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johnnyreklaw
Member Posts: 114 Arc User
So this suggestion is intended to fix a few ongoing in-game issues. I am hoping to look at this idea this from a development, player, and economic perspective when designing this idea so all parties benefit.
I'd like to suggest creating varying versions of preservation wards (I'm dubbing these "premium wards") and adding the regular version of preservation wards to the Wonderous Bazaar (they would stay in the zen store also). These "premium wards" that would be added would be for sale for slightly more zen than regular pres wards, but also offer benefits that might be tempting for players to spend zen on. As the "premium" versions and coalescent wards are only purchasable with Zen, the company income shouldn't be impacted, and would possibly be improved.
Furthermore, the addition of regular preservation wards to the Wonderous Bazaar would create a much-needed AD sink that players would utilize and burn away their AD. Players new to the game know where to get wards and wouldn't see the game as "pay-to-win" as there is a viable solution to obtaining wards available.
Here is a few ideas I had for "premium wards."
Resilient Wards These preservation wards will protect your reagents from being consumed on upgrade failure. These wards have an x% chance to not be consumed upon failure of an upgrade. Effectively, failing doesn't cost the ward at a low % of the time.
Recovery Wards These preservation wards will protect your reagents from being consumed on upgrade failure. These have an X% chance to save your reagents (probably just one reagent at random, or a low % for each reagent) from consumption upon upgrade. The wards will be consumed upon failure of a product to upgrade.
Inflation Wards These preservation wards will protect your reagents from being consumed on upgrade failure. These increase your % of success by x% of the initial cost. This one gets tricky, but the short version is that they increase your chance of success and possibly using less wards. Basing the increase on a % increase of the base success chance makes them less valuable on high-end upgrades, though they can still increase chances. For example, if X=.5, then a Rank 14 enchant now has a 1.5% chance instead of 1%. A rank 13 would be 4.5% instead of 3%. However something like a Mythic artifact (normally 5%) is now 7.5%. 2.5 % may not seem like a lot, but its a decent increase for the return product. These would be really tempting for mid-game upgrades as they would offer a decent return. A flat additional percentage breaks the end-game refining system (like 5% boost to all upgrades), but an increase of base chance seems a better mathematical solution.
These are just a few ideas I had to increasing our ward potentials. I could see Coalescent wards becoming an "epic" item, and these "premium wards" becoming blue. Regular preservation wards would be green. Its a cosmetic change to be sure, but one that would increase values in the eyes of some players. Furthermore, this creates a much-needed AD sink for the excessive surplus of AD in all server markets, gives the players something they've asked for (non-zen wards), but doesn't sink the company profits as the better wards are available for zen (as are the regular ones).
From an AD perspective, this creates a natural gate for the ADX to lower itself. Careful pricing in the WB gives a static cost on one of the most-purchased items in the game. If you have a wanted AD to Zen ratio, then pricing the wards accordingly should have the shrewd player knowing what is too much to pay for zen when we want wards. If it is cheaper to buy from the WB then to convert zen, extra AD is burned out of the market, and prices drop. Once the prices hit a certain point, players will want to convert AD to zen, and Zen costs go up. I don't think this is a complete market stabilizing change, but it might help.
To put it up before someone suggests it, I could possibly see adding Resilient and recovery Coal wards, but honestly seems overkill as the Coal Ward is already an OP item. I do think selling coal wards for AD would be bad for the market (though I'd appreciate it as a greedy player).
Thanks for your time and consideration,
-Johnny
I'd like to suggest creating varying versions of preservation wards (I'm dubbing these "premium wards") and adding the regular version of preservation wards to the Wonderous Bazaar (they would stay in the zen store also). These "premium wards" that would be added would be for sale for slightly more zen than regular pres wards, but also offer benefits that might be tempting for players to spend zen on. As the "premium" versions and coalescent wards are only purchasable with Zen, the company income shouldn't be impacted, and would possibly be improved.
Furthermore, the addition of regular preservation wards to the Wonderous Bazaar would create a much-needed AD sink that players would utilize and burn away their AD. Players new to the game know where to get wards and wouldn't see the game as "pay-to-win" as there is a viable solution to obtaining wards available.
Here is a few ideas I had for "premium wards."
Resilient Wards These preservation wards will protect your reagents from being consumed on upgrade failure. These wards have an x% chance to not be consumed upon failure of an upgrade. Effectively, failing doesn't cost the ward at a low % of the time.
Recovery Wards These preservation wards will protect your reagents from being consumed on upgrade failure. These have an X% chance to save your reagents (probably just one reagent at random, or a low % for each reagent) from consumption upon upgrade. The wards will be consumed upon failure of a product to upgrade.
Inflation Wards These preservation wards will protect your reagents from being consumed on upgrade failure. These increase your % of success by x% of the initial cost. This one gets tricky, but the short version is that they increase your chance of success and possibly using less wards. Basing the increase on a % increase of the base success chance makes them less valuable on high-end upgrades, though they can still increase chances. For example, if X=.5, then a Rank 14 enchant now has a 1.5% chance instead of 1%. A rank 13 would be 4.5% instead of 3%. However something like a Mythic artifact (normally 5%) is now 7.5%. 2.5 % may not seem like a lot, but its a decent increase for the return product. These would be really tempting for mid-game upgrades as they would offer a decent return. A flat additional percentage breaks the end-game refining system (like 5% boost to all upgrades), but an increase of base chance seems a better mathematical solution.
These are just a few ideas I had to increasing our ward potentials. I could see Coalescent wards becoming an "epic" item, and these "premium wards" becoming blue. Regular preservation wards would be green. Its a cosmetic change to be sure, but one that would increase values in the eyes of some players. Furthermore, this creates a much-needed AD sink for the excessive surplus of AD in all server markets, gives the players something they've asked for (non-zen wards), but doesn't sink the company profits as the better wards are available for zen (as are the regular ones).
From an AD perspective, this creates a natural gate for the ADX to lower itself. Careful pricing in the WB gives a static cost on one of the most-purchased items in the game. If you have a wanted AD to Zen ratio, then pricing the wards accordingly should have the shrewd player knowing what is too much to pay for zen when we want wards. If it is cheaper to buy from the WB then to convert zen, extra AD is burned out of the market, and prices drop. Once the prices hit a certain point, players will want to convert AD to zen, and Zen costs go up. I don't think this is a complete market stabilizing change, but it might help.
To put it up before someone suggests it, I could possibly see adding Resilient and recovery Coal wards, but honestly seems overkill as the Coal Ward is already an OP item. I do think selling coal wards for AD would be bad for the market (though I'd appreciate it as a greedy player).
Thanks for your time and consideration,
-Johnny
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Comments
OK, wards are not perfect, and neither is their acquisition, but recent history with Class Balancing and Economic Balancing suggest that its probably best we don't encourage them to tinker with anything else right now.
I think maybe a new vendor (maybe a sort of "Adoring Fan" character) that sells Coalescent Wards in exchange for a large amount of campaign currency from each campaign would be a nice incentive to keep playing older content while keeping the items suitably difficult to obtain. This would obviously require proper testing to ensure the amount required wouldn't be too easy. I'd say that being able to purchase about 1-2 Coal Wards a month would be ok, considering the trade-off of not making keys for all that time.
Hell, maybe even let Master Crafters gain the ability to make pres and coal wards in the workshop with +1 pres wards taking the attributes you've outlined in your "resilient ward" idea. +1 coal wards could be legendary and keep your upgrade materials on use (though being able to upgrade all your enchants with literally just 3 UES could be a problem). This would keep master crafting relevant into the future, regardless of gear item level. Idk, it's a difficult issue to think through, but I hope the devs continue their rework/QoL streak and take a look at wards next.