For the last 2 years NCsoft has claimed they would not interfere with the economy because it's supposed to be player controlled. Every one knows Farmers control the markets and even castle lords have little influence.
It has become more obvious that Lineage 2 is designed for the farmer controlled economy. They have only made changes that benefit them.
The prices have gotten intolerable. 7-9 mil for Full Plate this late in the game is ridicules. Plated Leather boots for 10 mil.... Not to mention A grade. 150 mil for a helm. I saw brigadine helms for 5 mil today.
Farmers have won and completely control the economy. I'm done being outraged by NCsofts lack of Resistance to farmers. Worse they seem to conspire with them.
How many times has NCsoft said they don't see a problem on certain issues? Like raid boss farmers? If they won't take actions a few of us will. Wed will start canceling our accounts. Lineage 2 will slowly and painfully die.
That would be as embarrassing for NCsoft and as bad for future marketing as Ashrons Call 2 was for Turbine.
I can tell you if I don't see NCsoft interference on this issue soon, I am going to cancel. Tired of it. they better make a change to help the real players with prices.
I'm sure the farmers do have some control over the economy, but you can't blame them for every part of it.
One reason that prices seem to be constantly rising is that the supply of adena in the economy slowly increases with time. The game has been around a long time and often people who leave the game leave their adena and gear behind with friends. Most of the people who go for top grade equipment such as Brigandine helms are rerolls with money for it, newbies just take whatever they can get.
As for A grade, it's the basic rule of supply and demand. With 60% recipes and a huge population of players eligible for A grade gear, people who obtain it will charge whatever people will pay for it.
If you ignore the prices then going out and making your gear is the same as it has always been. Basic materials are something that everyone can find, if the market of equipment rises then the market of materials does as well. It might be hard for a newbie to go out and buy a Brig helm these days, but they can also go out and sell their varnish for 1300, getting those less sought after types of equipment more easily than before.
I agree that the farmer situation is extremely frustrating, especially on the raid boss issue. As for the economy though, I think it's a natural progression that was bound to happen with an economy set up the way L2's is.
Personally I don't know if I'll ever be able to afford A gear, even with playing the market. That said I wouldn't mind grinding to 75 (or 78) in B gear. It's something that everyone had to do before A was introduced.
everything in this game can be gained without buying it from another player. A-grade helmets are probably the best example, many people complain about the prices, and know about the quest and know what mobs drop them, but are too lazy to try and get the gear for themselves. no one is forcing you to buy anything (except ss, which is designed as a money sink).
For the last 2 years NCsoft has claimed they would not interfere with the economy because it's supposed to be player controlled. Every one knows Farmers control the markets and even castle lords have little influence.
It has become more obvious that Lineage 2 is designed for the farmer controlled economy. They have only made changes that benefit them.
The prices have gotten intolerable. 7-9 mil for Full Plate this late in the game is ridicules. Plated Leather boots for 10 mil.... Not to mention A grade. 150 mil for a helm. I saw brigadine helms for 5 mil today.
Farmers have won and completely control the economy. I'm done being outraged by NCsofts lack of Resistance to farmers. Worse they seem to conspire with them.
How many times has NCsoft said they don't see a problem on certain issues? Like raid boss farmers? If they won't take actions a few of us will. Wed will start canceling our accounts. Lineage 2 will slowly and painfully die.
That would be as embarrassing for NCsoft and as bad for future marketing as Ashrons Call 2 was for Turbine.
I can tell you if I don't see NCsoft interference on this issue soon, I am going to cancel. Tired of it. they better make a change to help the real players with prices.
Hah, if they weren't there...multiply the cost of items that you listed by 5 times and that would be how much they cost.
Really? How often do you get a party of people to hunt for days or weeks/months on end in ToI?
If they'd up the papirus drops even a tiny bit, than it wouldn't be a problem.
well if you have a clan with 9+ people who are all active at the same time of the day, and 3+ of them need helmets, TOI is a pretty common thing. my clan used to do TOI quite a bit, and i got lazy and bought some floors, only need 11 and 12 to get a chance at a second helmet but theres no way in [923] im paying more than a mil for either of them. im just not That lazy.
For the last 2 years NCsoft has claimed they would not interfere with the economy because it's supposed to be player controlled. Every one knows Farmers control the markets and even castle lords have little influence.
It has become more obvious that Lineage 2 is designed for the farmer controlled economy. They have only made changes that benefit them.
The prices have gotten intolerable. 7-9 mil for Full Plate this late in the game is ridicules. Plated Leather boots for 10 mil.... Not to mention A grade. 150 mil for a helm. I saw brigadine helms for 5 mil today.
Farmers have won and completely control the economy. I'm done being outraged by NCsofts lack of Resistance to farmers. Worse they seem to conspire with them.
How many times has NCsoft said they don't see a problem on certain issues? Like raid boss farmers? If they won't take actions a few of us will. Wed will start canceling our accounts. Lineage 2 will slowly and painfully die.
That would be as embarrassing for NCsoft and as bad for future marketing as Ashrons Call 2 was for Turbine.
I can tell you if I don't see NCsoft interference on this issue soon, I am going to cancel. Tired of it. they better make a change to help the real players with prices.
maybe you shouldnt use fullplate, or brig helmets? plated leather seems like a luxury as well. quit whining.
i never used fullplate, brig helmets (aside from the one i got off training mobs onto a clan enemy)
prices are the way they are because rich people with high level characters have alts. but they cant be ***** to go around searching for keymats and whatnot to build the gear for those alts, so they just spend their money and buy the **** stuff. dont like it? dont buy it. noone's forcing you to.
LOL ya just get a party together and farm TOI for about uhmmm I dont know. A FRIGGEN YEAR!!!! Just kidding. But seriously why even open the papyrus as many as it take to get all 13 floors is rediculas. You could sell them for 500k ea and have enough to just buy the recipe anyway. The quest is a joke just like inferium ore is now.
Come on the game design is not friendly to any player that is not looking to make a living from it. If you here for fun its a pain in the ___. Only thing that keeps me here are friend in game and the lack of any other game with the graffics of this game.
NcSoft has lost the battle against farmers. They know it but won't admit to it. Why would they continue to make drop rates so rediculas that you could go from lvl 1-75 and not collect enough material to craft the weps and or armor you would need during those lvls.
They tried to make this game last for years by making it hard to get items or materials to craft. The only thing this has done is make the secondary market explode. Guess what it isn't working people are making millions in RL cash of this game. Go to google you can find anything you want in this game. You can also find out who is cheating and who isn't. People aren't even afraid to admit to it anymore. Hell people brag about it now and post screenies of it.
So don't try and put a pretty spin on it just to keep this thread from getting deleted or locked.
You can find anything you want in any game by going online and buying it. It's not a result of game structure, no matter how easy to obtain or unnecessary the desired item is. Some people just have to be the best, or have the easiest time in the game they're playing.
You can buy currency and items for any MMO out there in great quantities. You can even purchase items on a simple game such as Diablo II.
It has nothing to do with how difficult the game is, it's just a result of the mindset of the players.
The people in the worst position for this are those who need to be the strongest and have the best gear available but either take the high moral ground or don't have the cash to fund their ego.
It's a sad situation to be sure, but not something a company can erase with a magic button or even a great deal of hard work. All they can do is try to minimize the problem while those who take the honest route have to decide whether it's worth it to continue on in a world of cheaters.
You'll find the same situation anywhere, whether it's a game or real life.
The thing is NCsoft has done nothing to minimize the problem. They have only made it worse. They made AG imposable to get. They made soul crystals too hard.
The only thing they have done is create new markets for farmers. Farmers control the soul crystals, Ancient adena, adena, manor system and most of the materials.
Why? because they made it imposable for a player to get enough for them selves. A clan could barley raise materials. The fact is some one has to be farming 24/7. It's part of the game design.
I have quite a few things to add to the conversation that express my views.
First off the people who always say stuff would be more expensive without the farmers.. This is NOT true this is why
(Warning long explanation)
Say someone got an S grade helmet he wants to sell it for 500m because its the only one on the server. So he sets it up for 500m in shop. The guy sits in sell shop for 2 weeks and his helmet doesnt sell!!! Now there is 3 S grade helmets on the server obviously no one is buying the helmet yet because NO ONE has that much money and if they did they dont want to blow all that hard earned work on 1 items. The 2 new people with s grade helmets see this so they set up for 400m each. The 1st guy sees that and also reduces his price. Still it takes another week but 1 person sells his helmet for 400m. Other 2 stay in shop for another week still havnt sold now there is 6 helmets on the server. People see no one is really wanting to pay 400m for the helmets so they again reduce the price another 50m. (these people want money to they can upgrade there own gear to hunt better pvp better etc). So now we have 6 helmets on the server for 350m. STill takes another week maybe 1 more get sold. NOw there is 10 on the server however the ppl sellin for 350 still having trouble selling and now that there is more competition they reduce prices again down to 300m. This cycle continues untill a price is reached where people can afford to pay a certain amount for an item. Say 150m. Because the people on the server didnt have the money or didnt feel that the amount of money an item was at wasnt worth the effort put in obtaining that much money.
(THIS IS NOT SPECULATION BUT HOW ECONOMY WORKED IN LINEAGE 1 WHERE THERE WERE NO OR LITTLE FARMERS)
As it is now if a person foudn 1st S grade helmet on server and set it at 500m. A person would not say that takes too much effort to get they just go click click 500m ok buy ta da im uber. Because the 1st person sold his easily for 500m next person will set his for 550m and again same think click click 550m buy ta da now im equal to teh other uber guy. This continues to a point where people will only click click so much say 650m. So instead od lowering price it raises price.
This isnt to say this will be the case on some items some items may rise because it is more difficult to obtain certain parts but with players running the manors it wouldnt go overboard. Prices would settle on reasonable if not slightly higher prices. It would reward the players who worked hard and farmed the nescesarry items.
Next we all know that farmers are here to stay now so what do you gotta do to get what you want without paying rediculous prices? Gather together and fight for it. No one is saying you have to fight farmers 24/7 but go find out spawn times gather your people in advance and fight off the farmers when they come kill the bos and take the loot. It would be the same situation if the farmers were not here but between actual players who are here to have fun.
This is the point I want everyone to grasp, dont believe there is nothing you can do because there is get your alliance to fight the raid farmers take the bosses you want. Im telling you now it isnt easy but camping a boss for 4 hours is so worth the 1b in 11 and 12 stage crystals you get from lilith, or baium and his 500m+ jewel or any other boss for that matter. Sure the farmers can beat your clan to the spawn if you go when it spawns thats why you need to go early.
Anyone in this game can make money. I myself can make 100mil a week pure profit by playing the market. Sure it takes money to make money, but if you are willin to take the time anyone can make cash. LvL 10 soul crystals are high priced now and with the people who buy their adena they feel lik ethey need the best right now and then thast not good enough. So, what do they do? They blow up weapons. Now they need a soul crystal for their new weapon......this is one example, but a legit player can make cash..it will take time but it can be done. I even have weeks that I dont make any cash but I stick to it and sooner or laetr people need what i have...i make 30 mil or better per item i sell on average. few items a week and can support my habit of ss, sps, and a choice of armors to use as needed. take the time and anyone can do it.
Some of the prices are just crazy i will agree. Last week SoM's went form 80-90mil to 120-150mil over night.....this is obviously farmers workin together to raise the prices...If you dont like the prices dont buy them they will come down if no one buys them...if they dont then the rest of server thinks it is a fair price. now you just need another 30 mil or so for that SoM you wanted. just an example..
i have bought items and sold them less than an hour later for double what i bought them for...people offerin me the cash absouletly no work by me. like anything in this game it takes time. If you are willing to put in the time you will get what you want or need. Do your research, make a plan, and go get what you think u need.
Anyone in this game can make money. I myself can make 100mil a week pure profit by playing the market. Sure it takes money to make money, but if you are willin to take the time anyone can make cash. LvL 10 soul crystals are high priced now and with the people who buy their adena they feel lik ethey need the best right now and then thast not good enough. So, what do they do? They blow up weapons. Now they need a soul crystal for their new weapon......this is one example, but a legit player can make cash..it will take time but it can be done. I even have weeks that I dont make any cash but I stick to it and sooner or laetr people need what i have...i make 30 mil or better per item i sell on average. few items a week and can support my habit of ss, sps, and a choice of armors to use as needed. take the time and anyone can do it.
Some of the prices are just crazy i will agree. Last week SoM's went form 80-90mil to 120-150mil over night.....this is obviously farmers workin together to raise the prices...If you dont like the prices dont buy them they will come down if no one buys them...if they dont then the rest of server thinks it is a fair price. now you just need another 30 mil or so for that SoM you wanted. just an example..
i have bought items and sold them less than an hour later for double what i bought them for...people offerin me the cash absouletly no work by me. like anything in this game it takes time. If you are willing to put in the time you will get what you want or need. Do your research, make a plan, and go get what you think u need.
I agree with you. You can get anything you want buy working the economy. I got all my A grade armor from working the economy. The problem though it just perpetuates the problem and alot of times just makes it worse.
EAXAMPLE:
You should be able to get your clan together (average clan 30 people) so that would be 3 full parties. Go out and famr the materials to craft anything the clan needs in a reasonable amount of time. But you can't even with 3 full parties farming mobs for an average of 3-4 hours a day you wont get enough materials to craft much of anything any time soon.
Beeting raid farmers to the spawns. This sounds great but there are very few alliances that have enough players on line at any given time to do this. Raid boss farmers have become very protective of thier profits too. Most of the time you can't go out with a raid party and compete against a farmer raid party. They have top OE'd uber gear and jewels and use cheat/hacks. So most of the time the legitimate players get killed and loose the boss anyway. Im not saying it can't be done. But 90% of the time the alliances that are strong enough to compete with the raid boss farmers don't because they don't need to. They already have what they need and only do it for something to do.
It has gotten so out of balance this way. The game is very equipment driven. It's a pvp game and to compete 99% of the time you need the gear. The game design is for it to take a long time to get the gear. Good design for a game that is suppose to last for years.
The problem with this is you dont have to waite to get what you need. If you want to be competative right a way you can pay RL money to be competative instantly.
Now imagine this. Say you wanted a SOV/acumen. You know what mobs drop the blades. Lets say you also knew that it would only take 10-12 hours to farm the blades you needed. You also knew that your alt lvl 30 dwarph could spoil base materials in the same amount of time. Last but not least your higher lvl clan mate could farmand get the recipe in the same amount of time. Ok your average weekly play time is say 20 hours. This means in 2 weeks you could get the materials to craft your own SOV and lvl a crystal to 7 for it. Since you were out farming the materials you were still lvling. So now you find out what you will need for the next and start farming those materials too. While you are farming those other materials you get lucky and get a full drop of something you already have or don't need. Since there are alot of them in game they are not worth that much. So you give it to a clan mate who needs it or you sell it for just a little over what an NPC would give you for it. IMO this is what it should be like. The grind wouln't be mind numbing since it has a purpose. Most players would have several toon of various lvl's to farm what they need and to help out clan mates. PVP would be more balanced since most people would be equaly equiped at simular lvl's.
AS it is now it takes ages to get just one part of the many materials it takes to craft anything. 90% of the time you will out lvl anything you are trying to craft if you try to farm the materials. So what do people do now they buy it instead of earning it.
THe lack of drops is what keeps the farmers here. They are on 24/7 getting the materials and collecting adena. Since C4 Raid Bosses drop a ton of materials too so it makes it even more profitable to farm the raid bosses too. Farmers know most people will not spend months farming material to craft thier own gear. Every chronicle drop rate has gone down which they need more farming parties in game to keep up the inventories of materials and items. Now the way they make RL money is selling the adena. So how do they get the adena? they get it from selling materials and items. The more farmers and stores they have the more adena they have to sell. The more adena they have to sell the cheaper it is to buy it. So in order to keep thier profits up they sell materials and items at higher prices. THis cycle continues until prices get so high even once legitimate players break down and buy adena or take weeks/months of from actually playing the game to play the market. It's just a huge never ending cycle.
I do believe that if drop rates were dramticly increased it would not ruin the game. I believe it would actually help the game. But the problem is it would crash the market. The farmers would leave because the profits would not be good enough. But then NcSoft would loose alot and I mean alot of thier accounts. Which in turn would loose them money.
So in a business since it's a no win situation for NcSoft. Not changing anything creats unhappy players and they loose accounts here and there. If they make the players happy and fix the problems the farmers leave the game. Now which one of these do you think hurts NcSofts bottom line the most. 4 or 5 players per server leving every now and then, or most of the farmers leaving over a short period. I think we all know the answer to that question.
So since the game has become what it is now. NcSoft really can't tame the monster that has been created without hurting thier profits in a big way. So keep your hopes out that the next good MMORG learns from the mistake that have been made.
personally, i just dont agree. my own experience has told me that regardless of the drop rate, there will always be players that need to cheat to have fun :(
what you're saying is true, it is possible in this game to work for what you get, and maybe on a rare occasion (its happened to me three times already for absurdly rare unknown-spoil recipies) that you outlevel the mob before you get it. in this case, buy it from a friend/clannie who may try to get it for you, or use an alt (deleveling is just not worth the time for a real player). the problem is that many players dont even try to find the mob that drops what they want. they assume they will not be lucky and believe that RMT is the only way to get items in this game because that is what everyone tells them in game. i was once in a clan where the clan leader told me it was simply impossible to get gear without RMT (at the time i didnt know what RMT was). needless to say, im no longer in that clan, and the clan leader has since left the game because of "the grind". if you are hunting with a friend for something that will help a clannie, there is no grind. the ecconmy is not run by "professionals", it is run by lazy players, the "professionals" are people who are willing to cheat to do the dirty work to satisfy the wants of the lazy.
/rant off
It just amazes me how so many people see the same thing and interprit it in a totaly different way. But hey thats ok with me. I still hold out hope that some day it will be remotley possible to actually farm the materials I need to craft something.
While it is true that increased drops would not eliminate the black market, it would allow those willing to earn there own.
It would also hurt the farmers. I'm not saying they finally increase drops. I know they won't But it's their game, there income and there responsibility to come up with a solution.
It's time for them to answer to us what they plan to do for there costumers that provide there profits. L2 is going down hill. It had a brief rise, but people are leaving again.
I know they want to focus on other games and put the mistake that is L2's design in the shadows. But they definitely need to at least provide real players with a real means to get what we need.
Some of the prices are just crazy i will agree. Last week SoM's went form 80-90mil to 120-150mil over night.....this is obviously farmers workin together to raise the prices...If you dont like the prices dont buy them they will come down if no one buys them...if they dont then the rest of server thinks it is a fair price. now you just need another 30 mil or so for that SoM you wanted. just an example..
The problem is people think it's a fair price for RL $. Farmers drive up prices when RL prices drop. Keeps there profits up. Lagit players ether quite or join the others.
For me it seems obvious that the volume of the market controlled by professional farmers ingame is roughly equal to the volume of the out-of-the-game market of ingame assets.
No people have just been trying for months on end to make even simple gear and end up with very little or a failed craft. Oh yeah, lets craft an SoV...nevermind that the recipe is so rare that BUY shops are 25 million and above.
Good day all, being a long term player (since the time you couldn't move in Gludio and Giran was a ghost town) I have notioced a steady drecrease in drop and spoil rates, so much so that demand has outstriped supply. Ihave a lvl 52 BH and EE and cannot afford B grade so I reroll and recycle, so I tend to go back to those spots that I used to hunt and what do I see? drops and spoils 1/5 of what they used to be. If we take a RL example of supply and demand (the gas crisis post huricane) you saw prices go through the roof well this is what is happening to our game and this just plays into the hands of those mindless minions of greed (mmog) they control the adenda, equipt. and mat market. The other part is what the market will bear mentality by legit players if thats the going price then so be it. Stop the farmers increse the drop rate, would you rather have huge proffits or afforable equipt.? If you make these things (drops spoils) allmost worthless there willl no longer be ebayed items and adenda (it is no longer profitable for them to farm worthless stuff). One final thing to think about as players is that most of us play for fun not proffit, as in real life it's not how much you got, it's what you do with what you got "have fun"
Thanks to farmers our servers is overflooded with mats and "hard to get" items (A gr helmets for example).And NCSoft dont give a **** if its in possesion of LegitPlayer or BottersWH67904 or RaidBossFarmersWH48.Hence drop rate decrease each cronicle.
Sorry to disagree a glut of items causes item prices to drop mmogs (see my last post) and farmers only reason in game is to make rl money if items don't move (sell) they are not makeing it therefore price has to drop till it does move. I don't think NC has set up a quota on how many items are allowed ingame i.e. 100 tallum helms, inflation happens when money supply goes up not items. This why an increase in items would help curb the rampant inflation we see in game. On the other side of the coin reducing adenda supply will only make it more profitable for the aforementioned but then why do ppl exchange rl money for adenda? is it to buy those unatainable items through normal grinding? Please think hard about this I have, and I beleive there is no simple solution.
NCSoft made ToI quest and raid bosses only means for obtaining Agr helmets because thei are suposed to be rare.Raids are farmed nonstop and ToI quest is being done by patient and silent players 24/7.There is huge piles of them.Farmers are 95% supply and though there is few groups but in market they set same prices.So we have piles of helmets - no need to change something in ToI quest and we even got Raid boss drop nerf in C4.And 2 sources for A gr helmes which are easily dominated by farmers/bots - no dificulty in raising prices through the roof.
And NCSoft before adjusting drop rates for next cronicle runs some check in item/naterial amounts.There is insane amounts of high end items that should be "rare".So they reduce mat drops - high end weapons are not supposed to be so easily crafted.And they wont add normal way to obtain A gr armor recipes because servers is full of them.
Pah i really cant understand why ppl always must whine about farmers and drops and that stuff.
You should be glad you have the farmers because without them it would be a lot harder to get special items for crafting.
I think of recipes and key materials. What do you think what will happen if all farmers where gone ? Well just look at the D and C grade market.
You complain that the prices go up for that items and wonder why so much less key mats there ( especaly for d grade )to buy ? Hell yes because none of the farmers hunt the mobs anymore that drop em. If players got em they keep craft and sell expensive. Its that easy.
U know what prices ppl did pay in prelude / c1 for full plate armor tempers ? 1 mil a piece . Yes ONE Million for one key mat. Also Recipes that where high on demand and spoil only made some nice cash for scavengers back then.
If someone has to complain about farmers then the Bounty hunters should.
The game is not like exp like mad and get the equip as a side effect nah its is intended that u need to work for your gear.
So there is a solution for it go make a dwarf spoil your key materials and recipes. Make other alts for manor and farm your materials its possible on gustin for exsample.
Or buy key materials and recipes cheap from the farmers.
So its like that either you work your own to get your stuff free or let other ppl gather for you and u pay for it.
Have you made a Spoiler yet ? No then why you complain ?
He lvls to slow and its boring ? Cool you now see what legit dwarfs and farmers provide to you.
Only trouble with that drops have been reduced because of aforementioned problem I am currently doing a rerolled scav hunting same spots i used to c2 era and the drop/spoil ratio is no where near what it used to be. The grind for items adenda and mats has forced many to ebay for adenda, reduced drops has just made it better for those that play for profit(rl). Before writing this post I logged back on to check private store prices, those items that are sold through NPC"s and offerd in private stores remain in line with NPC prices (except for scamers hopeing for a sucker), so what i was ab;e to surmise from this is that NC should offer more items to include all grades in prestigous item stores placing said stores to corespond with surrounding mobs i.e. town has lvl 50 mobs in area b grade should be sold in that town and not all items in that grade would be offerd to keep those enterprising ppl happy. Remember the game is to entertain and have fun, it should not be a chore.
Having certain gear from each grade available for purchase from an NPC might not be such a bad idea! Should probably keep the better stuff craft only though.
Good day all, being a long term player (since the time you couldn't move in Gludio and Giran was a ghost town) I have notioced a steady drecrease in drop and spoil rates, so much so that demand has outstriped supply.
Demand will ALWAYS oustripe supply, someone needs to go back to H.S. or college and retake economics. But besides that, yeah drop rates are a [censored] and i don't always have time to screw around and play the market >=/. But NCSoft doesnt really have an incentive to fix it until its game is almost dead.
NcSoft has lost the battle against farmers. They know it but won't admit to it. Why would they continue to make drop rates so rediculas that you could go from lvl 1-75 and not collect enough material to craft the weps and or armor you would need during those lvls.
U cannot lose something that you did not fight for in the first place. I disagree with ur statement lolx
Sadly to say, this type of thread has appeared dunno how many times in the past and yet it went unheeded. I wonder how more it need to tell NCSoft to do something for the community.
And it is quite amusing how some pple dispute this and say current system work perfectly well for everyone in general. Seriously not everyone can spare 8 hrs non-stop to play the game or do trading. There is no system in place that enable a legit farming player to enjoy the full aspect of the game especially at high lvls.
O well, life goes on. Let's wear B grade till 75......
I think the problem is exaggerated. The prices may be high (for people that can't be bothered to hunt for blueprints), but actually farming for them yourself is not very difficult.
Someone used an example earlier claiming that it would take forever for a clan to equip its members even if it had 3 parties hunting 3-4 hours a day. I disagree.
On average, I have noticed each party member gets about 3 papyrus per hour. So in the example above, 3 parties hunting 3 hours should get 243 blueprints per day.
On average, it takes 180 blueprints to collect a full set... or roughtly 360 blueprints per helm. How do I know? From the ratio of the prices between the helmet and the blueprints.
Helms sell for ~180m, and blueprints sell for ~500k-600k each. Therefore, the ratio of helm:blueprint prices is about 360:1.
At these ratios, a clan putting 3 groups per day into toi, hunting 3 hours per day, will get about 3 helms every 2 days.
That doesn't sound too terrible to me.
The problem is that players do not work collectively, and try to collect all the blueprints alone. At these rates, it will take a single player about 110 hours of hunting TOI to get a helmet. But I think that isn't too horrible either.
Good day all, being a long term player (since the time you couldn't move in Gludio and Giran was a ghost town) I have notioced a steady drecrease in drop and spoil rates, so much so that demand has outstriped supply.
Demand will ALWAYS oustripe supply, someone needs to go back to H.S. or college and retake economics. But besides that, yeah drop rates are a [censored] and i don't always have time to screw around and play the market >=/. But NCSoft doesnt really have an incentive to fix it until its game is almost dead.
LOL it's only code it does not require rl assets and labor to make these items( except those that would punch in adjusted rates), it's a make beleive ecomnomy in a make beleive world yes basic principals do apply, but that would be like charging for breathing air (not the compressed and bottled version) where there is allmost an ifinate supply available. RL ecoconomics is only a model for this game and i think real life physcology (greed) has more of an impact than economic theroy. If big oil producers had free and limitless supply of energy the price of petromlium products would come down at the risk of their prophits or that there was trure competition from ydrogen, air, water,ethanol and solar with no monopoly ie home conversion kits would the oil companys reduce their prices? or wait till they get taken and buried over by cheaper forms of energy. These are only analogys and like Hollywood the story line (to include the devious villan who tries to cotrol the word economy) to however suits the screenwriter. And speaking of case examples look at what happened to the Hunt Brothers and thier quest to control RL silver market bust and busted.
as a really new player, this kind of thread scares me. I'm only level 16 now, but do I really want to get in to paying a monthly fee and getting in waist deep before I realize I can't buy the armour I need?
I guess my question is: if the end game here ( the point of being here) is to be able to PVP, do you absolutely NEED A grade armour to be able to do that? or is it more about strategie and skills?
I understand some of what people are saying about being frusterated with the farmers ( whom I assume steal all the good enemies that drop the good loot?), but on the other hand I came from a mmorpg where the highest grade armour was a common thing to see, and players weren't really distinguisable between uber and super uber, you know? I'd like people to KNOW I play this game 25 hours a week if that's what I did. lol
And along this point, i don't play 25 hours a week, i'm lucky if I can get in 5 or 6 to play leisurely and have fun. Will my game play be dimished by not being able to partake in pvp and raids and seiges if my armour isn't the super greatest? I hope that it's not only the hard core characters ( and of course RL rich people) who are going to be able to partake in these things. :)
It's not just blueprints being discussed here it's game economy and materail supply and how it affects cost and ginding your but off for one b,a or s grade item. BTW I have 1 lvl 52 BH 1 lvl 40 Scav and 1 lvl 36 crafter I have a total of 11 toons active with thoughts of creating 1 more crater and 1 more scav.
Please don't get me wrong I think this is a great game I have lots of fun and get to talk to and exchange ideas with ppl from all over the world on a one to one basis I can't tell you how good the game concept, graphics and new chronicles are, I play mostley for pve and the comradry that I find in this game as far as pvp end game I can jump to a private server get all the uber stuff in a very short time but it's the content the exploring the freinds and teamwork that you develop that make this the best game that I have ever played The games just needs to be tweeked so that is is more freindly to legit players and less pro farmer.
I think the problem is exaggerated. The prices may be high (for people that can't be bothered to hunt for blueprints), but actually farming for them yourself is not very difficult.
Don't sugar coat it. There is no exageration it is a pain in the rear farming papyrus. I know I have done it.
Someone used an example earlier claiming that it would take forever for a clan to equip its members even if it had 3 parties hunting 3-4 hours a day. I disagree.
Yes it was me and I stil hold to that statement.
On average, I have noticed each party member gets about 3 papyrus per hour. So in the example above, 3 parties hunting 3 hours should get 243 blueprints per day.
I don't agree with these numbers, in all the time I have spent in TOI I have never averaged 3 papyrus per hour. Maybe 1 an hour on a lucky day.
On average, it takes 180 blueprints to collect a full set... or roughtly 360 blueprints per helm. How do I know? From the ratio of the prices between the helmet and the blueprints.
Helms sell for ~180m, and blueprints sell for ~500k-600k each. Therefore, the ratio of helm:blueprint prices is about 360:1.
At these ratios, a clan putting 3 groups per day into toi, hunting 3 hours per day, will get about 3 helms every 2 days.
This is absolutley positivley false in no way can you base the success of opening papyrus to the cost of A grade helms.
1) A grade helms are different prices so if you use the tallum helm price your odds would be even better.
2) opening papyrus is just pure luck and you can usually get all 13 floors with less than 100 papyrus. So this definatley throughs off the math.
2) try to figure out the odds on even getting a Helm recipe when turning in blueprints. I have turned in 10 sets and I concider myself a lucky person when it comes to turning in bluprints. In the 10 sets I turned I got 1 Helm rec, 2 boot rec's and 1 glove rec. The rest of the time I got 1 piece of material.
3) If you do get a recipe then you need to farm most of the materials which will take some time but isn't as bad as the materials needed for weapons.
4)Once you have finaly gotten all the materials to craft your helm you have a 60% chance to succeed. Oh this doen't include the fact that you had to get 2 recipes so the WS could craft it.
5)Now assume you suceeded now you have 1 helm in 2 or 3 days of a hole clan farming to get this helm. Now you have to go out and farm the rest of the armor, a weapon, so on so forth.
So your analagy looks great the way you wrote it but it is flawed from the begining and there are to many variable that can make it come crashing down. Like failing on that helm, now all the stuff you farmed is gone and you have to start all over.
Don't get me srong I dont think you should be able to farm enough materials in a week for a full A grade set. But with 3 full parties out hunting it shouldn't take more than a month. Say there is a C grade party, a B grade party and an A grade party. I would be happy if in a month a clan could farm enough materials to craft 1 full set of armor in each grade and 1 weapon in each grade.
In the 3-4 hours a day of farming no clan could do it unless they got super lucky on drops. Not to mention you had to save everything you got so you couldn't sell anything and would run out of adena for shots and pots. It just doesn't work.
Of course there are going to be people who say you can do this. I say it can't be done unless you spend 3-4 x more hours per day farming than what I said.
Yes it is suppose to be a hardcore game. But it's not if your willing to cheat. The hardcore part of it is what perpetuates the secondary market.
as a really new player, this kind of thread scares me. I'm only level 16 now, but do I really want to get in to paying a monthly fee and getting in waist deep before I realize I can't buy the armour I need?
I guess my question is: if the end game here ( the point of being here) is to be able to PVP, do you absolutely NEED A grade armour to be able to do that? or is it more about strategie and skills?
I understand some of what people are saying about being frusterated with the farmers ( whom I assume steal all the good enemies that drop the good loot?), but on the other hand I came from a mmorpg where the highest grade armour was a common thing to see, and players weren't really distinguisable between uber and super uber, you know? I'd like people to KNOW I play this game 25 hours a week if that's what I did. lol
And along this point, i don't play 25 hours a week, i'm lucky if I can get in 5 or 6 to play leisurely and have fun. Will my game play be dimished by not being able to partake in pvp and raids and seiges if my armour isn't the super greatest? I hope that it's not only the hard core characters ( and of course RL rich people) who are going to be able to partake in these things. :)
Don't let us venting frustration scare you away from the game. I have been playing this game for 2 years and still enjoy it very much. There are just many things I don't really like about how the game is going and tend to get frustrated so I come on here and vent then I go back and play more LOL.
When it comes to hunting and xping the game doesn't require that much skill and or top end equipment and weapons. You could probably lvl all the way to 80 in B grade armor and weapon.
When it comes to pvp though gear and weapons plays a huge role. Skills are still the number one thing you need to know how to use and you need to know your enemies weekness. But if you come across enemies that know how to play thier class you will loose eveery time if they have better gear than you.
So to answer your question. In pvp top gear is essintial to compete against other players.
I use to play 20+ hours a week myself. With it being summer time and new job with overtime im lucky if I get 1 hour a day to play and anytime on the weekend. But as of now it is still worth it to me to keep my account active. Most of the time now I just play the market and try to make that very alusive adena.
as a really new player, this kind of thread scares me. I'm only level 16 now, but do I really want to get in to paying a monthly fee and getting in waist deep before I realize I can't buy the armour I need?
I guess my question is: if the end game here ( the point of being here) is to be able to PVP, do you absolutely NEED A grade armour to be able to do that? or is it more about strategie and skills?
I understand some of what people are saying about being frusterated with the farmers ( whom I assume steal all the good enemies that drop the good loot?), but on the other hand I came from a mmorpg where the highest grade armour was a common thing to see, and players weren't really distinguisable between uber and super uber, you know? I'd like people to KNOW I play this game 25 hours a week if that's what I did. lol
And along this point, i don't play 25 hours a week, i'm lucky if I can get in 5 or 6 to play leisurely and have fun. Will my game play be dimished by not being able to partake in pvp and raids and seiges if my armour isn't the super greatest? I hope that it's not only the hard core characters ( and of course RL rich people) who are going to be able to partake in these things. :)
This is one of the most genuine post made I have seen in this forum for a long time. A true new player voicing his concern, not just a reroll.
From lvl 16-52, you should not have much problem doing raids, grouping, getting gears as long as u know what to do. Come to think of it, it is the most fun when you are in this lvl range.
Anything above it, you will notice the diffculties and problems enjoying the high lvl contents cause thats where all the professional farmers and huge clans dominate. You can forget abt Raids cause there will be no pple shouting in town to form Raid group. And even if u manage to form one, most probably by the time you reach the location it had been killed.
And if u manage to see RB is alive upon ur arrival, better pray hard farmers dun come along the way. Hope u have a mandrain speaking party members to ask them to give u the RB without the need to fight it out.
It would be extremely rare if u dun face the above circumstance. O start replying this thread and tell GM to do something!!!^^V
I don't agree with these numbers, in all the time I have spent in TOI I have never averaged 3 papyrus per hour. Maybe 1 an hour on a lucky day.
This is absolutley positivley false in no way can you base the success of opening papyrus to the cost of A grade helms.
1) A grade helms are different prices so if you use the tallum helm price your odds would be even better.
2) opening papyrus is just pure luck and you can usually get all 13 floors with less than 100 papyrus. So this definatley throughs off the math.
2) try to figure out the odds on even getting a Helm recipe when turning in blueprints. I have turned in 10 sets and I concider myself a lucky person when it comes to turning in bluprints. In the 10 sets I turned I got 1 Helm rec, 2 boot rec's and 1 glove rec. The rest of the time I got 1 piece of material.
3) If you do get a recipe then you need to farm most of the materials which will take some time but isn't as bad as the materials needed for weapons.
4)Once you have finaly gotten all the materials to craft your helm you have a 60% chance to succeed. Oh this doen't include the fact that you had to get 2 recipes so the WS could craft it.
5)Now assume you suceeded now you have 1 helm in 2 or 3 days of a hole clan farming to get this helm. Now you have to go out and farm the rest of the armor, a weapon, so on so forth.
So your analagy looks great the way you wrote it but it is flawed from the begining and there are to many variable that can make it come crashing down. Like failing on that helm, now all the stuff you farmed is gone and you have to start all over.
Don't get me srong I dont think you should be able to farm enough materials in a week for a full A grade set. But with 3 full parties out hunting it shouldn't take more than a month. Say there is a C grade party, a B grade party and an A grade party. I would be happy if in a month a clan could farm enough materials to craft 1 full set of armor in each grade and 1 weapon in each grade.
In the 3-4 hours a day of farming no clan could do it unless they got super lucky on drops. Not to mention you had to save everything you got so you couldn't sell anything and would run out of adena for shots and pots. It just doesn't work.
Of course there are going to be people who say you can do this. I say it can't be done unless you spend 3-4 x more hours per day farming than what I said.
Yes it is suppose to be a hardcore game. But it's not if your willing to cheat. The hardcore part of it is what perpetuates the secondary market.
Don't take this the wrong way -- I don't mean it as a flame -- but if you are not averaging 3 papyrus per hour (or more!) then your problem may be that your party is inefficient. If so, then it's no wonder you are frustrated.
All of your objections are already factored into the pricing of the blueprints and helms. It doesn't matter how difficult it is to gather materials, craft successfully, etc because obtaining 300+ blueprints is economically identical to doing all of that stuff successfully. You can sell the 300+ blueprints and buy the helm without doing that stuff.
It also doesn't matter that a-grade helms are priced differently. All we need to know is the price of the most expensive one. Because the market drives prices for items based on their highest value, not their lowest value. People won't turn in blueprints to get a recipe for a 90m helm if they can get a recipe for an 180m helm instead (unless the odds are different for the 2 recipes).
If you want to try your luck opening the blueprints instead of selling them, that's your call. Personally I think it's a really bad idea unless you have a nearly complete set of maps.
You have two choices: You can open the blueprints, trade them in, and make the highest vlaue of what you get OR you can sell the blueprints and buy what you need.
BUT if you are a smart trader, you can MAYBE sell the stuff from the opened blueprints for more than its implicit value, and this will shorten the amount of hours it takes to complete the helm.
Either way you go, you still come out at about 100 hours hunt time per helm, on average minus whatever extra profit you get by trading that you can use to shorten the time.
100 hours for a set-completing item doesn't sound too bad to me, considering that it probably takes 2000+ hours to get to level 75, this is only about 5% of your time. And as you point out, there are other items/equipment to farm for, so you can use the other 95% of your time for that.
You make a good arguement. Only thing I have to add is 100 hors of hunting for 1 helm is alot too me. Specially since it is only one smale part of the big picture.
This is what im saying, just from farming materials it's next to impossible to out fit a clan in a reasonable amount of time. Now don't get me wrong my definition of reasonable game time and your defination im afraid are very different.
Heh... IMO the gm's don't do enough to stop the raid boss farmers... the regular farmers are far more insignificant. But when farmers control the raid bosses (especially the ones that drop boss jewels) then they can really control the market.
Seriously, anyone on any of the servers could take one look at the raid boss farmers and realize that they are indeed farmers and should then be banned. The farmers on Sieghardt have been around since the start of C3 and still nothing has been done about them. The players on Sieg have tried their best to stop them themselves, in fact we gathered people from many alliances on the server(many even at war with each other) to attempt to stop some of their raids... but no matter how many times you pk them they just come back and it nearly cost myself 150m+ in gear, though I was fortunate enough to get it all back.
Honestly, I'm sure the gms do try and get rid of farmers... but they need to take out the ones causing the most problems. Banning one or two bot parties is nothing compared to what banning the raid boss farmers would do for the server. When it comes to farmers, there is only so much players can do to slow them down... only nc has the power to completely get rid of them.
If you want to try your luck opening the blueprints instead of selling them, that's your call. Personally I think it's a really bad idea unless you have a nearly complete set of maps.
You have two choices: You can open the blueprints, trade them in, and make the highest vlaue of what you get OR you can sell the blueprints and buy what you need.
Ah, here is one source of confusion in your post: you write "blueprints" when you mean "papyrus" :)
(you cannot open blueprints, you open a papyrus and then you have a chance of getting a blueprint)
Averaging 3 blueprints per hour is hard to do unless you hunt on the high floors of toi, averaging 3 papyrus per hour is normal.
Things recently on my server have gone mad. Prices have jumped 100% for ghp & gsap in the pasted month. What's changed - nothing these items are still the same price to buy from the npc.
Why have thing gone up - easy the rl price of adana has gone down. So to make the same money the adana sellers have to sell more. To do this they use there unsold stock (cash) to drive prices up - by buying up items and re-selling them at stupidly high prices.
Lol, look on erica, RL price for adena is down to crazy low amounts. Base mats are up crazy amounts.
Ori ore = 100k each
varnish = 4k each
coal = 3k
bone = 1.2k (down from 2k)
AA is up from 1.4a to 3-4a each
EW-A scrolls been dwindling between 12mil - 16mil (previously 2.5mil)
Black Papyrus = 200k+
level 11-12 crystals = 70 - 140mil respectively. No one can get to the raidbosses without fighting the farmers.
Now who controls the servers? Real players who can't do the manor system since the farmers hand in with unmentioned programs.
Theres shops in giran selling 100k+ of each base mat, don't tell me this is players when all the shops skyrocketed their prices in a matter of days and keep stockpiles of mats untill people are forced to buy them.
Economy = Screwed totally, when can players play again?
I think the prices will go up even more. The farmers are working on pumping a crazy amount of adena into the economy. This is creating an inflation on equipment prices and the adena buyers have to buy even more adena to get what they want. More farmers accounts will be made to support the increased adena trade. As more and more adena is produced the inflation will continue to increase to insane levels. It's a vicious circle that won't end unless the farmers are stopped from pumping in adena.
This doesn't affect the ebayers very much since the prices on adena also fall at the same time. Basically they get the same equipment for the same amount of real $$$. The big problem is for the players that refuse to cheat and buy monopoly money. Their hard earned adena is rapidly decreasing in value and there's nothing they can do about it.
It would be interesting to know what % of the total adena production is farmer/bot related. Any guesses?
I'd guess 70% on dev. from the amount of unmentionables I see. And the reduced drops rates, I see a day when that will be population ratio if NC NA don't get off there butts and impliment increased drops to destabelize the hold that farmers have on the mat market and make it more noob freindly for new player base (not just banned farmers starting new accounts) get your head out of the sand(or elsewhere). We realllly like "OUR" game and don't want to see it die because you dont really care about the the NA servers.