New Metals

[Moxy]

Personally im not a big fan of leather armor.  It just doesnt fit the my character. Yes I am an archer, but Im a knight, I wear platemail and chainmail! However leather has pretty much set the standard for quality. I don't understand how leather can give better resistences then platemail, but hey thats how it seems to go. I would love to see one of a few things: 

1: New Metals, there are pre existing scripts for Mithral, Platinum, Ice, Fire, etc... That would be stronger then the current, boring, standard metals.

2: Make valorite runic hammers "easier" to obtain, Having to page a gm for something like that shouldnt be the only option. Perhaps either fix the bod reward table for it (i hear its broken and they dont drop from these) or perhaps make the Valorite Elementals have a small chance of dropping them as loot. Right now the current price for a 50charge Val Runic Hammer is 65VS..in gold thats around 6.5million, or 130k per use. Of any shard I've ever been on 5 charge valorite runic hammers usually run around 50k, or 10k per use. Us new people that want to wear platemail just cant afford 130k per use on the off chance that you might get something worth wearing with that 1 use.

3: Adjust valorite runic hammer tables so that they work better, providing us with better bang for our buck.

4: Or make them cheaper to acquire from the GMs.

[Quezecoatl]

You could always use vs or donations to change the form of leather armor into that of a plaitmail or chainmail type armor thats been around for awhile.

[Myrick]

Moxy, I am in agreement with you that new metals and slightly easier access to Val runic hammers are both things I would like to see. I think when the transmute boxes were set up no one really looked at what is required to get a valorite runic hammer vs what it takes to get a barbed runic kit. Lets just say you could easily get at least 96 Barbed runic kits through BODs in the time you'd ever get one Valorite hammer in my opinion.

That being said, These scripts are likely written for RUNUO 2.0, we are a RUNUO 1.0 shard so not all scripts are compatible. Even if they will work here we have issues everytime we add anything. Custom + Custom usually = Crash. That is the new metals would likely crash the shard if they were dumped in a reward barrel or were the target of a resource box add cursor and so on.

Another issue is we just don't have a scripter. We've been fighting this dragon for the 2 yrs I've been here. We get one and they work out for a while, then they either start doing crazy stuff or just disappear. It has been extremely frustrating for Acacia and I promise you the addition of a reliable scripter is something that would make her happy to no end.

If we do get a scripter, I am going to lobby hard to decrease the number of charges required for turn-in of a runic hammer from 200 to 100.

[Enigma]

Im in agreement with Myrick on this one, barbed runic kits are FAR easier to get than valorite runic hammers. That being said until we have a scriptor its best to just sit tight and use VS as Que suggested or use some artifact type platemails (such as the heart of the lion).

[Moxy]

I know what you mean Que, but I shouldnt have to rely on leather armor, or the GMs to change that leather armor into platemail is my point.  It seems like such a waste to have all this craftable platemail armor available in game....but its not worth the cost due to the quality you get.  Other then doing Blacksmith BoDs for deco and making weapons, blacksmithing is practically worthless on this shard.  I'm used to High Quality Platemail pieces being few and far between, but I dont think that there is any semblance of balance between platemail and leather on this shard.  Each should have their strengths and weaknesses, causing the player to make a choice.  As it stands now, leathers only weakness when compared to platemail is its just uglier =P  Where as platemail is extremily expensive to get, mining is far more tedious then leather farming, and its not even better quality when it comes to its magical properties, and resists because the amount of runic hammers required to produce the higher quality stuff.  Unless you're just plain lucky, and if you are using your Runic Hammers to make armor for some reason, and you come across that lucky piece, give me a shout in game, I will probably be interested in buying it.

[Enigma]

Well now you're taking the argument to balance. I'll just say very quickly now, this shard is NOT 100% balanced, and I don't believe there is a single shard out there that is, including OSI. Certain things dominate over others simply because they are higher in quality/easier to obtain etc. etc. for these reasons, people tend to go for the "better" route. And you don't have to rely on leather armor, nor do the GMs have to change it into leather armor for you. We still have Runic Hammers and we still have platemail out there that can be crafted. Its just that its harder to obtain - if you really want that platemail, on THIS shard you're going to have to work for it.

There are a few who choose to veer off the powergaming path for the sake of role-play or more challenge. Basically you're going to have to suck it up and work hard toward the VS/hammers to make those plates. Valorite runic hammers are not impossible to get, theres a player on this shard who obtained 3, 50 use Valorite Runic Hammers in about 9 days, so good luck and get working!

[Moxy]

I know that every shard has a little unbalanced armor system, thats just the way it is with this game. Leather armor is cheaper to make, and easier to get. My point i am trying to make here is that this shard has made it even more unbalanced by making valorite runic hammers harder to get then normal.  And with all due respect, its honestly its a bit disappointing to put something on the wish list and have a staff member tell you too bad, suck it up.  I love this shard the way it is, and I have nothing but respect for everyone here.  Im only trying to better it by presenting ideas, and possible solutions.  The simple crafter character has all but been eliminated here.  I cant chop wood without my Lumberjack getting killed by Forest Guardians, and I cant create magic armor without farming for atones.  Now i've never been one just to concentrate primarly on crafting, but there are people out there who just want to craft and not have to be bothered with having to kill stuff.  

The bottom line is, there is an entire element of this game that is being neglected by this shard.  By suggesting improvements to this neglected element, my intentions are only to get the staff member's proverbial wheels turning.  Everyone on this highly custom shard should realize that new elements, breed new life into a 12 year old game.  And I know we don't have a scriptor, which is why I suggested a few possible fixes that require little to no scripting.  I know we have staff members competent enough to change loot tables.  What if ore elementals had a 5% chance of droping 5 use runic hammers? Or instead of changing the scripts on the transmutation boxes, just make an announcement, saying we've lowered the requirements, please page a gm instead of using the box.

[Enigma]

I meant no disrespect when I said to "suck it up." It's just that it sounded like you wanted the things you like to be made easier on yourself.

I dont think its really the case of Valorite Hammers being harder to get here - in comparison to OSI, our barbed kits are far too easy to get because of the transmutation boxes. And as for the forest guardians... thats hardly a debating point at all - they're forest guardians... they guard the forest... meaning they will try to kill any player who comes to chop down trees for their own use. And you can create magic armor without atones - you just cannot make THE BEST armor without THE BEST runic tools, and because they are THE BEST they are quite difficult to get. In saying that there are hundreds and thousands if not 10s of thousands of Valorite Hammer made equipment - its just that all the crafters who make these turn them into axes 95% of the time.

not have to be bothered with having to kill stuff.

The things crafters have to kill are there for a reason - its to stop people from just power mining or power resource gathering with no challenges at all. And to an extent these mobs that you must fight are there so that people cannot afk resource gather.

And I agree with you that there are elements on this shard that have been neglected... I do not believe valorite runic hammers is one of them, I just believe that they are harder to get than barbed runic kits - this does not make this element "neglected." There are already at least 4 monsters that have chances to drop runic kits (there may be more unknown to me).

However in saying that I am in agreement for giving a certain monster a higher chance of dropping a low-use runic hammer.

[Moxy]

This is just a wish list, and this is something I would like to see changed.  It is not intended as a complaint. Whether it ever gets changed or not will not affect my opinion of this shard whatsoever. I love the way this shard is setup, and I don't think anything NEEDs to be changed, but it would be interesting if they were.

[Caelan]

Maybe I am senile...

*glares and waits for someone to say something*

Or, I could be thinking of one of the hundreds of other shards I once played before finding this one...

Regardless, I think at one time we had ore elementals that dropped runic hammers and folks camped them because the drop rate was pretty high. The drop rate was reduced and folks complained...the same folks that were camping them of course...

Anyway, and I'm just rambling of course because I am going through withdrawal here, the effect of having runic hammers that were more easily obtainable affected the whole shard economy.
(Again...not sure if it was this shard or another, cuz I am senile, and still glaring)

Players that were able to get the hammers, hoarded them and camped the valorite mining spots. This made it so that only they had the resources to make uber items with them with valorite ore. As a result, they would sell those uber items for outrageous prices to line their banks with.

Players that made items from leather couldn't give their wares away, regardless of being made with barbed kits. Because regardless of how easy the barbed kits are to obtain, they do not produce the same kind of results as runic hammers when making items. Or at least they don't seem to to me.

Now talk amongst yourselves and try to figure out whatever it was I was talking about...

Oh, and Moxy...suck it up!

*you are so dead when I get back in the game!*


This post contains the ramblings of Caelan the Demented Jester. He is currently undergoing Sylvan Heart withdrawal due to a reformat of his personal computer. All ramblings should be taken with a grain of salt, and the blame given to Link, as always! This disclaimer brought to you by the "Just Blame Link Committee" & "The Glaring Brotherhood of Jesters"

[Enigma]

Caelan brings up a good point on that... Technically Val hammers have a 5x 85-100% intensity range bonus where as barbed kits are 4-5x 50-100%. So theoretically less uses required to make things of the same quality.

[Lamalas Telemnar]

As far as my 2 cents. The last shard i played on before here we had the special metals and the best you could get was platinum. Yes you could make some really superior weapons and armor but then you go back to well we have super uber players now and super wimpy mobs for em to fight. So monsters are beefed up and its a never endind cycle. And since we dont have a scripter this requires the gm's to use a base monster on the spawners and tweak it up. And to get a spawn to work right do you have any idea how many hours some gm's have put into just making spawners for 1 event? A smith useless here? Not even close a good smith/miner can make more in 1 week as a good fighter its all about how you want to play your toon. As far as i am concerned we have a pretty balanced shard for crafters. Whats fair about a new toon starting out seeing players in super uber armor with wacked out resists ungodly stats, weapons that would make a para seeker cringe? We may not be a perfect shard but we continue to chug along.

[Cpt_Starfox]

I'd have to agree and disagree with various points said and made.... lemme start *grins*

The balance of tailor vs smith

Tailors make uber gear that is med-able by default! However, the comparison of uber gear made to non-uber gear made is about probly 50/50 or maybe 40/60... which is fine considering.

Now smiths, they can craft with decent stats I guess and hope for the small chance mage armor, so basically, if you want the "best" and easiest to acquire gear (in my mage/mana lovin' opinion) then go with a tailor.

Tailors can poke you with scissors...

Smiths OWN the weapon manufacturing side of things... Almost every weapon made I'd say is uber at least to some extent probly about 30/70 (non uber/uber) or so it seems to me. basically, if you want to kill things, hire a smith to make you some uber weapons... throwing scissors takes way too much skill and effort... and paragons usually only find it funny when you try...

Tailors can "easily" make gear that is worth socketing....
Smith can "easily" make weapons worth socketing...
ONLY smiths (and GMs I suppose) can add sockets... smiths OWN the ability to socket. Without smiths, you likely aint gonna go fight in Shame dungeon in Fel anytime soon *chuckles*

Because of all this, it almost seems the smiths are treated better lol (No, I don't wanna start a tailor rebellion lol). But really, I think they're both very well taken care of

So bottom line, I think the economy balance there is just fine and crafters are FAR FAR FAR from neglected. I personally think this shard is a crafter optimized shard hehe  The crafters you can make on this shard are so awesome... it simply amazes me. Warriors are awesome too, yes, but without crafters... hehe warriors aint so tough running around in cloth and poking at things with twigs and throwing rocks

Anyways, all that being said, I still do think that the addition of newer metals might be cool if it can be done without crashing us. And, I don't suppose it'd hurt to make val hammers more accessible somehow via monster drops or price drops heh. I can't speak as an authority on the availability of val hammers though...

LOL @ Caelan's signature... hey now! I tried to help you not have to wipe it! lol

(edit: ok yes, I forgot fletchers... lol... they make weapons too of course lol)
(edit: ok ok... Tinkers can make a  few very basic weapons too... lol.. hmm and a few neat things that can be used as weapons hehe)

[Moxy]

I agree with you 100% Link, very excellent points made.

[Jager]

Warning, Wall-O-Text incoming

Leather gives better resistances than Metal? doesn't make sense

They are about par actually. The way that all the crafting materials work is that they each specialize in different areas. I myself use leather 99% of the time, just because of the Runic issue (will get to that later) Spined gives luck, horned gives physical and fire bonuses (50% of the time), Barbed give a pretty good spread all across the board (though poison resists are always a tad weak), Troll gives cold and energy (50%) of the time. Now even though Troll leather IS the better material to make armor out of because it has a total of 43 resistances to spread around the board instead of the 41 that Barbed gives, I still prefer the barbed because of the more even resistance distribution.
On the other hand. There are more metals with which to make armor out of. All this means is that there are more differing bonuses to give to the armor. For instance i know that Shadow iron gives energy and Durability bonus. Valorite is another 'catch all' like Barbed, but It always gives a fire resist detriment, which is kinda important...



Runics: Yes barbed leather runic kits for tailors are indeed much easier to get than the smithing equivalent through BOD turn-ins. This does not mean that they are impossible to get. This imbalance is due to two different reasons.
1)Due to the numbers of smith bods versus tailoring bods, if memory serves the ratio is about 1:3 (tailoring:smith).  This results in really rally crappy return when going to the transmute boxes. It takes about 20x more gold to get a good smith bod than a good tailoring bod. I am not even going to speculate on the ratio between barbed kit bods and val hammer bods, cause truthfully: in all my years of crafting and transmuting bods I have ONLY SEEN 1 smith bod that even required valorite. (This was a small helmet bod as well. Not even part of the seven bods that are the only ones which can give you a val runic hammer.)

2)
When Oak initially scripted everything, he made the Barbed runic kits WAY too easy to get. Now don't get me wrong, this imbalance has always existed even on OSI, it is just all the more evident here because of the tailor/smith bod # imbalance. (see above)

These facts are why good runic leather is SO much easier to come by on Sylvan. I have to admit though that this is probably a large part due t my fault. When I first started out as a crafter here I began with tailoring. Once I found out how crazy imbalanced the two were against each other (*waves fondly to that couple mil that disappeared down the transmute box*), I stuck with tailoring. Over the years I have made more than just a few runic items as well. So that there is kind of a glut on the market.
Aside from that freak instance where that guy got 3 val hammers from hunting; (i think this is a bad example cause the story i heard was the result of a bad spawner or something) all the other Valorite runic hammers that have been used have been used to make weapons. Just cause it is such a PITA to farm THAT many VS for making armor. (my personal opinion there)



Blacksmithing is far from worthless.
In fact; the very necessity that requires its use for socketing makes it the most vital crafting skill here. Nothing would be the way it was were it not for Smiths and their ability to socket. And yes you can begin to socket at 120.0 blacksmithing, but your chance for success is like 10% and the other 90% of the time you WILL waste your val, and you are almost guaranteed to destroy the item. And that is once for each socket, so 6x the chance to destroy the item.



The simple crafter character has all but been eliminated here.

Not true actually. This shard just requires you to think a little differently about how it is done. I myself don't harvest any of my resources. I have friends and alts for that. That doesn't mean that Jager couldn't however. All it takes is 115.0 magery, and every (ore/wood/sea) Guardian can be taken out by 2 fire elementals. I just chose not to because of RP purposes.
There are definitely people who want to just craft and not have any other characters. That is why I play Jager so often. It took me a LONG time to get off the ground as a crafter though. For nearly a year I was building up my resources and bods. Finally after a long time I was able to emerge on the market and begin selling my goods. I have done pretty well for myself I admit, it is just that there are only a few other crafters who have put in the time and effort. Thus it seems like crafting is underutilized.

Crafters who can make the best gear will always hoard it and will always try to sell for a lot.
With how easy gold is to get here though for the advanced players, and hard as crap for the new players; it is pretty dang hard for new players to get outfitted. This is even considering that every new player "wants" to be the cookie-cutter bushido tank. Primarily because the crafters who are out there only make the high-end gear, because it is harder to get a spined runic kit than a barbed, and partially because no one except the Extremely New would look at those Spined-runic-kit-made wares. Gold is just too easy to get. Still though, pure crafting is NOT a moneymaking experience. I would not have been able to keep it up like I have if it was my sole income. One day about a year ago I sat down an recorded how much money I had to put in the transmute box to get all 6 small bods and the 1 large that resulted in a barbed runic kit. I stopped counting after I hit 5 million gold. Even divided by 15 (which is the number of charges resulting) that came out to ~333K gold. Now factor in the ratio of uber armor (which I sold for 50-120K gold) to junk armor (which I pretty much had to throw away cause no one would buy it). Oh btw that ratio, if one is VERY generous is about 1 in 5. So no, not a money making profession.

The myth that the val hammers make better items is complete bunk. In the code itself they are identical, and I can show anyone who asks chests and chests and chests of val hammer made things that are utter crap, worse even than a gold or a dull copper runic.


Tailors make uber gear that is med-able by default! However, the comparison of uber gear made to non-uber gear made is about probly 50/50 or maybe 40/60... which is fine considering
-->Not really. I have cut up a LOT of armor cause it came out so retarded awful. More like 30/70.

The fighting with scissors made me laugh! wanders away thinking of a scissor-arrow for archers

Smith can "easily" make weapons worth socketing..
-->Easy only when you have the right runic, which was discussed previously

But really, I think they're both very well taken care of
-->Agree completely
I personally think this shard is a crafter optimized shard hehe   The crafters you can make on this shard are so awesome... it simply amazes me. Warriors are awesome too, yes, but without crafters... hehe warriors aint so tough running around in cloth and poking at things with twigs and throwing rocks
-->I have to say, in all the shards which I have played, Sylvan is the kindest to the crafters. In 99% of the other places one can get artifact gear that so completely outshines the crafted armor that it makes crafting neigh-pointless. Yay for SH, keep it up!
On that note of fletchers. I do know of a monster that has a chance to drop a runic fletching kit. I have never managed to get a drop but I know that they exist. And while we are talking about our pipe-dreams, runic tinker kits would be a God-send.


Can anyone tell that I am passionate about my crafting? *chuckles*

Anywhoo, just wanted to throw out my 2 gold pieces.

Jager/Phoenix