Silicate Loam Woes

i think he is suggesting this:
The recipes either use the current materials or Ink
this ink can be made of any spell/ca rare, but can only be made by an alchemist

and yeah i do approve of this idea and would love to see it implemented

Meirril wrote:

What makes you think there's going to be a tier 9?
They didn't cram 14+ levels worth of spells into t8 for no reason.
They didn't introduce mythicals at level 80 for no reason.
They didn't raise the level cap in TSO for no reason.
Level 80 *is* eq2's cap. Period.
EQ2 is in sunset mode.
Silicate loam prices will fall as more t8 masters drop, and as server populations dwindle. Price is ~5p / ea. on nagafen today (11/14/08). I bet the price is halfed within six months.

Zacarus@Nagafen wrote:

As to inks and the like, meh I don't really see it as a problem currently with the existing system, BUT IF such a system was to be introduced/re-introduced I definatly wouldn't want it to be 1 rare == 1 ink and 1 ink == 1 ad3 spell. Maybe if it was 2 or more rares per ink or 2 or more inks per ad3 spell. ALSO I really wouldn't want only alchemists to be able to make inks, that would put us in the same situation transmuters are for adornments.

Nailaim@Runnyeye wrote:

The general gist of the ink argument was that ink could be used to replace any rare material used in spell production. Ink could be made from any of the spell rares in game. So the extra cost of using ink is the fuel cost for 1 extra combine and the time involved.
As for making it an alchemist only recipe, I'm actually not in favor of that. People hated interdependency with a passion. Ink is suppose to reduce the price of spell rares, not offer a new semi monopoly for one tradeskill to profit on.
FYI, I'm an alchemist.

Zacarus@Nagafen wrote:

Lets see...
People whined in multipe forums about the spell progression split over 15 levels. Things like Dispatch not improving with the tier really bugged people. So Devs responded and shortened the entire spell cycle to 10 levels.
Epic weapons are something that has been whined for since EQ2 launched. The mythical weapons are the "raid" version of the fabled epics the rest of us get. It wouldn't be epic if it was just another fabled raid weapon. Epic weapons were introduced with RoK because epic weapons were introduced in EQ1 with the Kunark expansion. Its funny, EQ2 does mirror EQ1 on a huge number of occasions.
If you have noticed, the last 3 years its been: advance game 1 tier, then an expansion where we add content and AA but no level increase. We're on the content expansion now. Next expansion should be this time next year and it should include a level increase. I'm really hoping it is *not* velious. Why? Mainly because I'd like to see it include the increase to level 100 and level 100+ dragons to match Nagafen.
If you were around during EQ2's launch and you paid attention to every scrap of information that came out of the EQ2 dev team you know that EQ2 was designed to include 200 levels. We're not even close to this design limit. At the current rate, we're talking about another 3 years just to reach level 100!
And if you haven't noticed, we're getting an influx of new players in EQ2. Most of them are ex-wow players that are looking for something different. Maybe its my guild. We take in mature players looking to have some fun and not be all serious. Maybe your a hard core raider and you have no clue what a noob is or any interest in raising the next batch of players.
And silicate loams should drop in price. The huge demand bubble was passed about 6 months ago if you didn't notice. The price of all the other t8 rares are also dropping, at the same rate silicate loam is. The only thing that will improve the ratio of costs is the persistant belief that you should get at least 1p for a "good" t8 rare.

Meirril wrote:

What matters is whether it makes sense for soe to invest resources in the game, not how many levels the game was designed to accommodate.

The scope of TSO is scaled WAY back compared to previous expansions. This fits with all the other points I made. EQ2 is in maintenance mode now. Of course they will continue to milk subscriptions for years, probably five, maybe ten more years. And they will invest the resources necessary to maintain that cash flow.

You will see mythical armor, jewelry and other trinkets. More mounts, more instances, and so forth.

However developing ten levels, along with the spells, items, content, etc required to support those new levels is no longer warranted from an investment perspective. That investment in resources would not return the value a big gaming company seeks. Otherwise TSO would have included +10 levels like every other eq2 expansion.

MMO subscriptions levels ebb and flow for various reasons. Expansions, new mmo's, pricing, economic conditions are have an impact. You may observe an influx of new players from time to time, but the overall trend of eq2's subscription level is declining. Its been declining for two+ years.

Zacarus stop trying to act like you have a clue since its obvious you don't know what the heck you are talking about.
SoE is following, what has been a successful approach of alternating lvl increases between every other expansion. The only exception was the first DoF expansion, since then they have done one expansion with a lvl increase, followed by one that increased the breadth of the game, rather than increase depth through a lvl increase. (lvl increases in KoS, and RoK, and between -- EoF no lvl increase but vastly increased the amount of mid lvl content, ToS no lvl increase but vasting increasing the high end group content.

Zacarus@Nagafen wrote (in part):

This has nothing at all to do with crafting, harvesting, or even silicate loams. Can y'all start a new thread in Expansions maybe?

Zacarus@Nagafen wrote:

Just because an expansion does not involve level caps doens't mean it's scaled back. There are almost as many zones as RoK and it accomodates a larger level span with scaling instances. The contest is frankly, a ton of fun.
Everyone said this about EverQuest 5-6 years ago too. And they were wrong.

Why would anyone thing because this expantion didn't increase level cap it means anything? And a lot of players (myself included) do NOT want leveling every expantion, otherwise instead of being at 80 we might well be at 100 right now. I believe somewhere it was stated that the general progression is every other expantion will increase level, which I would say is a fair rate. I absolutly hated EQ1s continual level increase every 6 months, it was rediculous, you couldn't keep up with spells or anything. Anyway though, RoK (our last expantion) did have an increase, so it means nothing when this one doesn't increase it, because its following the general progression trait.

Has the idea of combining lower tier spell rares to make spell rares for the next tier been suggested? (And shot down in a big fire ball?) We can do that with dusts, so would it be so heinous to do the same with spell rares? Maybe combine that with the ink idea?
If there was an ink recipe, I really think it should be craftable by all three scholar classes, not just alchemists. It should also be available for purchase at the tradeskill trainer along with the Essentials recipes and not be a loot item.

Zacarus@Nagafen wrote:

I'll tell you what, this time next year I'll admit your right *if* the next expansion doesn't include a level increase. Otherwise you have to admit that *I* am right if it follows the established level increase every other expansion formula they have used for the last 3 years. Until then, its just posturing and making gross assumptions neither of us can support.

Full_Metal_Mage wrote:

I'm thinking all that would do is in general raise the price of lower tier materials without really benifiting people. Good for harvesters I suppose, but bad for everybody else.
If it followed the same formula as upgrading dusts, the fuel cost would probably be more than the cost of the materials themselves. Also the loss from doing even one upgrade would probably be more than the current market price of the t8 materials.

Has it ever been clarified by Dev if harvesting in more dangerous areas or areas not usually harvested ( probably due to dangerousness) yeilding more rares?
I dont seem to have the same problem as most here... my harvesting is done in Veneril Crown and Skyfire and I seem to get alot of loams and other rares. Perhaps I am lucky, but I never seem to get ANY rares in the plains/jungle/fens.
Is risk/reward a factor or is it all just RNG?

Meirril wrote:

There is no admitting that someone else was right on the internets!!!

Blackie wrote:

Just RND.... It might be nice if there was more involved but it's purely RND. Not that RND is truely RND but that's a different issue. RND RND RND. It loves you, It hates you, We all love it, We all hate it. RND RND RND...

Blackie wrote:

It's RNG as modified by your harvesting skill and any harvesting bonuses you get.
From the Words of the Tradeskill Dev:
Domino posted on 08-07-2007 in the thread Harvesting change or RNG love ?
"For those who don't know what I'm referring to with the bonus result tables, harvesting works as follows. (If you really don't care about details you can skip this bit.)

For each node in each zone, when you harvest it, there are different result tables set up that tell the game what to give you when you harvest. Your skill level determines which table you use.

For example, using entirely invented numbers, let's imagine that there is a root node in a level 30-40 zone and you go and harvest it with a gathering skill of 190.

The game sees that the root node points to two result tables. Let's call them:

T4_roots_base_result - required skill 140
T4_roots_bonus_result - required skill 189

* The "base" table might tell you that you have a 70% chance of getting 1 root, a 20% chance of getting 3 roots, an 8% chance of getting 5 roots, a 1% chance of getting an imbue, a 0.7% chance of getting a rare root, and a 0.3% chance of getting a rare root + 10 common ones.

* The "bonus" table might tell you that you have a 60% chance of getting 1 root, a 25% chance of getting 3 roots, an 10% chance of getting 5 roots, a 0.5% chance of getting an imbue, a 0.8% chance of getting a rare root, and a 0.7% chance of getting a rare root + 10 common ones.

(Yes, the numbers probably don't add up to 100%, I just invented them on the spot.)

Now we know that if your skill is under 140, you can't harvest the node at all. And we know your skill is 190. So the RNG rolls a number between 140 and 190. If it gets 140-188, you use the "base" result table. If it gets 189+, you use the "bonus" result table. Clearly, as your gathering skill increases, your chance of using the "bonus" result table gets better. (This is where +harvesting skill items affect your results, they increase your chance of using the bonus table.)

As of GU37, you get to start using the "bonus" table at level _8 (so, 8, 18, 28, 38, etc.) You're still not guaranteed to use it, but you have a CHANCE to use it. Previous to GU37, the level at which you could start getting the bonus was much higher, so that you didn't even have a chance to get the bonus table until you had entirely outlevelled the tier. In T6 and T7 prior to GU37 we still couldn't even start using the bonus level at level 70 with 350 skill, so we've been harvesting off the "base" table all this time. Now we will begin to have a chance to use the "bonus" level, so yes, we'll get slightly better harvesting results in T6 and T7 than we were before, but it's actually about the same results as we would eventually have got as the level cap raised and we continued to level up.

Incidentally, all nodes within a level range (in this example, all nodes in level 30-40 zones) point to the same result tables, so it makes no difference whether you're harvesting in one zone or another."

If you never had a week or more of none found, consider yourself very lucky.