better? Yeah it is, (which he assisted in proving my point) generally speaking, which means its worth going there to get. and since him and his guildies are littered in it I believe that alone speaks for itself. A one point he states that alone the gear is not much, but can add up to 300 hp, "which isn't much", then further in his statement he talks about the importance of characters needing that hp for hard hitting mobs.. So this post is kinda of ambiguous, not very hard hitting at all, left me wondering if he was or was not "on my side"

Aside from that point his "evidence post" does not really speak about class specific or the idea that someone might do something other than use it to raid. The chaotic arms he linked as an example are incredible when you are soloing or tanking as opposed to some arms that just have good "stats". I choose to use mine over my other t11 arms, I use the effect all the time at some of my money and xp camps and the DI8 in combination with my spells is pretty brutal. Much better for the situation than the essence of the mother arms.

Making claims,
A tome generally gives a 1 percent chance to something. 1 percent. You cannot even see it and I would challenge anyone to show and prove that a tome, not just a tome that EXACT opus did anything during a fight. To say, that tomes made "the biggest difference" and leave it at that is a claim without evidence, linking loot does not prove that the tomes did anything. That is where this argument came from

The problem with debating about loot is that much of it depends of your class and or the situation it is being used. I noticed from when Exodus entered spires and turj my hp as an example shot up about 1300 points (I had pretty solid t9/10 gear when we started to hit spires) From about 7400 unbuffed to 8800/8900 depending on what I have equipped.

I do not think it would take much to convince a ranger that the loot from turj and spires is worth going there for alone since two top end bows drop in those zones.

Anyway, I do not care to argue this anymore if it is going to be me having to receive and respond to verbal diarrhea posts like this one.

Yale
 
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To be clear, I really think there is no reason why tomes shouldn't be available to everyone through some means. Despite my "humorous" imagining of the forum yesterday, I tend to lean toward finding some way to allow non-T11+ players a way to continue exping. Now, I am not necessarily in either boat here. I have time to play games still, raid, etc... But because I work during the night and have school during the morning, it takes away the ability to raid Tur'ruj and Spires with the only guild currently doing it on the regular.

Since I can't get tomes to exp any more, does that mean I should quit? I don't think so, but I mean thats kind of the vibe I've been getting from this thread. I have 2 or so pet tomes left, and a glyph to do. That's it. I would love to find some way to get Opus of Healing 2, Tools of the Divine 4, Opus of Racing Thoughts 2, and others. However, making them all available through merchants kind of cheapens their value. Not to mention it just adds another "requirement" to raid at certain points imo. Expecting players to have certain charms and tomes already for certain tiers, then allowing access to even more tomes just means the requirement could getting higher.

To say any small gain from tomes are negligible is kind of silly, in a game that has established itself as a game that is measured in incremental gains. Now I would rather stay out of the semantics of the back and forth proving and disproving the importance of 1-4% increased healing, but short answer is: Every little bit helps.
 
Vitali said:
To be clear, I really think there is no reason why tomes shouldn't be available to everyone through some means. Despite my "humorous" imagining of the forum yesterday, I tend to lean toward finding some way to allow non-T11+ players a way to continue exping. Now, I am not necessarily in either boat here. I have time to play games still, raid, etc... But because I work during the night and have school during the morning, it takes away the ability to raid Tur'ruj and Spires with the only guild currently doing it on the regular.

Since I can't get tomes to exp any more, does that mean I should quit? I don't think so, but I mean thats kind of the vibe I've been getting from this thread. I have 2 or so pet tomes left, and a glyph to do. That's it. I would love to find some way to get Opus of Healing 2, Tools of the Divine 4, Opus of Racing Thoughts 2, and others. However, making them all available through merchants kind of cheapens their value. Not to mention it just adds another "requirement" to raid at certain points imo. Expecting players to have certain charms and tomes already for certain tiers, then allowing access to even more tomes just means the requirement could getting higher.

To say any small gain from tomes are negligible is kind of silly, in a game that has established itself as a game that is measured in incremental gains. Now I would rather stay out of the semantics of the back and forth proving and disproving the importance of 1-4% increased healing, but short answer is: Every little bit helps.
Click to expand...

I can agree with this for the most part

Yale
 
Here's a thought how about instead of the same tomes they could add new ones that have small bonus's or fun effects that are overwritten when you open the full opus/class 3/4 tomes?

not really sure how that would be done but much like a lot of other people another path to progress on is needed.
 
The point of my post was partly to point out there is a small gap between the gear but the gap with power increases dramatically with tomes.

A group dps of 5000 dps cannot kill 4.3 take the same group and add 10% dps increase from proper tomes and a group dps of 5500 will win. That same group with 1k more hps and mana each will still not win. There are fights and mechanics in the game where you need x amount of burst dps and aside from getting certain specific items more hp/mana will not help you, but tomes will make the difference.

The other point I was trying to make is that yes the gear is good from Turruj, but the true power comes from the class tomes and opus.
 
I must say, I agree with Moraelin about how tomes are one of the nicer things from Turruj and those extra % can add up quickly.

That being said, I do not see why an alternate path for tome acquisition cannot be implemented. My thoughts as previously stated this new implementation should not be a major form of plat sink, because the problem is not people have too much plat. It is they have too much exp.

A simple solution would be to have the logistician or the vrik the sly guy give you a journal. The amount of exp to fill the journal should be like a class tome in length. Not something someone is going knock out in two days, in my mind more like 10 days. Once that journal is filled you get a Randomly Number Generated, RNG, tome. So you can do all that work, and you end up with opus agi I. Then they have to exp that tome and complete it. Because if they don't, the RNG system may give them that tome again. Kind of how the relics work with the turn in. At this point, for the person who has run out of exp to use, he'd have to have refuge faction by the main quest, and it will keep them busy. People will still get more tomes by volume raiding spires/turruj. But, there is an avenue for people for whatever reason who cannot raid to get them, albeit slowly.

Yes, this is a restatement of my previous idea, but no one commented on it. If no one comments on it again, I guess I will try caps lock or adding color to my text. That is how people know you are super serial.

The reasons I like this idea is if calibrated correctly:
Turruj/Spires/Thaz still best place to get most tomes for the effort. (6 hours of raiding to get some random tomes dropped compared to a week of exping to get just 1 tome for one person at random)
Would allow the forerunners in a lower tier guild to continue to improve themselves to help that guild as whole break into a new tier. As Moraelin pointed out that % can really help. May also help with retention in lower guilds.
Would allow members of higher guilds get that tome they really want. If they have done enough opuses, their odds will widdle down from 1/x to 1/(x-n), x = number of opus and class tomes not completed, n = number of opus completed
Lastly, it maybe won't be a coding nightmare for whoever cares to implement. If anyone agrees with it.
 
If exp overflow is the problem and people need something to exp I do not disagree with giving them something. I do not know how I feel about giving them raid class tomes. Maybe Opus. Maybe a quest. Maybe junk tomes. Vendor. But I think if people have the ability to run out of tomes without raiding the upper tiers they have time or have been around a long time. But may not have raid availability. I do not think people should be incapable of furthering their character just because they cannot raid at certain times. Or cannot get into a viable guild that can get those Tomes.

My suggestion for fixing this need for something to put exp into but not stepping on toes of people who have put in mass amounts of time to better their character (or have it boxxed in to leach exp or is a tank/healer that gets whored out) Is to do some math.

Take what a t13 group can get in exp in one hour. Avg.
Take the avg amount of time to raid said Opus/class tome zones. And get one to drop. How many raids does it take avg to get a class tome? 1? 5? 15?

Multiply the amount of hours spent raiding to get opus/class tome by what that group can get for exp in an hour. Then make duplicates of all opus/class tomes.

Add this amount of exp to a NORMAL class tome.

That way you don't give the upper tiers more power by creating more tomes and the lower still has to spend a similar amount of time exping a tome that a top end raider gets by raiding.

Time investing in completing one of these new tomes needs to be on par with how much time the t11+ crowd has spent getting them.

Say *Splitting Shot 3* from Tur'ruj takes 125AA to complete.

Create *Expanded Splitting Shot 3* (put into the game however) will take a non-raider 1250 -AA (or whatever some avg math might tell you.)

The incentive to raid for these items is still there while giving people who need to exp something a place to go with similar time investment. One done by raiding. One Done casually.

Just an Idea.
 
TheSkos said:
If exp overflow is the problem and people need something to exp I do not disagree with giving them something. I do not know how I feel about giving them raid class tomes. Maybe Opus. Maybe a quest. Maybe junk tomes. Vendor. But I think if people have the ability to run out of tomes without raiding the upper tiers they have time or have been around a long time. But may not have raid availability. I do not think people should be incapable of furthering their character just because they cannot raid at certain times. Or cannot get into a viable guild that can get those Tomes.

My suggestion for fixing this need for something to put exp into but not stepping on toes of people who have put in mass amounts of time to better their character (or have it boxxed in to leach exp or is a tank/healer that gets whored out) Is to do some math.

Take what a t13 group can get in exp in one hour. Avg.
Take the avg amount of time to raid said Opus/class tome zones. And get one to drop. How many raids does it take avg to get a class tome? 1? 5? 15?

Multiply the amount of hours spent raiding to get opus/class tome by what that group can get for exp in an hour. Then make duplicates of all opus/class tomes.

Add this amount of exp to a NORMAL class tome.

That way you don't give the upper tiers more power by creating more tomes and the lower still has to spend a similar amount of time exping a tome that a top end raider gets by raiding.

Time investing in completing one of these new tomes needs to be on par with how much time the t11+ crowd has spent getting them.

Say *Splitting Shot 3* from Tur'ruj takes 125AA to complete.

Create *Expanded Splitting Shot 3* (put into the game however) will take a non-raider 1250 -AA (or whatever some avg math might tell you.)

The incentive to raid for these items is still there while giving people who need to exp something a place to go with similar time investment. One done by raiding. One Done casually.

Just an Idea.
Click to expand...


I really like this idea if people do have absurdly too much exp and nothing to do.

Make a book that takes the rough equivalent of 2-3 CoP.
Make a turn in 1 book of exp = random opus/class tome that is not yet completed or on your toon.
Make a turn in 3 books of exp = choice of opus/class tome.
 
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