Feldon 
Shortly after the Skyshrine Gu-spansion (a game update that raised the level cap, added a new overland zone, 3 advanced solo zones, 4 heroic zones, and 2 raid zones), a reward was added to the advanced solo versions of the Skyshrine zones — Research Time Reducers. Previously these had only been available as a reward from completing Dungeon Maker zones.
Research Time Reducer items reduce the time it takes to research a player Spell or Combat Art to its next quality tier, such as from Adept to Expert or from Expert to Master. They ranged from a savings of 6 hours to a full 7 day shortcut.
In February 2012, the benefit of the Research Reducers was dropped from seven days to one. Just one month later, Research Reducers, along with nearly every other useful reward, were completely removed from Dungeon Maker. Players are now reporting here and here that with Tuesday’s update, these potions have been removed from the Skyshrine zones as well. The only way to acquire them seems to be an SOE referral program.
These are now the only 3 ways to get Grandmaster 90-95 spells:
- Wait 40 days.
- Pay $20 in StationCash.
- Spend 4-8 hours harvesting to get the spell rare (or prepare to pay out the nose*) and hire a crafter if you happen to be on a server with a player who has discovered the recipe**.
* Current estimates to Grandmaster a max level character are 8-10,000 plat if you do not harvest the materials yourself.
** Only 2 players have discovered the level 90-95 Grandmaster recipe books, and they are both based on Guk.
Are we pay to win yet? Seriously though, we knew it was coming, after all they jacked up the price to speed it up right after they announced the new tier. The new tier is completely about getting some extra cash. Or you can wait 2 years to research them all. and since you can only get them if you are gold… Well played SOE well played…
XD go play Perfect World, beat every zone, and then come back. This game will feel like they are handing everything to you on a golden platter after that.
I’m not saying it wasn’t a low down dirty trick to jack up prices and remove the in-game ways to get time reducers, but hey, there is still a way to get grandmasters at all in-game, they are still better than most of the competition.
>.> Not to mention if this was Wizard101, the customer service would tell you to keep farming for them in the same spot if you asked them about it, knowing they had been removed from the game. (Like they did to me in Wizard 101 when I was farming where a little lightning pet was supposed to drop. /headache)
The free Sc we get monthly got me 3 grandmasters immediately, the rest will come. Finally, something to us SC for.
SoE has become less and less transparent when not talking openly about this issue.
It’s like they don’t even care about their customers who actually pay a subscription to play this game. If they want to make some money, that’s fine, but at least be open and upfront about it and talk to us first!
Only thing I hate the most is when companies are being shady and changing stuff on it’s customers without saying anything.
Definitely disappointed right now.
I actually posted about this on the official forums October 11th when the servers came up. I had spent a good portion of the weeks leading up to the update running 7 of my toons thorugh Dracur Prime (as it deems 2 rewad boxes) every hour and a half. I managed to fill all my shared bank slots up with them, and saved back some Station Cash. Walked away with 12 GMs the first day, now I am wishing I had farmed it more.
Those pots actually used to be a common reward from all the CoE solo zones as well, but they have since been removed. I used to farm them from WBE Solo as again the boxes gave double loot for killing the last named challenge mode.
What burns me about this happening is not specifically that it happened, but that there was no note in the patch notes stating it happened. I found out after running a round of toons through and gettin gno pots. I wish they would be more upfront, I could easily have accepted a note saying “We understand people are farming these, but we are removing them as we want it to be more of a challenge to obtain a grandmaster.
I think 4-8 hours is very optimistic when harvesting. I spent 11 hours last weekend harvesting and not see 1 spellshard or foundation. I know some people have reported them a little or quicker than that but half a day with no joy is ridiculous.
Hey sony if you’re listening, since you nerfed the reducers, how about a upping the drop rate on those components a tad?
I’ve been harvesting for an hour or two a night over 5 nights since it went in. That’s 10-12 hours so far. Only top tier spellshards or foundations I’ve seen are on the broker.
Sorry, I’m getting the feeling it’s as a cover to say “See, this isn’t PTW!” My patience with this kind of thing is just about worn out.
I hope they use that extra cash to bring back Shader 3.0.
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Bahhahaa. I think I just wet myself.
Extra cash? Any extra cash will head straight for H1Z1 EQNot! and Landmark.
If anyone still has any of the goblin game tickets then the potions dropped from them too, I finally used my lot up 🙂
Are the GM spells that much of a game changer? I don’t raid at end game (yet) so I’m not sure what impact the GM spells have.
Yes, I can understand the frustration with the reducer potions being removed (I liked them as much as the next person), but at least we can still research them or craft them. Both ways have their pros and cons I realize.
GM spells are a 3-4% upgrade just as Masters were. Ancients will be another 3-4% increase.
It’s psychological. If folks see further tiers, they go for them, even if they don’t really need them. I call it the “magpie brain”–ooh, shiny!
So it doesn’t bother you to have an Arcane armor piece with only 3/4 gems? Or an Potent armor piece with only 2/3 gems?
Actually no it doesn’t. I also don’t mind not being fully mastered out. I play for fun, not to be max all powerful. Don’t take this the wrong way and think that I’m insulting those who want to be fully mastered out as I understand that mindset and don’t have a problem with it. But for myself and my friends we simply play, maxed or not we still have tons of fun.
Is that 3-4% before or after 1000% crit bonus?
Didnt really know where to post this but it seems as though the butcherblock server has crashed and possibly the loggin servers as well seems to be across the board
Just to tack on it appears the forums are down as well. Off to twitter/FB I guess.
I currently have all the recipes researched for lvl90 GM’s on butcherblock i refuse to pay station cash at the prices they are now asking
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLO
Up until a couple weeks ago, research reducers were available in the mystery boxes from Dungeon Maker. They weren’t very common, maybe 1 in 15 crates, but the crates only cost 5 tokens. I have not checked recently to see if they still coming from the crates, but they definately were a couple weeks ago. Of course, they were 1, 6, 12 and 24 hour reducers, so most were fairly worthless and hardly worth the time to open all those crates.
Spend 4-8 hours harvesting to get the spell rare (or prepare to pay out the nose*) and hire a crafter if you happen to be on a server with a player who has discovered the recipe**.
Plus if I’m not mistaken you already need to have the master scribed and then have another master drop ( or be bought) for the actual recipe to be completed.
Please thrill me and tell me that I am incorrect.
Slightly incorrect, you do not need the master scribed to use the grandmaster. (easy mistake and one I made). However if you have previously scribed a Master you need to go and hunt out another copy for the recipe.
Well that’s a little better. Thanks for the clarification.
You need the master scribed to research a GM…. otherwise to get the GM then craft it with the rare/master
I think those of us who already had all out master should have been given a token or something so we could craft our GM since we already had our masters scribed.
Reminder: Crafters researching the new GM recipes do not get discovery credits for them. Within a week, if not already, all the GM recipes will be available from lv1-95. And likewise, I expect the lv96-100 set recipes will be available within two weeks of the new expansion launch.
This does not, by any means, make it easy to get GM spells. Foundations/spellshards are still ridiculously rare at top tiers. And, predictably, there are greedy SoB’s driving prices on masters absurdly high.
Luckily, as stated, GM’s are not a game-changing upgrade. Most characters would reasonably consider upgrading a few particular abilities to GM level. Only those with more plat and/or cash than sense would consider upgrading every ability.
I’ve asked if crafters can get a disco for Tradeskill Apprentice recipe books.
Sometimes, I really disagree with the way SOE tries to maximize their profits
I had taken a break because of work issues, had low plat –> it took 14 days of harvesting 1 or 2 hours/day to get enough spellshards to fully GM level 91-95.
Was it boring? Yes….but I think 1 to 2 weeks for 12+ GMs and many foundations, shinys and rares to sell is NOT that long!!! (My plat total is reasonable again!). I guess some people want handouts…