test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
Time to overhaul the 'MMO grind' for this game
omnius
Posts: 204 Arc User
Let's be honest here, the server population during peak hours on any given day outside of a holiday event is what... 100 people ish? That alone throws the entire economy of this game out of whack, given that the whole MMO grind-for-stuff thing is always designed with having a much higher population in mind. This affects everything end-game; frequency of lair/cosmic runs for GCR, availability of stuff on AH, team requirements for all sorts of things just to mention a few (but there's more). Obviously, this game isn't going to have a Jesus/lazarus resurrection moment with thousands rather than a handful of players online at this stage of its life, so something ought to be done about an MMO designed for that but lacking it in order to.
My suggestions to fix this problem are pretty simple, and some can be resolved via the Z store:
In summary, there's nothing I can see in any of the above that would cut into revenue, and more likely would actually generate it. You've already done microtrans with that in mind and after consideration, don't see a scenario where any of the above could do anything other than increase your revenue.
My suggestions to fix this problem are pretty simple, and some can be resolved via the Z store:
- End game content in order to attain GCR equipment on a server population this miniscule but designed for a much larger population is something left unaddressed. Drifter salvage gear is more of a sidegrade than an upgrade to heroic tier, and drifter gear suffers the same low population grinding quandry that Justice/Distuinguished does. My suggestion would be to make Drifter salvage gear slightly more attainable than it is, and also fix the Primary Offense piece because it's arguably a downgrade from Heroic, and finally add a set bonus for having all 3 pieces. This would allow those who want an upgrade from Heroic but struggle due to the low population problem to do so.
- Allow purchase of gold in the Z-store (because people are using their Visa to sell stuff in the AH anyway) because the AH prices are broken
- Create a more fair game, rather than player run questionite to zen conversion. Again, this player-to-player conversion was designed for a high population MMO. If I remember the official description of this mechanism correctly, it's "So Silver and Gold players can purchase Zen from Lifetime subscribers". The exchange rate for this, given the current number of LTS players, is broken because of the population it was designed for.
In summary, there's nothing I can see in any of the above that would cut into revenue, and more likely would actually generate it. You've already done microtrans with that in mind and after consideration, don't see a scenario where any of the above could do anything other than increase your revenue.
Unholy Consult | Pantheon | Lazarus Frost | Sword Saint | Gammatron | Blackguard | Imperator | Sardaukar | Risen Osiris
Post edited by omnius#0640 on
0
Comments
I'm not sure what you are looking for on the AH that you can't find (can you give some examples?). The only problem I have with the AH is that I can never find Force or Lightning mods there (they should be in the scr/gcr vendor, but for some reason the devs won't put them there).
I can't tell if you think the Q to Zen conversion rate is too high or too low. I just stockpile Q until TPS is up and then sell it at the best exchange rate for me. Think I sold 3 million last time (which means that I will have a lot of "free" keys next time they have a sale on those).
I do agree that giving the Legion gear some sort of set bonus would be nice, and could justify a slight uptick in the price (Legion gear is the most easily obtainable end game gear in the game; no time is involved, just money)
I've been gaming + MMO's long enough (since vanilla WoW) to know exactly what kind of hours/day are spent to achieve certain gear points on them, so no offense but I find this kind of comment disingenuous. If someone's prepared to say they can meet all the grinding requirements without actually living all of their RL time logged into the game, I'm fully prepared to provide a detailed breakdown to prove that's false. I'm not judging, I'm simply saying that many hours/day of RL time isn't a good enough reason to say "it's fine" when the bottom line is that this particular MMO grind was designed for a much higher population and doesn't meet that design expectations currently.
If that's not enough for you then lets look at a breakdown of some very casual hours/day:
Just using 3 alts as an example (I believe you said elsewhere you have somewhere in the area of 20+?)
That's just a 'light' day with a few alts. On a low population server, doing content that was intended for a high pop. So in other words, live in this game. And people do. I'm fully aware by now of who most of the players are who spend approximately 12-18 hours of RL time every day playing this game. And inevitably, they're always the same people saying "It's fine". The problem with them is they're being dishonest and the hours/day math easily shows that. Again, not judging but is this the sign of a healthy population MMO that doesn't need a gear progression adjustment towards the current low population state? No.
On a high pop MMO, I've been able to keep up with my top raid tier gear acquisitions spending the same amount of time in a WEEK as people are spending in CO per DAY. Why? Population. The entire economy of this game was designed for numbers that don't exist now.
Good that you don't see problems, means you're having fun.
But at the same time this behaviour makes it seem like you're trying to tell everyone else that their problem is not a problem.
And that's bad.
It's been a while since I played WoW but grinding top tier, end game gear was definitely not faster and easier at the time, especially for casual players.
The vast majority of the content can be done without end game gear, so it's not really stopping you in any way.
It's fair to say you'd like to acquire top tier gear easier or faster or in solo content. Others certainly have. Perhaps the CO decision makers will make changes.
Well, no, before GCR it was easier to get higher gear. Not to speak of certain Devices or Costumes, Necrulitc Elixir for example as actual random drop From Necrull, or certain Villain Costumes instead of them dropping from Alerts which you can't really farm and drops once in 10 years. If they did any, they actually made it longer and worse and not "adjusted" to the population.
Well, maybe once in a while I say that, but certainly not every day.
I'm not saying there is no problem, just that from 10 years of playing I haven't encountered it as an issue. Big difference.
I've no idea what the OP cannot find in the AH and so cannot see what the issue is. E.g. the only things that I can never find that I want in the AH are things like the force and electrcity damage mods, but that has nothing to do with game population. That's a dev issue. Similarly, there are things I'd like from Eido, but they are rare drops, I am not on when most of the Eido runs happen, and the devs don't want us to have a QE store.
Now, where game population is an issue, in my mind, is when people are trying to find other players for things like TA, Andrith or Rampages. Soemtimes I can do all the first two sets of Ladyhawke missions in the time it takes someone to get a TA team together at the time I am on.
Which higher gear? Distinguished and Virtuous didn't exist before GCR. Justice required the same mats from rampages but more of them, which was a longer RNG grind. Imho, lowering the number of RNG mats and adding SCR/GCR requirements made it easier and more consistent to obtain Justice gear. Legion gear was a rare drop from lockboxes. I'm not sure that qualifies as easier unless you preferred paying for a lot of keys and praying for RNG or purchasing in the Auction House vs purchasing with Drifter salvage.
Heroic purple gear was much easier and cheaper to get. Power creep may have been a factor in how quickly and easily Unity missions could be done to get Heroic gear. I do think the GMs went high on the SCR prices but Heroic gear can be easily ignored with many other fine gear options.
A lot of the devices and costumes (ex. Necrulitic Elixir) can be purchased with no RNG involved. You may not like the prices or drop rate but their price and rarity as drops appears to be by design and not by mistake. Yes, people used to be able to solo Cosmics and Necrull, etc... I believe that was a product of power creep and not the intention for those to be so easily soloed. Their difficulty was intentionally increased with the current population in mind. I think the level of Cosmic and lair difficulty is appropriate and anything less is just a boring giveaway, but that's just me.