Long awaited 3.4!, 3.4 talk Options

[deLaras]

If they're considering injecting Mystery boxes again it should be because they found or fixed dupling issues...
What if it's same old story...?
I'm sick of duplers and botters, it's incredible their impact on this game

someone back me up, but i recall Neume stating a long long time ago that Mystery Boxes we're never going to be implemented again. So, if that is true, then obtaining the promo UPCs would be from a different method.

[Delacourte]

someone back me up, but i recall Neume stating a long long time ago that Mystery Boxes we're never going to be implemented again. So, if that is true, then obtaining the promo UPCs would be from a different method.

I remember that as well. We were told that MB's were never to return.

[LanEX]

As well as being told there would no exclusive UPC; among other things that have been "reconsidered"
Nonetheless, it seems more likely to add promo UPC cards to cash shops or via webgame...

[Vibbard]

i have a huge concern with 3.4. As far as i know, team arena and all those new missions that will be added with 3.2 are instanced missions just like Secret Tower Second Floor and i think everyone here has experienced the massive lag/crashes that we get there with about 7-8 instances of STw open. This makes me think that G1 doesnt have the infrastructure to make 3.2 mission stone lobbys work as they should =/.

[Edyn]

Good point. I wonder how many Chateau de Bourgogne raids we'll be able to have running at once before everyone crashes.

Will Secret Tower be improved as well? sGE increased the drop rate of their Weird Keys by 100% in 3.2. If we receive the same it'll only invite more people to try the raid and more opportunities to crash and waste keys.

[Hardeh]

The trend lately seems to be gambling based items to increase the amount of purchases. Gambling has always been a big aspect of this game, from upgrading to enchanting. Lately, it seems like putting one or two good items into a box as possible drops is the way they're aiming to make money. It's not a bad strategy, I'm sure if someone really wants one of these costumes they will be apt to spending a target card or two to get them. The new web based game will be more of the same, a cash grab to increase sales in the short term by dangling sought after UPC cards. Part of the reason many players I know stopped playing this game is because of things like this, it's too late to get most of them back but maybe they'll realize this isn't the best way to do these things.

[oooshiny]

I got what I wanted in 5 of each of the boxes. :3 The drop rate is pretty decent. I opened 5 more of each and got more fun things.

[Delacourte]

I can also agree the drop rate isn't as bad as some may think it is. I got the Female fighter costume, the Bern costume and both Samuari costumes and a drop manual in my first 7 boxes. I opened a few more to get the hats. I'm now only missing blue and got a double of the black since that was already available in game. I think the rate is really bearable and that if you don't get at least one new costume in 10 boxes that it's just really bad luck. On the other end of things from the previous boxes and these I now have more Jorg keys that I will ever use. The rate on those need to be lowered IMO.

[Tiamat]

The drop rate of the costumes is high enough that I think G1 would probably have made more money on average if they just sold the things directly in the cash shop. It would have also reduced player frustration because no one likes getting a bunch of untradeable Jorm keys they'll probably never use (and which cost less gold to buy directly than a box costs, anyways).

[ichibaka]

more like they should remove it and replace it with something usable by the mass, heck even a soul crystal would be more bearable.

[Neume]

The Portmanteau IIIs will not have the Mysterious key. So we wanted to be sure they were available. It is possible they will become tradable in the near future.

[Tiamat]

more like they should remove it and replace it with something usable by the mass, heck even a soul crystal would be more bearable.

Judging by the new sticky post from Neume, it appears that we are stuck with limited edition gamble boxes thanks to IMC (K2 actually apparently opposed the concept or something, from what I'm reading?). So yes, while I would prefer the costumes simply be sold directly, I guess removing those annoying Jorm keys is the only solution then. However, as I've stated/implied, the drop rate of the costumes is so high already that the boxes are almost "too good" on average. The terribleness of the Jorm keys is likely there to help balance out the fact that these boxes actually give you more bang for your buck on average than a direct sale of the costumes would (if you value the costumes at say, 700gold or so, which is around what new costumes normall cost)

This post has been edited by Tiamat: Jan 14 2010, 08:36 PM

[Neume]

Judging by the new sticky post from Neume, it appears that we are stuck with limited edition gamble boxes thanks to IMC (K2 actually apparently opposed the concept or something, from what I'm reading?). So yes, while I would prefer the costumes simply be sold directly, I guess removing those stupid Jorm keys is the only solution then. However, as I've stated/implied, the drop rate of the costumes is so high already that the boxes are almost "too good" on average. The terribleness of the Jorm keys is likely there to help balance out the fact that these boxes actually give you more bang for your buck on average than a direct sale of the costumes would (if you value the costumes at say, 700gold or so, which is around what new costumes normall cost)

In reality we want you to feel that these boxes are a good value. The Mysterious Key is only there because we are hoping to make it tradable soon so that more of them are available as well as the fact that we know we are not going to be offering it anymore after the current boxes. I disagree that the lvl 92 EC x 1 isn't valuable but we will review that for the PIII boxes.

Also, the costumes ARE planned to appear on the Feso Exchange in their timed (and stated) state for the most part. So there is some consolation there. We do hope to change our partners minds on this new system but we recognized the time it will take and the divergence this will cause for our version (which as many of you know we have been trying to limit as much as possible).

[Tiamat]

In reality we want you to feel that these boxes are a good value. The Mysterious Key is only there because we are hoping to make it tradable soon so that more of them are available as well as the fact that we know we are not going to be offering it anymore after the current boxes. I disagree that the lvl 92 EC x 1 isn't valuable but we will review that for the PIII boxes.

Does this mean that Myserious Keys will be removed from the bazaar soon? Or am I interpretting that wrong? Is there any chance you or Gamer's First would be at liberty to divulge what you can get from that chest anyways? Often times I'd open it and get stuff that I'm not even sure was worth the cost of the 125 gold key in the first place (at least back when I did Jormungand raids. The cost of crafting the entrance symbol for the raid these days is pretty ludicrous now that no one farms Ustiur anymore)

I didn't mention 92 echips in my own post, but if someone else did, I imagine they were referring to the fact that the player market value of a single 92 enchantment chip is significantly less (3 to 5 times less) on any server than anything else you could buy with 150 gold. At least on Orpesia, 92 chips are around 3 million vis at the highest while 150 gold meanwhile can buy you things you can sell for 10 - 15 million vis, if not more.

Again, though, I myself think that even if the key and 92 chips are kinda subpar for the cost of the box (I'd even go so far as to classify them as booby prizes, myself), the (hypothetical) value of the costumes and other items you can get (even if the 80% manual was not bugged) on average make the box worth the gold in my experience.

[Bilbo]

i guess this will come with Feso`s comtumes bug, fixed, since outhere its a lot of ppl with those bugged items. about chips 92 chips. if they are Add to feso/gold shop, will this up or down the prices we have now? are you guys considering how to apply those changes in economy, inorder to improve it, and restore the actual inflation?

i actually have a lot doubts about upcoming patch, but economi atm, its something fragile and unknow, so, its needed to know exactly how those updates will change the value of our current items.

[Delacourte]

i guess this will come with Feso`s comtumes bug, fixed, since outhere its a lot of ppl with those bugged items. about chips 92 chips. if they are Add to feso/gold shop, will this up or down the prices we have now? are you guys considering how to apply those changes in economy, inorder to improve it, and restore the actual inflation?

i actually have a lot doubts about upcoming patch, but economi atm, its something fragile and unknow, so, its needed to know exactly how those updates will change the value of our current items.

First off, the feso costume bug is fixed as far as I know, but for timers to start on items that were put on a character prior to the fix those people would have to unequip the item then reequip it to activate the timer. Unless K2 states that you can be banned for not doing so I don't think people who have these are going to start their timers.

There's no way to know for sure how the economy is going ot be affected by a patch.

[Justice1]

Good point. I wonder how many Chateau de Bourgogne raids we'll be able to have running at once before everyone crashes.

Will Secret Tower be improved as well? sGE increased the drop rate of their Weird Keys by 100% in 3.2. If we receive the same it'll only invite more people to try the raid and more opportunities to crash and waste keys.

I'm very curious about this as well. Even with just 4-5 rooms the lag is very noticeable, more than that and it gets hard to even move. It would be no fun to finally get some good instanced raids and then hardly be able to even do them due to lag!

[Tiamat]

The problems with Secret Tower, besides the lag from so many instances being made, is that it's stupid that your'e able to make so many instances in the first place. It makes no sense storyline-wise that one set of keys magically makes an INFINITE set of floors for each player to go through individually. It's also stupid that players can go through it individually in the first place. This is a RAID, and yet it's easily soloable by a large majority of the player base. I don't know why IMC didn't restrict it to just one instance per key. It's pretty terribly designed.

Unfortunately, the latter problem applies to he other upcoming instanced raid, the circus raid, which again is easy enough to solo for many so lots of people will probably be setting up multiple instances and thus lagging the heck out of the instance servers/channels. At least that raid forces you to have at least 3 families per run before you can start it, though.

The fact that it starts lagging with as little as 4-5 rooms is pretty pathetic though. This might also be due to several flaws with the design of the raid (for example, why did IMC decide to make an instanced raid that spawns HUNDREDS of mobs within it? They should have made the instance be a tough battle against 1-5 boss mobs only. Instead, EVERY single instance forces the server to create hundreds of monsters out of no where and then forces the server to constantly have those monsters' AI functions running (such as wandering around, and agrroing players, etc). I'm sure that can't be good for the lag situation! Then there's the fact that the aggro limit is removed in the Secret Tower instance for some reason, so you have absolutely epic trains of hundreds of mobs all chasing after one person (again, more pressure for the server to crank out AI functions)

This post has been edited by Tiamat: Jan 18 2010, 02:13 PM

[Martinellus]

I agree with all of your complaints, except for one: the limit of instances that can be open.

While I agree that, storyline-wise, it makes no sense at all, you can't just limit the number of rooms to 1. This is a MMO, so we have a huge number of players with the same interest. Simply forcing players to wait a line isn't the best option.

So yes, they could put a limit on the nr. of rooms open. But 1 is too radical. Maybe 4 or 5 would already be good, since we're talking about RAIDS and, like you said, they're supposed to be made in squads.

Other than that, I agree with your terms.

[Tiamat]

So yes, they could put a limit on the nr. of rooms open. But 1 is too radical. Maybe 4 or 5 would already be good, since we're talking about RAIDS and, like you said, they're supposed to be made in squads.

Other than that, I agree with your terms.

I'm talking about the number of rooms you can open PER SET OF KEYS, not the total number of rooms you can have opened at the same time. When you create a Jormungand symbol and use it to open the Jormungand raid, it only opens one room. After that, anohter person can use another key and open another Jormungand room. It's still one room per key, but multiple rooms can be active at one time.

With Secret Tower Floor 2, you can use a set of Secret Tower keys (East + West + North) to give everyone who stops by the chance to make their own room from that set of keys. They don't even have to open their own set of keys! Heck, they don't even have to know you. You can be a complete random stranger to them, open up your own room, and the gate will still be "activated" and let them make their own room off of your keys as well. One set of keys could potentially let 100 players open 100 rooms (of course, in actual practice, this would explode the server, but whatever). And that's stupid. It's basically multiplying the loot based on the number of players chilling at the key gate whenever a single set of keys is used. It allows a big strong clan to gather up 10 times the loot that a small weak clan would for the same set of keys, especially if the weak clan requires 10 players working together to beat the room while the big clan can have 10 of its players each soloing their own room, all made from one single set of key in either case. On a whole, it just causes a ton of problems, both in terms of lagging the servers (since people don't even need to farm their own keys but instead just need one set of keys from anyone else to open up 100 of rooms at the same time) and in terms of balance (since you can multiply the loot gained from one set of keys based on how many people you have that can solo the thing, which means stronger clans with more members who can solo the raid get to milk more loot out of one set of keys than weaker clans, even if both bring the same number of players)

Oddly enough, only Floor 2 works that way. Floor 4 doesn't. I wonder if it's an oversight. If anything though, Floor 4 ironically works too much in the OPPOSITE direction, where EACH player needs their own set of keys to even ENTER the instance, even if someone else made a room already. This again unfairly hurts weak clans instead of strong ones because weak clans who can't solo the raid need to use multiple keys for the same amount of loot while strong clans can just have each strong player use their own key to solo the instance. It doesn't have the lag problems that Floor 2 does though, for obvious reasons.

It is beyond me why they did it that way (for either floor) instead of how they did Jorm (one set of keys opens only one room, but a ton of players can enter that one room without needing their own key. They do need 500 rep, though).

Unfortunately, future instanced raids continue to run the whole smorgasboard of how the keys work with room creation and allowed participants like the illustration above. It's very unstandardized.

This post has been edited by Tiamat: Jan 18 2010, 08:15 PM