Feldon It looks like some unexpected changes to Research Assistants have hit the Test server. Spell and Combat Art upgrades are now possible without any involvement by a Sage, Jeweler, or Alchemist. And instead of hailing an NPC, Research is being folded into the interface.
From the Test Copy notes:
RESEARCH
- The Research window has been moved in to the Knowledge window.
- Journeyman through Master spell tiers can be researched.
- You are no longer required to speak with a Research Assistant to start/change/claim research.
Before:
- Hail a Research Assistant NPC to begin researching an upgrade for a player-crafted spell or combat art to turn it into a dropped spell or combat art. Hail the NPC again to pick up the Expert or Master.
- Hail Research Assistant NPC again in a number of days commeasurate with the spell’s level to pick up the upgrade.
- Journeyman (player crafted COMMON spell or combat art) can be upgraded to Adept (dropped TREASURED spell or combat art).
- Expert (player crafted RARE spell or combat art) can be upgraded to Master (dropped FABLED spell or combat art).
- Sage, Jeweler, and Alchemist tradeskillers are needed to make Journeyman and Expert spells.
After:
- Open Research window to begin researching any upgrade for any spell (Journeyman, Adept, Expert) to the next tier.
- Players can buy an Adept spell off the broker for 7-12 gold and upgrade it through Master with enough patience, cutting crafters out of the equation altogether.
- Sages, Jewelers, and Alchemists start looking for a more lucrative class to train up in.
Uh, that’s totally not cool.
So here’s how this will go down:
1) Sony implements these changes on live. Their justification is that for players who don’t want to incur the expense of the Expert level ability will be able to use the trade-off of time.
2) Sony implements the ability to immediately purchase the upgrade from the research window for Station Cash. Their justification is that players who don’t want to spend Station Cash for the upgrades can still have them made using in-game resources.
3) Sony cackles all the way to the bank. Jewelers, Alchemists, and Sages are used for the “special” item creation recipes until Sony decides to make those purchasable as well.
If this means rares are no longer needed for Expert spells, this is a big blow to the little income possible with the Scholar class and those selling excess rares. Definitely a it’s not broke, so let’s dumb it down to WoW standards. I can only hope the length of time to research while bypassing crafted spells is lengthy so players still have to use the scholars.
Well this I dont like. I have leveled all 3 classes to 90. I would hate it to be in vain.
But if each step of upgrade takes as long time as the step from Expert to Master now. I dont see to much of a problem with it.
I’ve got 90 Sage, Jeweler, Alchemist, and Weaponsmith. I’m not thrilled.
SOE is spending a lot of effort to kill crafting classes. At this rate they will be able to put all the old stuff on SC because there won’t be any crafters left to argue about it. 🙁 Horrible horrible idea.
Well I know if they kill all the fun I’ve had in crafting and if I have to buy or wait ages to research things I need for my alts, I will just pack up and go. I don’t usually say that to upcoming changes, but I tend to agree with Vaemas and I’m thinking it’s a bid to implement more Station Cash crap.
Lots of people were not happy about the RA at all when it first hit and said it would kill the masters market. The people who buy masters are not going to wait 2 years to have all of their masters. They will have them within a few months of a tier expansion. The same goes for this. Those that are using the RA to research adepts and experts are going to be the noobs out there struggling to solo an even con mob during these days where people are so overpowered that some are soloing even con dungeons and anyone worth their salt is able to solo ^^^ mobs.
I fail to see the impact on scholars tbh.
I assume the normal case is that you level rather quickly through the last tier (at least i cannot imagine spending weeks and months with alts in SF / SH playing them on and off). At the cap you need your important stuff all experted like right now – that’s what you will still need your scholars for. And then you set the RA to master the important stuff over time. The unimportant stuff will fall by the wayside either way or not (you have everything experted immediately just in case on principle).
For leveling, apprentice/journeyman is fine, for twinking, you will twink either way (and this is minor since the lower tier dusts aren’t worth much anyway), and if you have the plat to spend, you master everything important at the last tier out right away, buying from the broker.
next you will see expert and masters for SC on main servers.
Seriously….wtf?
This is fine. The time involved in training every single spell or combat art to Master via Researching alone would be enormous. Looted and crafted spell upgrades are then seen as nifty shortcuts around having to make do with something at a lackluster quality level for the weeks it takes you to research it up to something more powerful.
This will be an issue if they put Research Acceleration potions on EQ2 Marketplace. It’s already on EQ2X.
I don’t see a problem with this. This is more of a tool that Alts will be taking advantages of. Cause way it stands at level 90 its 20+ days to go from Expert to Fabled. I would hate to add another 4+ days just to get it to Adepts to Expert.
Even if it were lessened and totaled out to be only 20 days for both upgrades. that’s still almost a month for one master. So in the end how will this affect the market?
If it’s only 4 days from Adept to Expert, why would you waste time tracking down a jeweler, alchemist, or sage to get those upgrades?
Some of my main income in EQ2 is still people tracking me down and having me make the entire set of 81-90 spell upgrades for alts.
4 days per spell – so if you have 10 “core” spells, it’s still well over a month. Some classes may well have more. I’d rather not waste 40 days waiting till my fresh dinged alt becomes “usable”.
makes sense to me.. on my server Permafrost prices are insane and that is IF you see them on the market. So a new or returning player will not be able to afford 5-10pp for a t3-t5 Expert and then 30p+ for anything beyond that.
Geo,
The reason prices are insane is because there is a huge glut of cash available to spend and very little available to purchase with it. Rare spells, status items, and collection items are about all there is right now. After the Research Assistant hit, the relative prices on core masters did drop (it’s true), but this is hard for most people to see because the overall amount of coin available on the server increased.
With less incentive to purchase rares or crafted spells, you’ll see a few things occur:
1 – prices will initially drop on rares and spells as players continue to supply them but the demand initially slows.
2 – This will lead to less players providing spells and rares (which will have an effect of bumping prices temporarily on these items).
3 – 1 and 2 will continue to occur till the overall market stabilizes (at a much lower rate than it would have otherwise).
4 – Prices on collectibles will increase. More people will collect to compensate. The market will eventually stabilize (at a much higher rate than it would have otherwise).
5 – Prices spent for dropped fabled items on raids will increase. I’ve seen items in the past week go for well over 1,000pp on Guk…and we’re one of the lower population servers.