Crafting is well and truely ****** in BoL

I saw that. Also, not a peep about the stats on crafted gear.

The recipie books remind me of the AOM fiasco. Not gonna be surprised if three months from now they start dropping (i.e. after the p2w/raiding crowd buys their upgrades).

Also, the way you describe harvesting is really going to suck if there is competition for nodes.

Perhaps TS is this year's healing mechanic after all. Watch, there'll be a big drop-off in ts activity, and they'll come back next year and claim they've reduced ts down to deco because nobody was interested in the rest of it.

Aside from the cash shop incentive, not really any big secret that Kander, Caitb, and Gninja would be delighted to see ts go away.

/shrug.

 

Welcome to Farmville, EQ2 style!

(Not that I ever played Farmville, just going by its name *smirks*)

Arent you glad you are paying to have this much fun? Work was never so much fun before!

 

Allegedly the shadow nodes depop, 'in case they were in inacessible areas'. Given that they pop EXACTLY on other node locations.. to the point that they can directly overlay existing nodes.. it's just Caithing the system further.

Oh, we knew ALL about that in beta. I truely don't understand why itemization (and NOT just tradeskilled gear) has been SO royally screwed this expac, but it's clear that 'the powers that be' have decided to let Caith do wtf he wants with it.

All the people that say 'but you can get 165 resolve stuff doing solo stuff to get into heroics' are missing a GIANT issue... heroics GIVE 165 stuff.. if you need 165 stuff to get into content that gives 165 resolve gear, how are you supposed to get into content about that? Since you won't be getting upgrades from doing the heroics?

Either there is zero analysis and oversight, or 'the powers that be' are content to leave things screwed up.

 

Oh, one other nifty 'feature' of crafting this expac. The only non-sig line 'tradeskill quests' are for the researchers. And neither the advanced books nor the shadowed books are on that loot table. (They seem to be giving gathered materials, not even harvested, just gathered, about 95-99% of the time too.)
It is, literally, impossible for crafters to get recipe books via tradeskill activities.
So not only is there little to nothing worth crafting. If non-adventuring crafters what the recipes, they have to get them from adventurers.

 

Ooooh... even better.
The shadow harvesting buff now drops as soon as you harvest a node (which is actually how the buff on the staff claims to work).
So you can harvest -1- node.. for 1 shadowed common (in theory it COULD be a shadowed rare, but the chances of that are less that 1%) every 2 hrs.

They're beyond double-down on broken at this point

 

whoever is in charge of this mess should be set on fire.

 

Remember the days of harvesting in T5/T6 zones to get all your rares so you could upgrade your spells, armor, and weapons, etc? That was back when rares were rare and you were lucky to get a few every hour. Prior to this expansion, you'd just start harvesting and end up with 30 rares in your bag in an hour or so.

Lavastorm always had heroic groups of mobs camping on the rocks you needed for your rocks and gems. Oh the good old days.

 

So, to sum up this expansion:

(1) Crafting community thrown under the bus.
(2) Farm achievements to get 165 resolve gear so people can run heroics...to get 165 resolve gear from heroics.
(3) Cash shop for spell upgrades.

I'm sad for the crafting folks. I venture this community has been more loyal to the game over the years than the raiders have been. They don't ask for much. They like decorating, making things for folks, and partaking in events/festivals. They're pretty low maintenance.

I feel what DBG has done to them this year reveals more than ever what the franchise has become. There is no passion, respect or appreciation for the players, only a laser-like focus on extracting every single penny they can from them.

The crafting folks are getting screwed, and they deserve better.

 

I've long thought that each expac with its decline in standards etc is deliberate. I really do (truly, madly, deeply) believe that the company is deliberately running the game into the ground to eventually either flick off at a loss (tax write-off?) or sunset. And I think that time is coming sooner rather than later.

 

If the company is market harvesting their property, well, that's their right. Can't really get mad at them for that.

What has pissed me off is the deliberate and shady marketing practices that prioritize the harvesting of money over the welfare of their customers (i.e. people).

Longdale knows exactly what she's doing. She intentionally hiding decision-making information and misleading people so that she can make a few extra bucks on the way down to whatever end-game has been mapped out. She has zero respect for her customers.

She can use her PL's to be honest with folks, to give them an expectation of what they can expect, and do so in a positive way.

But she doesn't. She flat-out lies, hides, and manipulates so she can snag more money from people before they get angry and leave.

What they've done to the crafting community this year is tantamount to rewarding their loyalty and good will with a giant "F*** Y**".

No business should treat their customers this way.

Edit and P.S.:

It can be argued that both the healing mechanics from last year and MC gear issues from this year were visible in beta, so players should not have been surprised. We should all have learned by now that silence in response to beta tester questions = "Too bad, working as intended."

Still, I keep going back to that ridiculous fake interview Longdale did in October. Spitting out what she knows people want to hear and knowing that it was all complete bullshit.

 

I am having more fun in a adult niche game online now than I have in EQ2 for a long time. Yes, it has the potential of being pvp with your toon KILLED permanently but you can work to having an heir to inherit your house and bank vault. There is some crafting but its rather functional but there is needs for the items that are made (they deteriorate over time with use) and some materials are MUCH easier gotten in the newbie zone in which ONLY newbies can harvest. But its a niche game, and you have to be 21 to play and its pay to play. Not much and most of the drama/event are player made and run, however I started at the first of the year and the aggressive NPC bandits were doubled in numbers, hard for a newbie to start, but lots of better loot dropped from them. Made friends and also got tricked, but I survived unharmed. There is little that really considered griefing, so almost anything is permitted, but you can also get revenge! Maybe not now, but eventually if you survive long enough...

 

I hope next years expansion is going to be called LOCKS, that way we can consider the past 2 years to just be full development of absolute bollocks.

 

Thing is, to beta test, you have to buy the expansion. As soon as you drop $35, you log in, only to see the cluster fux that was going to be the next year of this game. I know I beta tested my swashy and 8 crafters for a few previous expansions. 2019's expansion was only swashy and his crafting, because I just had a feeling that this was going to be my last expansion.

 

Just looking at the update notes for Jan 9th, and all I can say is:
Looks like Beta 2.0 has started with tradeskilling now.

I see they are changing the rare requirements for the expert spells.
However, they are stubbornly keeping the shadow rare harvesting evil mechanic 1 harvest then drop to 30 seconds for the buff.
More moaning required on that one.

 

I'm more than sure they'll change that again too. I still don't think they know the difference between shadow rares and commons.
If the below is actually correct, which I'm sure it isn't, I'll have enough shadow harvests to create experts for every one of my toons. Getting the books of course is another story.

They just don't give a sh#t, which seems to be stock standard for Caith.

• Updated level 111+ expert recipes to use any shadowed harvest instead of specific shadow harvests.

 

Yeah, provided you have the recipes.

For some odd reason, I'm having no problem envisioning Caith thinking, "Ok, well, have all the mats you want, but we're not adjusting the loot tables...(for another couple/three months)"

 

I'm pretty sure that wasn't their intention but hey, at least I'll never have to shadow harvest again. I have shadow mats coming out my ears.
My sage has exactly zero books to make experts, gotta keep doing the Overseer quests for them .....
Adepts all the way for my girls.