EZ Server

Hypothetical: SLS Revamp?

This is a new type of post. I'm curious about revamping the way SLS are obtained to help limit botting and make the gearing up process less hellish. I am kicking around the idea of making SLS boss dropped and berry-purchased only.

In Example:

• Wisp-type bosses have a chance to drop (Ancient Willowisp in T9 will have elevated chance but will lose it's 100% chance).
• Superior Lightstones would be for sell at 10-20 berries each.

In return for the vastly slower rates of SLS 'production', about half of the recipes (lowest) would be limited to 1 SLS per combine, a few ranks above the "lowest" section requiring 1 less SLS (min 1), and highest ranks requiring 2 SLS (max per combine period).

AGAIN, THIS IS JUST AN IDEA AND I AM GATHERING FEEDBACK. PLEASE THINK BEFORE YOU PANIC! This may never happen depending on feedback!

Crafting Cost Breakdown: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13GIolnBa7mk8DUUqHdy23JGpeNXm3lyblPVMuj1stJI/edit?usp=sharing


-Hate

Plusses and minuses. This setup would make it easier for higher end players to gear up, but depending on how the boss drops are managed for lower tiers it could make starting the strike/SOA grind one hell of a lot worse.

But all in all I think you are on the right track. Stuff needs to change from the current setup.

Now, if I could just convince you that using tier essences for UW is a horribly bad idea.....

I like that you are looking into this process, but would suggest supplements to your suggested method.  Forcing people to do berries is prob not quite what the server is looking for here, especially at that price, even with the require drop.  If you wanted to go that route, you could, but I would suggest you add a low chance (1-5%) of SLS dropping for various bosses throughout progression.  This would ensure that people who don't want to do Mini's can still progress, and that people who do, are having them as well.

If you eliminate wisp farming, you would likely put a damper on new players as they cannot obtain needed dps augs until they could do a mini.

Chunka,

I was considering giving out an SLS for things like joining Crafter's Guild or completing T5 (somewhat milestones). The upside would be a single SLS to get them started with some basic DPS. The downside is a slight hand out and the potential for people to trick the lowbies out of them.

I also wanted to add lower dungeons if this type of thing were to go live, since the lowbies will obviously need a way to get SLS.


-Hate

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EDIT: If you ladies/gents/trolls have better suggestions or a set of things that you believe to be better for SLS, PLEASE PLEASE post it!

or even add GLS drops like how hoh tokens drop to every zone.  would give more access to sls and actually be productive farming them. exp/rainbows/gsoa etc.

I'm all for a change. Right now farming SLS is nothing but a timesink. There is no fun in farming them whatsoever. As much as this game should have somewhat of a grind, this way of farming them is silly.
I like the idea of purchasing them with berries or even the charm things(name eludes me at the moment), and having rare random drops and drops off bosses only makes sense.
But I still like the way that they are a commodity now. Sellable to make cash if you need it, so I hope they stay tradable.

They need to be removed as an income source, plain and simple. We're seeing the market on them all wonky because botters are farming mass quantities of them. We've all seen certain people who I wont name who are pumping out literally hundreds of SLS a day in trades for armor drops, essences, finishing tier quests, etc. Did they get them legitimately? Maybe. But obviously based on what Hate found not all of em are.

Maybe just make SLS no trade, and find another way for lower end players to get cash.

Yup I agree, but if botting can be tackled, then nothing wrong with keeping them a commodity.

1) I honestly think the best way to handle SLS are to completely remove them from the UW/SOA/Strikes. The process of getting these things are expensive enough. If you wanted to keep the SLS you could use them to create another way. You could combine 5 SLS for 1 essence of norath or stone of ages. Then could put the SLS for berries into play.

However the SLS removal would make getting plat early on harder for new players. This would eliminate botting for sls but make them poor.

2) Another alternative is to just put them in the crafters guild at 250k per. Remove the drop from wisp and add more plat bag drop chance.

3) Remove drops, put in task system rewards for mobs killed in each zone, repeatable. Could calculate the drop rate vs mobs killed (prolly explaining this wrong). IE: Could earn 5 SLS killing 25 mobs. Double it for task system, 5 per 50 kills or 15 per 50. Something like that. Couldn't take much to implement this and task system is 99.9% flawless.

I would be all for removing them. They truely serve no purpose. Except to promote this farming issue.

They serve to throttle people from spam farming -strike augments.

-Hate

Using tier ess for uw is fine... if you are actually leveling you get close enough to uw your mt... You want to rid of sls bot farming? Make sls no drop... however this wouldn't fly over do well... I would suggest making them a WORLD  drop with a slightly higher rate than gsoa

If the way they are farmed is changed..i.e. berry,rng boss drop,task related..etc, the botting issue is solved.  But their removal as a currency is just dumb.  Lowbies being able to sell extra to afford the plat sink part of augs is very useful.  Their value will be dependent on how many people actually go out, kill, and farm them vs. how many sit with thumb up ass whining about price of them in ooc.  The more people who farm..the lower their price will be.

I still contend that most of the botting would be mitigated if you took the SLS zones Jaggedpine and North Ro and made them level relevant zones.  You'd need to be level 70 to zone in, mobs would be on par with whatever part of progression that you need to do the FG/CG quest since GLS is a required component.  As it stands now, the GLS dropping in retardedly low level zones makes the only requirement being an alt that can kill wisps in an otherwise non-agro zone...this is what makes them easily bottable.  If you actually had to react to multiple mobs engaging you instead of /target wisp and /stick then /attack, it'd be a lot more difficult to automate the process.  I'd wager most people bot farming SLS are doing it on characters that they have little time invested in, since they wouldn't care if they were banned or not and anyone who has invested significant time into theirs wouldn't want to risk losing everything.  Make time invested in characters that can farm SLS and possibly negate the retards who would otherwise do it think twice about getting character wiped.

It is exceedingly easy to bypass IP tracking, hell even tethering through a cell phone with a VPN app could do it.  Far too easy to get around that limitation in my opinion.

Ok, a little history lesson:

Hunter announced a couple years ago that he agreed with many of the people who were saying that BU weapons were ridiculously overpowered for the content, given how easy they were to acquire and how many people got them during Halloween. Enter BU weapons nerf! Then in a week or so he announced his idea for Ultimate Weapons, and some ideas of what they would entail.

Suddenly people were mass farming essences, hoping they could get a head start on these weapons. MANY players had stacks of em, to the point that the day Hunter pushed the UW system live within the first hour (more like the first ten minutes) someone had a rank 7 UW. Within a week this "uber rare, very hard to get" item was on a dozen players, and at high ranks.

Enter essence nerfs. Hunter KILLED the drop rate on essences in a bunch of zones. Yeah, it made getting the UW harder, but it also made getting strike augs (which even by then were NOT optional hardware) extremely difficult, especially for newer players.

After we had 800 or so different adjustments to essence drop rates, and positive and negative effects across the board.

The UW should have a bottleneck, yes....or 2 or 3. It should be harder to make than getting 5 ranks or EotA....and its not. But by making tiered essences one of the bottlenecks you dramatically effect progression for people not even doing the UW, because it limits things like strikes, mana necks or SoA.

Separate them please!

Hey....here's an idea: why not replace the tier essence system for UW with a specific drop in tiered zones (no trade) combined with X amount of gemstone of the ages? :D

As for the SLS issue.....I am deeply against berries as the chief means of getting SLS. Not with the problems we've had (almost non stop) with the mini system. Not unless you want to put in another way (more reliable and not so easy to mass farm using inert boxes who just show up to get 10 berries) to get berries.

I see plenty of new players starTing having no problems with ess... by removing the tier ess yoU effectively remove the need for any old player to return to old content... double edge sword there dude... there seem to be just as many new players new as old and by doing what you suggest kills whatever economy we have on this server.... I understand what you are saying but your idea is just plain stupid... best idea if you want it rare replace the sls with gsoa... but even that is dumb ... there should be no talk about this until t10 comes out... this is no longer hunters server so take that in mind.


here is some history for you..
 in the 4 years i've been playing here there has been many people like you "stuff is to easy" blah blah blah

lets go over some things

war bp nerf= half server pop leaves
orig uw nerf= half server pop gone
2nd uw nerf 1/4th server leaves
dru skin= 1/4 of server leaves


ok here's the deal things are set the way they are and have been active for about a year in the current state.. by changing things now you are saying hey anyone new here fuck you we dont give a shit if you want to stay or not .

personally i like playing and i dont want this server to drop so akk decides to pull the plug...

so here is the BEST way to fix it ... new content... make new UW so horrible to get noone wants to get it... or just stop it at xi and let everyone get it and be equal and maybe in a few tiers up it?

stop your whining about howeasy shit is or just quit and go somewhere else. the server is very alive right now i'm logging in seeing 400+ on almost every day... what you are saying is what has killed the pop every other time on this server.

there are many different types of players and you cant cater to them all however at this point you are either new or old ... if you are old you are maxing yourself out so you go back and do whaty ou need to do or you are starting out and you either have help or you dont... making shit harder for new pople is just going to make them not want to play (like it did to me when i orignally started playing) so you are left with a handful of new players and all the old people who either farm out for there group or quit playing waiting for new content... put some thought into the things you suggest and look at it from more thatn ohh well it's to easy for me so fuck everyone else... fuck the server fuck it all ... because basically you will end up killing the eco on this server that suffers as it is.

I will likely bust up Dranik into three separate mini dungeons for sake of simplicity. It appears that it has been giving people fits for too long.


-Hate

I would like to throw my support behind the idea of SLS farming being a 71+ level restricted zone with BLUE mobs for xp while you farm SLS's

I would like to see a more flat/open zone for SLS farming with all mobs being able to drop, instead of wasting 98% of the zone's mobs that don't drop anything of use

I would think a good rate for SLS farming would be 4 per hour with good farming or something in that area.

this would do 2 things,

1. take out the lvl 50 botter toon, by proving that a toon has intention of progression.
2. give incentive to sls farmers by giving a minimal xp bonus while farming
3. with a flatter, more open zone take out the warping/running through hills, up in trees, stuck in rocks effect that Jaggedpine is prone to

Not to dump any more work on our overworked Dev.... but what about an SLS farming zone that scales to lvl like the haloween zones did?  Not sure how hard that is to implement.... but that would at least give an  xp return, and maybe even have the other world drops, ie unicorn poop and GSoA drop there too... and yah, would be nice if all mobs could drop, not just picking out the wisps from the other 90% of mobs in the zone... or... have it be an all wisp orgy zone... 

Scaling zone is something I had considered but disregarded, before the Halloween zone was built. Maybe I should/could reconsider. :-)

-Hate

I am going to ignore all the stupid I have seen in these posts and just give you all my 2 cents..take it or not...

For the love of god no berries for anything... I haven't set foot in a mini for months...they are horrible and i don't give a shit if I never get over hatestomp1.

I could tone that down some and try not to offend anyone but we are all grown ups.

Tradeing T7 armor drops for sls* has been trademarked ... and yes just trading t7 and t8 drops I made piles of SLS and helped dozens of players gear up.....all you other bitches need to find a new line. :)

I find that Farming them in T9 is fine and I can get between 7 and 12 a day and that more than meets any need I may have for them.

If you implement the changes then players should receive 1 no drop sls from the level up wench per teir that they can then use to get 1 strike aug as a leg up for dps in the new level once they got a few essence and whatever.    This is a great idea and I would like to pretend that it is mine.

I really don't think that the SLS systems needs a massive overhaul but if You insist on doing it..
1. add the bad ass SLS boss back as random pop(increase supply)
2. Make the actual SLS that drop from wisps and the boss wisp nodrop.(reduce supply)
3. Reduce the amount of SLS needed for combines (reduce demand)
4. Reduce the drop rate of SLS components (GLS) (reduce Supply)

Ok so you have now made it easier for the upper teir to get the sls we need...but we cant sell them
you have reduced demand and supply in accordance with each-other so the market should be stable and yet reduced so flooding the market with 30000 farmed sls would be obvious and most likely a waste of time.
lower tier people would not be able to sell the sls they need to make that strike aug...but would be able to sell some on the now reduced market for a good price.

think it over.... like it or hate it....

Its been stated many times, but people refuse to believe it: not nerf, correction. Hunter stated point blank how the BP was working wasnt as he'd intended, but he missed that it was broken. I still remember him accusing like half the server of cheating because they never told him. THAT, more than the nerf, is what made people leave. And as for half the server....no, sorry. Not even half the players who were top tier at the time. And of the people who DID leave the majority came back within weeks and quit their whining and played.


Hard nerf, but if you're at all honest you'll admit that it was needed. UW as it was at that point was ridiculously overpowered. Yeah, Hunter got pissed and nerfed the hell out of it....but of the people who DID leave (again, half is a massive overstatement) most came back soon after, and most admitted the UW changes not only made sense but that things were working better.


Ahh, the HP/resist nerf. yeah, painful....and at first confusing. But once you figured things out, and after listening to feedback and adjusting the changes, they made sense...and again, most stated that things were better AFTER the changes than they were before. And, again, you are exaggerating the hell out of the negative response. Some left, yes, but most came back very soon after.


Odd.....I dont remember many at all leaving when drake was last changed. Regardless, the changes were needed, and MANY players now agree drake needs to be looked at.

I'm not saying SLS are too easy. I'm saying the system is being abused...and I'm right. Hate's ban numbers alone should prove this. What Hate's asking for is ideas to prevent this, and thats what we're suggesting.

As for your reply about essences, maybe I'm not reading his right (hard to understand some of your post) but I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting. I wasnt suggesting removing essences for strikes, SoA or mana necks....just for UW. This wasnt an attempt to make the game harder for starting players, but rather EASIER for them. You say you havent seen issues with starting players and essences....and you're right. Now. But thats only because a lot of us spent time proving the numbers to Admin after seeing new players spend literally WEEKS just getting enough CT essences to make starter augs for 4 boxes (back in the days of 5 CT clears for 1 essence if you were lucky).

The point is that if you try to throttle UW difficulty by adjusting essence drop rate it has an adverse effect on newer players who havent even considered doing a UW...and that it would make more sense to separate them. But as I'd stated in my first post, I doubt I'll ever convince management of this idea.

I have seen very very few changes on this server that in the long run have been a bad thing. Most have been good changes. Some required adjustment, yes, but all the changes you pointed out that supposedly drove away players, in the opinion of MANY, eventually made this server a better place to play.

I cant agree with this enough. Maybe if the system were actually fixed I might view it differently....but I'd prefer to never set foot in the minis again.....to the point that I've not even tried the T7 mini, nor do I plan to.

Think simplest solution has been presented. Either world drop like gsoa's or t9 has a mob give a scaled down version in each tier with a chance to spawn like CT.

GSOA are not world drop...

lets take a poll how many had droped in t9?

so far after months of killing in t9 I am at a grand total of ZERO

They drop in T9, it's just that the rate they do drop is incredibly small.  T9 probably is one of the zones with the highest sustainable kill rate because of the density of mobs, open space of the zone and 20min or so respawn timer but the drop rate sucks there.  I've had 3 drop in T9 ever, just to clarify my experiences and have been doing T9 since it's original, pre-tuned release.

Balidet. Stupid to you but makes sense to others. This is a suggestion thread and comments like that are what makes ppl not want to post. That post could be a logical post that everyone could agree on but we won't see. Keep that in mind please.

I don't remember why SLS were implemented in the first place. Was it just a filler? I remember when and the 50k price tag but don't remember why.

was on a cell phone...

My point is every time any kind of suggestion is made about changing something you are always on here flaming about how this doesn't suite your needs. in some way shape or form.. dude shut up if you aren't happy playing here then leave... there is plenty of farm on this server and to change it now after how long of being the way it is stupid. you change it in further content. ess drop rates are fine. there are stall zones.

this post is about sls not ess and YOU had to bring up ess for uw cause you don't like the way it works.


my point is the economy on this server is horrible at best and what you are even suggestion makes the only thing people would be selling and buying are gsoa and poop... that is all there is no need for anything for most people who play now.

really dude if you aren't happy with the way the server is running (event though were about to break into the 10th content release) then leave.
Progression servers are meant to get easier as you go back into the earlier content.


and i'm not saying that some of those "nerfs" weren't needed but what you are suggesting isnt needed.

war bp was screwed up by hate not understanding the dynamics of riposte but instead of fixing it they just removed the whole effect

dru skin was actually less "immunity" in it's old state

uw proc click removal was dumb and took almost a year to "fix"

uw hp was needed for balancing yes

my point is how many people have uw's and you want to change it in old content... change it in new content let people get to the point where they can enjoy new content without having so many people bitch it gets changed (i.e. hates orig t9 release{which seemed like it was more challenging than what people bitched to get it changed to})

either you enjoy playing here or you don't. if you aren't happy start your own suggestion thread on the changes you would like to seek instead of turning everyone elses into your own agenda

As context: I'm just barely not finished with T4 (I think I need like 5 more armor molds and I'm done).

IF we are going to see SLS be purchasable, I'd love to see it be with some currency that isn't plat (e.g. berries). Unlike many people here, I enjoyed the Dranik mini (the only one I'm geared enough to run, even then I stupidly wipe half the time), and if that was how to farm SLS I'd be happy to do it. Maybe make it purchasable with plat too (for like 1mil plat or something ridiculous), but I like the berries idea. Why? For lower-tier players like me, there really isn't anything to spend berries on yet, and plat is a limiting factor for strikes. I mean, I guess I could farm up a UW1, and then get hatestomp because why not, I just wanted to spend my berries... but... I'd rather not do that. But I digress.

What is the typical response to needing plat? Go farm SLS & sell them, or else do TOFS (plat AND resists, bonus!). But TOFS instances cost a lot (sorry, haven't donated for Free Waypoint thingymabob yet, and I don't usually like doing pub especially if there's other people in there), so its actually faster to farm plat in HOH, which is fine cuz I need more tokens for more T4 pops anyway, but the money still feels kinda slow. Not complaining, the grind is fun, but it takes me time to clear the zone, and I honestly don't want to repop the instance anyway cuz thats money I could be saving for strikes. (Of course, if we 'revisited' TOFS instance costs that'd be really neat :D )

On the topic of having SLS be global drops like GSOA, well, it won't be enough for newer players if the normal farming mechanism gets removed. I've had 1 GSOA and about 10-12 rainbows my entire time on the server. I tentatively love the concept of having a wisp boss, either one boss per tier (with scaling SLS drop %chance) or a single boss that scales to your party (probably still with scaling %chance). The only reason I'm tentative here is that it really depends on where it would show up. Would it be a random mini-boss pop like the T1/2 mini-bosses? Would you need to farm something like wisp-tokens to spawn him?

As far as essences go, I got probably 30-40 from each progression tier before T4, just gearing up my party. T4 has been a little bit stingier, but I've still had probably 20ish, and will probably get a few more before I'm done with my armor.

just a thought...
 SLS being No Trade = Every Toon must be Casters Guild flagged


 

only to make the very first strike aug..after that you can make them anywhere

Ok, Watch...got it. You posting your thoughts here is because you care so much about the community and you just want to make it better......but me posting my thoughts here is because I'm a selfish asshole and want my own way, and damn everyone else.

Thanks for clarifying that.

Fragmented thoughts on sls for me.

1. Making sls buyable with berries sounds great to me. Give me something useful to buy with berries on toons that dont have a uw and already have a uc. I like it as long as it is not the sole outlet for them.

2. Making them drop from bosses... outstanding idea. Gives me a chance to get something viable from a zone that i am likely only in to farm uc2 or 3 stuff in or armor for a couple bench toons.

3. A scaling zone to farm sls, rainbow shards and gsoas even with an exp penalty... love it. Gives me an alternate zone to xp in and farm something useful when i am burnt out on other grinds.

4. Removing jp and other lowbie zones from dropping sls components... PLEASE.

5. Reducing the sls component needs on strikes etc... PLEASE.

6. I think this system needs a revamping for sure. Thank tou for taking the time to poll the community and hear us out.

I do care about the server... so let me dumb this down a bit for you...

Sls are the most important item in the game it's used in everything... by hates suggestion we might see a huge reduction in the need for them along with with way they are obtained... this will effectively change their value maybe even making them close to worthless.. the 2nd most important are essences ... what you are suggesting is hey while we alter the most important item on the server let's completely remove the need for the 2nd most important item...

If the drastic overhaul that you suggest would go into effect the thousands of essences on the server would essentially become worthless... so you tell me how that helps the server... it's to late for that change dude...

So people will dump them off for extremely cheap just like sls will become and now we have no need for them or sls leaving the only viable options for trade is poop and gsoa... and that's it...


Hate I implore you not to change the amount of sls required or making them super super easy to obtain... the idea of a sls farm zone.that is level dependent seems like a great idea... or put ancient.wisp back in jagged and make it non kos

Could add them to a vendor for 250k in the Crafter's guild.

Could add an item on the Berry Vendor for whatever you were going to charge for them that vendors for 250k.  Box of Jewels etc.

Make SLS No Trade.

Can farm plat how you see fit, could have a use for berries to gain plat for new folks and old.

Another idea that fits the random loot etc.

I would like to see a world drop that would spawn a scaled boss.  Maybe use the T4 zone for the handin and boss fight upstairs.

Or a random CT like event that randomly spawns off any mob in any zone.

3 tiers  -Qvic level mob drops 1 SLS
            -T4 ish level drops 2
            -T7 ish level drops 4

There is a thrill to having something randomly happen.

And, again, you need to actually read, Watch. I didnt suggest that at all. What I suggested was removing using essences for UW. They'd still be used for strikes, SoA, necks. What I am suggesting is making it one hell of a lot harder to be able to buy your UW. I am suggesting finding ways to 1) limit bots and 2) control how easy it is to get a UW. What I am saying is that having UW use the same resource as these other, highly necessary items to throttle rarity of what was supposed to be an optional item is silly, and self defeating.

As for the fiscal argument, well, what did we use for currency before UW? It was plat, wasnt it? Pretty sure we could again.

Botting is rampant. We have a whole %&@#& generation of EZ who have virtually no clue how to do JACK because they've bought their way to T8 (yes, using SLS and essences). UW drives a HUGE part of that botting. It needs to change, and across the board.

And, again, you seem to think I dont care about the server other than for my own selfish reasons. And again, you show how narrow and short you are in vision. I've played literally dozens of MMO's, and watched most of them die (pun intended). Why? Because content became trivial, easy, boring....to the point that even new content was conquered in a week or two after launch. I've seen this TIME and again. And your claims aside, I've seen FAR FAR more accomplished, competent, DECENT people leave EZ because they were bored to tears...because content was pathetically easy (T8 and T9 since the nerfs come to mind). This needs to change. CHALLENGE will keep players around, whether people want to admit it or not. The hard part is balancing difficulty, and this isnt easy....and IMO this is why admin here relies so much on community input.

Which is what we're doing here. Unbunch your panties and get out of the "you disagree with me so you're... an idiot...mean....selfish....wrong"....whatever. Hate asked for input, we're supplying it. Keep it civil or shaddap.

If you read I say content it is way from people QQ that it was to hard and hate bent over because of the complaints... what I'm saying if you actually read my post is that we have 2 player types for the most part...New and old...old is pretty darn close to max so changing the uw.does nothing but screw the new players... that's what I'm saying..New players are the life of the economy.. If you don't realize that then you don't really play... I've played many mmorpg games as well... You with all your vast knowledge should know after a point you can't change systems without full utter revamp...which tends to lose population... but hey you know everything about everything... My real point is that every suggestion thread all you do is bitch about something typically unrelated...If you don't believe me go back and read your posts... uw wasn't the point here sls was...If you have suggestions make your own damn post about it instead of inserting your bitch into everyone's other suggestion thread... and there is a much simpler way to fix the rarity of uw... but at this most as most agree it's required...so you make the next rank fix it and allow people who are coming up the chance to progress at a reasonable rate...it still takes over a year to reach/obtain end game of a hardcore player... Just because you are advanced doesn't mean you speak for the lower end of the server

And again, another thread degenerating into a pissing match. Locking thread.


-Hate