The War Against Adamantine

[msterswrdsmn]

Theres also the point that adamantine is required for masterly damask weapons now, and the damage difference is rather significant, especially with crit-reliant builds.

Is it possible to make do without end-game gear? Yes, but its not easy, and, paradoxically, gives people a reason to powerbuild (if my gear sucks, I need to comphensate with build power).

Arelith as a whole has always had a catch-22 with end-game resources. Top-tier resources (adamantine, rubies, emeralds, etc) are in higher difficulty epic areas, which require either epic levels that needed the gear 5-7 levels ago, or a lower level character that has tons of gold to burn for the exorbanant prices for gear. Or a magetrain, waving two middle fingers at the crafting system and the peons needing things like "item repairs" or "adamantine".

[Morderon]

Increasing the chances on existing veins would be nice too... so you don't just get 0-1 chunks when you actually do make it to a vein.

Putting some stones/rocks around some of them to make it harder to invis-mine-and bail would be great too. As all to often I've reached one of the veins only for it not to be there due to the invis-mine-and bail tactic.

[Dr_Hazard89]

I like the notion of Adamantite being rare, really rare. As long as the epic dungeons are re-balanced around the next tier down of armor instead.

Very much this.

[Rodent]

I love adamantine being rare. The most expensive should also be the rarest.

It has been mentioned before, but this logic only works when the module's spawns are not designed around parties already having adamantine infused equipment. If Adamantine was a top-tier thing that is powerful but not essential to have to grow your character to any degree, then the spawn rate would be fine. As it stands, since you need it to bring your AC up to the levels needed to adequately survive in early epic/mid epic dungeons (particularly the newer ones tweaked with understanding of how players build now) and to bring your damage up (Masterly Damask) to adequately kill the things there's an issue.

It might be worthwhile to add a tier between Masterly Damask and Greensteel, to pace progression a little better. Consequently, adamantine-reliant gear's stats would be improved while this placeholder would take the place of current gear. Its jarring because you are allowed to use the high-end equipment at a very early level but its false encouragement, as you will be waiting for a long time to be able to gather the materials yourself, or essentially relying on factions with pre-existing levelled and equipped characters to supply you with the necessary. If that was the intention, then it is successful enough. That being said, it can rapidly devolve into a chore.

+3 AC instead of +2 AC equipment is the difference between surviving and dying for you at epics? That's... interesting. Especially considering how easy Arelith's PvM is. Your post would make sense if adamantine items were +10 AC and the mobs on Arelith had 50-60 AB. But it's +1 AC, -1 universal saves compared to the easier to acquire mithril, and Arelith mobs don't have high AB.

Adamantine is "powerful but not essential to have."

Other people have pointed it out, but consider the numbers in total and not individually. Even assuming that the character has mithril equipment (which can be fallacious, as mithril also now mostly resides in early epic/late teen dungeons. I know a few people who've been moving into their epic levels in steel armor...) that is still a difference of 3 AC (total, across shield, helmet and fullplate) and +6 damage assuming the character is utilizing a greensteel weapon instead of masterly damask.

If those numbers seem small, consider that the armor skin feat is +2 AC and it takes weapon spec and epic weapon spec to give those damage numbers to your weapon. And contrary to your opinion a lot of the options for epic level dungeoning in arelith have been amped up as people have been building progressively better. Go to orclands, or Kohlingen. The mobs there certainly have very competitive AB. It is a similar case for the Ruins in the UD.

Theoretically it is possible to just buckle down and do easier dungeons, to more slowly advance the character as you try to get the equipment together...But it is not going to be particularly engaging. The problem also has to be considered in the respect of other classes that are available for play, clerics and mages. Clerics don't need any adamantine period to coast, their spells are better. All they need is some enchantments which are useful. Mages too operate via their summons and spellbook and mostly just need enchanted gear to work perfectly well.

A sense of seperation in the difficulty and equipment woes of different kinds of characters is easily felt, and would do good to be rectified. That's fine if adamantine is to be rare, but its stats would likely need to go up and a tier between mithril and it should be added to smooth things over.

[Diegovog]

Increasing the chances on existing veins would be nice too... so you don't just get 0-1 chunks when you actually do make it to a vein.

Putting some stones/rocks around some of them to make it harder to invis-mine-and bail would be great too. As all to often I've reached one of the veins only for it not to be there due to the invis-mine-and bail tactic.

I agree to this.

[Lorkas]

@Rodent
That's all true, but it isn't an all-or-nothing situation. Or might be really hard for someone to get together 9 ingots for the full set (full plate, tower shield, helm, weapon), but I'll bet they find it far easier to get 2 for a weapon and helm, and pick up a huge chunk of the benefit.

The most important thing I'd like to see personally is a small move away from defeating powerful creatures as the only way to get stuff like addy and artefacts. How about a hermit wizard in a tower someplace who will give you an artefact if you do some kind of task for her, or a gnome transmuter somewhere who can transmute steel into addy if you bring him certain components and pay a fee, or just like, artefacts appearing very rarely in the loot matrix.

Basically, something that can keep these things rareish, but doesn't distribute them solely to those with the best builds and with friends with the best builds.

To compare this to another rareish item: my character has looted 4 or 5 mithril dusts in his adventures so far. I could be wrong but I doubt it would've broken the economy if in that time he had also come across an artefact and an addy ingot in his treasure chest diving.

[Trunx]

Other people have pointed it out, but consider the numbers in total and not individually. Even assuming that the character has mithril equipment (which can be fallacious, as mithril also now mostly resides in early epic/late teen dungeons. I know a few people who've been moving into their epic levels in steel armor...) that is still a difference of 3 AC (total, across shield, helmet and fullplate) and +6 damage assuming the character is utilizing a greensteel weapon instead of masterly damask.

If those numbers seem small, consider that the armor skin feat is +2 AC and it takes weapon spec and epic weapon spec to give those damage numbers to your weapon. And contrary to your opinion a lot of the options for epic level dungeoning in arelith have been amped up as people have been building progressively better. Go to orclands, or Kohlingen. The mobs there certainly have very competitive AB. It is a similar case for the Ruins in the UD.

Theoretically it is possible to just buckle down and do easier dungeons, to more slowly advance the character as you try to get the equipment together...But it is not going to be particularly engaging. The problem also has to be considered in the respect of other classes that are available for play, clerics and mages. Clerics don't need any adamantine period to coast, their spells are better. All they need is some enchantments which are useful. Mages too operate via their summons and spellbook and mostly just need enchanted gear to work perfectly well.

A sense of seperation in the difficulty and equipment woes of different kinds of characters is easily felt, and would do good to be rectified. That's fine if adamantine is to be rare, but its stats would likely need to go up and a tier between mithril and it should be added to smooth things over.

You're leaving out the fact that while greensteel loses six damage, it gains Keen. 3 AC is not going to make or break any build at epic levels. It's very nice to have, but especially in PvM you won't have a problem if you know what you're doing. Armor Skin is indeed +2 AC and no build that could manage dungeons well with it would suddenly become unable of going there if they skipped the feat.

[milosr]

Or just...use craft weapon/armor skills for something?

...why not just, lower the required mats for certain weapons/armors based on how much base ranks you have in those feats. It would promote non-optimal builds, would promote crafting roleplay, would actually make someone use those skills for a change.

So many solutions people, so many solutions...

But as I said before...if we have ourselves a virtual market, use it as a market. 100k for an adamantine bar, pfft!...think a million or two, lets play this sucker for all its worth. Basically its a market thats prone to ridiculous manipulations by the few people who have access to addy, USE IT.

Which leads me to my conclusion:
Best way to get changes in my opinion is to make the ridiculousness visible in-game, plainly for all to see.
Think...appraise-runs, and appraise exploits.

[Trunx]

Or just...use craft weapon/armor skills for something?

...why not just, lower the required mats for certain weapons/armors based on how much base ranks you have in those feats. It would promote non-optimal builds, would promote crafting roleplay, would actually make someone use those skills for a change.

So many solutions people, so many solutions...

But as I said before...if we have ourselves a virtual market, use it as a market. 100k for an adamantine bar, pfft!...think a million or two, lets play this sucker for all its worth. Basically its a market thats prone to ridiculous manipulations by the few people who have access to addy, USE IT.

Which leads me to my conclusion:
Best way to get changes in my opinion is to make the ridiculousness visible in-game, plainly for all to see.
Think...appraise-runs.

But that's not how markets work, though. Good luck charging millions for adamantine while someone else sells for 150k. And then another person decides to sell for 130k and gets all the buyers. Until someone decides 110k is a nifty profit to make. And so on.

[milosr]

Or just...use craft weapon/armor skills for something?

...why not just, lower the required mats for certain weapons/armors based on how much base ranks you have in those feats. It would promote non-optimal builds, would promote crafting roleplay, would actually make someone use those skills for a change.

So many solutions people, so many solutions...

But as I said before...if we have ourselves a virtual market, use it as a market. 100k for an adamantine bar, pfft!...think a million or two, lets play this sucker for all its worth. Basically its a market thats prone to ridiculous manipulations by the few people who have access to addy, USE IT.

Which leads me to my conclusion:
Best way to get changes in my opinion is to make the ridiculousness visible in-game, plainly for all to see.
Think...appraise-runs.

But that's not how markets work, though. Good luck charging millions for adamantine while someone else sells for 150k. And then another person decides to sell for 130k and gets all the buyers. Until someone decides 110k is a nifty profit to make. And so on.

You are underestimating the scarcity of it. That is all I will say on the matter.
And as for market mechanisms, thats how markets do work, if a price of something skyrockets, its a signal to the market operator that something is wrong.

[Trunx]

Or just...use craft weapon/armor skills for something?

...why not just, lower the required mats for certain weapons/armors based on how much base ranks you have in those feats. It would promote non-optimal builds, would promote crafting roleplay, would actually make someone use those skills for a change.

So many solutions people, so many solutions...

But as I said before...if we have ourselves a virtual market, use it as a market. 100k for an adamantine bar, pfft!...think a million or two, lets play this sucker for all its worth. Basically its a market thats prone to ridiculous manipulations by the few people who have access to addy, USE IT.

Which leads me to my conclusion:
Best way to get changes in my opinion is to make the ridiculousness visible in-game, plainly for all to see.
Think...appraise-runs.

But that's not how markets work, though. Good luck charging millions for adamantine while someone else sells for 150k. And then another person decides to sell for 130k and gets all the buyers. Until someone decides 110k is a nifty profit to make. And so on.

You are underestimating the scarcity of it. That is all I will say on the matter.
And as for market mechanisms, thats how markets do work, if a price of something skyrockets, its a signal to the market operator that something is wrong.

You're overestimating its scarcity. There are plenty of people who have no problem farming it as much as their sanity allows.

[milosr]

Gonna stop quoting, getting a bit silly.
Anyhow...just how plenty of people are we talking about here?
I would very much like to know the estimate of amount of people who can, on a regular basis, farm such.
Either solo, or through a dedicated group. A dedicated group that will not fall apart in the course of a month or two, as the new character cycle starts.

I myself, am ashamed to admit that I'm a noob, I never made a character that was able to solo any of that endgame content. And I'd like to consider myself average in that regard so...what are we talking about, the top 5%?...or am I being too silly?

[kittenblackfriends]

I know someone who is currently solo farming the stuff on a daily basis.

[JediMindTrix]

I know someone who is currently solo farming the stuff on a daily basis.

cool. tell them to stop before the DM's remove that deposit too please

[Prestige]

I was under the impression that adamantine was going to be comparatively plenty in the Lowerdark when it was released. It does raise the question of why the developers decided to pull most of the adamantine spawns on the module before its release, though. All it does is make Clerics that much better than the rest of us mundane-toting plebians.

[Cortex]

As said above, regardless of the rarity or the upgrade of adamantine, a cleric already matches it at level 9, and by 15 they've nearly doubled it's power, making adamantine a commodity when a cleric is around and making them all the more needed.

[Diegovog]

Here is some of the reasons why 3AC is a lot when it comes to PvE and it's even more important to PvP:
An attack that would normally only hit you at a roll of 20, when you reduce your AC by 3, a 5% chance to hit becomes a 20% chance to hit, a mere 400% increase. And as everyone know, mobs in Arelith have in general a very high HP and AB, that means they will have more time and will hit much more often. Enemies like Ogrillon Chieftain have insane AB and we aren't talking about just the first attack hitting you, we are talking about his second and even third attack. So by reducing your AC in 3 you are taking a huge amount of damage from multiple attacks, while being flat-footed by other orcs that will likely hit you more. It's pretty much the difference from using a barskin wand and not. And everyone in this game who has used it obviously noticed the difference in challenging areas.

I'm not complaining about the balance, since the server encourages grouping up by increasing xp in a party and we have all grown to learn the way Arelith is balanced. I'm just saying that 3 AC is a big difference and 90% of the characters will want it given the option. It is the very reason why people with gold are still buying the adamantine at absurd prices.

But the only change I'd like to see is an increased drop from Adamantine veins. It's really frustrating to set a group to slay a certain difficult boss, have a hard time killing it, only to find yourself without a single chunk. That's when you realize you have to go down a few times, to be able to get one ingot which will not even be enough for the armor or tower shield... Frustrating.

[milosr]

A solution!

Everyone rolls a Svirf!
You don't need a helmet, because Svirfs already have +4 deflection!
Instead of an addy tower shield, you use a green-steel large shield!
So...you only need to get an addy full plate.
(but since your deflection is +4, you can live with mithril full plate)

See, a simple solution to everything!

[JediMindTrix]

Solid idea ^

[Mr_Rieper]

Isn't the lore-consistent metal something that the drow use, and that crumbles when exposed to sunlight? Could have sworn that the drow are that much more fearsome because of their adamantine equipment.

Anyway, suggested it once, going to suggest it again. Add a transmutation option to alchemy. Something expensive but still worthwhile. Maybe a mithril ingot and 3 diamonds, but needs 100-150 crafting points. I dunno, just throwing it out there.

[Ebonstar]

loses its magical bonuses on exposure and eventually crumbles, but Drow lore armors use plate and chain mesh armors and not mail which although similar, mesh is much finer links and gives a better overall coverage while still keeping the flexibility

[Cerk Evermoore]

I think the server needs less adamantite to keep in line with how adventurers on the island are hunting the ore to extinction.

[LichBait]

It recently was included in more endgame items, and was removed from a number of places. Frankly I don't blame the crazy hunting for it.

[Durvayas]

People are farming it due to scarcity. A year ago, adamantine was 30k an ingot in shops. It was farmed only on occasion, as the nodes dropped more ore, and it could be found in more locations. Melee characters, as far as gear goes, were in a good place. Were being the operative word here.

Contrast it to now. Addy is needed for M damask, which doubles the demand at least, and couple that with addy sources being removed from a number of locations due to it being considered by the devs to be easy to farm. An occurance that has happened at least once in the past month. The dev team has been very opaque about its intentions in this regard as artefacts steadily become easier to acquire than usable quantities of adamantine, leading people to rush out specifically to farm as much adamantine as possible before the dev team seemingly arbitrarily makes it even harder to get or eliminates it entirely.

This is supply and demand economics in action. It is an economic crisis driven entirely by dev action and speculation brought about by their not being open about what is going on with the resource situation. Of course the market value of a single addy ingot is fast approaching 100k each. It also comes as no suprise that more characters are being generated using classes which dont need armor. Who in their right mind would want to build a STR fighter when they have always been sub-par balancewise and are now harder than ever to gear by comparison to genning a warlock, monk, mage, or cleric?

[Mr_Rieper]

So is the main problem here that the very best equipment is extremely difficult to get, or is it that end game dungeons almost require it?

I'm guessing it's the latter. The problem doesn't seem to be that adamantine is too scarce, it's that you require adamantine equipment to do the dungeons that get more adamantine. Seems rather silly.