It is not easy to sell anything on this server atm. It's far and away easier to farm and sell gems then to sell t3/t4/t5 armor. There isn't buyers at this point, which is the point of this thread.
Firstly, I have a hard time taking anything you say as legit and not a scam in disguise.
Second, I think we do need some pseudo-lower drops that can be sold off.
Third, UNCE UNCE UNCE.
Seriously though, I do believe that for an economy to exist there must be something in demand. Depending on the time/day/phase-of-the-moon, drops are inconsistent. Some days, may only be you selling them. Other days, you may be competing with five others and nothing will sell. Farming gems, while boring and seemingly slow, is unfortunately the fastest way possible bring in coin. So let us look at things players on EZ Server want...
Augments - Be it weapon augments or armor augments, players want them. Obviously farming up and making weapon augments is too laborious and time consuming to effectively produce revenue. On the other hand, armor augments are dropping like candy in Plane of Gods but carry the Bind On Pickup tag.
Tier Spells - These are somewhat class dependant, but are heavily desired by those that rely on those spells to function. Prime example is my favorite class, the Wizard. Without the T3 nuke, the wizard is hardly worth notice save for something else to rezz at the end of the fight. The Shadow Knight is also a class that sees a heavy increase from T3/T4 spells.
Charms - These are items that occur rarely and at random that light up our days. This example can be made most clear with a Sorcerer's Charm dropping in LDON4. Many of us have farmed untold hours there. Others include Shadow's dropped charms and the Plane of God avatars. These DEFINE how powerful our abilities are and are probably the single most important thing we can farm.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So now that we have defined these categories, where do we go from here? How can we make those three categories marketable?On
Augments : Cut the Plane of Gods drop rate for augments in half, allow all augment producing materials to be tradable (lose BoP tag). This way, players on the lower end of the spectrum could gear up while farming things that the entire server community needs. Any of the high end players may argue that the PoG drop rate halving will hurt how long it takes to full slot out a character. Although this may hold some truth, if the character is even being played then the character will fill out simply from maxing out one charm.
On
Tier Spells: Remove the BoP tag, add a Lore tag (or does that already exist?). By making the spells tradable, players can use them as currency instead of trying frantically to sell it off before the timer expires. Doing this would also allow the players that cannot play at 'peak hours' to monetize their play time more efficiently since a rare drop spell can be sold later instead of within a 30 minute window.
On
Charms: Remove Lore and No Drop tags from L1 charms and remove No Drop tag from L2 charms. As charms essentially define how well a character does a given action, these could (and possibly should?) become a staple in the EZ Server economy. Right now it is easier to farm Shadow over LDON because the drop rates are irrelevant and chances for multiple charms. LDON is pretty much designed (on purpose or accidentally) to require many many many hours of grinding or many hours of zone training. Neither of which are openly socially geared or terribly exciting. Allowing players to use them as an alternative currency will help alleviate some of the monotony of the charm grind and stimulate player interaction/trade.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is there anything else?Yes, actually. Everquest was (and still is) a grindy game with a lot of chance involved. There seems to be too much grind and too little chance. It would be very nice to add some chance back to the game without overdosing on it. As Fugitive has mentioned, more cash would be helpful on the high end. However, I do not believe ensured drops are the answer. Similar to charms, I believe that adding items similar to coins bags as random drops can help with this. It should not be quite as rare as charms, but it shouldn't be something seen very often either. I am referring to small bonuses that cause a smile when they drop.
Here goes... let's assume 5,000 platinum per tier. Example drop rates below (again, theoretical just for a more complete visual image)
1 in 25: Tier 1 Chests, Tier 2 Chests, Plane of God's Avatars, T5 Trash
1 in 20: Tier 1-2 Bosses
1 in 15: Shadow, Tier 3 Bosses
1 in 10: Tier 4-5 Bosses
In the example above, a small bag of 20kpp might drop from a tier 4 or tier 5 boss one in every 10 kills. Although not overly useful in itself, after the number of bosses most of us will afk through...it adds up. In my humble and flawed opinion, I would suggest extremely higher rewards but lower drop rates. ~25k per tier but matching drop rates. I do not claim to know Hunter/Basher/Secret or their plans for world domina..err EZ server.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lastly, I would suggest that we get several day spawns. Things that spawn randomly in public zones every 3-5 days that require 10+ people to kill and drop horrific amounts of charms, epic books, and a sparse few weapon augment components. Similar to what Cazic Thule or Nag/Vox raids used to be like.
That's it. Thanks for reading another random comment.
-Hate
P.S. - Please excuse spelling. Typing while eating, texting, and foraging on RIFT.
