I don't think Arcane Legend is as Fun as the old days!

[Pillowhead]

S3, I was twinking as a lvl 11, I had 65dmg, 1.1k health, 495 mana, with bonechill set, malison as pet, all that for around 200-400k gold, nowadays twinks at lvl 11 have like 120dmg, 1.6k hp, 1k mana, all that for around 4m + pet money.

[SacredKnight]

PvP hasn't been fun since Arcane and Mythics were released as fast as locks were popped TBH :/

[Kingofninjas]

I do agree that the best gear is too OP. The best pets are not actually that OP. If you compare an arcane pet to a mythic or top legendary pet, there are plenty of good legendary PvP pets like Breeze that can be obtained for 10% of the cost of an arcane pet.

But items like the Arcane ring are too OP. IMO the best gear only needs to be slightly better than the next best gear and it will still command a premium price, but maybe not 50m premium, which is fine. I can remember in Pocket Legends when people used to pay $20m for a dragon vanity set because it gave them a bonus of a few stat points, not hundreds. Players will always pay a premium for any advantage they can get, no matter how small, because what else is there to do with your gold?

The solution is to keep the arcane gear very rare, but also don't make it so OP that you need it to compete. It should clearly give an advantage, but not a ridiculous one. For example, the Elondrian Rifle does not need to have 90 more damage than the Expedition Rifle. If the difference was 30 damage, it would still be well worth the price.

The difference between gear is ridiculous. Arcane ring adds about 300 (ish) hp, 170 armor, and a whopping 30-40 damage over the next best, which is the mythic ring. The elond bow adds about 80 damage over expedition bow. Imbued set (potency armor/ brutality helm) adds 200 ish armor (on rogue) and about 10 damage. I won't even get into what all the OP gems have done to the balance between rich and poor.

Pets like nekro and sns ridiculous as well. A nekro user must be incredibly bad or in the process of pinging out to lose to a player without one. A team of 3/4 sns players can dominate timed runs (except arena).

The next level cap provides a great opportunity to fix some of this. Introduce a lvl 46 mythic ring that we have been screaming for for ages. It should surpass the arcane ring, but it should come pretty damn close. Introduce pets to counter nekro and sns, or a pet that has a similar but no so powerful AA as them. I would love a pet that can remove any buffs to opponent team, the way misty or iron bite removes the debuffs. Make the cost 1000 fragments idc, just make it attainable thru something other than luck.

The gear gaps should be limited to a maximum of 300 hp 150-200 armor and 30 damage between a legendary and a mythic user.

[Wazakesy]

The difference between gear is ridiculous. Arcane ring adds about 300 (ish) hp, 170 armor, and a whopping 30-40 damage over the next best, which is the mythic ring. The elond bow adds about 80 damage over expedition bow. Imbued set (potency armor/ brutality helm) adds 200 ish armor (on rogue) and about 10 damage. I won't even get into what all the OP gems have done to the balance between rich and poor.

Pets like nekro and sns ridiculous as well. A nekro user must be incredibly bad or in the process of pinging out to lose to a player without one. A team of 3/4 sns players can dominate timed runs (except arena).

The next level cap provides a great opportunity to fix some of this. Introduce a lvl 46 mythic ring that we have been screaming for for ages. It should surpass the arcane ring, but it should come pretty damn close. Introduce pets to counter nekro and sns, or a pet that has a similar but no so powerful AA as them. I would love a pet that can remove any buffs to opponent team, the way misty or iron bite removes the debuffs. Make the cost 1000 fragments idc, just make it attainable thru something other than luck.

The gear gaps should be limited to a maximum of 300 hp 150-200 armor and 30 damage between a legendary and a mythic user.

The mythic ring being better than the arcane ring sounds OK, but it should be 10000% farmable, popping locks the most ridiculous idea.

Sure u could add in locks, but remember that the gap between the poor vs riches increases the ridiculousness of PvP. If you farm, its much much much more better, at least people can get a chance to actually obtain it including the F2P players. From my lock poppin experience, it seems ill need to pop another 1000 more to even get a arcane that is as low as an HJ.

I am tired of soloing maps, as i find that no one wants to farm. It feels so ridiculous that the game is now all about ,oney, gears, wrecking each other in PvP, always hunting for advantages. This game is wrecked, its not like people want fun anymore, it just seems that you want to be rich and beat everyone...thats what i am seeing ever since i came back.

[Kriticality]

There is a lot of representation from f2p players. What advantages should the people that keep sts afloat have over the people that enjoy the game and don't spend money. I have no issue with farming. I actually looted my second recipe today at ~1000 arena runs. I would never spend money, especially the amount I've spent without some obvious advantage.
As I said in another thread... Any ring that's better than arcane ring will have the drop rate of arcane shard in elite dragon scale chest if it's farmable. The gear gap will become wider. If anyone is paying attention, it's the same people with the best gear. Anything that comes out better will be well out of the price range for anyone not lucky enough to loot. That's assuming it's lootable. There are ways to farm imbued and planar and people are still focused on arcane ring.

Notice the difficulty of Planar recipe for a mythic pendant 10 levels after the previous mythic pendant and imagine the drop rate of something 5 levels after an ARCANE ring.

More op gear means more of an imbalance. Everyone was excited about Planar pendant until they didn't loot and can't afford to buy.

I don't have issue with things being farmable but people that spend money should have a real incentive to do so.

Mythic set users from 2+ years ago should not be able to leap frog the people that put in work or spent money for imbued sets.

I see nekro and I think "man, I want one. I'm gonna figure out how to get one."

Most people say it's too op. I say rise to the occasion. Farm, spend money, figure it out. Or don't and twink. Always assume the gear you have will be obsolete in 6 mos to a year.

[Serancha]

The original premise of the game was that you could get ALL items with a reasonable amount of work by farming. The advantage plat gave was supposed to be expediting the process so you could get items a bit faster.

This did NOT mean that the items had to be purchased by plat people who would then sell it on the cs. That is not how it was originally, nor should it have ever turned to that. It meant you could farm for any item you wanted, and could actually expect that one day you could obtain it with hard work.

The drop rates for farming any decent items are now so low that it's laughable. So what's the incentive to play?

[Ravager]

From a complete PVP noob's perspective:

CTF sucks. I mean SUCKS. You encounter people either furiously intent on flagging or people who will stay and kill if you look like "foods" or who will leave if they see someone who may present a challenge. Your own damn team won't support you (if you have the flag) because they are too busy blocking or because they want the flag, and the other team will mercilessly farm anyone noobish provided it doesn't interfere with their own flagging. I'm not a quitter, I have a terrible, TERRIBLE kdr lol because I'll try and stick it out a bit. But now I won't do CTF because it's as fun and enjoyable as going to the dentist without pain relief.

TDM is much better (I'm almost even on kills and deaths there), but still prone to ganging, and uber-geared people being big cry babies and leaving if someone kills them, if they're not murdering the sorcerer with epic gear and Barney repeatedly. \

The thing is, short of removing the incentives for this behaviour (APs and LBs, which would spark a massive outcry), it is never gonna stop unless the AL community self-regulates and cleans itself up. But this will never happen either because many people are a**holes without honour or a sense of fairplay. Witness the number of people who join the team that already has 3 people on it, not the team with 1 person.

So for me PVP remains an intriguing yet extremely irritating diversion that I visit when I'm bored of farming PVE just to remind myself how terrible it is. The only thing I can think of that may help is having practice areas (perhaps in guild halls) where deaths don't count and people can learn the ropes without farming deaths; geared/skilled players would more inclined to fight fair and teach others in a no-death area because they have nothing to lose; their precious KDR remains intact.

It's the sad truth about CTF. They just want the flag. Will call to gang and block if you attack the flagger. Your teammates sit there to watch you get ganged.

Everyone who enters CTF, expects you to enter ctf and stand in the middle if you are not flagging. If you attack someone, they take it personally. So you're supposed to stand in the middle and not attack anyone and watch the flaggers flag. This to me, greatly ruins the PVP experience.

Ironically, I know some people who free flagged their whole way or maybe even captured all their flags to 10k flags and then quit the game because they had nothing to do afterwards.

[Zylx]

The drop rates for farming any decent items are now so low that it's laughable. So what's the incentive to play?

There will never be a perfect drop rate that would satisfy players AND stabilize the economy.

Increasing drop rates:
- Decreases economic value
- Decreases demand
- Increases satisfaction for lower-class players
- Decreases satisfaction for upper-class players

Decreasing drop rates:
- Increases economic value
- Increases demand
- Decreases satisfaction for lower-class players
- Increases satisfaction for upper-class players

So basically adding incentives ruins the economy which also lowers long-term satisfaction. It kicks up the drive to play for a limited amount of time until the supply overlaps the demand. The only way to counteract this would be to release new and better items more frequently to raise the demand before the current items expire or fall short of the curve.

The drop rates are low because STS wants to preserve the longevity of the items, because they don't want to have to release new items more often. I find this as a good idea to an extent that has already been overexecuted. STS should release new items more often to increase interest and they would also have more elbow-room to have higher drop rates.

[Kriticality]

The original premise of the game was that you could get ALL items with a reasonable amount of work by farming. The advantage plat gave was supposed to be expediting the process so you could get items a bit faster.

This did NOT mean that the items had to be purchased by plat people who would then sell it on the cs. That is not how it was originally, nor should it have ever turned to that. It meant you could farm for any item you wanted, and could actually expect that one day you could obtain it with hard work.

The drop rates for farming any decent items are now so low that it's laughable. So what's the incentive to play?

I wasn't around then. This is clearly before mythic weapons, armor and amulets. I only started playing last october so idk. As far as I know, none of the mythics in crates were available from farming and hard work. You don't need arcane ring to be successful in PVP. You can farm until you loot or can buy imbued and same can be said about planar. I know there are some mythic pets that are sometimes purchaseable by plat, but this idea you speak of applies to all arcane pets as well. Were they ever farmable?

[Ladysophie]

It gives 170 armor. Here's a ss for reference

Attachment 129417

Lol what is this, a rogue or a war.

[Serancha]

There will never be a perfect drop rate that would satisfy players AND stabilize the economy.

Increasing drop rates:
- Decreases economic value
- Decreases demand
- Increases satisfaction for lower-class players
- Decreases satisfaction for upper-class players

Decreasing drop rates:
- Increases economic value
- Increases demand
- Decreases satisfaction for lower-class players
- Increases satisfaction for upper-class players

So basically adding incentives ruins the economy which also lowers long-term satisfaction. It kicks up the drive to play for a limited amount of time until the supply overlaps the demand. The only way to counteract this would be to release new and better items more frequently to raise the demand before the current items expire or fall short of the curve.

The drop rates are low because STS wants to preserve the longevity of the items, because they don't want to have to release new items more often. I find this as a good idea to an extent that has already been overexecuted. STS should release new items more often to increase interest and they would also have more elbow-room to have higher drop rates.

We're talking about the difference between rare, ridiculous and impossible.


Rare:
I have run arena 600+ times and only seen one recipe drop, and that was for someone else.

Ridiculous:
In approximately 300 planar tombs runs, I have looted exactly 2 planar tombs chests. These chests contain one item, and there is a 4% chance of a dark armour inside that can be crafted into imbued. ALL other loot in those chests is worth maybe 10 gold tops.

Neither of the above situations are unusual as far as drop rates per number of runs.

Impossible
We have heard in another thread, of over 20,000 arena chests opened and not one single fossil.

[Alhuntrazeck]

The original premise of the game was that you could get ALL items with a reasonable amount of work by farming. The advantage plat gave was supposed to be expediting the process so you could get items a bit faster.

This did NOT mean that the items had to be purchased by plat people who would then sell it on the cs. That is not how it was originally, nor should it have ever turned to that. It meant you could farm for any item you wanted, and could actually expect that one day you could obtain it with hard work.

The drop rates for farming any decent items are now so low that it's laughable. So what's the incentive to play?

I wasn't around then. This is clearly before mythic weapons, armor and amulets. I only started playing last october so idk. As far as I know, none of the mythics in crates were available from farming and hard work. You don't need arcane ring to be successful in PVP. You can farm until you loot or can buy imbued and same can be said about planar. I know there are some mythic pets that are sometimes purchaseable by plat, but this idea you speak of applies to all arcane pets as well. Were they ever farmable?

The game was actually far different 2 years ago. There were no crates, no mythics, no arcanes. The best gear was legendary and completely attainable if you worked for it. The old cap was 1M. Then STS introduced the Locked Crates which were a way for people to get things they could already farm for with plat. Which was fine.

But these crates were a big flop and sold for about 500G each. So STS then added the first mythic item, the mythic helm, and the Arcane Hooks. This of course got plenty of people to open crates because the above could not be looted anywhere else in the game besides elite chests, and those chests were so rare and the possibility of looting something was so low it was impractical.

IMO, the first mistake was to add exclusive item like the first arcane pet - Hammerjaw. Locked prices increased, people continued to pop crates, and STS was satisfied.

Now HJ was not as game changing as, say, Nekro was. And however much you argue about it, the only viable way of getting a fossil is through a crate. Hence began the P2W era, going on from HJ to Glacian to Whim Brothers to Samael to Singe to Nekro...and the cycle will only continue unless its firmly stopped.

People who pay have the right to have an easy way to getting what they want. Not to be the only people to get it. There is no way for a regular person to get maxed without spending plat. Is it just me, or is this screwed up?

[Zylx]

There will never be a perfect drop rate that would satisfy players AND stabilize the economy.

Increasing drop rates:
- Decreases economic value
- Decreases demand
- Increases satisfaction for lower-class players
- Decreases satisfaction for upper-class players

Decreasing drop rates:
- Increases economic value
- Increases demand
- Decreases satisfaction for lower-class players
- Increases satisfaction for upper-class players

So basically adding incentives ruins the economy which also lowers long-term satisfaction. It kicks up the drive to play for a limited amount of time until the supply overlaps the demand. The only way to counteract this would be to release new and better items more frequently to raise the demand before the current items expire or fall short of the curve.

The drop rates are low because STS wants to preserve the longevity of the items, because they don't want to have to release new items more often. I find this as a good idea to an extent that has already been overexecuted. STS should release new items more often to increase interest and they would also have more elbow-room to have higher drop rates.

We're talking about the difference between rare, ridiculous and impossible.


Rare:
I have run arena 600+ times and only seen one recipe drop, and that was for someone else.

Ridiculous:
In approximately 300 planar tombs runs, I have looted exactly 2 planar tombs chests. These chests contain one item, and there is a 4% chance of a dark armour inside that can be crafted into imbued. ALL other loot in those chests is worth maybe 10 gold tops.

Neither of the above situations are unusual as far as drop rates per number of runs.

Impossible
We have heard in another thread, of over 20,000 arena chests opened and not one single fossil.

I agree that some items should have their rates increased, but with STS's seemingly lack of attention towards updating their itemization, the items would become near worthless before STS releases something to replace them. Much like the Tindirin Elite Legendaries, which are not even worth the time to farm for. STS needs to up the drop rates and be ready to release better incarnations of the items to prevent the economy from collapsing on itself and avoid disinteresting the players.

[Unhinqed]

Do you guys miss the old days?

PVP is boring no more rivalry.. less pro players... meh

Here is how AL will be revived...

When they put a new god dang class to play, in the game.

[suckyiknow]

Is a mod gonna check this thread out?

[ueveotadeo]

I agree that some items should have their rates increased, but with STS's seemingly lack of attention towards updating their itemization, the items would become near worthless before STS releases something to replace them. Much like the Tindirin Elite Legendaries, which are not even worth the time to farm for. STS needs to up the drop rates and be ready to release better incarnations of the items to prevent the economy from collapsing on itself and avoid disinteresting the players.

That is imho one of the biggest mistakes by STS. Let's be honest here, AL game play is quite simple, skill tree nonexistent so if you bother to read forums to see what each stats means you will have an overall understanding of game mechanics, which in AL case, is not that complex (appart of the buff/debuff system that really should be reviewed).

Now, I'm not saying that we don't have skilled players. I had the pleasure of running with some of them. What I'm saying, specially in PVP, is that Gear >>>>>> skills and as Alhuntrazeck said, best gear can be acquired by poping lockeds. No real skills involved, much less to use the acquired gear, which in turns leads us on how to control gear longevity/rarity and the only answer for that, taking in consideration how things work right now, is by increase/decrease drop rate.

Now I'll talk about my experience in game and I'll probably start with a very controversial theme that is item rarity. I never understood the need of some players in keep asking for things to stay "rare". I agree that some items should be more exclusive, but exclusive right now is having a bigger bank account. Imo Gear should give you a little bit of advantage on hardest maps, shouldn't be a game changing factor like it is right now.
Also, I never understood this "pro" concept that goes around this GAME, you can see that I said GAME, coz in the end it is just a GAME, you play to have fun, and to be considered a PRO right now, you just need gear. That is what, imo, is killing the game, jealousy to be the only one having an item, call me stupid but I dont see the point.

Coming back a little to the topic, why game is not fun? Because is everything about gears and "KDRs".

-CTF: Well, carmine_blade and Ravager already explained how pointless it is right now to go there.

-KDR: How many time the "pros" of PVP stay when the fight is balanced? when gear on both sides are at same level and you have to put some effort into it?

-Gears: the need for exclusiveness, the jealousy it is just sickening. Also all the work on new maps for new gears it is really unnecessary imo. We have a lot of "abbandoned" maps, something as simple as scaling those other elite maps to current lvl cap and adding a somewhat big questline that rewards you a new gear seems so simple. No need to spend months planing new maps, we got plenty of maps, we need items to farm. Please note when I say those things I mean to really reward people, not a really small chance to drop something that has an even smaller chance of having a good item inside.

Lately all updates have been about getting us into spending plats. Pets crates, 2x arcane chance. I mean, from january to september/october last year I dont remember having a 2x arcane/mythic drop rate. From october/november to january/february how many we got?

As Serancha said, the premise game was built on was that if you worked a little bit more, you could farm everything you need. By working harder you would develop your skills. So a win-win scenario. Right now you just need 1h a good credit card and some luck.

Also, by not making a somewhat more complex skill tree with more options I think STS moves on how to improve/balance things are way too limited. It is all about gears, weel, just my 2 cents.

[epicrrr]

@topic which is about the old days not rich-poor gap.

Rivalry means more trashtalking means more player with poisonous attitude and ego problem, isnt that what happened to level 41 a supposed model bracket for everyone but because of "rivalry" everyone started acting bad and the demons in their hearts were let loose that gives you a glimpse how bad mankind can be. Hence a couple of really bad issue resulting in a lot of player being banned from rival guild.

Why would anyone miss that?

[raw]

This thread is TL;DR, but the few responses I did read really stuck a chord for me. I'll tell you a little about my experience as it has changed over time.

I started playing AL back in s1 a mage who figured out the game pretty quickly, and started farming elite maps. I wasn't great or rich, but I was really enjoying playing. My goal was to buy a mighty flamestrike which cost about 100k at the time, and with a lot of hard work I was able to buy that item which was the best mage weapon at the time.

Point being, the way this game has changed from f2p to p2p is truly disappointing. But at the end of the day, I think we all realize that STS is a business, and understand that they have to find a way to make money off of all their hard work. What I expected, however, was for them to take that money and continuously improve the game's graphics, skill system, quest lines, skill trees, etc. But rather, we've seen that money go towards additional content (which is definitely still exciting, just not what the game needs). Fast forward to 2+ years later, and what we have is a game that has had layers upon layers of expansions built onto a shaky foundation.

The culture has changed completely. In s1 whenever I saw a maxed geared player I knew that this player had worked hard and achieved a commensurate reward for that farming. Now, when I see a fully maxed player (nekro/sns, imbued, arc ring) I just think to myself - by default - that they spent thousands of dollars on plat. The way people act in PvP (comparing s2/3/4 to s7) is insanely different. Back in the earlier seasons players didn't trash talk nearly the same amount as they do now. The PvP atmosphere is honestly unhealthy for anyone who stays in there too long. Just look at the CTF lb. If you sift past the kill farmers you'll notice that many of the top players have quit. Demonassa, Predladen, Xgra, etc.

Now that I've stated the obvious, lets look at potential ways that STG can rebound from years of allowing Arcane Legends to be their cash cow.

- First, see http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...armers-a-bone-!!!! for suggestions on how to improve farming in-game. If you didn't click the link, basically this thread proposes ways to make farming more profitable by increasing gold loot from bosses
- Next, implement seasonal leaderboards
- Scale all elite maps to level 41
- Buff Scorch!
- Buff tank skills in PvE
- Correct skills so they all work as intended (CS not stopping windups, Nox damage being 15% less instead of more, SSS not aiming properly, glitched Shadow Pierce damage, etc...)
- Actually ban people for using profanity, & kill farming
- Increase moderator interaction with the game by hiring interns from your local university (University of Texas @ Austin)
- Decrease the gear gap by introducing strong gear next season that's targeted towards the "middle class"
- Update the graphics of player classes (rogues, tanks, mages).
- Incorporate a new quest line into older maps
- Buff drop rate from .000001% to like .1% (which works out to 1/1000) for fossil in arena. I GUARANTEE by doing this, you will increase the amount of players that run Arena by a significant amount, which would increase elixir and ankh sales, making you more money overall than keeping it as is
- Revamp rewards for hauntlet

If some of these things are done, the "good old days" will be back.

[Bellaelda]

This thread is TL;DR, but the few responses I did read really stuck a chord for me. I'll tell you a little about my experience as it has changed over time.

I started playing AL back in s1 a mage who figured out the game pretty quickly, and started farming elite maps. I wasn't great or rich, but I was really enjoying playing. My goal was to buy a mighty flamestrike which cost about 100k at the time, and with a lot of hard work I was able to buy that item which was the best mage weapon at the time.

Point being, the way this game has changed from f2p to p2p is truly disappointing. But at the end of the day, I think we all realize that STS is a business, and understand that they have to find a way to make money off of all their hard work. What I expected, however, was for them to take that money and continuously improve the game's graphics, skill system, quest lines, skill trees, etc. But rather, we've seen that money go towards additional content (which is definitely still exciting, just not what the game needs). Fast forward to 2+ years later, and what we have is a game that has had layers upon layers of expansions built onto a shaky foundation.

The culture has changed completely. In s1 whenever I saw a maxed geared player I knew that this player had worked hard and achieved a commensurate reward for that farming. Now, when I see a fully maxed player (nekro/sns, imbued, arc ring) I just think to myself - by default - that they spent thousands of dollars on plat. The way people act in PvP (comparing s2/3/4 to s7) is insanely different. Back in the earlier seasons players didn't trash talk nearly the same amount as they do now. The PvP atmosphere is honestly unhealthy for anyone who stays in there too long. Just look at the CTF lb. If you sift past the kill farmers you'll notice that many of the top players have quit. Demonassa, Predladen, Xgra, etc.

Now that I've stated the obvious, lets look at potential ways that STG can rebound from years of allowing Arcane Legends to be their cash cow.

- First, see http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...armers-a-bone-!!!! for suggestions on how to improve farming in-game. If you didn't click the link, basically this thread proposes ways to make farming more profitable by increasing gold loot from bosses
- Next, implement seasonal leaderboards
- Scale all elite maps to level 41
- Buff Scorch!
- Buff tank skills in PvE
- Correct skills so they all work as intended (CS not stopping windups, Nox damage being 15% less instead of more, SSS not aiming properly, glitched Shadow Pierce damage, etc...)
- Actually ban people for using profanity, & kill farming
- Increase moderator interaction with the game by hiring interns from your local university (University of Texas @ Austin)
- Decrease the gear gap by introducing strong gear next season that's targeted towards the "middle class"
- Update the graphics of player classes (rogues, tanks, mages).
- Incorporate a new quest line into older maps
- Buff drop rate from .000001% to like .1% (which works out to 1/1000) for fossil in arena. I GUARANTEE by doing this, you will increase the amount of players that run Arena by a significant amount, which would increase elixir and ankh sales, making you more money overall than keeping it as is
- Revamp rewards for hauntlet

If some of these things are done, the "good old days" will be back.

All great ideas... I'd add to buff mages in pvp too
But those ideas would be great... Especially gear being added to close the gap and seasonal lbs! We've benn begging for seasonal lbs since game launched.

[Serancha]

something as simple as scaling those other elite maps to current lvl cap and adding a somewhat big questline that rewards you a new gear seems so simple.

I have always thought the old maps should be fully scaled also. They're elite, aren't they? Why can they not be actually elite?