Suggestion: Farmable Ren'gol Crate Keys
With a lot of concern coming from the newly posted locked crate revamping for the expansion, I figured I'd just throw this idea out there and see what people think.
The biggest concern I see from people, including myself, with regards to the new locked crate system is that it is increasing the already wide gap between platinum players and non-platinum players. It seems that if you do not spend a few hundred dollars on the game at some point, you will be left in the dust while everybody else around you who pays money will be granted the best items and pets. This is NOT how an MMO should be run - that is how money-hungry games are run, and I hope AL hasn't become that type of game. My solution is one that I believe will help bridge the gap between platinum and non-platinum users so that both types of players can enjoy the game and both types of players have somewhat of a chance to obtain the end-game items, with platinum users having the advantage, as it should be.
The suggested solution:
In the end game Ren'gol maps, both normal and elite, have a chance to drop a Ren'gol crate key from the boss as an additional drop to the actual drops of the boss (kind of like teeth, but maybe a higher rarity). This key could be used to unlock the Ren'gol locked crates free of charge, and allow non-platinum players a chance to open crates and get a taste of the valuable end-game gear/pets.
Why I Think This Could Be Good
Let's face it: SpaceTime Studios/Games is a company and they are looking to make a profit. It's why locked crates were ever invented in the first place. It's a way to get people to spend real life money for a gamble (or in the expansion, a guarantee) at high value, high rarity, high usefulness items. Now while on the surface, this idea may seem like it will reduce the sale of platinum, I think it could actually boost interest and improve platinum sales. The reason I say this is with a drop rate even equal to the current drop rate of dragkin teeth it will take an individual player a while to amass enough keys to make opening the crates for free worthwhile. Think about how long the new maps take to run in comparison to the Tindirin maps and then take into consideration that it takes 5-7 times more of these drops to get enough Ren'gol tokens to buy a single arcane item. It would take a while for an individual to amass 750-1000 keys, just as it takes a while for a player to get 750-1000 dragkin teeth, but at least it would be a possibility. Once a player opens a few locked crates and sees they can get good rewards, it might push them enough to buy some platinum and open even more locked crates to speed up the 750-1000 Ren'gol token gathering.
In order to keep STS making money and pulling in as much profit as they can from this, while also helping make their non-platinum users happy and playing the game, I suggest that these keys are an item rather than something that fits in the satchel, but make the keys untradeable, so that people can't just buy a bunch of keys and open locks for (essentially) just gold. This will make it so people want to get an advantage in the game but don't have or want to spend the money on the game have something to play for. People who already buy platinum will continue to purchase platinum and get their end-game equipment immediately while the rest of the community, if this were to be added, would have the opportunity to at least have a chance at the same end-game gear. As it stands now, the only hope non-platinum players really have is farming the new locked crates and selling them to platinum players, which if this season has shown anything is that 1. That is super boring, and 2. Eventually the price will die out and there will be nothing to play for for non-platinum players.
People will have to run the end-game maps in order to obtain these keys. Keeping people running the end-game maps will keep interest in the new content rather than encouraging people to run the older content (such as kracken mines 3, elite brackenridge, or normal ydra's forest) to just farm the locked crates. This will keep somewhat of a challenge in the game for the people interested in the Ren'gol crate keys, while also bringing in a lot of the end-game items such as level 45/46 legendary and mythic crafting items into the game for players to use/sell.
It will keep the price of the Ren'gol locked crates higher for longer because the people who get key drops will likely use them on a locked crate, thus taking it out of the market and increasing the demand for locked crates. Rather than having a surplus of hundreds of thousands of locked crates hoarded across many accounts, the locked crates will slowly but surely get used up with the people who get a random Ren'gol key crate drop. This will keep farming the locked crates alive for longer, and keeping player interest for longer.
The key drop can be a tiered key. Since there are three tiers of locked Ren'gol crates, why not have 3 tiers of keys. Have the keys drop from the end-game bosses, but make it so that you can combine 2 keys (plus some crafting time) into a second tier Ren'gol crate key and 3 regular ren'gol crate keys or 1 2nd-tier key + 1 regular key for a 3rd tier key (along with some crafting time, of course), having the 1st, 2nd and 3rd tier keys open the locked, large, and massive Ren'gol crates respectively.
Let's face it: at the end of the day, those who are willing to pay money to gain an advantage in the game will continue to do so. Those who do not wish to run any PvE maps will not do so unless absolutely necessary to gain an item for PvP. This suggestion would really help out the non-plat players be on the same playing field as the players who spend money. From personal experience, I can say being a full legendary-geared player in the end game is not fun in the slightest. Nobody even considers you for a party because you're "undergeared" and will slow the runs down. PvP is nearly impossible to play, because the difference between legendary and mythic equipment is so massively high that it is nearly impossible to even stand a chance against someone with higher-tiered armor and pets. So, you're left doing what? When I was full legendary, it was either attempting to run the profitable maps with other full legendary geared players and dying enough to make the ankhs spent use up any profit that would have been made, or just sitting around in the town chatting with strangers. While both of those can be fun, I would have much preferred having something that I could reasonably attain without wasting my entire in-game "fortune" on just to get it.
STS attempted to think about non-plat players after the test server was coming to a close when Remiem posted this thread http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...laying-Wrap-Up Wherein she says "Golden Orc Chests will now have a chance to drop a Crate token." - Great! A way for non-platinum players to have a chance to get the end-game gear. Except when you actually consider what that means...
I did some math, assuming a 5 minute run for a regular Ren'gol map from start to finish (if you played the test server, you would know it would likely be longer than that), assuming a 20% drop chance of golden orc chests (if you've played AL at all, you know that is ungodly high odds) and assuming a guaranteed ren'gol token from the golden chest (the post says A CHANCE at one). Assuming all of these base numbers, it would take a normal player 3750 runs through the ren'gol maps to afford a single arcane item, which assuming the 5 minute run time would amount to 312.5 in-game playing hours, which is 2 months of 5 hours of pure map running each day. 2 months at 5 hours a day minimum just to get the same item that someone who spends $200-$300 USD can get in 5 minutes? That seems rather unfair, in my opinion. Note that the actual time it would take to get that many tokens would be longer, since the chests have A CHANCE of dropping the tokens whereas my calculations were considering a 100% drop rate of tokens out of golden orc chests. So, multiply the 2 months at 5 hours per day by whatever factor you need to, to account for the "chance" in crate tokens. A normal player would find themselves playing the entire season only to barely have a chance at a single item that everybody else around them payed with real money and got in 5 minutes.
Adding a key drop which unlocks the locked ren'gol crates will not make this unrealistic farming time as fast paying for platinum - as it shouldn't - but it gives the non-platinum players a chance at opening the locked crates free of charge, and possibly enticing them to even buy some platinum to open even more locked crates if they get a good item they want. It helps bridge the gap between plat and non-plat players while also continuing to line the pockets of the STS figureheads, keeping interest in the game, and keeping players that may otherwise quit the game, in the game and playing for something that they can actually achieve.
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