Time to change skiver to B2A?

[Thailand_Dan]

When Skivers first came out, they were the ultimate sorc/wiz item. They took a whole lot of grinding...and usually a lot of trading to get, but nothing else even came close. Personally, I was never able to get all the tome pages to get one.

Yesterday, I was duoing Sins of Attrition with a guildy who showed me he has a skiver, and we get to the end chest, and Kormor's belt dropped for me. I already had it from ToD, and he did as well, so it remained in the chest. I mentioned to him, "I never thought I'd leave an archmagi item in a chest."

The next day, running a ToD, the Eerie belt (another arcmagi item) drops, and I put it up for roll, since the clickie and set bonus do very little for me. Unbelievably, 11 other people didnt want it. So, after quite a bit of, "Are you sure noone wants an archmagi belt", I looted it to vendor it. Twice in two days an archmagi item is unwanted.

It got me to thinking how painful it must be for skiver holders to see archmagi becoming commonplace, with even rangers carrying archmagi belts. I know the skiver has other things on it which are still useful at end game, but the archmagi was the BIG thing, back when it came out, and made the grind seem reasonable. Now, I know few people who will put in the time to get it, when in a few levels they can easily get Wiz 6, and eventually archmagi, pretty easily.

I think, making the skiver bound to account would breath a little life into hunting for tome pages. Once you hit those higher levels, you could pass it on to a lowbee.

Not a rant, not a flame, just a thought and I was wondering what others think.

[Unreliable]

The archmagi on the skiver is the probably the most worthless of all the atributes on the weapon. Its usefull because its a greenblade (greater arcane lore) with the metamagic spellpoint reduction feats. Sure the archmagi is nice, but most casters will end up using the Archmagi set anway (that requires the Rakhirs Sash, an archmagi belt).

Also: no it should not be a BOA, farming the tome pages isnt that bad and you can find a set for a few large scales if you dont want to do litany as well.

[Averla]

Good post.

I think in general BTA is something that helps the game a lot - and your example is a good one.

Yes BTC means more grinding (more playtime per person) since every character needs to go through it, but BTA means more people are willing to go for more characters - which I would suspect is an overall boost to the long-term player base.

So yeah - i agree with you.

[Lleren]

Absolutely , move it to bind to account. If its no longer top end gear then there is no reason for it to remain bind to character.

[Bacab]

I agree.

Though I would extend this to pretty much every Tome Item and Dragonscale Item (except Red since its epic).

It is also a shame that the Shields from the SHield Frame are inferior to Light and Darkness from mindsunder...

[mediocresurgeon]

I always thought that Bind To Character was just a mechanism to stop extremely powerful items from ruining the economy of the game (examples: Skiver, Icy Rainments, Voice of the Master, Planar Shards, shield fragment turn-ins). Now that we have Bind To Account, the whole BTC mechanism seems really outdated.

/signed

Make Tome Page turn-ins BTA.

[Ehllie]

Also: no it should not be a BOA, farming the tome pages isnt that bad and you can find a set for a few large scales if you dont want to do litany as well.
wow it took me 120 runs + 1 million plat + 2 large scales to complete my set, i must have been very unlucky then...

I still agree on the point that people mostly look for an enhanced green blade more than just the archmagi sp bonus.

[Marr0w1]

wow it took me 120 runs + 1 million plat + 2 large scales to complete my set, i must have been very unlucky then...
No, I think he was just making a point.
I recently finished my tome of legends, and it took me about 50 runs, a few larges, almost a million plat, and a lot of haggling. :P
Also, I think these items should remain BTC, as they are still some of the best items in the game, not to mention unique and rare as opposed to Greensteel/ToD gear.
At the end of the day, DnD is all about the loot, so let those who have worked for the loot keep the pride/status/whatever of having it.

Besides, BTC gear is one of the few things that makes TR fun, as it is currently one of the only ways to get things like deathnips, GS, and other powerful bound items as early as possible.

[Thailand_Dan]

Good points guys, I know the skiver is not JUST archmagi, but when it came out that was a huge draw. Now, archmagi, as some have pointed out, is probably the least of what is wanted in the item. I agree that TR is great when you can pull really powerful weapons and gear out of the bank at such low levels, especially when you hit the mid level blues compounded by XP penalties.

In truth, the skiver is simply one example of several great items at low level that can be replaced by equivalent or more powerful gear in a few levels. But epic has given new life to a lot of them. Maybe someday down the line, the skiver will be epic'ed and it will solve this problem.

[Quikster]

Epic skiver means epic death nips....my paly likes that idea :p

Im ok with them being btc. The pages are tradable, you can still farm the quest, get a set, then hand em off to a lowbie to turn em in and get em at level.

Im not against bta, just dont see a need for anyone to spend time and go change it is all.

I say keep all that stuff as is, fire the guy that makes those changes, and hire a guy to fix ladders.....

[Krag]

I always thought that Bind To Character was just a mechanism to stop extremely powerful items from ruining the economy of the game (examples: Skiver, Icy Rainments, Voice of the Master, Planar Shards, shield fragment turn-ins). Now that we have Bind To Account, the whole BTC mechanism seems really outdated.

The purpose of BtA is encouraging people to buy Adventure Packs (you can't buy Carnifex for your lowbie toon, you need Delera).
The purpose of BtC is multiplying the grind (you can't pass shiny tier 3 hp item to your new toon, you have to craft a new one).

[Pyromaniac]

I'd rather have someone spend 5 minutes on working on a new prestige class than this.

/not signed.

[Donnie]

I think its a great idea to make all of those items BtA. Honestly, I find most of them a complete waste of time as is, and dont even bother with them. I just keep the ingredients in case a guildie needs.

If they were BtA I would find them much more worthwhile. Especially with the way the game is changing, these items could become just another wasted mechanic without some improvement.

[JOTMON]

I like how the mindsunder area loot is BTA until an upgrade is applied then it becomes BTC.
I think all raid named rewards should be evolved to this method.
Anything not raid only dropped can be left as a free for all and unbound until crafted.

Downside is people who are in these raids trying to get something for their current toon that is in the quest drooling as that hard to find item just dropped in the chest for a player that cant have any good possible use for it...
are now competing against players collecting for alts or alts not even built yet when items go up for roll.

The ' I can use that on my other toon'.. 'ooh i'm gonna keep that I am going to build a toon that can use that item'.. or I have a lowbie that can use that when he gets high enough'..

Good part is..
40th run got a bunch of items on the list none of which I can use on this current toon, but hey I can grab something for an alt.. :)

Now if they would only BTA those tomes.... :(
1750 Favor got a BTC tome... but I ate a Superior +2 tome with DDO Points... theres a useless end reward.
20th Reaver +2 tomes dropped all BTC... more unusable tomes...

[Lorz]

I agree.

Though I would extend this to pretty much every Tome Item and Dragonscale Item (except Red since its epic).

It is also a shame that the Shields from the SHield Frame are inferior to Light and Darkness from mindsunder...

But would this not cheapen the effort all others expended to get theirs on toons?

And if this logic is valid of it not being top notch gear....then what about every other non epic btc item?

Sorry...it is just another easy button.

If all gear gets easy to get...like it seems you and others here are suggesting....it won't be much of a game.
Sorta like no child left behind sounds good...but really is just a race to the lowest common denominator....which is not a good thing. We need super hard to get and rare items. If the skiver was of little value no one would be asking for it bta. This alone I think proves it still needs to be a pain to get...so everyone doesn't have one..ya know like a Minos legions is now a must have item.


My $0.02

[Lorz]

wow it took me 120 runs + 1 million plat + 2 large scales to complete my set, i must have been very unlucky then...

I still agree on the point that people mostly look for an enhanced green blade more than just the archmagi sp bonus.


I would say yes...very unlucky.

[Matuse]

Took me 140 Litany runs to get 6 pages, buying the 7th for 4 million gold, and trading 2 other pages 2:1 for the 8th to get my Skiver.

And I'd do it all again.

I don't see any reason to make it BtA. The tome pages themselves are already freely tradeable, and you will likely end up with surplus of some of them that can be used to outfit a second character if you REALLY want to.

[Missing_Minds]

Make Tome Page turn-ins BTA.

Tome and Shield fragment weapons/armor in my opinion.

[Josh]

Make all raid loots BTA, IMO.

[Muldamai]

It is inevitable that gear will become obsolete in online games, what was once uber will be mundane. You have to have better stuff in newer content, or else, what's the point? I do agree with certain things being either BTC or BTA, but you really need to be careful on balancing what you bind or you risk changing the landscape of the game economy. Yes, you can say the DDO economy is whacked right now, but really examine items before changing them; it's harder to undo than do.

[Donnie]

But would this not cheapen the effort all others expended to get theirs on toons?

And if this logic is valid of it not being top notch gear....then what about every other non epic btc item?

Sorry...it is just another easy button.

If all gear gets easy to get...like it seems you and others here are suggesting....it won't be much of a game.
Sorta like no child left behind sounds good...but really is just a race to the lowest common denominator....which is not a good thing. We need super hard to get and rare items. If the skiver was of little value no one would be asking for it bta. This alone I think proves it still needs to be a pain to get...so everyone doesn't have one..ya know like a Minos legions is now a must have item.


My $0.02

Is it really an easy button...or fixing ANOTHER broken DDO loot mechanic?

When you look at it, how many items on the list in necro are actually worth a ****? 2 or 3 maybe? All the rest of it is garbage comparitively...and will never be worth the time investment as is. Something needs to change or else it will be another DDO joke left over from the past.

I think it would be a mistake to hold onto a broken system just becasue a few items just happen to be worth it. There are plenty of items that I have grinded for that later got 'nerfed', I got over it, its not a good enough reason to hold on to this outdated implementation imo.

[Angelus_dead]

Skiver is one example of the ex-endgame items described in this thread:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=244439

The process of obtaining that item made sense when it was top-level gear from a top-level quest, but it no longer fits in comparison to higher-level equipment that's easier to get. It should be improved in availability by either changing the binding, increasing the drop rate of tome pages, or both.

(In addition, most of the other items in the tome pages reward list should be improved in their stats as well, especially the beastbane dagger and sunburst mace)

[rest]

I ground out a skiver on my sorc, and now it sits in the bank :(

I opted for a greenblade on my cleric, as it didn't seem to take as long. And when I TR him into a clonk, I'll have to graduate to either a blue dragonscale robe or the abbot necklace leaving my greenblade to wither away in the bank, much like my skiver on my sorc.

[Carpone]

Took me 140 Litany runs to get 6 pages, buying the 7th for 4 million gold, and trading 2 other pages 2:1 for the 8th to get my Skiver.
I'd rather Turbine make the pages BTC and increase the drop rate. 140 runs to craft an item is ********.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

The purpose of BtA is encouraging people to buy Adventure Packs (you can't buy Carnifex for your lowbie toon, you need Delera).
The purpose of BtC is multiplying the grind (you can't pass shiny tier 3 hp item to your new toon, you have to craft a new one).

Your examples are incorrect.

Carniflex is BtA.

And all my new characters are handed all the ingredients they need for their GS the very second they are ready for the shroud. One run through the vale quests to flag, and the only thing they need to 'grind' for are the 3/4 shards. I suppose that does mean they get them at L14 instead of L11-12, but not a big difference.

[TheJusticar]

Not a rant, not a flame, just a thought and I was wondering what others think.

Not gonna agree or disagree. I just want to point out how this highlights Turbine's complete lack of item planning. +5 magic weaps and +6 Items should've never been in the game until now (ML:18-20) The fact that had +6 items and +5 weaps back when level cap was level 10 shows that they didn't really have any long term item/weap planning in mind.

[Krag]

Your examples are incorrect.

Carniflex is BtA. Did I say otherwise?

And all my new characters are handed all the ingredients they need for their GS the very second they are ready for the shroud. One run through the vale quests to flag, and the only thing they need to 'grind' for are the 3/4 shards. I suppose that does mean they get them at L14 instead of L11-12, but not a big difference.

It does not matter whether you pulled ingredients on this particular toon, on his alt or baught it from AH. Either way you had to grind for new materials instead of passing existing item.

Comments in red

[REALb0r3d]

Some items need to be BTC to prevent loot whoring, if you want a reevaluation of what is BTC and what is BTA you won't like some of the results.

Case and point is the grumbling of lack of epic tokens in the epic house D quest and the dev's choice to introduce token fragments and rebalancing tokens in other epics to include this mechanic.

[blitzschlag]

well, turbine are too lazy (or stupid?) to change former btc items, that got changed to bta, anyway.
so in the end the ppl who farmed several tomes already (for skiver or deathnip) get the shaft again. they can't pass the skiver they don't need on their barb incarnation to the wizard incarnation on a 2nd char or vice versa with the deathnip.

turbine: if you can't/won't change existing items, don't change anything at all.

[Comfortably]

Make all raid loots BTA, IMO.

Mmmmhhhmmm. No thanks.

[DemorusII]

Make all raid loots BTA, IMO.

If that happened no one would give up good raid loot. I.E A caster pulls madstone boots there is no way they would give them up. They would say oh I think I will roll a barb then the boots will just sit on a mule, where as a barb that was in that reavers would be useing them.

[Mellkor]

Skiver is awsome (still). I dont think you can get Archmagi anywhere else at level 14!

[fuzzy1guy]

Skiver..... Its value is what... from the magi and sp savings.
big deal. go collect 2-3 tome pages. sell those on the ah for insane price. turn around and buy pots.

You know how many pots just 3 of the more 'rare' tome pages will buy you? (i still havent burnt thru them all in a year now.) Let alone a full set of pages. That'd give more pots than you can ever need. Even at our now inflated prices.

Always seemed like a bad joke played on those people who think items = respect.

Altho if more people didn't want it... the prices on pages would go down.. that would be bad...

SKIVER ROCKS! YOU NEED ONE NOW!

[SynalonEtuul]

Do people actually buy those tome pages I see on the auction? I'm two pages away from Skiver and I'm still not paying those ludicrous prices.

[fuzzy1guy]

they sure do. lazy? rich? stupid? insane? idk...

But a few tome pages funded my pot addiction for a couple years to come. And i've still got a couple more pages floating around.