If there was going to be a general revamp to ranged weapons I'd like to see something done to reduce the whining balance things out fairly. Make all range weapons work in a similar fashion. There is a default ammo that costs nothing and provides no benefits. You buy ammo because it improves your weapons performance. If all your doing is pulling you might not buy ammo (or you might buy the best so you can get some extra agro). Sages seem to need something to craft more than jewelers, alchemists or even woodworkers. Give the sages the wand ammo recipes. Call them something like focus charms, scrolls of insight, or something similar. Have the weapon say what kind of ammo it can use in the item description. After scouts get a proper revamp, I think it would be time to open poison up to all classes. Trying to introduce a poison-like boost to casters would probably go all wrong and somehow imbalance things again. Just allowing them to use poison would even things out enough. Though if you wanted to break up the class usage amongst the other crafters that wouldn't be a bad idea. Leave poison to the alchemists and spread it to all 7 scouts. Give weaponsmiths the fighter version. I'm having a tough time deciding on the last 2 pairs. Really which crafting classes need the help? Jewelers? Carpenters? Woodworkers? Armorers? Tailors? (probably not tailors) Sages? (even if they got ammo recipes?) Maybe Jewelers for the priest "poison". It is really difficult to imagine some kind of temporary buff carpenters or armorers could generate that would do damage. Actually priest "poison" could be armorer and instead of doing damage it could proc heal, or add temp buffs to reduce incoming damage? While I think priests would appreciate added DPS, other classes might prefer them getting defensive abilities. Even if they were really good (or really bad) it wouldn't imbalance things since it only makes them better at a role they are expected to perform.
Its amazing that you can keep saying that I'm saying the same thing over and over...and I haven't said it even once. I've never said that any of this is fair and equitable. As long as there are multiple classes it will never be fair and equitable. There will always be differences, and as the game changes some of those differences will be shocking. I'm more interested in the general health of the game. I've posted on ways to reduce the cost of poisons. I do think poisons should come down in cost, but what I find acceptable and what others find acceptable aren't the same. I've also suggested that poison be spread around to all classes. Seriously, if that isn't fair and equitable then what is? Again, I don't see poisons as a fix to scouts. I see it as an underperforming mechanic getting its long overdue revamp. That affects 4 classes, and they seem to be mysteriously outraged at the ability to add what some report as 40% more DPS at a substantial cost. The real kicker here is the ones driving up the price of Hiven Root are the same classes that benefit from the poison. Scouts are setting the price and driving the market. And they aren't able to say no, despite the price. Raid mentality, lovely isn't it? When you can look at a series of potions and say "I'll perform worse if I click this instead of one of my abilities" the potion isn't worth using. Potions have to be more powerful than a class ability to be useful. Cures work out, but they always have. The freedom potions are good. The stat potions are a mediocre upgrade at best, only worth considering if your raiding and even then very minor. The healing potions are bad jokes, and the power potions are a desperation move that are out performed by both overclocked manastone and a purple adornment. And just as an aside, you realize that competition between scouts is setting the price of Hiven Root, right? The price of the roots is going to be how much scouts are willing to pay? If you want to blame someone for having to pay 300p a night, complain to the wealthier scouts on your server. Dev doesn't set the price on the broker, we do.
Who changed the poison recipes Scouts or Dev's? The resulting market and price changes as a result of that change are the fault of the people that changed the recipe. Why does Scout (x) have to pay plat to do the same thing as Mage (y) who pays nothing. Still waiting on an answer.
Answer the question with a question: When scouts get a real fix, will they stop paying for the current poison at the current prices? I suppose its time to stick my foot in and actually answer. Scouts don't have to pay for poisons. By the admission of most scouts, even with the new rare poison they don't match top end mage dps. But its a fall back to the raid mentality: if you can get any kind of edge, you do it. So the scouts raiders that can use poison will continue to use the best poison regardless of how well those other classes are doing. So the question is not only based on false information, its also based on a false premise. The demand doesn't have as much to do with class balance, as it does with the availability of a substantial improvement and its involvement with a harvested rare. Removing the rare won't lower demand. Actually there is fairly good evidence it won't increase demand either. The demand is extreme, despite the design that called for multiple rares for the best poison. Again, blame raid mentality. So really, if you want to fix the situation, why aren't you arguing for the removal of poison and ammo? Or giving everybody poison and ammo? Your not even looking for a "fair and equitable" solution. You just want the benefit without substantial cost. And really? Lets look at plat for a second here since its being talked about so much. On average an group instance run generates about 20p per person? 30p? 40? So 3 hours of raiding, would it be fair to set a cost of no-more-than-20p-per-hour? We've talked so much about what isn't fair. Lets talk about how much is fair.
This is a perfect summation of the problem. No further elaboration needed. This is a very viable and easy to implement solution. I would be perfectly fine with this or something similar. No need to go into page long diatribes on class balancing or some other convoluted solution which isn't going to happen. K.I.S.S. :>
If the output of the poison recipes are increased enough to satisfy market demands with less roots than what is produced the price of roots will drop dramatically. It won't be 20p for a cheap root, it will be more like 10p. Considering that I think the current market is either meeting the demand or only slightly behind demand raising the amount produced somewhere around 5 times as much would be about right. That should also take into account the reduced amount of harvesting with the lower value of roots.
Meirril and Crychtonn, you two need to go get your own post and just fight it out. We could sell tickets, proceeds go to the charity of the winner. :> Oh, we'll need a referee. Any volunteers?
I intentionally used the low end. Right now on Everfrost, hivens are 55p. /shrug Short of a crystal ball, none of us can say what they will drop to. But, as we both agree, they will drop at least some. Poisons aren't the only use for Hivens of course. I've used quite a few for cloaks and belts. Keep in mind that any amount these four classes are paying is more than anyone else has to for roughly the same net end result. Btw, I'm not saying all mages are stomping all scouts left and right. Some scouts (Assassins in particular) are quite strong right now. But, that's using the current poisons. So, at best it gets them to nearly being equal. It's just that those scouts incur a large cost to get to that point that the mages don't. If you are interested in selling poisons, I honestly think my suggested change above would HELP alchemists rather than hurt them. Their material cost would go down and production would go up. Yes, their price would be lower per vial but frankly, I suspect they could squeeze us hapless scouts on a bit higher margin than the current market can handle since it's SOOO high right now.
Winner? There wouldn't be a winner unless I choke on my own bile. We'll just circle until one of us gets tired of posting. Especially since he just ignores what I say, tries to put words in my mouth, and ignores anything inconvenient to his narrative. If he wasn't so passionate about this, I'd say he was just trolling.
I was going to make a long drawn out post in response to your posts, Crychtonn, but then I saw that Meirril covered pretty much everything I was going to cover, and used less words than I was going to use, so I'll just hand out likes to Meirril's posts and call it a day.
Honestly I'd say the same thing back to you. With the add on that since the topic of the thread doesn't effect you at all that you fit the troll part better. How soon you forget I did argue they should simply remove poisons and make them an AA self buff for each of the four classes. Your response was. I’ve also said I’d be fine with opening up poisons to all classes if all the other classes were adjusted down to balance that. That both you and Rotherian keep tossing out. I just follow it up with stating the obvious that it’ll never happen because of the enormous amount of Dev resources it’d take to accomplish it. So I ask the two of you why do you keep going back to something you both or at least Rotherian has admitted is an unfeasible solution? And Meirril you are the one that keeps moving the goal posts. First you argued against Incandescent Materials because you claimed they were super rare and would increase the price of Xiocite gear by 10 plat. After I proved you wrong on the rarity and cost of the Materials you moved the goal post. You then tried to use Dusts (which I said I was fine going back to) claiming no one buys Expert spells anymore. Which several people then pointed out you were wrong again. That you ignored the update making Experts better than previous masters. In the end I am passionate about the topic because it directly effects my game play. On the other hand Meirril and Rotherian are neither affected by it. So who is the troll., the guy with a stake in the game or the two that don’t.
Give poisons to everyone. I have zero problem with this. I do say it knowing that it's unfeasible and will never happen. But hey, there it is to sate Meirril and Rotherian. I'm not ignoring you I even agreed! Happy now?
How about we change only INT based food and INT based potions to include 2 hiven root to make 10 and see what the classes affected by this have to say? Making the new poisons introcduced in AoM to require hiven root was poorly thought out by the dev in charge of this change......no previous tier of poisons ever cost such an extraordinary amount of plat or time for scouts to use.
Amusingly, if you did that to Mages, you'd still fail to get the outrage you're looking for. Top of the line Food/Drink/Pot adds, what, 3% to our overall DPS? It would just be set aside, except for tough raids where every %counts, where we'd pay it. And of course you're proposing (sarcastically, I know) a pretty petty imbalance. Lets charge mages as much for a 3% boost in DPS, and scouts get a 30% increase in DPS for the same price, all out of spite. I'd agree the Qty made was poorly thought out. 10 potions from 2 Hiven root is indeed rough. But the selection of Hiven root itself is perfectly logical, and in line with past expansions (dusts from rares).
Point is...scouts needed loving....the dev makes a half a$$ed fix by improving poisons that cost ridiculous amount to buy/make/harvest time......if this was done to any other classes you bet there would be outrage.....I honestly do not understand why people seem to think it is okay to gouge 4 scout classes for some improved dps.....its not groundbreaking dps...and a well played mage should still be outparsing a scout....but this poorly thought out fix does help socut dps for now..... the devs could easily fix this by increasing the amount of poisons per combine and reducing hiven root cost to 1.....the fact they haven't and don't even acknowlegde this grave error is a slap in the face to scouts who simply are trying to stay afloat in the game.....if we are not supposed to be dps classes then what is our purpose....and what is the proposal for those so against fixing this poorly implimented change to poison recipes?
Ratza the Dev's move at their own pace. When I started the thread I never expected a quick fix. I'd hoped for one but I remember how long it took before they made changes to arrow consumption when it had got out of hand. Which at the time produced threads identical to this one. The people paying through the teeth being upset vs the people that paid for nothing saying all is good as is. If you replaced the words Arrow with Poison and Woodworker with Alchemist you could cut and paste those threads and this one. I was pleasantly surprised with how quick they did do the fix for the new Fragment ammo. My hope is they are still reading and considering this thread as they work on the announced scout DPS changes. If they do make changes that would be when I'd think they'd show up. I'd expect them to keep the planned changes close to the vest until they are ready to put them on the Test server.
Cool, I hadn't seen that. I know guildies had said the scout revamp was talked about in the live chat. Scout stuff we'll all have to wait and see. I like they are putting back in the rare named for the heroic zones. Those were nice for getting people to run zones more. And I liked them adding the gems to the weekly quest. Still hoping they change their minds on making those no trade instead of the current heirloom they are now.
Funny, I didn't think scouts cared about recipes. Any vital scout-based opinions on the other 8 crafting classes? This is the Tradeskill forum, where we discuss crafting and all that entails, the title of the post "Please Fix Poison Recipes" affects alchemists more directly than scouts because it is an Alchemist Class Ability to make it. Any of the proposed changes directly affects alchemist recipes. And yet, this is the last thing most people bring up. All they care about is plat. What I care about (and the only point I care about) is the health of crafting. Removing poison from the game certainly doesn't help alchemists. While you might have an alchemist, you certainly don't seem to be concerned about them as a class. As for adjusting other classes down, why? I'd rather see scouts adjusted up and poisons opened up for everybody. Sure it would make raiding in this expansion a joke, but it wouldn't be the first time dev has done that. In the long run, alchemists (and/or other classes given "poison" recipes) would be much better off. Calling something harvested at a fixed rate of 2% "super rare" is a joke. If a 2% harvest rate is super rare, then how do you describe the chance of harvesting a Spellshard? Now I have to admit I wasn't taking into account the behavior of NPC harvesters who bring back considerable amounts of incandescent material. Far more than anyone could harvest in the same amount of time. If your correct and those NPCs can provide an abundant supply of incandescent materials then it is a trival cost that won't drive up the price of poisons. In effect, materials used won't affect the price because none of it is a limiting factor. Right now people don't charge for incandescent materials because the supply is in glut. There isn't much demand for the products that need them. And if its trivial, why include the incandescent materials? So it makes people feel its special when it isn't? Now if your wrong, this doesn't just effect the price of poisons. Incandescent materials are involved in every 96+ MC recipe, and quite a few other recipes as well. If the supply can't be matched by NPC gatherers, there is no way that manual harvesting will have a larger impact. In 2 hours of harvesting, you'll get far more rares than you will incandescent materials thanks to Rare Harvest Chance, and far less than the NPC will bring back as well. Actual harvesting doesn't produce results that are even close to the NPC harvesting behavior. So we're talking about a possible cooling effect this could have on all tradeskills. Also you can't just make the assumption that any replacement recipe will be a 1 for 1 exchange. If dev looks at the behavior of NPC harvesters and bases its consumption on that vs hiven roots we could be talking about 50 incandescent material = 1 hiven root. Honestly dusts are the same as hiven roots. Except you'll produce an expert spells in the process. Maybe after the recent changes expert spells will pick up in sales, but once the tail starts to swing the dog and people are buying up sapphires just to make dust your just talking about shifting from roots to stones. Different rare, same inherent problems and nothing done about the underlying issue. Now, you want to make some suggestions about proportions? Talking about acceptable costs? Actually progressing the ideas or do you want to just keep spouting the same things because your done and you don't want to see the argument actually get somewhere?
Aside from the problem with underpowered experts until the recent change, it likely would have been much less of an issue if they had simply kept the dusts. Each expert from any of the three scholars produced two dusts (so that cost could help balance the spell rares at least a little bit.) The two dusts created 20 poison vials. So, one rare = 20 vials (plus the spell) rather than the current two rares creating 10. The price would probably still be on the high side but it wouldn't have been the absurd cost we currently have.
