Either I need to up my meds or the cost for raid items has gone up. Cheapest item I see is 319 Arx Energy Crystals and I could have sworn they were half that.
They have. I'm pretty sure it is intentional, since you could gear yourself up just by currency very easily in Rof/cotf. The one-offs help this since their chests are loot pinatas.
Yeah... Currency should be for filling in that one slot you've had trouble filling. Not for getting you half of your gear
Fair enough. Nice of them to have included that bit of information in the patch notes. oh.... wait....
Well, what would you want them to say? - Made raid loot bought from currency more expensive so players could not gear up quickly simply by attending raids. It wasn't in the patch notes, it was the expansion anyway.
Actually I would very much have liked them to post something simple along the lines of "Raised the purchase price of TDS raid items from..." Considering their lack of communication and gaffs with this expansion (epic even by EQ dev standards.), you'd think that someone on the team would have said "You think that maybe we should be a little better at communicating changes to the players?" Better for them to be open and take heat for the change than sneak things in and then take heat for the change AND the lack of communication.
It has to do with communication. Now, I know that this scenario isn't going to happen but I'm playing devil's advocate for a moment. Let me ask the opposing question. What would it be like if they didn't post any patch notes? What would it be like if all of the changes in game were a complete surprise to all of the players? How upset would you be at a surprise change? Would game play for anyone change if they had included this bit of news in the patch notes? I can't imagine how it would. That's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that the devs really should consider changing this "We're fine keeping you in the dark" mentality.
It's for the sake of the appearance of competency. If Chandrok posts due to player feedback only 5 template types will drop in T2 CotF and no Backs or Waists because Backs are intended as a currency drain and TDS raids will drop 3x as many Belts as Earrings so don't even bother getting that slot in T2 CotF. Then Chandrok posts due to player feedback we are going back to 10 templates dropping and rather than having slots which don't drop as a currency drain instead raid vendor prices will be raised to the point that 4 full clears of every raid in the expansion won't let you purchase an item and spell drop rates have been adjusted so RoI will take 18 months to fill their spellbooks and every other guild will take longer. People would be aware that we are guided by an intellect so evolved that mere mortals can't being to grasp his plan. Instead Chandrok appears to be an incompetent buffoon. And that truly makes me sad, people thinking Chandrok lacks the intellect and/or effort required to handle itemization is like thinking Warhol was just a homeless man stacking soup cans.
If they posted every single minute change they made every patch that would further reduce Dev time for things that ACTUALLY matter. The patch notes are a highlight reel, not a "state of the game" address. Its also not their responsibility to hold your hand, if you want to know something the onus of getting that knowledge is on you, they just make the game. They don't have to tell you "o btw we're doing this, we hope thats ok."
Everyone that is beating Arx raids is doing it in cotf/rof raid gear anyway, so it's all just icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned.
Do you honestly think that a)the devs themselves all collectively pass around a Word document that eventually gets turned into the patch notes and b) that they are suck lack luster typists that writing one extra line in the notes would significantly take away from their development time? If you do then you think less of them than I do. I'm not asking for permission. As much as I truly believe that they should pay better attention to feedback I'm under no illusion that they need my permission for anything. It's their game and they can do with it as they see fit. It's up to me to decide if I want to put up with it or not. The point that I'm trying to make is that I highly recommend that they learn from their recent mistakes and try to learn from them. A little short-term over-compensation wouldn't be a bad idea both from the standpoint of working to change the culture and from the one of easing player uncertainty.
