Ascension Spell Quality Progression

In case your German is better than my English, we can continue the discussion in my motherlanguage. That makes it easier for me, to explain you what I had in mind!

Milchbart, I am not literate other than in American (and barely that ) but I salute your command and knowledge of English.

I say "thank you" to Meneltel and Trepide for their likes and comments. Infact I have sometimes difficulties to follow the discussion in all details, because I am missing the translation of many words.

By the way "Milchbart" means "fluffy beard", so dont take me too serious. My name explains my intentions. EQ2 is a game, not a profession. Sometimes I have the impression many people are taking everything too serious. I am hear to have fun, not to find out, how I can boost my potency by 0, 1%.

I realized that English isn't your mother tongue, and that you were refering to the level cap. That's why I called the misuse of the word "cup" (which is the part of a jockstrap which holds the testicles) a typo, or typing error.

Your English is far better than my German.

so is it confirmed the research time is actually in years? I haven't researched any ascension spells yet.

Each ability has two tiers you will be forced to research. However, keep in mind that you can get it to Expert pretty quickly just through buying scrolls and knocking out one research cycle. Expert isn't bad.

We don't know if we will be forced to research two tiers. For now on, it seems that adept and master are not dropping. And primary components are insanely rare.
But it may be on purpose, another kind of time gate. This xpack is 3 weeks old, so don't presume too much of things (like: "bad DBG, you're turning this game into a pay-to-win one, for example"). Drop rates can increase in the future.

I ran heroic zones 4 times and have 2 "recepies". Pretty good ratio imho.

22 days to go from apprentice to journeyman. So I think the years comment was on how long it would take to get all of them leveled up if you did it the slow way.

I have not received ANY scrolls over numerous solo/advanced solo and heroic dungeons. The drop rate needs to improve, unless this really was meant as a pay to win strategy. I did buy one scroll for a stupid amount off the broker, and it wasn't even the scroll, it was the component to make the scroll.

And people are definitely paying to win, as I saw a parse the other day where someone's levinbolt hit for 2.5billion. Compared to my apprentice septic strike that hits for 500million sometimes.

I don't hold the paying to win against people. The option is there, and if you have the means and desire, then go for it. But currently, it's the only reasonable way to get these abilities quickly, and it's going to leave some of us in the dust if we refuse to pay for them with real money. In my opinion, that kind of game mechanic leaves a very bad taste in our mouths, because it has nothing to do with how hard you are willing to work IN GAME for these things and only has to do with your wallet.

Look at the ascension abilities and what you can do with them as they grow in power. Multiple % of potency increased per level of the buff. Multiple hundreds of millions of damage per level of the direct attack, etc. People who pay are going to be a full year of waiting for updates over people who can't get scrolls from dozens of dungeon runs who even then will have to wait for certain tiers through research if they choose not to speed it up.

It's not a great system. Hopefully the drop rate greatly improves as we get farther into this. But if it's making money (which I know it is since I feel the pull every day to drop 50 bucks into some DBC to be able to boost these skills faster, and I have a fairly tight grip on my wallet) then it's not going to be changed any time soon.

If they wanted the ascension classes to be FUN they would not have had spell tiers. Prestige spells, for example, are earned through your AA and are awesome upon delivery and then grow in power naturally as you grow in power. Here, we have a situation where the game wants our cash. Plain and simple.

How do we know?

Ok I guess I will explain the scientific method and how evidence and predictions work.

First there is an initial observations. Mine was Hey I just made Journeyman. I want to buy an expert, but there isn't one on broker so I will just start researching. This research says "adept" that must be much more common than "expert". Wow there are no adepts on the broker at all when there are at least some experts.

At this point you re examine at how the system is suppose to work.

As it turns out adept and masters are not craftable and in game writeups say they are drop only.

Ok lets look WW how many have been discod.

0

Inference either something is so rare it doesn't really matter or they just don't exist.

So in summation (BTW YOU SHOULD USE THIS IN YOUR REAL LIFE) you CANNOT prove something doesn't exist. There is no evidence positive or negative in that regard. I can't prove that Faeries don't exist I can only tell you to show me where they are.

This is that inference. After weeks there is no evidence of their existence therefore at least at this time they don't exist.


The next inference (intended or not) the way this is setup strongly benefits pay to win players, so even if they are doing a cash grab or its incidental this game if now officially a pay to win game.

The situation outside of any motive is.

-These are either not dropping or not dropping enough to even matter.
-The byproduct is a pay to win scheme whether designed or not.

Sorry I thought you were talking about journeyman, since I've only skimmed the thread.

Good post Widem.

Could you clarify this? Were there or were there not some experts on the broker?

You lucked out , i can assure you this is by no means normal.

it would be awesome if they put research time reduction things on loyality vendor.

It would be awesome if the research time was shortened and the payment part of it was taken away so you HAD to research it. OR if the spells were a thing like prestige spells and had no tiers but perhaps took longer to achieve. Anything else is FAR less than awesome.

Yes, there have been the same 2 experts on the broker on Maj for a couple weeks. So I know they can drop.

I can confirm that Journeyman, Expert, and Grandmaster can drop. This is not a comment on if the drop rates are appropriate, but that they can drop.

Whereas there is no evidence adept or master quality are dropping anywhere.

yes, Adept and Master are research only. every other tier is craftable, with the 'rare' for it being the illegible scroll. I think waiting a couple months for 2 spells, per ascension class, is not that bad, if you can get the drops for the craftable ones. Sure, if you want you can buy them. hell you can consider it another 'member perk' as members can just save up thier free station cash a month and get it for 'free' without spending a dime.

Ah, this makes sense, it's another gating mechanism. Interesting.

Only if you don't want to pay. There's actually a VERY fast method to get high tiered spells once you hit the correct ascension level.