Open Letter to Qarl, regarding topics discussed in RMT thread

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grepman wrote:

people dont use chaos and chisels to up the iiq to get better item drops. they do it to get better MAP drops, which solely come from map quantity rolls. not sure if Im being captain obvious here lol

ok...you do realize that MAP drops are based off of RNG...the same as everything else involving IIQ

Having a Q0 white map and 40% IIG from gear is just as likely to drop a +2 (or any other) map as a rare map with 40% IIQ and none from gear.

Using chaos, chisels, etc only upgrades the IIQ on a map. More items dropped = better chance at getting a map.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

For the most part, I agree with grepman here.

However, I still firmly believe that, in the event a player is banned for RMT practices, all items which the player possessed at any time, regardless of who currently possesses them, should vanish. This would serve two functions:
1. It would be pointless to transfer items from an account which is likely to be banned to a "safe" proxy account, because the items would be deleted anyway.
2. Legit players would be far, far more anti-RMT than they are now, and thus much more prone to report and to collect vital evidence against RMTers than they are given the current incentives.
3. Legit players would be incentivized to form actual social connections with other players, instead of relying heavily upon trades with pseudo-anonymous strangers.

With those benefits comes the cost of several players getting burned due to accidentally trading in illegitimate goods. Worth it, in my opinion.

I'll have to say I disagree with this for few reasons:

1. tracking down an item might be hard, especially if its not well programmed. what I mean is if a shavs number of links and colors is changed or a rare item gets something exalted, is it still the same item ? who knows ? ideally its itemid is kept and affixes, links sockets and colors are all attributes. but who really knows ?

2. punishing legit players in such a way so they trade only with people they know will alienate a ton of players regardless. moreover, what it will do is instead of pushing the game into 'group up/trade' territory it will push it towards 'solo/friends' territory. which I understand we're all trying to make it tilt, but so many adjustments will have to be made, drops-wise, and itemization wise. not to mention, I'm 99% sure GGG would LOSE money from that, as player base will not be as big as it is right now in the group mentality, no matter whether we like it or not.

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HellGauss wrote:

Another reason for people hording orbs is that there is too much agreement in determining what is a very good item. This is related to the small affixes/postfixes pool. For 50+% of marauders, the 'best' armor as 3 resist affixes (chaos is better), + life and + armour. If there was more affixes available, you would be strongly encouraged to craft your own gear in order to get the best item for your build, since you would not find it on the market. At momement, the value of an armour is inverse proportional to its 'distance' from the perfect one.

In this regard, I endorse the new mechanics of VallOrb, it will definitely help about this.

I agree, this is integral. There should be more equally desirable properties for any given build than there currently are. Definitely more than the 6 (or 7 if you count chaos res).

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grepman wrote:

since orbs are both crafting mats and currency, the easy answers are:
1. players hoard mats to gather a pool to craft from, because high-level crafting (6L, ex, et) is only possible in large quantities

2. players hoard currency to get buying power to buy x number of big ticket items and still don't feel broke after.

This is correct, to put it another way:
1. Players are incentivized to craft later rather than sooner because it precludes creating obsolete items. I'd rather something could be done with those otherwise obsolete items, such that good ones were valuable later in the game. This could be accomplished through base type and item level upgrading recipes and mechanics to reroll property ranges. Short of that low level crafting costs could be reduced to offset the depreciating value of low level items.

2. Much as above players are trying to avoid buying items with depreciating value. Although end game items depreciate for a much different reason, notably the collective accumulation of items. IIRC Chris said there's about 5million items in stashes. No wonder we feel the effects of item saturation. The solution is not to remove trade. BoA or SFL would only compartmentalize unrewarding gameplay to each player's progress. Admittedly that might be much better than the current situation. Nevertheless, there is a solution and it is in creating an optional item sink that serves to consume all non-BIS items. Vaal Orbs are such an item sink, although not the ideal solution.

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mondobogus wrote:

Having a Q0 white map and 40% IIG from gear is just as likely to drop a +2 (or any other) map as a rare map with 40% IIQ and none from gear.

Using chaos, chisels, etc only upgrades the IIQ on a map. More items dropped = better chance at getting a map.

the map RNG drop is tied to IIQ and only IIQ on the map itself. no one will give us exact formula so we have to trust devs. so far from what Ive seen, it is indeed true. a high quantity coupled with good affixes (pack size and/or magic/rares) tends to drop more maps. yes, its still very rng but your postulate here is wrong- a map with q0 will always drop strictly less total maps than map with q20 in the long run

unless youre talking about getting enough drops to BUY a map, which is true, but entirely different argument.

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grepman wrote:

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mondobogus wrote:

Having a Q0 white map and 40% IIG from gear is just as likely to drop a +2 (or any other) map as a rare map with 40% IIQ and none from gear.

Using chaos, chisels, etc only upgrades the IIQ on a map. More items dropped = better chance at getting a map.

the map RNG drop is tied to IIQ and only IIQ on the map itself. no one will give us exact formula so we have to trust devs. so far from what Ive seen, it is indeed true. a high quantity coupled with good affixes (pack size and/or magic/rares) tends to drop more maps. yes, its still very rng but your postulate here is wrong- a map with q0 will always drop strictly less total maps than map with q20 in the long run

unless youre talking about getting enough drops to BUY a map, which is true, but entirely different argument.

Don't trust the devs on this one if that's what they're saying. I've been testing IIQ on maps vs gear, and have actually tested what I've stated above.

With a Q0 map and 40% IIQ from gear I got up to 4 maps on a run here and there...which turns out was about the same with the IIQ reversed.

test was only 40 lvl66 maps (20 and 20):
after each run I put maps in a specific tab for each group to not get them mixed up, and left them there until all testing was completed

IIQ on map 40% took a TON of chisels and time (due to temporal chains lol) total maps dropped = 33

IIQ from gear Q0 white map (which was WAY cheaper) total maps dropped = 32

YES! 1 MORE MAP SO I'M WRONG! No, not exactly. It was just the difference on 1 RNG on 1 item drop. On both accounts, some maps dropped 0, while others dropped up to 4 (not very often though...most often 0, 1 , or 2).

Also there was nil difference on map level variances from each.
If you can afford to run some tests then do so. I couldn't afford a large test pool.

so in the end I agree to disagree :D

EDIT: also I think the character level vs map level has a lot to do with the odds of finding a map...lvl83/84 vs lvl66 map = less returned than used

40 maps is an extremely small sample size. Id say 1k maps is a minimum at which results should be even worth considering.

not to mention, things like pack size, magic monsters are clearly great for exp and if they drop maps, these affixes are clearly better since magic monsters drop +1 and rares +2. more of which means better maps if they drop any maps at all.

chaosing and chiseling 75+ maps is really the best way to sustain map pool in the very endgame
especially since chisels got much easier to get with the hammer recipe

Haven't read the entire thread but here are my thoughts on a few issues.

RMT

The premise of RMT being a very real factor in the economy is wrong from what I've read of popular opinion.

First, there is a distinction between low level farmers and botters. I am unsure of needing a distinction from a player perspective, but the effect is certainly not an enormous increase of high end orbs.

I'll highlight some of my experience dating back to before Anarchy. During open beta before Anarchy, a sharp increase in the number of low level currencies occurred. Exalted orbs opened beta around 15-20 chaos each and steadily increased. Over time, this value climbed to 35 before I had really noticed anything.

Around May, I encountered a previously unnoticed type of trader: the exalt buyer. I'm not talking about your hoarding mapper trying to get a good deal on currency. These were low level (generally only level 1) characters that sold low currency in high volumes. Even for a small time trader like me, I was buying hundreds of fusing at a time for exalts.

Through communication, it became apparent to me that these were not the farmers/botters at all; they were middle men who had access to a buy/sell rate list from RMT companies and were helping to fill supply/demand for profit. I never really looked into the actual RMT website rates so it is still a mystery to me the profit they made.

Once Anarchy began, I immediately knew I wanted to cross league to get a Shavronne's Wrappings. I farmed about 15 exalts in the first couple of weeks from docks low life, but was still short on the orbs to get it. In this time, I facilitated a lot of cross league, taking a 2:1 ratio and filtering it back 3:1 to make up the difference.

What I eventually noticed was that these middle men still needed standard exalted. I was able to trade standard exalts for low level currency in Anarchy from the botters/farmers at about a 1.25:1 ratio, and it was a good source of income trading these orbs. Keep in mind that at this time, it seemed that low level orbs were valued at an all time low. When I first began the currency trades before Anarchy, fusing were 80-90:1 exalted and alchemy 160:1. By this time, they were bubbling on 150:1 & 240:1.

People were crafting insane amounts of 6L at this time and alching everything in maps because to the general public, this was not an apparent thing to do. When you looked at the rates, simply alching belts and jewelry when alchs are so cheap was enough to get back the alchs in chaos through the vendor recipe. And to everyone else, uniques that were 1 exalt before were still one exalt, rares that were 1 exalt before were still 1 exalt. What this meant was that when the same item sold, you got more currency to craft when you can get these ridiculous low end orb rates.

The conclusion here is that the value of the high end items was tied to the exalted, not the chaos. As a result, everything was more expensive to the low level players and crafting was fairly viable with at least these orbs. In essence, the influx of low level currencies actually changed the expected value equation enough to make it reasonable.

Once domination began, this was no longer the case. Cross leaguing was banned and very few botters/farmers' currencies were public, most likely due to lack of volume. As a result, low level currencies were much stronger and less inflated vs higher currencies. That is why we saw something like 50-60 fusing per exalted.

Whatever GGG did seemed to have effected a more stable economy so I support their decisions. While I am still a little unsure about the true nature of what is happening, this at least is some of my experience.

I'll post later on my thoughts on crafting and currency.