Adornments comments

Terron@Splitpaw wrote:

Neither inferior nor better, DIFFERENT. Class-restricted would make them better or worse depending on the user. Choice is the concept. Some class things are worthless to someone of that class who, in their role, uses a type of spell/CA less than someone else in a different role.

Rijacki wrote:

Could you give a few examples?

Meirril wrote:

Err, allowing commission transmuting (hence letting transmuters transmute no-trade/attuned items for others) would be be waaaayyyyy different than removing the no-trade tag from fabled gear is nothing short of bad faith. Removing the no-trade tag from fabled gear would lead to the fabled gear to be put on broker. Adding commission crafting on the other hand, would:

• increase the supply for transmuted raws for adornment, hence reducing the price of adornment, and then increasing their use (apart from high end raiding, I'm pretty sure there's less than 1 on 10 characters using adornments - from all qualities -, and most of them use them only on one or two slots max).
• give the transmuters more things to do, give them the opportunity to have an actual crafter/customer relationship with others, and be able to earn more money from the tips or fees associated with the commission transmuting process.

Meirril wrote:

I looked at those threads, and what I found was most people opposed to the commission transmuting are for invalid and selfish reasons :

• they don't want to have an actual interaction with others
• they want others who would start transmuting to have it as hard as they have if not harder (although the commission transmuting wouldn't change much there)
• they think it's better to sell less for higher price (apparently considering that they made a benefit of the actual sale value of the adornment / transmuted material and discounting the value of the transmuted item) than more for a lesser price (with not necessarily less benefit).
• they think introducing a commission transmuting system would *force* them to run all over Norrath to go transmute no-trade items for complete strangers and for free (man, really)

All in all, in your three links, there's not much to read, and the only real and well put arguments are by transmuters (and I think others) for the commission transmuting. The only "arguments" made against commission transmuting in those thread comes down to "no! why? because, it would not be good. Why? Because I said so".

Back on adornments themselves, I must say I agree with some points made there: as per what was intended, transmuters are supposed to be primarily adornments crafters. Why not, it makes sense as it's supposed to be a secondary tradeskill class (with that in mind, it actually makes more sense than transmuters being only people who "break items down", although that's what the name of the class implies). But then, why the hell can the primary fonction of transmuters be accomplished by others (all primary tradeskill classes, and even the other secondary tradeskill class)? If transmuters are really supposed to be an "adornment crafting class" first and foremost, then they need to be well above others in that matter, and I then see only few options (some of which can be comined):

• remove all adornments recipes from primary tradeskill classes and from tinkerer and give them all to transmuters (with some cleaning here to avoid duplicates and simplify the adornments for end users)
  
• leave them as is for primary tradeskills (well with the various balance changes mentioned by others) but let transmuters make all adornments at the same time.
• add transmuter only adornment so at least transmuters have a similar selfish benefit like the tinkerers have (as transmuters must be balanced versus tinkerers, but not really versus primary tradeskills).

For the first point, some argued that in that case the "break down" ability should be removed from transmuters or else they would control everything. This has already been answered by a great ironical post (loved it, really). The raw materials for transmuters are not and would not be controled by them; the raw materials for transmuters are the treasured+ items in the game, that are "controlled" by adventurers, and to some extent by crafters (adept IIIs and MCed). Even if the only one to be able to craft the adornments, transmuters would still be much more dependant on others than tinkerers are. It's easy for anyone at any adventure level to go harvest regular raw materials in Norrath, for any tier, hence tinkerers can be completely independant from others. It's way more difficult to go "harvest" transmuter raw materials (treasured+ items); more time consuming, and requires an adequate level adventurer (you won't be "harvesting" T8 treasured+ with a level 10 adventurer, nor will you "harvest" T1 treasured+ with a level 80 adventurer - then you'll need to harvest regular raw materials and make T1 Adept IIIs/MCed, and those are your transmuter raw materials).

Meirril wrote:

I can, and I'll even stick to one class.
An adornment that increases the duration of control effects may be the best thing in the game to a solo/group illusionist, but totally worthless to a raider.
An adornment that decreases the conc slot requirement of the illusionists persona by 1 would be totally cool to a pre mythical illusionist, but worthless to an illusionist with their mythical.
An adornment that adds damage to the end of illusionist DoTs may end up being near worthless to a solo/heroic illusionist, but be the absolute must have for a raiding illusionist.
An adornment that increases the illusionists power drains would be equally useless to all illusionists.
That is from a class that is my 5th alt (or is it 6th?). If I were to make a similar list for my main characters class (wizard) that list would be considerably longer.

Nifnif@Lucan DLere wrote:

This is exactly the reason I think transmuters are more of harvester/gathers than crafters (as transmuters at least, their primary tradeskill notwithstanding).
Totally reguardless of what the intention was, transmuters have never been implemented in this manner. The primary function for a transmuter has always been transmuting objects. I personally would like to see this continue, as it adds depth to the game having something on the side such as that (as opposed to simply a second tradeskill class on the side). We have never been privy to intent with secondary tradeskills, but we have all seen the implementation.
When you see someone saying transmuter lfw what is it you think, that they are wanting to make adornments for others, or that they are avalible to break stuff down for others?

Treasured items = treasured tier components (fragments and powders)
Legendary items = treasured or legendary tier components (powders and infusions)
Fabled items = legendary or fabled tier components (infusions and mana)
Why do we get something treasured from a legendary item or something legendary from a fabled item? It is a downgrade. We should get equal tier components from the items we transmute (or have transmuted). I rarely get a fabled item... if I am going to make the decision to destroy it or have it destroyed, shouldn't I at the very least get something of the same tier in return?

Noaani wrote:

In a similar concept, yeah (though power drains would not be useless to PvP illusionists).

I was thinking more along the lines of how class or sub-class gear sets give a bonus to a specific spell/CA, spell/CA line, or spell/CA type or even how the achievements "enhance" spell/CA lines.

An adornment for a coercer which gave a bonus to, for example, the Despotic Mind line could increase the triggers by 1. This would be handy in solo or raid.

A fabled adornment could even give a bonus to an end-point of an achievement, for example the coercer's Thought Snap could have its duration increased from 8 seconds to 10 seconds. This would be useful only in raid, only for an MT coercer, and only if that coercer took Thought Snap as a coercer achievement.

Having adornments similar to the set bonuses would give greater choices.

Heck, even having a requirement of multiples of an adornment on different slots could give set bonuses while allowing choices of armor (and not just for appearances).

Rijacki wrote:

See. Even my token 'totally useless' idea has a use for some people!

The problems I've had with the adornment system have less to do with adornments themselves, but rather the transmuting materials system.
I think that (for the most part) the process of gathering materials you need for a specific item you want to make are fine.
However, the process of grinding up skill levels leaves a very unpleasant MESS. Sure, sure, I could vendor off my extra shards (or powders in later levels) for pennies, or even try (and likely fail) to broker them, but mostly they take up bank space because I invested too much into getting the stupid things to want to trash them.
I would love to see some compensation for the imbalances in transmuting part requirements. How about a recipe that takes a handful of shards and pulverizes them into a powder, and another to take extra powders and congeal them into shards? It doesn't matter if the conversion rate is inefficient, because a method of recycling is better than none.

Edit: Also, I REALLLLY think that "UNCOMMON" loot should be transmutable into shards. The recipe book market - especially at low levels - is pathetic and need to be cleansed.

Nebbie wrote:

I've seen this statement made many times, and it always confuses me a bit. Treasured-component adornments use fragments and powders, I know that much. Don't legendary quality adornments require powders and infusions to craft, and fabled ones infusions and mana? If this is the case, then legendary items making both powders and infusions makes sense, because those are what you need for that quality adornment. Likewise with fabled. The requirements overlap, so the transmutation results overlap.

Am I wrong on this? Are there actually only two qualities of adornments, one crafted with fragments and powders, the other with infusions and mana? I haven't bothered with transmuting or adornments, so I'm honestly not sure.

Lodrelhai wrote:

For treasured adornment oyu need frags and powders, for legendary ones you need frags, powders and infusions and for fabled ones you need all four.

May be Domino should change frags from treasured to uncommon. Than all items would be transmuted mostly to one quality step below the item quality and in some cases into the same quality.

Caught the late train again it appears....

Adornments are something that presently is very confusing to someone trying to learn the best use of them.

At present I have a few adornment issues, especially in t7/t8. I dunno bout most servers but on ab adornments aren't worth the cost that ppl are charging for them. Perhaps because most I've seen are legendary or fabled t7/t8 adornments. But man a jump from 15pp for t7 leg bow adorn for dps, to 55pp for t is a bit ridiculous.

I've asked around and I am getting one general answer about why this is so expensive....

At present when reverse engineering something, you get a small chance to get one of two primaries, but almost never both if I am not mistaken.

Please take a look at the percentages/mechanics of this crafting. I am just an adornment n00b, but when you have to pay outrageous prices because components decompiled from fabled/legendary do not produce the critical materials to get the adornment made. I've been thinking on this for over a week now and I can only come up with one thing, mana is not being created enough, I looked at the percentages of fabled for mana after searching the forums and I found 15% chance to get mana from a fabled item. Perhaps this value alone could alter this enough to be usable/practical. Mana by itself for t7 is 9pp. I dont know about anyone else, but a t7 master is only 2-3pp on ab. If mana were produced more when decompiling fabled, perhaps more adornments would be made, and the economy could balance out, and adornments would be woi...

Thats the only thing I see wrong with it, well that and lack of a lot of information far as what is what, etc. Ive been a tinkerer for a while now, still lvl 1 cause I dont harvest t1 anymore, lapiz on broker isnt even worth getting. Maybe I should be a muter, might take a buttload of coin to level, but from what I see on ab, this crafting class is more unbalanced then any other. Does not a stranglehold exist for mana? Please consider taking a look at the mana percentages, it seems to me that its off, causing major inflation as demand far outweighs supply.

My other issue is not for this thread, regarding loams in t8. I can tell you this, I found more spongy loam in kos in 2 weeks, then I can in rok in a month (to date not a single loam despite MANY geodes sent back to the spawn pool by me. Rares in t8 aren't rares, they are mythicals. That's how wrong the drop rate is. Domino, I know it's been a while since you've seen my face around here but harvesting in t8 is whacked atm. Incarnadine is dropping like candy, and is rarely used, so its very very cheap atm. Fire emaralds, 2-3pp can deal with that, never got one out of a node yet. Silicate loam, is mythical in nature, I've goten numerous smoldering mats or incarnadines from heavy ore nodes, but not one silicate loam. Rare pelts, roots, seem to be woi. But I don't think silicates are woi. And I think incarnadine is dropping to much, I see other suggestions around here about using incarnadine as the main for ad3s for some classes. Please do not consider this, it will place even more demand on the heavy ore down the road. I see atm, mc incarnadine is not well sought after, perhaps someone could look at these incarnadine recipes and see why the looted gear is outperforming the mc gear? I don't think the intention is to kill metal crafting, but however the decision was made, and metal workers gear got hit hard in many ppls opinions. Why have an armorer craft that lvl 72 chainmail? Go 3 more levels without good gear, and you can get gear that is better then that 72 mc rare armor. When did rare take a backseat to treasured loot drops? I mean come on Ive seen better procs on treasured gear/stats on treasured gear, then I do on some imbued rare armor sets. Where is the balance there?

Ok I know ive gone off topic, sry. These an this arrow issue has me a lil "bugged" atm. Trying not to make so many seperate threads on so varied of issues.

Forgive me domino, ignore the rest of this and just read the parts concerning adornments.

Stealthmode@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Ok, three things to say.
First, your numbers are off and if you had actually read this entire post you probably would of seen that the actual chance of getting a rare transmute (needed to get mana from fabled break downs) is about 30%, not 15%. Almost a 1 in 3 chance.
Why is Crystalized Mana going for about 50p on AB? Two reasons. First, tier 8 fabled is harder to come by than in previous tiers. Most of the mana comes from transmuting master 1 spells because that is the vast majority of accessable fabled items in the game. In t7 instance you could expect to see one master 1 drop ever 3 runs. Now? It is more like 1 in 10 instances. There is a much smaller supply to transmute. This doesn't have ANYTHING to do with transmuting. Talk to itemization. They are the people that decided to cut back the master 1 drop rate.
Second, there is a lot more coin comming from RoK and everybody is getting it. Expect prices to rise when we all have more coin to spend. Last tier, when t7 was the top tier mana went for 30p each. Now? There has been a 40% increase in the price. It sucks, but its the combination of having more to spend and less to spend it on. Get use to it because this wasn't created by tradeskills, again blame itemization.
As for the rest you had to say Stealthmode, your right it has nothing to do with this thread. How about making a different thread for each thought so you can decently support each idea on its own instead of sounding like a broken record till we don't care?

Meirril wrote:

The "chance" you mention here is crap. Maybe your numbers are accurate for you, but in my experience you are either lucky or not.. and I am not. I have transmuted 10 t8 legendary items in a row and got an infusion on the 7th item... the rest were powders. I have transmuted 5 fabled items in a row and got 5 infusions. There shouldn't be a "chance" when destroying/transmuting a fabled or legendary item. The "chance" already exists in the game that you will even get a fabled/legendary (ornate/exquisite chest) to drop and an additional "chance" that you will roll high enough to win it. Then top that with the "chance" that the item is an upgrade for you/an alt or someone in your group/guild.
Adornments are crafted items, the difficulty in obtaining the necessary components to make them is ridiculous. It simply makes me ill to destroy a hard earned fabled item only to get a component from it that is not the primary one I need to make a fabled adornment.
Imagine If everytime you crafted an item with a rare you only had a "chance" to make a mastercrafted item. Imagine IF everytime you made it to the 4th bar successfully when you used your rare you had to rely on a "chance" that it would be a mastercrafted item instead of a handcrafted item. You would be wasting your rare for something you don't need or want. I might take 1 rare or it might take 3 rares ore it might take 7 rares (depending on your luck) to make 1 mastercrafted item. Imagine how frustrating, annoying and costly it would be if this is how crafting worked .... This, in my mind, is how the "chance" to get a mana from a fabled or infusion from a legendary compares to crafting.
This is what it feels like to ME everytime I transmute legendary and fabled items, and it sucks.

Nebbie wrote:

And imagine if every time you swung a pick, there was a 30% chance that you would get a rare from the harvesting node. Your compairing the harvesting portion of transmuting to the crafting portion of other tradeskills. Using the transmute spell doesn't have anything to do with skill. It has everything to do with the RNG. And it only averages out when your talking about large numbers. If you are like me, then when it comes to treasured items you should be able to get an idea of averages. Why? Because if your like me you've transmuted several hundred t8 treasured items. Honestly, I'm closer to 40% powder vs 60% fragments and its kinda cheesing me off a bit because I'm running short on fragments. I guess I need to make more legendary adornments.
What your experiencing is that flushing feeling you get when you loose a bet. Your gambling every time you transmute something and when it comes to fabled items...that is a perty significant gamble. If you don't feel like gambling then let someone else transmute and buy their products.

Meirril wrote:

Nebbie wrote:

And I guess I'm voicing this from the point of a guy that use to remember when we crafted legendary items that people wanted. Then he watched as the supply of materials was loosened up, and the quality of what we prodcued diminished. While one doesn't necessarily equate to the other, it does make a better argument for us getting high quality adornments when the components are rare and expensive for the best of them.
Now if we could get the general quality of the adornments raised a bit...

I didnt read thru all 19 pages of stuff so sorry if has been mentioned already.
Tinker adornment books (as well as every single dropped tinker book) needs to be more common or we need to see the enigmas of all the other tradeskills/transmuting drop less frequently to match (as some tinkerering books reach 100 p for one recipe).

As with Deggials I didn't read all 19 pages, so if I am repeating someone I appologize.
When mentioning approvements to addornments on things jumps to mind.
Adornment Sets.
Just like with armor sets that give additional effects do the same with adornements. Couple examples off the top of my head of set bonuses. The adornements themselves can give a smaller bonus. This would also allow for interesting combos of gear to specialize with set bonuses.
Golem Set
Items that can be adorned: one handed weapon, two handed weapon, shield, symbol, waist
At 2 pieces, +10 Sta, +10 to CA
at 3 pieces, -10 Agi, +10 Sta, +100 Mitigation

Typhoid Set
Items that can be adorned: symbol

At 2 pieces, +10 INT, +25 Disease Damage

It's been almost a year since this thread was made and I still thank Domino for making it. After so much time and so many contributions, I want to post on the context from which the quote in the first post came from and restate both my feelings and suggestions on the topic.

Ostensibly this thread is about actual changes to adornments themselves but that was never my sole intent or even primary complaint. I find transmuting to be one of the most soul crushing activities in game (yes, I've stopped doing it for the moment though I am currently at 365 and will cap it on principle).It's design is fine enough up until skill 100 where it takes on its soul crushing quality and the glaring design flaws show up. Regardless to intent, transmuting behaves and is treated primarily as a harvest supply skill and the otherwise useful adornments are devalued by the sheer volume created for the sole purpose of leveling. No matter how you choose to level it, transmuting forces you to make either a substantial investment of time farming/harvesting or of coin buying materials. While certainly there is a warning provided when you select the skill, it just doesn't give the full scope of what you are getting into-especially if you adventure since it blocks out tinkering. Right now in comparison to tinkering and really just about every other trade, there is no "wow" factor in leveling; it's the same items every tier with the same grind start to finish with most your hope coming from other transmuters buying your transmutes and potential profit at the cut throat cap. The biggest draw to transmuting is the ability to transmute the now (over-)abundant no-trade gear in game. If the desire for a transmuting commission system is ever realized, that too will go. Adornments themselves are only a part of the complaint, albeit a large one.

Adornments are chaotically placed, redundant and tough to expand because of all the existing commitments. Coupled with downright unfair competition between weaponsmiths and transmuters, lackluster effects and seemingly nonsensical placement rules that appear to exist only to support the redundancy, adornments have been and are now in need of a total overhaul. But, no overhaul can be done without retouching the very nature of adornments themselves and transmuting as a mechanic. Adornments themselves must be reviewed for their place in the game; are they items in and of themselves that should be removable and allowed to be placed on other items? Or are they more "temporary" item enhancements that should have their production costs brought down to levels that reflect such. How much of a market skill is transmuting and how much control should it be allowed over its ability to supply the needs of the market?

I feel that transmuting and adornments are great ideas horribly executed and burdened by the EQ2 sin of overcommitment that permeates all aspects of the game and results in almost schizophrenic design. On the issues at hand, I feel adornments should be items unto themselves; transmuters should have a legitimate method of adjusting supply to the market (beyond gambling) and not be forced into flooding the market with adornments; adornments should be reevaluated to remove redundancies and create clear product line ownership rules so each market holder can reasonably know what to expect. I have backed away from the more extreme stance of totally stripping anyone of adornments. Time and entrenchment have made the idea untenable and the EQ2 engine has shown a flexibility that makes the move unneeded. That does not mean I don't support totally swapping some lines away from classes, just that there is room to give everyone something valuable.

Unless otherwise noted, all the following suggestions are separate entities I consider fine on their own. All numbers are made up for the sake of example:

Transmuting:

• Remove the 100 skill cap on skilling up through transmuting--move allows an alternative to skilling up through adornment grinding; keeps progression natural, makes the skill more accessible like tinkering; allows more product on the market to be used for actually making adornments for sale and not skill-ups.

• Allow transmuting results to be upconverted--move allows transmuters to better respond to market demands and control flooding of unneeded materials. Move would also introduce another way to get skill-ups without the adornment grind. An example of progression from my view: 5 frags>1 powder>5 powder>1 infusion> 5 infusion> 1 mana
  • Convert all transmuting results to fragments, make upconverting the method by which upper quality raws are introduced-- forcing upconverting to be the method of introducing higher quality raws gives transmuting a stronger base to be treated as a trade. It directly undercuts the argument of "you're just changing it, not crafting" and changes the nature of how transmuting items are brokered. Fragments will no longer go for below the cost of the transmute providing a strong base for prices. Adding in a variable result rate from the initial transmute (i.e. treasured= 1-5 fragments fabled= 25-30) allows luck to still play a role.

Adornments/adornment mechanics:

• Allow the creation of solvents--the ability to reuse adornments would make them viable purchases at all levels of play both in terms of 1-80 leveling and solo>group> raid play. Instead of just waiting until the best gear available is attained, players would upgrade adornments as they would normal gear since the progression would feel natural and wouldn't be at risk to the "next good drop". Likewise, lower tier adornments would be used during leveling as leveling speed would not obsolete an adornment as quickly and non- upgradable adornments would be sought out at their appropriate tier. Primary sticking point with this idea is that adornments are tradable and without some refinement to attuning or no-trade, it could become a crafter's nightmare with adornments being resold at secondhand rates.

• Allow transmuters to create solvents--have it cost a few fragments. Solvents could be yet another method for transmuters to gain skill-ups while providing a valuable and meaningful service to the market beyond just adornment raws.

• Allow gear to have multiple effects—Everquest’s augment system allowed for the placing of multiple effects on gear. EQ2 could benefit from the same using a variation of the poison/potion system whereby no two adornments of the same “color” could be placed on the same piece of gear. Move allows an exponential increase of adornments to be sold and allows for more customization of equipment and by extension, players.

• 
  o Allow transmuters to commission making the extra slots—gives transmuters another useful function in game and forces players to pay for the privilege of the extra slots. Activity can provide skill-ups.

• Remove/reduce slot restrictions but make adornments lore-right now there are just too many slot restrictions on otherwise trivial adornments to make sense of the system as a whole. Still, it can be seen that some of the restrictions do make sense to limit the item but it makes better sense to restrict such items by the lore tag as opposed to slot. Slot restrictions should be left to things like dropped adorns should that ever happen. Problem with this is that lore items can only be crafted/brokered one at a time and the creation of a "lore when attuned" tag could be problematic.

Reevaluate adornments to remove redundancies and create clear product line ownership rules so each market holder can reasonably know what to expect.

Along those lines I've slightly changed how I organized my own distribution of adornments posted before:

• Weaponsmiths-melee weapon procs
• Woodworkers-ranged procs/effects
• Sage- spell procs/effects
• Alchemists- resists
• Jewelers- stats
• Armorers- defensive adorns i.e. mit adorns, defensive procs
• Tailor- Raw health/power
• Provisioner- power/health regens
• Carpenter-skill increasers/misc effects
• Transmuting- Melee effects such as double attack, haste
• Tinkering-Ranged versions of transmuting adorns, temp buffs akin to the new blessings line, clicky effects

Again this list is very rough just to give an example of market clarity; there are many other ways to redo the listing that is fair and profitable to all classes and doubtless all suggested would be superior to the current system.

Thank you again Domino for opening up the topic for discussion.