About drop rate, economy, uniria, etc.

[Minos]

Hello,

Well done! Mu Oldsquad is the best I've played in years, but I have a couple of concerns. These may be caused by my ignorance since I have only been playing for about two weeks, but I think they are legit remarks.

Medals, etc.
Problem #1: the items dropping from hearts and medals are way too good and abundant. For example, the first day I played on this server, I haphazardly found a Celestial Bow+11+Skill+Luck+4 just lying on the floor of Noria. If this item is worthless for someone, there is something wrong with the economy. I started as an Elf, and this immediately made every other bow I found myself useless. Only when things are scarce, they are valuable. 
(Problem #2 [uncertain]: the fact that for some characters a Bronze set +11 (i.e. an energy mage maxing agi & ene) is already considered a good late game set, whereas for other characters it's worthless, is a bit too unbalanced I think. Every class should have some trouble to attain their best set.)

Solution: 

• Disable luck and options on items in medals. This increases the value of regular monster drops, and doesn't overpower the medal items. For example, you find Leather Gloves+7 from a medal, great! I look shiny now! But as you grind monsters, suddenly Leather Gloves+5+12+Luck drops. You don't look as shiny, but the item is way better than some cheap medal drop. This stimulates the economy
• Decrease the max possible item level in medals to +8. This increases the value of luck on items. You got to do some work if you want to look super shiny.
• Don't put super nice items in medals, like a Celestial Bow. This makes hunting or lurking for items way more fun, and stimulates the economy, again.

Items in shop
Problem: similar reasoning as above.

• Solution: Remove the luck from the items. It's not luck if you can easily find or buy it.

Uniria, dinorant, angel, etc.
Problem Uniria: Useless for running speed because of the (nearly instant access) to small wings at level 80. Impale (such a beautiful skill) is useless as well

• Solution: remove the small wings as an easy level 80 reward; there can be a much better event or box for such a cool item as wings.
  Suggestions: Buff the impale skill; higher drop rate for Uniria and make them combinable to Dinorant without chaos. Or not, but then buff the Dinorant skill as well.

Problem Angel: rare, useful, but not really valuable.

• Solution: should be in shop for a reasonable amount of zen. This make zen more useful, and Angels make the game look better.

Problem Imp: rare, valuable and useful, but hoarded. I have five of them now, but I'm not using them because they are too rare and they die so fast, just like Angels. Yet I don't want to sell them, nor would I want to pay jewels for them. I'm just waiting for the moment that never comes so I can use them when they die very slowly.

• Solution: I'd put Imps in shop as well, for a price that could be described expensive, but not too expensive so no one wants to buy them. Doing this should increas the value of zen and the value of Imps. And now using Angels or Imps is a choice like choosing a stat build.

Drop rate
Problem: I think the drop rate of items is between OK and too high. It took me one day to collect a Great Dragon Set by just standing near parties who were killing monsters I'm still too weak for. Moreover, I got the Great Dragon Armor+1+8+Luck for free from someone who initially asked two chaos for it. I told him it wasn't worth that much, because it isn't, but it should be!
This problem is closely related to the overpowered items to be found in medals: because I easily obtained a random set of items +9, +10, +11, it was easy to survive near much too strong monsters.

• Solution: decrease the drop rate, but increase the chance on luck or options. This stimulates active non-afk gameplay, because you have to be active to see your desirable items drop.

Jewels
I have never had such a hard time finding jewels, which is awesome and how it should be! But it's a double-edged sword. Because items from medals are so good and abundant, and jewels are so rare, I'm hoarding them and not using them. I'm not even going to try and make wings. I'll just buy the few items I want, and keep hoarding jewels until I can buy the item I want, without buying or leveling up any intermediate items from the market. (Nobody is buying my items as well.)

~Solution: Increase the likelihood of finding Bless by increasing the drop rate, or more recurring events specifically for Bless, and maybe a bit more Soul. The latter is the best option because it also stimulates active gameplay. [The events in this server are remarkably good; it's been years since I was motivated to participate in these events. They are challenging, fun, and necessary for jewels.]
Finding more Bless, and fewer items, will stimulate people in actually using it to level up items and buying intermediate items on the market.

It comes down to this:

• early game it should be reasonably 'easy'/encouraged/fun to level up items to +7, +8, +9.
• mid game it should be 'moderate'/challenging/fun to level up items to +10+11+12.
• late game it should be 'difficult'/challenging/risky to level up items to +13+14+15.

Instead—what happens now I think—is that early and mid game is lost, and jewels are hoarded to save for the late game. This is boring. (Anyway, I've hosted a private server myself once, and the economy is incredibly difficult to get right, so this is just brainstorming.)
That being said, I think if finding Bless was 'moderate', Soul was 'hard', and Chaos the 'hardest', then it would make early, mid, and late game more fun while remaining a challenge.

I have more ideas and suggestions, but the somewhat broken economy is the most pressing for me right now. And it's getting late, so I'll end it here.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Minos
Clarity

[weew]

i just love your avatar, BLACK ADDER never dies ! and Boldrick as well ))

[trololo]

you wrote everything beautifully but....the problem is that you focus on ordinary items, they are just transitional or rather say "consumable". You did not say a about  exe, socket, acc, which means you're too small to judge about the bigger picture. My advice to you, enjoy the game, everything will come by itself

[Mu3rTe]

it was not always so easy to colect medals, the drop rate increased once the stages were cleared.

at the moment drop rate is maxim, to help new players to catch up.

items like legendary +12 were quite rare.

but as you say, the drop  of items bigger then +7-8 help the server lvl up faster than expected.

still chaos is a very rare item, 

[dlwlrma]

im quitting this game thanks to bullshit top ranking players who sell items with unreasonable prices, look at Aryman, Bangkayo, and others who have such an item which they doesnt use but put on store to show you they have what u need but not willing to give it to you unless u pay as much as if u can farm jewels like they can. the economy is just fucking ruined. ive had given it many chances to keep on going but still end up at the same problem, player to player economy is just fucked up although it has been more than a month since the server opened. its as if these top ranking players expect us to have 100 each of those different kind of jewels. its over for me it wasnt the mu experience i was hoping to get. "it wasnt the game but the players themselves who are ruining the game". goodbye and farewell oldsquad it was fun, but only for a short moment

[Mu3rTe]

you think top players are unreasonable?

i farmed 24/7 since opening and still dont have anubis ring. 

some guy join ds max 10 times, get lucky and wants full sets for a ring...

so its part of the game.

[Minos]

4 hours ago, Shuryk said:

you wrote everything beautifully but....the problem is that you focus on ordinary items, they are just transitional or rather say "consumable". You did not say a about  exe, socket, acc, which means you're too small to judge about the bigger picture. My advice to you, enjoy the game, everything will come by itself

I think you just inadvertently supported my arguments. For example, the Excellent items I found so far were—personally—mostly useless because of the overpowered items in medals. Items from medals should be transitional, or as you said: 'consumable', not the monster drops. Instead, medals render 99% of the regular monster drops useless. Excellent items used to be "Holy fuck I found an excellent item," now it's just "Meh, let's see what option it has."

About socket or ancient items I can't comment because I indeed have no experience with those. However, that's not necessary for my points to be legitimate. Some people play slow or infrequently, others play a lot. If an economy is mainly focussed around end game items, it's only 'fun' for hardcore players. Similarly to my elf, I've been using a Sword of Destruction+10+4+Luck from the first day I started playing with my knight. In the meantime I've found items from monsters that I would've have been psyched about to find if it weren't for those medal drops. What makes gameplay fun is pleasant surprises. These medals aren't. Now it's just a deluge of items that mostly go unused, or just sold in shop.

I'm no economist, but I think if items were much harder to find, then the economy would work both ways, jewels from beginners to experienced players, and items from experienced player to beginners. I feel like infrequent or beginner players have nothing to contribute or nothing to look out for. 

3 hours ago, Mu3rTe said:

it was not always so easy to colect medals, the drop rate increased once the stages were cleared.

at the moment drop rate is maxim, to help new players to catch up.

items like legendary +12 were quite rare.

but as you say, the drop  of items bigger then +7-8 help the server lvl up faster than expected.

still chaos is a very rare item, 

5

Newer players—personally speaking—don't want to catch up, they want to get good, with pleasant surprises and fun gameplay. If the latter conditions are true, they will catch up anyhow. What this server does well is rewarding active players more than AFKing, but it could do it even better.

Brainstorm
Idea #1: drastically increase price of AFK mechanism so AFKing can't be done indefinitely on monster zen drops alone. This makes zen more valuable. AFKing should still be relatively easy, but doing so should stimulate the economy, not deteriorate it.

Idea #2: I think the helper bots are silly (but the intention behind it is honest). Just as the struggle of weight lifting followed by eventual success (or practicing any other skill) is the cause of satisfaction, so should be the struggle of leveling. When you're small and weak you look at people bigger than you and think "Damn, I want to be like that. If I work hard at it I can be like that as well." Sadly, what is fun about standing next to a bot until you're level X? Yes beginners level up faster, but it leaves a part of the economy, and fun, untapped. It also disincentivizes exploring maps for good spots that are suitable for your skill level. The more you hold people's hand, the more they'll want their hands to be hold, but counterintuitively, the less fun they'll be having and the less inticed they'll be to stay on the server.

Idea #3: What is unique about Mu? Not the rarity of jewels, but the vast amount of possible combinations of items. Everyone can look unique due to the amount of different items, and the beautiful shaders of upgraded items. These item shaders are still better looking than any modern MMORPG in the world. You should take use of that. The fact that over the years the game has been added with many more features is a reason we've got to get past the idea that a single bless and soul must be extremely rare. Instead, let Bundles of Bless or Soul +30 be the new benchmark for rare. Only put beginner +7 (without +luck +option) items in medals, and beginner items +0 (without +luck +option) in NPC shops, and let the players make stuff +11 and beyond. This is what's fun, and because of it people will start using zen and jewels for trading more as the chaos machine costs zen, and failing costs items.

2 hours ago, dlwlrma said:

im quitting this game thanks to bullshit top ranking players who sell items with unreasonable prices, look at Aryman, Bangkayo, and others who have such an item which they doesnt use but put on store to show you they have what u need but not willing to give it to you unless u pay as much as if u can farm jewels like they can. the economy is just fucking ruined. ive had given it many chances to keep on going but still end up at the same problem, player to player economy is just fucked up although it has been more than a month since the server opened. its as if these top ranking players expect us to have 100 each of those different kind of jewels. its over for me it wasnt the mu experience i was hoping to get. "it wasnt the game but the players themselves who are ruining the game". goodbye and farewell oldsquad it was fun, but only for a short moment

Swearing and quitting doesn't solve anything. Having a healthy in-game economy is incredibly hard to pull off. Admins or players are not doing this maliciously. Did you know that games like EVE Online employ economists to make their in-game economy work? 

Anyway, this was all written in short bursts, off the top of my head, so pardon my occasional incoherence.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Minos
Clarity & grammar

[symphoiaf]

Well written but you did not escape the newbie POV. You need exc items with good options to go into CC - where the reward are high... You need ancient items to maximize what you could get in DS. Medal might give you a great +11 set with considerable defense but you will eventually experience the lack of damage and stagnation in farming. On the jewels drop, I burnt every single jewels I picked... luck option in this server is lower than the rest, making items +9 is quite a pain in the ass. Making wings burnt a lot of jewels as well, you could not get far without a decent wing 2.

It's true that new player wants to have fun and decent gameplay but only at first... the nature of MMO is competitive, you could not have fun if you could not enjoy the events of the game (DS,BC,CC...), could not enjoy the loot - get slaughtered during WW, rabbit, golden invasion or join a decent Guild. Notwithstanding what I said, you got some notable points.

Furthermore, every servers got some butt-hurt players, I buy items from top people all the time... honest and decency get you far... and I am lucky to get a Vicious set in the 1st month here but I know not everyone is as lucky. Someone I know try to get gaion set for months and willing to play hundred of jewels and tier 1 ancients for it. The demand are high leading to the somewhat equivalent price. Just sit back and enjoy the game. You will crave for jewels and items soon enough,

[Minos]

9 hours ago, symphoiaf said:

Well written but you did not escape the newbie POV. You need exc items with good options to go into CC - where the reward are high... You need ancient items to maximize what you could get in DS. Medal might give you a great +11 set with considerable defense but you will eventually experience the lack of damage and stagnation in farming. On the jewels drop, I burnt every single jewels I picked... luck option in this server is lower than the rest, making items +9 is quite a pain in the ass. Making wings burnt a lot of jewels as well, you could not get far without a decent wing 2.

It's true that new player wants to have fun and decent gameplay but only at first... the nature of MMO is competitive, you could not have fun if you could not enjoy the events of the game (DS,BC,CC...), could not enjoy the loot - get slaughtered during WW, rabbit, golden invasion or join a decent Guild. Notwithstanding what I said, you got some notable points.

Furthermore, every servers got some butt-hurt players, I buy items from top people all the time... honest and decency get you far... and I am lucky to get a Vicious set in the 1st month here but I know not everyone is as lucky. Someone I know try to get gaion set for months and willing to play hundred of jewels and tier 1 ancients for it. The demand are high leading to the somewhat equivalent price. Just sit back and enjoy the game. You will crave for jewels and items soon enough,

9

Again, this corroborates my points. You are biased by an end-game perspective. The end-game can still be fun even if the early stages are fun and challenging as well, even more so. Everything is relative. Also, CC; BC; CC, etc. are not necessities for the game to be enjoyable. The most important things are a healthy player base and a healthy economy; one of those we already have.

(Hypothesis: Mu addicts will be addicts regardless of gameplay, economy, or player base. However, most people—the casual players—just want to have some fun distraction. And if the economy and players are alive and kicking, they will stick to the server. But if you immediately give them lots of items to catch up, the grind to the end game abruptly starts and it won't be a fun distraction anymore. So they quit.)

Also, I just learned that apparently Devias is full of jewel farmers. This raises some questions in me. I do think AFKing is OK—because I do it as well, and it has been part of the game since forever (I used to put my wallet on my right mouse button)—but, actively playing should be way more rewarding in comparison. Gaining exp used to be and should be the main incentive to AFK, but not to gather jewels or items. Some people can't leave their PC on, some don't want to, etc. Things will always be unbalanced, but rewarding being AFK, too much, disproportionately increases the imbalance. We 'all' AFK and like to be AFK, but ironically no one likes a server where most people are AFK. As I said, actively playing should be significantly rewarded more than AFKing. The Rabbits event is a great example of that, but there can be more.

For example, back in the day, it wasn't possible for non-cheaters to pick up jewels and zen while being AFK. There still were lots of AFKers, but there was a good balance between AFKers and active players, and economies were usually good. If you wanted loot, you needed to be online and do the work. I admit, I like actively playing about the same as I like the thought of being able to AFK, and it probably isn't possible to go back to how Mu was played 16 years ago. It should however be possible to mimic similar gameplay, even with the auto looting mechanism. I think drastically increasing the price that mechanism is part of it, as I have touched upon in previous posts.

People who AFK 24 hours should get about 6 jewels; 0.25 jewels per hour.
People who play 24 hours should get about 48 jewels; 2 jewels per hour.

I’m just picking arbitrary numbers, but you get the point:  those who play actively the most, get the most jewels on average. This way you don’t need helper bots or silly overpowered medals. Hardcore active players are going to play hardcore and no casual player will ever catch up to them. That’s only fair. But casual active players should be able to compete with hardcore AFKers. Just like it was in the good old days.

TL;DR: Play for fun, jewels, and items, AFK for exp.

Addendum: when it is viable to AFK for jewels, it disincentivizes partying, because people will want to AFK alone for the jewels.

Although my posts so far have been largely critical, I do want to state that for the most part this server is remarkable. The custom features, adjusted event locations (i.e. goldens spawn everywhere), web vault; commands; etc. However, if the economy is broken, the stellar features will have been in vain. In any case, OldSquad has incredible potential.

Edited January 8, 2019 by Minos
Added hypothesis & addendum

[Minos]

What if auto pickup is disabled, and jewel drop rate is increased?

• It incentivizes active gameplay without the need of events—events which are mostly dominated by the best.
• The overpowered medals can be disabled because people will be inclined to upgrade their items more, as jewels become less scarce.
• Brings life to the economy because people will be willing and will need to trade more.

Simplicity is divinity. I think this simple tweak could fix a myriad of problems.

Edited January 15, 2019 by Minos
Simplicity is divinity.

[Gion]

Ok, firstly, thank you for these suggestions, we are looking forward to see this kind of attitude from players and we are looking forward to reward this kind of players(as you might already noticed) 

2: As you said, everything is a double edged sword, you might take care of an aspect of the game, and assuming some decisions could make other things slip. 

3: At the beginning of every data base, we are calculating things such as jwls drop rate, which exp should this data base have, things like these, and we are doing this kind of calculations based on previous experience and on players suggestions(and ofc a series of tests)

4: I have to assume that eventhough OldSquad has its own paid employees, some of these calculations might increase or decrease exponentially due to some unpredictible things that sometimes are occuring during the gameplay (an example of this kind of unpredictible event is half of GROM being banned - and lots and lots of items being deleted; or an exploit; etc). We are working hard to prevent bad things, we are thinking a lot about things, but as you can see, shit happens, and some results might be different even from our expectations. 

I want to thank you again for your suggestions, we are taking them into account, please continue the discussions as I have never posted. I did this post just for you guys to understand better some aspects from administration POV and to understand that we are making changes "via" your suggestions. 

[Minos]

Quick update, I've started playing a Dark Lord with Raven + Horse, and I partly take back my opinion that medals are overpowered. Turns out for some characters they are (I was spoiled by my BK defense and attack), and for others, they aren't. Or I have no idea how to play a Dark Lord because my goodness I'm fragile. Even on the testing server with a Light Plate set +11, level 400, and points added to agility, I'm weaker than my lvl 360 BK. The pets aren't maxed, but still.

[Gion]

The pet level does matter a lot, that 20%, 15%, even that 5% def does matter, especially at pvp

[Loke]

On 1/15/2019 at 12:30 PM, Minos said:

What if auto pickup is disabled, and jewel drop rate is increased?

• It incentivizes active gameplay without the need of events—events which are mostly dominated by the best.
• Brings life to the economy because people will be willing and will need to trade more.

 

This would be great! Like the good old days but with bot only for afk.

Might need to tweak the drop rate of Exc items as well .