Ok, first off, really great thread. Nice read. Now, my favorite answers to this debate.
Quote Originally Posted by DocDoBig View Post
I don't remember how it was easier for me as it was for the new players today, I even believe some stuff went the price down.
I could actually tell the same story as largecommand, just the date when that happened was in 2011.
I've always thought to myself, if I was going to start over, would I get discouraged and give up? So I tried it. About march of 2013 I started a fresh toon. I didn't use stash with it. And I didn't give anything to it. I leveled it up to 66 with no elixirs. I made about 300-400k from drops and liquidations. This was enough to buy a crafted sang set. So to answer my own question. Would I start over? Yes. Because it's far easier now, then it was in 2010-2011. Back then I remember the lvl 30 items, brain freeze, shivering, iceberg, were farmed by everyone. That was a good source of income. Farming them wasn't hard. But they costed about 20-30k a piece. Good fast way to earn money. Now, they are 3-10k a piece. This is because of inflation. Gold cannot be added to the game through drops-quests-ect without expecting inflation.
Quote Originally Posted by Fusionstrike View Post
The root of the problem is definitely a lack of a gold sink. People who have been here for 3 or more years have money just piled up to the rafters with nothing to spend it on. Sure, not everyone who's been around that long actually has truckloads of gold, but enough do that top-tier gear is very expensive. And those with money who PvP at twink levels drive the market for top gear throughout all levels, so it's not just a problem with endgame gear prices.

The other thing to note is that PL is really two different games. From levels 1 through about 60, a player can advance through PvE without top-of-the-line gear. I've run many characters all the way up to level cap, and I never had to spend on gear to be effective in pre-60 levels. You can basically just strap on whatever drops you luck into and still be effective enough to advance. But once you get to 60 (i.e. fang and beyond) the game takes a major turn in difficulty. Just staying alive against the souped-up 60+ mobs is difficult enough in excellent gear, let alone whatever you can scrounge up if you're too poor to buy top-tier items. This is where the rich-poor gap really creates problems.

So, the real challenge is for a new player to make enough money to be viable by the time they hit 60. If you just run a character up with no elixirs to speed along and don't spend on any gear along the way, you could expect to have a decent 6-digit sum off of what you earn along the way. It wouldn't be unusual to have about 200-300k even without getting any high-priced drops to sell (and really the only drops you could make good money on before Fang are in Nuri, where it's not unimaginable you could get lucky to get some steels or something). Now that's not going to get you any premier items, but it's enough to buy some second-tier stuff, which is enough to stay alive and try to farm out a good drop to earn money from. And of course a player could always get a daily blessing combo, which comes with the all-important luck boost to help get some purple drops or even a big score drop to sell.

All in all, I would say that although it's not easy to get a decent amount of money together as a new player in PL, it's not impossible. Just playing along through the first half of the game will yield some working cash, and being smart with that money along with some farming of items and/or gold can raise a player out of poverty pretty reliably. It does mean investing the time to either farm gold directly or hit the jackpot on a lucky drop, but having to work up the ladder to compete at the high end isn't a bad thing in my view. After all, without that as a long-term goal, I'm not sure what players would actually do in PL to hold their interest.
Agreed with pretty much everything. Great comment.
Quote Originally Posted by XghostzX View Post
The rich-poor gap between campaigns was a good point made.

Let me take Order and Chaos as a good example of gear and gold.

First off, the level cap is currently 70. By level 60, the amount of XP you need to level up is increased (from level 58-59) by about 10x... it could take a hella lot of time grind and do quests. From 60-61 requires about 1mill XP and to put it into perspective, you could grind for about an hour and receive only 30k XP at most. But there's an easier way to level - that's through dungeons which grant 250k xp per completed run. But in order to do these runs, you need to team up with other players of different classes. The catch? You need decent gear. So how can you get decent gear? Gold isn't that easy to get in Order and Chaos. If I were to buy "decent" gear for dungeoning through the auction house, I'd have very little leftover gold (everything is overpriced in the auction house).

At level 60, they offer quests where you literally do 20-30 different quests that reward you with gear that you need. So you get a little gold and XP along the way... but what they really set you up with is gear for leveling up with the dungeons.

Switching gears to Pocket Legends: this is what needs to be done. By the time level 60 is achieved, quests for gear needs to be in place. Unfortunately STS is never diverse with it's gear (ex. I'd like to see INT gear separated into healing and damage gear, but it's all one bundle which makes PL a lack of diversity). Regardless, there should be quests to get gear that aren't the most elite gear, but good enough to help you get through with a team.

The most elite gear in Order and Chaos cannot be bought with gold nor traded with other players. They have a unique system; when dungeoning, you obtain items after bosses. Once you pick up those items, regardless of what class they're for, they are "bound" to your character. Meaning you can't sell them for gold in the auction house or trade them (you can liquidate them for very small amounts of gold). The only items you can put in the auction house and trade with other players are items farmed through the world map and random mobs (which there are many good drops aside from dungeons.. but dungeons have the best of the best gear).

My point? All this gear is obtained through dungeoning, and in PL's case should be obtained through difficult quests. Now, that doesn't mean every single item is bound in Order and Chaos but you get the idea. Everyone has an equal chance of getting the gear. This would get rid of the gold issue, and you could spend gold on other things.
I agree with the massive change at lvl 60. Everything gets tuffer. Instantly.
Quote Originally Posted by WeLoveJesus View Post
Also I think that STG has been so trigger happy with the ban-gun hasn't really helped. If ya look at it, so many experienced players willing to give back to the community have gotten banned.
This sentence is so true. I've seen some really awesome amazing players, who contributed tons to the community and genuially care about this game get banned for the absolute stupidest of reasons.
Quote Originally Posted by IGN Storm View Post
IMO the ratio is fine where it is. You can't expect to get the top tier gear for only half an hour worth of quests.
Exactly.
Quote Originally Posted by XghostzX View Post
The ratio is definitely not fine for any new players. Pocket Legends is a light MMO, therefore gaining the gear you need whether it's questing or racking up gold should not be that difficult, but somehow PL's economy made that possible. In my opinion, there are two things going wrong for STS:

1. The gap between the rich and poor is what the true problem is. As stated early, once you hit level 60, you quickly realize the impact of this gap.

2. The economy is never regulated and no gold sinks are occurring. Not for STS' sake; I know they couldn't care less about PL's economy but they'll definitely take it into account as a learning mistake for future games they develop.

In Order and Chaos, they regulated the economy (gold sinks) by implementing mounts into the game. Not only did you need to waste tons of gold for a cool "starter" mount, but you needed to purchase mount-riding permits! Lmao... genius. Plus, there are mounts that free roam the world and can be caught by using certain tools and spells that can be bought for real money through the in-app store. Double genius. But all in all, this was a great way to regulate the economy and they do far more things in addition. Now of course, Pocket Legends is not a heavy MMORPG like Order and Chaos, but with PL still being an MMORPG, such actions need to be taken. Any MMORPG, no matter how big or small, should stabilize the gold circulation. Otherwise it's just one big failing MMO.

And honestly, I'm sick of all these end game sets being so expensive. Yeah whatever, I'm relatively "poor" haha, I have like 50k not including the sets I have for two characters. You can't make gold without spending money on elixirs for all this luck-crap and stat boosts hoping to get a decent drop. Sorry STS, I have nothing against that as you are a business after all, but you sucked me into this during PL's "golden age" which I won't fall for again. It is a bit ironic how betting is not encouraged for PvP (which would be my method of making gold in game, I hate farming) when the entire system is a gamble. I know they won't acknowledge this, but again - they're a business. Brilliant.

Hopefully something is taken out of this.
I'm sorry William but this sentence is not true. As proof. Some of you may know I got a device ban around April of 2013 and got a new ipad oct 1st. I came back, and my account was wiped clean, because I had given everything away when I was banned. But I thought, I might try to give this another go. A few friends gave me 3mill. Just 3mill. From that, I've made over 60-70mill in just a few months. And no I don't farm it. I merch. If you are a knowledgable human being you can learn the market very quickly on this game. It's not rocket science. As an exercise in November I started a lvl 5 character gave him 10k and saw what I could get with 10k in a month, I made 550k in a month with just that toon and 10k. So for newer players who think it's impossible to get started, I agree it may seem that way at first but it's far from impossible. It does take time. And it does take some trial and error with merching. But if you are serious about the game you stick with it like all of us have.
Quote Originally Posted by IGN Storm View Post
When I said ratio, I was refering to the payout of the quests. A 2minute quest(Kill 15 crocodiles, kill 20 yetis, etc) shouldn't award the player with so much money that it allows them to buy the best gear. Pinks are LEGENDARY for a reason. If all it took to buy a Savage set is killing a few bosses and npcs, then STS will have to release even more updates to keep us content, which we all know is highly unlikely.

Endgame sets are expensive? Yes definitely. But that is not entirely to blame on the lack of gold sinks. Being the most powerful gear so far, it makes sense it should cost the most(Aside from discontinued items). Savage is expensive but Fiery is pretty cheap, obviously due to the stat differences. If STS were to boost Fiery sufficiently, then Savage will drop in price while bringing Fiery up. Another reason why BSM sets are so expensive it because there is only one "type" of each item. During all the previous caps, there were 2 Legendary items for every one of the 3 attributes. A person using "Of the Dead" gear is at a disadvantage when facing someone with full Orlok, but they still have a decent chance of winning. During the BSM cap, STS slacked off and only made the 3 "type" of gear: Flying Beastly and Sharp. Being the only gear that you can use to have a good chance at Endgame, they are naturally more expensive. The Rockin Retro Contest serves to fill in the caps, and make Endgame gear cheaper. The new helms and weapons release some of the pressure to buy the Best gear and allows you to "suffice". Still no armour/shield is released so prices are still a tad bit high. Once the new level cap comes, the BSM pinks will crash, maybe only a bit more expensive than a new players budget.

Gold-Sink needed? Also a yes. No arguement here.

Counterproposal: Instead of having quests having high payouts, make Purple/Epic gear as the rewards. This will allow new players to pull through without too much hardship while allowing the rich to maintain thier superiourity. Pvp wise, Epic/Purple gear should have a 25-40% chance of winning against the much more expensive pink gear.
Excellent point about the 2 types of pinks from every other cap. This was a huge deal when bsm came out, it didn't provide what I call "off brand" pinks/sets. Which made this cap a much much harder one for any newer player who didn't have the money to just dish out for a set.