Purchasing power of early game players vs end game players have been in my opinion "unnecessarily" widened.
MMOs follow a general "rule", the older a certain MMO/server gets the easier it is for newer players to hop on and catch up towards midgame. While for the end game players, progress remains at the same rate (plateaus after midgame).
However following Project Revelry Phase 1, this seems to be untrue.
Early game players experienced:
1)Significantly less RP gained from daily bosses. The easiest 3 bosses' entry counts have been halved. Namely Zakum Horntail and Hilla. While the reasoning was to shorten the time spent on dailies, this has affected the early game players’ ability to gain NX from bossing. Although the same can be said for end game players, end game players can gain RP from hard bosses. This ends up to be a bigger hit to new players than to end game players.
2)A loss in NX/mesos farming spots. Namely the popular Ant Tunnel 2 and Ulu Estate.
3)FPQ "buffs" while intended to lower the duration of a run as part of the common theme of shortening dailies. Is something nobody asked for and has resulted in devastating effects now and in the future for new players. I would liken this change to how MP is now: easy, low entry requirements.
Now I witnessed a big outcry over inno prices, here are the problems with it.
While inno's demand comprise of end game players as the majority, the entire inno economy will be determined by them. Yes, reduced FPQ times mean an increase in inno supply and prices go down, which is not the problem.
The problem however lies in the fact that this results in endgame players though supposedly should have a hard time progressing are now having cheaper options than before for end game equips. And to make it even easier for them the reduced spell trace prices provide another avenue for inno via the spelltrace system, which will eventually lead to further decrease in price for inno scrolls. Furthermore, once said equips are done, inno demand will go down again.
Now why not just sell at a higher rate like 30:1k right? As of now FPQ requires what we call "attacker" as well as "dr". Yes, there can be more FPQs done in an hour however this need for "attacker" has just increased. Hence in order to retain the same amount of profit earned, say 1k dp, more funding of "attack" mules is required although time spent remained the same. This in itself is another problem.
This all seems to lead to one thing, FPQ being dead content. So why the "buff" in the first place? Also thinking about Spyro's statement "If you choose to solely farm PQ, that is your loss."
This is sad to hear, as PQ is one of the two ONLY party content remaining (the other one being party bossing). If PQ were to die off the players lose an avenue of socialising, meeting new people, progressing alongside with new friends. By no means FPQ was the best farming method in AriesMS, MP farming exists currently. I personally love it because it is a party content.
To balance some things out here are what has "improved" for early game players.
4) Slightly better NX/meso farming capabilities. Yes NX/meso farming is no longer bound to low level maps, giving players a better progression when they gear up. There is one problem with this though as the meso cap has been increased to 600% and meso bags seemingly balanced around 600% meso instead of the old 400%, this means that new players must hit 600% meso to get improved rates.
This is an issue as hitting 600% is "easy" but the problem lies with having enough damage to benefit from this NX/meso farming change. Now I dont have the exact numbers or statistics as to how not having 600% and the relevant damage for the higher-level maps affects income. Neither do I have statistics on the income difference if players were to go to a lower-level map. All I know is that it is hard for new players to make up for the loss in damage with DR/meso gear as this would require substantially better gear in the remaining unused slots.
What is intended as an improvement has also come with severe drawbacks.
5) Easier time with starforcing and early progression. There is certainly improved NX/meso farming for early game players hence the progression via starforcing and cubing is improved.
This is indeed a good outcome for this patch.
There are certainly ups and downs for early game players in phase 1 but here comes the kicker, the benefits that the end game players receive in phase 1 with seemingly no downsides. Do note that this is simply my perspective as an early-mid game player, hence my knowledge of their experiences are limited and may be biased. However I will try my best to have objective points.
1) Increased NX/Mesos farming capabilities. While there is no denying that the rates at end game spots (ecrilla, ecorals and more) have been hugely buffed. I agree that there is nothing wrong with having better income than early game players. This gives them a significant advantage as they are able to attain every highly-sought after currencies/item in this game all in one map. (bpot cubes,nodes,mesos,nx). This results in them being able to buy DP easily as they have a larger buying power.
As a result
2) End Game gear seemingly becoming easier to obtain. With more mesos/NX/DP, they can now buy more of what they need at a cheaper price (eg inno, or any other endgame services).
3) Cheaper spell traces, though a change that seemed to benefit new players in starforcing has a much bigger advantage for end game players. I wont elaborate further as it is already addressed under "FPQ"
All in all, what I fail to see and understand with Project Revelry Phase 1 is that seemingly early game players are getting the short end of the stick.
Yes they are benefiting but not as much as end game players benefit from this. Which is why i say that the gap between early game players and end game players has been widened. And that alot of the "power" have been shifted to end game players where they essentially are able to "manipulate" the market.
I dont believe that end game players are entitled to said benefits simply because they are end game. They already have access to content such as pboxes,elite chaos bosses as well as various hard bosses (will,lucid etc)
I do not know what is in store for Phase 2/3 and so on but if MP gets nerfed, that will be another big hit to early game players while end game players happily farm away at ecrillas. Though admittedly yes MP is OP, but every change has effects on both early game players and end game players even though it may be targeted for a specific group.
SUGGESTIONS:
To mitigate/solve certain issues I feel that some changes will be needed to make it balanced to both newer and older players
I write this not because I seek to monetary benefits (in-game) from it. I write this because I want to offer another perspective as well as voicing my concern of the overall health of AriesMS and playerbase as I have witnessed people being affected negatively by the changes made.
Edits:
Definitions:
FPQ - Fresh Party Quest (consists of Escape, Romeo and Juliet, Elina, Orbis and Ludibrium PQ)
inno - innocence scroll 40%
pboxes - paragon boxes
MP - Monster Park
SSB - Surprise Style Box
eg - example
MMOs follow a general "rule", the older a certain MMO/server gets the easier it is for newer players to hop on and catch up towards midgame. While for the end game players, progress remains at the same rate (plateaus after midgame).
However following Project Revelry Phase 1, this seems to be untrue.
Early game players experienced:
1)Significantly less RP gained from daily bosses. The easiest 3 bosses' entry counts have been halved. Namely Zakum Horntail and Hilla. While the reasoning was to shorten the time spent on dailies, this has affected the early game players’ ability to gain NX from bossing. Although the same can be said for end game players, end game players can gain RP from hard bosses. This ends up to be a bigger hit to new players than to end game players.
2)A loss in NX/mesos farming spots. Namely the popular Ant Tunnel 2 and Ulu Estate.
3)FPQ "buffs" while intended to lower the duration of a run as part of the common theme of shortening dailies. Is something nobody asked for and has resulted in devastating effects now and in the future for new players. I would liken this change to how MP is now: easy, low entry requirements.
Now I witnessed a big outcry over inno prices, here are the problems with it.
While inno's demand comprise of end game players as the majority, the entire inno economy will be determined by them. Yes, reduced FPQ times mean an increase in inno supply and prices go down, which is not the problem.
The problem however lies in the fact that this results in endgame players though supposedly should have a hard time progressing are now having cheaper options than before for end game equips. And to make it even easier for them the reduced spell trace prices provide another avenue for inno via the spelltrace system, which will eventually lead to further decrease in price for inno scrolls. Furthermore, once said equips are done, inno demand will go down again.
Now why not just sell at a higher rate like 30:1k right? As of now FPQ requires what we call "attacker" as well as "dr". Yes, there can be more FPQs done in an hour however this need for "attacker" has just increased. Hence in order to retain the same amount of profit earned, say 1k dp, more funding of "attack" mules is required although time spent remained the same. This in itself is another problem.
This all seems to lead to one thing, FPQ being dead content. So why the "buff" in the first place? Also thinking about Spyro's statement "If you choose to solely farm PQ, that is your loss."
This is sad to hear, as PQ is one of the two ONLY party content remaining (the other one being party bossing). If PQ were to die off the players lose an avenue of socialising, meeting new people, progressing alongside with new friends. By no means FPQ was the best farming method in AriesMS, MP farming exists currently. I personally love it because it is a party content.
To balance some things out here are what has "improved" for early game players.
4) Slightly better NX/meso farming capabilities. Yes NX/meso farming is no longer bound to low level maps, giving players a better progression when they gear up. There is one problem with this though as the meso cap has been increased to 600% and meso bags seemingly balanced around 600% meso instead of the old 400%, this means that new players must hit 600% meso to get improved rates.
This is an issue as hitting 600% is "easy" but the problem lies with having enough damage to benefit from this NX/meso farming change. Now I dont have the exact numbers or statistics as to how not having 600% and the relevant damage for the higher-level maps affects income. Neither do I have statistics on the income difference if players were to go to a lower-level map. All I know is that it is hard for new players to make up for the loss in damage with DR/meso gear as this would require substantially better gear in the remaining unused slots.
What is intended as an improvement has also come with severe drawbacks.
5) Easier time with starforcing and early progression. There is certainly improved NX/meso farming for early game players hence the progression via starforcing and cubing is improved.
This is indeed a good outcome for this patch.
There are certainly ups and downs for early game players in phase 1 but here comes the kicker, the benefits that the end game players receive in phase 1 with seemingly no downsides. Do note that this is simply my perspective as an early-mid game player, hence my knowledge of their experiences are limited and may be biased. However I will try my best to have objective points.
1) Increased NX/Mesos farming capabilities. While there is no denying that the rates at end game spots (ecrilla, ecorals and more) have been hugely buffed. I agree that there is nothing wrong with having better income than early game players. This gives them a significant advantage as they are able to attain every highly-sought after currencies/item in this game all in one map. (bpot cubes,nodes,mesos,nx). This results in them being able to buy DP easily as they have a larger buying power.
As a result
2) End Game gear seemingly becoming easier to obtain. With more mesos/NX/DP, they can now buy more of what they need at a cheaper price (eg inno, or any other endgame services).
3) Cheaper spell traces, though a change that seemed to benefit new players in starforcing has a much bigger advantage for end game players. I wont elaborate further as it is already addressed under "FPQ"
All in all, what I fail to see and understand with Project Revelry Phase 1 is that seemingly early game players are getting the short end of the stick.
Yes they are benefiting but not as much as end game players benefit from this. Which is why i say that the gap between early game players and end game players has been widened. And that alot of the "power" have been shifted to end game players where they essentially are able to "manipulate" the market.
I dont believe that end game players are entitled to said benefits simply because they are end game. They already have access to content such as pboxes,elite chaos bosses as well as various hard bosses (will,lucid etc)
I do not know what is in store for Phase 2/3 and so on but if MP gets nerfed, that will be another big hit to early game players while end game players happily farm away at ecrillas. Though admittedly yes MP is OP, but every change has effects on both early game players and end game players even though it may be targeted for a specific group.
SUGGESTIONS:
To mitigate/solve certain issues I feel that some changes will be needed to make it balanced to both newer and older players
- Regarding FPQ, revert the change. FPQ has not been the most profitable farming method before Phase1 nor after Phase1. Profits solely rely on demand of items from the shop which happens to only be inno currently.
- If FPQ is deemed “too easy” due to xenon/beast tamer ability to fly, remove that feature. One way I can think of implementing this is to make the map before the fly map have the movement restrictions
- Spread resources available in maps. Meaning have Map A be the best for meso farming but reduced NX or coins. Map B be the best for NX farming but reduced mesos or coins.
I write this not because I seek to monetary benefits (in-game) from it. I write this because I want to offer another perspective as well as voicing my concern of the overall health of AriesMS and playerbase as I have witnessed people being affected negatively by the changes made.
Edits:
Definitions:
FPQ - Fresh Party Quest (consists of Escape, Romeo and Juliet, Elina, Orbis and Ludibrium PQ)
inno - innocence scroll 40%
pboxes - paragon boxes
MP - Monster Park
SSB - Surprise Style Box
eg - example
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