EDIT: Added this section about the economy
Back to the economy getting out of hand, this had a much more significant impact than people realize, and it's why a lot of the people i played CB with say that it feels like an entirely different game.
Because the value of exalted orbs are jacked up SO much right now, people aren't willing to craft with almost any currency. The reason for this is because of how important exalts are when it comes to trading, and i see items that would have sold in HC for 2ex in CB (36 HC chaos) that are still selling for 2ex+ in OB (60 HC chaos).
Now you would think that because of this, people would be crafting more with small orbs because of the ability to sell the exalteds they find. Herein lies the problem for the majority of players: Actually getting one.
Because their value is so high but they're traded in such large quantities, people need to stock very large amounts of chaos or other currnecy to trade up to exalts. Now you may be saying to yourself: Just get lesser gear then. This brings about another issue: mediocre gear is worth less than it should be, great gear is worth exalts. In-between gear is usually priced much closer to the high end than the low end.
This, combined with the increased difficulty of obtaining chaos orbs (chaos recipe nerf), means our economy is now in a place where using orbs on gear is stupid because you can buy what you're likely to be reasonably happy using for extremely cheap, but once you need an upgrade it's extremely expensive, and the mods that you would be rolling would cost extreme amounts to get to.
This causes another problem: When people aren't rolling for mediocre gear because of this, it also means that less godly and great gear gets accidentally rolled. This just keeps increasing the disparity between gear. Because of this, not only were monsters stronger than they were in CB, but players are generally going to be progressing through the game with worse gear. Even Solo Self Found would be impacted by slightly worse gear due to increased mod pool.
I remember the days when people would roll exalts onto items in global chat without having to spend who knows how long deciding if it's "exalt worthy". Anything with decent high end mods that you could use was exalt worthy back then, and a lot of interesting gear got crafted because of that.
You need to understand that a lot of this is simply due to GGG letting an increased number of players playing the game, and thus finding a more proper macroeconomic equilibrium. My view is that Exalts should have been valued very highly in CB; they weren't, because the community as a whole was less cutthroat. In essence, trade values weren't realistic because the community was less self-interested. All OB did was add more self-interest into the economy; nothing GGG did.
The important thing to note is that it's not trading in a vacuum, but the trading vs crafting balance that's the issue here. Finding more orbs could mean either more crafting, or more trading; by itself, it doesn't really change anything (as proved when GGG increased drop rates and noticed people just hoarded more). However, finding more rares/uniques that you can't use means players sell more items for trade and that trade prices go down, and finding less rares/uniques leads to players selling less items for trade. Therefore I suggest reducing the natural drop rarity of items (primary importance), with a compensating boost to currency drop rates so the game isn't straight-up harder (secondary importance). Although the white:magic/rare/unique ratio would change, the magic:rare/unique ratio wouldn't, so Orb of Chance would be unaffected.
Right now the game is too much about selling the items you find, either by vendoring them for Alts (or Chaos), and too little about simply finding currency through natural drop.
"
ScrotieMcB wrote:
Finding more orbs could mean either more crafting, or more trading; by itself, it doesn't really change anything (as proved when GGG increased drop rates and noticed people just hoarded more).
This is the part that really irks me. Why would anyone defend how they handled this "test"? This was never announced to anyone. This wasn't made public knowledge and as a result actually able to be considered by the testers and players while they accrued wealth. Of course people hoarded the orbs, they just thought they were getting unusually lucky in a system that hadn't actually changed when in reality the drop rates were alter and thus they would actually be able to build up a buffer of orbs to actually USE instead of saving for the purchase of the things they want. Without the knowledge that one can actually use what the orbs are for without carving a hole in their hard-earned wealth, no one's going to actually change their behavior.
Yes, prices would inflate. But in reality, what would be so bad about that in itself when you can actually SEE the numbers climbing and the actual progress themselves made toward being able to buy what you want, IF that's how you want to do it. With heightened drop rates alone, I don't see how that would take ANY longer in the end to earn one's way.
Also, pardon me if this is unclear in any way, I'm ok with my words but I'm a shitty debater. I know what point I'M trying to make but I'm not the best at conveying them.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Sep 5, 2013, 7:52:17 PM
-Ban multiboxers
-Optimize particles. I play texture=2 which looks awful
-Act 3 final. I wanna fight kaoms or shavronnes
-More high level maps
-Make shipyard boss harder than crema + jungle valley bosses. Like 50 times harder
-New base item types. Like new leagues
-Buff to life
-3D artwork for shavronnes wrappings and kaoms
-Remove the useless passives mana flask on witch area
-Tons of new original uniques(like cloak of flame, facebreakers, perandus blazon). Nobody want uniques to be just like a good rare item(soul taker, rainbowstrides)
-better pvp
EDIT: Added this section about the economy
Back to the economy getting out of hand, this had a much more significant impact than people realize, and it's why a lot of the people i played CB with say that it feels like an entirely different game.
Because the value of exalted orbs are jacked up SO much right now, people aren't willing to craft with almost any currency. The reason for this is because of how important exalts are when it comes to trading, and i see items that would have sold in HC for 2ex in CB (36 HC chaos) that are still selling for 2ex+ in OB (60 HC chaos).
Now you would think that because of this, people would be crafting more with small orbs because of the ability to sell the exalteds they find. Herein lies the problem for the majority of players: Actually getting one.
Because their value is so high but they're traded in such large quantities, people need to stock very large amounts of chaos or other currnecy to trade up to exalts. Now you may be saying to yourself: Just get lesser gear then. This brings about another issue: mediocre gear is worth less than it should be, great gear is worth exalts. In-between gear is usually priced much closer to the high end than the low end.
This, combined with the increased difficulty of obtaining chaos orbs (chaos recipe nerf), means our economy is now in a place where using orbs on gear is stupid because you can buy what you're likely to be reasonably happy using for extremely cheap, but once you need an upgrade it's extremely expensive, and the mods that you would be rolling would cost extreme amounts to get to.
This causes another problem: When people aren't rolling for mediocre gear because of this, it also means that less godly and great gear gets accidentally rolled. This just keeps increasing the disparity between gear. Because of this, not only were monsters stronger than they were in CB, but players are generally going to be progressing through the game with worse gear. Even Solo Self Found would be impacted by slightly worse gear due to increased mod pool.
I remember the days when people would roll exalts onto items in global chat without having to spend who knows how long deciding if it's "exalt worthy". Anything with decent high end mods that you could use was exalt worthy back then, and a lot of interesting gear got crafted because of that.
You need to understand that a lot of this is simply due to GGG letting an increased number of players playing the game, and thus finding a more proper macroeconomic equilibrium. My view is that Exalts should have been valued very highly in CB; they weren't, because the community as a whole was less cutthroat. In essence, trade values weren't realistic because the community was less self-interested. All OB did was add more self-interest into the economy; nothing GGG did.
The important thing to note is that it's not trading in a vacuum, but the trading vs crafting balance that's the issue here. Finding more orbs could mean either more crafting, or more trading; by itself, it doesn't really change anything (as proved when GGG increased drop rates and noticed people just hoarded more). However, finding more rares/uniques that you can't use means players sell more items for trade and that trade prices go down, and finding less rares/uniques leads to players selling less items for trade. Therefore I suggest reducing the natural drop rarity of items (primary importance), with a compensating boost to currency drop rates so the game isn't straight-up harder (secondary importance). Although the white:magic/rare/unique ratio would change, the magic:rare/unique ratio wouldn't, so Orb of Chance would be unaffected.
Right now the game is too much about selling the items you find, either by vendoring them for Alts (or Chaos), and too little about simply finding currency through natural drop.
"
ScrotieMcB wrote:
Finding more orbs could mean either more crafting, or more trading; by itself, it doesn't really change anything (as proved when GGG increased drop rates and noticed people just hoarded more).
This is the part that really irks me. Why would anyone defend how they handled this "test"? This was never announced to anyone. This wasn't made public knowledge and as a result actually able to be considered by the testers and players while they accrued wealth. Of course people hoarded the orbs, they just thought they were getting unusually lucky in a system that hadn't actually changed when in reality the drop rates were alter and thus they would actually be able to build up a buffer of orbs to actually USE instead of saving for the purchase of the things they want. Without the knowledge that one can actually use what the orbs are for without carving a hole in their hard-earned wealth, no one's going to actually change their behavior.
QFT!
The results of whatever test they did are meaningless having not told us they were doing the test. OFCOURSE people hoarded their orbs, the RNG is so wild in this game that it would have just been seen as a lucky day. I have gone months without finding an exalt but then I found 2 in 2 days, am I supposed to have then thought "oh GGG must have upped the drop rates now instead of holding onto this Ex I am going to try crafting with it instead"?
Here is an old quote from Chris "I understand if allocated looting seems like a good idea when it hasn't been tested, but we have done extensive testing and have also seen how badly it hurt other games that implemented it."
I think it's fair to say GGG's 'testing' doesn't necessarily always have the results they profess.
Release is prob only going to add a handful of zones (30min playtime for anyone that knows how to play) and some balance changes. That is all I am seriously expecting, don't be disappointed people.
Thats probably pretty close to the truth. It will still be fun though. I am looking forward to it but I am not expecting the game to change much from what it is now, just a little more polished and refined with a little b it of new content. Anything extra will be a nice surprise.
This is the part that really irks me. Why would anyone defend how they handled this "test"? This was never announced to anyone. This wasn't made public knowledge and as a result actually able to be considered by the testers and players while they accrued wealth. Of course people hoarded the orbs, they just thought they were getting unusually lucky in a system that hadn't actually changed when in reality the drop rates were alter and thus they would actually be able to build up a buffer of orbs to actually USE instead of saving for the purchase of the things they want. Without the knowledge that one can actually use what the orbs are for without carving a hole in their hard-earned wealth, no one's going to actually change their behavior.
I actually think it was the right move on their part. The average beta tester, especially in CB, is much more likely to keep track of patch changes than the average player after full release. They didn't want to see what people would do if they were poked and prodded; they wanted to see what people would do if they simply, as if by some magic, had more orbs. This is precisely what not telling people achieved.
The answer: they didn't spend them.
The three problems would be if the change was relatively minor, sample bias, and shifting self-interest. In the case of the first, players might not even notice their "luck," which would result in about the same behavior (implying equal, not increased, orb use); in the case of the second, a sample too small could lead to signs of things decreasing, when they're really staying about the same (which is what I suspect an increase in currency drop rates would actually do); in the case of the third, in the same way that Exalt prices changed radically due to the shift in population from CB to OB, perhaps the behavior if they tried this again would be radically different from the behavior then.
Out of these three, I definitely think the last point is the most important; it's very clear that the OB economy and the CB economy are completely different animals due to the change in the people who make it, so trying to apply CB economic logic to OB approaches a fallacy.
In any case, I think the point of the CB test is not that we know what will happen if we increase currency drop rates (and that the result is counter-intuitive), it's that we don't know what will happen (and the result may be counter-intuitive). That's why I'm just looking at this from a kind of self-found perspective; lets put more choice in the hands of players so that trading is seen as less of a necessity. Increase orb drop rates without making the game straight-up easier (or harder), if we can avoid it, therefore the emphasis on lowering natural rarity of drops.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Sep 5, 2013, 8:07:59 PM
Making a skill dangerous for ranged chars is actually pretty difficult.
The best one I have ever seen so far was "Vortex" in d3. Monsters with this affix would shoot fireballs on enemies far away, but not on those very close. Also the fireballs did a ton of dmg, nearly 1-2 shotting you. But you could run away and dodge them / that was at the beginning of d3 before all the nerfs.
Making a skill dangerous for ranged chars is actually pretty difficult.
The best one I have ever seen so far was "Vortex" in d3. Monsters with this affix would shoot fireballs on enemies far away, but not on those very close. Also the fireballs did a ton of dmg, nearly 1-2 shotting you. But you could run away and dodge them / that was at the beginning of d3 before all the nerfs.
thats mortar .. not vortex
vortex would pull you up close to the mobs
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