In my absence, two classes have gotten alot better especially for new players to start on. Barbs and Pallies. The reasons you can see in the posts below. Though pally is definitely the best new starting place for a player. They are very self sufficient (minus the lack of any door opening skills and scan/scry) Both are fairly easy to level with barbs possibly being a little harder due to equipment restrictions. Also basic avatar eq is cheaper for the pally. With shieldbash now available to tanking pallies, it should definitely be THE tank of your new team. Unless you are spending more time quaffing than shieldbashing then which point you might want a warrior or thief anyways. In this less than active state of realms, with most guilds and orders being fairly inactive, it is very hard for new players to get assistance to run basic mobs for basic eq though not impossible (kudos to those who helped bronie with justice the other day). I would definitely put pally a little ahead of barbs in terms of number of mobs they can solo.
Dev thieves aren't dead as hitters, just less useful (but still definitely have their uses where rend is less effective)
My New order
Pally ->Barb -> Mage/Cleric -> Fathomer/Thief.
Depending on how you play/what you want to do it would be more barbs/thieves/fathomers. Perhaps an auggie as well as you get more gold. Then once you have enough hitters, a second mage (or two or even three dont hurt). Definitely priortizing balance > defense > countermagic > destruction>elder though your preferences may vary.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
The state of the RoD economy.
As I see it, the RoD economy is stagnant. Housing has drained off most of the biggest gold reserves while equipment continues to stack up on storages, in organization vaults. I will attempt to illustrate why the economy is in such a bad situation, what is wrong with it, and how it should be fixed.
a) Basic avatar eq. I use this as the basis. All "leveling" eq, is obsolete once a player reaches avatar. The first set of available avatar eq is what I call Tier 0. Everything here can be easily killed, soloed and or multied. Some even by nonavatars. But this "tier" of eq is where the problem begins. My examples for this tier of eq would be shade eq (helms, shades, rings), moccasins, icingdeath arms/ears, thoth rings, dpass eq (crystal bracers, silver arms, gold greaves, dcol), aegis, . Everything here is easily gotten, farmed, and dirt cheap. Which is good for a newbie avatar who can go down to coral depths, sit for an hour or two killing eels and crabs and afford to buy this stuff off the plentiful bots and off traffic. If they do decide to go get it themselves, fail or succeed, it will rarely ever lead to a corpse rotting. In most cases, an entirely new player will fail to get the item themselves but be more than capable of paying for the item. (1-5mil usually)
b) Good eq. Tier 1. A good chunk of stock is here. EQ here is expensive enough because of it's rarity but not because of it's difficulty or vice versa. Good examples of these would be devout scales, hellfire leggings, crusades, morphs, ft shields. The eq here is good, in some cases top of the line for alot of classes in general cases. Mobs are either too hard to sit and farm indefinitely (due to things like eq damage, heavy use of potions) or simply pops. This also makes up the majority of traffic and auction exchanges as the items while plentiful, are hard enough to obtain that it would take alot of time or effort to obtain by yourself (or in some cases impossible) but due to years of running, there is a bountiful supply of these items to the point where prices are fairly stable and rarely change. (6-40mil)
c) High end eq. Tier 2. This is where the problem begins. This is where top tier eq usually comes to rest. Runs sufficiently spammed will drop the item from tier 2 to tier 1. Or more usually the case, top tier new items (tier 3) having being sufficiently explored by most major organisations have accumulated enough stock to drop prices to a fairly constant level. Good examples of this are Justices, danny rings/essence, cato armor, nasr. The prices are also significantly higher than tier 1, usually starting around twice as much. (80m+)
d) Top tier eq. Tier 3. As usual, the prices are about twice that of the previous tier. Either the items are rare pops off hard mobs, but also include seth (where the danger of losing eq is very real and a single failed run can mean hundreds of millions lost.) All these runs require runners to be dressed in eq worth at the very least, what the character alone is worth but usually several times over. Generally these runs are not known (and or doable) by the general avatar populace due to various reasons. Difficulty, puzzles, lack of saftey, dedication of time (getting in takes a good while, have to spend a few uninterrupted hours there, requires specific classes to run etc.)
e) God tier eq. Tier 4. This usually gets downgraded to tier 3 as soon as 3 or more organisations start running it consistently and bring in enough supply. Usually by this point prices drop rapidly as more and more people test their abilities and try it out. This is the tier where all the brand spanking new, top of the line avatar gear comes in at. The puzzles are harder, longer, there are more mobs to kill on the way (alot of which are tier 0-3 mobs in themselves). These are generally "area" bosses with multiple items that are all better than existing items. This is where explorers flock, order secrets are hush hush and secretive and where a smart relatively poorer player can suddenly make bank selling new eq they managed to get to first. This is what the imms put in to keep older players playing (or they will get bored of the existing stuff because they have done it a hundred times). Usually between the time an item is tier 4 and the time it drops to tier 3, Imms will make changes to the item, the area, and the difficulty of the mob(s) up to and even including changing descriptions. The other side of this coin is the old items. So old they no longer exist. What was once common (unholy symbol of the dammed) suddenly goes OOG (out of game) and suddenly rises. Either way, the price is very directly related to the rarity.
So whats the problem? There are two main problems. Tier squishing, and power creep (eq being obsolete).
Tier squishing: Tier squishing because there is over supply because the best players in the game figured out something or, abused a loophole and basically devalue items to the point they are pushed into the tier below. One of the best examples would be Sindroad/Olsen eq. aka the half orc set and some other evil pieces. In the process of trying to obtain a tier 3 or 4 items (in this case darkfire blaster), the rest of the eq on the mob gets devalued. Darkfire blasters pop roughly 1/20 kills meaning for every darkfire blaster, there are 20ish S/O sets lying around in some storage somewhere. So what happens? The prices drop like a rock. Darkfire blasters? 6-7 seth sets (by my last estimate) each of which are worth 600-800m depending on the day. 3.6 billion - 5.6 billion... gold. Comparatively speaking, you can get a S/O set for pretty much under 20mil for all the pieces which are individually usually sold for 1-5mil on auction depending on the day. Of course, when people first killed S/O the pieces werent sold for 1-5mil. They were worth alot more. Tier 4 eq got squished into tier 3, then tier 2, then dare I say.. tier 1. Its now so common that the average player that is incapable of running S/O can still own several sets of the eq. As a byproduct of a "failed" kill (failed not because the mob didn't die, but rather the rarest item didn't pop), chaff eq devaluates itself and drags the prices down for items below it. After all, if you can pay 1m for a olsen plate for your thief, why would you pay 1m for spoils (which has 1 less dr)? As a result of the chaff eq, orc thieves have become the standard basis because they are cheap but better than all other thieves using spoils. The fact that there are no other 6dr ears even remotely close to that price range (the closest you get are whispers... for about 100X the price). Olsen ears are practically godly and very much comparable to seth (-15 hp, -50 mana, -6hr) but worth a very tiny fraction. This is the result of the stagnant economy and is clear simple to see proof there is something fundamentally wrong with how the economy works.
The other thing that comes from tier squishing is eq becoming obsolete. While new items come in, old items become obsolete. For example Danny rings (ring of the ancient gods) obsoleted long time existing rings primarily for warriors. Before your choices were scorched band of glass 3dr 25hp, Diamond ring (3dr 0hp), Draupnir (3dr 0 hp but with some saves), Ring of Kings (3dr 1 str), Ring of dragons (3dr 30hp), Signet of Lauriness (3dr 20hp, elf only). You can see.. there was plenty of selection. Plenty of choices but they were all pretty similar. 3dr, and some hp or other stats/saves. Suddenly Ring of the ancient gods gets put in, Most of those rings never get trafficed for again. There is simply no point in compromising for 3dr +some hp when you can have 4dr and 50hp, 2dex. As an obsolete bunch, they rarely see any action other than on rare occasion. The mob is now much too difficult for the reward (as it's obsolete). Even if they were tier 1 or 2, they immediately drop at least 1 tier, to the point where only newbietars are the only ones interested in purchasing.
The mobs are now obsolete (and thus never get run anymore. Ask an older player whens the last time they did an odin run.. or a dracolith run. they probably won't remember.)
When power creep happens, it is a pivotal time for the realms even if it is a small change. In terms of devout warrior rings, theres a clear mark before danny rings, and after danny rings. The top if the tier (danny rings) are 80mil (and for a brief time a while back... 90m) while odin rings, draco rings, leodegrance rings? 5mil? the problem is no one even really knows the price for them anymore because no one sells them anymore. No one sells them anymore because no one runs the mob anymore. Why bother with a outdated mob with an item that isn't the best? Is Danny 16 times harder than leodegrance or draco or odin? probably not but even with a linear increase in difficulty, there is an exponential increase in price.
Though Immortals are working hard (yes! I do actually appreciate the efforts) to breathe new life into old mobs and areas by updating them with new eq (lovely new skullbreaker/crushers!) The problem still remains. Way too much supply especially at the tier 0, 1 levels (though by definition, they are that tier because of the supply) But you still get items in tier 1 (olsen eq) when the difficulty is easily tier 2 or 3 because of a lacking out flow.
Prices are based on supply and demand (obviously.. but I had to say it) as mobs get run more, supply increases, while demand slowly decreases. Olsen eq is worthless because of the sharp increase in supply without a remotely close change in demand. S/O repop every 10 minutes or so and people can sit around there for 10-15 kills at a time in a single day, while it takes a few days to av a orc thief and it has to be specifically an orc thief for the reason that there is no increased demand for olsen plates/ears if it isn't an orc. If it can't wear it, the player won't buy it (unless they intend to buy or level one in the near future).
So what is so magical about seth? Every order has at some point run seth. It's been in the game for YEARS, and still typically new eq is worth less than it. What makes it so unique? It's also the solution to fixing the economy. An outlet. Players kill seth for blivs/gens/DIs/VoDWs really. Not for the seth sets but seth sets are still worth alot and would take days possibly weeks of golding for a new player to afford it. The key lies in the fact that seth sets have an outlet. Ravenhill takes seth sets, a set at a time, and randomly gives the player back nothing, a raven eye, guard of raven black or the much coveted crown of talons. Seth has an outlet, sufficient difficulty and has thus retained its value (and thus most organisations that know how to run seth refuse to share HOW). Blivs, gens (and their sac pops) should have turned seth into another S/O. but with an outlet, the chaff is worth something. Without an outlet, its worthless because players will constantly generate a supply much larger than demand. And due to the fact there is an outlet, seth setS (emphasis on the fact its the set as a whole) is the basis of the RoD economy. My opinion is, supply could be stabilized and the economy put back on track if a few select items had an outlet. The outlet would turn their supply and existence into a currency instead of trash sitting on yet another storage. As it is, only the best players keep playing because they continue to be the ones generating supply. Newer players are stuck playing catch up, and at some point they either learn to run seth, or don't. They are able to continue to explore newer areas, or stuck trying to get obsolete eq because they can't afford better. Then the choices for them are a) attempt newer content designed for people with better eq than them b) gold for days, weeks or months to afford eq to attempt newer content or c) give up on new content and possibly the game. After all. A game is meant to be fun. And its no fun when new stuff comes in and you can't explore and kill stuff because you haven't gotten the best possible eq that already exists (or at least a decent standard of eq).
The number of bots in the game directly speaks to how much the game is suffering. Bots increase when players are more interested in buying items from other people than they are willing to attempt to kill the mob for it and speaks volumes to how the game is slowly dying at least in the mob kill/exploring point of view. Gone are the days of public runs, chat started runs where just about anybody who was around would come. To play, to kill with random strangers they never met before but for some reason want to come for the loot, or to help out, or teach. Guilds and orders keep secrets simply because items devaluate the moment more people know then suddenly the item isn't worth much at all. If a good fraction of items had an output, gold would regain value, and items would also regain value as every day items now have a value for being equipment, but also as currency. The fact that seth sets have slowly lost demand (as in very few people are on traffic ltb seth set/pieces) tells us that something is very very wrong with the game's economy. The fact that items that used to be currency and have intrinsic value has been reduced primarily to currency indicates the lack of demand. My most educated guess (and occam's razor) would suggest that the most simple explanation for this is lack of new players. After all: an old player avs a new character (thats evil or neut), they load up a storage, and put seth on it. A new player avs, they have no seth. They gold, farm, sell other items to attempt to buy it. The lack of buying says either all the new players are running seth (which is highly unlikely) or that new players are giving up before they need seth. Or worse, giving up because they don't want to spend the time to get seth. Either way, new avs have no other possible currency, and it's removing their incentive to play the game as it was meant to be played (or at least how I think it should be played. As a persistent world where you can constantly explore and kill new things). Sure you could argue there's exploring and killing to be done before aving (and I agree), but the majority of new content comes in. The thing im most sure of is the fact that endless medieval enjoyment does not come from sitting in mithrill hall or coral depths killing mobs for gold to buy a shiny new piece of equipment that just came out. The fun is in playing the game, getting it for yourself. Not doing what bots do, sitting, golding to buy a piece of equipment you will never really need or use.
tl;dr? (too long didnt read)
- Realms economy is dead. Immortal attempts to revive it by draining excess gold in the form of housing just causes inflation. Key to balancing economy is putting demand on items. Not demand on gold.
- We need more standardized equipment as currency. Seth vs olsen shows the huge gap between what works and what doesn't.
- New players will only tolerate gold farming for so long and from my estimates, its not long enough to get to seth. We really need a currency in between.
- Old mobs with old items get obsolete with new items because they have no intrinsic value. Activity and thus player base will continue to decline without better standards for currency.
a) Basic avatar eq. I use this as the basis. All "leveling" eq, is obsolete once a player reaches avatar. The first set of available avatar eq is what I call Tier 0. Everything here can be easily killed, soloed and or multied. Some even by nonavatars. But this "tier" of eq is where the problem begins. My examples for this tier of eq would be shade eq (helms, shades, rings), moccasins, icingdeath arms/ears, thoth rings, dpass eq (crystal bracers, silver arms, gold greaves, dcol), aegis, . Everything here is easily gotten, farmed, and dirt cheap. Which is good for a newbie avatar who can go down to coral depths, sit for an hour or two killing eels and crabs and afford to buy this stuff off the plentiful bots and off traffic. If they do decide to go get it themselves, fail or succeed, it will rarely ever lead to a corpse rotting. In most cases, an entirely new player will fail to get the item themselves but be more than capable of paying for the item. (1-5mil usually)
b) Good eq. Tier 1. A good chunk of stock is here. EQ here is expensive enough because of it's rarity but not because of it's difficulty or vice versa. Good examples of these would be devout scales, hellfire leggings, crusades, morphs, ft shields. The eq here is good, in some cases top of the line for alot of classes in general cases. Mobs are either too hard to sit and farm indefinitely (due to things like eq damage, heavy use of potions) or simply pops. This also makes up the majority of traffic and auction exchanges as the items while plentiful, are hard enough to obtain that it would take alot of time or effort to obtain by yourself (or in some cases impossible) but due to years of running, there is a bountiful supply of these items to the point where prices are fairly stable and rarely change. (6-40mil)
c) High end eq. Tier 2. This is where the problem begins. This is where top tier eq usually comes to rest. Runs sufficiently spammed will drop the item from tier 2 to tier 1. Or more usually the case, top tier new items (tier 3) having being sufficiently explored by most major organisations have accumulated enough stock to drop prices to a fairly constant level. Good examples of this are Justices, danny rings/essence, cato armor, nasr. The prices are also significantly higher than tier 1, usually starting around twice as much. (80m+)
d) Top tier eq. Tier 3. As usual, the prices are about twice that of the previous tier. Either the items are rare pops off hard mobs, but also include seth (where the danger of losing eq is very real and a single failed run can mean hundreds of millions lost.) All these runs require runners to be dressed in eq worth at the very least, what the character alone is worth but usually several times over. Generally these runs are not known (and or doable) by the general avatar populace due to various reasons. Difficulty, puzzles, lack of saftey, dedication of time (getting in takes a good while, have to spend a few uninterrupted hours there, requires specific classes to run etc.)
e) God tier eq. Tier 4. This usually gets downgraded to tier 3 as soon as 3 or more organisations start running it consistently and bring in enough supply. Usually by this point prices drop rapidly as more and more people test their abilities and try it out. This is the tier where all the brand spanking new, top of the line avatar gear comes in at. The puzzles are harder, longer, there are more mobs to kill on the way (alot of which are tier 0-3 mobs in themselves). These are generally "area" bosses with multiple items that are all better than existing items. This is where explorers flock, order secrets are hush hush and secretive and where a smart relatively poorer player can suddenly make bank selling new eq they managed to get to first. This is what the imms put in to keep older players playing (or they will get bored of the existing stuff because they have done it a hundred times). Usually between the time an item is tier 4 and the time it drops to tier 3, Imms will make changes to the item, the area, and the difficulty of the mob(s) up to and even including changing descriptions. The other side of this coin is the old items. So old they no longer exist. What was once common (unholy symbol of the dammed) suddenly goes OOG (out of game) and suddenly rises. Either way, the price is very directly related to the rarity.
So whats the problem? There are two main problems. Tier squishing, and power creep (eq being obsolete).
Tier squishing: Tier squishing because there is over supply because the best players in the game figured out something or, abused a loophole and basically devalue items to the point they are pushed into the tier below. One of the best examples would be Sindroad/Olsen eq. aka the half orc set and some other evil pieces. In the process of trying to obtain a tier 3 or 4 items (in this case darkfire blaster), the rest of the eq on the mob gets devalued. Darkfire blasters pop roughly 1/20 kills meaning for every darkfire blaster, there are 20ish S/O sets lying around in some storage somewhere. So what happens? The prices drop like a rock. Darkfire blasters? 6-7 seth sets (by my last estimate) each of which are worth 600-800m depending on the day. 3.6 billion - 5.6 billion... gold. Comparatively speaking, you can get a S/O set for pretty much under 20mil for all the pieces which are individually usually sold for 1-5mil on auction depending on the day. Of course, when people first killed S/O the pieces werent sold for 1-5mil. They were worth alot more. Tier 4 eq got squished into tier 3, then tier 2, then dare I say.. tier 1. Its now so common that the average player that is incapable of running S/O can still own several sets of the eq. As a byproduct of a "failed" kill (failed not because the mob didn't die, but rather the rarest item didn't pop), chaff eq devaluates itself and drags the prices down for items below it. After all, if you can pay 1m for a olsen plate for your thief, why would you pay 1m for spoils (which has 1 less dr)? As a result of the chaff eq, orc thieves have become the standard basis because they are cheap but better than all other thieves using spoils. The fact that there are no other 6dr ears even remotely close to that price range (the closest you get are whispers... for about 100X the price). Olsen ears are practically godly and very much comparable to seth (-15 hp, -50 mana, -6hr) but worth a very tiny fraction. This is the result of the stagnant economy and is clear simple to see proof there is something fundamentally wrong with how the economy works.
The other thing that comes from tier squishing is eq becoming obsolete. While new items come in, old items become obsolete. For example Danny rings (ring of the ancient gods) obsoleted long time existing rings primarily for warriors. Before your choices were scorched band of glass 3dr 25hp, Diamond ring (3dr 0hp), Draupnir (3dr 0 hp but with some saves), Ring of Kings (3dr 1 str), Ring of dragons (3dr 30hp), Signet of Lauriness (3dr 20hp, elf only). You can see.. there was plenty of selection. Plenty of choices but they were all pretty similar. 3dr, and some hp or other stats/saves. Suddenly Ring of the ancient gods gets put in, Most of those rings never get trafficed for again. There is simply no point in compromising for 3dr +some hp when you can have 4dr and 50hp, 2dex. As an obsolete bunch, they rarely see any action other than on rare occasion. The mob is now much too difficult for the reward (as it's obsolete). Even if they were tier 1 or 2, they immediately drop at least 1 tier, to the point where only newbietars are the only ones interested in purchasing.
The mobs are now obsolete (and thus never get run anymore. Ask an older player whens the last time they did an odin run.. or a dracolith run. they probably won't remember.)
When power creep happens, it is a pivotal time for the realms even if it is a small change. In terms of devout warrior rings, theres a clear mark before danny rings, and after danny rings. The top if the tier (danny rings) are 80mil (and for a brief time a while back... 90m) while odin rings, draco rings, leodegrance rings? 5mil? the problem is no one even really knows the price for them anymore because no one sells them anymore. No one sells them anymore because no one runs the mob anymore. Why bother with a outdated mob with an item that isn't the best? Is Danny 16 times harder than leodegrance or draco or odin? probably not but even with a linear increase in difficulty, there is an exponential increase in price.
Though Immortals are working hard (yes! I do actually appreciate the efforts) to breathe new life into old mobs and areas by updating them with new eq (lovely new skullbreaker/crushers!) The problem still remains. Way too much supply especially at the tier 0, 1 levels (though by definition, they are that tier because of the supply) But you still get items in tier 1 (olsen eq) when the difficulty is easily tier 2 or 3 because of a lacking out flow.
Prices are based on supply and demand (obviously.. but I had to say it) as mobs get run more, supply increases, while demand slowly decreases. Olsen eq is worthless because of the sharp increase in supply without a remotely close change in demand. S/O repop every 10 minutes or so and people can sit around there for 10-15 kills at a time in a single day, while it takes a few days to av a orc thief and it has to be specifically an orc thief for the reason that there is no increased demand for olsen plates/ears if it isn't an orc. If it can't wear it, the player won't buy it (unless they intend to buy or level one in the near future).
So what is so magical about seth? Every order has at some point run seth. It's been in the game for YEARS, and still typically new eq is worth less than it. What makes it so unique? It's also the solution to fixing the economy. An outlet. Players kill seth for blivs/gens/DIs/VoDWs really. Not for the seth sets but seth sets are still worth alot and would take days possibly weeks of golding for a new player to afford it. The key lies in the fact that seth sets have an outlet. Ravenhill takes seth sets, a set at a time, and randomly gives the player back nothing, a raven eye, guard of raven black or the much coveted crown of talons. Seth has an outlet, sufficient difficulty and has thus retained its value (and thus most organisations that know how to run seth refuse to share HOW). Blivs, gens (and their sac pops) should have turned seth into another S/O. but with an outlet, the chaff is worth something. Without an outlet, its worthless because players will constantly generate a supply much larger than demand. And due to the fact there is an outlet, seth setS (emphasis on the fact its the set as a whole) is the basis of the RoD economy. My opinion is, supply could be stabilized and the economy put back on track if a few select items had an outlet. The outlet would turn their supply and existence into a currency instead of trash sitting on yet another storage. As it is, only the best players keep playing because they continue to be the ones generating supply. Newer players are stuck playing catch up, and at some point they either learn to run seth, or don't. They are able to continue to explore newer areas, or stuck trying to get obsolete eq because they can't afford better. Then the choices for them are a) attempt newer content designed for people with better eq than them b) gold for days, weeks or months to afford eq to attempt newer content or c) give up on new content and possibly the game. After all. A game is meant to be fun. And its no fun when new stuff comes in and you can't explore and kill stuff because you haven't gotten the best possible eq that already exists (or at least a decent standard of eq).
The number of bots in the game directly speaks to how much the game is suffering. Bots increase when players are more interested in buying items from other people than they are willing to attempt to kill the mob for it and speaks volumes to how the game is slowly dying at least in the mob kill/exploring point of view. Gone are the days of public runs, chat started runs where just about anybody who was around would come. To play, to kill with random strangers they never met before but for some reason want to come for the loot, or to help out, or teach. Guilds and orders keep secrets simply because items devaluate the moment more people know then suddenly the item isn't worth much at all. If a good fraction of items had an output, gold would regain value, and items would also regain value as every day items now have a value for being equipment, but also as currency. The fact that seth sets have slowly lost demand (as in very few people are on traffic ltb seth set/pieces) tells us that something is very very wrong with the game's economy. The fact that items that used to be currency and have intrinsic value has been reduced primarily to currency indicates the lack of demand. My most educated guess (and occam's razor) would suggest that the most simple explanation for this is lack of new players. After all: an old player avs a new character (thats evil or neut), they load up a storage, and put seth on it. A new player avs, they have no seth. They gold, farm, sell other items to attempt to buy it. The lack of buying says either all the new players are running seth (which is highly unlikely) or that new players are giving up before they need seth. Or worse, giving up because they don't want to spend the time to get seth. Either way, new avs have no other possible currency, and it's removing their incentive to play the game as it was meant to be played (or at least how I think it should be played. As a persistent world where you can constantly explore and kill new things). Sure you could argue there's exploring and killing to be done before aving (and I agree), but the majority of new content comes in. The thing im most sure of is the fact that endless medieval enjoyment does not come from sitting in mithrill hall or coral depths killing mobs for gold to buy a shiny new piece of equipment that just came out. The fun is in playing the game, getting it for yourself. Not doing what bots do, sitting, golding to buy a piece of equipment you will never really need or use.
tl;dr? (too long didnt read)
- Realms economy is dead. Immortal attempts to revive it by draining excess gold in the form of housing just causes inflation. Key to balancing economy is putting demand on items. Not demand on gold.
- We need more standardized equipment as currency. Seth vs olsen shows the huge gap between what works and what doesn't.
- New players will only tolerate gold farming for so long and from my estimates, its not long enough to get to seth. We really need a currency in between.
- Old mobs with old items get obsolete with new items because they have no intrinsic value. Activity and thus player base will continue to decline without better standards for currency.
Friday, October 7, 2011
My favorite places to adept skills.
When you love exploring as much as I do, you need your generally "useless in other situation" skills adept. Heres the rundown of the places I do mine:
The big 3:
Search: Down North of the gnome receptionist. The crack respawns every time you walk in the room. Walk out, back in, search.
Dig: The graveyard. The entrance to the tomb where gartock hangs out disappears on entry. Dig down, go down, dig up, repeat.
Detrap: What? yeah. Detrap is the third. Why? because its so rare. If you used it every chance you got on every trap you found by the time you av'd, most people would still have it at 19%. My personal detrapping spot (that DOESNT hurt very much) is Bartok's grove. Unfortunately you will need to wait for repops for it to come back.
The rest:
Styles, weapon skills, attacks, : Kylara in front of dragon cult.
Pick lock: Receptionist in shattered refuge. steal her key then pick/lock d.
Climb: The warehouse has a tree all the way to the west side. make sure you dont have fly on and have float on instead. Spam u, d.
Doorbash: pick a door. any door. Just dont do it at the darkhaven gates. That just annoys people (same goes for spam pick locking them)
The big 3:
Search: Down North of the gnome receptionist. The crack respawns every time you walk in the room. Walk out, back in, search.
Dig: The graveyard. The entrance to the tomb where gartock hangs out disappears on entry. Dig down, go down, dig up, repeat.
Detrap: What? yeah. Detrap is the third. Why? because its so rare. If you used it every chance you got on every trap you found by the time you av'd, most people would still have it at 19%. My personal detrapping spot (that DOESNT hurt very much) is Bartok's grove. Unfortunately you will need to wait for repops for it to come back.
The rest:
Styles, weapon skills, attacks, : Kylara in front of dragon cult.
Pick lock: Receptionist in shattered refuge. steal her key then pick/lock d.
Climb: The warehouse has a tree all the way to the west side. make sure you dont have fly on and have float on instead. Spam u, d.
Doorbash: pick a door. any door. Just dont do it at the darkhaven gates. That just annoys people (same goes for spam pick locking them)
A few things I've noticed.
In the 4 years I was gone, things have changed, for better, for worse. These are just a few of them that have made an impression on me.
Attempts at making the 18 dex classes more capable of fighting (augurers/clerics)
I'd like to say they tried but honestly they still fail so hard fundamentally. The storm clerics while having power are practically useless on most runs (still) simply adding a countable 3 mobs you can use storm of vengeance for and not want to switch class. The anti undead clerics have absolutely NO added value, and the healer clerics have some... half decent spells but again with VERY little actual use.
Storm clerics: I prefer cawyn for the anklet since you now have prayer for favor. Storm of vengance is NICE... but entirely too limited. There are only a handfull of mobs that are outdoor flagged (it can only be cast where you see the sky!) and the even shorter list on which you could use magic, and a cleric at that. The only reason why it makes clerics viable in those rare situations is entirely based on the fact storm of vengance will keep casting while you spend most of your time quaffing heals and manas to deal with damage/dropping potions.
Healing clerics: the best spell they get is ameliorate. Second best is probably ward of the divine.. for stuff you can multi yourself and can keep a cleric in the room safely (20% res mag/nonmagic is nice!) however the applications of which are limited (chances are if you can multi... the 20% wont show. The mob would have died ip8 before the spell existed and probably dies just about the same now) Seriously. Cadcading heal? requires you to be standing in the room (decent if you are soloing something you can multi) but also has a LOONNG timer on it making it practically useless. It casts ONE heal a round for 5 or 6 rounds which is a good bit of healing... but its way too slow, and way too limited. Complete heal is awesome... except for the mana cost and the fact it also takes ages to run down the timer. Ethereal elixir ... has its uses I guess. if you are planning to go somewhere where you need the extra healing power. The problem is if you need to quit at all.. you lose them making em a pain to carry to a run. On the other hand, if you can bring the cleric to the prep spot, sit there all day making elixirs before the run starts... Then yes.. it might be useful.
Anti undead clerics: Worthless. Please switch your deity. In terms of lore and background sure.. the skills fit. But in terms of gameplay adds absolutely nothing to the class it didn't have.
The other good from the cleric changes have been mostly resurrect: lets you CR after a fight and save the long walk back. But beware.. you lose all the spells on you when reincarnated.
Prayer: awfully convenient for clerics now to favor.. sit there for 20 minutes and "prayer" your corpse back. Alot easier than manually favoring like before.
Remove hex: I hate this. it used to be remove curse for the spell curse AND cursed items.. now its split into two.. just to add an extra spell. Annoying is what it is.
Next.. Augurers: They added coil of flame (similar to storm of vengance) except... weaker, requires ONE WHOLE CRYSTAL TO CAST. Its nice to add a bit of damage, but again, doesn't really add much to expand the places where you can use an augurer. The fact that spiral is hp based + 18 dex making for crap quaffing means you still wont want to go near most things that do a consistent gas, or lots of random breaths.
Spirit chains: worthless. entirely, totally, utterly WORTHLESS. Good in theory, crap in usage. It absorbs damage from the character you cast spirit chains on taking some of the damage for yourself as well as draining mana. The problem is this spell really needs to work in reverse. It hurts the augurer (which in turn hurts the spiral) and drains BOTH mana AND hp at the same time (again hurting spiral and even coil). Then you spend even MORE time quaffing heals and manas because of the chains (instead of your 22/25 dex tank quaffing them much more efficiently and your aug.. being the HITTER.. actually doing its job and HITTING). This spell would be great if you could cast it on ENEMIES instead and offload the damage and drain their mana. Or at least if it worked in reverse reducing damage to you and offloading the damage to your tank... so you know.. he can TANK. If the run needs multiple tanks.. get multiple tanks. augurer with spirit chains = one person doing nothing. You might as well be sitting in an entirely different room quaffing heals and manas for no reason while the rest of your group is fighting.
Last but not the most worthless (that prize DEFINITELY goes to spirit chains): third eye. Generates a 100hp eye (that dies at the slightest glance in its direction) and do the equivalent of posessing it. Basically instead of the nephandi possess spell where you can actually choose a possibly useful mob, you get stuck with an entirely useless mob that cant fight and can only be used for scouting. The most laughable thing about it.. its level 33. 19 levels above charm (for evil mages), 19 levels above dominate (vampires), 15 levels above seduction. The only spell its lower level than thats comparable... possess though I should hope the reasons are obvious. It seems still the Imms hate augurers and are determined to keep them entirely worthless on their own. Coil has put them on a .. slightly more even playing field (but unlike everyone else's damage.. requires one crystal per cast.. which is a huge pain in the ass to make crystals all the time, and carry them and the extra potions you need to bring to a run (cause you will DROP alot of them)
Now the good. Barbs are the new thief. Rend had it's crappy 65% max upped to 95% and chokehold actually is comparable to backstab. Armblock isn't great but better than nothing for sure. For a long time rend was the barb staple along with charge. The problem was charge required a horse (which gets killed by areas blasts), lagged as much as circle (but dealt less). Rend was better.. because it only had 3 bars of lag (meaning you could actually quaff before that second round of damage came in (and yes that half a round is a huge difference) Now that its 95% max... charge is practically worthless. Especially with the new ancestral strike skill allowing them to use ACTUAL WEAPONS.. Lets face it.. barbarians riding horses, wearing a lance, having a weapon and a shield? Really didn't get it not to mention having 3 different modes of attack depending on the run was annoying (barehanded for rend, horseback lance, shield, wield for charge, and dual wield/two handed which left them with just plain ole melee... which as we all know works GREAT on some mobs and not at all on others.. especially if they are magic weapons only...) Now.. barehanded is clearly the best choice, and ancestral strike lets dual wielding much better.
The other class which has seriously benefited from the changes made: paladins. Before they were the more defensive warrior type, warriors were of course the better hitter and because of the dex..... tank. Now paladins have shieldblock AND shieldbash, they can tank AND hit at the same time now. Especially with the nice new high hp holds, gives paladins much better hp than their warrior counterparts. Also not hurting is the fact they have shieldbash which is better than smash making them also better hitters... but only when they are tanking. So warrior? still the better rescue tank and still has better melee. But paladins finally have a use as a hitter/tank hybrid (one per group) while warriors still very much excel in the melee department with stun and the much easier to level part going for them. Personally I would like to see changes to augurers more in line with the skill level of what paladins and make them a more unique and specialist mage class instead of being entirely outclassed until level 50, then finally able to be used in very specific circumstances if you dump loads and loads of money into it and prep a bunch of crystals for it. Unlike most other classes, Augurers are still fairly worthless until you sink about 500m worth in eq onto them. Past the rings/neck/body/wield, every single piece will be 50m+
Attempts at making the 18 dex classes more capable of fighting (augurers/clerics)
I'd like to say they tried but honestly they still fail so hard fundamentally. The storm clerics while having power are practically useless on most runs (still) simply adding a countable 3 mobs you can use storm of vengeance for and not want to switch class. The anti undead clerics have absolutely NO added value, and the healer clerics have some... half decent spells but again with VERY little actual use.
Storm clerics: I prefer cawyn for the anklet since you now have prayer for favor. Storm of vengance is NICE... but entirely too limited. There are only a handfull of mobs that are outdoor flagged (it can only be cast where you see the sky!) and the even shorter list on which you could use magic, and a cleric at that. The only reason why it makes clerics viable in those rare situations is entirely based on the fact storm of vengance will keep casting while you spend most of your time quaffing heals and manas to deal with damage/dropping potions.
Healing clerics: the best spell they get is ameliorate. Second best is probably ward of the divine.. for stuff you can multi yourself and can keep a cleric in the room safely (20% res mag/nonmagic is nice!) however the applications of which are limited (chances are if you can multi... the 20% wont show. The mob would have died ip8 before the spell existed and probably dies just about the same now) Seriously. Cadcading heal? requires you to be standing in the room (decent if you are soloing something you can multi) but also has a LOONNG timer on it making it practically useless. It casts ONE heal a round for 5 or 6 rounds which is a good bit of healing... but its way too slow, and way too limited. Complete heal is awesome... except for the mana cost and the fact it also takes ages to run down the timer. Ethereal elixir ... has its uses I guess. if you are planning to go somewhere where you need the extra healing power. The problem is if you need to quit at all.. you lose them making em a pain to carry to a run. On the other hand, if you can bring the cleric to the prep spot, sit there all day making elixirs before the run starts... Then yes.. it might be useful.
Anti undead clerics: Worthless. Please switch your deity. In terms of lore and background sure.. the skills fit. But in terms of gameplay adds absolutely nothing to the class it didn't have.
The other good from the cleric changes have been mostly resurrect: lets you CR after a fight and save the long walk back. But beware.. you lose all the spells on you when reincarnated.
Prayer: awfully convenient for clerics now to favor.. sit there for 20 minutes and "prayer" your corpse back. Alot easier than manually favoring like before.
Remove hex: I hate this. it used to be remove curse for the spell curse AND cursed items.. now its split into two.. just to add an extra spell. Annoying is what it is.
Next.. Augurers: They added coil of flame (similar to storm of vengance) except... weaker, requires ONE WHOLE CRYSTAL TO CAST. Its nice to add a bit of damage, but again, doesn't really add much to expand the places where you can use an augurer. The fact that spiral is hp based + 18 dex making for crap quaffing means you still wont want to go near most things that do a consistent gas, or lots of random breaths.
Spirit chains: worthless. entirely, totally, utterly WORTHLESS. Good in theory, crap in usage. It absorbs damage from the character you cast spirit chains on taking some of the damage for yourself as well as draining mana. The problem is this spell really needs to work in reverse. It hurts the augurer (which in turn hurts the spiral) and drains BOTH mana AND hp at the same time (again hurting spiral and even coil). Then you spend even MORE time quaffing heals and manas because of the chains (instead of your 22/25 dex tank quaffing them much more efficiently and your aug.. being the HITTER.. actually doing its job and HITTING). This spell would be great if you could cast it on ENEMIES instead and offload the damage and drain their mana. Or at least if it worked in reverse reducing damage to you and offloading the damage to your tank... so you know.. he can TANK. If the run needs multiple tanks.. get multiple tanks. augurer with spirit chains = one person doing nothing. You might as well be sitting in an entirely different room quaffing heals and manas for no reason while the rest of your group is fighting.
Last but not the most worthless (that prize DEFINITELY goes to spirit chains): third eye. Generates a 100hp eye (that dies at the slightest glance in its direction) and do the equivalent of posessing it. Basically instead of the nephandi possess spell where you can actually choose a possibly useful mob, you get stuck with an entirely useless mob that cant fight and can only be used for scouting. The most laughable thing about it.. its level 33. 19 levels above charm (for evil mages), 19 levels above dominate (vampires), 15 levels above seduction. The only spell its lower level than thats comparable... possess though I should hope the reasons are obvious. It seems still the Imms hate augurers and are determined to keep them entirely worthless on their own. Coil has put them on a .. slightly more even playing field (but unlike everyone else's damage.. requires one crystal per cast.. which is a huge pain in the ass to make crystals all the time, and carry them and the extra potions you need to bring to a run (cause you will DROP alot of them)
Now the good. Barbs are the new thief. Rend had it's crappy 65% max upped to 95% and chokehold actually is comparable to backstab. Armblock isn't great but better than nothing for sure. For a long time rend was the barb staple along with charge. The problem was charge required a horse (which gets killed by areas blasts), lagged as much as circle (but dealt less). Rend was better.. because it only had 3 bars of lag (meaning you could actually quaff before that second round of damage came in (and yes that half a round is a huge difference) Now that its 95% max... charge is practically worthless. Especially with the new ancestral strike skill allowing them to use ACTUAL WEAPONS.. Lets face it.. barbarians riding horses, wearing a lance, having a weapon and a shield? Really didn't get it not to mention having 3 different modes of attack depending on the run was annoying (barehanded for rend, horseback lance, shield, wield for charge, and dual wield/two handed which left them with just plain ole melee... which as we all know works GREAT on some mobs and not at all on others.. especially if they are magic weapons only...) Now.. barehanded is clearly the best choice, and ancestral strike lets dual wielding much better.
The other class which has seriously benefited from the changes made: paladins. Before they were the more defensive warrior type, warriors were of course the better hitter and because of the dex..... tank. Now paladins have shieldblock AND shieldbash, they can tank AND hit at the same time now. Especially with the nice new high hp holds, gives paladins much better hp than their warrior counterparts. Also not hurting is the fact they have shieldbash which is better than smash making them also better hitters... but only when they are tanking. So warrior? still the better rescue tank and still has better melee. But paladins finally have a use as a hitter/tank hybrid (one per group) while warriors still very much excel in the melee department with stun and the much easier to level part going for them. Personally I would like to see changes to augurers more in line with the skill level of what paladins and make them a more unique and specialist mage class instead of being entirely outclassed until level 50, then finally able to be used in very specific circumstances if you dump loads and loads of money into it and prep a bunch of crystals for it. Unlike most other classes, Augurers are still fairly worthless until you sink about 500m worth in eq onto them. Past the rings/neck/body/wield, every single piece will be 50m+
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Gold and you.
Gold is the universal medium. The trading standard. You can buy everything with gold (practically) and you will never get enough (ever). Some things to think about before your next purchase.
1) If I don't want it.. will I be able to sell it? some stuff is very easy to find someone to sell it to you (sellbots!) but not so easy selling it back. If it's easy to sell you its less of an issue. But if its hard to sell chances you are stuck with it (and your money is tied up in it until it does) this goes especially for older items like old clan but also inbetween items. For example you have a devout warrior and eventually want to get danny rings (ring of the ancient gods). A good inbetween item would be signet of ravenells (roddy ring) because they are popular and sell easily. On the other hand... a scorched band of glass or Ring of Kings is nearly as nice as the signet (but a fraction if the price) but even if you find someone to sell you one... chances are you won't be able to sell it back.
2) How long will I be wearing it for. Whats your upgrade path? For a new player. shelling out 80mil (each!) for danny rings will be probably the most expensive items for a dev warrior (short of the Justice/Rav plate) If you save a little by little because you can't play all the time your upgrade path might go from ring of dragons to roddy ring to danny rings. But when will you switch? when SHOULD you switch? Consider the next point.
3) How much does it benefit me? are there items that would benefit me in the short term?
Going from a ring of dragons to a roddy ring is probably a 30ish mil cost. but then the roddy to danny ring is another 80. (or 110 total). The question is really when is that upgrade worth it in comparison to everything else? For example you are using sword of the king's crest from lodd. cheap, easy replacable nonmagic slashers. your next upgrade would probably be Justices. Or if you dont have it yet.. a nasr. The crest swords give you 150hp dual wielded. The nasr will probably help farming gold and give 40hp and is also your end goal gear meaning you wont ever have to replace it (though you will still need the justices for the nonmagic only mobs as well as the saves). Depending on how much income you get you might decide its better to skip the roddy ring (and save the effort of reselling it) or if you see one go cheap snag it and turn it for a profit once you get your danny ring. But the alternative upgrade (nasr) is a good investment and the damage output and hp makes it better than upgrading a single ring so that should be the priority.
a) like with real money. think about your purchase. The more it costs the more you should think.
b) if its a good upgrade in the interim and will open you up to being able to run more/better stuff (and get money faster) its a good idea to upgrade bits here and there
c) your money is best spent upgrading your weakest pieces first. Those blackened spurs of the nazgul lord might look great. but the usual pricetag of 50m+ should make it the last thing you buy. not the first. the 1 extra point in second attack will be barely noticable.
1) If I don't want it.. will I be able to sell it? some stuff is very easy to find someone to sell it to you (sellbots!) but not so easy selling it back. If it's easy to sell you its less of an issue. But if its hard to sell chances you are stuck with it (and your money is tied up in it until it does) this goes especially for older items like old clan but also inbetween items. For example you have a devout warrior and eventually want to get danny rings (ring of the ancient gods). A good inbetween item would be signet of ravenells (roddy ring) because they are popular and sell easily. On the other hand... a scorched band of glass or Ring of Kings is nearly as nice as the signet (but a fraction if the price) but even if you find someone to sell you one... chances are you won't be able to sell it back.
2) How long will I be wearing it for. Whats your upgrade path? For a new player. shelling out 80mil (each!) for danny rings will be probably the most expensive items for a dev warrior (short of the Justice/Rav plate) If you save a little by little because you can't play all the time your upgrade path might go from ring of dragons to roddy ring to danny rings. But when will you switch? when SHOULD you switch? Consider the next point.
3) How much does it benefit me? are there items that would benefit me in the short term?
Going from a ring of dragons to a roddy ring is probably a 30ish mil cost. but then the roddy to danny ring is another 80. (or 110 total). The question is really when is that upgrade worth it in comparison to everything else? For example you are using sword of the king's crest from lodd. cheap, easy replacable nonmagic slashers. your next upgrade would probably be Justices. Or if you dont have it yet.. a nasr. The crest swords give you 150hp dual wielded. The nasr will probably help farming gold and give 40hp and is also your end goal gear meaning you wont ever have to replace it (though you will still need the justices for the nonmagic only mobs as well as the saves). Depending on how much income you get you might decide its better to skip the roddy ring (and save the effort of reselling it) or if you see one go cheap snag it and turn it for a profit once you get your danny ring. But the alternative upgrade (nasr) is a good investment and the damage output and hp makes it better than upgrading a single ring so that should be the priority.
a) like with real money. think about your purchase. The more it costs the more you should think.
b) if its a good upgrade in the interim and will open you up to being able to run more/better stuff (and get money faster) its a good idea to upgrade bits here and there
c) your money is best spent upgrading your weakest pieces first. Those blackened spurs of the nazgul lord might look great. but the usual pricetag of 50m+ should make it the last thing you buy. not the first. the 1 extra point in second attack will be barely noticable.
A new beginning.
Its been about 4 years since I last wrote here because about 4 years ago I quit. Tired of two faced friends and all the people that insulted me publicly and behind my back. I left to get away from them but I came back to find my friends. Realms has always been more than just a game to me. Its been a place of rest, comfort and enjoyment and I guess this post means I'm officially back! (though to be fair I've been back for a few months now).
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
How item prices are determined
Different things have different prices. Obviously. This is just a basic guide as to how and why different items are priced.
Lets first start off with some REALLY obvious catergories.
(Difficulty of the) Mob: Of course.. the harder it is to kill.. the more its worth
Restrictions on the Mob: If it can only be killed by a certian class.. say mages... its probably worth more than an item from a mob that can be killed by any class.
Stats: of course.. if its good its worth more. but in reality.. this doesnt play much of a role in pricing.
People required: the more people that have to share the loot.. the less you are getting out of each kill.. of course, this means its worth more since you have to do more kills to get one thing.
Pops: This is the one I hate. Randomness will screw you over or rain gold on you.. depending on your luck... the lower the pop rate the more its worth of course.
Repop times: How long it takes the mob to repop is proportional to the amount of kills you can make on the mob.
Knowledge required: what do you need to know to get to the mob and kill it... obviously for mobs like.. say seth... which require knowledge of the chaos maze.... costs more. Than say.. the cost of a mob that doesnt require specific knowledge say... shade the dark.
Time taken: the longer it takes the more its worth... duh?
Now some less obvious catergories.
Potential threats: DT's, random deaths on the way in, large aggro mobs that guard the mob you are wanting to kill, even down to things like.. etching your eq which will seriously devalue it. The more threats on the way or possibly in the way, the more it costs.
Large Randomness: the other random things. For example... low pop rates can often lead to 0 yield runs. Like danbala sights... most regular runners will never pop one. Also equipment from randomly opened areas like tummult and midway are also pricier.
Unusual size: Simply takes a large amount of people. This mainly applies to quest prizes where it takes possibly 20+ people to kill the mob but only one person gets the prize.
Equipment required: with mobs constantly being upped, mobs tend to take equipment worth MORE than what they have to kill them. In short, you need to be rich enough to afford it before you can run it. Stupid? yes. But its true. Seth runs require seth'd thieves with more than the eq is worth to keep the run consistent. (you need a buncha throwaways, or renamed banes, then you need morphs to go with the seth set.) Whats more, its required of most if not all the runners. (Given you cannot supp corpse in the fortress.. the potential threats part is pretty high too as imms like to eat seth once you pass the chaos maze.)
Volume on the market: How much is already in game HEAVILY affects prices.
So basically think of each catergory as something each item fufills. For example... lets take the signet of the darkhaven guard.
Difficulty: about level 15 warrior can kill them.
Restrictions: none.
Stats: crap.
People required: Half a brain or more really does the job.
Pops: 100% of the time
Repop times: Dh is what.. 15 minutes? and there are 2 guards per gate so thats 8 + a bunch that wander around randomly.
Knowledge required: how to attack.
Time taken: up to a minute if you really suck at level 20.
Threats: street peddlers pwning your ass while you attack the guard. BEWARE!
Unusual size/randomness: no
Equipment required: really basic stuff.
Volume: 0 on the market cause no one in thier right mind keeps this trash But thats ok. it just means the item isnt wanted. not that its so hard no one can get it.
So we can work out the price for the signet. umm.... worthless.
What are then the conclusions we can draw from this?
a) its worthless
b) it should not be kept
c) its not worth its weight to store/keep in a container/bid/auction for.
I hope this post was valuable to help those who auction random items in hopes of getting 10k bids. Just dont. Stop wasting your time and everyone else's. Auction something thats worth SOMETHING if you want a bid. All that means is you have to auction something that fufills any or all of the above catergories.
Lets first start off with some REALLY obvious catergories.
(Difficulty of the) Mob: Of course.. the harder it is to kill.. the more its worth
Restrictions on the Mob: If it can only be killed by a certian class.. say mages... its probably worth more than an item from a mob that can be killed by any class.
Stats: of course.. if its good its worth more. but in reality.. this doesnt play much of a role in pricing.
People required: the more people that have to share the loot.. the less you are getting out of each kill.. of course, this means its worth more since you have to do more kills to get one thing.
Pops: This is the one I hate. Randomness will screw you over or rain gold on you.. depending on your luck... the lower the pop rate the more its worth of course.
Repop times: How long it takes the mob to repop is proportional to the amount of kills you can make on the mob.
Knowledge required: what do you need to know to get to the mob and kill it... obviously for mobs like.. say seth... which require knowledge of the chaos maze.... costs more. Than say.. the cost of a mob that doesnt require specific knowledge say... shade the dark.
Time taken: the longer it takes the more its worth... duh?
Now some less obvious catergories.
Potential threats: DT's, random deaths on the way in, large aggro mobs that guard the mob you are wanting to kill, even down to things like.. etching your eq which will seriously devalue it. The more threats on the way or possibly in the way, the more it costs.
Large Randomness: the other random things. For example... low pop rates can often lead to 0 yield runs. Like danbala sights... most regular runners will never pop one. Also equipment from randomly opened areas like tummult and midway are also pricier.
Unusual size: Simply takes a large amount of people. This mainly applies to quest prizes where it takes possibly 20+ people to kill the mob but only one person gets the prize.
Equipment required: with mobs constantly being upped, mobs tend to take equipment worth MORE than what they have to kill them. In short, you need to be rich enough to afford it before you can run it. Stupid? yes. But its true. Seth runs require seth'd thieves with more than the eq is worth to keep the run consistent. (you need a buncha throwaways, or renamed banes, then you need morphs to go with the seth set.) Whats more, its required of most if not all the runners. (Given you cannot supp corpse in the fortress.. the potential threats part is pretty high too as imms like to eat seth once you pass the chaos maze.)
Volume on the market: How much is already in game HEAVILY affects prices.
So basically think of each catergory as something each item fufills. For example... lets take the signet of the darkhaven guard.
Difficulty: about level 15 warrior can kill them.
Restrictions: none.
Stats: crap.
People required: Half a brain or more really does the job.
Pops: 100% of the time
Repop times: Dh is what.. 15 minutes? and there are 2 guards per gate so thats 8 + a bunch that wander around randomly.
Knowledge required: how to attack.
Time taken: up to a minute if you really suck at level 20.
Threats: street peddlers pwning your ass while you attack the guard. BEWARE!
Unusual size/randomness: no
Equipment required: really basic stuff.
Volume: 0 on the market cause no one in thier right mind keeps this trash But thats ok. it just means the item isnt wanted. not that its so hard no one can get it.
So we can work out the price for the signet. umm.... worthless.
What are then the conclusions we can draw from this?
a) its worthless
b) it should not be kept
c) its not worth its weight to store/keep in a container/bid/auction for.
I hope this post was valuable to help those who auction random items in hopes of getting 10k bids. Just dont. Stop wasting your time and everyone else's. Auction something thats worth SOMETHING if you want a bid. All that means is you have to auction something that fufills any or all of the above catergories.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
a different rant. what is really wrong with the realms.
Realms is dying. there are fewer people playing than before. You can basically feel it if you have been here for years. People you know have left, quit for good. Most newbies tend to be sheep. As in they whine, moan on chat for people to do this and that for them, ask where to level, where to get gold etc etc etc.
RoD should really be following the route most other companies are taking. Just raise the new stuff to a new level. Instead, new things have been rather mediocre frankly. The difficulty of the game since I started playing has ramped up probably easily 20 times harder. Back in the day you pleveled characters in a day. Newbies took a year to level. but it was all good. the economy worked, things sold at a constant price, there were alot more people actively playing. Now RoD is like an overglorified chat room with RPG elements. Most people who play dont actively DO anything.. they just sit around and chat. Why? 2 main reasons.
Reason 1. Realms has gotten harder but the rewards are still so-so. What is still the most profitable run in the game? Seth. How long has seth fort been in the game? long enough for the imms to have totally revamped gameplay, added in a dozen plus areas. But the economy still revolves around seth's fortress. Why? Class balance. or rather the lackof. its been getting better but neut thieves still can run 99% of the generic stuff you want to kill. and every so often you hit the 1% and you need something else to kill with. But if you are really smart... you stick with the standard neut thief, decked out in (gasp) seth. and run... (bigger gasp) seth. to make profit off (even bigger gasp) seth. The game has revolved around seth too long. Why? because seth is unrestricted mainly. neut/evils ALL wear it. Along with all the other goodies that are in seth's fortress. golden plate (cato plate is 15hp more.. great. and how much more expensive? right.) jade strand. (nothing beats jade strand.. STILL) and of course.. darko's stuff. Collar of abyssal servitude aka morphs.. why? cause nothing fits better on a thief than 2luck 4dr 35hp neckwear.
But seth is still standard equip for 99% of all neuts/evils. some will wear other things because some SLIGHTLY better eq has come out lately. but otherwise... seth eq is still the thing in highest demand. So why have people been leaving if nothing has been changing that much? oh. boredom. you can only run seth that many times till you get bored of it and the formerly less important things things in your life become more important than running seth.. then you leave cause everyone else is doing it. after all.. you are still playing the same old characters (with a few new ones) Theres no real new challenges (even with the new areas for avs. nevermore, daichaal, fixes of barren peaks, otherlands, the totally new areas i havent even visited yet. the slime pits, the mausoleum, and d'morian's lands) yes. there is new stuff (woot) and there is eq that is better than existing eq!...... but no one REALLY cares about it. it doesnt impact the economy at all.. it sells for measly millions (maybe even 20 i saw one item) but.. thats it. want cash? go seth. what they REALLY need to do is GLOBALLY revamp eq. along with hr (which is broken according to some imm's post on the game.org forums which are the official forums. broken not as in it doesnt work but broken as in it hasnt scaled properly thus its too easy to cap out). then they need to take out old clan (cause its even more overpowered than seth. and people who have it practically only really do quests and run gorog's dog for more "income" since anything else is a drop in the sea) along with all the eq which was glory traded (loads of chars all put glory on the same piece of eq resulting in pieces of eq which have stats that basically puts seth to shame). In the end.. realms hasnt changed much. fastest way to riches is still seth because its STILL unrestricted, neut thieves are STILL the choice for 99% of regularly done runs and seth still has that regular value.
Solution? put in ALOT of new stuff make it HARDER than the current stuff but also make the rewards BETTER than seth... yes. BETTER THAN SETH. cause no one is going to give a shit if it isnt better.
Reason 2. classes to this day are still broken. The balance in power between classes is alot better than it was. but still wayyyyyy too far to be considered even remotely balanced. both 18 dex classes are horrible to level, and even worse at av when every potion you drop matters. Augurers still get about as many spells as warriors get physical attacks. which is a decent amount, but real quick comparison.
Augurer.
----------------------------------[Spells]----------------------------------
balm of time 95% bind oracle 90% burning hands 95%
caustic touch 90% charm person 90% crystalize 90%
detect hidden 95% dispel magic 75% divination 90%
enchant weapon 23% fireshield 95% float 95%
fly 95% forecasting 95% foreshadow 95%
helical flow 85% herald death 75% inner warmth 90%
invis 95% midas touch 95% nostrum 95%
prescient sight 85% prophetic aura 95% psychic surge 95%
remove invis 85% ritual blessing 95% scorching surge 95%
second sight 85% seek passage 95% shield 90%
shocking grasp 90% sleep 85% spiral blast 95%
weaken 80% word of recall 95%
----------------------------------[Skills]----------------------------------
aggressive style 60% aid 19% berserk style 40%
climb 19% cook 19% cuff 90%
defensive style 85% dig 82% dual wield 80%
enhanced damage 75% evasive style 90% fourth attack 40%
hide 75% kick 90% meditate 95%
mount 25% parry 95% rescue 50%
scan 85% search 80% second attack 60%
sneak 75% spurn 80% standard style 70%
strike 90% swap 65% third attack 66%
two handed 19%
----------------------------------[Weapons]---------------------------------
bludgeons 19% flexible arms 95% long blades 19%
pugilism 60% short blades 85% talonous arms 19%
Mage
----------------------------------[Spells]----------------------------------
acetum primus 85% acumen 95% adamant 95%
adroitness 95% antimagic shell 95% aqua breath 95%
astral walk 95% black fist 95% black hand 95%
black lightning 95% blazebane 95% blazeward 95%
blindness 95% brawn 95% caustic fount 95%
chill touch 95% colour spray 95% confidence 95%
continual light 95% cosmos shift 95% create fire 95%
create spring 95% demonskin 95% dispel magic 95%
dragon wit 95% dragonskin 95% dream 95%
eldritch sphere 95% elemental supremacy 95% elven beauty 95%
enchant weapon 95% ethereal fist 95% ethereal funnel 95%
ethereal shield 95% ethereal web 95% extradimensional por 95%
faerie fire 95% faerie fog 95% farsight 95%
fireshield 95% float 95% fly 95%
galvanic whip 95% iceshield 95% identify 95%
infravision 95% inner warmth 95% invis 95%
knock 95% locate object 95% magic missile 95%
magnetic thrust 95% midas touch 95% mystical vision 95%
ogre might 95% pass door 95% portal 95%
prismatic shield 95% quantum spike 95% rapture 95%
razorbait 95% recharge 80% refresh 75%
remove invis 95% remove trap 80% sagacity 95%
sapience 95% scry 95% shadowform 95%
shield 95% shockshield 75% sleep 95%
slink 95% sonic resonance 95% spectral furor 95%
sulfurous spray 95% summon 95% swordbait 95%
teleport 95% transport 95% trollish vigor 95%
true sight 35% valiance 95% ventriloquate 95%
weaken 95% winter mist 95% word of recall 95%
----------------------------------[Skills]----------------------------------
aggressive style 40% berserk style 20% brew 95%
climb 25% cook 95% cuff 60%
defensive style 75% dig 70% evasive style 80%
mount 80% scribe 95% search 85%
second attack 45% standard style 50% strike 70%
swat 80% third attack 30% trance 95%
----------------------------------[Weapons]---------------------------------
bludgeons 50% flexible arms 60% long blades 50%
pugilism 30% short blades 95% talonous arms 60%
see a difference? its pretty obvious mages get about 1.5X more spells than augurers get. That is to say.. alot more. nephandi have more spells than augurers. but still less than a mage.. classes are simply not balanced. there are X times more mages in the game than any other "sorcerer" genre classes. why? brew, scribe, have all 3 shields, get paths. augurers and nephs are stuck in their little niche. given what the imms have done in the years ive played, nothing has really changed. other than adding fathomers and barbarians in, neither class are all that popular. fathomers are awesome and have alot of people playing them now. but compared to ... thieves? still outnumbered easily at a glance. why? balance. rather.. the lack of. the base classes are just too powerful (or all the other classes are just too weak) cleric, mage, thief, warrior. they have so much of an advantage over any of their counterparts that their counterparts in practice never really get played.
if there are any imms reading this. Good job for doing all this for free. but if you want to keep the mud alive you really need to do better.
RoD should really be following the route most other companies are taking. Just raise the new stuff to a new level. Instead, new things have been rather mediocre frankly. The difficulty of the game since I started playing has ramped up probably easily 20 times harder. Back in the day you pleveled characters in a day. Newbies took a year to level. but it was all good. the economy worked, things sold at a constant price, there were alot more people actively playing. Now RoD is like an overglorified chat room with RPG elements. Most people who play dont actively DO anything.. they just sit around and chat. Why? 2 main reasons.
Reason 1. Realms has gotten harder but the rewards are still so-so. What is still the most profitable run in the game? Seth. How long has seth fort been in the game? long enough for the imms to have totally revamped gameplay, added in a dozen plus areas. But the economy still revolves around seth's fortress. Why? Class balance. or rather the lackof. its been getting better but neut thieves still can run 99% of the generic stuff you want to kill. and every so often you hit the 1% and you need something else to kill with. But if you are really smart... you stick with the standard neut thief, decked out in (gasp) seth. and run... (bigger gasp) seth. to make profit off (even bigger gasp) seth. The game has revolved around seth too long. Why? because seth is unrestricted mainly. neut/evils ALL wear it. Along with all the other goodies that are in seth's fortress. golden plate (cato plate is 15hp more.. great. and how much more expensive? right.) jade strand. (nothing beats jade strand.. STILL) and of course.. darko's stuff. Collar of abyssal servitude aka morphs.. why? cause nothing fits better on a thief than 2luck 4dr 35hp neckwear.
But seth is still standard equip for 99% of all neuts/evils. some will wear other things because some SLIGHTLY better eq has come out lately. but otherwise... seth eq is still the thing in highest demand. So why have people been leaving if nothing has been changing that much? oh. boredom. you can only run seth that many times till you get bored of it and the formerly less important things things in your life become more important than running seth.. then you leave cause everyone else is doing it. after all.. you are still playing the same old characters (with a few new ones) Theres no real new challenges (even with the new areas for avs. nevermore, daichaal, fixes of barren peaks, otherlands, the totally new areas i havent even visited yet. the slime pits, the mausoleum, and d'morian's lands) yes. there is new stuff (woot) and there is eq that is better than existing eq!...... but no one REALLY cares about it. it doesnt impact the economy at all.. it sells for measly millions (maybe even 20 i saw one item) but.. thats it. want cash? go seth. what they REALLY need to do is GLOBALLY revamp eq. along with hr (which is broken according to some imm's post on the game.org forums which are the official forums. broken not as in it doesnt work but broken as in it hasnt scaled properly thus its too easy to cap out). then they need to take out old clan (cause its even more overpowered than seth. and people who have it practically only really do quests and run gorog's dog for more "income" since anything else is a drop in the sea) along with all the eq which was glory traded (loads of chars all put glory on the same piece of eq resulting in pieces of eq which have stats that basically puts seth to shame). In the end.. realms hasnt changed much. fastest way to riches is still seth because its STILL unrestricted, neut thieves are STILL the choice for 99% of regularly done runs and seth still has that regular value.
Solution? put in ALOT of new stuff make it HARDER than the current stuff but also make the rewards BETTER than seth... yes. BETTER THAN SETH. cause no one is going to give a shit if it isnt better.
Reason 2. classes to this day are still broken. The balance in power between classes is alot better than it was. but still wayyyyyy too far to be considered even remotely balanced. both 18 dex classes are horrible to level, and even worse at av when every potion you drop matters. Augurers still get about as many spells as warriors get physical attacks. which is a decent amount, but real quick comparison.
Augurer.
----------------------------------[Spells]----------------------------------
balm of time 95% bind oracle 90% burning hands 95%
caustic touch 90% charm person 90% crystalize 90%
detect hidden 95% dispel magic 75% divination 90%
enchant weapon 23% fireshield 95% float 95%
fly 95% forecasting 95% foreshadow 95%
helical flow 85% herald death 75% inner warmth 90%
invis 95% midas touch 95% nostrum 95%
prescient sight 85% prophetic aura 95% psychic surge 95%
remove invis 85% ritual blessing 95% scorching surge 95%
second sight 85% seek passage 95% shield 90%
shocking grasp 90% sleep 85% spiral blast 95%
weaken 80% word of recall 95%
----------------------------------[Skills]----------------------------------
aggressive style 60% aid 19% berserk style 40%
climb 19% cook 19% cuff 90%
defensive style 85% dig 82% dual wield 80%
enhanced damage 75% evasive style 90% fourth attack 40%
hide 75% kick 90% meditate 95%
mount 25% parry 95% rescue 50%
scan 85% search 80% second attack 60%
sneak 75% spurn 80% standard style 70%
strike 90% swap 65% third attack 66%
two handed 19%
----------------------------------[Weapons]---------------------------------
bludgeons 19% flexible arms 95% long blades 19%
pugilism 60% short blades 85% talonous arms 19%
Mage
----------------------------------[Spells]----------------------------------
acetum primus 85% acumen 95% adamant 95%
adroitness 95% antimagic shell 95% aqua breath 95%
astral walk 95% black fist 95% black hand 95%
black lightning 95% blazebane 95% blazeward 95%
blindness 95% brawn 95% caustic fount 95%
chill touch 95% colour spray 95% confidence 95%
continual light 95% cosmos shift 95% create fire 95%
create spring 95% demonskin 95% dispel magic 95%
dragon wit 95% dragonskin 95% dream 95%
eldritch sphere 95% elemental supremacy 95% elven beauty 95%
enchant weapon 95% ethereal fist 95% ethereal funnel 95%
ethereal shield 95% ethereal web 95% extradimensional por 95%
faerie fire 95% faerie fog 95% farsight 95%
fireshield 95% float 95% fly 95%
galvanic whip 95% iceshield 95% identify 95%
infravision 95% inner warmth 95% invis 95%
knock 95% locate object 95% magic missile 95%
magnetic thrust 95% midas touch 95% mystical vision 95%
ogre might 95% pass door 95% portal 95%
prismatic shield 95% quantum spike 95% rapture 95%
razorbait 95% recharge 80% refresh 75%
remove invis 95% remove trap 80% sagacity 95%
sapience 95% scry 95% shadowform 95%
shield 95% shockshield 75% sleep 95%
slink 95% sonic resonance 95% spectral furor 95%
sulfurous spray 95% summon 95% swordbait 95%
teleport 95% transport 95% trollish vigor 95%
true sight 35% valiance 95% ventriloquate 95%
weaken 95% winter mist 95% word of recall 95%
----------------------------------[Skills]----------------------------------
aggressive style 40% berserk style 20% brew 95%
climb 25% cook 95% cuff 60%
defensive style 75% dig 70% evasive style 80%
mount 80% scribe 95% search 85%
second attack 45% standard style 50% strike 70%
swat 80% third attack 30% trance 95%
----------------------------------[Weapons]---------------------------------
bludgeons 50% flexible arms 60% long blades 50%
pugilism 30% short blades 95% talonous arms 60%
see a difference? its pretty obvious mages get about 1.5X more spells than augurers get. That is to say.. alot more. nephandi have more spells than augurers. but still less than a mage.. classes are simply not balanced. there are X times more mages in the game than any other "sorcerer" genre classes. why? brew, scribe, have all 3 shields, get paths. augurers and nephs are stuck in their little niche. given what the imms have done in the years ive played, nothing has really changed. other than adding fathomers and barbarians in, neither class are all that popular. fathomers are awesome and have alot of people playing them now. but compared to ... thieves? still outnumbered easily at a glance. why? balance. rather.. the lack of. the base classes are just too powerful (or all the other classes are just too weak) cleric, mage, thief, warrior. they have so much of an advantage over any of their counterparts that their counterparts in practice never really get played.
if there are any imms reading this. Good job for doing all this for free. but if you want to keep the mud alive you really need to do better.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Afking, chatting, standing around doing nothing.
It's a game. Play it. You can gold and chat at the same time. Depending which mob you choose to gold on you can gold as fast and as slow as you prefer which gives you time to chat or whatever you want in between. Efficiency is doing work, giving your brain a break by golding for 5 minutes every say.. 25 minutes, then getting back to work. You are less stressed about getting work done (dont do this with last minute work though) or it makes it less boring at least plus you get gold/items out of it. Good examples... guen/leodegrance. 45 minute repop in kotr. 1mil on the mob (both of em) and a fairly decent item that can sell for a bit (depending on who wants it). 15 minutes every hour to kill, 45 to work. Its a solution that works especially when you get bored with the work. Bring along your friends to chat (or chat with them with tells if you dont want to share). Point is.. you can be more productive even when you are mostly afkish.
Investing, golding, auction.
Auction is a good way to invest in items. Gold doesn't really gain value and for each moment that passes, gold is worth less (people are golding more) On the other hand, items tend to retain a value (especially if it is a good item) or when they go OOG (then the prices for them go up) you can get a substantial amount investing in items just by selling later when someone wants it. For example take Set's ring of power. Auction it tends to go for about 5mil. People are sometimes willing to pay 7m (thats 2/5ths of the price which is .. . 40% if you think about it.) Or even better.. when someone auctions it at 0 value and no one bids you can get it for say.. 3mil. (then you gained 4mil which is 133%) in profits. Thus auction is a good way to invest your money (buy low, sell high). It doesn't really hurt you once you have a financial base thats high enough to support it as well as storages to facilitate the trades. It's the art of investment. Not the art of ripping people off. Ripping people off is telling a newbie the ring is worth 7 when its worth 5. Investing smart is buying the ring for 3, then selling the ring to a buyer who needs it in a hurry and is willing to pay 7 for the immediacy.
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