Solomode Quests and Photon Drop Increase

[Ade]

I don't think this is the right attitude to adopt toward people who disagree with you if you're trying to reason with them, both because you're branding your opponents with a trait that might not necessarily fit them and because it's flat-out unreasonable to suggest that people who are a part of this community shouldn't get their fair input. Assuming your opinion is "better" than anyone else's for one reason or another is just rude, and trying to discourage people from giving their input based on said assumption is even moreso.

I knew there wasn't a way to say what I said without coming off as arrogant, but I believe that someone who has dedicated a lot of time to this server should have a more powerful "say" in the matter than someone who is just passing by. It's equally bad that their decisions continue affect me after they're gone. I wish there was a non-elitist way to say it, so I apologize for the predicament...

 

[Ade]

This is not a valid argument.

If you can name me a game from 2000/2001 that allows you to respec, I'd love to hear it.

Baldur's Gate 1/2 doesn't, Diablo 1/2 doesn't, Planescape Torment doesn't, Divine Divinity doesn't, Arcanum doesn't, Gothic doesn't, Sacred (2004) doesn't, the list goes on.

In all of these games, if you accidentally clicked the wrong skill or added a point to the wrong stat, you either sucked it up or started over again. The only defense is that you could reload a save game if you have one and notice the problem before overwriting it.

I'm sure there may be a game or two back then that did, but the fact is respeccing is a reasonably new concept, so it's not really fair to chastise SEGA for not having the foresight to do something no one else was doing at the time.

SEGA made a lot of mistakes but they were by no means lazy for not including respeccing, it just wasn't a thing at the time.

As for the actual topic at hand, I'm all for quests being added to solo mode, but I personally don't see the need for increasing the amount of PDs in the economy. For the most part, I agree with Ryan/Cookie/whoever else has made good points regarding the issue.

Uh...yes you could respect in Diablo 2...and I'm guessing you probably could in Everquest, too.

PSO GameCube came out in Summer, 2002 in JP and Fall, 2002 in the USA. They had time to figure that out.

 

[Cassie 9]

someone who has dedicated a lot of time to this server should have a more powerful "say" in the matter

I mean, isn't that why the elderly are still allowed to vote in federal elections? Even though they'll definitely be gone in the near future, they still have a vote because they're people and they're part of the community. More powerful or educated people don't get to have more of a say. We're all equals.

 

[Ade]

Sorry for another post but this is an entirely separate point:

I don't think increasing the PD drop rate puts PSO on "easy mode." Assuming a person can reasonably hit Lv. 200 in about 400 hours (not taking lobby AFK time into account), then "finalizing" the stats on three items in 1,800 to 2,400 hours is blatantly absurd. This is unhealthy and will cause lack of engagement. Remember: the PD drop rate was set back in when MMO balancing was a pretty new thing.

Take Diablo 3 for a current, solid example of endgame progression. Even if you have crap luck finding Ancient and Primal Ancient gear post Lv. 70, you can still gain Paragon Levels that will slowly buff up your stats in the face of this bad luck. You're not stuck waiting on 100% luck-based events to push you forward.

Because PSO has no system like this in place, it makes sense to ease the burden elsewhere. Continued progression beyond Lv. 200 should not be 100% based on dumb luck.

 

[StevieWonderDownUnder]

How about reverting those changes in part + a slight increase (not 2x) for PD drop rate? (more like 1/850)

Aren't PDs at 1/850 more than a 2x buff for a good amount of enemies? I don't think you even know what you are talking about anymore.

 

[Ade]

I mean, isn't that why the elderly are still allowed to vote in federal elections? Even though they'll definitely be gone in the near future, they still have a vote because they're people and they're part of the community. More powerful or educated people don't get to have more of a say. We're all equals.

I "liked" your post because your heart is in the right place. However, according to Plato, democracy is the 2nd to worst form of government; only better than tyranny. Assuming they are educated and not swayed by lobbyists, a small group of oligarchs would be able to rule more effectively. Their suitability for the job would be based on their intelligence and character. (The true ideal being a solitary philosopher king, but thus far such an individual has only existed in theory.)

The idea that "everyone has an equal opinion" as an axiom that is not to be questioned is a relatively new and disastrous notion. It's only recently become a "given."

Again, I realize this makes me sound arrogant, which is not my intent. It's like when I tell someone they need to reallocate their finances otherwise they'll never be able to retire. They can either get ticked off at me and say I'm a big meanie, or they can accept that I possess knowledge and wisdom that they lack. Their choice.

At least medical advice isn't democratic, yet.

 

[Xileize]

Uh...yes you could respect in Diablo 2...and I'm guessing you probably could in Everquest, too.

PSO GameCube came out in Summer, 2002 in JP and Fall, 2002 in the USA. They had time to figure that out.

You could respec in Diablo II from patch 1.13, which was released in 2010.

 

[Ade]

You could respec in Diablo II from patch 1.13, which was released in 2010.

At first I was going to say "touche," but that actually supports my point in another way: Blizzard realized their initial system was less than ideal. I doubt any current Diablo 2 players are lamenting this. "Back in my day, if you picked a wrong point in stats you had to START COMPLETELY OVER, and these new players are lazy!" Riiiight...

I will retract my notion that it was "dumb" of Sega not to include respeccing based on what you've said. I appreciate you sharing this knowledge.

I do still think they were dumb with everything else, though. There's no excuse for how lazy and sloppy the original Ep. 2 drop charts were, for example.

 

[Lileya]

Aren't PDs at 1/850 more than a 2x buff? I don't think you even know what you are talking about anymore.

PD drop rate is not fixed, neither for boxes nor enemies.

People can correct me on that if I'm wrong but I believe Matt mentioned it's a 0.8% rate to roll a PD for a tool (green box). I believe the rate to get a tool from an enemy is about 1/4 (before DAR). Then for an enemy, you have to take into account DAR.

So if you're killing a Bartle (which has a 30% DAR if I'm not mistaken), you'd have a 1/1667 chance of getting a PD (0.008 * 0.25 * 0.30) currently.

Some boxes are pre-set to be tools, so the PD drop rate on those boxes would be the highest possible (0.8%). Those 4 tool boxes after the dragon in TTF do wonders.

 

[StevieWonderDownUnder]

Well, yes. I can understand that, so for a 100 DAR enemy the rate would be 1/500. Honestly, I don't think making PDs a set drop value would be good, since then DAR increases wouldnt increase them dropping.

Edit:
Did some calculations, a 1/850 drop rate would be approximately double when looking at any monsters with 30 DAR or less. Which is basically most of the "common" enemies.

 

[Xileize]

At first I was going to say "touche," but that actually supports my point in another way: Blizzard realized their initial system was less than ideal. I doubt any current Diablo 2 players are lamenting this. "Back in my day, if you picked a wrong point in stats you had to START COMPLETELY OVER, and these new players are lazy!" Riiiight...

I will retract my notion that it was "dumb" of Sega not to include respeccing based on what you've said. I appreciate you sharing this knowledge.

I do still think they were dumb with everything else, though. There's no excuse for how lazy and sloppy the original Ep. 2 drop charts were, for example.

I'm not defending other decisions they made, because they made plenty of stupid ones.

The JP BB servers shut down in early 2007 and there were definitely games that allowed respeccing at that point (Titan Quest comes to mind), but it still wasn't an incredibly common practice.

Seeing as Blue Burst only lasted 3 or so years I don't think adding the ability to respec was high on their list of priorities.

 

[Eva]

Now that we see that a person cannot "finish" a character without putting in THOUSANDS of hours, I can declare quite objectively that the system is broken.

This is ridiculous. You can't objectively declare your own opinion. That's not how opinions work.

And I'd argue that your opinions (and my own) are much less valuable than those of the players whose viewpoints you're attempting to suppress (which honestly is pretty disgusting in a post where the devs are asking for feedback on a proposed change).

Ephinea needs to go after new players, and players who are on the fence about playing more, not people who have already dedicated thousands of hours and are unlikely to quit no matter what. I'd be much more interested in hearing their thoughts than yours.

That said, my main reason for voting neither is that the main draw of PSO for many of the people here (myself included) is that finishing a character is pretty much impossible. It's the game that never ends. Halving two of the largest time sinks (s ranks/spheres) has the potential to do a lot of damage to the endless narrative. We already have crazy drop rates with the DAR penalty being removed, events that ramp months-to-years' worth of vanilla progress in a matter of weeks, spheres that are given out just for spamming ma4b on a fonewm for long enough.

We haven't even seen the long term ramifications of the DAR boost yet, nor of the incoming PS influx when seasons ends. We don't know how the high DAR rate is going to play out with the Easter event.

It just seems crazy that we made two major changes to the economy a month ago (seasons and DAR penalty removal) and now we're talking about making a third because the economy has changed a lot in the last month.

I'm more undecided about the quest change. We already have a number of great solo options, so making solo even more effective seems a little unnecessary. And it already sucks to log in and see three people spamming the first room of Ma4b instead of grouping up. It seems like anything that's going to split the player base up at this point really has to be a wildly beneficial change to be worth it.

If you want to express unhappiness anytime the reasonable operators of this server decide to fix some of the backwards, counter-productive, and draconian decisions made by Sega, I suggest you relegate yourself to playing PSO GameCube offline.

If I hadn't already disagreed with you before reading this, I'd be tempted to vote no out of spite. If you really want this change to go through, the best thing you could probably do is stop trying to influence the results by insulting everyone who disagrees with you.

 

[anime]

Let's stay on topic with how to fix broken econony and Make Ephinea Trade Again

 

[Chono]

Let's stay on topic with how to fix broken econony and Make Ephinea Trade Again

META META META

 

[anime]

words

Hey, this guy wrote the Ephinea Pricecheck Guide... we should read carefully, and attempt to refute his points.

 

[Ade]

This is ridiculous. You can't objectively declare your own opinion. That's not how opinions work.

And I'd argue that your opinions (and my own) are much less valuable than those of the players whose viewpoints you're attempting to suppress (which honestly is pretty disgusting in a post where the devs are asking for feedback on a proposed change).

Ephinea needs to go after new players, and players who are on the fence about playing more, not people who have already dedicated thousands of hours and are unlikely to quit no matter what. I'd be much more interested in hearing their thoughts than yours.

That said, my main reason for voting neither is that the main draw of PSO for many of the people here (myself included) is that finishing a character is pretty much impossible. It's the game that never ends. Halving two of the largest time sinks (s ranks/spheres) has the potential to do a lot of damage to the endless narrative. We already have crazy drop rates with the DAR penalty being removed, events that ramp months-to-years' worth of vanilla progress in a matter of weeks, spheres that are given out just for spamming ma4b on a fonewm for long enough.

We haven't even seen the long term ramifications of the DAR boost yet, nor of the incoming PS influx when seasons ends. We don't know how the high DAR rate is going to play out with the Easter event.

It just seems crazy that we made two major changes to the economy a month ago (seasons and DAR penalty removal) and now we're talking about making a third because the economy has changed a lot in the last month.

I'm more undecided about the quest change. We already have a number of great solo options, so making solo even more effective seems a little unnecessary. And it already sucks to log in and see three people spamming the first room of Ma4b instead of grouping up. It seems like anything that's going to split the player base up at this point really has to be a wildly beneficial change to be worth it.



If I hadn't already disagreed with you before reading this, I'd be tempted to vote no out of spite. If you really want this change to go through, the best thing you could probably do is stop trying to influence the results by insulting everyone who disagrees with you.

From a standpoint of sheer physical health, any video game activity that requires thousands of hours is not healthy. That's why I said the word "objectively." It applies to everyone.

Also, isn't stating why you're "for" or "against" something attempting to influence others? I'm being very up front about the changes I want, and yes, I will argue to attempt to convince people to go with the outcome that I want. This isn't sinister. It's normal. =/

I wasn't trying to insult Cookie. I was trying to put an emphasis on my point.

 

[Eva]

From a standpoint of sheer physical health, any video game activity that requires thousands of hours is not healthy. That's why I said the word "objectively." It applies to everyone.

You're conflating objectivity with universality. Just because the system requires thousands of hours to finish a character does not mean it's broken. And I don't even know what you're trying to get at with the unhealthy thing. Are you suggesting we make playing on Ephinea a healthy habit? Like, really? Maybe the level 150 reward for the next season becomes a treadmill desk? I'm down for that.

Also, isn't stating why you're "for" or "against" something attempting to influence others? I'm being very up front about the changes I want, and yes, I will argue to attempt to convince people to go with the outcome that I want. This isn't sinister. It's normal. =/

Obviously you can and should state your arguments, but you're crossing the line by telling people not to vote if they don't play enough for your tastes, and that anyone who disagrees with this change should just keep quiet.

 

[Knowl]

I "liked" your post because your heart is in the right place. However, according to Plato, democracy is the 2nd to worst form of government; only better than tyranny. Assuming they are educated and not swayed by lobbyists, a small group of oligarchs would be able to rule more effectively. Their suitability for the job would be based on their intelligence and character. (The true ideal being a solitary philosopher king, but thus far such an individual has only existed in theory.)

The idea that "everyone has an equal opinion" as an axiom that is not to be questioned is a relatively new and disastrous notion. It's only recently become a "given."

Again, I realize this makes me sound arrogant, which is not my intent. It's like when I tell someone they need to reallocate their finances otherwise they'll never be able to retire. They can either get ticked off at me and say I'm a big meanie, or they can accept that I possess knowledge and wisdom that they lack. Their choice.

At least medical advice isn't democratic, yet.

i agree with you on the PDs, but you need to stop posting like this, because your staggering lack of self-awareness is actually hurting your cause. whether you like it or not, everyone does have an equal opinion here, and you'd do well to respect that.

 

[Ade]

i agree with you on the PDs, but you need to stop posting like this, because your staggering lack of self-awareness is actually hurting your cause. whether you like it or not, everyone does have an equal opinion here, and you'd do well to respect that.

I'm not saying that everyone doesn't have an equal opinion. That's been established by the poll itself. What I am saying is that the notion that "everyone has an equal opinion" is a relatively new and not necessarily perfect idea.

 

[Ade]

You're conflating objectivity with universality. Just because the system requires thousands of hours to finish a character does not mean it's broken. And I don't even know what you're trying to get at with the unhealthy thing. Are you suggesting we make playing on Ephinea a healthy habit? Like, really? Maybe the level 150 reward for the next season becomes a treadmill desk? I'm down for that.



Obviously you can and should state your arguments, but you're crossing the line by telling people not to vote if they don't play enough for your tastes, and that anyone who disagrees with this change should just keep quiet.

I said that it would be prudent to recuse oneself from voting on something that has little / no impact to them. It would be like if I showed up at a town hall meeting where I lived and voted on a matter that had little / no impact on me. It would be my RIGHT to do it, but it wouldn't be the RIGHT thing to do.

It's much easier to take offense than it is to give it.

Assuming you're not into absolute truth, I suppose there is no "objectivity," so universality will have to do. I say good enough.