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Now that I think about it, Instead of removing RNG from enhancement, why not keep it but add an extra option where you can trade 2 of the same items for 1 that's 1 enhancement higher. For example giving ferghus 2 +12's for a guaranteed +13. Mats would be reset to blues and the OJ-primary will be reset to something random if it's a lv 90 weapon. > _ >
To the people saying that making it too easy would make it so that you have nothing to work towards, consider the number of people that have left this game in droves because no matter how hard they work nothing improves.
Working and seeing steady improvement to your gear as time passes. Working hard as hell and losing all your gear trying to improve or never getting an improvement at all because of RNG.
Guess which one of those two we have and guess why players are literally disappearing and it's taking an hour if not longer to fill up a S2 or S3 boat, even during prime gaming time in the afternoon on the most populated server, East. Guess why the boat boards are empty. Guess why the market value of items are fluctuating as they are.
This. I wouldn't mind putting in the work if I know I'll get there someday. Right now (before the seal shop anyway), it was way too much work without the guarantee I'll end up somewhere better after all of it.
You can say, "just save up the money and buy it", but that's just a workaround to a fundamental problem. It also doesn't really apply to everyone because high enhance weapons for some classes almost do not go on sale.
Again, I'm not saying they should remove RNG altogether, but at least make it so people who don't want to deal with/are tired of the RNG can incrementally work on it even if it means a really long time or adjust the punishments by a little bit. They could even use it to make players start playing for longer times, like making revives have a month long cooldown that you can reduce by doing damage with a certain damage:seconds ratio.
I wouldn't want to remove RNG because the feeling of self-accomplishment would be lost, but I would want it to be changed. Enhancement should reset an item's enhancement level, but ONLY by 1 level. I just don't understand why attempting +6, +7, or +8 should have to completely reset an item's enhancement level; it is demoralizing. Enhancement should NOT destroy items until attempting to enhance past the +10 parameter.
Yes it should, but it won't be because Nexon NA doesn't have any control over it. The people who say it's too easy are the ones who get lucky while everybody else suffers. The reason so few people are around to give you the truthful answer is because they all quit. Including myself. I just check the forums and the site once a month or so to see if there's an event that's not a blatant cash grab and nothing else, but so far, it's all garbage.
RNG should be, however, removed from Power Infusion and just give us stat specific element stones. It is absolutely disgusting that we are getting STR, AGI, INT and WIL infusions on higher tier element stones. Leave that garbage behind with the Average Element Stones. Or give us the option to remove infusions off items.
Removing the RNG system on the enhancement system will bring a lot of new people and force pay2win people to leave balancing the big struggle between end-game people and newcomers.
Yes removing the RNG system on the enhancement will make a huge difference and I can support that decision.
To push this conversation forward, i think we need less 'opinions' and more propositions. There is obviously some issue with this system, since it leaves many people unsatisfied. Here are the 3 things i gathered from this discussion, that you should take under consideration:
1. The change has any chance of implementing only if it benefits Nexon, meaning that if proposed solution would decrease their earnings - there is no reason for you to even propose anything. Think realistic, not idealistic. 2. Many people get discouraged because they lose their high enhanced weapons, on which they've spent a lot of money/effort (often leave the game due to this reason). 3. Some people want to keep RNG, because they want high enhanced weapons to be an 'exclusive item'.
I think that we need a change which is practical and creates a sort of compromise for both types of people (those who like RNG, and those who don't because of losing their weapons all the time). Current system is just way too 'brutal'.
Personal opinion:
I will start with the fact, that items in game are nothing but illusion of progress, and that Vindictus has the best combat from all MMO games, which allows for an actual personal progress on much bigger scale than in other games. It is important to consider, because if you have that, it means that you can use this 'personal progress' as drive force to the game which keeps people playing. Very good example of it in terms of PvE would be Einrach, where you have reduced equipment depending, added some achievements based on personal performance - and voilà, people spend tons of hours on it, destroying their home equipment due to frustration , but... they keep playing ^^.
The time when game mechanics were very limited due to software and technology are long past, so we don't need any longer a system, where the game creates this illusion of progress by giving you some items, instead of actually giving you the possibility for real progress. Ask yourself... what are the stats/items in game? What do they represent? My answer would be - nothing but numbers on screen, which represent how much of time/money you've wasted on this pointless illusion. They do not make YOU better, your performance doesn't change no matter of items or stats... let's say you play fully geared +15 weapon char, all end game OP stats and some people think you're 'good'... now, if you'd make new character lvl 1 and start playing with low equipment - does it mean you're 'bad' now? No, YOU didn't change, YOU neither made a progress or lost it... the only thing that changed are numbers on screen.
I feel sorry to people who have to lie to themselves that somehow this 'illusion of progress' makes them 'better' - in purpose to get satisfaction and boost their ego. This untrue concept is slowly reaching its ends as more we advance, same as religion concept is being abandoned by more and more people, because the benefits of it no longer apply (it has lost its usefulness, and causes mainly issues right now all over the world). When something isn't necessary and causes mainly issues - it should be forgotten.
Unfortunately this process is slow, and there are still many people who enjoy lying to themselves and create this endless, blind loop of self admiration, so to keep 'peace' and 'satisfaction' within society... we have to look for solution in compromise, otherwise we would only divide ourselves on groups - which would be a step backwards in terms of progress.
Propositon:
1. Add new goals to the game in purpose to give people more meaning than just 'gearing up': a) more social features (like housing system, etc.) b) more guild features (it is basically a social feature as well, but it should have more focus than others... since currently the only function of guild is basically just a group chat ^^) c) more features 'Einrach-like', where equipment doesn't matter much and it's more about your achievements in terms of 'personal progress' d) PvP - no matter how many people may deny it, having PvP system as important part of the game would actually make the game much more alive... simply due to the reason, that it doesn't require constant updates and as much of workload as PvE, because players play against each other (they create 'the content' for each other), so it doesn't get as monotonous as PvE where everything is pre-designed and is just a repetition of repetition. PvP requires less workload from developers, and has more variety in terms of combat - it also only needs to be done once, but good.
2. Add a possibility to revive items endlessly for AP (and not just once): People often take risks, thinking that they will have the 'luck', and when they fail - some of them resign from the game. And yes, you could say that it's 'their own fault', but the truth is that it's not really in their control whether the weapon succeeds or fails... it is just a RNG system, so when it fails - they feel like being punished for nothing (since they did all they could), while some other people succeed things in one go. The game is designed to encourage players to upgrade their equipment... so you basically give them a purpose and you destroy it at the same time, treating like farm meat, giving them food and milking what you can. By giving to people an option to always revive their weapon, they will always be capable to revive their best enhancement, which means that 'the punishment' won't be as brutal as it is currently, where you have to start all over again. And need to gather AP - may become your next market (in fact from what i know, NA client already has AP capsules in cash shop, so...).
Proposition to players:
Try to enjoy the game itself - combat, social interactions with other people, your kawai avatars... whatever. Don't focus much on equipment, since it's all straight up fake and with no real meaning anyway - it just doesn't matter. You do that, and i promise you that you will enjoy this game a lot more ^^.
Ok real talk. You don't need anything above +10 orange lv90 and some W/E enchanted armors to clear this game by yourself. These are not that hard to achieve these days with Nexon's events/sales.
Let's not forget the days when Lak fang was 200m and Kraken fang was 300m. Don't have 2b gold in your pocket? Have fun trying to get into a 16k att s2 boats.
The reason this game is dead is not because of gears. There is nothing new to do in this game and 0 new content that is worth anyone's time. Every update brings more freaking RNG box. Where are the new raids at? Oh wait, even when we do have a new raid it will take 2 weeks for it to get bored. And then the population dwindles again until the next major update.
Real talk. There is a huge difference between 50 attack speed scythe Evie and 75 attack speed scythe Evie. Lynn, and Lann, and Karok, and Vella, and Fiona, and... literally everyone.
There are attack strings and play patterns that are possible only with that higher attack speed.
If you find it acceptable to not being able to do that then sure, have at it.
I don't mind the god awful odds of making a +15. But having a gear DESTROYED is the painful part.
A. If gears weren't destroyed, I'd +15 everything fairly quick. This doesn't actually kill the fun of the game for me personally, since I enjoy [playing] the game. It's half the reason I loved Ein Lacher since I got to [play] old bosses without just facerolling them in a minute. However in this scenario, the concept of "+15" becomes merely gold-requirement essentially. It would create enough of a gold gap that you would still have to farm quite a bit to +15 everything, but not so much as to actually affect the wealthy players in-game atm and they would all be +15'd fairly quickly. HOWEVER it wouldn't be within even a week for most wealthy players because this would RADICALLY spike the price of enhancement stones to UNGODLY levels. You'd easily be looking at the price of endgame stones raising to 1~2mil per stone for several months. So the super wealthy will have their wallets dented, and the rest of us will be farming for days just for stones.
This isn't a bad idea at all. HOWEVER it require our gears to go back to the Swift/Blackhammer/Raider/HolyWing(Using Fifi as example) era where there were multiple OPTIONS available to build towards. In this thought, endgame gears would need to be altered to have extreme variance in Weight, DEF, STR/INT, AGI/WIL, and so on. The boost from gears on stats would also need to be more significant, with a full set of "STR" gear(excluding weapons) making up roughly 15~20% of your total ATT(instead of the current rough...3% maybe?). Maxing out weight endurance is a joke, and as such the endgame Plate/heavy gears should reflect this by being MUCH more obnoxious with their weights.
If done correctly, this would force the "Wealthy" players to go through a full set of five +15s for each possible endgame build. Resulting in no less than requiring three~four sets of +15 armors(Glass, Tank, Hybrid, WIL/AGI), while the non-wealthy would be forced initially to aiming for only one at a time.
This could easily work best in the long-term for the game, but it would require too much rebalancing to ever happen.
Enhancing doesn't destroy your gear. Enhancing past +10 requires a very very rare drop from raid bosses that corresponds to that specific weapon. So, Heremon weapons requires an "Iset Jewel" that only drops from Iset at a very low drop rate. Or from the final chest in Twilight Desert. Also very low drop rate. But this lets your raid for the weapon as well as farm the quests for them which will force more people to be running these missions to get what they want.
When you find this item it cannot be traded and it expires in 24 hours. This item, along with the other basic enhancement components will allow you to attempt a +11. Your item loses durability if you fail and you lose all of the components needed for enhancing (the stones, the elixirs, the Iset Jewel, can also probably make it require more stuff now, etc).
There is a NX item in the cash shop for 10k NX that allows you to not lose the Jewel upon failure to enhance. But you still lose the rest of the items. The jewel will still expire in 24 hours.
How rare? Say, for every 10 Crescent Moon Announcements you find you'll find one jewel in Ship Graveyard.
So how does this work out? -Whales and people with money will invest in that 10k NX every single time to gear up. Other people will want to spend as much NX as they can until their limit. Either way, Nexon profits. -People will be willing to play the game because there is a steady rate of progression in the game. Once every 3-5 months or so (depending on how hard you play) you will happen upon a jewel and you get to enhance. -You cannot trade this jewel so people would have to trust you to enhance their weapon. Specifically, it limits what botters can do with the very rare drop. -It makes it so the point of the game isn't just raiding and then afking. You can raid, yes, but then if you want to maximize potential enhancement in the game you must also run the missions. Crescent Moon Island, Twilight Desert, Misty/Moonlight, Ben Chenner, etc. This means less people just afking in town in channel 1. More people would actually be playing the game.
@Cessa Please no time limited stuff +haha. Having an Enchant Scroll gives me anxiety sometimes cause I know I need to just sell it asap so I don't have to worry about it anymore :V
@Cessa Please no time limited stuff +haha. Having an Enchant Scroll gives me anxiety sometimes cause I know I need to just sell it asap so I don't have to worry about it anymore :V
Speaking of Enchant Scrolls, does anyone know why they even have a duration on them in the first place?
Enhancement should stay the same otherwise weapons would literally have no value. Gearing up is already too easy as it is so long as you dump some money into it.
Enhancement should stay the same otherwise weapons would literally have no value. Gearing up is already too easy as it is so long as you dump some money into it.
Is it?
How much money did you spend to get your +15? Because you can literally dump 50000 dollars into NX and still not have a +15 weapon because there is a literal lack of equipment to funnel enough enhances onto in a relatively quick period of time.
Comments
Right now (before the seal shop anyway), it was way too much work without the guarantee I'll end up somewhere better after all of it.
You can say, "just save up the money and buy it", but that's just a workaround to a fundamental problem. It also doesn't really apply to everyone because high enhance weapons for some classes almost do not go on sale.
Again, I'm not saying they should remove RNG altogether, but at least make it so people who don't want to deal with/are tired of the RNG can incrementally work on it even if it means a really long time or adjust the punishments by a little bit.
They could even use it to make players start playing for longer times, like making revives have a month long cooldown that you can reduce by doing damage with a certain damage:seconds ratio.
Yes removing the RNG system on the enhancement will make a huge difference and I can support that decision.
1. The change has any chance of implementing only if it benefits Nexon, meaning that if proposed solution would decrease their earnings - there is no reason for you to even propose anything. Think realistic, not idealistic.
2. Many people get discouraged because they lose their high enhanced weapons, on which they've spent a lot of money/effort (often leave the game due to this reason).
3. Some people want to keep RNG, because they want high enhanced weapons to be an 'exclusive item'.
I think that we need a change which is practical and creates a sort of compromise for both types of people (those who like RNG, and those who don't because of losing their weapons all the time). Current system is just way too 'brutal'.
Personal opinion:
I will start with the fact, that items in game are nothing but illusion of progress, and that Vindictus has the best combat from all MMO games, which allows for an actual personal progress on much bigger scale than in other games. It is important to consider, because if you have that, it means that you can use this 'personal progress' as drive force to the game which keeps people playing. Very good example of it in terms of PvE would be Einrach, where you have reduced equipment depending, added some achievements based on personal performance - and voilà, people spend tons of hours on it, destroying their home equipment due to frustration
The time when game mechanics were very limited due to software and technology are long past, so we don't need any longer a system, where the game creates this illusion of progress by giving you some items, instead of actually giving you the possibility for real progress.
Ask yourself... what are the stats/items in game? What do they represent? My answer would be - nothing but numbers on screen, which represent how much of time/money you've wasted on this pointless illusion. They do not make YOU better, your performance doesn't change no matter of items or stats... let's say you play fully geared +15 weapon char, all end game OP stats and some people think you're 'good'... now, if you'd make new character lvl 1 and start playing with low equipment - does it mean you're 'bad' now? No, YOU didn't change, YOU neither made a progress or lost it... the only thing that changed are numbers on screen.
I feel sorry to people who have to lie to themselves that somehow this 'illusion of progress' makes them 'better' - in purpose to get satisfaction and boost their ego. This untrue concept is slowly reaching its ends as more we advance, same as religion concept is being abandoned by more and more people, because the benefits of it no longer apply (it has lost its usefulness, and causes mainly issues right now all over the world).
When something isn't necessary and causes mainly issues - it should be forgotten.
Unfortunately this process is slow, and there are still many people who enjoy lying to themselves and create this endless, blind loop of self admiration, so to keep 'peace' and 'satisfaction' within society... we have to look for solution in compromise, otherwise we would only divide ourselves on groups - which would be a step backwards in terms of progress.
Propositon:
1. Add new goals to the game in purpose to give people more meaning than just 'gearing up':
a) more social features (like housing system, etc.)
b) more guild features (it is basically a social feature as well, but it should have more focus than others... since currently the only function of guild is basically just a group chat ^^)
c) more features 'Einrach-like', where equipment doesn't matter much and it's more about your achievements in terms of 'personal progress'
d) PvP - no matter how many people may deny it, having PvP system as important part of the game would actually make the game much more alive... simply due to the reason, that it doesn't require constant updates and as much of workload as PvE, because players play against each other (they create 'the content' for each other), so it doesn't get as monotonous as PvE where everything is pre-designed and is just a repetition of repetition.
PvP requires less workload from developers, and has more variety in terms of combat - it also only needs to be done once, but good.
2. Add a possibility to revive items endlessly for AP (and not just once):
People often take risks, thinking that they will have the 'luck', and when they fail - some of them resign from the game. And yes, you could say that it's 'their own fault', but the truth is that it's not really in their control whether the weapon succeeds or fails... it is just a RNG system, so when it fails - they feel like being punished for nothing (since they did all they could), while some other people succeed things in one go.
The game is designed to encourage players to upgrade their equipment... so you basically give them a purpose and you destroy it at the same time, treating like farm meat, giving them food and milking what you can.
By giving to people an option to always revive their weapon, they will always be capable to revive their best enhancement, which means that 'the punishment' won't be as brutal as it is currently, where you have to start all over again. And need to gather AP - may become your next market (in fact from what i know, NA client already has AP capsules in cash shop, so...).
Proposition to players:
Try to enjoy the game itself - combat, social interactions with other people, your kawai avatars... whatever. Don't focus much on equipment, since it's all straight up fake and with no real meaning anyway - it just doesn't matter. You do that, and i promise you that you will enjoy this game a lot more ^^.
Let's not forget the days when Lak fang was 200m and Kraken fang was 300m. Don't have 2b gold in your pocket? Have fun trying to get into a 16k att s2 boats.
The reason this game is dead is not because of gears. There is nothing new to do in this game and 0 new content that is worth anyone's time. Every update brings more freaking RNG box. Where are the new raids at? Oh wait, even when we do have a new raid it will take 2 weeks for it to get bored. And then the population dwindles again until the next major update.
There is a huge difference between 50 attack speed scythe Evie and 75 attack speed scythe Evie.
Lynn, and Lann, and Karok, and Vella, and Fiona, and... literally everyone.
There are attack strings and play patterns that are possible only with that higher attack speed.
If you find it acceptable to not being able to do that then sure, have at it.
But having a gear DESTROYED is the painful part.
A. If gears weren't destroyed, I'd +15 everything fairly quick. This doesn't actually kill the fun of the game for me personally, since I enjoy [playing] the game. It's half the reason I loved Ein Lacher since I got to [play] old bosses without just facerolling them in a minute.
However in this scenario, the concept of "+15" becomes merely gold-requirement essentially. It would create enough of a gold gap that you would still have to farm quite a bit to +15 everything, but not so much as to actually affect the wealthy players in-game atm and they would all be +15'd fairly quickly.
HOWEVER it wouldn't be within even a week for most wealthy players because this would RADICALLY spike the price of enhancement stones to UNGODLY levels. You'd easily be looking at the price of endgame stones raising to 1~2mil per stone for several months. So the super wealthy will have their wallets dented, and the rest of us will be farming for days just for stones.
This isn't a bad idea at all. HOWEVER it require our gears to go back to the Swift/Blackhammer/Raider/HolyWing(Using Fifi as example) era where there were multiple OPTIONS available to build towards. In this thought, endgame gears would need to be altered to have extreme variance in Weight, DEF, STR/INT, AGI/WIL, and so on. The boost from gears on stats would also need to be more significant, with a full set of "STR" gear(excluding weapons) making up roughly 15~20% of your total ATT(instead of the current rough...3% maybe?). Maxing out weight endurance is a joke, and as such the endgame Plate/heavy gears should reflect this by being MUCH more obnoxious with their weights.
If done correctly, this would force the "Wealthy" players to go through a full set of five +15s for each possible endgame build. Resulting in no less than requiring three~four sets of +15 armors(Glass, Tank, Hybrid, WIL/AGI), while the non-wealthy would be forced initially to aiming for only one at a time.
This could easily work best in the long-term for the game, but it would require too much rebalancing to ever happen.
Enhancing past +10 requires a very very rare drop from raid bosses that corresponds to that specific weapon.
So, Heremon weapons requires an "Iset Jewel" that only drops from Iset at a very low drop rate. Or from the final chest in Twilight Desert. Also very low drop rate.
But this lets your raid for the weapon as well as farm the quests for them which will force more people to be running these missions to get what they want.
When you find this item it cannot be traded and it expires in 24 hours.
This item, along with the other basic enhancement components will allow you to attempt a +11.
Your item loses durability if you fail and you lose all of the components needed for enhancing (the stones, the elixirs, the Iset Jewel, can also probably make it require more stuff now, etc).
There is a NX item in the cash shop for 10k NX that allows you to not lose the Jewel upon failure to enhance. But you still lose the rest of the items.
The jewel will still expire in 24 hours.
How rare? Say, for every 10 Crescent Moon Announcements you find you'll find one jewel in Ship Graveyard.
So how does this work out?
-Whales and people with money will invest in that 10k NX every single time to gear up. Other people will want to spend as much NX as they can until their limit. Either way, Nexon profits.
-People will be willing to play the game because there is a steady rate of progression in the game. Once every 3-5 months or so (depending on how hard you play) you will happen upon a jewel and you get to enhance.
-You cannot trade this jewel so people would have to trust you to enhance their weapon. Specifically, it limits what botters can do with the very rare drop.
-It makes it so the point of the game isn't just raiding and then afking. You can raid, yes, but then if you want to maximize potential enhancement in the game you must also run the missions. Crescent Moon Island, Twilight Desert, Misty/Moonlight, Ben Chenner, etc. This means less people just afking in town in channel 1. More people would actually be playing the game.
How much money did you spend to get your +15?
Because you can literally dump 50000 dollars into NX and still not have a +15 weapon because there is a literal lack of equipment to funnel enough enhances onto in a relatively quick period of time.