1. Increase Weight so at least in WoE they are less likely to have hundreds on them. It also brings them in parity to the Yggdrasil Seeds that they were meant to mimic.
Yes, weight should have been increased long ago. This is a very powerful item and the weight should properly reflect that, as it already does on Yggs (as you've pointed out).
2. Account bound : In the short term this is to get them trapped so we can deal with farmers. in the long run it makes them a seasonal sale, so in March and maybe September we can do Green Ale events where they are tradable and those that participate in those seasons get ahead.
The only problem with this is that people can still sell them, thus giving an incentive to keep farming them, you're merely limiting the period during which they can be sold. Personally, I'd go all or nothing. Make them non-tradeable, PERIOD. OR go with your idea number 4 below. If you make them non-tradeable completely, increase the selling window to 6 weeks, so people can completely unload any excess ales, and to be fair to people who've acquired them legitimately.
3. Disable the St Patricks Hat : This was considered, but since the hat was upgraded it causes problems with compensation with debuffing a hat, and truly punishes everyone.
Well... It
should have been disabled back when the St Patty's event ended, but it wasn't, so now it's too late for this option. Can't change the past.
4. Adding a long reuse delay on Green Ales, this wouuld only affect the WoE usage and their value a little bit but wouldn't stop farms from profitting.
This one sounds good. If I could choose only one idea, then it'd probably be this one. 10-15 seconds. Raise the delay on the Yggs too. All those items that restore a percentage need to be used in only the most dire of situations. They're very much overused right now, and allow people to survive who, frankly, have no business surviving. The spamming needs to end.
In teh early days of WoE (prerenewal, but especially the good days of 2004-2005), you didn't get people running around surviving everything thrown at them. People dropped, and they dropped hard. It's a war and people are supposed to die in it. That said, in those days we didn't have third classers where almost every single person has a one-shot or two-shot kill attack. Hopefully the ongoing balances will help with this...
Also, raise the power of normal potions and also heal skills. Part of the problem is that those are a bit underpowered, practically forcing people to rely on OP items to live long enough to make a difference in battle.
5. Deleting all the Green Ales in the game, and then make sure that farming locations are not efficient. I know this would stop the issue temporarily at the cost of considerable community backlash (I know I'd be P.O.ed).
I'm pretty sure deletion would cause a number of people to quit. It's a bit extreme so let's rule that one out right now.
The second part of your idea, of making the farming locations inefficient, that's still good and should be implemented ASAP. Also, find a way to prevent people from accessing maps they're not supposed to, via old memos. Don't yet know the best way to do this, but it should be done.
Edited by Dreimdal, 01 November 2011 - 08:40 PM.