STEALTH CHANGE ON TEST SERVER - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME IT IS A MISTAKE!

[Allurana]

Just now logged onto the test server to check out the dual wield changes and the new appearance armor slots.

 Just for fun I started looking through my bags to see what armor pieces I had to switch in and out and noticed this little gem just by chance.

 Paraffin Sealed Document

Treasured

An important looking document sealed in paraffin wax.  You will be awarded a small amount of status if you give this to a member of a powerful guild of scouts.

 (HERE IS THE NEW LITTLE GEM ADDED)

This item can be sold to certain NPC's for status.  Selling it also earns guild status IF YOUR GUILD IS BELOW LEVEL 10.

 [I cannot control my vocabulary]!!!!!

 This is TOTAL bull SOE!  My guild has been level 60 a LONG time now.  We also have been running a contest to see which guild member can save up the most status items to be handed in after the expansion is released.  The top 3 guildies with sheer quantity of status items are going to win cash prizes - 10 plat, 5 plat and 2 plat respectively.

 As guild leader, I have removed myself from the contest but am on a personal mission to be the top saver of these items.  I currently have just over 2million personal status and 200k guild status in these items saved up.  I have been collecting them on all my characters and buying them off the broker for MONTHS now.  MANY MANY Plat tied up in these things.

 YOU ALL CREATED THESE ITEMS - YOU ALL DECIDED TO UP THE GUILD LEVELS - Are you really serious about this nerf????

 I truly do apologize for the tone of my post but I am MAD about this.

We are not exploiting, we are not abusing any system, we have been operating under the parameters that YOU put in place.  Now you are changing this for one simple reason - you must have noticed that guilds like mine were saving them up in preparation for November.

Two last questions SOE - Are you seriously going to make this change and leave it in?  AND  Did you think no one would notice?

Like I said, we have been planning our ascension to level 80 for MONTHS now.  Look at my account, look at your database log files, I have put serious effort toward this venture.

 Ways to raise status in the game:

HQs - limited number and we have done most of them

Writs - we crank these out when we were not max level (now our ONLY option)

Status items - you all just hit this so hard with the nerf bat it is no longer even an option

Contested/Raid mobs - we are a casual guild - this is out for us

City Guild raids - we excel at these - check your server logs - we have most the server discoveries on Blackburrow for these raid items

 Basically SOE you are now saying the following, "If you are not a raid guild - YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO LEVEL YOUR GUILD".  Is that what you intend here?  Or maybe, "Don't bother joining a high level guild with a new low level character because your efforts won't be allowed to benefit the guild".

 Please reconsider.  I am begging.  I will send chocolate chip cookies.

Thanks,

 Allurana

[LordDarthKhan]

I want to tell you a tale. I play on Oasis Server, when KoS was released and the guild level cap was raised one guild on our server jumped in a few reached the new cap. How ? They did exactly what you guys are doing (which I think is very legal and it's good for a guild to find new way to motivate his members beside raiding all day long). Now the sad part.After a few days of celebration, if I remember correctly, they ver axed down to their previous cap because someone at SOE thought they exploited someway to get all those status items. Sure they might have got most of them by the baazaar but who cares ? it's their plats after all.

[GnormeAnnte]

There has to be a better way to address the issue if you're really that concerned with people exploiting these items.  Unless there's another point to this new feature that eludes me at the moment?  Locking out one of the means by which a lower level character can contribute to a guild is not the way to go.

If you're really that worried about mass turn-in of guild status items, then put in a timer or a limit regarding how many can be submitted over a specified span of time.  Make the items no-trade so they cannot be sold on the broker and stockpiled via their subsequent purchase.  Adjust guild status items so that they do not drop from a grey mob kill.

There has to be plenty of other solutions available out there rather then going with what appears to be a knee-jerk fix.

[Nayurayne]

Hmm I do get why Soe has done this. They don't want guild to go from 60-80 right away and I get that but I don't think this is the way to go about it. Maybe make level 60 to 80 harder to get but not this. This way screws over a lot of little and new players.

Example.

 Joe Newbie has just just started to play and has just joined a guild he's happy with and wants to help out. He gets a guild status item and he's now happy that he can contribute to status and help the guild he likes so much grow but oh no, he can't use the status item because the guild level is to high.

Level ten in a newbie area is not good to go with what the OP said. There are a lot of new players who won't be able to help out their guilds if this goes through and that doesn't even mean higher level guilds. Say Joe joins a guild that happens to be level 11 he'd still be outta luck and so would every newbie after that. yes I do realize that you can also do writ to contribute but that doesn't change the fact that this change would add in A LOT of basically garbage items. You could give them to others I suppose...

Edit: Buh, person above me said it while I was typing this up/waiting for forum to finally load. No matter...post is still valid.

[KERSTYNN]

Coming from a small, family oriented, non-raiding, type guild that has just reached 50, I would like you to know that this kind of change is going to completely keep us from being able to progress. Yes, we do writs and hq's but a large portion of our members are of lower level so collecting, either via looting or buying status loot from the broker has been a large part of how we have leveled our guild. Although our guild would love to eventually raid we realize that due to our guild size as well as our low sever population that it is just not gonna happen.

I personally see no abuse of or exploitation in the way guilds can purchase, loot and hoard status items to get a leg up on leveling their guild. In fact I think its rather ingenius. As stated, it utilizes the game mechanics that were put in place by the devs.

I sincerely hope this "change" is a mistake or that it gets seriously reconsidered before being introduced to live servers.

Thanks!~

[EtoilePirate]

I wonder if the OP's kind of item-hoarding is WHY the change is made.I hit up the broker on Test, because all I had were T7 items, and it's true: the T1 ones "also give guild status if your guild is under level 10," and the T7 ones "also give guild status if your guild is under level 60."  And that does eliminate one way newbies can help.But when the GL cap went up last time, guilds were hitting the new cap in, what, 24 hours?  36?  I'm sure half the guilds in the game have been hoarding status items and farming for them since RoK was announced.  The most likely reasoning I can think of is that SOE wants guilds to take TIME to level to 80...

[Armawk]

Wow thats stunningly ill thought out.

You cant throw stuff like that in unannounced when tens of thousands of these things are in peoples possession on every server, and when they are the main way low level characters can contribute to their guilds. Its APPALLING.

Way to make there be less reason for guilds to allow low level members in, and way to just sour the experience for huge numbers of people.

My main isnt even in a guild right now.. Ive been saving up all the ones I got for many many levels though, because when I do join a guild I can contribute them which I was looking forward to doing.

Dreadful dreadful change to put in, you need to give several months notice of something like that.

I totally understand the idea that SOE are unhappy with a guild leaping 10 guild levels in a day when a new expension comes out. But what a way to address it...

[Freliant]

First off, those in level 60 guilds that say, :this eliminates our lowbies from being able to contribute to the guild" are talking alot of horse droppings. You know as well as everyone that they can do writs, HQ's and if you happen to have more than 12 members in your guild, you can do city raids.

This change only affects the guilds that have been hoarding thousands upon thousands of these items in hopes of auto-maxing their guild when the expansion comes out. Personally, I am happy this went into play... I can now sell the many hundreds of these things that I have saved up since my guild dinged to 60. Getting a guild level should be an accomplishment that show's your guilds dedication to doing things for the guild, NOT something that can be done just because you have the money for it.

Seriously, the mobs that drop those low level documents and the related stuff are level 10+... in the time it would take a newbie to collect 100 guild status worth of these items (10), he can complete a number of writs that give out much more status than that.

When we see a guild at level 80 now, we will KNOW they earned it through work and dedication, and NOT because they used their money to hoard up status items.

[Runewind]

The thing that actually bugs me about this change, if it goes live, is that lower level characters in a guild will be unable to contribute to the guild in this way. Lower level quests can give guild status, I know that buying your guild levels might be an issue but it makes it harder for lower level characters to contribute to their guild. A better solution would be to make these items No Trade.

[Armawk]

So basically because Sony forgot to do something sensible, like no-trade flag these things months ago, items people acquired in good faith are now declared worthless?

I mean god knows I wont be in any guilds approaching level 60 any time soon, but this is a mistake nonetheless.

[Freliant]

shaunfletcher wrote:

So basically because Sony forgot to do something sensible, like no-trade flag these things months ago, items people acquired in good faith are now declared worthless?

I mean god knows I wont be in any guilds approaching level 60 any time soon, but this is a mistake nonetheless.

The items are not worthless... just sell them or give them to a guild that is not level 10 yet. I am sure they will appreciate that alot more than you think. Its not a mistake, its just a measure against an exploit.

Definition of exploit: using an in game mechanic in a manner that was not intended.

If they did this change, it is because they never intended for guilds to level up super quick on low-mid level status items. They intended that if you were normally adventurin in your level range, you would get these nifty items to help your guild out as an added bonus... but these super guilds changed that. Now hundreds of smaller guilds have people that instead of giving the status items to increase their own guilds level, they sell it on the broker for a massive profit to themselves. Put the level limit, and the situation is fixed. IMO should have been done before EoF came out.. heck, should have been done that way since day one.

[Runewind]

Freliant wrote:

shaunfletcher wrote:

So basically because Sony forgot to do something sensible, like no-trade flag these things months ago, items people acquired in good faith are now declared worthless?

I mean god knows I wont be in any guilds approaching level 60 any time soon, but this is a mistake nonetheless.

The items are not worthless... just sell them or give them to a guild that is not level 10 yet. I am sure they will appreciate that alot more than you think. Its not a mistake, its just a measure against an exploit.

Definition of exploit: using an in game mechanic in a manner that was not intended.

If they did this change, it is because they never intended for guilds to level up super quick on low-mid level status items. They intended that if you were normally adventurin in your level range, you would get these nifty items to help your guild out as an added bonus... but these super guilds changed that. Now hundreds of smaller guilds have people that instead of giving the status items to increase their own guilds level, they sell it on the broker for a massive profit to themselves. Put the level limit, and the situation is fixed. IMO should have been done before EoF came out.. heck, should have been done that way since day one.

Which is why I think the best solution would be to make them No-Trade. Granted that means that guilds that are level 60 and hording items will be able to reap the benefits of their not-so-hard-work. But this is still a better solution than forever dooming any low level guildies from contributing to their guild until they can get items high enough. (I am assuming that all the items have level restrictions now and not just the first tier of them. I may be wrong and if I am than it's not AS big of a deal.)

[Lodrelhai]

If they wanted to make people work for these items rather than buying them, they should have been made no-trade (and I'm not too hot on that idea either).  The guilds who are stockpiling them now ARE working for their next guild level.  They're planning and saving in advance in preparation for a situation they know is coming.  They still have to kill the mobs for them, or earn the coin for them.  And yes, I've heard a million times how coin is so easy to get - you still have to do something to get it.  Currently these items ARE being used as planned - they are being used to contribute status to the guild and help it level, and for those not concerned with guild levels or status, they are being used to earn a little extra coin.This is simply penalizing people because they had the good sense to plan.  Worse, it's penalizing a large faction of the population because some people had the good sense to plan.  And the worst of it is that it's being done by stealth, with no discussion or feedback or even a direct announcement of "This is the way it's going to be, eat it."Did you think we wouldn't notice?

[Syndic]

I think this change would be a very big mistake.  Is 10 status (T1 item) really going to brake the back of a level 60 guild?  I don't think so but it will hurt the level 11-15 guild.  I know guild members who have hundreds of T8 status items saved up already.Whether a player hands in a T1 or a T8 item the guild should still get the benefit of that item.  I can't believe this change is just to stop guilds getting to level 80 quickly, really who cares if they do?  what mind shatteringly game breaking things are going to be available to a level 80 guild that it is going to matter if they make it in a day or in 4 months?Let people hand in any teir they wish, if you really want to slow it down do what others have suggested put a limit on how many you can sell.  Say 1 stack per faction per day.  So they most a player could sell is what 200 items, leading to 2000->16000 status a day, that will certainly slow things down, players will find the items still have a value to them and sony will get their progress blocking in.

[Paddyo]

You are majorly overreacting.  ALL status items arent for guilds below level 10....status items all come in tiers like everything else, and each tier works for a higher tier of guild.  Moonstone amulets, for instance, give status to guilds SIXTY and below.  So lower level guilds have nothing to fear....this just means that you'll have to be saving T7 stuff up and thats all thats gonna work for your guild til it gets to 70, and then no further til you kill enough stuff in T8.  No level 80 guilds in the first few days in other words.

 KUDOS, SOE.  An acceptable solution to a problem that bugged alot of hard working players.  Now, back to hoarding T7 status items.

[GnormeAnnte]

Why not just turn the status items into a commodity?

If the Guild Status Merchants see an uncommonly large spike in sales, the overall value of the status loot goes down accordingly.  Over time, the value would ease back up as most people would prefer a maximum return.

Using a method such as this, you'd not completely alienate those that have been stockpiling status items and you'd not be depriving lower level characters from one of the ways they can contribute to their respective guilds.  You also ensure that people won't be rocketing to new guild levels upon launch of the new expansion.

I know the value of status loot is trivial in the grand scheme of things.  I can understand the desire to control the rate at which guild levels are obtained as well.  But I do not see a justification in penalizing a player because of their level.

Be creative, be inventive and be honest.  If time and lack of resources on the part of the developers is an issue, then just tell the community that this change has been put in place until something better can take its place.  Heavy-handed changes like this only stir up trouble.

[axl_2baz]

The real thing to limit the too-fast leveling guilds would be to limitate not by the guild lvl, but by the character lvl.

[Xunen]

Are you [I cannot control my vocabulary]ing kidding me? This is the most [Removed for Content] change SOE ever did, and it's coming way too late. Everyone already saved and/or bought those items.

Why not change it so Quests and Collections also don't reward EXP? It sucks that people save up many many Quests ready to turn in for the new expansion. Why not change that?

And by the way, everyone who says he likes the change simply likes it because he didn't buy them and/or farm them. I gave like 500 plat to those china farmers to buy Status Loot, and then, some weeks before the new Expansion goes live, they nerf it. That's so cool SOE. You are teh best at stealth nerfing.

Oh, and please fix it that you can't wear Level 70 armor if you level in RoK. I mean that's so [Removed for Content] that people are allowed to gear up now and have easier times to grind up to 80 in RoK.

[Pins]

axl_2baz wrote:

The real thing to limit the too-fast leveling guilds would be to limitate not by the guild lvl, but by the character lvl.

What would that do?  Lots of guilds who want to hit the cap fast will have multiple characters at multiple different tiers and will easily be able to squeak around  that with relative ease.

[Troubor]

One thing I find curious is why SOE is all that concerned with how quickly one gains guild level.  As long as coin is gained honestly and not bought, one could argue that coin is a way to measure success.  If one wishes to translate such a measure from in game coin to status loot, and then use said loot to level one's guild, so be it.  Next I wonder if SOE will consider someone intentionally locking EXP off inbetween level 60th and 65th to be an exploit so they can get the writs in KoS where one kills nothing but 15 or 20 droags in TT?  I personally don't do that, but if someone wishes to, their choice.

These items were put in to give guilds another option to level.  Someone who can't contribute time for writs, has maybe done most or all the HQ's, and doesn't raid enough to add status to their guild that way could still sell status items for guild status instead of coin.  Now, all you are doing is punishing those people for actually being in a high level guild.  Unless they buy said items or someone gives them to them, someone under 70th can't use status items now to contribute to a level 60th guild.  Yes, they have other options when November comes, but why take away one of the best ways for a casual player to help out his guild?  Guild status items exist IMO for the casual player first, the person who doesn't have time to do a couple hours worth of writs each day before doing a quest or dungeon they might enjoy, who isn't of level or have the time or connections to raid (and might not be in a raid guild or part of a raid alliance even if they do), who does HQ's slowly since their time is limited.  They could at least sell their guild status items and add some that way.  Now..the casual player is punished for being that, a casual player.

For the record, I am in a tiny guild, but am in a raid group so thus get to raid two to three days a week.  My guild is under 60th, it's currently 44th about midway to 45th.  We're tiny, and only two members, myself and another do any signifigant raiding at all, so not sure if we'll be 60th by November.  Same with heritage quests and writs, our guild to be honest is almost dead except for a couple members.  Even with that, I am not impressed by this change.

[Dogm]

Maybe they want to make guild levels mean something with Kunark.   With all the current status items available guilds could get a nice jump on the competition.  This change will put everybody on equal footing for RoK.

[Xunen]

Dogmae wrote:

Maybe they want to make guild levels mean something with Kunark.   With all the current status items available guilds could get a nice jump on the competition.  This change will put everybody on equal footing for RoK.

You can't make that equal for everyone. Or do they remove all Master Spells and Fabled gear that people geared up to prepare for RoK? No, so it's not equal. People who raid will get to Guildlevel 80 faster because they have better gear and better spell quality and therefore be able to do city tasks faster than others. And people who farm Status Loot in their spare time (you know, the time what you pay 15 bucks for per month) also have an advantage, as the raiders do. So please stop all the whining about equality, because IMO all this is equal, since everyone could gear up as the raiders did, and everyone could save Status Loot as many did.

[Rattfa]

LOL Owned!Farming low level mobs for status items purely to level your UBER guild doesnt really make sense. SOE didnt want guilds to be capped the same day the expansion was released, and this was their way of preventing that, or atleast slowing it down. Go do something brave and heroic to do it instead. Slaughtering gnolls in Antonica is neither.

[Xunen]

You actually have no clue, Ratface. Or do you honestly think that someone would farm mobs to get Status Loot that's worth 10 Guild Status?

[Draco the Grey]

No reason to hold on to the status items any more?  More money for me!

[jarlaxle8]

Seriously, what's the big deal? Just sell the low level items on broker, which will help lower level guilds, and buy higher tier stuff. This will make it a bit easier for lower tier guilds to level while making competition at high levels mean something.Low tier status loot, earned in a normal fashion, is almost useless when guild level is high anyway. Other means of getting status are more efficient. Status loot was never intended for making big jumps in guild levels.

[Vonotar]

This would affectively make turning in T1 and T2 status items a waste of time for our guild members (we are currently guild level 23).But guess what!... a lot of our guild members are actually below level 20... so how does that work?I can see level 60+ guilds refused to accept low level players in the future on the grounds that they 'can't contribute'.Guilds that require members to gain status before promotions will effectively be forcing many lower level people to grind writs in order to gain that status.I can't believe that any level 60 guilds are currently hording huge number of low level status items, so your harming the lowest level people in a misguided attempt to harm the biggest guilds...o.OIncidentally, status items should always have been no-trade... ditch this stupid stealth change and make them no-trade instead.  If you really worried about guilds hitting level 80 straight away you might want to look at how much status it takes to grind from 60-80 and adjust as appropriate.

[Armawk]

Vonotar@Butcherblock wrote:

This would affectively make turning in T1 and T2 status items a waste of time for our guild members (we are currently guild level 23).But guess what!... a lot of our guild members are actually below level 20... so how does that work?I can see level 60+ guilds refused to accept low level players in the future on the grounds that they 'can't contribute'.Guilds that require members to gain status before promotions will effectively be forcing many lower level people to grind writs in order to gain that status.

Yes thats the real problem here. Someone didnt think it through at all.

[Freliant]

Vonotar@Butcherblock wrote:

This would affectively make turning in T1 and T2 status items a waste of time for our guild members (we are currently guild level 23).But guess what!... a lot of our guild members are actually below level 20... so how does that work?I can see level 60+ guilds refused to accept low level players in the future on the grounds that they 'can't contribute'.Guilds that require members to gain status before promotions will effectively be forcing many lower level people to grind writs in order to gain that status.I can't believe that any level 60 guilds are currently hording huge number of low level status items, so your harming the lowest level people in a misguided attempt to harm the biggest guilds...

If they are low level, then they can get a huge boost in status just by doing HQs. If they are higher levels, then writs should not be a problem, be they adventuring writs, or crafting writs, which can be done at any adventure level. This is not preventing low level players from contributing... it is just preventing max level guilds from hoarding the status items in order to exploit the system and quickly level their guild. And trust me... guilds do hoard those once they reach max level. For example, when my guild reached max level through pure writ/HQs/city raid/normal raids/unrest I started putting all the status items I got on my shared bank slots and giving them to a low level alt. I pretty much have hundreds, if not thousands of them already... but you know what... that change is not going to affect me heavily because most of my status items are T8 from killing level 70+ mobs in very hard areas of the game. The only ones that are going to be affected are the ones below that tier.

Level 60 guilds will still accept members. It will be delusional to think otherwise, since the biggest chunks of status do not come from these items, they come from the new member doing his HQs or doing some werits.

Again, and sorry to sound redundant, but this is in fact a good change that will prevent guilds from racing too quickly to max level while the only excercise they did was with their wallet. It is a shame they will loose the money from already purchasing all those status items, but hey... they should have seen it coming. Why do I say this? Take a look at what happened when DoF came out: guilds disbanded all their members except a few that were flagged as for status. Those members would then do writs, HQs and HQs until the guild reached max level, and they would again re-invite all members back into the guild. When KoS came out, they changed it so that everyone could contribute to status, but in order to not harm the smaller guilds that had a limited amount of members, they decided to let the amount of status you recieve  fluctuate depending on how many members you had. Instead of saying: alright guys, all status counts, lets go work on our guild... they decided to disband every single member and turn in status items to reach max level right away... Well, for EoF they decided, ok, now it doesn't matter how many people are in your guild, everyone will recieve the same amount of status reguardless. The result... no one disbanded anymore, which was a plus... but they still managed to gain max level in one day by just selling status items.. so now that RoK is coming, what does that tell you is gonna happen?

Trivializing guild levels was NEVER intended, and unfortunately, we now all have to bite the bullet because of the exploits of some guilds. Again, I think its a welcome change.

[Kaalenarc]

This is an incredibly bad idea, and once again, implemented without communication from the DEVs - they just throw in a major change without discussion or concern for the community.

 Will some guilds hoard the items? Yep. So what? Now all they will do is hoard all the T7 ones. The change effectively makes anyone under level 20 unable to contribute on a consistent basis and whats worse  - creates a ton of essentially useless loot. The first ten guild levels are relatively easy to get.  The solution is simple. Make 60-80 take a VERY long time to get. Long enough so that status items are of minimal impact.

But dont take away a new players ability to contribute to his higher ranked guild. Thats just poor thinking.

 And lastly, once again SOE proves it has not learned its lesson by not communicating with the community. Its the Star Wars Galaxies NGE fiasco all over again. That DEV team went down this path. Now EQ2 is on the same course.

Think Im overreacting? Note the change in forums policy, no more guild recruiting threads allowed. Discussed with the community? Nope.  Stealth changes to loot drops? Check. Its the same show all over again. Here's a hint DEV team : If you think your decision is ultimately going to prove unpopular with the community, instead of sneaking it in, TALK TO THE COMMUNITY ABOUT IT.

 Maybe its an error , maybe its some kind of glitch. But frankly, not having it announced as a change and giving the community a chance to discuss it WITH the dev team, is simply poor customer service.

I love this game, I really do. And overall its doing some great things. But changes like this, especially when they are put in without notice, are just terrible.