Feldon Ah… I remember the days… When low-level Adept spells and Treasured gear could be had for a mere 4-5 gold from the nearest broker. Those were the Salad Days (mmmm…Grilled Chicken Caesar). Then the Transmuters came.
Like the Others on the far side of the island, a new wave of Adorners and Transmuters, desparate for raw materials, have unwittingly jacked things up for the rest of us. When everyone can be an Adorner, and only Adorners can make the cool toys, the market has, not surprisingly, shifted. And inflation, it turns out, is not just for bicycle tires and love toys.
With the cost of these materials now running 15-20g each, I’ve personally thrown in the towel on trying to level more than one Adorner/Transmuter. And this has surely had a ripple effect on those players in the level 20-40 range simply wishing to upgrade gear.
Adorning Work Orders?
It seems the situation has not gone unnoticed by the EQ2 Team. Here’s Domino‘s post from the EQ2 Forums:
Something that we’re considering adding when time permits is a daily adorning quest that would allow you to do X number of adorning combines with materials provided once per day. Obviously, there would have to be quite a few checks to ensure it’s not exploitable, but it’s something that we think could be added as an option to help get adorning past some of the more annoying-to-get-components-in level ranges.
I’m thinking around 10 combines per day (white con or harder as much as possible) might be reasonable. It certainly shouldn’t be an “easy button” or a fast track, but just a helpful assistance.
Again, this is still speculative, not a promise it will happen, but wanted to mention it’s something we’re discussing as a possibility.
Level Lock and Nuke
Of course you can always level transmuting/adorning by rolling a newbie character on either of the islands — Queen’s Colony or Outpost of the Overlord — disable XP at level 3, and just kill mobs over and over. At least until those islands are unnecessarily ripped from the game. Transmuting/Adorning Leveling for Dummies
I’ve been advised that this is potentially just a market correction, and once players either level up, or get bored of transmuting, they’ll move on and prices will settle back down. Now is not the time to buy transmuting materials, but it may not always be so.
One of the other problems i see with this is not just people buy items to level up adorning and transmuting, but a lack of lower lvl people coming up selling items on the broker. Before a got into adoring and transmuting i would just sell low level stuff to NPC for cash was not as much as broker but was faster and didnt fill up my broker bags.
If this does go in you will have all the current high lvl adorners crying that they spend some much time and money lvling that they will never make the cost back if the price drops from everyone being able to do it.
It’s worth following the thread Domino created, as she has indicated it would take 1-2 months to level Adorning this way.
Should have been like this from the beginning, I agree it kind of cheats the people who’ve already worked on this. I leveled my adorner the hard way, mentoring and farming (before Chronomancers, too). When everybody became able to transmute/adorn/tinker I leveled another transmuter. It was actually a very easy task compared to leveling it the old way. At this point, after people have done it the hard way through EoF, RoK, TSO, and some of SF, it’s unfair to make it easier =/ This will also make it tougher for new players to earn money to kickstart their adventuring careers.
But in the other hand, low lvl players can earn much more money for selling low lvl items. We all knew it is hard to get money during low lvls.
People lack of low lvl treasured items could easily self mentor and go to a dungeon, my guildmate spent a couple days in Stormhold farming those things and got his 80 SK dinged 83, with only killing nmeds.
There is no problem at all. Low level people get smart loot adepts and can get very cheap mastercrafted gear… from the money they can make by selling crappy treasured books and gear!
The way it is, the market is working great, with lots of transactions. Sometimes people cry about the broker being useless, but hey, if it gets put to use, somebody else starts crying. Grats.And leveling several adorners… good god, why.
The adorning revamp was a great change. You had the chance to invest and make money. If you took it, kudos. If you didn’t, you have no reason to complain.
Agreed on the adorning, why would you have more than one adorner?
All my toons transmute now though, its so easy to chronomentor and get the treasured junk – lvling up transmuting skill seems to go much faster than before.
I’m with Lessing on the fact that a low level toon can sell off the treasured+ items they find for much larger amounts, and probably afford even better equipment – IF they know a crafter. Those few that don’t buy the rares (or harvest them) to make mastercrafted gear might be hurting because a smaller variety of gear will be available.
As far as a daily quest, I’m good with the idea of it. I think there ought to be a way, even though I’m an “old schooler” who did it the hard way by instancing for weeks on end (literally) to gather enough parts to get to 400, and save for 450 before it became available. But it should have been in the system all along, so I’m not going to lament the fact that new people in the trade will have it easier.
I think it depends on the zone.
I mentored down to 15 and nuked Wailing Caves for a while and didn’t seem to get enough items for it to have been worth my time.
But then I have been advised to make a new toon like a Warlock or a pet class, level lock at level -3-, and nuke the newbie island over and over.