It adds an extra layer of complexity to an already complex game. I just wasted a diminished lamp creating an aug that I can't use. For type 19 augs, if you grab one aug from a lore group, it blocks you from getting another aug from the lore group in advloot. You will probably assume you already have the aug. So if you grab the weaker aug in the lore group, you will probably miss out on the better one. While I understand that elite raiders love to use raidloot.com to calculate BiS and have spreadsheets with the gear that they want, most players of the game don't, nor should game design push players to doing so.
The alternative is probably weaker, less interesting gear. If that's the case, I'd prefer they stay. HOWEVER...it would be very nice if an item that is a member of a lore group had a list of item reference links in its lore tab or somewhere else so that it was easy to see in-game what your options are, so you know what the consequences of your gear choice are.
Something ingame that showed the lore group's info would be nice. But I'm glad that lore groups exist for the simple reason that it makes it easier to build up tribute.
For TBL augs that would be the case. hSta was added to several caster augs but that also came with the lore group tag so you couldn't stack both the melee and caster versions for the hSta.
As if a caster needed more prompting to wear the +hINT aug vs the +hSTA aug. But it's been stated several times that the goal sometimes is to get customers to complain - that's how you measure success.
Two things about lore groups suck. 1) The item you have should show up when you use search. So if you have the dire blue and the planetary medallion drops, when you use your inventory search for planetary medallion, the dire blue should show up. In short, any time you use search for an item, anything in that lore group should show up. 2) Type 19s aren't event lootable. When the better-for-my-class 19 dropped, I had to wait until it was rotting, PM the raid loot manager, ask if I could have it, summon an augmentation merchant, remove the item, destroy it, then loot the item I wanted (yes I could have just been carrying the distiller). Not being able to loot anything in the group without destroying the other item in the group makes maximizinggear efficiency very difficult.
Sounds like part of that is your needlessly complex loot system You can destroy an aug without a distiller. Just right click the aug on the item and select Destroy.
I think you miss understand, they added +hSTA to the caster aug so it had hSTA as well as +hINT. But to stop players getting too much +hSTA they put them in the same lore group.
The benefits between some of the lore groups are marginal at best. If I have a 19, I'm not going to ask for a lore one until I know it is a rot. That's not a complexed system. That is about being a team player. But thanks for the tip about not needing a distiller to destroy an aug.
I think they are trying to avoid a player getting too many crafted augs per expansion, but give a larger variety of choices to players that fit their char. They could have accomplished this by having Lore morphing items. An item can be one version or another, and you can swap on the fly. I think the Velious tradeskill quest item fit that category. Newer versions of such items is the clicky port lamp in TBL.
