Gyro Core ?

[Ginormus]

[Finori]

[Samanna]

Gryo core is the raid drop equivalent of the steam core, and gets one from DFT2 (level A) dropped to DFT3 (level B).

[Funi]

are the Shaman items made from Gyro Core. I just got the Gyro Core for the hands slot so I'll make them tonight and have some one upload it to lucy. Should see bracer and hands in the next few hours.

[Ginormus]

[WaringMcMarrin]

[Veril]

[Ginormus]

[Lathdrinor]

[WaringMcMarrin]

[Maccuul]

[Brohg]

[Kianor]

Moving forward, I think it would be a help. If you want to upgrade a slot, you will be upgrading the focus like for like too.

That will eliminate the really irritating side of gear upgrades: I need a better heal focus, but that's on my sleeves, and I can't upgrade the sleeves yet because I would lose my detrimental mana preservation focus. You end up with a convoluted upgrade path where you need to upgrade X before Y before Z so that you don't lose focus effects in the mean time. It will open up the number of upgrades you can get at any one time, giving you more flexibility, not less.

It's not about "cookie cutter" gear choices, hopefully there will be other options which give you the choice in the way to go. There has always been some items better than others, and always will, but at least this way, you can choose the one for you and get it when you need it, rather than waiting and hoping it drops later, or having to bank it, or tribute that focus, or whatever.

[Ginormus]

[Kianor]

[Veril]

[Kilgaroz]

I'm with Kianor on this one. Juggling foci is a pita and doesn't enhance the fun of the game for me.

[Lathdrinor]

[haxot]

[Lathdrinor]

[Kianor]

Lathdrinor, I see where you're coming from, but it's really not part of the game that I like.

Plus, I don't understand how harmonising the gear slot for a focus limits your choice of gear at all. There will still be more than one item for many slots, you'll still have to make a choice about what goes where, it'll just be a different choice.

I just don't see why this is such a big deal for you - you seem to be making the game's challenge all about gear choices, it's not. There's lots more fun and challenge in there than that.

I enjoy the challenge of raiding and getting together to work out how to do something, then making improvements each time you do something until you finish the event.

I enjoy being in a group and struggling with a difficult place or tough pulls but making it through.

I enjoy talking to friends.

The thing about gear and focus effects was something I had to sit down and work out in my spare time, which I never had that much of.

And also, you seem to think that this change limits your gear choice, I don't see it that way at all. For example, when I worked out my gear choices, there would be slots where there were 3 items that were shaman useable in content my guild was raiding, but I would have to rule 2 of them out because of focus effect considerations. This change means I have a choice of all 3 of them.

I found the whole focus juggling thing restrictive and frustrating. An item would drop that I wanted, that was a huge upgrade except it removed a useful focus, so I'd wait for it, then it wouldn't drop when I was ready for it... That's not depth, that's frustration.

I want fun and challenge and depth from a game, but I don't see it in focus juggling.

[Ginormus]

[Kianor]

[Maccuul]

[Kianor]

[Maccuul]

[WaringMcMarrin]

[Veril]

[Maccuul]

That isnt a better system imho than adding focus effects as augments and letting you put your focus on any piece of gear you want it.

Besides the fact they are standardizing focuses we dont use that often or at all to visible slots.

Level 80 focuses on TS gear is nto a reality for group level players at this time either.

[Ughbash]

[Maccuul]

[haxot]

[Unmei]

[haxot]

[Unmei]

[WaringMcMarrin]

[Veril]

[Lathdrinor]

That runs into the problem I mentioned earlier - in order to upgrade any slot, you're forced into exactly *one* item. If you can't get that item because, say, a particular named isn't camped (which wouldn't be a surprise, given how terribly certain nameds are tuned), then you don't upgrade that focus. Ever.

This is, in fact, the design goal. By standardizing armor and using the core system, SoE is essentially forcing you to get every visible piece of every tier in order to max your foci. There is no alternative. You have to use the t4 wrist if you want the best poison focus, etc. Does this make gearing up easier? Somehow, I doubt it, because whereas previously you could get another item (ie a non-visible one) with the same focus to complete your set, now you don't have that choice. Coincidentally, this also leaves some slots (ie primary, secondary, bp) without any focus because SoE ran out of foci to use and refuses to put redundant foci on armor. Worse, this standardization isn't just across visible pieces. It's across ALL armor - earrings, belts, what-have-you. Hell, even the clickies have been standardized - you no longer have the option of using a clicky in any slot except the ammo slot. All clickies are now stat-less. Compare that to DoD.

In effect, you're pigeon holed, and the benefit, according to you guys, is that you're pigeon holed - ie that you never have to choose between losing a focus and getting an item. But that's what the loss of choice is all about - you no longer have that option. Yes, now you can never lose a slot's focus effect by upgrading that slot, but that's not because itemization has gotten smarter - that's because you never *can* upgrade a slot except with the same item, just boosted in stats and focus %. There is, effectively, no more item distinction. Instead, you have 3-4 tiers of each slot, each X% better than the previous. That's the devs' idea of the New EQ Itemization: everybody is the same.

It's a dumbing down of the game, and I don't think there's any argument that you can put out against that. The only argument you could make is that dumbing down this particular aspect of the game is a good thing. I don't agree. I think it's just laziness on the part of the devs.

Yes, it makes player power curves slightly more predictable than before. Yes, it makes it slightly harder to screw up your gear set (because you no longer can!) But the cost is that you will never make a decision about what gear to use or to aim for again. Ever. There is no thinking left in the gear game. You know exactly what you're going to wear in perpetuity, and this applies to every slot.

And you know what's even more comical about this? The fact that every class has only one option for each slot for each tier means that SoE knows *exactly* how many nameds that they need per tier. So it's not just gear that's been standardized. Named distribution in a zone has been, too (and this is a recent trend, arguably started by TBS where each zone had exactly X nameds).

Choice is gone. Variety is gone. You might argue that it's never existed, except that it once did. The process by which we've reached the current state has been a gradual erosion of player choice in favor of standardization, conformity, and normalization. I shouldn't have to point out why those qualities are bad, but if I must, think of it this way: what's the difference between having a human developer and an algorithm handle the next expansion? With the current scheme, SoE can pretty much run an algorithm and produce every single item and every single named for the next expansion. They can then run another algorithm, which they probably already have, to produce every single mob. This is the epitome of automatic design: the loss of all human crafting and creativity. For the player, it's the beginning of the end for originality, the cessation of curiosity, the marginalization of the exploratory spirit, and the loss of all choice and therefore distinction. If SoE decided to go with this scheme of itemization for all future expansions, I think it's fair to say you will already know exactly what new gear to expect, and exactly how they'll be distributed. It is the Tyranny of the Predictable and if there's one thing I know about game design, it's that predictability very soon becomes boredom.

[Brohg]

I think the variety available that you perceived in previous expansions is phantasmal. You can choose, if you like, bottom-up or top-down looting, and end up with different sets, but one is just plain worse than the other.

It's a fun game, though, making up stories about the fields of loot wildflowers we'd prance through in the past. Tell me please what slot you "chose" to get detri mana pres on, during TSS. Magic focus? How about your Magic or Poison foci in Demiplane? Which slot did you choose to have those on? Describe to me your decision making process in figuring out where to have bene range in Anguish. Detri range? Since you get to pick, where would you like to wear your Anguish heal focus? How about in the vaunted PoTime: where did you choose to wear your 25% bene extension focus? Where did you choose to wear your dot damage, spell damage, detri ext, mana pres, spell haste, healing focus?

So, yeah, SOF has all the same foci again, in different slots, only this time they've said they plan on keeping those slots going forward. There's no fewer choices this time around, and NEXT time around, you won't have to loot one particular cloak before you loot the one particular pants or the one particular neck before the one particular shoulder. Next time, you'll be able to take natural upgrades as soon as they're available.

[Lathdrinor]

I think you're doing a disservice by pointing out specific instances of the past (and particular raiding zones, for that matter, which is completely absurd) when there was no choice to justify the specific design to provide no choice in the future. But since you asked, Ummei already presented a case where there was a choice. There are many more examples (and you will notice that there are less as time went on, as I said - TSS and TBS are not what I think of when I speak of the past):

* Burning Affliction - until BA VI, BA was always available on multiple pieces of gear. In fact, BA provides a nice case study of how the number of options you have decreases the higher you go. BA I-IV have half a dozen or more non-aug, "real" item choices. BA V has less. BA VI even less. BA VII doesn't exist on any dropped item.
* Magic focus: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemswitheffect.html?id=3524
* Disease focus: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live
* Beneficial Extension: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live
* Poison focus: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live
* DoT Extension: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemswitheffect.html?id=3843
* Detrimental Conservation: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live

The list goes on and on, and I'm just pulling the first things that I find (by no means are those particular foci the most commonly available). I'm sorry, but I'm not wearing rose-tinted classes. Rather, I think your particular experience has encouraged you to wear dirt-colored ones. Yes, there has always been a "best set" of gear, but let's be honest - the vast, vast majority of EQ never attains anything close to the best set. You make do with what you can get, and plan your upgrade path according to realistic options. Within the space of "realistic" sets, then, there have been multiple sets that maximized your foci coverage and which provided you with options as to what to pursue based both on your own circumstances and your own preferences (ie if you don't care to get disease focus on your wrist, then you have one less constraint that you could then use to get something else; that something else does not exist in SoF). And yes, that does include the mini-game of how to upgrade such that you have maximum focus coverage for as long as possible, though removing that particular aspect of the game is not, by any means, the real problem with SoF's itemization standardization.

The only possible counter-argument I can see you making is that many of those foci that I listed had multiple items only across different expansions. That's a fair point, but might I remind you that SoE's plan is to have all future foci go on the same slots, which means that even in the future we cannot expect the same sort of variety or versatility that was offered in the past. Instead, we are pigeon holed into getting linear upgrades in perpetuity. Everyone will have the same set, all the time, every time.

It's worse than WoW, where at least you had the option of picking and choosing pieces out of different sets (and across PvP / PvE) to maximize benefits (not to mention, WoW can justify its sets on the basis of providing unique graphics for each and special "set bonuses"; what's EQ's excuse?) There, you at least had to have some notion of what the stats meant and what each attribute offered. In EQ, on the other hand, the game that's supposed to be "deeper," all you need to know about an item is whether it is 1) the same slot as the item you want to upgrade and 2) whether it's got higher hps. You can then be confident that you're optimal because there is not going to be another choice.

Surely you cannot be defending this. This is ridiculous. Yes, I understand the frustration of having to juggle foci across expansions when they're on different slots. But this is not the solution. It is a free pass for the devs, who, to be fair, were never very good at itemizing variety in a non-irritating way. And this just takes away any incentive they might've had to improve.

Seriously. Do you really think they'll be incentivized to provide options after SoF? I have no problem with a little consistency in where focus is distributed every expansion - so long as there are alternatives. But there won't be alternatives, because SoF has proved that SoE's idea of standardization is to do the minimum. You have one slot (and for any particular tier, one item) for each focus. This is absurd, and anyone who defends it can only be doing so on the basis of it being better than a clustercrew that combines lack of choice and focus juggling. Yeah, it's better, when compared to the worst you can ever do in itemization.

Have our expectations for EQ become that low? It's like they're not even trying anymore. How hard can it possibly be to create a couple hundred more items for the sake of variety? You say that EQ has always been this way, but I sincerely disagree. You cannot look at the sort of items they're coming out with in SoF - like the effect-less primaries and randomized mods on every item - and tell me that it's as good or better than things were in Old EQ, Kunark, Velious, Luclin, PoP, or practically anything before TSS. I'm sorry, but regardless of how you feel about old EQ expansions not having enough items or not covering all the focus or whatever, they were infinitely more creative than this pile of crap that SoE calls SoF itemization.

I don't know about you, but I'm not going to support design by algorithm. I'm not satisfied with the minimum, and as much as I might praise SoF for other decisions, this is one aspect of the expansion where it frustrates me to no ends that EQ is currently headed by one of the worst itemization teams in the history of the game.