Prices of Rares (in General)

Looking over the auctions lately, it's fairly apparent that prices have dropped considerably. I'm presuming that with the size of our active fighting spread at the moment, and with the drop system that we all have pretty much all the gear we need right now then?

I still would like to get my hands on a lot of gear in regards to tank and mage gear. I just don't have the money for it at the moment. Its something I hope to get after actually trying this NCB.

There are still a few things that are like gold dust.

Amulets of Invisibility for one.

Amulets in general really. ;)

Very true GL. I'd love to get my hands on an AoAC and an AoI, or two. But thats going to be expensive.

I've also seen far more requests for TSAs than I've seen offered.

And I've said it before, but one of my favorite aspects of CB1 was the feeling of growth from leveling and swapping gear. The gear ladder is long gone, and ENC rightfully limits gear growth, but I'd still like to see something done to bring back that feeling. But it seems the only way to do that is by introducing new items and deleting crappy ones.

Will one of the female players flirt with NS to get him to create new supporter items every six months?

Bast, you heard Demigod.

Get GL to put on a wig.

Wait, what? o_O

I'm not saying I don't/won't look hot in drag (I'll have to dig out an old school play photo...), but I'd only go so far for new items...

Oh hell, you know I'd do it! :P

NS, if I told you you had a great body, would you hold it against me?

You're still thinking like a guy GL.

Remember, successful female pick-up lines include things such as:
'Saying Hello'
'Asking what time it is.'
'Getting directions'
'Just standing there'

I have heard the excuse about enc effecting people upgrading equipment. I am just wondering how many people out there really have this problem? I have about 100 million available enc right now and there is no way I could catch up to that. Ever. So other than a few top players is this really a problem?

Sorry for double post, but I was wrong. I haven't looked at enc for a long time. I currently have over 300 mil enc and my gear is at 43 mil so I have 250 mil available. Just stating correct numbers here is all.

Sox: single minions are in a whole different game as far as enc goes...

The reality is that many items don't do enough to justify the PR effect. If another hundred plus or a pair of dbs get you another opponent but lower rewards for everyone else you fight why would you use them?

As a correction, when I said "ENC" I should have said "NW:PR Link." I just see them as one unit.

The real issue is that so few people use auctions to sell, but everyone uses them to figure out market value. This is dumb.

At the very least, when you conclude your FS/WTB sale, do the transfers with BIN auctions. That'll help a lot.

What's FS/WTB? ;)

(I've mostly used it to ask for things, I like selling through the AH...)

LoL!

All I need to do is look coyly over at NS, smile shyly, then wonder why he hasn't come over an hour later, and if there's anything wrong with me.

Time for the Tight T's and Double D's! ;)

Are there any left?

Bast is male? O_O

:P

You make it sound like girls don't like math-based online games. Maybe you could attract more of them with a new supporter item: Diamond Earrings of Lust - no additional bonus, but they take away your ability to ever keep money.

Let us think carefully about this whole 'woman' issue....

Consider the following:

AWESOME! :D

AdminNightStrike 1:49 PM EDT


No, that is not the real problem. The real problem is there is too much in auctions. If "so few people" really used the auctions to sell, auction prices would rise. The problem is, there's sellers everywhere. The auctioneer is spawning items like crazy. We can buy items from you (which should only happen really when people just want to buy from you, b/c with the current economy, there are much cheaper ways); and everyone and his dog has plenty of items to sell. I have over 10 items that I'm not using, don't plan on using ever, and just don't sell b/c the market is sooo saturated with sellers. Supply and Demand, Supply and Demand.

Things that would help this?

New items more often, new items not being introduced in mass amounts.

The spawn rate for items going into auctions/drops being reduced.

I don't like the idea of being able to have all the items I want in about 1 month but I also don't want to play for 2 years to get them either.

Making rares more rarererer (some more then others) would be nice and would increase the value of the more desired items.

Of coarse making an item extreamly rare won't make it wanted.
/me points at GoM's.

The supply and demand issue would be solved if more people were playing. Is there something we can do to attract lots and lots of people with out changing the game (too much)?

Not really. There's a lot more competition out there now, especially in the way of flash games. Increasing new player retention pretty much requires graphics to hold players' attention until they figure out how the game really works.

We've all got ideas, but putting them here would hijack the thread.

ok, i am old and forget things...what does having rarer rares add to the game?

Making rares rarer would make it so that the demand is more than or close to equal to the supply. This help keep the market more stable, so that we don't get market crashes.

I don't want rarer rares, I want the rares to be semi-common instead of common, is that too much to ask?

i am just asking what exactly that would add to the game?

with the new tournament store it is kinda cool to be able to outfit your team based on income rather than availability. what exactly does making it harder to get items add to the game?

ankou, you have been here 10 days, the market has crashed in that time frame?

Then what is the point of common items like the Lucerne Hammer or Scythe?

The real problem here is the N*B, and the easy stroll up to the top ranks. If we had a real climb to 6/20, rather than a gift wrapped, first class ticket to the top, we would have more use for these common items, much like we did in CB1.

By the way, that was hilarious.

Loch writes like a girl......

Hah! Fickle, thy name is CB!

LB - Chatmail your post to OB and tell him I sent you.. (the real one, not the one about Loch and his girly hand writing.)

I'll let you know how gift wrapped my NCB is up to 6/20.

Some of us are not and have not been fickle about that at all NS... There is a reason all rares have decreased in value by about 75%. Excluding a few of course... Oh wait, those don't spawn in auctions.

*cough*let them fight to a mil without a cash bonus*cough*

What the item market needs is a few more investors. People don't hold any inventory anymore. Maybe it's character slots we really need. Farms and item prices are two things that do need adjusting.

Making it lucrative to have farms would also get clan activity up a fair bit. Singleton clan farmers with a dozen farms of varying power could make a couple bucks.

Yeah, I thin that * needs to be replaced. ;)

As an aside to the main topic, balancing an items 'power' by rarity is always a bad idea. And have specific strategies tied to a 'rare' item is also bad.

I have never changd those opinions, and I don't tihnk I ever will.

I just picked up a HoE (not a bad Rare, possibly the best helmet for a Tank, unless you're an archer) for pitance. I can't use it, but I couldn't pass it up at that price.

How about either upping Mr Chairmans involvement, or using some Central Bank funds by the admins to purchase equpiment for the 'NPC' to use?

Would create more interest in existing items, wouldn't let them start to 'rot', and would keep thier use in game.

/sigh

It's early.

Would stop them rotting...

Why is decreasing spawn rates a bad thing?

You mean why is balancing power by rarity a bad thing?

An extreme example.

Imagine there was a Weapon that at base would one shot every target it hit, and hit automatically.

Quite OP. ;)

So the balance to it's power is rarity. And there's only one of these in game.

That's not balance. It' just means there one lucky/rich dude who is now so so so much more powerful than anyone else in the game, and balance is borked.

For more realistic examples, just scale down the power and increase the availability. ;)

No, I meant what I said, decrease the spawn rate of all auction items.

Which makes them rarer. ;)

What's the reason to make items rarer and harder to get for new players/team?

It can't be a balance issue. so it's just to drive prices up for the sellers.

So decrease spawn rates, just to make more profit?

Making the best items rare (or level-based) is a standard part of any RPG-esque game I've ever played. While the N*B growth rate does mean that rare items can't be truly rare, plummeting values across the board is an indicator that the market is flooded.

Think of it this way:

A Halidon Familiar lvl 20 $2,208 $11,043 12:46:02
A Halidon Familiar lvl 20 $2,206 $11,034 17:43:00
A Halidon Familiar lvl 20 $2,207 $11,039 20:27:51

These are the Hals that are in auction just from the auctioneer. None appear to have bids, yet the auctioneer keeps spawning them. Do we really need more than one in auctions at a time?

The loud majority of CB has been. Otherwise, those horribly annoying "I haven't gotten a drop yet!!!!111!!one!!!" posts wouldn't be so prevalent.

Yes, they were mad about drop rates, I also don't think a majority understood that drop rates were tied to auction spawns. Also, some were just bitter.

I was under the assumption that increasing Drop Rates would be hand in hand with decreasing auction spawns.

So there wouldn't be a net increase in items generated.

But are the two unlinked? If so, then that might indeed be cause for confusion and potential fickleness.

Which MMOs are currently moving away from. ;) As it's impossible to balance competitvely.

Take WoW for an example. The change from random drops (which is in itself only a delaying tactic) to guarenteed Emblems drops to puchase gear form set lists.

Level based is different, and there have been a few suggestion for having more things in CB unlock the higher you get. But level based unlocks are difficult in an open ended game like CB.

But standard RPGs also lower or limit growth, the higher you get. CB isn't really a traditional RPG. ;)

Increasing drop rates increases spawn rates GL.

But, thanks for proving me correct to NS.

cbd investment ends up much the same as level-based item drops in my opinion. as you grow you invest more in those weapons or gear and they perform better.

if they are actually rare, then you have to save for the item as well as growing it. the tournament store is a good example. when i play a tournament now there are some decisions regarding gear. when to buy it, when to upgrade it, when to upgrade one piece in lieu of buying another, etc.

all of this limits the investment in gear, even without rare prices being high, and makes the system function similarly to rpg's that have loot tables based on the level of the enemy.

what has always been the wildcard here though is usd involvement. it basically allows someone to jump ahead in the gear and max it out which is why we have pr/encumbrance. it is much like in the mmorpg's where you twink out an alt. in the mmo's though it is more accepted due to the fact that people have already been through the game before whereas here someone can jump ahead on their first run with resources from outside of the game.

NP! ;)

But that didn't have to be the way it was.

Without a complete recoding, yes it was.

/shrug

I've no idea how it's coded.

It could have been a 25%/75% split change between AH spawns and Random drops.

That would have increased the drop pool, and left the same amount of items coming into the game.

And that could have been a simple change. But I've no idea how it's coded, and whether that would be an impossible thing to tweak. But it doesn't seem too hard.

I can see where you're coming from, but a big part of the "fun" I miss from CB1 was window shopping for new, better items. In '04, I pumped a lot of X into my compound bow to make it better, but I always hoped I could land one of the elusive ELBs. A full set of elven gear was a long-term goal.

It seems the salvage yard hurt that. When I started CB2 last year, I knew I could grab any "Big 6" item and convert it with ease down the road. But with the NUB, money comes fast and easy, and I had no problem grabbing of my goal items very quickly.

So what could I look forward to? Pumping items, of course. No, wait... the NW:PR link would punish me for that. So I could only pump up the X on my ELB. Now I have one of the top 8 ELBs in the game, and the diminishing return on investment means I can't relish the growth anymore.

Ideally (as opposed to realistically), I would like to see the salvage yard shut down and used only following nerfs. I would also like to see MPR-based items to force us to wait eagerly for new gear. Plus, I would like to see these new items every six months to give us that window shopping feeling (removing a crappy item each time). Finally, I would like to see ENC resolve the PR:NW link penalty without breaking the game for another case of the legendary "I Win."

But again, that's just my preference and not a realistic expectation.

The SY is necessary in an uncapped game.

Otherwise it would be utterly pointless to introduce any new wepaons over the course of CBs life. As no one would use one, as everyone would already have a massive wepaon or two.

It's the same reason we needed a Tattoo artists before any new tattoo's were introudced to the game.

Regarding item spawns...


Every so often, CB decides to spawn items. When it does, sometimes it'll be a rare. If it's a rare, half the time it goes to auction, and half the time it goes into a drop bucket.

While fighting, you have a certain percentage chance of getting something from that bucket.


So drop rate is not tied to auction rate. Instead, both of those are tied to spawn rate, and the spawns are divided between the store, the auction house, and the drop bucket depending on rarity and the RNG.

It is feasible to pick a different ratio than 50/50 for sending a spawn to either the auction house or the drop bucket. I don't see a compelling reason to change that value, though.

NS, the only reason some of us rather hate the drop system is because, it sucks and we want the 20% money back. :P Like the Katana I got for my first drop in almost six months.

NS, just so I'm clear, when you recently tweaked the Drop Rate, instead of shifting more spawns from the AH to the Drop Pool, you tweak the spawn rate itself?

Correct

Suggestion: Turn off item spawns. Watch chaos ensue.

I'm sure we have enough player owned items that chaos wouldn't ensue for at least a few months.

*slowly ensue

A Pair of Elven Gloves [3] $231,547
A Shadow Cloak [11] (+6) $300,000
An Amulet of Leadership [0] $587,835
A Vorpal Blade [67x1] (+0) $425,007
An Executioner's Sword [82x3] (+3) $10,001
An Elven Long Sword [80x5] (+2) $30,001

It's not a bad result from an auction batch, but it is noticeably lower than it used to be...

heh I like cubes Idea.

I strongly support this. For a short period, at least.

Which would remove the Drop System, so as long as we get our 20% rewards back, I'd be cool with that. ;)

Maybe turn off item spawns and only make items available through the Black Market.

Then only popular items would spawn. It would be quasi-impossible to spawn GoMs, IFs...

Who really want's any more GoMs...

Of course GoMs suck. They went from "ewwww" to "meh".

But not everyone wants to run a strat that is conventional, so a system preventing any unpopular items from getting spawned is not cool.

THANK YOU!

The Black Market would need to be tweaked a bit to make this work. For example, only a limited random set of items would be available to vote for at a time. Once it gets the votes needed, it is spawned and removed from the candidate list, and a new item comes available for voting. This prevents people from just spawning the same item over and over again.

Reducing the auction spawn rate? Yes.
Making BM the only way to get items? Hell no.

But the above quote isn't a bad idea regardless of what happens. Making it so that you can only spawn a specific item once a month would help to reduce feelings that your particular item will never get selected.

Another method would be to just reduce the number of required votes for items based on months since the last time it was created. For example, if the ELB is created from votes, then the number of required votes increases for another creation. Meanwhile, if a pair of BGs never get selected, the number of required votes slowly drops, increasing the likelihood of it getting chosen. There would obviously be a floor.

Maybe if someone says it real slow and clearly, people will get it.




Listen closely:


The rewards were dropped by 20%.

Players were given the ability to randomly be granted rares when they're fighting.


THEY ARE NOT RELATED. There is no "Hey, if we flick the switch on one, the other will flick too!". Our rewards are what they are, and there won't be a simple "undo" for it.

Notice after those two statements, there was a period. Because they are the end of a point, a thought.

Until one of the devs says, in really plain English, otherwise.... They're separate. Forever. Deal with it.

Jeesh. It's like constantly see people designing ways to fly if gravity were half of what it is.... "Yeah, okay, it'd work... But GRAVITY ISN'T HALF OF WHAT IT IS YOU MORON."

Yes, yes they are.

I'll copy Jon's post again if you really want...

Until Jon or NS contrdicts Jons original post on the matter, the 20% reward decrease was *directly* becuase of our ability to gain random reward drops.

"Then only popular items would spawn. It would be quasi-impossible to spawn GoMs, IFs..."

Does anyone really want those items? I'm sure that there are enough GoMs and IFs out there currently to satisfy all of those few people that want one.

Becuase it was easy to find...

" AdminJonathan June 3 2009 10:05 PM EDT Half of all rares will now be granted as rewards in battle, in addition to cash and XP.

(That is why cash rewards have been decreased a little.)"

*That is why*

Also note that rewards had been decreased bfre, when we started getting other things for 'free'.

When Ammo was removed back in 08, Jon then reduced cash rewards by 5% as we were no longer paying out for ammo (regardless of if you used a Ranged Wepaon or not...)

Now we're getting items for free, even if it's randomly. Cash rewards were reduced, *specifically* to compensate for oyu geting a Corn you never needed to buy.

I know the post. It's just not that way anymore. And I really don't think that's how the developmental process went down. It was how he wanted to present it.

If not, why has he not reversed it?

Because we *still* get items for free.

That's the design process.

There is no longer a cost for Ammo, *everyone* loses 5% rewards.

There is no longer a cost for 50% of the rare spawns, *everyone* loses 20%% rewards.

It's that simple.

I just don't see it that way.

It seems much more likely he wanted to reduce rewards in the beginning, and gave us something as a result.

At least, logically it does.

Removing 5% of awards because of arrows? Always seemed silly.

NS, can you please drop cash rewards to 50% so people quit crying?...

ok.