Although I think Saturn33's idea is too complex, it's still remarkable to see how things evolve.
LotS:
it had a lot of dungeons! Some even had a ~3day lockout. Bosses were damn deadly and not soloable in a reasonable amount of time. Gear wasn't tradable and dungeons took 30~90min, but at least we had a 100% drop chance. So gear wasn't farmed, sold or used for RMT.
However, many players complained about the dungeon difficulty, many quit because they couldn't succeed and most players prefered Colo gear anyways. This PvP gear was better in all regards and you could enter Colo several times a day.
Final era of LotS:
Due to the new pet system, "class roles" vanished and soon everything except raids became soloable. Once you farmed a mermaid (bots, dupes & 3rd party drop chance increases aside), fights became much faster and thanks to Willow Worker, Assassin Elder & co., every class had access to powerful heals. Soon claases were purely determined by the pet level and this accumulated in a severe problem as soon as they were used in Colo. Back then, players complained more about Colo and not so much about an easier PvE content (I just wonder why).
LotS => AoV
The devs did everything players wanted! They first lowered the dungeon lockout and removed it completely later. In addition, they made the PvE content easier (by increasing the HP/Vit f.e.), limited the crit. chances and buffed those skills commonly used in Colo They even fixed the pet issues. And finally, all the gear became tradeable, as if the devs didn't know about this feature or wanted to make stock market tricks a common sub-game.
And this wasn't all: They introduced a new refinement system that allowed gear defense to be increased by a mere 270% and a new honing system with insane stat bonuses! Since that day, gear improvements define a class.
But they screwed a lot of things up.
So players complained about the hit/dodge formula, about the class changes (reasonable or not), that Dayr Desert gear wasn't good enough and about the worst thing imaginable: missing Osiris recipes (not about the missing difficulty btw.). So the devs adjusted the hit rates, overdid it some class fixes (see priest), implemented the recipes without fixing the dungeon and increased the overall effectiveness of post-AoV gear by adding seedrunes (and later elemental effects).
Since AoV, it's obvious that Battle Tactics is broken and it's been the time where many players rerolled to Warriors. But yet no complains. And back then, it seems that botting scarecrows for event rewards was perfecty "legit". Soon therafter we had many players with a complete +20 Osiris gear set. So this marks that day that having a fully-refined gear set became the norm.
And back then, "stolen" Pillarnium spots were a big concern.
DW, HC, AS & SC:
Here, the devs tried to fix the mess they've created. The MP costs were doubled and the dungeon wasmade significantly harder than anything before. Nevertheless, the monsters didn't stand a chance against broken heals, pets, hones & +20 gear. The new strategy: "Mob + mass AoE" introduced with AoV worked perfectly and allowed "better" players to run AFK scripts. Some even "power-leveled" their own alt using their main.
And because this new group of "power" players with +20 gear could mob many monsters simultaneously, "stolen or taken grinding spots" became the most common complain.
But the devs had another problem:
They didn't improve the gear that much., Their honing & refinement system now turned against them and made players reluctant to change their gear. So they introduced even more events (and a refinement transfer stone). But this time, they tried to made the events more random and more limited. But once more, they underestimated the abusal affinity of their community. Soon, we had a bragging contest about how many HHB boxes a player could farm.
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In regard of the new gear, the devs tried it "the good old way". After some complains about "lame bosses being punching bags", they overdid it and some bosses became unbeatable whereas others were still soloable. And in another "good old way", broken things weren't reverted. but addressed by the next mistake: They introduced the WoE guild vault! Finally, players got the PvP rewards they were waiting for, right?
But they underestimated the CLS runes. More and more classes suddenly preferred the old Colo gear. The 60~70% PvP damage increase was simply better than anything else. And although most Assassins would never admit it, they enjoyed being kind of unkillable in Hide until they one-shotted the target. Or how does it come that so many players rerollled to Assassns... a class known to be broken? Looking for fair fights?
But Assassins weren't the only class. Knights - a class that was considered useless post-AoV - turned out to be OP as soon as you focus yourself on INT, a PvP damage bonus and Shield Boomerang. The devs haven't changed a thing since AoV. They just made honing more accessible & controllable.
And it's no surprise that "broken Colo", "missing PvP areas" and "one-shot mania" became the top issues.
Forgotten Payon:
In regard of gear drops, the devs continued their latest strategy: "Hard" bosses; powerful, tradeable gear and a low drop chance. This time however, they added a fallback mechanism or two (coin system & BP/MP-Cazar). But that was never intented as a honest option. And of course, things got messed up again: Runes that can be equipped in all accessories as well as soloable and exploitable PvE Bosses (loop or ignorable spirit)
But these were minor concerns anyway! Forgotton Payon is a complete failure in regard of PvE, but this update was never really centered around this. The real focus was purely on the player request for better PvP gear! Some just got bored using the old T2 gear for CLS runes... so why not overhaul the runes add CLS runes to the new gear?
This brings us to now:
We have many characters with +20 gear. We have a repeatable & partly controllable honing system, CLS runes, still a broken pet system and still a permanent & tradeable item frame . And the only 'security mechanism' we have is a low drop chance. (which increases the value even more)
And how surprisingly, we now have complains about others trying to reset bosses!
But is it really surprising that some players would do everything to get their chance to obtain a item worth 300k+ which is then most likely used for a real money trade? Did this bother someone a while back? I thought players are the new investment brokers and the game a predatory capitalism! If you've read this reply, you see that "morale" and "respect" are long outdated, not just with the introduction of FoPa. It's more like some fairytales you tell your kids to keep them pacified.
So my point is: This didn't happen out of the blue!
The low drop chance wasn't a new idea and surely not a mischevious act. And it's been a long way from unbeatable raid dungeons with untradeable tokens towards an open map including soloable/exploitable bosses with high value drops. Pet, class, hones and refinement inbalances all exist for a while now.
For me, it's interesting to see WHEN players start complain about certain things. F.e. the Queen of Destruction is camped and "stolen" for ages. A while back, we had complains how Eddga gear is such a nerf to all classes and we had assassins players requesting more open PvP grinding areas. So what happened?
Did Eddga turn out to be broken thanks to CLS runes? Did it became too valuable to allow an uncontrolled fight about bosses? Would it be better if the devs had introduced FP as an open PvP map, just as it was requested?
And it's interesting HOW players want it to be fixed. You could say, how much the want to return to the original LotS version or whether they are more concerned about the actual impact.
But what to do now?
Of course, we could make it impossible to steal bosses. F.e. they could still follow the player with the highest threat, but they would switch priority to the next attackable target as soon as that player leaves the active zone around the boss (just as dying, stepping into water or activating smoke bomb does).
But would it really solve the issue or would players simply lure masses of monsters next to a player in hope that he would get aggro and would die to them?
And of course there are other options.
- add Eddga gear to the guild vault as well (players didn't care about Cazar)
- let WoE bosses drop Eddga gear (to follow the request for more PvP)
- place the bosses inside a dungeon (away from an open MMO towards a dungeon crawler)
- introduce an "item drop lockout" (away from endless grinds towards a more quest-related reward)
- buff all bosses until they surely aren't solo- / duoable (easier than balancing classes)
Or we could devaluate the items by other means. Because IMO, it's not really about the boss reset. It's about the stolen chance for a high-value loot.
Edited by Greven79, 22 April 2015 - 06:07 AM.