Feldon When Commission crafting was altered in March 2009 to prevent crafters from using their own Void Shards and other NO TRADE/HEIRLOOM materials for other players, it closed the book for several crafters on this highly profitable market.
However it was quickly discovered that a crafter could still use their own shards if the customer had at least the requisite number of shards in their own inventory to make the item. This was accomplished by swapping out ingredients in the Commission Materials window.
Today’s Hotfix marks the closure of this exploit:
Patch Notes January / 26 / 2010
GENERAL
You can no longer swap no trade and heirloom items given to you in a consignment trade.
GENERAL
You can no longer swap no trade and heirloom items given to you in a consignment trade.
Mentored Shards
Further, EQ2Wire is now hearing rumors that it will be impossible to run mentored “grey” void shard runs in Shadow Odyssey dungeons once the Sentinel’s Fate expansion launches. This likely will take the form of either being booted from the zone or a forced mentoring if a “trivialized” condition exists (mobs are grey).
It seems a concerted effort is now being put forth to restore the logical progression of gear in EverQuest II:
- Treasured/Mastercrafted — solo gear
- Legendary — group gear
- Fabled — raid gear
The Problem
1) Some players have no interest in getting into any sort of group, and play EQ2 entirely as a solo game, yet they are currently getting exceptional gear.
2) Some players are husband-and-wife or trio setups. Either they don’t want to do a full group and deal with the personalities, or they are undergeared and not able to get into a group.
3) And some players already have several main characters and are leveling an alt, possibly an alt that is not always desired (summoner, druid, brawler, etc.).
One of the biggest problems players of The Shadow Odyssey faced is that all 20 dungeons were targeted for level 80, and if more than one mid-70’s character joined the group, then zone rewards were scaled down (no chest, no shinies, level 67 gear).
The Solution
1) Treasured and Mastercrafted gear in Sentinel’s Fate will be much better gear comparatively than level 72 gear was for level 80 characters. Considering how powerful the T1 and T2 void shard armor are, for many solo players, it will likely last them well into the 80’s until they replace that gear with Mastercrafted and quested rewards.
2) The Hole offers a large sprawling open dungeon ranging from level 82-90. Most of it is tailored to 3-4 players. Instead of waiting for hours, trying to build the “perfect” group, I expect players will simply show up at the entrance and jump into whatever ragtag groups are running through. Also, a variety of quests and large number of named encounters exist within the zone.
3) We haven’t heard much word on Class Balance, but hopefully with the changes, and the fact that Sentinel’s Fate dungeons range from level 82-90 means that people will actually get to group up with mains AND alts throughout the level range. With the AA slider, it should be possible to earn AA just as easily this way as solo questing.
With the dungeons in Sentinel’s Fate not being locked to level 90 (The Hole is 82-90, and the first instance is accessible at level 83), players won’t be pressured quite so bad to “solo quest grind to 90” before being able to play the group game.
Raiding guilds will still not invite pick ups below level 90 for runs. I dont really get the fuzz because leveling usually takes a few weeks while being at lvl 90 lasts for long, long months, even with alts. Long term motivation was a much bigger problem for me than leveling, but we’ll see how it’ll be, I guess.
It’s a shame to change the shard runs now. The TSO shard zones will hardly ever be touched again at level 80 (the intended level). Those that do not scale up to 90 will barely be run at any level, and those that DO will mostly be avoided for a while as players are already sick of them and will be working on other content. It’s going to be impossible to get the AA out of those zones when the cap raises to 90.
Those level 80ish players in the future that try to take a level 80 group in will find that the mobs are too powerful for them since the zones were balanced around 80s that had been 80s for a year or more already and farmed at least decent instance gear, if not raid gear. I hope they make the zones easier at lower levels, to compensate for that fact. Otherwise these zones will probably go the way of the dodo 🙁