by midomiko » Sat Mar 19, 2011 6:37 pm
A few points then:
1) OP states he was able to equip two Nettle Shirts, which would fall under the same category, not different categories as Linen and Nettle are implied.
2) While the shirt itself is subject to a Square Root formula in craft, it is not at all difficult to raise the associated stat/skills to improve it. Picture a q90 Shirt (extreme but possible), based on the formula that would be 2*sqrt(90/10) or 2*sqrt(9), making a +6 Survival shirt, +12 with two shirts. Just how many LP does 6 Survival cost at a high enough level to be able to crank out said shirt? Assuming this player made it with raw skill, no other bonuses, that would be 9100+9200+9300+9400+9500+9600=56,100 LP saved just on one shirt, let alone a second one stacking on top of that. Let's even make it more reasonable, a q40 shirt would be +4 Survival by the same formula, given 40 skill existing to be able to make this, that would be 4100+4200+4300+4400=17,000 LP. Factor in a second shirt for free, and you have just gained more LP for 5 Stinging Nettles than you would for all but the highest known LP value curiosity at 360% (a 5000 base curiosity would give 18,000 at 360%, and the majority of those require 36-48 hours).
3) Most things affected by Survival do not seem to use a Square Root formula, they are affected by raw Survival as a softcap (up to 200 if the wiki is still correct). This means an earlier chance to top off bone saws, hides, raw bones, raw meats, raw foraged items over high q soil, and savings of several thousands of LP to getting to that skill cap beyond what would be had with only one Shirt of high quality.
Imbalanced is a matter of perspective, while it may not be a big deal now when folks are still building up skills, it would be a bit more notable of a bonus in a few weeks when folks are more actively hitting higher skill values.