Where will people be able to get access to the 3 purple runes? We've had a few folks come back to the game after being gone for awhile, and there is no way they'll be able to catch up with getting enough coins to get the adorns. Unless something is planned for weapons in the new expansion in November, these folks will be behind everyone else. I know I'm spending my stacks of eth coins wisely, and going for all 3 purple runes before before even thinking about going for the 3 pieces of jewelry. Once my 3 purples are purchased, I'll focus on saving my next 90 coins for the ear and wrist items (unless I luck out and get them do show up like I did the neck twice).
Come November, you think people will be going back to KP contested and Zek overland to farm keys? There's an easy way to get purple runes now - you log in and do your daily eth quests and get rewarded for that work. Farming named in contested KP and farming keys all day on alts for a tiny chance of a rune will get boring super fast for people.
Who knows. The devs keep itemization info for new content very quiet. We got told after the AoM ethereals had finished that the next xpac would have them readily available. This turned out to be available, but so rare they might as well have not been in it at all. Hopefully the team has learnt from this mistake and the success of the current ethereal reward system, but history doesn't look good from that perspective. But you only have to change once. Certainly from a scout perspective, predators and rogues especially, you can't leave it as the "haves" and "have nots", it just makes too great a difference (like over doubling your parse with reset and ravaging rune). The other archtypes aren't effected so much, except maybe shamans and the reset rune. However, remember we're less than half way through the event. We're only 8 or 9 days into the second wave. I have already earned over 200 coins and I've missed over 10 dailies. If people coming back are committed, it's possible for them to get at least 2 runes still or a rune and 2 jewellery pieces, even if they don't get lucky with an instant reward.
Yeah...that's what I'm getting at. People who are coming back mid-summer or took the entire summer off will be behind the curve and unable to compete with those of us who kept chugging along through these slow summer months. The gap was obvious with those who lucked out (or bought) eth weapons from last summer, and it's again obvious now on those who are not grinding the daily/weekly eth coins to get their purple runes and jewelry with the extra pot, CB, and ab mod. I know if I took a break and was planning on coming back after the summer was over, I'd be very discouraged on not being able to stay competitive with those who played all summer and got the good stuff.
And they won't stick around for long if they are always going to be behind the curve compared to everyone else who played through the summer ethereal months. I know we're already struggling to fill up our raids 3x a week, and this won't help matters in the near future. Not knowing what is coming for the recycled Mara zones is also an issue.
you know I'm sorry to say it, but they don't deserve to be 'on par' with everyone else if they chose to take the summer off, knowing FULL WELL that summer Ethereals were coming as they were advertised well in advance. you don't get to leave, come back, and they demand that things be handed to you becuase you chose not to participate in an event. that's like buying a movie ticket, and then spending the entire running time int he lobby buying and eatting popcorn adn candy then expecting your money back becuase you didn't bother to actual see the movie you paid for. there are other methods to get the runes. but now, they aren't nearly so easy, and yes, you'll have to do content you might not like or is a grind to get it. them's the brakes. don't like it? tough. maybe you should have stuck around during the actual event.
I have a feeling we are all grinding Runes that will be obsolete in the fall once Epic/Mythical weapons 2.0 hits. To those belittling people for not working hard over the summer :::: What if you were a T1 scout in a ww progression guild and knew everything about the class but were actually taking a break from the game for RL reasons if you had no idea about Etherials but decided to come back ... you now have a 5000 hour grind fest barrier of entry to get the runes that could make you competitive as a scout. /uninstall or roll a summoner
Unless you want to kill end game content, in which dps potential is irrelevant unless you can change your damage type, which summoners cannot effectively. I dont see why the coins need to stop being rewarded, like ever. I can see them taking away the potential rune/jewelry drop after X time, but the coins should stick around.
except if you are in such a guild, there's no way on gods green earth you DIDN'T know these were coming in the summer. they started promoting the things in like March/april. the big summer event! super duper Scourge Zek GU and Ethereals are coming! ya folks get ready! Ethereals will be back! stick around for summer! not to mention, it's been the 'summer' event for the last how many years now? especially in a WW progression guild. feigning ignorance doesn't earn you a pass. it's simple as that. you chose to leave the game for the summer. there's no way people didn't know this was coming, unless they left YEARS ago and just came back, and even then, not the devs problem. you choose to leave for an extended break, then you miss out on the events that happen during that time, you have to play catch up. be that getting a whole new set of gear, learning a whole new way of playing becuase the dynamics have changed, managing your class better or dealing with it 'falling out of favor' this GU/Xpac. or in this case, doing not terribly old but older content or a key grind to try for runes since you weren't here to earn enough coins to get it the 'easy' way. Norrath is not a big commune of 'everyone is to be equal'. you aren't here to participate, you don't get the rewards. Asking to keep an easy mode of getting the runes becuase you chose to leave would be the same as me asking for the reset hammer even though I never want to raid this expansion. you weren't here, don't do the content, you don't get the rewards.
Most likely that will only apply to a handful of classes, while the rest spends a year asking for theirs to be fixed. Overly cynical? Maybe, or maybe not, just look at the class cloaks...
The other rune options really aren't that bad. You guys make them out to be totally awful (well, the potency siphon one is kinda bad) but the double cast rune that procs for the entire group is pretty solid. The fervor rune being exclusive to scout dps is the only thing even keeping us relatively close on the parse anymore. Give that to mages and scouts will be borderline useless
Actually the content to get the hammer will probably be relatively trivial with the new xpac so in 4 months or so somebody that didn't play at all this xpac could grab a few friends and farm up a hammer if they wanted to put in the time so it's a pretty bad comparison.
