Present limit

Hello,

After seeing the poll on the present opening, I wanted to ask what the issue is. What becomes unbalanced when seekers spend extra resources on an event in order to gamble more or level up their gear? Normally PVP would be a reason to look at balancing but there isn't PVP in this game. It seems like some seekers are enjoying to use their $/Grail Tokens on presents because they like scoring high in events and get a little more reward, but I don't see how this affects others negatively. I bet many seekers even get better rewards than others who use many presents on an event, such as the Halloween one, if the non present user gets a higher quality item and a present user wins a cheap item and then has to spend a lot of points in order to level it up. 

I feel like I'm missing the issue here.

All the best,
~Godsfortune

Please read before joining the discussion!

Dear Seekers,

It has been a while since we had a poll, and it seems making a poll about the presents before actually changing them was the right time to do based on the feedback I received the past 24 hours!
Instead of replying to all the received letters, I'll add my feedback in this topic. If by any chance your question(s) haven't been answered, feel free to join the discussion.

Let's tackle the sensitive topic first, which is about real-life money! It's no secret that I spend a lot of time working for this project and have a real-life job as well, which helps me pay the bills. I do dream of making a living from this project and be able to work full-time for it without having to worry about money. However, after 16 years and despite many generous Seekers, this dream hasn't become reality yet and won't be anytime soon. You could state I'm really bad at marketing or selling my project (which partially is true)! But more importantly, I do not feel good with adding some easy mechanisms that can be found in many games to generate more money. This project is about the joy of making it (my Grail Quest) and being able to share it with other people. Generating income from it because people do enjoy the game is amazing and heartwarming but it is not the main goal of why I'm working on TGL.

Some people are concerned that by limiting the the presents, I'll shoot myself in the foot and this might indeed have an effect. But when looking at the numbers I can say that so far roughly 400,000 tokens were spend on Presents in the Realm. Compared with roughly 1,000,000 tokens spend on Stamina Potions and roughly 200,000 tokens donated to the Grail Blessing. In addition, most Seekers who opened presents during the Event also heavily contributed toward the Grail Blessing, either for 1 Honor or to help everybody in their town. Although it's hard to predict, I do believe changing the presents will not cut too deep.

The "issue" with the presents!?

Few years ago, presents were exactly what they supposed to be, a gift gained from other players (remember, Seekers can't give themself presents, you have to exchange them with another player). During Realm Events, Seekers drank potions and there was no limit on the "Salty Pretzels", allowing Seekers to drink as many potions they want/could afford. After another Realm Event, we've limited the use of Stamina Potions by allowing only 1 Salty Pretzel a day. There was no poll about it and very little feedback came about this change. Although I didn't realize it back then, this limitation made the Presents so popular today as they are the only way to get "unlimited Stamina" still. This creating the "issue".

The chance you receive additional stamina for the day is 25%. The other rewards are hardly useful during the Realm Event, including the 20% chance on gaining a Stamina Potion (as drinking potions are limited). In my opinion, it makes no sense not to limit presents but do limit potions. Both are mostly "premium" items that require real money and both have "unlimited potential". However the potions grant a certain 200 Stamina for 100 Tokens while the presents need to be opened and give you 200-250 Stamina for 200 Tokens in average, not to mention you have to get them in advance and trade with other trustworthy Seekers. In conclusion, Presents in Realm Events are only used because all other options for extra Stamina are limited. Extra rewards from the presents opened during the Realm Events are a bonus (at best).

sLeePyEd created a well written announcement, expressing his worries about the balance between younger and older Seekers. Stating that at the moment Presents are the only way to give new Seekers a chance winning the event and in essence he's right! With changing the use of presents, new Seekers will have no chance winning the event while now, with spending a lot of real-life money they have that chance on winning. But then again, older Seekers can open also a lot of presents and keep their "unfair" advantage over younger Seekers. Every multi-player game struggles with balance between players. Either being it a "pay to win" aspect, the age of the character in-game, the time spend in-game, the skill of the player, and so on...

"Balance" is indeed a tricky word. Some find the balance between young and older players crucial and are in favor for not changing anything while others find the balance between paying and none paying players important and are in favor for a change. I guess...the balance... lays somewhere in between! What matters for me personally is how good / bad it feels when somebody supports the project. I feel good when many Seekers all support a little, I start asking questions (and feel uncomfortable) when few Seekers spend a lot of money during Realm Events to compete with others.

My conclusion:

The primary goal of every player joining the game and Realm Events in particular should be fun!
While some find great joy in preparations and optimizing their damage to deal as much as possible, others simply aim to collect a gamble. Few Seekers aim for the Profile Icon and even fewer do in fact use more than 50 Presents (the last day). I believe young Seekers can find joy in the many small gifts during the event and collecting their first set of Equipment. Finally, I get my joy from the support of Seekers, their feedback and the heated debates in taverns about the latest game tactics.

The only way to keep the presents as they are today, is by removing the restriction on the amount of Salty Pretzels a Seeker can have. If we go for "unlimited stamina", it makes more sense to let people drink endlessly rather than opening presents endlessly and wait until they get the instant Stamina. Doing this will heavily favor Seekers willing to pay for their victory. Realm Events will be good for my income but the strategic importance will be less important.

Adding a cap on the amount of presents used per day will possible affect my income, but fits perfectly in the other stamina limitations already added in the Realm. It will force Seekers to take the limited presents into account if they want to win and rewards Seekers who are older and plan ahead.

At the end, only a very small portion of the active community will be affected by any decision to keep or change the Presents.

Aro,

I understand the "catch 22" you find yourself in.

Selfishly as a player, I'd love for you to be able to dedicate all your time to the game.

However, I do my best not to spend too much money on any game, so get your attempt at balance between players paying and not paying.

I'm not sure if it's even possible but, perhaps you change the pretzel restriction to 2 or 3 instead of 1 strictly during the events.

This will allow players to get more stamina from potions if they choose too.

This will allow you to restrict presents like you'd like too, loosen some restricts on potions to allow more stamina but at the same time not making it unlimited.

Or restrict presents but also alter the damage requirements to get points to a lower level to allow players to get them for less damage.

This would also limit the use of presents and/or potions for those just going for gambles or a certain amount of equipment upgrades as they wouldn't need as much stamina to get them.

Just my 2 cents and not even sure it would work with the coding for the game.

Dean

Before reading this explanation, I was opposed to the change. However, I think I understand it a bit more now.

I guess if there is to be a limit on presents, it should be delayed until after the Spring event so that Seekers with an existing stash of presents can use them on an event as they intended.

I know there will be some that will be unhappy to learn that I was one of the people in favor of a present change since last Spring, especially since I reside in Camaar. This isn't about me or any of the top damage dealers or even about Camaar trying to do well in events. It's primarily due to two things.

The first, which is apparently a sore point to some, is that there are those who feel new seekers should not immediately be on par or have the option to be on par with someone who has been working hard growing their character for nearly 10 years during events simply by being fortunate enough to be able to donate to the game in large amounts. I can see both sides of the arguement where some older seekers who have played for nearly a decade are seeing those not even a year into the game bypass them in events without any in game effort. I can also see newer players who may feel that they will never be able to compete with the older seekers due to the slow but steady pace of The Grail Lords, but there should be certain things that have limits. Even taking presents out of the equation new seekers can do well, just not 10 decade player old well. Yes I understand events should not be a direct competition between each seeker, however there are a lot who judge their accomplishements to the others around them and we should not disregard this even if we feel differently.

The second is a touchy subject about competition, more specifically the town competition during events. First off let me say I enjoy a good competition, when it is on even ground. It is obviously not on even ground before presents come into play with Camaar having a huge advantage by pure population numbers, which is an issue, one of which to this day has no good solution. Due to the existance of this imbalance a new issue has arisen, people feeling the pressure to need to pay just to ensure their town stays competitive. Again I am not against compeitition but when people from more than one town express to me that they feel they need to pay to keep their town in the running it becomes concerning.

Pretzels

I am somewhat concerned about adding additional pretzels per day and highly against removing the cooldwon entirely as this will simply shift the issue from presents to grail token spending. The average person has 5 drink slots, which currently with a salty pretzel means they can drink 10 grail stamina potions for 2,000 stamina per day and then use grail tokens to heal. By the end of the event any person can easily have used 14,000 stamina. If you add even one more pretzel per day this would increase to 21,000 stamina, which isn't massive but still a large amount even for a person playing for years. If you remove the cooldown entirely it then goes back to an unlimited stamina event but now in a more controled form of it as it is no longer random from a present. One simply has to keep buying tokens, potions, pretzels and healing through out the event.

I know what some of you are thinking that it is extremely expensive to heal with tokens and that the numbers I gave above are exaggerated and are unlikely to happen, but if over 600 presents were purchased buying additional tokens to heal most likely won't be an issue for anyone already spending more than the average person.

Prize points

I know the point has been mentioned that more stamina means more prize points for new players where prize points can be sold for money. If a new seeker is already purchasing tokens they could easily sell grail tokens for a similar result if money is the main objective.


Tombola

I know some are concerned about the tombola aspect of events, however Tombola won't be affected as much as tickets are on a per attack basis, not damage dealt. So even using the above statistics 1,400 tickets by a new player is not small and will not be highly influenced by a present limit.

If a change is made regardless if it is a limit on presents opened per day or simply capping the amount of stamina a person can spend per day a new seeker will still be able to be competitive and score well using a combination of presents, tokens and other items, they just won't be able to do incredible amounts of nearly limitless damage. Yes older players will be able to do more damage, but outside of the town competition and tombola quality damage does not affect much. I as a 6 month old player was able to exceed 20,000 damage my first event without the use of presents, so limiting presents in any form will not cause anyone new to not be able to earn a gamble, they just won't be able to earn multiple gambles early on.

These are just my own personal thoughts an opinions on the matter and if you disagree with me I ask that you please respect what I have written and not treat it as random complaining as I truly do care about the balance of the game and Lord Arogandor's well being and income.

Nolly

Regarding balance - I actually limit myself in growing a little each event - as opposed to buying my way in, in a huge amount. Because I like to see my own progress - the one achieved by months of drinking soups and increasing my personal skills and  also gives me a motivation to trade for soups and help out newer players. 

As far as I can see balance was the theme of the Town Guilds update - which basically gives newer players a chance to be able to reach the Guild Master - Top teacher Boss status whereas before this update there was hardly a chance to do so if anyone older would be on holiday for about 5 years then come back and pick it up where they left. I would personally like to see more ways to achieve balance - including between towns when competing in events - because the newer towns have no chance to ever win any town praise points to gain an advantage in the next events and other towns no matter how hard they try they still not able to win because of the age of towns and concentration of players in one particular location.

I know - I went a bit beyond the scope of this topic. I actually feel that the way presents were intended to be used originally has changed and that Aro is trying to find a way to 'restore' the original purpose of the presents - which was mainly a good will gesture between players for their birthdays and Valentines / Christmas etc. Thus there is no right or wrong answer to the limiting ways proposed however the outcome wanted - the balance - not sure it will be reached this way - perhaps it could also be better achieved by alternative ways? I wish I had a solution ... Anyhow change is good, some progression essential - balance desired and at the end of the day - if it doesn't work it can be reverted, right?

I would personally like to see more ways of competing and earn various small rewards more often. Having 2 combat events per year means 2 chances of getting some prize points to trade for newer players and do their ranches plus the items drop chance which also applies to the Autumn feast and I guess having that limit creates the need of 'stocking' up but if there would be more competing chances that allow for newer / older Seekers to be on the same 'level' - may be fun and level things out a bit. For small - insignificant rewards - nothing that would be so greatly incentivised to motivate using presents or paid for advantages. Like the cleansing Realm community event - although the combat experience gained is a bit high on that so it has a negative effect on newer players when they raise their combat level too fast and are being 'damaged' too much in the combat events.

While I typically don't partake in forum discussions, this one I thought I might add my two cents..

While I voted differently for no change to the poll, I'd much rather see a daily stamina limitation rather than a present limitation. If that meant the rewards of the presents need to be adjusted slightly in order to not waste opening one, or the limitations on salty pretzels being removed, so be it.

I see this for a few reasons, in my three years here in the realm, I've seen the gift options, which I use to find a lot of enjoyment with, significantly decrease. I already know I lose the ability to bond with a lot of seekers by the fact that I'm not fond of the tavern format or the forums. This helped bridge it slightly.

I do agree that the presents are a way to help bridge a gap between newer seekers and older ones. Especially for those that do not focus on the min/maxing details of each combat event. It also helps "sleepy towns" like Sarmiz, that struggle to have a significant grail blessing, simply obtain a gamble. Are we going to impose a limit on those as well?

If were discussing the pay-to-win concerns, why are we also not looking at buying blackjack permissions, where simply you can pay to take home a tournament? Even buying gear can easily be done by buying a significant amount of grail tokens and selling them via Marius Muchmonius. Others have mentioned healing during the combat events via tokens as well. There are many aspects of this game that can be pay-to-win in nature. To me, simply looking at just the presents, is focusing on a bandaid fix rather than addressing a core aspect of the game.

Overall, I really don't lean much in either way, but while I'm not someone who uses 50+ presents during an event, I've opened more than 10 a day when events aren't taking place. I do take advantage of the grail promotions to buy tokens to swap presents with a number of seekers, and I do sincerely enjoy that part of the game. I see the possible need for balancing for events, but I'd rather not see a blanket approach taken across the realm. Maybe it's worth considering implementing limitations solely for the span of the event.

So as some of you might know and others will have guessed, I am one of those players who used a pile of presents in the last event (173 - if anyone is interested I can do the breakdown my entire approach to the event). In total probably less than 10 players used up more than 70 presents in the event, so the actual impact will be limited of a change will impact a small subset of players, though obviously more players used more than 10 presents on any given day - the use of presents may need to be spread out depending on the final way forward.

The number of presents I use is actually limited by the amount of time I have to play the game. On the last two days of the event I had a total of well over 6,000 stamina which took me more than two hours to finish the attacks in the combat event. That is about as much as I can commit to an event timewise in a single day.

I actually voted for a limit to the total stamina per day rather than present use but all of the approaches do work for me. While I did use a lot of presents, by no means was I the most prolific present user, and there is no doubt that as things stand today the number of presents which you open during an event has a substantial impact on your performance in the event - though I would point out that your skills are still crucial as an underlying basis for an effective event. 

The one concern which I have had with the presents and the results that they can generate is simply that it might make the game less enjoyable for some players who do not have access to the large number of presents. Thankfully this does not seem to be a major issue with the current player base but given the vast potential that presents have for effectively being free stamina there could be situations where the whole thing blows up. Under the current system it would not be surprising to find one day players who might be doing 1,000,000 plus damage at events which is frankly a bit silly. 

There are still many ways to optimize and increase performance in events, though not as simple nor as immediate as presents so this will make the events more competitive going forward, something I am looking forward to.

Also the fun thing about events is the fact that at the end gambles are what they are. I have gambled a total of 16 times or so (7 gambles in this last event) and I have never obtained an item better than Epic. The RNG is the best balance point of all! 

Have fun folks! 

Dardoc.

Lord Arogandor wrote:Please read before joining the discussion!

Dear Seekers,

It has been a while since we had a poll, and it seems making a poll about the presents before actually changing them was the right time to do based on the feedback I received the past 24 hours!
Instead of replying to all the received letters, I'll add my feedback in this topic. If by any chance your question(s) haven't been answered, feel free to join the discussion.

Let's tackle the sensitive topic first, which is about real-life money! It's no secret that I spend a lot of time working for this project and have a real-life job as well, which helps me pay the bills. I do dream of making a living from this project and be able to work full-time for it without having to worry about money. However, after 16 years and despite many generous Seekers, this dream hasn't become reality yet and won't be anytime soon. You could state I'm really bad at marketing or selling my project (which partially is true)! But more importantly, I do not feel good with adding some easy mechanisms that can be found in many games to generate more money. This project is about the joy of making it (my Grail Quest) and being able to share it with other people. Generating income from it because people do enjoy the game is amazing and heartwarming but it is not the main goal of why I'm working on TGL.

Some people are concerned that by limiting the the presents, I'll shoot myself in the foot and this might indeed have an effect. But when looking at the numbers I can say that so far roughly 400,000 tokens were spend on Presents in the Realm. Compared with roughly 1,000,000 tokens spend on Stamina Potions and roughly 200,000 tokens donated to the Grail Blessing. In addition, most Seekers who opened presents during the Event also heavily contributed toward the Grail Blessing, either for 1 Honor or to help everybody in their town. Although it's hard to predict, I do believe changing the presents will not cut too deep.

The "issue" with the presents!?

Few years ago, presents were exactly what they supposed to be, a gift gained from other players (remember, Seekers can't give themself presents, you have to exchange them with another player). During Realm Events, Seekers drank potions and there was no limit on the "Salty Pretzels", allowing Seekers to drink as many potions they want/could afford. After another Realm Event, we've limited the use of Stamina Potions by allowing only 1 Salty Pretzel a day. There was no poll about it and very little feedback came about this change. Although I didn't realize it back then, this limitation made the Presents so popular today as they are the only way to get "unlimited Stamina" still. This creating the "issue".

The chance you receive additional stamina for the day is 25%. The other rewards are hardly useful during the Realm Event, including the 20% chance on gaining a Stamina Potion (as drinking potions are limited). In my opinion, it makes no sense not to limit presents but do limit potions. Both are mostly "premium" items that require real money and both have "unlimited potential". However the potions grant a certain 200 Stamina for 100 Tokens while the presents need to be opened and give you 200-250 Stamina for 200 Tokens in average, not to mention you have to get them in advance and trade with other trustworthy Seekers. In conclusion, Presents in Realm Events are only used because all other options for extra Stamina are limited. Extra rewards from the presents opened during the Realm Events are a bonus (at best).

sLeePyEd created a well written announcement, expressing his worries about the balance between younger and older Seekers. Stating that at the moment Presents are the only way to give new Seekers a chance winning the event and in essence he's right! With changing the use of presents, new Seekers will have no chance winning the event while now, with spending a lot of real-life money they have that chance on winning. But then again, older Seekers can open also a lot of presents and keep their "unfair" advantage over younger Seekers. Every multi-player game struggles with balance between players. Either being it a "pay to win" aspect, the age of the character in-game, the time spend in-game, the skill of the player, and so on...

"Balance" is indeed a tricky word. Some find the balance between young and older players crucial and are in favor for not changing anything while others find the balance between paying and none paying players important and are in favor for a change. I guess...the balance... lays somewhere in between! What matters for me personally is how good / bad it feels when somebody supports the project. I feel good when many Seekers all support a little, I start asking questions (and feel uncomfortable) when few Seekers spend a lot of money during Realm Events to compete with others.

My conclusion:

The primary goal of every player joining the game and Realm Events in particular should be fun!
While some find great joy in preparations and optimizing their damage to deal as much as possible, others simply aim to collect a gamble. Few Seekers aim for the Profile Icon and even fewer do in fact use more than 50 Presents (the last day). I believe young Seekers can find joy in the many small gifts during the event and collecting their first set of Equipment. Finally, I get my joy from the support of Seekers, their feedback and the heated debates in taverns about the latest game tactics.

The only way to keep the presents as they are today, is by removing the restriction on the amount of Salty Pretzels a Seeker can have. If we go for "unlimited stamina", it makes more sense to let people drink endlessly rather than opening presents endlessly and wait until they get the instant Stamina. Doing this will heavily favor Seekers willing to pay for their victory. Realm Events will be good for my income but the strategic importance will be less important.

Adding a cap on the amount of presents used per day will possible affect my income, but fits perfectly in the other stamina limitations already added in the Realm. It will force Seekers to take the limited presents into account if they want to win and rewards Seekers who are older and plan ahead.

At the end, only a very small portion of the active community will be affected by any decision to keep or change the Presents.

Hi, Aro, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Further to my announcement post, and in response to your post, some further thoughts I have,

TL:DR version
1. TGL is not a game that promotes overspending, especially since the cost-reward is underwhelming.
2. Competition in TGL events is not significantly materially rewarding, more for recognition.
3. Balance from nerfing donation related benefits (including presents) will likely skewed game balance towards age of player.
4. The change may instead make it less fun for more players.
5. From the exchanges, "Excessive" present/stamina is not really the issue as compared to the having access to them all at once. Hence, adjusting reward from spending stamina can be adjusted instead of adjusting the source of stamina instead.

Long Story Version
1. On Real Money, P2W and the likes.  I think it is clear you designed and run TGL with the intention/vision of it being deep, where consistent effort in playing far outweighs the benefit you can get from donation. I think this desire is still as clear now as it is when I started playing some years back. In fact, I would say TGL is one of the games I played that has the least compelling reason for me to spend. The cost-benefit from spending is marginal, compared to consistent play. Personally, on an average month, I spend less than 5% of what I spend on games on TGL. And I don't even donate to TGL on a monthly basis because there is simply no need to. In fact, sometimes I donate purely to support the game or when I felt I haven't done so in a while.

2. Observation on the Shift from stamina pots to present.  I may be wrong, but I think this may not mean the problem is with present/stamina, instead, it might mean there is little other places to spend and the best use of tokens is to buy stamina pots/pretzels/grail healing, or subsequently presents. Also, if limiting the number of present opened per day is a possible solution, it means the problem is not with the amount of stamina a seeker can get, it is more of an issue that a seeker can get all of that stamina in one go. These are two different issues altogether.

3. On Competition in TGL. In a separate discussion, I agree with Aro that competition in TGL is overrated. They are largely superficial and more for bragging rights than anything. This is especially true with the way competition rewards are adjusted over the years. These days, getting top ranking give you perhaps a nice profile icon and nothing that game changing. Icons that I often don't even use. In fact, I believe those who expend massive stamina (including myself), know that we are just doing it for fun, or have one more gambling chance (again for fun) or just because there is no real urgent reasons to spend stamina during other times.

4. On balance. Whether it is time (age of player), money (donation for tokens) or other factors, I think there will always be different opinions on what is the right balance. However, in this case, nerfing the impact of donation related benefits (e.g. potions, presents, etc.) will just further skew the balance in TGL to the time factor. I do not think this is a good shift given that TGL is already heavily dependent on the time aspect, not the $$ aspect of the player. Just like it isn't fun to have a heavy whaling P2W player steamrolling other F2P and light spenders, having a 10-years older veteran steamrolling a bunch of 1-3yrs old players isn't fun either. In my opinion, this can really turn some newer players (particularly those who would like to donate and support the TGL project) off. Even though I said it is a chance for new players, we all know it is still advantageous to veteran players who have more time to amass tokens and presents. Hence, nerfing donation based benefits (e.g. presents) will make it worse and I am not sure if this will make it more fun for players. 

5. On Impact. Furthermore, as I alluded to earlier, it will be more prudent to minimise undesired impacts from "excessive" stamina through adjusting the rewards gained by stamina, as opposed to removing and capping existing stamina sources. By adjusting reward to a diminishing return scenario (which I think TGL has been doing well like the adjustment of event rewards over the years), the undesired impact of "excessive" stamina can be better managed.

After reading and considering all of the posts here I now believe that a daily stamina cap is the optimal choice if a change is made. A daily stamina ccap could solve the base problem while not affecting the other enjoyment factors of opening presents that much. A cap could also not hurt those who already own a lot of presents as much as a cap limit, especially since earning even 2,000 stamina takes a bit of luck and presents.

As far as competition goes I still have to disagree that it is overrated due to the letters I read and the discussions that go on in the tavern during events. While the tavern occupants make up a very small percentage of the realm population, it's very noticeable that there are a lot who take town competition very seriously, especially when rewards and bragging rights are on the line. Often times a bit too seriously that I find myself avoiding interactions in the tavern due to the trash talking. As I stated in a previous post I do understand the root problem is not presents but a deeper issue, however town competition is real and will always be real so long as there is a prize and a leaderboard. In fact I'd hazard a guess that if town prize rewards did not exist we may not even be having this competition discussion at all. I'm not saying to remove all town competition, but it definitely plays a part in this topic.

I'd very much like to one day to see all four towns having the ability to be competitive, but until that day happens discussions of other preceived issues will always be brought up and I think most of us agree that regardless of the solution presents have become at the very least a small problem.

I'd also like to make my present and stamina usage from the past two events publically viewable to show everyone the large amount of resources I use and would most likely be affected negatively by any present change. I do not have actual stamina totals or stamina potions used as I do not track pralines, motivation rewards and drink consumptions. My largest daily attack total was 427

Spring 2022
Presents opened - 92
Successful attacks - 1,500

Halloween 2022
Presents opened 85
Successful attacks - 1,700

Dear Seekers,

Thank you all very much for your feedback regarding the Presents!


In total 168 Seekers did cast their vote during the poll.
- 75 of them voted for capping the presents to 10 per day.
- 30 of them voted for capping the total stamina a Seeker can spend per day.
- 28 of them voted to remove the instant stamina as a present reward.
- 35 of them voted not to change anything.

In conclusion, it will be very difficult to make everybody happy, but that will not stop us from trying!

Capping the maximum stamina per day for Seekers would be a very large and time consuming update. It would create new and unforeseen problems to overcome and it would not be ready by Christmas! Therefor we'll not capping the maximum stamina per day for the time being.

Removing the instant stamina from the presents is an option that wouldn't take much work. It however would raise the question what reward would be offered instead to make presents still interesting enough. I also believe with such change, the Realm would become a little less interesting, taking away completely the reason why we have this discussion about presents in the first place.

That leaves us with capping the presents per day or do nothing. In the poll it stated up to 10 presents, but after reading the feedback, I would like to raise the limit to 15 presents + 1 extra present for each 20 points on the Decadence Skill. Allowing Seekers to open a total of maximum 20 Presents per day. There's a 25% chance that the Seeker will receive between 200 and 250 additional stamina. So over the course of opening up to 20 Presents, a Seeker would gain around 1,125 extra stamina in average. This roughly equals drinking 5 Grail Stamina potions and gives the Decadence Skill another use. Some Seekers would gain a more than average, others will be less lucky, making every present count during Realm Events.

Again, the amount of Seekers who use such a large amount of Presents is very small indeed and most Seekers will never feel the direct effects of this update. But it will add a fixed limit for those who have large quantities of presents available and force them to spread opening presents over the course of several days instead of using vast amounts the last hours of the event. During the discussion, other aspects which are not directly related to presents came up as well. In the near future, we'll intend to tackle those as well and see how the Realm can be further improved, offering an interesting game experience for everybody.

To end, we've updated the script to sent presents to each other, allowing Seekers to send multiple presents at once instead of sending them one by one.