Event weapon drops and overall progression.

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Ade

;3
Recent changes like nerfing the untekked rate in Ruins 1 for certain section IDs or removing nice hit % rares from event drop pools were harmful decisions.

These decisions have near-zero effect on me, as I am a very well established player. (I guess the Ruins 1 thing kinda sucks because it means my chances of finding the Charge Vulcan or the high hit Calibur of my dreams have dropped from 0.00001% to basically zero, but I digress...) I have the vast majority of my desired gear. However, these changes make it really hard for a new players to get their foot in the door.

When a generous amount of 30% hit AND USEFUL weapons drop during an event, it lowers the price of those with less than 30% hit, which is good. Eventually the 30% items find their permanent homes, and the often-predicted impending destruction of the economy is averted.

Now the prices for even 15% hit versions of those items have skyrocketed by comparison, making it very difficult for new players to get established.

It's common for long-running RPGs to ease up a bit in later years so that people can find the items they always wanted. It is VERY unusual for a game to tighten its grip after being around for so long, and it's a very bad idea.

Please have some good, desirable prizes for Christmas. The economy will be fine. Good items always find a home. Let players feel like they have a CHANCE to get something great. That's what keeps them coming back.

Please give Gibbles a little Santa hat, too... ;-;
 
I dont really consider 2 PD's to be an expensive, tightened grip on pretty much every single 15h item in the game for newer players.
 
I just had a 15% hit Lame price check for 20 to 40 PDs. Back when 30 hitters were event items this would have been much less expensive. The same goes for Frozen Shooters, Spread Needles, Zanbas, Red Swords, and a number of other items. Yes, there are some 15h items that have always been cheap, but I’m referring to items that were previously available semi-regularly as 30+ hit event items whose lower hit counterparts have increased dramatically in value since the events stopped giving them. You knew exactly what I was referring to.
 
Hit versions of useful weapons are supposed to be really rare.

To counter that, events are supposed to be exciting. Let’s not forget this is an old, old game. The war is over, guys. Let’s allow new players to catch up and veterans to have more than a 0.01% chance to find something better.

A brand new player today has a significant disadvantage during events compared to us moldy oldies who benefitted tremendously from them. That is very unfair.
 
To counter that, events are supposed to be exciting. Let’s not forget this is an old, old game. The war is over, guys. Let’s allow new players to catch up and veterans to have more than a 0.01% chance to find something better.

A brand new player today has a significant disadvantage during events compared to us moldy oldies who benefitted tremendously from them. That is very unfair.
I second this. Save the noobs
 
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I’ll leave this here. Obviously this is for a different game. The theory stays the same. Catering to the casuals and lower tier of players never works in the end.
 

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I’ll leave this here. Obviously this is for a different game. The theory stays the same. Catering to the casuals and lower tier of players never works in the end.

Right...except the mechanic was already noob friendly and then reversed course after ALL OF US benefited from it. That's quite a bit different than what you're saying there.

Plus that quote looks like it applies mostly to PVP / competitive games.
 
Right...except the mechanic was already noob friendly and then reversed course after ALL OF US benefited from it. That's quite a bit different than what you're saying there.

Plus that quote looks like it applies mostly to PVP / competitive games.

This game is competitive to some.
 
This game is competitive to some.

Okay, but the competition takes place in instance-based gameplay, so none of the issues outlined in your quote apply here. If you load up noobs with 30% hit weapons (which aren't going to exactly be falling off of trees), they aren't just going to instantly overtake the current record holders.

I'm merely asserting that events used to bring a certain level of excitement to the game due to having a SMALL chance to find something amazing. If you take that away, it hurts the event. I'm not asking to make the game easier. I'm asking to put things back the way they were because it worked and gave us something to look forward to.

I feel like a lot of arguments on this server end with people digging in their heels and not wanting to see it from someone else's side. I always ask myself when a game mechanic is changed: Is this going to make people want to play the game MORE or less? We already see from the nerfed Summer Event drops that people played way less. We didn't even reach the last milestone. If that's not proof enough that it hurt the game, I don't know what is.

It should be kept in mind that this is the greatest PSO server in the game's history. Oftentimes that is used as an argument that we shouldn't discuss things, which I think is a shame. I know that we're lucky to have this place, but I also care about the game enough to speak up if I think something is going in the wrong direction.
 
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These decisions have near-zero effect on me, as I am a very well established player.
I don't believe this to be true, as 30hit event items DO effect the economy and do devalue hunting for everyone, not just new players.

chances of finding the Charge Vulcan or the high hit Calibur of my dreams have dropped from 0.00001% to basically zero
Higher floors were still better before the untekk nerf imo (2 or 3 pattern 4 rolls with ~28% untekk instead of just 1 with 82% untekk)

When a generous amount of 30% hit AND USEFUL weapons drop during an event, it lowers the price of those with less than 30% hit, which is good.
Is it really good? It also saturates the market and makes hunting that weapon feel pointless.

We already see from the nerfed Summer Event drops that people played way less. We didn't even reach the last milestone. If that's not proof enough that it hurt the game, I don't know what is.
We didn't, but the last milestone in 2018 was 5,000,000 Kills. The server got 6,949,434 in total.
This year, the last milestone was 7,500,000, and we got 7,374,271 kills.

It's common for long-running RPGs to ease up a bit in later years so that people can find the items they always wanted. It is VERY unusual for a game to tighten its grip after being around for so long, and it's a very bad idea.
With 400% dar in 4 player games stacked with event boosts, as well as all quests available in one person mode, I think it's easier to find items than ever before :oops:

As someone who once spent like 700 PDs to buy and teampoint 30hit event items in an attempt to help shift the economy. I have OBVIOUS BIAS here; but I genuinely think that in the long run, focusing on boosts, aesthetics, and ?currency? is more sustainable for events. I'm not saying we can't have cool items in events, but the powerlevel needs to be kept in check somehow.
 
@anime : I stand corrected on the milestone. I thought they were the same from year to year. I'm sorry.

The 400% DAR argument is a bit spoopy because you're assuming people share. Most don't.

I do think the overall boosts are great, but I'm going to be very sad this year if a present drops and my heart doesn't skip a beat. Presentation matters.

Most RPGs do things to help new players catch up when the game has been around for a long time. A lot of us have great rares that are OVER 30% hit, and I don't think event items should EVER have more than that. But it would be nice if new players didn't have to spend multiple years catching up. Even with shared loot, I've never encountered a game where it took longer gear up than PSO.

Edit: The 400% argument is also a bit off because this, being the first fully legit server without any pay to win mechanics, demonstrates how horrid it would have been to gear up on a 100% legit server with Classic Loot. It would have been impossible.
 
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1.)To counter that, events are supposed to be exciting. Let’s not forget this is an old, old game. The war is over, guys. Let’s allow new players to catch up and veterans to have more than a 0.01% chance to find something better.

2.)A brand new player today has a significant disadvantage during events compared to us moldy oldies who benefitted tremendously from them. That is very unfair.

1.) And how exactly are you going to make events exciting? What new items are you going to replace the old items with? 30h items were clearly doing the economy a disservice if people like anime (below) had to spend bank to re-stabilize the economy. Are you going to hand out ubers for free? High hit non-rares? Are you suggesting event planners give you the high hit calibur of your dreams Ade? What is considered a "better" event item and how is the event considered "better" overall?

2.) I'm not sure how you could prove a current new player has a significant disadvantage over an established player other than maybe arguing that the gear aspect is wildly in favor of a veteran player. But just because a veteran player has better gear doesn't make the event unfair.

Overall, allowing new players to "catch up" was exactly what made Schthack fail when its revival happened. The server was too quick to give players their stuff back, which is related to also giving new players a way to "catch up". You know what happens when you create a catch up mechanic in a game that thrives off of playtime being the over-arcing and ultimate reward? Yeah, the players that spent the time getting the things you're so freely giving away feel disrespected and betrayed by the game. And all you're doing is reducing playtime for players that are just starting, you're not giving them a game, you're giving them a free pass to be as geared as you. And while it's admirable to want to give new players the experience of being well geared, just handing out event items or handing out high tier gear for free or basically free isn't the answer. The game thrives off of playtime. If you disrespect play time and make it worthless, you get Schthack.


As someone who once spent like 700 PDs to buy and teampoint 30hit event items in an attempt to help shift the economy. I have OBVIOUS BIAS here; but I genuinely think that in the long run, focusing on boosts, aesthetics, and ?currency? is more sustainable for events. I'm not saying we can't have cool items in events, but the powerlevel needs to be kept in check somehow.

I just like this post because it goes to show the lengths at which some people are willing to go to maintain reasonable economic standards in a game that 50% thrives off of a stable economy.
 
@Zues : Anime didn't "have" to do that, and the economy would have quite efficiently worked itself out. With the thousands of PDs circulating in this economy, one instance of spending 700 PDs to "move" the market is the equivalent of one major stock trader doing a dark pool trade to "move" a stock. It may have briefly done something, but not long term. (It's also considered a highly questionable to practice to buy / sell a security for the sole purpose of manipulating its price, but that's for IRL markets, not video games...) Anyway...

What anime did would not have had a significant impact on the economy. It was purely a symbolic gesture. And a very wasteful one, I'm afraid.

Going back to having SOME 30% hit drops is nowhere near completely revamping the game. I'm saying we shouldn't be back-pedaling the progression rate for new players compared to what we had. We obviously didn't up and quit the game, so clearly it wasn't a bad thing.

We see some deflation after events, which isn't great, but now we're in hyper inflation, which is way worse.

Ummm...

"I'm not sure how you could prove a current new player has a significant disadvantage over an established player other than maybe arguing that the gear aspect is wildly in favor of a veteran player."

Yes...that is exactly what I'm asserting. The proof is 15% hit Lame being valued at 20 to 40 PDs when it used to be worth like 8. If I started over, it would take way more time and effort for me to gear up than it would have in 2015 to 2018.

"But just because a veteran player has better gear doesn't make the event unfair."

If the veteran player had an easier time gearing up because previous events were more generous, that is the VERY DEFINITION of unfair. -___-

"I just like this post because it goes to show the lengths at which some people are willing to go to maintain reasonable economic standards in a game that 50% thrives off of a stable economy."

Sorry for another edit. What Anime did was an attempt to inflate the value of high end items by destroying goods. Both inflation and deflation are problems. Deflation occurs when you have too many goods to sell, so demand drops, and prices drop. Inflation occurs when there's too much currency and not enough reasonably priced goods and services to accommodate the usage of the currency.

Deflation is bad, but you still possess ACTUAL STUFF you can do something with, so it's less bad. The stuff can be re-purposed or sold cheaply to others who can make better use of it.

Inflation, namely hyper inflation, is worse, because you have an accumulation of currency and nothing to spend it on. This drives the prices of the few desirable goods and services to absurd heights. This is worse because you have CURRENCY that you can do NOTHING with. (PSO has some PD sinks, but once you Sphere your best items, they just start to pile up...)

From a utility standpoint, stuff is more valuable than the currency that values the stuff.

Destroying perfectly good items rather than giving them away is reprehensible. I'm not talking about leaving a 0% hit Spread Needle on the floor here. I'm assuming this was some high end stuff that Anime destroyed (please correct me if I'm wrong). Giving the items away would have only PREVENTED FUTURE TRANSACTIONS, a far lesser evil, as the economic impact of that would have been even more diluted by the passage of time. (For we don't know when those item recipients WOULD have spent PDs to purchase the items they were instead given.) This is why the destruction of feasible and useful goods is never a good answer for fixing an economy.
 
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As for players who are so well-geared that event drops will have little to no impact on their equipment and just continue to pile up more PDs, I've addressed concerns on this server and proposed ideas for other PD sinks that were immediately shot down in spectacular fashion, so don't say I didn't try.
 
Games get easier for new players as they constantly expand and they want people to catch up to relevant content.

PSO on the other hand stays static, and to make things easier literally means cutting the game time on half simply for the sake of it.

Pso is a classic rpg with a set end, and the current progression is fine.

Also ignore trinity his arguments are stupid
 
When I say casual player or hardcore in my statement I do not refer to game mode or skill but commitment of time and how long someone is willing to play.

I believe that having all the best stuff available and high hit is more negatively impacting. The casual player will end up getting all their dream items in 2 weeks, get bored because they didn't earn it, making the game in general no fun, making hunts no fun because why hunt or play when the event has the items, and probably quit. I think it's more negatively impacting to give 30h amazing things away than good. Also destroying the economy means those new players who just spent time and effort, we as hardcore players don't understand or put in to level and gear to get to, to ult slowly through hard work just to have all their future hunts result in no value, meaning they get that blandness of some ''free event items''. They can't rise themselves within the economy and end up stuck on the poor side for even longer. No sense of achievement kills everything.

I think some weapons is nice ofc, for the players that can't commit too much to gaming at all, but going overboard and with the best items kills the game. Look at 2017 was so bad for example and it took a whole year to recover. Only now in 2019 has the player base and economy been on the rise, during the year of nerfed and weaker events. I don't think that's a coincidence. I'd love super duper ubers, I would, because Im greedy and I won't stop playing unless they kill the server or me irl, but I don't think it's a positive impact on the server to go back that way.

I understand atm many items have gone up in price hugely with the economy on fire, and the gap of wealth becoming more prevalent, but this would make that harder for newer players to get a chance to get in closer imo. The drastic price increases are imo due to a long broken economy trying to fix itself and because of that many items will jump and appear high, but in reality if it wasn't broken they would of been as high or higher/close too long before now. It's just overwhelming sometimes because it's jumping from the disastrous place it was.

Having a sense of achievement in a game, is what keeps peoples enjoyment flowing, kill that and kill the game. It's as simply as that. It's easy to be disappointed at weaker events after getting strong one's because were all addicted to jingles and rates and rare boxes, but that doesn't mean it was good for us. I love sniffing cocaine, but I'll never go back to that because it's negatively impacting on my body and takes away the pleasure and enjoyment you get from life itself, too much dopamine desensitises you, the same as too many op events for the economy, it's just the same.

It is unfair that we got good/op stuff before and newer players can't BUT we can't change the past. Mistskes get made, you learn from it.

P.s. Good content is what creates excitement, items or not.
 
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@Zues
"I'm not sure how you could prove a current new player has a significant disadvantage over an established player other than maybe arguing that the gear aspect is wildly in favor of a veteran player."

1.) Yes...that is exactly what I'm asserting. The proof is 15% hit Lame being valued at 20 to 40 PDs when it used to be worth like 8. If I started over, it would take way more time and effort for me to gear up than it would have in 2015 to 2018.

"But just because a veteran player has better gear doesn't make the event unfair."

2.) If the veteran player had an easier time gearing up because previous events were more generous, that is the VERY DEFINITION of unfair. -___-

1.) I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. While it is strange for the economy of items to bolster value of low end (in value) items I dont necessarily see that as something that disables new players from getting into the game. I think, if anything, that it really shows how consistent the value system tends to be after a long period of time, that things like these don't just suddenly have 0 value.

2.) That's not the definition of unfair.

un·fair
/ˌənˈfer/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
  1. not based on or behaving according to the principles of equality and justice.
    "at times like these the legal system appears inhumane and unfair"
    • unkind, inconsiderate, or unreasonable.
      "you're unfair to criticize like that when she's never done you any harm"
    • not following the rules of a game or sport.

In this instance, not following the rules of a game is the most logical definition. How are these people not following the rules? They play the game fairly, they earn what they get fairly. Simple as that.

We can also use the unreasonable definition too. What's considered unreasonable? I think that really is subjective to the person. What you consider to be unreasonable to a new player I consider to be perfectly fair. I've been around the block with arguments like these, where older players try to vouch for newer players by telling everybody that it's unfair for players who are new to struggle to get items that older players already got from previous events. The argument itself is flawed. It's because of previous events giving out such good items and the backlash of those event systems that lead to events having less than stellar (comparatively) event items than previous. Essentially Ade, what you're asking for, can be boiled down to something that benefits you as a veteran player more than it benefits a new player overall, and is worse for everybody as a collective.

All you're seeking to accomplish is to give new players an avenue for great, high end items through events and also to lower prices. But who does that really help? I would argue it helps the established player much more than a newer player if anything. Makes the established player capable of getting even more high end gear even easier than before, and allows that established player to abuse the market by selling these items because they have more of them. Granted, lower priced obviously, but it feels like it effectively makes the established player richer as a result (because compared to selling a 30h Zanba for 40 PD's and nobody buying one, you're selling it for 10 and making a profit of 10 per instead of nothing per. You're selling it for lower, but overall making a profit.) which doesn't really accomplish anything.

And not to sound insulting, but I see a lot of Ade coming to the rescue of new players over economics and event reward systems but I don't see a lot of new players coming on here and complaining about how economics are messed up and the event needs to be more rewarding. It's a lot of Ade coming to their rescue when they never really asked, or even cared for that matter. Maybe it's a non-issue, or maybe Ade's right and its something that needs to change, but I've been around the block enough on this topic to know that it's really a bad idea to halt progression in a game about grinding for progression.
 
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