Regarding Itemization

About Itemization

This is something that has been discussed amongst the longer-term players quite a bit, and I would like to bring the concerns to the attention of the devs.

The term "itemization" is said to be a method of staggering the release of gear to prolong player interest for a longer period of time. However, in reality this term is being used as the reasoning behind releasing new gear that is below the stats of the gear used in the previous season.

The rationale is that they increased the player stats too much by releasing gear that gave too large a jump in damage over the next-best gear available. We can all agree that this is in fact true, when looking at the mythic weapons and arcane ring from the level 41 cap.

Instead of increasing the mob difficulty to account for this apparent error in calculations, they choose to release gear with sub-par statistics. This leaves players without any motivation to play. Unless there is something that is mathematically better than what we are currently using (and used 5 levels ago), most people don't see any reason to work for it. Especially given the extremely low drop rates, limited farmable maps, and large numbers of crafting ingredients needed.


Jewels

These factors also apply to jewels. We need to farm for well over a dozen years (as calculated on several other threads) to get a single noble jewel that is 1 stat point better than our grand gems. So not only is our level 41 gear superior, it also has the gem boosted stats which we will never in our lifetimes get in the new gear as things stand now.

While I can see where the logic came from that this is a re-adjustment period, what I think the devs missed in the calculations was the sheer number of gems in the game, and the critically low drop rate of jewels. What also seems to have been forgotten was that we were told that elite maps would have better drop rates and higher-tiered jewels.

To make the adjustment period actually work, the new gear would have to be better than the gemmed gear we are currently wearing, and the drop rates of the primary stat jewels would need to be increased enough to make it worthwhile farming for them. As it stands now, if I do 5 runs, I get 1 random cracked jewel. That gives me the feeling of hopelessness and turns the game from entertainment into work to be avoided. This feeling is what is happening to the majority of players.


Elite Gear

There has been no response to the numerous queries about elite gear.

Elite armour and helms, and especially elite weapons have always been a staple in this game, at least until itemization was implemented in Tindirin, making the armour and helms useless by virtue of their low stats. However, we still had weapons to farm for, which held that season together. Elite farming drives the economy for the start of each season, and it gives players a sense of reward and success - meaning they feel like their time is well spent.

Last season we at least had elite weapons to farm and make money from, but this season there are none, and we would like to know why.


Summary

Players expect to progress. That means we want to work for gear that is better than what we are using. We want to farm for and have a realistic chance of looting a piece of gear that we can sell and make money on. We don't want long low-drop quests that force us to run the same maps all the time, and we want to be able to have a reasonable expectation to jewel our gear.

If the developers think our stats are too high, they only have to increase the mob's stats by the same amount. It won't make the game any easier, but will still give us the impression that we are getting value for our time and money. We need something to work for, and the psychological ramifications of seeing one's stats go down when you equip gear 5 levels higher are not beneficial for either the community or the game as a business.



Note:
This post was constructed in hopes of starting a constructive dialogue towards improving the current game situation. Please keep the conversation civil and constructive. Thank you.

To add to Serancha's discussion on the lack of Elite Gear. One of the biggest mistakes STG made was to provide legendary gears such as (Scavenger and Forager gear) in locked crates and drops from normal rengol maps that had too high of stats. STG expressed that they wanted to slow down the progression of stats but yet they throw in very elite legendary gear that was easily obtainable which then flooded the market. Now STG is stuck with not having any armor/helm in new elite maps and releasing subpar helm and armor like the nomerite quest. Why did STG not save these forager and scavenger gears as part of the elite loot table confused me to no end. So now they try to introduce this subpar mythic 46 gear set that stat wise is not all that much better than the combination of forager, mythic pendant, and arcane ring. So STG now has pigeoned hold themselves into not being able to release anything better than these mythic 46 gear because its "mythic" and it supposedly "should" last for a while (imagine the rage of pro players who worked hard for the mythic helm and armor which will then be surpassed by subsequent event gear). So where does STG go from here with providing us with better gears we can strive for? They are simply stuck because of this "itemization" idea. I wished "itemization" never ever happened. Because then we can have seasons like nordr and Shuyal again which made people farm elites till the cows came home.

Another mistake in my eyes was the wide availability of arcane ring and arcane pets to the whole player base. The arcane ring specifically has very OP stats. If STG really wanted to slow down the progression of stats and at the same time decrease the gap between rich/plat spenders and poor/casual players then why not come out with "mythic" farmable gear that has very close stats but not as OP as the Arcane ring? This would of kept arcane ring still rare but provided casual players with the ability to close the gap with obtaining new mythic ring. Instead now a good portion of the gaming community have arcane rings and there is no wiggle room to go up in stats with any new gear.

I've always thought the same way, Sera, and I've posted many threads and replies revolving around the fact that the only thing worth farming for is the only thing that's worth wearing. When the old outdoes the new, then nothing has changed. No one will waste thousands of pots and ankhs to lose several stat-points in terrible gear.

This could partially be blamed on the community as well. Back when seasons were short, mythics and arcanes were said to last 2 and 3 seasons respectively. Players are still under that same assumption. Now, seasons are beginning to stay exponentially longer. However, this doesn't justify any valid reason to keep the old mythics/arcanes in top condition. I recall a few months ago after Ren'Gol release players complaining about old mythics being worse than new legendaries. Even complaining about old planar legendaries being worse than the new. It's understandable that people worked hard for these items, but surely they cant assume they'll last forever! The game was dying, and the only thing that will save it was to revive the farming community, which never actually happened.

People tend to forget that this is a game. It's meant for pastime enjoyment. If you're worried about the future, then you're playing the wrong game - something I've recently learned. If you want your items to last forever, go play Candy Crush or Clash of Clans.

If this season is supposed to transition out of the past mistakes, then it's poorly executed. The new legendaries should be farmable and exponentially better than the old. Let the gems die out and close the gear gap between the best and second-best.

I'm pretty sure I just repeated the OP, and even myself. So I'll just leave it at That ;)

Hey Serancha, while I agree with everything you say, what you want may not be possible, this is why....

It seems that they way the game is programmed, STS does not set statistics for individual items at different levels, but rather sets the stats for a certain item for all levels, and then an automatic system scales that item to all levels.

The big problem that happened previously was that twinks are becoming too powerful. You could go with the attitude that "who cares what happens at lower levels since most players are endgame?" However, you will soon be upset if the leaderboard for every event is monopolized by twinks (this is already starting to happen).

A different solution would be to set the scaling different so that mobs and bosses are scaled more difficult at lower levels. However, STS seems to be against this idea in general as it will discourage new players from playing the game as they will think it is too hard with their noob gear.

I guess what I am trying to point out is that the way the game is programmed and structured, STS has no ability to make the scaling different from 36 to 41 than it is from 41 to 46, or even from 26 to 31. The scaling system is linear throughout the entire level range. The problem is that last season the strength of the gear got out of hand. Most likely this is because the last expansion lasted over a year and STS kept making new events with gear that was better than the previous event. If you continue to have better and better gear, yet you never increase the level cap, it creates problems in the game.

So now they are trying to fix these problems, but the only way it can be fixed properly is to keep the gear level for a few months while the difficulty of the maps catches up to the gear. It will happen (it SHOULD happen), but it is going to take some time. My suggestion is to do what I have been doing..... Set some goals that have little to do with gear. For example, I have made it a goal to build some jewels as I realize eventually we will have no more gems left. So I work on that daily. I also am working on my position on the leaderboards, trying to flag when I can and increase my PvE kills count. I have no problem doing this for a few months while they fix the game. Otherwise we will end up like Pocket Legends was, which is/was broken beyond repair, and then we will all be looking for a new game.

Yes, I understand that. When itemization first came in, it was because of the Tarlok gear being too strong at twink levels. Therefore the new gear released at the 41 cap was below the stats of the 36 gear. Yet they again made the same mistake of making certain items too much stronger than the next-best gear, with the arcane ring and mythic weapons. The difference between the 36 mythics and the 41 imbued was not a huge amount, but it was enough to give people an incentive to play. Making items like the mythic weapons and arcane ring 100+ damage over the other items was wrong in so many ways. We don't want that, but we do need some reason to play.

I guess what I don't understand is that they announced this as an issue when we reached level 41, yet they went ahead and made the same mistake twice more in an even more emphatic manner. When you make an error once, that is a mistake, when you make it 3 times it means there's something seriously wrong. Releasing gear with lower stats than the previous season is going to kill the game - it already is if you look at the online numbers in any end-game guild.

However, the point is moot when it comes to the new non-crate gear. It is end-game questline only, meaning scaling it from twink levels is not an issue for those items. Elite legendaries also don't have the problem. However, we don't have elite legendaries. The scaling issue in regards to twinks only applies to crate gear, which is supposed to be the weakest gear of the season.

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Originally Posted by Serancha

Yes, I understand that. When itemization first came in, it was because of the Tarlok gear being too strong at twink levels. Therefore the new gear released at the 41 cap was below the stats of the 36 gear. Yet they again made the same mistake of making certain items too much stronger than the next-best gear, with the arcane ring and mythic weapons. The difference between the 36 mythics and the 41 imbued was not a huge amount, but it was enough to give people an incentive to play. Making items like the mythic weapons and arcane ring 100+ damage over the other items was wrong in so many ways. We don't want that, but we do need some reason to play.

I guess what I don't understand is that they announced this as an issue when we reached level 41, yet they went ahead and made the same mistake twice more in an even more emphatic manner. When you make an error once, that is a mistake, when you make it 3 times it means there's something seriously wrong. Releasing gear with lower stats than the previous season is going to kill the game - it already is if you look at the online numbers in any end-game guild.

However, the point is moot when it comes to the new non-crate gear. It is end-game questline only, meaning scaling it from twink levels is not an issue for those items. Elite legendaries also don't have the problem. However, we don't have elite legendaries. The scaling issue in regards to twinks only applies to crate gear, which is supposed to be the weakest gear of the season.

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Fair point. It would have been nice if the orc legendary quest gear was a little bit better than it is. As for the new mythic, it's too early to tell. Until some of us try using the set, it's hard to know how that set skill bonus factors into things.... It may be much better than it sounds. I know in the past most players only pay attention to hard stats, but we have learned that procs are extremely important only after using the particular items. This new set bonus is somewhat like that.

Unfortunately this is just a slow transition period. There isn't much to do till it finishes on its own. I'm just logging into events and getting vanities till then.

Like many other major issues they have fixed it takes time for it to work itself out. At least it's almost event season which will last till January.