Time and Effort

[Vandellia]

Silence is never golden, at least not when it involves a community like the great one we have here. I am talking to the "silent majority" of players on all the shards that just take the changes to their lives in game with a shrug and a sigh and continue on. Many topics and issues come and go and they,being rational and reasonable people choose not to get involved in what amounts to virtual brawls, they chose not to say anything one way or the other as in general as it doesnt benefit them. Many people are either amused or dismayed by the love/hate relationship that can be seen by them in posts by the most vocal posters. Pick a post any post about a change to the world as it exists and you will see a vocal minority pro or con on the topic, the vast majority sit back and silently agree or disagree but fail to use their vote(ie post) to chime in and have their opinion aired. I tend to take a craft-centric view of the game, and to be honest, I tend to promote what i see is in general best for that view, others being adventure-centric see the world quite differently from me and they are just as vocal and just as right in their world view as I am in mine. I will use one recent change to the game as an example of what i will call "extremist" attitudes". Nadia's pricing is designed to "wean us" off of dependancy on a bandaid fix that is long over due to be removed, That is the intent,and i have watched and participitated in the debates that the change has caused, and defended my position from my world view as others have from their's, BUT lets step back a bit, I will try and take a more middle ground approach. I am not a typical player so I inherantly have a bias and its hard to put that asside but i am attempting to present a balanced viewpoint. For the vast majority the upper tier technique parts are simply going to be far to difficult to obtain, If you arent a dedicated adventurer, or belong to a massive guild hunting for your first set of 80+ armor or crafting techs is simply going to be unreasonable in both time and effort, I honestly see this as a disheartining experience,most people do not have the skills, nor the deep pockets,nor the time to litterally spend 4 to 6 hours a day for up to a week to get the techs. In im not suggesting the devs to give anyone an "easy button" on the other hand i am asking for a balanced solution. adjust the drop rates upwards a little , make the mobs a bit more accessable by placing /adjusting the mobs spawn locations, a bit more average player friendly, having to run thru a 100 + mob to go kill a level 80 mob isnt necessairly the best way to do things, fix/adjust the aggro range a bit so that you dont get a 100 + mob member suddenly Pop in the middle of a battle,I am talking about the kind of high tier mob member that comes screeming in from no where way beyond anyones visual distance and slaps the whole group down with a few massive attacks. I am asking i guess what amounts to a bit of balanced and rational placing of mobs and tech drops.

[Justa Mirage]

I honestly see this as a disheartining experience,most people do not have the skills, nor the deep pockets,nor the time to litterally spend 4 to 6 hours a day for up to a week to get the techs. In im not suggesting the devs to give anyone an "easy button" on the other hand i am asking for a balanced solution. adjust the drop rates upwards a little , make the mobs a bit more accessable by placing /adjusting the mobs spawn locations, a bit more average player friendly, having to run thru a 100 + mob to go kill a level 80 mob isnt necessairly the best way to do things.

Raises Paw!

[Altar]

Agreed

[Hoberton]

Ditto Justa.

There have been MANY a time I just hunt for comps for the items I am making. And yes it does take a bit of time and EFFORT.

[Nosdracir]

Yup. That's me. I started HZ a few days late and played so slowly that I had not yet done a cursed wolf quest when the merge struck. I made it to Pally 100 and Fitter 100 last year, and have enough levels in almost every craft to make all of my own equipment except for metal armor.

I never made much money at all from crafting. I only crafted for people when it was convenient for me, and then I'd do it for free. Maybe made a couple hundred silver in tips over the years.

I make most of my money from farming gems. Even after the PB nerf I still made plenty of ready cash. I'd just log in, find a PB who bought gems at full price, and make one run for each type of tier 5 gem, then go do something else. The rest of my money came from consigning dragon crunchies at 25% of HV. They sell in minutes at that price, although I stopped that once I made my own dragon.

I get my comps partly through hunting and partly through shopping. I always had my equipment planned out way ahead of time. When I reached the level for new triple teched mithril armor, it was waiting for me in my vault. The last few odd and difficult pieces might sometimes come from Nadia, but that was rare.

So, Nadia has been priced out of reach now. That's not a problem.

Equipment is probably going to decay. That may or may not be a problem. If it decays slow (5000 hours) then I can probably keep up with the comp hunting/buying. If it decays fast but doesn't need comps to repair, then I may grind out another 45 levels of armorer so I can do my own repairs there too. If I can't keep up with the comp hunting, I'll get some casual armor made with triple tier 3/4 techs. (I'll never wear unteched mithril when I can hunt tier 3 & 4 comps with ease.) In all the above cases, I'll also play less.

If the decay ends up being a constant thing like offline hoard leak was, or it stops being fun, then I'll give my wealth to some lucky random newbie and say good-bye to everyone.

[Dravatar]

I understand your point, but I have to disagree about using time as a substitute for effort in terms of reward.

This does not mean that I think the rarity or difficulty of comps is correct as is.

Crafters are the masters of resource usage, not procurement. Adventurers are the opposite. It is this diversity that is the basis of a players economy.

You simply cannot equalize a player that spends more time in game doing stuff with one that does not.

[Sledge99]

Forum sentiment is always somethig one has to look at with a little bit of questioning. For everyone that posts on the bards, there are at least 100 that do not post or even follow the forums.

That said, it is not too difficult to pick out the posters that always whine and complain. They never add anything but from their point of view. They know they can develop the game so much better than those currently in charge.

If you have played a number of games and followed each forum, you know that this is very common for every game in existance.

We really have to look at all issues from both sides.

The designers and developers have a storyboard and map for the future of the game. They are not always going to let us in on this map very far into the future. No sense in telling us something that may happen only to have the situation change and along with that, the map. We always have to remember that the game belongs to the owners. It does not belong to the players. We, as players, have the power of using our feet and walking out of the game at any time we no longer feel the game and map no longer fit.

From the player's view, we are looking for a whole variety of activities. Some like social, some like adventure, some like crafting, and some like some or all of these activities. Most of all, we want to enjoy the game and have 'fun'.

Horizons is in the hot seat every day. The game, even through it is theirs, is worthless if it does not meet the needs of the players. Without the customers, there is very little use for designers and developers.

There was a huge voice raised over the T6 comps. A number of players quit or threatened to quit due to this change. We only know of those that came to the forums and expressed themselves. We do not know how many saw the change and just quit without saying anything. It appears now that the change will not be as bad as the first announcement.

Horizons Developers and Designers, please keep in mind that no one wants the 'easy' button, but we want some challenge and yet we want to accomplish our goals without having to spend weeks doing the same things in order to try to find comps needed for the goals. Hunting gets old fast when the objects of the search are very, very rare.

Crafters want to craft.

Adventurers want to adventure.

Good Hunting out there.

[Hiko]

that being said sludge, it is just such a thin line that the devs must walk in order to achieve this. I agree with you though (and probably most everyone). We don't want an easy button, but we don't want to have to treat everything as a grind. Things should be difficult to accomplish, but we should be properly rewarded for that level of difficulty

example: I'm working on all my comps for a full set of tier v armor. Having quit nearly 2 years ago and given most of my stuff away, all my gear is either unteched mithril plate, or mithril plate with Tier III techs (or in a few cases, completely missing). I find I need 38 mithril golem frags though, so I am out in mithril alley hoplessly trying to find mithril golems amongst the undefended resource nodes and hope that they drop a frag.

Now, these things are a snore to kill. In most cases I don't even pay attention to the screen as they are so easy. Yet, I am spending 10+ hours collecting these comps because they are so few and far between, and the drop rate has been so low (luck perhaps?). The only challange is keeping my attention span there.

So difficulty: too easy
Time: A lot
Reward: little
Fun factor - none

Much of my time thus far since I have returned has been focused on gathering comps. I find the time vs risk vs reward factor to be horribly skewed in this regard.

Personally, I feel that those that are difficult to kill, such as vexators and kwellen, should have a much higher drop % of comps than those that very easy.


Just my 2c

P.S. The problem here is what is difficult to a new level 100 will not be difficult for someone who is rating 180. There is no way to balance this fact, which explains why TG never intended someone to have ratings this high a

[Vandellia]

I love it when people gloss over the entire point of the post, guess for some they have no comprehension beyond the first couple of sentences
the game clearly logically and with common sense should be designed around and for the the average and or typical player not the extremes at either end. I try and not be overly THICK OBSCURE or UNREASONABLE when i post for the most part but people please think about the entire tone and content of the post before you go off on a tangent I love having the entire post and thread derailed by someone taking something out of context and then twisiting the whole though process out of any recognisable semblance of the original though line .

[Peaches]

To gear a game around groups of individuals, based on the time ingame?

I have the time, and I spend it in horizons, why should I be penalized for this?

Just curious.

Thanks

Ya, I pay the same fee as all players, I expect nothing more, or nothing less, than to be able to log in when I wish to and play as long as I wish.

[Justa Mirage]

*sheepish grin* didn't mean to make the Amtrak jump track there Vandellia... but I loved that part soo much because it was very well said.

Unfortunately so did other posters

Sorry about that

*hugs*

I just think the unbalancing factor that guides the game is the "haves" and "have nots"

[Rhyssa]

Moved most of my post to start a new topic because I wasn't sure if I was off topic to what the op originally intended. To be honest I had a little trouble following the original thread (please, please use paragraphs - my eyes get lost in so much writing without any breaks).

the time to litterally spend 4 to 6 hours a day for up to a week to get the techs.

6 hours a day x 7 days in a week = 42 hours (or 2520 mins). Say 10 items to tech and 3 techs each equals 30 techs x 2 comps per tech = 60 x 2 = a total of 120 comps. 2520 minutes / 120 comps = an average of 1 comp every 21 minutes. Sounds perfectly reasonable, even quick to me.

[Vandellia]

No it isnt reasonalble for the average player and thas just for 1 tech set not teh other 2 sets of items for a tech set

[AA0]

Pretty reasonable, if you want techs you pay for it. Just because one doesn't like to hunt doesn't mean it is unreasonable.