43 replies to this topic

[Thyrial]

It should be unsafe within the bounds of the game, Ren's suggestion was a protection against "acts of god" if you will.

Yet it makes that one item completely safe to upgrade until you try another one which makes it completely safe period once you get it to +7 the first time. If people get DC'd and lose card drops or anything like that nothing is done about it... Why should this be any different and why should it be done in a way that allows you to endlessly upgrade an item till you get it where you want? The current HD system is stupidly broken as it is, never mind if it wasn't limited at all by luck like this suggestion would make it.

[Stalkerness]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but your script detects that an item has dropped below +7. afaik, Heim's "intended" approach is that an item only needs to get +7 once and never again.

Couldn't you simply immediately do a perfect success upgrade following a +7->+6 failure instead of this nonsense of saving variables? Since we had perfect upgraders on sakray, I know it can be done...

[renouille]

ROFL, omg please try harder. Wal-mart is the number 1 retailer in the U.S because they DON'T pracice "to be highly profitable without appearing to have no purpose beyond profit."

They're pulling million of their customers with opening price points, they advertise their rock bottom prices in special displays. When people see that microwave manufactured in china for 24.99 they go "woah this is so cheap", when they go to the appliance section they now have in their heads that Wal-Mart sells all their appliances cheap. When in fact all the other microwaves are priced up incredibly higher than the Grey's Appliance down the street.

They muscle other manufacturing company to sell them their products cheaper each year or else they won't stock their items anymore, and when Wal-mart accounts for 30% of a manufacturing company's sales, they have no choice but to surrender. Please spare 15mins of your time and watch chapter 2 and 3 of:
http://www.pbs.org/w...71&continuous=1

That video is from 2004. Maybe things have changed since then?

I see that you have issues with Wal-Mart. I don't see how anything you said refutes anything on that page, or the idea that successful businesses need not have no purpose beyond profit, let alone the far weaker claim that successful businesses need not appear to have no purpose beyond profit... the last one being what I said originally.

"You think that any profitable business practice is acceptable, even if it involves exploiting your customers? Are you kidding me? If you exploit your customers, they'll ditch your company the instant they find a better alternative, and they'll likely never do business with you again."

Easy, the way the system is now they are making plenty of profits from it.

Do you have any evidence of this?

The demand of high upgraded armor will never disappear, and with new content coming soon, there will be even more equips to upgrade. Sure your system might not hurt long term sales, but their current system will maximize long term sales.

How so? To make this claim you would have to demonstrate a problem in my reasoning from the first paragraph of post #9 and the third paragraph of post #16. I'm still waiting for you to do that.

That is because there are more important things on the list to take care then dealing with bot spammers. If your really bothered by it turn off your general chat when your in the market

Whether I'm bothered by spam bots is irrelevant. I made a post earlier on irowiki (too lazy to find it now) showing the very real recurring costs of continuing to do nothing. Not only does it reduce available resources, it opens the servers and others players to trivial yet effective denial of service attacks. It's only by sheer luck that very few people, if any, have shown interest in pursuing that. Hence I claim that it would help their bottom line and be in their best interests to close this hole. Why won't they do it then? I think they're just lazy.

And they DID listen to you. In fact it was implemented last maint. That Red Pirate Bandana is better modified suggestion of it.

No, 4x battle manuals were a joke I conceived in response to red pirate banandas.

Why shouldn't they put in unlucky 4x battle manuals, though? It'd almost certainly lure the hardcore competitive players. Or ... perhaps it'd make them look too greedy? And perhaps that's not such a good idea for business?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but your script detects that an item has dropped below +7. afaik, Heim's "intended" approach is that an item only needs to get +7 once and never again.

That is what my script does. The only limitation is that you can only work with one "dropped below" item per character at a time, and as soon as you violate that the system doesn't remember that the item was ever +7. Heim's approach is not possible without extending the database schema.

Couldn't you simply immediately do a perfect success upgrade following a +7->+6 failure instead of this nonsense of saving variables? Since we had perfect upgraders on sakray, I know it can be done...

I'm not sure what you mean.

One of my earlier suggestions was to make +7 -> +8 never fail but have a low success chance. The problem with this is that although average costs stay the same, the distribution changes.

[arsn89]

That video is from 2004. Maybe things have changed since then?

I see that you have issues with Wal-Mart. I don't see how anything you said refutes anything on that page, or the idea that successful businesses need not have no purpose beyond profit, let alone the far weaker claim that successful businesses need not appear to have no purpose beyond profit... the last one being what I said originally.

Just stop. you didn't even explain anything to me, all you did was link me to a book about. How about you review your own sources. Read the product description. Next time you want to give a example about a successful business that does all their descriptions based on a good moral and ethical standpoint, please don't choose a business that is widely known in the the corporate world for being sly and conniving. I even cited specific parts of the video that explains why they are. Please don't link me a source where I can only access if i purchase the product, have you read the book? Please quote excerpts that backup your claims.

Do you have any evidence of this?

Did you not read my original post? I said once they release their annual reports I would read it too see how much of a profit gained in comparison to last year.

How so? To make this claim you would have to demonstrate a problem in my reasoning from the first paragraph of post #9 and the third paragraph of post #16. I'm still waiting for you to do that.

Again you seem to be completely oblivious to the points I have already said to your arguments. Are you not capable of apprehension? Let me refresh your memory.

Are you sure about that? Some players would indeed buy tons of extra ores for that purpose... but that number stays fairly constant. Once every hardcore upgrader has set aside that amount, iRO isn't going to sell more vs. a system that doesn't force people to buy extra ores as insurance. So yes, they might have scored some early sales, but in the meantime they're alienating all the people so put off by the whole thing that they decide they're satisfied with +7s or +4s. I'd say ultimately that is the chief determinant of sales rate.

How can the number stay consistent? Sure a player might usually +10 items with about 250 ores or so but then again there is time where it took a lot more. And Hardcore players are not going to risk somehow getting stuck back or +6 or lower. They are going to want to assure they are at a safe limit if they are running low to purchase more.

Like I said AGAIN. The staff doesn't care about alienating people that are just satisfied with +4s or +7s, because people that are already thinking like that are not the hardcore upgraders that the HD ores are targeting. Those "casual" people are what they are, casual, they are not going to spend more than they have to on something that they already deems satisfactory towards them. Even if they did buy HD ores they would only buy a small amount, and when they realize how hard it and expensive it is for them to get +10, they will never use the system again. Casual players don't care about +10 gears.

whether I'm bothered by spam bots is irrelevant. I made a post earlier on irowiki (too lazy to find it now) showing the very real recurring costs of continuing to do nothing. Not only does it reduce available resources, it opens the servers and others players to trivial yet effective denial of service attacks. It's only by sheer luck that very few people, if any, have shown interest in pursuing that. Hence I claim that it would help their bottom line and be in their best interests to close this hole. Why won't they do it then? I think they're just lazy.

Bots have been around since '03, They're annoying, yes. They drain resources, yes. Blah, blah, blah. Take a look at the United States, take a look at illegal immigrants. Apply it to your bot scenario.Uncanny how to separate worlds are troubled with the same dilemma. Blame kRO for creating this extremely tedious and annoying drop system. Bots hunts stuff people are too lazy to do themselves. Illegal immigrants do jobs that Americans refuse to do. Bots keep the prices materials and supplies cheap. Illegals make the food you and me buy at the super market at a affordable price. GMs don't make any REAL effort to get rid of bots. Government doesn't make and real effort to get rid of illegals.

GMs are not lazy, permanently getting rid of bot would cause huge inflation of prices, and with the drop system that is in iRO, it would be astronomical. When new players hit the market and see they have NO chance of ever affording anything, they will uninstall the game right away. If new players are welcomes in a relatively friendly market, that allows a higher chance of them being permanent players and in turn them buying from the Kafra Shop.

Bots have been here for 8 years, they are not going anywhere.

No, 4x battle manuals were a joke I conceived in response to red pirate banandas.

Why shouldn't they put in unlucky 4x battle manuals, though? It'd almost certainly lure the hardcore competitive players. Or ... perhaps it'd make them look too greedy? And perhaps that's not such a good idea for business?

Be careful of what you wish for. These were the same people that were considering god item buff scrolls over a lame suggestion from another player.

[Dukeares]

~_~ But even if u succeed in making 5 item (Shield,headgear,Amour,Hood and Shoes )to +10 that only give and overal - 10.5% bonus reduction damage ~~ Still kinder lame

I rather have them up the Bonus reduction ... or make it safe to upgrade to +10

Edited by Dukeares, 15 May 2011 - 11:56 PM.

[renouille]

Just stop. you didn't even explain anything to me, all you did was link me to a book about. How about you review your own sources. Read the product description. Next time you want to give a example about a successful business that does all their descriptions based on a good moral and ethical standpoint, please don't choose a business that is widely known in the the corporate world for being sly and conniving. I even cited specific parts of the video that explains why they are. Please don't link me a source where I can only access if i purchase the product, have you read the book? Please quote excerpts that backup your claims.

I didn't offer Wal-Mart as an example of such a business. Neither did the book, as far as the description reveals. It says some corporations are "undergoing" a "transformation." Subtle but crucial difference.

The book was published in 2009. Your video is dated 2004. A lot of things can change in five years.

You want an example of "a successful business that doesn't appear to have no purpose beyond profit"? Okay. How about the host of one of my servers, then? I've been with them for nearly four years. They've been doing business for much longer. I pay almost nothing for my service. All things considered, they're losing money by keeping me as a customer, yet they still go out of their way to make me happy, going far beyond what more costly providers would offer. They have nothing but glowing reviews. If they're motivated solely by profit, they've certainly fooled everyone, including me. And this is just one example that I was able to pluck effortlessly from personal experience. I don't understand how you can say that successful businesses have to focus only on profit. More importantly, I don't understand why you're making such a big deal out of this. All I'm saying is that a successful business doesn't have to look like it's only in it for the money.

Did you not read my original post? I said once they release their annual reports I would read it too see how much of a profit gained in comparison to last year.

Yes, I did read your posts. You are confused. Speculation is not evidence.

Put another way, you claim that Gravity shouldn't do anything differently because they're making plenty of money. Your "evidence" for their making plenty of money is, "I bet they're making plenty of money. Their annual report, which I haven't seen yet, would prove I'm right." Sorry. It doesn't work that way.

Again you seem to be completely oblivious to the points I have already said to your arguments. Are you not capable of apprehension? Let me refresh your memory.

Ahem. I asserted their profits probably wouldn't be negatively impacted by implementing my idea, and I provided a reason why. You asserted the contrary... but you didn't provide a reason, and you also didn't show a fault in my reasoning, or even address it at all. Given that, I don't think you should be so patronizing toward me.

How can the number stay consistent? Sure a player might usually +10 items with about 250 ores or so but then again there is time where it took a lot more. And Hardcore players are not going to risk somehow getting stuck back or +6 or lower. They are going to want to assure they are at a safe limit if they are running low to purchase more.

I've never denied that hardcore players would want to stockpile extra ores to reduce the probability of failure. In fact, I explicitly accounted for this every single time. Refer to what I wrote about "early sales" and "a fixed amount of quick cash."

Now tell me, what happens to the 100 ores they have remaining after they achieve their desired upgrade? Do they magically disappear and the player has to buy another 100 ores before starting on the next project? No! The player now has 100 less to buy next time (bolded because these words are copied verbatim from post #16). After buying 100 up front, each such player continues buying ores at the same rate regardless of whether Gravity does nothing or implements my idea. It follows that the income from casual players could eventually exceed the fixed "up front" costs paid by hardcore players.

Like I said AGAIN. The staff doesn't care about alienating people that are just satisfied with +4s or +7s, because people that are already thinking like that are not the hardcore upgraders that the HD ores are targeting. Those "casual" people are what they are, casual, they are not going to spend more than they have to on something that they already deems satisfactory towards them. Even if they did buy HD ores they would only buy a small amount, and when they realize how hard it and expensive it is for them to get +10, they will never use the system again. Casual players don't care about +10 gears.

I'm a casual player. I'm satisfied with the +4s and +7s I have. I would be more satisfied with higher +s, but I don't think the potential gains are worth the risk of running out or DCing. I can guarantee that if they made the system work as they say they intended, then I would be spending a lot more on this stuff. So already here is one counterexample.

I'm also keenly aware of how "hard" and "expensive" it is to obtain +10 gear because, you know, I did kill a few days coding the upgrade calculators linked in my sig.

Bots have been around since '03, They're annoying, yes. They drain resources, yes. Blah, blah, blah. Take a look at the United States, take a look at illegal immigrants. Apply it to your bot scenario.Uncanny how to separate worlds are troubled with the same dilemma. Blame kRO for creating this extremely tedious and annoying drop system. Bots hunts stuff people are too lazy to do themselves. Illegal immigrants do jobs that Americans refuse to do. Bots keep the prices materials and supplies cheap. Illegals make the food you and me buy at the super market at a affordable price. GMs don't make any REAL effort to get rid of bots. Government doesn't make and real effort to get rid of illegals.

GMs are not lazy, permanently getting rid of bot would cause huge inflation of prices, and with the drop system that is in iRO, it would be astronomical. When new players hit the market and see they have NO chance of ever affording anything, they will uninstall the game right away. If new players are welcomes in a relatively friendly market, that allows a higher chance of them being permanent players and in turn them buying from the Kafra Shop.

Bots have been here for 8 years, they are not going anywhere.

....
My bot scenario? Go back and search my posts for the word "bot." Other than one sentence addressing your claim that I was bothered by spam bots, you won't find it. Why do you think that is?
"Bots have been around since '03" irrelevant
"They're annoying, yes." irrelevant
"They drain resources, yes. Blah, blah, blah." irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant
I didn't say anything about bots in general, now, did I?
I was talking about a gaping security hole in Gravity's server software. Closing the hole would be good for them, good for their customers, and good for their income. It wouldn't eliminate the precious bots. Why, then, won't they fix it? Again, I think it's that they're lazy. I could talk about potentially devastating (unlike this one, which is a minor nuisance in comparison) bugs that were reported years ago but that they've refused to fix for the same reason, but I'd be censored pretty quickly. My point is this: they have a long and demonstrable history of <insert hackneyed idiom involving barn doors and horses>. So if they ultimately reject my idea (which is what I fully expect to happen), I would not be so quick to assume that it's because they've suddenly become geniuses in business management.

I'm sorry you wrote all of that for nothing.

Be careful of what you wish for. These were the same people that were considering god item buff scrolls over a lame suggestion from another player.

Nah. I would be greatly amused if they took up that idea.

[arsn89]

Alright, even though I knew this could have gone on forever 3 posts ago I'm just not even going to try anymore. You got your views, I got mined. There is still that risk of degrading your equipment to a unsafe point and having to use enriched elus to get it back to +7 If you don't manage carefully. Your script would indeed remove that risk. Like was said by Thyrial, the upgrade system is now horribly broken, it has already devalued a lot of gears and made high level gears more accessible.

I'll admit, I have +12 equips, I consider my self one of these hardcore upgraders, you stated your a casual. I am happy that gravity are alienating your demographic. You think I was happy when I made a +9 diablous boot/mant and a week later they implemented the HD ores? They created a new standard on hard to reach gears. I don't want +10 more easier to get when it is pretty much already a guarantee to people who are willing to throw down 70$ just to get it.

[AtlasThunderbeef]

Making +10 easier, without breaking items reduces the point of upgrading and makes upgraded gear less worth.

Even overupgraded KvM gear is considered less valuable now than before because of that.

I'm with arsn89 regarding this, won't go further into it though since you already discussed it.

[Heimdallr]

There is no way to save a variable that would know what your item was, what was compounded in it, and what its upgrade level was, and to keep updating it for every upgrade attempt. The game really isn't that complex to be able to handle things like that efficiently. Current mission is to eliminate the "I ran out of HD and didn't realize" scenario, if that is eliminated the acts of God and Internet can be dealt with by the CS team.

I am a bit torn, as I love the idea of players meeting their goals via planning and working and a bit less on "luck", but at the same time I know that a permanent 100% safe scenario on things like upgrading would have a lot of items accumulating in the market and not having any place to be consumed. If items were account bound on equip that issue would be mitigated a little, or if items were much much rarer. But both of those scenarios are not what RO has ever been, and could make the game boring as even less good stuff drops from hunting.

A "safe" system that is for permanent implementation would need to address those issues.

[AtlasThunderbeef]

Put in a safe system for upgrades kills upgrading.

The main source of money in upgrading comes from people overupgrading their gear, getting more gear to upgrade and it has a high risk.

It's a big like gambling. You spend money to gain more, but you have to be lucky or have lot's of money.


It boils down to that if you put in a safe system, overupgrading loses it's pull. For the many who overupgrade and sell that gear, they would reduce their spending, because it's not profitable anymore. Which means after they see "Safe system? OMG UPGRADE AND SELL" they would stop, because the market gets clogged. Just like when the hd ores got in.

You don't have to think far back, the hd ores.

When that came in we have havok at the upgraders. Tons of overupgraded gears crashed the market. You only needed one of each gear to get it +10.
Before renewal people spent hundreds of milions of zeny upgrading stuff. +8 gear was rare on valkyrie. +9 even more so.

Ultimately it's this:


Low player base: You can't have a safe system. There aren't enough players for everyone to get more, to spread it. There isn't enough zeny for that flowing around.

High player base: You could have a safe system. The player base allows for everyone to get their gear and upgrade it. One merchant selling 8 +7 gears would sell it out, and could continue. With the high player base and more people joining you could benefit from it.

In the end having a safe system would make the market clogged. When the server doesn't have much people joining, the buying of gears would stop. One wouldn't be able to sell because everyone already has their stuff upgraded. You said this yourself Heim.

High risk, high reward. That's the way it's been and it's worked great. The HD ore's shouldn't be a free ride to amazing-ness. It should be a "I gambled and I won".
Making things rarer wouldn't be a solution at all, as only a handful would farm said monster to get said gear. Then that would be overpriced and it would create another market crash.


Some things just shouldn't be easy mode, overupgrading used to be super hard but paid off if you had luck and persistence. Now you have it even easier, while we have a whole new level of upgrading, past +10 it's justified, but making it have no risk at all such as accounting for dc's, running out of ores and all that just makes it cheap and stupid.

Where's the prestige in making a +10 item if there's no risk of it? The only risk would be that you have to spend more money.

So don't make a "safe system".

[Ciler]

It's a big like gambling.

It's exactly like gambling, actually, it is gambling.

[renouille]

Alright, even though I knew this could have gone on forever 3 posts ago I'm just not even going to try anymore. You got your views, I got mined.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article467194.ece
Sorry... couldn't resist.

There is no way to save a variable that would know what your item was, what was compounded in it, and what its upgrade level was, and to keep updating it for every upgrade attempt. The game really isn't that complex to be able to handle things like that efficiently.

I wasn't sure about cards. I'm a bit surprised about item id and upgrade level though. NPCs like Brade in training grounds are able to tell what items you're wearing. (Yes, I know that's not quite the same as knowing which item was selected.) NPCs like Mighty Hammer are able to detect the upgrade level of your item and refuse to continue if it's not in a certain range, and this range has been adjusted in the past, suggesting that it's a scripting issue rather than an immutable built-in. (Yes, I know that's not quite the same as being able to save it to a persistent variable.)

Oh, well. It was worth a shot.

[Dukeares]

Where's the prestige in making a +10 item if there's no risk of it? The only risk would be that you have to spend more money.

So don't make a "safe system".

there still 10 more Upgrade needed to reach the Max Cap of +20,

[Heimdallr]

For the act of God scenario, that is what the CS team supports. For the "oops I ran out" we are trying to address that via the notice that you have x attempts remaining. If that proves to not be sufficient we may need to give some sort of upgrade that when your last attempts is almost what you would take to get back to +7, then you have an option to use the HDs + Enriched to get back to +7 automatically. Thus not paying attention makes it more expensive but at least you have an out to not hurt yourself. There are some flaws in the plan that would have to be worked out but it is in theory possible.

And about the variables, the game can recognize them on the server, so as long as the one "session" (ie your upgrading dialog) it can remember, but the moment it has to save that information permanently that is when the whole thing falls apart.

[renouille]

Where's the prestige in making a +10 item if there's no risk of it? The only risk would be that you have to spend more money.

The same can be said about an "unsafe" system. The only risk would be that you have to spend more money... and buy another item... which is spending more money.

(The real difference is the amount of money spent.)

Put in a safe system for upgrades kills upgrading.
...
So don't make a "safe system".

Depends on what you mean by "safe system."

If you object to their intention to have a "one time break chance" from +4 to +7 and no more breaking afterward, I can accept that. That's not the purpose of this topic, though. The purpose of this topic was to put forth a possibility they might have missed for moving closer to their stated intention.

I can also accept, "We would like to do X, but we're doing Y because it's the closest we can get." (as in Heim's post)

I cannot accept, "We would like to do X, but we're doing Y for unrelated/unproven reasons." (as in posts by various other parties)

[AtlasThunderbeef]

This isn't about what you can accept or not. This is fundamentally, what would kill the market or not.

Any safe system, be it one that saves your upgrade level with each attempt as a safety line, one that has no chance of breaking, one that "resets" your item to +7 again or any system that "guarantees" a +10 item will ultimately kill the market.

Making upgrading easier is great for the casual player in the small run and it kills the market in the long run.


Why was upgrading so rewarding before? It was because the risk was so high that when it paid off, you could earn a killing.
Having rare, overupgraded gear gave you an edge. With non-breakable upgrading systems that edge is greatly reduced.

Think of it as renewal and the exp tables. They enabled the players to broaden their exploration by leveling off many kinds of monsters.
However, in order to "force" that they took out the variation and challenge of leveling in high risk environments.

The same with upgrading. Removing the risk, or reducing it ultimately kills the aspect of it, as well as the market it has.
Why would someone spend money to upgrade something to sell, if there's no reward other than for yourself?


You have to think of the wider specter of use. If reducing risk on upgrading helps the casual, how will it effect the hardcore?

The hardcore spends more money than the casual, so the hardcore demographic is mor prominent from a business perspective.


Keeping the risk by not having safe systems like suggested and of course, other systems discussed by the gm team- encourages competition and keeps the ingame life rolling, as well as keeping a good cash flow for the cash shop.

[renouille]

This isn't about what you can accept or not. This is fundamentally, what would kill the market or not.

Yes. Obviously it's not about which game management decisions are acceptable to me. It's about what arguments I will accept as valid against the proposition that doing such and such would move them "closer to their stated intention."

So:
"this is as close as we can get" -> valid
"they'll make more money if they don't do it" -> invalid

It's also not about what would kill the market. If you think that what they said they wanted to do is undesirable, then your problem is with them, not me.

[AtlasThunderbeef]

It's really not in your favor if you keep validating for yourself whether or not a post is good for your idea.
Understanding those with content going against your idea is just as important.

Now I make a lot of suggestions so I know this, many of my posts and threads I spend time on to make them good, but they're not all good regardless. It looks like you spent so much time on yours, you have to find some way to make it useful.

I'm also one of those that did spend a lot of money, zeny and time upgrading to sell, getting to know others who do and how it affects the market.

But having a safe system in will ruin an aspect of the game and while it won't do much to the average joe it will damage the ones who work for it in a high risk setting.

So it is very much about killing the market or not and I already explained this. If it weren't important I wouldn't have talked about it.

If the market crashes players become unhappy, unhappy players won't buy kafrapoints if there's no profit they can make out of it.
So the main thing I'm trying to convey is that:

If a safe system is put in, a market will crash, while average casual-joe gets a small boost a big revenue is lost both from a player view and gm view. This leads to unhappy players and unhappy gm's.


I'm repeating myself now.

Understanding all sides of your idea leads to you understanding the flaws of it.
The gm's are the same as us, they don't uderstand everything either and I bet marketing isn't in the top of the grade list over at the offices of Gravity. And let's face it, if they had someone that was good at marketingand knew the game, they would have advertised cleverly and found more ways than the now standard "everythings's viral now! Make a facebook page! That's where we have to push on marketing!".

I don't have a problem with you or anyone, and would like for you to see that there's more to it than what you think.


(edit: typing with a phone, taking out typos, sorry)

Edited by AtlasThunderbeef, 16 May 2011 - 04:44 PM.

[renouille]

Note: From now on I'm going to assume "safe system" refers to http://forums.irowik...186&postcount=6.

It's really not in your favor if you keep validating for yourself whether or not a post is good for your idea.

I don't care about whether something is "good" for my idea. I care about whether it's true and relevant.

Understanding those with content going against your idea is just as important.

Now I make a lot of suggestions so I know this, many of my posts and threads I spend time on to make them good, but they're not all good regardless.

It looks like you spent so much time on yours, you have to find some way to make it useful.

I spent a few minutes typing it up. I spent much more time responding to numerous posts that completely missed the point. Thankfully, the commotion succeeded in prompting an official response.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm trying to make it useful at any cost. Heim already said it was impossible, so I consider the matter closed.

You seem to be thinking still that the "safe system" was my idea. It's not. That was their idea. My idea was only a means to implement it (with some limitations)--nothing more.

I did dismiss some invalid criticisms against their idea, most notably the "less waste -> lower profits" argument. That does not mean I believe there are no problems with it. You can say that their idea, if implemented more faithfully, would ruin the game; and that is debatable*, but even if it is true, it doesn't contradict anything I've said.


* Question: Do you consider what we have now to be a "safe system"?

I'm not convinced that going from "now" to "safe system" would lead to the end of RO as we know it. Sure, it would draw more people into upgrading, but I don't see it significantly increasing success rates or making it "easier" to upgrade.

As far as my personal opinion is concerned, I much preferred the old "+7 -> +6 = you're SOL" over what we have now with the continuing dialogue nonsense. So please don't think that I'm in favor of a safe system.