Considering the grind and the BTCness of Mabar...

[Chilldude]

...I think If you craft a top tier item then it should scale with character level. That is, if I make the level 24 robes for my wiz, he should be able to wear them from level 4 on and every 4 levels they should automatically scale themselves up to the next tier.

Before, since the level 20 version was the only thing worth having, there was only 1 version worth making anyway, so there really wasn't any issue.

Level 4 robes -> extremely lame, can easily get better gear for few plat off the AH.

Level 8 robes -> extremely lame, can easily get better gear for few plat off the AH.

Level 12 robes -> extremely meh, can easily craft greater necro focus ML 9, pirate hat with superior false life ML 9.

level 16 robes -> meh, by level 16 you'd obviously want greater focus so the +1 focus is worthless, GFL is nice but easy to get elsewhere, the rest is easy to get for a few plat off the AH.

level 20 robes -> now we're talking! SFL (better than the easy to come by GFL), Superior lore (best lore available), greater focus (same focus you can craft ML 9, but frees up whatever slot you had that in), and some meh thrown on top.

It was a no brainer, level 20 or bust. There was simply no reason to craft anything else. However, now that they've added:

level 24 robes -> everything the level 20 has plus good nullification and Major focus

You're obviously going to want the level 24 robes when you get to 24, but the level 20 robes would be great from 20-24. However, is grinding out another 5000 motes 2 vamp, and a lich worth it to make a level 20 item that will become absolutely worthless once you hit 24? (Worthless because you have the level 24 version.) It's not like you can pass it on to another toon like cove items.

So considering how grindy mabar is and the fact that the items are BTC, it just seems obvious to me that they should scale with character level to the max tier they were crafted. Instead of auto scaling, you could have an NPC in Deleras graveyard that could manually set the tier of the items for a small price, if that's what you're in to.

[redspecter23]

An interesting idea, but I think the wrap users might be kinda upset if they got a downgrade automatically by leveling up to 24. The manual upgrade from an NPC is a reasonable alternative. A good idea in theory and possibly for a new loot mechanic in the future, but for old loot it's best to leave well enough alone. Turbine has enough things to fix and fixes for their fixes before they adjust things that actually work fine currently. I'd rather they just not touch anything that actually works right now.

[Daemoneyes]

Making all the items BTA would be good enough for me.

(really dont forget how easy the devs screw everything up,
more then changing an item flag could end in hundreds of other bugs...)

[Silverleafeon]

More bank space!?!?

[Temerate]

An interesting idea, but I think the wrap users might be kinda upset if they got a downgrade automatically by leveling up to 24.

How are the CR24 wraps a downgrade from the CR20 ones?

I just got the CR20 wraps last night and was farming for the mats to upgrade them today, am curious if I should just start on the next item I want instead.

[sdrocky]

BTA Items. And its a bit dull. Needs somthing to spark it up a bit. Like a entropic skeletal running around stopping mote/bits drops till its ded.

[redspecter23]

How are the CR24 wraps a downgrade from the CR20 ones?

I just got the CR20 wraps last night and was farming for the mats to upgrade them today, am curious if I should just start on the next item I want instead.

It's kinda like taking your perfectly good bottle of Pepsi and trading it in for 3 cans of 7up. If you like the Pepsi, you won't be happy with the upgrade. Whether or not it's a downgrade is being discussed at length in other forum posts, but at best it seems to be a tradeoff of single target dps for AOE dps. If you prefer to hit a single mob for high damage, you may be better off with the lv 20 version.

[Silverleafeon]

BTA Items. And its a bit dull. Needs somthing to spark it up a bit. Like a entropic skeletal running around stopping mote/bits drops till its ded.

Lol....

[locus]

Or a dropdown menu/toggle to select between the versions, but that sounds complicated and easily breakable codewise, I bet

BtC + epic slot, BtA + no epic slot, BtC + multiple levels somehow. Something, because I'mpassing on most things because of the way it's arranged.

[Lehmu]

Level 8 robes -> extremely lame, can easily get better gear for few plat off the AH.

Say, which item do you normally buy off the AH for your nightshield clicky needs while leveling?

[locus]

I use shield clickies since the resistance doesn't stack (does it?), so I assume they would too?

I'm missing something with the nightshield clicky as well, I guess. I haven't checked the level of the lowest shield clicky I have. Is the ML of the robe beating these?

edit: If it was a ML4 nightshield clicky I would be all over it since I find magic missile to be a bigger pain at very low levels (and then again at very high, but not so much around level 10ish).

edit2: Ok, I went through my storage characters and found a level 5 int2, shieldx3 clicky so they do go this low and even lower than 4 I assume. So why is everyone farming motes to buy robes for nightshield clickies?! Shield's better even, unless you're running around with no resistance item (?!).

[arkonas]

BTA Items. And its a bit dull. Needs somthing to spark it up a bit. Like a entropic skeletal running around stopping mote/bits drops till its ded.

i actually like this idea. it would really add to the game.

[fco-karatekid]

BTA Items....

So while I actually would like the items to be BTA (if for no other reason but to conserve bank space), it won't happen.

Heroic Chronoscope is a perfect example of why.

People ran chrono long enough to get, say, 4 or 5 of every item, then quit running it.

If they epify some of those items, they might run it again once in blue moon to replace the base items.

Since there's nothing to "consume" the items for Mabar like there is with Chronoscope, the participation would plummet quickly.

[locus]

It's kinda like taking your perfectly good bottle of Pepsi and trading it in for 3 cans of 7up. If you like the Pepsi, you won't be happy with the upgrade. Whether or not it's a downgrade is being discussed at length in other forum posts, but at best it seems to be a tradeoff of single target dps for AOE dps. If you prefer to hit a single mob for high damage, you may be better off with the lv 20 version.

I think the problem is that the three cans of 7up have a tendency to dribble down your mouth when you try to drink, a % of the time. Especially if you like your dex. That's the real issue.

[LordMond63]

Howzabout introducing something that converts a BtC item to BtA?

The cost could be higher than anything in Mabar right now (with the exception of the 10k motes for a dragon scale- does anyone know if you can actually have a stack of 10k motes now? I think at one time you couldn't), limited to one per account, whatever to make it scarce. But I'd sure like to be able to pass that level 16 Cloak of Night down to an alt rather than have it sit in the bank gathering dust.

Hmmmm.....maybe Mabar deconstruction?

[madmaxhunter]

OP, I had the exact same idea during this festival. I had the level 4 and 12 versions of the cloak, flipped the 4 to 16 and stopped there. Was telling friends it would be nice for it to level with the player and even had an excuse for how it would work:

Level 4, "I found this weird cloak, Ocassionally I'm harder to hit".

Level 8, "I just figured out that if I button the top button I'm always a bit harder to hit".

Level 12, "A necromancer just cast a nasty spell at me. it went around the cloak. Musta been because I tied the belt a different way".

etc.

[rygard]

Good idea but not sure it's worth for effort by Dev Side. Afterall we all know even simple changes about event items can create very deep problems (remember cove ring). So changing whole mechanic of item; himm i don't know. But again, it's a good idea

[IronClan]

...I think If you craft a top tier item then it should scale with character level. That is, if I make the level 24 robes for my wiz, he should be able to wear them from level 4 on and every 4 levels they should automatically scale themselves up to the next tier.

I would like them to do this with everything like this. Instead of having ml4 ml8 ml12 etc. just make the item scale down to the lower ml until the character is high enough level to wear the next best upgrade. They can even keep the grind the same if they want.

I would also like to see a lot of gear that "levels up", like they had hinted at putting in the game about two years ago. So for example if you like the Blood plate at lvl 6 it scales up in base AC when your character gets to 8 or 12 or 16 etc.

DDO is the only MMO I've ever played where I've never "run into" a friend in the game world and recognized them from their appearence. I think Turbine has totally fallen alseep at the wheel on making DDO actually have social and "massively multiplayer" elements. I've said it before, DDO plays a lot more like a game of Quake or TF2, with a graphical server browser and map selector. You literally never recognize someone until they're in your party with them and see their names.

[Zenako]

The reason a lot of lower level robes were made was for the Nightshield clickie. Back then normal Shield Spell Clickies only lasted a minute IIRC so the 8 minute Nightshield was a HUGE improvement. With low level Shield clickies now lasting 5 minutes last time I looked, the difference, not so much. The 14 minute clickies are nice however.

Perhaps the best thing they could do is to use the same mechanic they used for the Crystal Cove goodies, making them BtA unless you made them EPIC. It would be a LOT nicer to only have to make few Cloaks, Wraps, Robes of the various intermediate levels instead of doing it for all. The other problem is someone with a number of characters in their stable, which ones do I make the higher level stuff for when I am not sure which ones I might be playing most over the upcoming year.

[Nodoze]

WoW has something similar called Heirloom items that are BtA and increase their power as the character levels.

I think Chilldude has a good idea but would want them to fix the other bugs first.