The State of Pocket Legends in 2019

[burntoutdex]

This thread has been a long time coming, so please, hear us out. (the last time something like this was posted was in 2013.)

It's no secret that this game has had its ups and downs over its extremely long stay in such a volatile market that is mobile gaming. We are all grateful that this game still has its server's running. However, in its current state, it holds no longevity as we venture into 2019. Since the start of January, I have been working with the majority of PL community both old and new, to gather and collate their ideas about what this game needs.

Over many, many discussions held with many players, we have boiled the game's issues into 5 key things, and their sub-issues, and the impact this has on the community over time. All of these we have spent considerable time coming up with a solution for. I put this list in the community discord and the response was almost complete agreement that these things need to be addressed.

The issues are as follows and will be addressed throughout this post.

1. lack of ways for new players to obtain wealth
i. inability to obtain sufficient gear to play solo (regardless of player skill)
ii. gold inflation over time
iii. event's and little advertisement
iv. autolevelling
v. conclusion

2. Little to no advertisement of the Game in the App Store and Playstore
i. hard to find game on app store
ii. lack of publicity creating lack of potential revenue
iii. conclusion

3. Gambling.. Oops, I Mean Enchantments
i. gambling... the actual probability
ii. the gold sink
iii. the effect on PvP and PvE
iv. increase in gap between rich and poor
v. conclusion

4. The Impact of Botting
i. increase in gap between rich and poor
ii. setting a standard for others to follow.
iii. conclusion

5. Lacklustre Tutorial

6. Extra Player Suggested Ideas that I Don’t Know Where to Put

7. Too Long; Didn't Read

lack of ways for new players to obtain wealth

i. inability to obtain sufficient gear to play solo (regardless of player skill)

Back in the days before chrome, quests used to give decent xp and gold for the level cap, and market prices respectively. Nowadays, the average quest gives 350 gold. Before the market quite literally crashed, (due to chrome botting,) completing a few quests was enough to earn you 5k gold. In these times, for the levels 10-50, 5k gold was enough to buy one or more purple or green item from the CS. A full set of purple or green items was more than enough to allow a team of players (two or more) to run through the campaigns.

Nowadays, due to the addition of pets, it seems greens and purples are quite often liquidated due to everyone owning a DEV and having no need for gear. You can quite literally, solo ‘naked,’ all the way to 85 with a dev and ranged class.

Browsing through the CS, I made a quick search for green and purple items. I found only L45-50 AoE staffs – these only have a market because they are used in Ok’Tal PvE to improve your efficiency, as shown here by Opest. The rest of the items that used to flood the CS are nowhere to be seen, because they all get liquidated now that pets have blown stats out of proportion.

Up until AO2, the mobs don’t hit too hard and you can comfortably solo in whatever drops you get. But once you get out of the sand and hit the tombs, those yellow & blue aliens carry far too much damage for trash and common gear to compete. This used to be no problem when green and purple items were abundant, but as aforementioned, it all seems to get liquidated now due to dev dragons.

Pretty much any gear works up to the middle of AO2. Once you reach the corridor levels, the mobs start to hurt a bit, even in above average gear (green and purple.) Below, is a video of Kixxler trying to solo AO2 in average gear. He still died.



As you can see, even after grouping mobs in a corner (which is the most effective way to kill as a bear,) he still died in what I would consider to be the gear most players of this level would be able to obtain.

I agree that blessings have helped to circumvent this issue, but as mentioned in a later section, I see very few new players knowing how to use the dailies.

Upon reaching AO2, it is quite obviously a deterrent for many. Being forced to solo maps that are quite difficult really ruins the fun of PvE. To combat this, most players will equip a coloured ring of valiant glory. These rings significantly improve a low-level players stats, to the point where you can comfortably solo to Nuri’s without much of an issue, as long as you have one of these rings. However, these rings are quite expensive and upon my last look in CS are selling for a minimum of 600k. These rings are effectively wearing a boosted L30 Halloween Marrow Mantle (Dex) that can be equipped by any character. Below, is a comparison of equipping both these items, side by side.

The new players I have spoken to are unaware of what the CS is and how it works. After I explained the concept to a couple, they were elated at the possibilities it opened up for buying and selling gear – the tutorial should really be extended to explain this niche aspect of the game.

If you assume each quest up to AO2 gives 350 gold, and a player manages to complete all of them, by the time you reach level 38, you will have 44100 gold. (126quests x 350g.)

In today’s market, this is nowhere near enough quest rewards to afford any viable gear, let alone a ring. A solution I propose to combat this as the value of gold decreases over time is to increase the amount of gold per quest to 1000. This means that by the time you reach level 38, you will have 126k gold (126quests x 1000g). Even then, that is very little in today’s economy, but anything extra would lead to even more botting. Though, it would be much more difficult to bot quests, it would be impossible to know when exactly you have 1000 yeti pellets, for example. Also, quests cannot be redone, making only very few worth botting (boss killing, for example).

The gold needed for adequate endgame items is so inflated that a player solely getting gold through the leveling process, even if consistently saving from levels 1-105, won't even have 2% of the needed funds. (That isn't an exaggeration, it's mathematical fact!)

Potions are quite expensive for new players, and the new players I have spoken to all seem to struggle to afford HP and Mana potions. Perhaps quest rewards could also include 25 of each potion?

The most efficient method for buying potions is to buy them 60 at a time, this works out to be 20g per potion. Each quest gives roughly 350 gold, meaning that a player should be able to buy 17 per quest completion. 10 potions is what I would say is about the average needed per run if you do not have a mage and have under levelled gear. This means that you need to spend 200gold to have enough potions to complete a level, leaving 150g left over to buy gear – which is nowhere near enough to even buy anything from NPC’s, let alone the CS.

This is why I propose quests should also give potions on top of more gold. Many players probably do not have more than 25 of each potion, as that is the max you can carry if you don’t stash or buy them. This is why I also believe it should be mentioned in the tutorial how you can carry more than 25 of each potion. Another thing that could be improved to increase the ability for new players to run maps is to increase the rate at which you are given a potion as a drop when in PvE. This would make it so that less gold is needed to be spent on that, which means they will be able to save more gold for gear.

However, this increase in gold per quest would only help if players were made known about how the CS and potion gathering works in the tutorial. This way, they know they can spend their hard earned gold on new gear and enough potions to co

You would only have to make a script to change quest reward’s, surely that is not a difficult task, and one which would benefit players immensely.

A dear friend of mine, Ruby, once made a forum post about how she was able to make 1.7m before hitting level 35, without use of the CS or events (events didn’t exist when this post was made). This is quoted below and is information that I think should be mentioned all over the early game, whether that be quest dialogue or a pop-up in the tutorial. I have pasted what she said below:

1 make mage, instantly lock xp
2 run very first map over and over again and use free daily and blessings
as a level 1 there will be lots of crafting drops especially as mage
3 keep locked until you have a 5 and a 15 recipe for yourself and something like 5 to 10 expert or arti those sell highest plus all other recipes you can get
4 level up and do daily quests every day maybe stalking higher levels in skeleton and road map
5 craft your level 5 and wear it so other gear doesn't matter much
Watch cs for cheap gems you need for crafting
6 dailies dailies dailies and craft the other stuff especially dex also do all quests they pay some gold
7 sell crafted armor in town or in cs with prices atm you'll make a million easily
8 I locked again at 10 for dark forest leather but it wasn't worth it
9 lock again at 15 and farm wyldwood
join rooms there or remake map 1 and rush the fire guy to the right
farm until you got like 5 to 10 pink talons and lots of other pinks you can sell over time
10 lock again at 22 and farm sand caves
this is hard when there are no games on
From the crafted armors and the 15 weapons alone you should have enough gold now to buy a 3 pc Dragon at level 20ish
As I said this way is for when you like to farm and level slowly so might be difficult for pvpers” – Ruby

One issue arising to new players is the lack of players in dungeons. This is mainly due to the majority of the community being congregated at endgame. This means that there are few farmers left running maps and helping new players level. Perhaps if PvP was balanced we would see more farmers and a broader range of maps being ran? As Walie said: “Where once new players could level by following farmers, the lower level campaigns are no longer worth farming, thus no easy leveling.”

ii. gold inflation over time

To put it bluntly, the game’s economy is ruined. The value of gold has decreased significantly over the years, meaning more gold is needed to buy the same items. This has only worsened with the introduction of tradeable vanities and gold-farming events - the inflation on every set is utterly ridiculous.

The root of this problem can most agreeably be traced back to the 71 cap. This cap was where elite items were able to be looted from a very difficult dungeon. The players then, asked ridiculous prices for these items, which more often than not did not fit inside the trade window. This, coupled with the rise of botting has led to there being far too much gold inside an economy that is predominantly controlled by a small portion of the games players.

Another issue causing gold to inflate is the ever-present issue of the blackmarket inside this community. Though, it has somewhat lessened since the introduction of tradeable vanities, it has allowed for those players to sell their obtained items without seeming like a scammer at all. This has caused many scammers to return and sell items they had obtained. This increased the demand for discontinued items, which has caused their price to skyrocket.

With the recent implementation of Qtr/Stat Guns, and Stat Pets, PvP over L50 has all but died out. These weapons add such insane stats compared to campaign weapons, that there isn’t really any use for the other items. These weapons, as of right now, are only obtainable for platinum inside events. The “cheapest” you can buy a Qtr for is 500Platinum. If you take the value of 1platinum, at the best possible price (eg buying 2k at a time), 500Platinum equates to $25USD. However, this is unrealistic, as I believe most people buying qtr’s buy Platinum 800 at a time, meaning the value of 500platnium is $36USD.

In the recent event, a new stat pet was added, Tinsel. This pet was available for 400platinum, meaning it has a monetary value of $20 USD if buying platinum 2k a time. This is probably the item in the highest demand at the moment due to its speed and superior stats. It’s worth 25-30million gold – a figure almost unobtainable to new players due to the lack of gold given by quest rewards. This really extends the gap between rich and poor, as newer players will struggle to ever acquire wealth in an economy where everything is overpriced.

The supply for these event items will never be as steadily available as an item that can be farmed, as they are discontinued. The problem with this is that Qtr Weapons and Tinsel’s are in such high demand due to their usefulness in PvP and PvE, that their prices have skyrocketed to anywhere over 10million gold.

Their introduction has also killed off PvP at levels over 50 as no other gear is needed. This in turn, means that no one farms the relevant campaigns for once desirable gear. This means most new players have an inability to obtain gear for their level as nobody farms the maps and auctions off trash drops for cheap. Meaning the supply for items is decreasing continually, whilst the demand will always be increasing as long as players are levelling up – increasing the price per item.

As it stands right now, the inflation of gold has caused a wealth gap that almost seems fictitious. Popular PvP levels at lower levels have always been around. This has always been the case because it is easy to reach these levels. The price for these items have increased dramatically over the years. Level 15 Expert Leathers were once worth 50k a piece, upon a recent search in CS, I see that they are now 555k a pop. This equates to a 455% increase in gold over time. The same can be said for L30 sets, which were once worth 10k, and now sell for 70k, which is a 600% in gold over time. The further up the levels you go, (dwindling at 51-77 because of qtr’s,) this figure only increases as less and less people play the conventional campaigns.

If nothing is done about all the excess gold in the economy, shortly, it will be literally impossible for new players to own the best gear. This is only worsened by enchantments, but that will be covered in a later section.

A comment made by Ptsx over the community discord summarises this issue quite nicely:

Inflation, in my opinion, is mainly driven by merch's. The good ones buy out particular portions of the market that they know are popular and mark up the price by 50%-100%. This has happened for the majority of the games life and unfortunately gold events has given them the excuse to mark up even more with the value of gold being reduced. STS have countered inflation very well though with enchants effectively removing currency from the game. Problem with inflation on PL is that when its time for it to be over (all the noobs have blown gold from the event on their favourite vanities) , merch's and people selling in CS actively pursue to keep the inflation price constant. This leaves gold events as the only way for new and up-and-coming players to get their hands on a pet and gear which will make their life on PL a lot easier. To summarize my opinion, Merch's are responsible for inflation being present in PL for the length of time it has been. Initial inflation is understandable, but to be going on this long? Just greedy players.. Thats my 2 cents worth.

I don’t think there is a definitive solution to this problem, because everyone is vain, and will not want to part with the wealth they have created if we were to simply delete everyone’s gold and start afresh. The enchantment services have been a much-needed gold sink, but if gold-farming maps continue to be implemented, we fear there won’t be enough of a gold sink – this will eventually make it impossible for new and returning players to accumulate enough wealth to compete in PvE and PvP.

iii. event's and their little advertisement in-game

Events are by far the most time-efficient way to earn gold in todays market. For new players, this would be a blessing, as they would finally be able to earn enough gold to buy gear, rings, and potions if they were willing to put in the effort to get enough points. However, besides a very vague message in the update banner, and a more confusing than helpful NPC, the events aren’t mentioned anywhere else in game. I think if they were better advertised in the tutorial, that there would be a much larger participation from less informed players. Perhaps, a message could be announced whenever you change maps, like the one we currently have:

Perhaps it could say something like: “don’t forget to check forest haven weekly so that you don’t miss out on new events and a chance to earn gold!”

I asked around in game and one response I got from Blitz was that:

there should be somewhere in Balefort or Ok’Tal where players can vote on what type of update they want, and whether or not it’s a good idea to have it implemented.

Whilst this is a little off topic it gave me the idea that we could also have the same thing to advertise events, except it should be explained much better and in less vague terms than what has happened in previous events.

Another method of broadcasting events to new players would be to add an in depth description of what to do to the NPC dialogue in Forest Haven. This could just be the dot-pointed version from the forums, with added emphasis on the fact that you can earn a lot of gold by simply playing this map. Another method of getting word out there about the event is a popup when you login, which would offer to take you to the forum thread for the specific event. This would also be a good way to advertise the forums, which has an endless array of information readily available for no cost.

iv. Autolevelling

Though this has a lot of ties to the outdated tutorial, I do believe this deserves its own section in a spot where it covers the affect it has on PvE.
The auto-levelling stat distribution has some really weird anomalies in the way it distributes stats that no one understands.

The bear auto-levelling almost follows this pattern: 5str, 5str, 3str/2dex, 5str, 5str, … , 3str/2dex, 5str. But then it goes 2str/3dex at Level 8. This is really odd when the unanimously agreed way to spec a bear is to have the best balance between survivability and hit%, given by 3str/2dex until you reach the soft hit% cap of 84. The hit% debate has always been long and ongoing, no one has as much comprehensive evidence as Physiologic, which leads me to believe he is the most correct. His thread can be found here.

Here is a photo of the bear build at level 9 if you use autolevelling:

Ideally, the bear skills should follow Rot’s Comprehensive Bear Guide, which can be found here, or Mr Wallace’s Guide to a Tank Bear (the build. the gear mentions boosters which have since become irrelevant,) found here, or alternatively Ellyidol’s 55setup can also be found here.

Any of these are suitable, these three bears were phenomenal at PvE, which is where the majority of people using autolevel are found.

Birds are somehow weirder. They are specced pure dex, which is the best decision to maximise damage. However, the build that is given by level 9 is terrible. Meditation reduces armor and also gives very little mana in return of the cost to use it; only restoring 26mana in total, that isn’t even enough to cast thorn wall. To quote Dolloway:

I would recommend zero avian that low. But if you're going to use it... 1 max. But 2 when you’re only Level 9? Lol.

Here is a photo of the bird build at Level 9 with autolevelling:

Ideally, the bird build should follow the one given by Physiologic in his Comprehensive Archer Skills and Equipment Guide, which can be found here.

The mage build seems to focus very heavily on single-target damage, due to using 3frost at level9. Single-target damage is a bird or foxes’ job, whilst a mages build should focus predominantly on support and AoE. This means that a more suitable build at this level would be to put every available point into lightning and heal on levels where you do not unlock a skill.

This is the autolevelling mage build at Level 9 (left. The stats are pure int, as they should be for a support class.):

The build pictured to the above right can be credited to Pharcyde, found here in his enchantress guide. This build focuses on an enchantress’ job – AoE damage and debuffs, with a lot of heal and support, which is demonstrated by max debuffs and 6heal. I think this is an excellent build for level 56, and should be used by the autoleveller.

The fox autolevelling build is already ruined by level 5. Adding anything more than one (1) to rabid bite means the fox no longer has the ability to dash when not in range of an enemy. This makes escaping from fights in both PvE and PvP extremely difficult if a fox uses autolevelling. Also, it’s fun to dash around towne - who would want to be denied that privilege?

The stat distribution is pure dex for the first 2 levels, and then 4/1 dex/int all the way to level 9. This is because int was thought to give extra skill damage to needles when the class was created, however, this was disproven here. (thanks to Zapoke) We now know that pure dex is the ideal way to spec a fox that is focused on pure damage (which is the idea of the class).

There has been no guide made for Ranger’s that details anything worth mentioning as far as a skill build whilst levelling. To approach this issue, I asked Walie what he thought would be the best skill build at L56 (where other guides for other classes have stopped,) here is what he said:

Heyo! Str fox is best at 56. So minimum str to use strongman (128) and rest dex. High poison needles and dart are good with high vixen kick. Hypnotise may be able to be pretty low with high needles. Most important part of 56 is to stay on your opponent.

Also, we know that pure dex foxes are the best at dealing single-target raw damage in the entire game. However, this comes with a fair drawback of low survivability. To address this, the autoleveller should constantly spec attributes to be 3str/2dex per level. This spec allows foxes to equip the best Str gear at all levels, whilst still adding large amounts of hit, crit and skill damage from the constant stream of dex.

The Rhinos autolevelling stat distribution seems fine, being 4str/1int per level. This gives a good balance of HP, armor, mana, and mana regen – the key aspects to a rhino. While I personally cannot comment on the build, I know many others who could. Below the Rhino autolevel build is depcited, along with suggestions made by Quality on what needs to be improved:

I reached out to Quality to gather his comments on the ideal rhino build for PvE up to L56. Here is what was advised:

The stats should be Str/Int (4/1 or 3/2,) and the autoleveller should put more points in charge, redemption and restore early on. After buffs are unlocked, they should be maxed in this order: vital and then stone. After that, tempest should be maxed for damage output.

To finish off this section, we simply ask that the autolevelling is adjusted to follow the above builds and skill progressions based off of feedback from players experienced in the nuances of the various classes. Everyone I have asked has played the specific class since its release with nowhere near as much time spent on any other class.

This will allow the players who use autolevelling to have the build and stats put into the places that are going to matter. After 56, I fully believe autolevelling should be turned off and that players should be prompted as to how they adjust their stats based off what they like based on their experience thus far.

v. conclusion

This thread has barely begun, and so far, we have covered a lot of ground. Don’t get us wrong, we all know that this game doesn’t have as many new players daily as it once used to. However, that doesn’t mean there is not an influx of new players - the actual figure known only by StG. It is common knowledge within this industry that happy and loyal customer’s stick around for the long haul.

If your team does not cater to the newer players by listening to these suggestions that we have spent hours brainstorming together, then I fear this game will truly die by the end of the year. You know how loyal your fanbase is, I am sure you are aware that we will support you until the end of this game.

By not listening to our suggestions it has created a wall that has stopped many new players from levelling up and accumulating wealth (for reasons aforementioned). Without implementing these suggestions, none of which thus far have been more than adjusting figures in an array or script, you will lose the influx of new players that remain – due to the difficulty of this game in its current state.

Little to no advertisement of the Game in the App Store and Playstore

i. Hard to Find the Game on the App and Play Stores

This game is extremely difficult to find on either of the mobile App Store’s, and I cannot find this game on the chrome webstore, outside of a direct link. Others agree with me and have said things such as “Pocket Legends very low down the list of suggested games unfortunately. Most new potential players do not know the existence of the game in the app store. (Sunflwershine)”

This image shows a search for PL on the chrome webstore, with no results coming up.

The Chrome webstore has removed its app section entirely, which was announced in 2017.

Currently, the only way to play PL on chrome is if you have it previously installed or if you use the link found here.

I believe this killed a lot of potential broadcasting for the game, as AL, PL, DL & SL were all highly rated on the Chrome Appstore, as they were the few full-blown MMORPG’s on the chrome store.

On the iOS Appstore, it is an entirely different story. PL (and AL) are nowhere to be found in the Top200 Role-Playing Games, despite that being their designated category in the App description.

On iOS, if you search “mmorpg” or “rpg,” there seems to be a mixed response as to whether PL or AL appears first, even though they have the same rating of 4 stars. If I search either of these terms, PL appears for me first. I had others do the same, and they said AL appears and then PL shortly after.

I decided to test this on my own android emulator, as I do not own an android device, and the results I found were as follows:
- Searching “rpg” on the playstore means neither AL nor PL will appear before the apps stop loading
- Searching “mmorpg” on the playstore means AL appears, and then PL
- Searching “fantasy” on the playstore means neither AL nor PL will appear before the apps stop loading

Conducting the same test on an iOS device, I made the following conclusions:
- Searching “rpg” on the iOS Appstore means PL appears at the 17th spot, and then AL shortly after.
- Searching “mmorpg” on the iOS Appstore means PL appears at the 18th spot, with surprisingly, SL at the 23rd spot before AL.
- Searching “fantasy” on iOS brings perhaps the weirdest result. After 110 results, no StS game has appeared. This is a big issue as ‘fantasy’ is something I would definitely say when describing either of these games to someone.
-
To conclude on this test, it is evident that the same search terms in either store do not bring the same results. This should be fixed to extend the audience to both games, and not just PL.

Also, the description of AL is about twice as long as the description for PL. Which seems weird, when this is free to change and both games have won about equal amount of notable awards. A comparison of both are pictured below on the next page, the height difference in the images speaks for themselves.

There is an easy fix to these search inconsistencies, and perhaps one that would make PL (and AL) a more obtainable game for many. All that would need to be changed was the text and keywords, so that more search terms yield an appearance of PL (and AL) in both Appstore’s. You have had contests in the past to help with your App Store advertisement for PLA - would this time be any different? (found here)

ii. Lack of Publicity Creating a Lack of Revenue

I believe the title and subheading speak for itself – a lack of advertisement means less traffic directed to your app, and as a consequence, less money to be made.

It is no secret that this game’s current business model was made to milk money off of the current loyal fanbase. Why else would vanity hats have increased to 7x their plat price compared to before?

The problem with this business model is that once the loyal and long-lasting fanbase becomes too busy to play this game, you are going to lose the majority of their spenders. Perhaps the only reason a lot of us still play today is because we don’t want to give up on the game we invested so much time and money into.

WhoIsThis sums this up better than anyone else could ever hope to achieve, so I will link his writing here.

It may be old, but his point still stands, and is perhaps even more relevant now than it was before (7years later) – the current state of the game has no long term prospective, and this is only becoming worse as time goes on due to the aggressive monetisation of this game.

The solution to this problem presented to by WhoIsThis still to this day, seems the most effective, and can be found here.

Without a lack of publicity and a change of the business model (from aggressive monetisation to something more sustainable,) this game will surely lose its loyal playerbase by the end of the year – creating a dead community. For a new player, joining an MMORPG with no players is definitely a deterrent and is also an oxymoron within itself, lol.

iii. Conclusion

I think by far the best solution to the lack of advertisement is to let the willing players do the work for you. This could be in the form of hosting contests to let us concoct the text that could be displayed or by giving suggestions of keywords to be used in the search terms.

At the least, the suggestions mentioned by WhoIsThis above need to be followed to ensure any longevity heading towards late 2019.
 

Gambling.. Oops, I Mean Enchantments

i. Gambling.. the actual probability

The title of this section is not an attempt at humour, but the reality of the enchantments system.

Rolling stats with gold or platinum is quite literally gambling disguised as something useful. The odds for said rolls have not been released, so I went ahead and calculated them myself (to include the added gold-loot% stats). Based upon what they are, I wonder whether they were even calculated before release.

My results can be found here, and I will assume you have looked at them before you continue reading:
https://i.imgur.com/8fu22yg.jpg

What I find fascinating is that for any roll on an item with 2 or more slots, you have less than an 0.05% chance for receiving a perfect roll.

For example, I genuinely do not believe anyone will ever obtain max damage on a mythic ring before the game is empty.

I know players who have spent thousands upon thousands of platinum to get perfect enchantments, and still don’t have them, only 80% of the way there… and this is only on single items.

It shouldn’t have gotten to the point where people are spending thousands of platinum at a time just to get the best gear, and are often getting nothing. Ridiculous.

Numerous suggestions have been made on forums in both the AL and PL section. It would be impossible to find exactly who thought of each suggestion, so I will simply list what I have seen here (none of these ideas are my own, but instead, that of the community):

- The ability to roll each slot one at a time for a higher cost (I think the first mention of it in the PL section was here.)
- The ability to lock slots once you get desired stats
- Locking items so that you do not accidentally reroll an item of the same name
- Having a history button to go back 5 previous rolls in case you spam clicked over one.
- Being able to reroll specifc stats, such as a pool of only damage rolls

Ideally, these would all be added, though, realistically, if anything was added it would probably only be one of them. Either way, something needs to be done – as of right now, the enchantment system is not good enough. It is causing many players to waste hard earned money both in and out of game simply to compete.

ii. The Gold Sink

Before everything was able to be put in a trade window (and the gold cap increased), the community was crying out for a goldsink. The want for a goldsink (or better method of maintaining the economy) can be seen in numerous places, such as here and here, to name a couple.

Like mentioned in an earlier section, the economy of this game is ruined. Despite it being a video game and not a reallife economy, it still acts in an identical fashion – without a gold sink, the economy would become ruined.

The ability to enchant items for gold has been a much needed goldsink, we have not had one this effective since worthwhile elixirs could be bought with gold – and for that, we are thankful.

However, there is still far too much gold in the economy for any new player to have a chance at buying gear. Unfortunately, the goldsink has failed to work. Bots are still able to run gold-farm maps for 48hours straight and accumulate 288million gold (6m an hour was easily doable with mediocre goldloot). It would still have been possible to bot the last event – even with the trivia – but, I am not going to reveal how it could have been done in a public post.

As Xyzther mentioned in the linked post:

Volta armor may then be at 20m. If you’re someone new to the game and you see that the Volta armor is at 20m, how could you possibly afford it? You could of course wait for a gold farming event, but people shouldn’t learn to rely on the gold farming events, as the purpose of them was to just add some gold back into the game and revive the economy. The economy is more than revived by now.

Cinco, if the economy is revived, why then, will we be more than likely to receive more gold-farming maps in the future? Sure, it might help new players, but as mentioned before, they are not advertised well enough for new players to even have a chance at earning gold.

Having maps that gain back more gold than the rate at which it is sunk is just increasing the gap between new and informed players – which I’m sure is the opposite of what was intended.

For example, an average run of a gold-farming map yielded you 300k. Currently the only way to “delete” (sink) that gold is through buying elixirs or rolling amulets. During an event where you reach gold-tier, that would mean one run lets you roll an amulet 300 times before that gold disappears out of the economy. I know few who would sit and roll 300times in a row – something more efficient is needed.

This was highlighted by Dudetus way back in 2013 (and others previously… I just cannot find the older (presumably deleted) threads.)

Yeah, there already are some elixirs for gold. But … the gold purchasable elixirs are so weak. Ofc the platinum bought elixirs should be stronger than gold bought, but like 2x 1/2 hour combo elixir for like 10k would be a very effective and constant gold sink. … But yet, again, the situation is just simply horrible economically in PL. We need all the possible Gold Sinks IMO as for now.

The need for a goldsink now is much higher than it was 6years ago, due to the implementation of gold-events with little goldsinks. Perhaps something even more efficient is needed, such as the suggestion by Dudetus in the same thread:

’Buy this superyduperychest for 50k and u may receive something cool’. There could be scale able mediocre pinks (with mediocre meaning good, but not the best for the current lvl) and some superydupery exclusive vanities to look for. STR, DEX, INT and different vanity packs. I do not think that this system would be hard to implement to PL as it has always been there for DL and AL.

These variations would only have to be recoloured variations of things already available – this has proved to have a market for years now. These packs would need to be available for gold from a vendor in Balefort so that way the gold isn’t just circulating to other players, but instead, disappearing from the economy – which is necessary if the economy is to survive into 2019.

iii. The Effect of Enchantments on PvP and PvE

PvE

Enchantments in PvE have been nothing but a positive. They have allowed people to receive higher re-roll%, damage and goldloot to name just a few. It has allowed PvE to be completed at a higher efficiency and has made many campaigns much easier to complete for the lesser experienced. Overall, I think we can all agree that enchantments are a positive for PvE and should stay.

PvP

In PvP, enchantments are an entirely different story. Firstly, I will cover twinking levels because that is where I am familiar. I have had others make comments on the endgame levels as they have infinitely more credibility than I do – these will be seen later on.

I have been twinking in PL since. very early 2011. I have seen the introduction of GCD, WF items, Halloween items, Forgotten items (who could forget?), the “great” nerfs, 3pc rings, but perhaps most importantly – the amulets. I have seen meta’s evolve and change in almost all levels outside of endgame.

As of right now, twink PvP is in the worst state it has ever been – far worse than the week forgotten items were introduced.

Currently, on a level35 mage, you are able to deal 600+ damage to a fully geared opponent. The example of mage is arbitrary, any class at this level can comfortably hit 600+ without more than one click.

Shown here are crit-drains and auto attacks. The image where I was critted for 668 also had a 303 auto-crit beforehand – I just suck at taking screenies. Excuse the blurriness, not sure what happened.

There is no class in the game that can survive a crit drain and one auto at this point in time.

Though it has made PvP fairer for the weaker classes (bird, rhino) – just not in the right way. This current meta caters almost entirely to luck. Literally, the first person to crit one of their damage skills will win. I have seen veteran players lose to new players – something that never happened in years gone by. The only reason players shine in this meta is knowledge of range, however, it is a pale imitation of the knowledge that was needed in meta’s gone by. To make my point even more plain to see, I recorded three full FFA games at 35. For one game, I played without enchants versus a player with max enchants, and for the other game, I did half and half. I will link these below. At the start of both videos, I had the best obtainable gear – but played without enchantments or rings.

Game 1 (half without enchants, half with):


Game 2/3 (one without enchants, one with):


As you can see, I stood absolutely no chance versus an opponent with maxed out gear. Sure, the simple solution is to wear enchantments. But, that is not inclusive of new players and will completely deter anyone from playing PvP unless they have spent an exorbiant amount gambling or buying amulets for a price far more than they’re worth because of an inflated economy. I truly believe the only way to cater for everyone is to remove the enchantment system from PvP, or to make the stats they give scale to your level (suggested by Plqx and PLPR (at least to me)). By doing this, the meta at 35 will slowly adjust back to where it was before hand – still broken because of 3pc rings, but at least there won’t be enchantments. The step after that would be to revert every nerf made from 2013 onwards (at least in lower levels) – but we can only dream, or can we? *shifty eyes*

To put this even more bluntly: wearing an armor amulet at 35 is the equivalent of wearing 3 Shivering Frozen Yeti Leathers on top of whatever armor you’re using. Ridiculous. The state of PvP any lower is fine. It isn’t perfect, but it hasn’t been since 2013.

Another issue with low level pvp is a bear’s beckon stomp, and the smash combo. The extent of this problem is best explained by the video above, and by this conversation with Jun below:

PvP at 40-49 is the same as 35 – broken beyond repair unless enchantments are removed along with 3pc rings in low levels.

Once you reach Level 50, you are able to enchant weapons, armors and shields as well. You also have extra options such as extra HP. This has allowed dex mages to excel beyond belief, which I think is a positive. The obvious downside to this is again: the blatant gambling that is required to compete – completely barring any new player from ever competing. I just checked in game, here is an average L50 players stats compared to mine when enchanted (4pc Mega Mage Gemstone Wand Set (65% maxed)):



My stats are pictured in the middle. I wasn’t satisfied with the comparison between myself and a 51, so I found a bear in balefort that is 24 levels higher than me. We were both unbuffed (this is true because I only have a total of 4str from my ring, if I was buffed it would be 11.)
The same can be said for levels 50-105: the player with the best enchantments will always be at an inherent advantage because of nothing more than a lucky gamble.

I really do think the stat bonuses on enchantments are blown out of proportion for lower twink levels. If they only added minimal stats, such as 2damage or 2armor (whilst in PvP,) it would make PvP far more inclusive of everyone, and not just the rich.

Short of enchantments being removed from PvP and removing 3pc rings, I do believe this is the best solution to creating a balanced meta in twink PvP.

As far as endgame goes, I know next to nothing. So instead of writing my own opinion on what to do, I am just going to quote things that people have sent me below. I hope this will shed some light on the current situation from the players point of view. The majority of these players have played endgame PvP for as long as I can remember.

Enchantments ruined pvp. Guy who owns very Op set can literally beat ANYONE. I know few mages with int sets for example which are super tanky (its like they wear str sets lol) , only cuz they have almost maxed chants. Regular player with Regular chants cant bring em down. Same goes for me, once i bought good bow and armor ive started killing most ppl which i couldnt kill with old bow and armor. Enchantments for sure make huge disbalance in this game, skill doesnt really matter if you have OP set..

Amulets made the stats even more unnecessarily complicated and basically ruined the simplicity of twinking. I enjoyed twinking because there was a noticeable skill gap between players that knew ranges and how to use skills and those that didn’t.

Now with the current cap, end game is not even a factor because of the honor arena. Procs in pvp are absurd and the last time I fought mage vs mage it lasted like 5 mins. No thx. Nuking is not even a thing anymore. Honor is ok but just seems more complicated than it needs to be. Why is there a separate arena when all of pvp itself could be balanced?

Me: “You still agree that you would like enchants removed entirely or be strictly PvE only?”
Blitz: “Yes”

Me: “Do you think that enchants need to be removed from PvP or be of a smaller benefit?”
Plqx: “less of an advantage, some player do not have access to plat and are unable to even stand a chance, and if they ever do get access to plat, they’ve then gotta spend millions and at that point you’re not even guaranteed anything.”

Me: Do you believe enchantments have been a negative impact on endgame PvP, why or why not?
Glorifying: Yes because it was more fair for every class with the same stats, just like honour sets. It’ll be much easier for people to get into pvp without having to spend a lot of cash on enchantments

Me: why have enchantments been a negative impct on endgame pvp?
Dolloway: It's not good for the game. It doesnt teach people to get better like non enchanted pvp would, it just teaches people to get better enchanted gear

As requested (let me know if you need anything else):

I believe enchantments, while undoubtedly benefiting STS, have been a negative influence on endgame PvP for a couple reasons.

To begin with, anything that impedes the growth of PvP activity is detrimental to the already small community. When players feel obligated to compete with other heavy plat spenders to roll the best possible stats on each of their items, a clear reluctance to participate in PvP endures. It would be an utterly different situation if the rolls for stats did not revolve around luck as much (as many have suggested, simply being able to 'lock' in stats would certainly be a step towards higher player satisfaction). Cinco knows very well that the odds are extremely against the player to roll top-notch stats, and that generates revenue from heavy plat spenders.

Cinco did come up with a clever solution: The Arena of Honor. And while I was convinced that this would have been the solution to the issue, it didn't do so great a job. It seems that players prefer to earn their equipment from PvE, then use directly in PvP maps. There's something about having two modes of PvP that evidently 'splits' the PvP community in two. Particularly during its adolescent stages, I tried encouraging more players to experience the Arena of Honor. However, many players demonstrated an affinity for boasting their newly obtained gear in the regular PvP maps (there is some psychological phenomenon about using the fresh, colorful new gear as opposed to the 'newbie' looking gear). Either way, the 'split' in PvPers has contributed to a perpetual mentality of: "Dang, looks like there aren't that many people online PvPing. Guess I'm gonna log off now."

It's ultimately a question of balancing the integrity of the game and the little extra revenue generated from said plat spenders through enchantments.

Perhaps the other consequence of enchantments is the inevitable toxicity. Of course this does not pertain to every individual, but for the handful of immature players, it becomes an easy scapegoat if they lose a fight. And, sure, there's a mute button – there will always be toxicity in some way, shape, or form. Though, at the same time, I can never help but wonder whether or not my stats are really giving others that type of leverage needed to outperform me – and it's a rather frustrating thing to constantly think about because I have always been one of the many competitive PvPers for years. The worst part of it all (which is not a fault of the enchantments) is that PvP airs on the side of 1v1 rather than FFA. Hence, enchantments become more apparent and 'noticeable' in 1v1 situations (obviously, if everyone FFAed more this wouldn't be an issue). But the reality is that PvPers gravitate to 1v1s, and so enchantments do not exactly align with the community's preferred PvP style.

The culmination of all of the factors above have led to a decline in the endgame PvP community. Of course I wish that enchantments weren't a part of the game. I also wish the Arena of Honor did a better job encouraging players to PvP. But that's simply not the case.

I haven't given much thought as to what might 'save' the PvP community. It will always endure, partly because there are players who would never give up the years they've invested in the game, but it could be so much better.

I believe the way PvP can be monetized, rather than through enchantments, is for a reward system. Like I said, I haven't given much thought to it, but players would enjoy earning vanity-type rewards on a consistent basis (not specifically through events). Some rewards in PvP can be earned free-to-play while others require spending plat – I'm sure others can come up with something more clever, but PvP rewards have the potential to revitalize the PvP community, enticing players to work together in dungeons to obtain new gear and then bringing it to the arena.

I could keep writing, but I'll stop here. Like I said, I suspect there won't be any changes to the enchantment system, but I do believe that if Cinco was really open to some new suggestions, there could be a lot of positive change.

iv. Increase in the Gap Between Rich & Poor

Giving the ability for informed players to get upward of 350% of the gold loot per run compared to a new player is ridiculous. Sure, it’s a nice feature for players who know how to play the game, turning once an hour’s worth of effort into merely 21minutes. However, as mentioned before, the addition of this has inflated the economy beyond belief and has led the price of any item in the CS being almost unobtainable for a new player. There are a couple easy solutions to this:

1. Add an explanation section into the tutorial that explains all the niche mechanics of the game.
- This allows new players to know what they need to do if they want to stick to this game. A lot of excellent guides for this have been written on the forums. Perhaps, the tutorial could simply suggest that a new player goes and makes an account?

2. As suggested by Timelife: “After completing the more extensive tutorial, give new players advancement packs, like seen in AL (that are account bound so they cannot be sold for profit by bots).”
- This feature already exists in Arcane Legends (seen below) – why cant it be implemented here? I know for a fact it didn’t originally exist in Arcane Legends. Why is Pocket Legends any different?
- The items that these chests give could simply be enough to run maps solo while still requiring decent knowledge of mechanics (eg, no 2k armor in forest haven)
- An image of an example advancement pack is shown below:

I was only Level 3 in this photo, but I have gone higher before. Every 5 levels you receive a new chest with pink items that do enough damage to compete with dropped equipment. The pro to this is that it is free of cost because of an inflated economy.

As long as these items are not good enough to compete in PvP, and are account bound I do not see anybody having an issue with this proposal.

Another thing this would achieve is giving new players the ability to see what an amulet is, and how it works so that way when they reach endgame, they can enchant without being confused.

To be honest, I think both of these solutions should be implemented.

v. Conclusion

Enchantments have no doubt been a benefit to the PvE component in this game. However, they have in no way increased the skill required to play PvP and nor have they helped balance things out. Instead, they have merely blown stats further out of proportion than they already were at the introduction of 3pc rings to all levels – ruining any chance there will ever be for balance in its current state.

To fix this issue, all that needs to be done is follow the suggestions by the players above. Either remove them from PvP completely, or make it so that the benefit they add is smaller. This will lessens the gap between the lucky ones and the ones who cant afford enchantments.

The Impact of Botting

i. Increase in Gap Between the Rich and Poor

Botting is the process of creating a macro to do a repetitive process automatically. One such repetitive process is farming. In an MMORPG, farming is the process of running a map over and over until you receive a desirable item or enough gold for whatever purpose you want. Until Farmin’ Legends is released, this is likely to stay the same.

The reason why this is an issue in PL is that there are many desirable maps to run automatically such as:
ERD Slayer for starries, and gold farming maps for a LOT of gold.

Even as I type this, there is currently a player botting ERD for starries, and has been doing so for a long time.

During Gold Events, it was not uncommon for people to bot the maps, much like the player seen here. (thanks to Walie for recording for us).

Due to that, there were countermeasures added to prevent bots such as the trivia. Though I believe this was an effective countermeasure, as I’ve said a couple of times: it was still exploitable, just no one figured out how.

Currently, bots are able to make 6m an hour and play for 48hours straight, meaning they earn 288m without even having a user doing anything. So far, this has done nothing but inflate the economy, it’s appalling that nothing has been done about it yet.

There are many good countermeasures on forums that have been suggested.

The best one made by a player, Draebatad, was to simply enter a randomised 2digit code upon hosting a gold-farming map. This would stop bots from gold farming entirely. His suggestion can be found in more detail here

Another one suggested by DivineMoustache (Fight), was to:

randomly spawn the event portal around the circumference of a circle. That way, it always takes the same time to reach but will be in a different spot so the bots cannot enter it.

Likewise, this helps stop the botting of gold events, but doesn’t do much to stop people botting Plasma or Shadow Cave V. I don’t know what could be done about those things, but I’m sure there is something.

On top of this, it really ruins the experience for others. When players bot and have access to almost billions of gold, the economy will forever be broken and it means that no legitimate player will ever be able to compete if something is not done.

I don’t think it is ever going to be possible to remove bots (machine-learning). However, it can definitely be made harder for them to ever work. I think with the implementation of suggestions from the community on how to stop botting, the game will be a lot better off.

ii. Setting a Standard for Others to Follow

I think this one is pretty self-explanatory, but it really shines a light on some of the current community. By not banning people who use bots you are implying that it is okay to bot because no one has been punished yet.

I have seen players say things like “it’s okay to bot, I haven’t been banned yet,” and yet, nothing has been fixed, they are still active. Shocking.

Think about Archeage, it was set to be one of the best MMO’s released to the public, the beta already had people raving about it. At launch, bots were used and the developers did nothing about it, causing the game to die soon after release. I really do not want that happening here, and by not banning bots, a standard to follow has been set.

The solution to this is simple: ban people who bot - but only the ones you can prove were legitimately botting, not just playing for a few hours straight.

iii. Conclusion

Botting is a deterrent for anyone trying to take the game seriously. I think if you want the economy to survive into 2019 (which is important for any MMO,) something serious needs to be done about bots. Everything else has been explained already in previous sections and I don’t know what else to add here without repeating myself more.