Like I said before, if people were not farming it before why are they all of a sudden doing it now? It has been almost 4 months now, if people chose to not do any farming until the next patch that is 100% a personal problem. It is a nerf on 2 instances, and a 100% increase on the other ones. Literally more augs will be dropping, it requires zoning more but in a single weeks clear you could probably get every aug you need now for a group outside of maybe enhancements depending on your luck. Previously that was probably impossible, or like a 1 in a million chance due to drop rates. My group was religiously clearing smoke and Fire on lockouts and just got our enhancement augs 2 weeks ago. We had 3 drop in 1 instanced, or we would still be farming them. If every instanced dropped these augs, fairly confident we would have been done long before this. The items and augs were never meant for a casual gamer. The exp rates alone, on top of the type 18 drop rates make it a pretty big time sink. The adjustments being made with this patch make them more casual friendly, but still a hefty time sink.
The increased drop rate happened in like January. So its been like 2 1/2 months. My point from the start has been the goal line is now moving for those who did not have time to farm 1-2 instances every week. Not people who were not doing anything at all. Due to RL, raid schedule conflicts or group availability they only were able to sneak in 2-4 clears in this 2 plus month period. Its not a personal problem that some people can't work life around EQ timers. The goal line is changing because these same people don't magically get time to farm 6 instances weekly to equal what others gained from 1 or 2 instances. Adding more instances that drop the augs doesn't help them and hurts them now that the drop rate is being nerfed.
Many players do not consistently have the time to do two full raid trash clears for type 19 augments on top of everything else they have/want to do in game. Now you are telling them to do six full raid trash clears for the same odds as before? Those players who have a difficult time allocating an extra 6 hours per week to farm two raid trash zones now you want them to allocate 18 hours per week? My argument is that some of you are saying this is not a detrimental change. It is for those players. I am glad that Joe Schmo was able to raid Doomfire with one group for three months every Sunday to get his augments, while Billy Bob spent Sundays working or being with family and able to only do Doomfire twice during those three months. Now Billy Bob is going to have even less incentive to do Doomfire twice per three months due to decreased drop rate. And telling Billy Bob to just do the other four raid zones doesn't help Billy Bob. Billy Bob does not have the time to do six raid zones. It is a negative change. Plain and simple.
I'd probably compare it to the VP change. Early adopters reaped the benefits, then they made faction so very easy to wreck. And now it's a ghost zone.
Not everything in game.. is going to be available to every player who can't or won't put in the same effort to obtain the same items.. And it shouldnt be .. Evolving items.. based upon long thought dead achievements.. are absolute proof of that.. Time it takes to get 1 evolving item.. is beyond alot of players.. Time to evolve 1 item.. is beyond alot of players.. Time to farm type 18 augs.. is beyond alot of players.. Time to farm the type 19 augs.. is beyond alot of players.. Not anything to do with skill or knowledge of class.. but plain an simply put 4 explicitly different time sinks for the evolving items clearly puts them out of reach for some players.. But not others.. Nobody is forcing any of you to do any of the evolving items.. farming them.. farming their evolutions.. farming the type 18 or the type 19 augs.. It's simply put not for everyone.. nor should it be.. So stop feeling like you get the shaft.. because ya simply can't put the time in.. that's not a negative hit on anyone.. Not everything in life is fair.. and neither is it in everquest.. and again.. nor should it be..
Problem is the time to farm augs has now increased, instead of only clearing 2 instances you now have to clear 6. Personally I'd rather it was left at 2 instances with a higher drop rate than having to find time to clear an extra 4 instances.
To me this change makes a ton of sense. Seems overall the armor and their respective augs are being tuned to be more casual friendly. It is now massively easier to get Type 18 augs (Group) It is now requires more time to get Type 19 augs (Raid) Those who got in early had to evolve their items one at a time. We had to do so on very specific mobs, and a lot of our kills got no credit (armors). Those who got in later were able to do all four at once. After this patch, they will be able to do it on all TBL mobs. Yes, Tempest Temple got nerfed, but that was an unintended workaround rather than an actual design (I didn’t use it once).
Considering how easy GMM basepop is, It would not be a good idea to have the type 18s dropping from them.
You do realize that the people who stocked up on type 19s as groups more likely were in guilds not actively raiding the zones in question due to loot lockouts? Don't single out MS or ROI. There is no reason why you could not have done it as well, you don't need to be in an uber guild, or even a raiding guild, to have done it.
"You could have done it before the change. Your fault if you didnt" is never good game philosophy. Just stop.
