First off, I want to say that I've been having a blast here. I started playing way back before the wipe and stopped after, but came back about 2 weeks ago after missing it. This server really does have a huge amount of PVE stuff, and I've bugged a few people to come join me.
I've run into a wall though. It's almost like those newbie gains you'd get at the gym. The beginning here is awesome, with lots of great gear and pet progression to keep the interest going. There is a gap between maxed newb level and "able to do things" that is kinda killing my motivation though, and it all boils down to these sockets.
I've done around 25 SoS bottles and more tmaps than I can count, and only pulled out 2 socket scrolls total. This wouldn't be so bad if tmaps and SoS gave good gold or gear, but everything else is completely useless outside of socket and magical cloth deeds. I have 5 characters collecting bods hourly as it lists blacksmith as the place to get them and someone mentioned them "maybe" coming from tinkering, but that hasn't produced any results yet either and no one seems to know what level BoDs drop sockets.
It's also an issue of how many sockets are required. A combat suit to kill some of the harder enemies needs a crazy amount of parry/swords/anatomy (Magi, kaz stuff, ancient dragons to name some), and tradekills are just scary. I actually started up here initially wanting to do some blacksmithing, buying the 120 scrolls for mining and BS as soon as I could, only to find out it was completely useless. Again, that huge gap of nothing between a maxed out newb and someone that can actually do things.
I get that sockets are primarily a donation item, on a donation item run server, and I am actually on the recurring monthly donation thing, but they are so incredibly expensive. 45ED is the going price in trade, and you need crazy amounts of them to enjoy the server past killing newbie mobs. I love this server, but I'm not really interested in forking over thousands of real dollars just to be useful. Add the fact that they can break unless you donate to have them applied, and it's even worst. I'm almost scared to do it with how long it took just to get 2. Smithiing is going to need that +200 luck investment too, so the entire system is a huge real money sink. I've been told my 2100 luck suit is useless, and 5k is the target to aim for. That's.. a lot.
For something so critical to the game, shouldn't they be a bit easier to aquire? Augments are rare enough as is (I've been farming almost constantly for 5 days now and only got 1 blacksmith and 1 arms lore aug), but having the slot they enter also be incredibly rare really hurts.
Is there any chance they will be spread out a bit more with more ways to aquire them in the future? Or have at least a higher drop rate from SoS?
Yes we do rotate them around and give scrolls as event prizes, auctions and special mobs, you have only been here a short time. Think of this shard as a marathon rather that a sprint. It is much more enjoyable to play your own game rather than compare yourself to a 4 year veteran. It may seem hard, but you can get all the items in game, donating is just a fast way to get into the game without the grind, but still attainable to everyone with work and trade.
