Upcoming changes, the future of the game economy, and the removal luck

[Carapace]

Hello all, it's time for an update regarding some stuff in Dark Legends!

Regarding Luck
Originally, Dark Legends did not have luck in the game, and drop rates were appropriate. With the reboot of Dark Legends we figured it was a good time to shift our elixirs back into the store, and expose luck as we have in the other titles. It didn't take long however, before it began to trivialize pink drops and begin to create economic issues. Pink prices have dropped dangerously low, and with gold so very abundant in the game right now this is going to be a problem that only gets worse the longer it's left alone.

There isn't a quick fix for this, but one step is going to be the removal of luck from Dark Legends again. The pinks that already exist and the gold accrued obviously will remain as is, but once the update goes live early next week that should begin to change. once the new content comes online with its new pinks and vanity drops we should see it begin to smooth over a bit.

What does this mean for me?
It means that re-rolls won't be possible anymore, and it also means that the average drop rate for pinks and vanities will come up slightly. Originally the pink drop rate was around 2%, and we had to tone it down to 1.1% or so because luck was wrecking havoc on the pinks dropping in the world. Even with the change it wasn't enough.

Expect Pinks to return to somewhere around 2% to compensate for the removal of luck, and vanities to get a small bump. At a later date we may see another buff get added to the Elixirs that provide player benefits as well.

Gold in Dark Legends
With the next expansion, there is going to be a change in the primary method that gold is obtained in the game. At present gold comes from a large number of sources: running dungeon content, allies, and transactions between players. The change that will be coming is going to see a more explicit direction on where to get gold and where to get XP in regards to the game specific systems. Transactions between players will not be affected.

Allies are going to become the more dominant gold rewarding action to do in Dark Legends, and the amount of XP that allies award will decrease and be shifted slightly into dungeon iterations and initial completion.

On the flip side dungeon content is going to lessen the gold reward for the flat iteration completion, as well as remove larger piles of gold from in dungeon kills and exploration.

EDIT: There is a strong community discussion getting started by this point, so please share your opinion on the XP/Gold in this thread, I will read it. The wonderful thing about working with the community is we can stop something from happening that may not be to the benefit of the game. Nothing is in stone!

EDIT 2: XP will not be adjusted negatively as a part of these upcoming changes anymore, but some gold shifts will still occur. Not large amounts, but enough to make it noteworthy.

An Example
For the sake of argument I will fabricate some values based loosely on what we have in game right now.

Allies all have 3 jobs, but I will focus on just two. The 30 second job yields say 12xp and 50g. After this change this job will yield something closer to 4xp, and 81g (these are just approximations for the sake of argument and not indicative of the algorithm or values actually used). The 24 hour job may previously awarded 56xp and 260g, now it would something more around 20xp and 462g. Again, just examples to show you the kind of offset.

On the dungeon side, the current iteration reward is 5xp and 20g. After the change this will likely be 8xp and 10g. Netting a bit more xp which effectively results in a better net for xp faster if you're straight grinding. EDIT: This will likely not be the case anymore after thinking through some other ideas

Additionally monsters in dungeons will have a chance to drop gold, and will not always drop 3g-5g as they do now, and chest gold will be reduced by about 50% on average.

As a reminder, LUCK will be removed from all available elixirs beginning early next week.

Thanks for reading this guys, I'm looking forward to making these changes and finishing up the new content for you all! Thanks for being awesome and understanding as some of these things shift, and also note that not everything is set in stone and is subject to change.

-Carapace

[Pauly]

YAY luck removal! finally i can start selling my overload of pinks in ah.

[Shaocalur]

Sounds good, I'll be looking forward to this as usual. Let's get er done.

[octavos]

wow, tons of changes, and rightfully so. Luck was causing havoc because people were hunting vanities thus changing the mechanic of competitive edge. Now DL is a vanity paced game, not like PL or SL where the items (weapons and armor) are king and vanities are secondary.

Would it be beneficial to have a vanity elixer? just a question tho. (just because im a curios fellow)

Gems are the armor of the game that fuels PvP so I understand that you guys want to place the focus on weapons and gold (Duh!). But vanities are just that, and soon will have the change in all games to eliminate vanity cap bonuses in all games, hopefully SL gets the same (would be nice for my lv 25 to wear my arbiter stuff). This can help many people down the line when DL fuels the OCD in all of us. Gold needs to increase in value, so what better way to achieve that if more world drops have vanities, and bosses only give pinks to focus on level completion since luck re-rolls will go away.

[Avoyelles]

Mmmmmm I like the sound of this change. As I see it the economy is just in ruins. Pinks are worth practically nothing,while vanities are selling for millions. It's getting down right ridiculous!

[Hardcoure]

Since luck is being removed from the elixirs will the prices drop or stay the same?

Edit: Will this new update bring the end of the Solstice event?

[Cahaun]

I see my pink collection will be worth a bit more after

[frostine]

Like the removal of luck but looks like the game will be more of a grind now.

[XchilangopwnX]

/whine

I enjoyed everything up until the point of the Xp and Gold changes. It seems the game will turn towards a more grind to level like the other games. I seriously enjoyed how non-grinders could keep up by simply using the allies. I don't want to HAVE to grind to keep up with players that play for hours. I enjoyed the fact that I could easily catch up to hardcore grinders after they capped.

Yes, we will still receive Xp from allies, but now I will probably catch up in two weeks rather than one. I enjoyed the easy leveling because I'm not a fan of Xp farming. I simply bothered with Xp so I could get to cap and PVP.

/endwhine

The luck elixir by all means remove it.

[Jcyee]

Wow lots of changes... Looking forward to the luck removal; however, Not to sure about the affect on gold/xp. Personally i enjoy the way it is now. But o well. I will still play regardless because of how awesome the game is

[RedRyder]

It'll definitely be a long time, even with the luck elixir gone, before the Eco balances out. Just because there are so many pinks now. But all the changes are good. I'm not too happy now about having to actually work for the xp now lmao, but it was really needed. Maybe we can finally put the MM back into this ORPG

[Xaphan Fox]

Actually I dunno why the exp is being changed when the gold was the problem. Exp was fine. Decrease Gold in the manners you propose and dont touch exp in any form.
Problem solved.
And the economy will be solved once the level cap comes out and the surplus of pinks become obsolete. Which I hear from a busy bee is soon.

[Lady_Pebbles]

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

Why in gamer's god's names would you change the exp? Gold gain and few gold sinks were the problems... NOT exp. This makes absolutely no sense.

I swear if its not one thing they mess up, its another. Smh.

[Lowlyspy]

Hmm, not so sure i'll like this update. Removing luck is fine with me, it's the xp/gold reward changes that bother me. One of the main reasons i like DL is because i don't have to spend every hour of every day grinding endlessly in order to get to the elite cap, i don't have the time, patience, or dollars to do so. I love the fact that DL is currently so inclined towards the average person in letting everyone have ample chance at the elite cap and what cool stuff comes with it, it keeps me coming back, even if for a few seconds to reset my allies.

Of course i won't make any decisions yet, i'll wait until after the patch for that. In fact i have an idea for an elixir. Perhaps for the people who don't have time to spend their days grinding, there could be some gold/plat bought elixirs that multiply the xp given by allies and instead of lasting for a certain amount of times, they could last for a certain amount of ally reloads. Say a 6k gold pot lasts like 5 ally reloads and it doubles the next 5 allies xp reward. This would be something i would definitely use.

[HunterSLAYER]

Xp/gold reward nerf sucks.. It doesn't make sense why would you need to decrease the rewards...
Oh man back to sl for me where vanities are epic lol.

Sent from The Vular Hive! XD

[DerSchuetze]

Sounds good for the game, but bad for me. i hardly played dungeons, just did missions all day.

[Carapace]

Keep talking, I'm hearing valid points and there is plenty of time before this will come out. The idea between the xp/gold shift was to put emphasis one or the other depending on what you are after, but it sounds like this may not be what you guys like! I'm listening, and I'm open to changing the plans on this. I'm going to start looking at other possibilities and not just the one outlined in the original post.

[octavos]

Keep talking, I'm hearing valid points and there is plenty of time before this will come out. The idea between the xp/gold shift was to put emphasis one or the other depending on what you are after, but it sounds like this may not be what you guys like! I'm listening, and I'm open to changing the plans on this. I'm going to start looking at other possibilities and not just the one outlined in the original post.

the strongest and most enjoyable area is xp and gold from allies...they help the casual players become hardcore. now 3D is great because they contain the vanities and weapon and gems. ATM most of the forumers in DL section are working as a team trying to hunt them down. Dl is becoming a scavenger hunt..and all ive heard is positive comments (yes i get frustrated lookin for undead) aside from my feelings, Vanities are the money makers, and players love the little blue letters across there screen...its like pie and chips...better together XD "Where is that from"

[drewcapu]

I don't play DL a whole lot

Why?

Because I don't/didn't have to. I leveled quickly enough just by doing the most efficient 2-hour allies.

Shifting xp a little bit more towards the dungeons is a good thing because it will encourage people to "play" more.

I still think there needs to be a little bit more logic to help out people trying to look for multi runs instead of always ending up solo though. Perhaps some sort of indicator (different from when a friend is in a particular dungeon), or perhaps have the particular map glow to indicate there are people you can join.

[octavos]

Shifting xp a little bit more towards the dungeons is a good thing because it will encourage people to "play" more.

vanities (Bosses) and pinks (to ghosts) should be shifted to 3D maps, and boss drops...this will help your concern. ATM vanities and pinks can fall almost anywhere and people dont finish maps, because bosses dont give any benefit aside from what they can drop on there table.