79 replies to this topic

[noctorious]

It's no surprise Gravity can't straighten out this kafra shop issue, look at Sony. A big company that has so many resources, yet they make some of the dumbest marketing choices. The reason is that they function remotely from their targeted customers. Gravity can and should take advantage of the community's input, found RIGHT HERE in this forum. Either they're not reading what we say because they're scattered in too many different posts (okay, so maybe we need to use a dedicated official thread for economic suggestions), or they probably just don't care if the game dies as long as they milk as many $$'s as they can get in the process. EDIT: I do doubt the latter.

Edited by noctorious, 28 December 2011 - 12:18 AM.

[JStoneheart]

To be honest, economy would fix if:

1) You, heimdall, or any other person in charge of it encrypted this game's packets so bots can't log in, like a lot of private servers do.

2) After that, allow monsters to drop zeny so new players can have a zeny income without having to rely merely on drops that normally have a really low NPC value and/or increase the price of high-level regular drops when selling them to NPC's (seriously, how can a normal drop from a Lv 130 monster be sold to a NPC at the same price as a Lv 30 monster normal drop?)

3) Make EVERY loot useful for something useful! I mean, allow stuff to be made out of some other stuff, like when you trade 5 rough ori/elu for 1 ori/elu, well... or something like "creating an armor/weapon with 1000 worm peeling and 1000 garlet", that way, if you have no money to get a piece of gear that would normally be really expensive for your level, you'd be at least sure that you would be making out something useful for yourself or you'd be able to sell materials to someone else who need's them (but eden gear already killed this possibility, making low level gears worthless). This could be also needless if bots were removed. If bots were removed, new and eager players would be excited to farm stems, fabrics, immortal hearts, etc. while they level up, because they'd know for sure they'll have an income and economy would flow.

4) Stop selling OP gear and unbalancing items with KP!!! Kafra store SHOULD BE limited to consumables like potions, gwings, small exp boosters, COSMETIC gear and maybe rental gear like you were doing at the begining. Giving players the chance to get to 150/50, full geared, right away, kills EVERY possible thing that could motivate a new player to both play, stay and remain in the game.

After playing this game for 5 months, having a hard time playing without VIP for 3 months up to my 120 lv, and 2 VIP months I got as a gift (I really didn't need to be 150 right away, I took my time), getting my WoE gear up to +9 (except variants, that'd be retarded) thanks to the facilitations heim gave to eager-to-waste-money-right-away players (I have never spent a dollar on my own By the way, since iRO is too easy to play I really didn't need to do it), I no longer find any motivation to play except WoE's. (and I'm considering taking a really long break, this game is losing it's excitement for me since farming is pointless and economy is broken, I can't compete with bots and/or god geared MVP farmers).

I don't know but iRO could learn a couple of things about keeping an in-game's economy balance and a $game store$ without killing each other from Lineage 2. (which I would be playing if my computer weren't a netbook and could run those graphics)

Let me tell you a story:

"Once, a farmer lived in a village. He was very poor. His income was very small. He passed his days with difficulty. One day, someone gave him a hen. It gave a golden egg every day.

He sold the egg every day. Soon he became a rich man. All began to respect him in the village. He became greedy. He thought that inside the hen there must be a storehouse of golden eggs. He should get them in a day.

Then he would be the richest man in the village. He took a knife and cut the stomach of the hen. He did not get even a single egg. He lost not only the golden eggs but the hen also."

Moral: Greed is a curse.

Edited by JStoneheart, 28 December 2011 - 01:12 AM.

[Xellie]

Second scenario would be perfect to take gear out of circulation. First scenario would provide some use to useless gear. Why not implement both?

second only, because with the first option I have a lot of Jacket [1] and Chainmail [1] I'd like to get rid of.

[Heimdallr]

Heh I worked out a formula for "perfect" upgrades using the 4 elu + 1 "gear" + 1 HD per gear needed. So basically 2 +4 Cotton Shirts with 1 HD could combine to make a +5 Cotton Shirt 2 +5s and 3 HDs to make a +6.

Basically it all worked fine with that doubling until about +9, when it was 300 elu 60 HD and 64 Gears to basically get a +10 guaranteed,

yes that would sap a lot of items from the game but it can't be carried in one shot, and the game is not smart enough to know what + level something is unless its equipped. So I can't do the check of I have a +7 worn and a +7 in my inventory eat both and my HD to give me a +8. If it did do that we would probably do something amusing with that "consumption" value.

What non-headgear have we sold in the Kafra shop that can't be bettered in-game if we didn't sell headgears and upgrade betterment items, we would be short about 50% of our needed revenue to stay opened, if sales were better, less aggressive shop tactics would be used. We have not even plumbed the depths of selling in-game items, there are hundreds of "packs" that have in-game gear/cards directly purchasable used to just cut your hunt time to the time it takes to buy them in the kafra shop. We have not gone that route as a default, we sacrificed sales potential for what our customer base has told us they don't want. We sell upgrades, we make it cheaper than other versions, and more available so you can use the ingame gear and not just buy a +7 straight away.


Many of you find the idea that it has even being considered as distasteful, and I can understand that as a game purist, but it is my job very specifically to have contingencies and plans for when it is necessary. Just like Batman had a plan to kill everyone in the Justice League for "just in case" we also have plans for "just in case". I do want to see a balance where you are satisfied with your in-game rewards and play and still want to spend some bucks every month for more enjoyment. Obviously not all of you think we are at that point thus are stating your feelings about it.

[Xellie]

Heh I worked out a formula for "perfect" upgrades using the 4 elu + 1 "gear" + 1 HD per gear needed. So basically 2 +4 Cotton Shirts with 1 HD could combine to make a +5 Cotton Shirt 2 +5s and 3 HDs to make a +6.

Basically it all worked fine with that doubling until about +9, when it was 300 elu 60 HD and 64 Gears to basically get a +10 guaranteed,

yes that would sap a lot of items from the game but it can't be carried in one shot, and the game is not smart enough to know what + level something is unless its equipped. So I can't do the check of I have a +7 worn and a +7 in my inventory eat both and my HD to give me a +8. If it did do that we would probably do something amusing with that "consumption" value.

What non-headgear have we sold in the Kafra shop that can't be bettered in-game if we didn't sell headgears and upgrade betterment items, we would be short about 50% of our needed revenue to stay opened, if sales were better, less aggressive shop tactics would be used. We have not even plumbed the depths of selling in-game items, there are hundreds of "packs" that have in-game gear/cards directly purchasable used to just cut your hunt time to the time it takes to buy them in the kafra shop. We have not gone that route as a default, we sacrificed sales potential for what our customer base has told us they don't want. We sell upgrades, we make it cheaper than other versions, and more available so you can use the ingame gear and not just buy a +7 straight away.


Many of you find the idea that it has even being considered as distasteful, and I can understand that as a game purist, but it is my job very specifically to have contingencies and plans for when it is necessary. Just like Batman had a plan to kill everyone in the Justice League for "just in case" we also have plans for "just in case". I do want to see a balance where you are satisfied with your in-game rewards and play and still want to spend some bucks every month for more enjoyment. Obviously not all of you think we are at that point thus are stating your feelings about it.

Well instead of items that can't all be carried at once, exchange them for a stackable points item. Solved it!

have the check for the number of "points" / Ores checked at the upgrade level at the NPC (like mighty hammer can discriminate +7 from +4).

Edited by Xellie, 28 December 2011 - 09:56 AM.