Analysis of this season so far.....

[Energizeric]

I was thinking about the changes that have been made in AL over the past few months, and there is one theme that appears to be constant.....

During last season, we reached a point where "luck" was the biggest factor in a player's success. If you were lucky enough to loot an arcane shard, then you could have a super rare arcane ring that was worth 80-100m. If you were lucky enough to loot a dark crystal armor or helm from the planar tombs, then you could craft an imbued armor or helm. And if you were lucky enough to loot a planar pendant recipe, you could craft yourself a new mythic pendant. Or you could sell any one of these items for insane amounts of gold.

The problem here was that many players could spend hours per day farming for months and never loot a single one of these items. As a result, there were numerous complaints in the forum.

Then there was the luck system with locked crates. You could spend hundreds of dollars on plat and still never loot an arcane item from a locked crate. The odds were super low. So tons of complaints about that as well.

And then there was the luck system with grand gems. If you were unlucky like me, you could spend months trying to get grand gems on your mythic helm and armor and still be unsuccessful.

So in response to all of these complaints about the "luck" system, it seems that STS has done a complete reversal here and instead this season there are very few things that are luck based, and 99% of your success this season is based on your effort and the time you put in. It is all about the grind here.....

There is the grind to farm jewels so you can work your way up to Noble jewels. There is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your orcslaying legendary gear set. And then after that, there is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your mythic glintstone set.

And if you choose to spend plat and open locked crates, the odds are much better you will loot a mythic or arcane item, and even if you don't, you can purchase one from the vendor with the crate tokens you receive from opening the locked crates.

So overall this is a huge change for the game. My personal opinion is that this makes the game much better. It makes it possible for any player to obtain any item if he/she puts in the time to work for it. The same could not be said in the past few seasons. I find myself playing daily for at least 2 hours and sometimes more, when last season I'd be lucky to play for a half hour each day before getting bored.

[Haligali]

Nothing really changed, despite the old bugs and mistakes we have new ones and some old mistakes still with us. But the new vanities are cool.

[Ticklish]

The drops of those orc fangs are still based on luck though. And right now they're pretty much the only limiting factor in working towards the glintstone set. I have had a day when I farmed 22 fangs in 3 hours or so, and then another where only had 4 fangs drop in the same amount of time. When fangs are plenty, they drop for everyone in the party. When they're not, several runs will get 1 or 2 fangs for a single person only, and none for the rest.

I do like that everyone has a chance to be competitive stat-wise now. As opposed to the days of 130m+ rings.


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[Kingslaughter]

The change is the gameee become more lag every new content update.....*2 thumbs down

[supersyan]

The price of best items are now in affordable range for everyone except SNS. it's good for the economy because rich can buy it and also poor can buy it with little effort. Game is more competitive now. Gear no longer a limiting factor.

[Zeus]

The price of best items are now in affordable range for everyone except SNS. it's good for the economy because rich can buy it and also poor can buy it with little effort. Game is more competitive now. Gear no longer a limiting factor.


The cost of gear cheap, the cost to gem with the best gems is not. Therefore, the price to be maxed is still relatively the similar.

[supersyan]

The cost of gear cheap, the cost to gem with the best gems is not. Therefore, the price to be maxed is still relatively the similar.
yeah. price to be maxed is still high. but gear price is relatively cheap compared to previous seasons. One change I noted is the new items are not overpowered unlike before. there's only incremental power upgrade.

[Robhawk]

There is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your orcslaying legendary gear set. And then after that, there is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your mythic glintstone set.

Why should someone craft a legendary gear set with same or weaker stats then 1000 gold crate gear? Same for glintstone, it nearly adds nothing compared to l46 pink gear, with full set stats are weaker then with L41 gear! STG still made a lot of mistakes. I just don't want to think about the unholy slain staff, stats really bad, proc even worse -> buff -> stats still really bad and proc still absolutely useless!

They should think about the word progression!

[Dimitrian]

Yes,this is the only good thing in this season.
The bad thing is the severe lack of end-game content and game balance.
Also the orcslaying and mythic gear.What a waste of time and money!

[Titanium]

There is the grind to farm jewels so you can work your way up to Noble jewels. There is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your orcslaying legendary gear set. And then after that, there is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your mythic glintstone set.


You need at least 30.000 cracked jewels to put nobles in each item of yours. Let's not forget the orclaying legendary set is not better than current legendary from rengol crates + you have to spend 1m to get this set + 2 other worthless mythic items if you decide to finish mythic quests too. I might call it madness than grinding. I don't know who has time for noble jewels farming. I prefer to get lucky with 3k cost per gem than spending 10.000 hours to craft a noble.

[Kakashis]

Yes, I love the new system this expansion. Crates are holding steady at 10k which means quite a lot of people are actually opening these! I just wish SNS would become a token pet to be in line with the new system. But till then, nekro is awesome!

[Magemagix]

You need at least 30.000 cracked jewels to put nobles in each item of yours. Let's not forget the orclaying legendary set is not better than current legendary from rengol crates + you have to spend 1m to get this set + 2 other worthless mythic items if you decide to finish mythic quests too. I might call it madness than grinding. I don't know who has time for noble jewels farming. I prefer to get lucky with 3k cost per gem than spending 10.000 hours to craft a noble.

The mythic helm nd armor for rogue is better than previous mythics as well as grand imbueds. Ya the cost to craft them is more. Bt one can craft legendary set in 600-700k. Then a mythic hem and wait for fangs price to decrease.

Weapon yes they r a disappointment, bt gud to see the nw mythics cheap nd awesome.

Even price of crates have increased to 8-9k. Making the game more f2p like it should be. :)

[Magemagix]

The cost of gear cheap, the cost to gem with the best gems is not. Therefore, the price to be maxed is still relatively the similar.

I agree that gemming them ri8 nw will be expensive due to discontinued para nd eyes. Bt as the game progresses they will be extinct nd nobles will be affordable( fortified maybe say 100k). I love the prices of arcanes nd mythic decreasing like fervor frm 10mil to 6-7 mil.

What everybody including me( excluding 0.1% of al community) want is not to be super OP bt jst decently geared with mythics nd arcane pet.

I think sts is working in the ri8 direction for balancing the game, nd maybe they will buff warrior( though no sign of it yet).

[KingMartin]

I tend to like this season much more fun than the previous one, when we had only two places to farm - arena or T3.

I am only sad to see that all the nice elite maps are dead, run only by time runners and nostalgic veterans.

The main drawback I see is really low drop rate of stat jewels. My proposal:
Let the elite bosses from Nordr up always drop one primary stat jewel. Lower bosses could drop lightning or diamond.

[Energizeric]

The cost of gear cheap, the cost to gem with the best gems is not. Therefore, the price to be maxed is still relatively the similar.

Yes agreed, but I don't think that's a bad thing. The big difference is that this season the statistical difference between the well geared player and the max gear player is not nearly as huge.

As for jewels taking a long time to craft, I also think that is great. Maybe Noble Jewels in every slot is not something that was ever meant to be accomplished for most players.

IMO the perfect system is one where there is always ways to improve your stats (i.e. nobody ever reaches max gear), yet the statistical difference between the top geared players and the well geared players is not so great that the well geared players cannot be competitive. That is always a very fine line to walk, but I think STS has done a good job at it this season. Much better than any previous seasons since season 3.

[Tatman]

There is the grind to farm jewels so you can work your way up to Noble jewels. There is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your orcslaying legendary gear set. And then after that, there is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your mythic glintstone set.

This sounds cool on paper. Problem is, it's more efficient to just farm locks, sell them, and buy the jewels, fangs and whatnot. I am 100% sure, that absolutely no-one in this game has farmed a noble primary stat jewel or all the components for the mythic set by himself.

[Legallyblonde]

I tend to like this season much more fun than the previous one, when we had only two places to farm - arena or T3.

I am only sad to see that all the nice elite maps are dead, run only by time runners and nostalgic veterans.

The main drawback I see is really low drop rate of stat jewels. My proposal:
Let the elite bosses from Nordr up always drop one primary stat jewel. Lower bosses could drop lightning or diamond.

Being able to farm jewels from the elite bosses is a great idea!

I realize Jewels are there for players to obtain Max Stats but honestly it's stupid how expensive they are right now. Even if you can extract them the fact that they're so rare and expensive(and require a disgusting amount of jewels just to reach the mid tiers)
Personally I feel jewels should be easier to obtain and farm.

[acewasabi]

IIRC the highest level jewel is 35 or something, right? so a lvl 46 map should be dropping at least weak versions of jewels, and two higher lvls of jewels introduced after noble level.

I'm enjoying the game at the moment- got new myth bow, arcane ring with para, arcane pet. Not maxed geared by any means but far more so than I thought I could be last season. I farm a lot and buy a little plat and I consider both farming and plat buying worth it.

[Energizeric]

This sounds cool on paper. Problem is, it's more efficient to just farm locks, sell them, and buy the jewels, fangs and whatnot. I am 100% sure, that absolutely no-one in this game has farmed a noble primary stat jewel or all the components for the mythic set by himself.

Yes, everyone has that choice. The point is that yes there are choices now. In the past we had little choice what to farm if we wanted to earn some gold. And in season 5, the economy got so bad that there was nothing at all to farm and pretty much the only way to make any decent gold was to pop locked crates. Now we have choices...

1) I can farm dragkin teeth to save up for a dragonite bar which I can sell for 2m. Do the math, and that means every tooth I collect is worth around 13k. Not bad for the 1-3 elite runs it takes to get a tooth.

2) I can farm jewels by running the Rengol maps (non elite). Yesterday I got lucky and in a single solo run I collected 2 finesse jewels, 2 chaos jewels and 1 energy essence. Rarely do I get that lucky, but normally in the 3 daily runs I do (for the daily orc tags quests), I usually collect 2-3 jewels, and usually at least 1 or 2 of them are finesse/fury/chaos jewels that I can sell for 3k+ each (I keep the mind jewels since I am a mage).

3) I can farm rengol locked crates in KM3. At 8-10k each, you can make some decent gold by using a single luck elixir and farming for a half hour while using a lep amulet as well. I usually will get at least 2-3 locked crates during that half hour. Sometimes I don't even pay for the luck elixir when I get one from klaas, which is once every few days.

4) Elite rengol maps drop lots of good stuff like fangs, runes, etc. While there is no big payday items dropping like in past seasons, the odds of getting a fang or rune is very high and if you do many runs, you will likely get multiples of these items and some jewels as well.

The point is you no longer have to rely on getting supper lucky and winning the jackpot. Just put in some time and you will earn gold. Then take that gold and buy whatever it is that you want.... an arcane pet, jewels, components to craft glintstone mythics, etc...

Yes, it will not happen overnight. This is something that will take tons of time. I just finished the legendary orcslaying set last week, and now I'm working on the mythic helm. I estimate it will take me a couple more weeks at least to get the helm, and then onto the next item. I'm sure I will be working on this mythic set for at least another few months. I'm also working on jewels. So far I have 3 noble jewels (2 diamond and 1 lightning) in my gear. My best mind jewel (the preferred jewel for sorcerers) is a Fortified one, and I have a couple standards. But as I collect, and sometimes purchase, more mind jewels, I will upgrade those in time. I'm sure this will take me many months as well, and I may never get to the point of all noble jewels, but that is fine.

All of this is a good thing, because as soon as I run out of stuff to work for, that is when the game gets boring.

[Jazzi]

This sounds cool on paper. Problem is, it's more efficient to just farm locks, sell them, and buy the jewels, fangs and whatnot. I am 100% sure, that absolutely no-one in this game has farmed a noble primary stat jewel or all the components for the mythic set by himself.

Tata,

There is a player in ER who in fact has almost farmed all ingredients for the myth set alone (yesterday he needed 45 more fangs to finish). He might be the only one in the game though :). As for the noble jewel: I am pretty sure that it is practically impossible for someone to have farmed one alone ;)

[Energizeric]

As for the noble jewel: I am pretty sure that it is practically impossible for someone to have farmed one alone ;)

Why would you even want to? You farm, get loot, sell the loot, and then buy what you need. It's pretty dumb to expect to farm every single item yourself. Do you live your real life that way too? When you want a steak for diner, do you go out hunting for cattle or do you go to a steakhouse for dinner?

[debitmandiri]

I tend to like this season much more fun than the previous one, when we had only two places to farm - arena or T3.
I am only sad to see that all the nice elite maps are dead, run only by time runners and nostalgic veterans.
The main drawback I see is really low drop rate of stat jewels. My proposal:
Let the elite bosses from Nordr up always drop one primary stat jewel. Lower bosses could drop lightning or diamond.

@bold, pugs.
Pugs make it harder by their unexperienced, and they dont take any advice for their build, i remember when i got "clock/timeshift is useless" words, i miss the real pugs when i was grinding elite caves, no arcane gear but did it smoothly.

[zauilet]

The only thing good in this season is the fact that a non plat can be an arcane/mythic owner now :)
Nice season lol XD

[Tatman]

Tata,

There is a player in ER who in fact has almost farmed all ingredients for the myth set alone (yesterday he needed 45 more fangs to finish). He might be the only one in the game though :). As for the noble jewel: I am pretty sure that it is practically impossible for someone to have farmed one alone ;)
He farmed 480 fangs without buying a single one? I can't believe this. Congrats though, he's probably the only one indeed. :)


Why would you even want to? You farm, get loot, sell the loot, and then buy what you need. It's pretty dumb to expect to farm every single item yourself. Do you live your real life that way too? When you want a steak for diner, do you go out hunting for cattle or do you go to a steakhouse for dinner?
If you can't farm the things you want by yourself, then there is no real choice.

[Jazzi]

Why would you even want to? You farm, get loot, sell the loot, and then buy what you need. It's pretty dumb to expect to farm every single item yourself. Do you live your real life that way too? When you want a steak for diner, do you go out hunting for cattle or do you go to a steakhouse for dinner?

Firstly it is a game not real life and imho we play it exactly because things which are not possible in real life are possible here.
Secondly I am not talking about farming all things alone by any means. Farming all thing alone would be getting a full set (18) noble jewels by yourself. Something that is not feasible at all. I am talking about doing 1/18 of the whole thing alone :)