Upcoming Equipment Changes!

Dear Seekers,

At the moment we have 2 different systems regarding the temporary skill bonus that is gained when wearing certain equipment.
We either have equipment that multiplies the skill bonus by the equipment quality and we have equipment with a fixed skill bonus regardless of the equipment's quality.

For the untrained eye, it is difficult to know both equipment types and often Seekers have consult the help-files for additional information, while they wonder why this difference exists.
Originally, equipment had only a fixed skill bonus, which later changed into a more dynamic system, making use of the equipment quality. Until today, we kept and use both systems.

But, I would like to change this, making ALL temporary skill bonuses based on the equipment quality!

First, this would make the game a more easy to understand and more consistent, if all equipment use the same rules, there will be less confusion regarding which equipment multiplies the bonus and which don't.
In addition, it will be more rewarding to use higher quality equipment and would allow us to implement a new system where Seekers can upgrade their equipment quality (similar like we have already during the Realm Battle Events).

Equipment which have a negative skill bonus, will work reversed, meaning that the higher the quality, the smaller impact will be from a negative skill bonus.

This update will have an impact on all the equipment that's currently using the fixed skill bonus system.
In general the equipment with lower quality, will have a lower skill bonus then the current fixed one, while higher quality equipment, will become slightly better than before.
For example a Hrabrost Helmet offers a +5 Intelligence Skill bonus, no matter if it's a Cheap or Grail Helmet. After this update the Helmet will offer +1 Intelligence Skill bonus * quality level. Ranging from +1 Intelligence for Cheap Quality to +6 Intelligence for Grail Quality.

A list with the affected equipment will be posted soon.

Please feel free to join the discussion and share your thoughts about this upcoming change!

Consistency feels good. Having the same functionality on all equipment also makes it easier to manage, usually it would be increasing by 1 step for each 1 quality step, so Grail is 5 steps above Cheap.

However, I don't really see how new Seekers can profit from it when they only get Cheap or Normal quality, e.g. Bandalf's Staff. Wouldn't that item then also just give, say +2 or +5 in constitution at Cheap level? Given, nobody wants to upgrade such an item to grail, but by that logic at grail it would boost the Seeker by about 30 LP - admittedly still with some of the lowest attack stats in the game.

Sometimes it really gets tricky when you want to find a new balance, skill boosts is only one parameter, other stats (attack, defense, initiative etc.) are still static. And having a linear scale with 6 steps also doesn't always feel right, like in my above example. 

But overall, I can see it work out well, given some testing how things feel at different levels for new and old Seekers alike.

I understand why you want to make these changes, Aro, and I can see some positives in these changes.  There is definitely a lot to be said for consistency.

I would like to point out the biggest drawback of making these changes, and a possible workaround: you are going to take equipment that some seekers put a lot of effort into acquiring (sometimes even costing several gold) ... and then you are going to reduce the usefulness of that equipment by reducing a +5 bonus to a +1 bonus, in many cases.

For example: if somebody acquired a pair of Cheap Allissa's Boots (+5 Speed, +10 Riding, +10 Walking), you are going to change that piece of equipment into +1 Speed, +2 Riding, +2 Walking.  The player either just lost a huge investment, or now has to pay an additional 300 prize points at the next event to "earn" those bonuses back.

A way to not take away bonuses that players have already paid for: perhaps, instead of taking those bonuses away from the players who have put time, effort, and resources into collecting them ... perhaps you could adjust the quality of those items to Grand Master (or whatever quality keeps the new bonuses the same as the old bonuses)?  In the example above, that would keep those Allisa's Boots at +5 Speed, +10 Riding, and +10 Walking.  The player would then have the choice to pay an extra 320 prize points to boost those bonuses a little more (for a total of +6 Speed, +12 Riding, +12 Walking).  Future equipment drops would, of course, still occur at all the various levels of quality.

I propose this 'boost' to Grand Master (or whatever quality level would keep the items from losing bonuses) would only apply to items that are:

• already in game when the update takes effect, and
  
• getting changed over from fixed bonuses to scaling bonuses.
  

Thanks for continuing your efforts to improve the game,
Pan

P.S. - It doesn't matter how a seeker acquired the item previously: it could have been bought, or won in a gamble, or earned through a quest, or even traded for.  The point is: the seeker put in the required resources (stamina, coin, goods, etc) to get that item, according to how you had structured the game ... and now you are considering going back and retroactively down-grading the item that the seeker got, with no way to regain what the seeker had invested to get the item.  That's a good way to dishearten a bunch of seekers, especially when there is a straightforward way to not punish those seekers who have collected one of those items: let existing items keep the same bonus, even if that means adjusting the quality level.

I think this change is long overdue. To the extent that someone bought a cheap Alissa's Boots, well they bought cheap and that's on them. They paid for a Cheap piece of equipment and that's what they've gotten. I don't see any argument for buffing existing equipment.

The only thought I have is for new Hrabrost items being generated at the end of the relevant quests, suddenly the random roll for quality is now much more impactful, so maybe something needs to be done about the random roll to make it more skewed towards the middle. But that would only apply to new equipment being generated.

Dear Seekers,

Thank you for your feedback, both here on the forum as on our Discord Server.

In general, I hear very little complaining against the actual concept of changing the equipment with a fixed skill bonus. Most (not to say all) of the feedback is directly related to how this change will affect the individual. Which of course is very understandable.

I have yet to post the list of the affected equipment, but really want to finish another update first. However, this change will affect about 45 of the 133 pieces of equipment in the game. Most of the affected pieces have been added long time ago, before there was a script made to multiply the skill effect of the equipment.

To my knowledge, very few Seekers did "heavily invest" in equipment with a fixed skill bonus. Even if we take in mind that "heavily investing" is different for each seeker. All Grail Auction items came in Grail Quality, special prizes awarded during events came with a fixed quality based on the end ranking of the Seeker and gambling for equipment was with a random quality attached, unaffected of the cost for the gamble.

The quality of the affected equipment certainly will have an effect in the Realm. Where in the past only the durability was affected, these pieces will now be far more interesting with a higher quality, just like the other equipment who already has this skill * quality feature. No doubt, this will affect our economy.

The newbie equipment "Bandalf's Staff" is one of the items that would have a large effect, I have no problem looking into this item and make sure that the bonus remains for Seekers, making this update less tough on newbies.

In time I hope to add additional Realm Events still, however they will not be a "copy/clone" of the existing battle events we have. Two of those per year is enough, keeping in consideration that not everybody is combat oriented and these events require a lot from the Realm, community and -especially- myself.

The ability to upgrade equipment (like we have during those Realm Battle events) could be added into the Realm permanently, allowing Seekers to gather the so called "prize points" without having to wait until next event. However, this will take time to be added properly. But it's certainly something that could help "ease the pain" for Seekers affected by this update.

I'm open to the idea of awarding some form of compensation, but we have to be realistic. It would be unhealthy to upgrade all affected equipment to Grand Master quality. This would be unfair for those without any affected equipment.

If you feel like I missed something important from the discussion or you have further questions, please use this topic.

Speaking of "prize points" - those could also be awarded in other events, like town festivals and mini games, or the proposed "battle arena". Essentially anything with a competition can give prize points. The quantity needs to match the required input, though - e.g. winning a Goose Run cannot give 20 points, it needs to be in relation to what the big battle events give in the upper tiers (e.g. 2000 dmg for 25 prize points).

Such events for prize points could also help with another recent problem, deflation. When events require a number of goods to be donated/sold it reduces the overproduction if adjusted well. That is, rather set high bars than too low, otherwise the effect will not dent the stock at all. -> But that's another topic altogether.

I have still somewhat mixed feelings about the example given by Pan. I agree, there were two types of equipment so far - those with static skill and those with dynamic/quality-based skills. Often those with static skills could be obtained cheaper if at low quality but give skills comparable to Grand Master quality (multiples of 5 in many cases).
Would that warrant for a "compensation" of some kind? No, sorry. Anyone could use prize points already to upgrade equipment, only with that update it will matter even more. Sure, so for 1-2 battle events Seekers won't gamble for new items but work on upgrading their equipment.
That, by the way, also helps the economy by not introducing even more new items into the game after each battle event.

Lord Arogandor wrote:It would be unhealthy to upgrade all affected equipment to Grand Master quality. This would be unfair for those without any affected equipment.

Seekers who haven't bothered to acquire any equipment with flat bonuses will be literally unaffected by this update.

Only Seekers who have acquired equipment with flat bonuses will be affected at all, and so why would it be "fair" to reduce the effectiveness of that equipment ... because Seekers who haven't bothered to get any equipment will be completely unaffected?

Huh?  *head scratching*

What you're proposing is:
(1) Seekers with no affected equipment: no change
(2) Seekers with affected equipment already at Grail (a very small percentage): rewarded with higher bonus
(3) Seekers with affected equipment at Grand Master: no change
(4) Seekers with affected equipment below Grand Master (most Seekers): reduction of equipment bonuses by up to 80%

This would punish group (4), the largest group, in order to be "fair" to the group that is completely unaffected by the change.

But, it's your game - you can punish most Seekers if you like.

Dear Seekers,

Thank you all again for your feedback!

Just to help you a little with your calculations, I've posted the in-game data about the affected equipment. After all, it would be a shame if we just started to throw numbers around of how many people would be affected, without basing ourselves on anything.

The list above shows all the affected equipment with their current fixed skill bonus and the proposed changes (which aren't final yet). It also shows how many of each kind are currently in game by Seekers who were active the past 2 months.

I'm not a mathematician, but I do believe that if we take away "Bandalf's Staff" & the "Quilted Armor" from the list, that roughly 43% of the equipment will not be affecting Seekers in a negative way. In addition, the equipment will become more effective at higher quality levels.

All in all, I don't think individual Seekers will be "punished" by me more than a few skill points when wearing their equipment and looking at the equipment used currently in-game, I dare to say that group of Seekers will be rather small.

Hi,

I usually do not comment on game changes unless I have a solution. But I am not satisfied with the approach atm.

Based on the above table, I have calculated the no of equipment that needs to be upgraded.

If we remove the easily gotten gear like the 3 given by the game to almost everyone active and they are 100+ in total qty.
Party Bloon
Quilted Armor
Bandalf's Staff

Counting the rest, and adding them up, we get:
564 cheap to master qualities pieces of equipment that need upgrading.
161 at grail quality, that are sometimes better or just unchanged in skill.
75 at GM quality, that need upgrading or are sometimes unchanged in skill.

So if 564 equipment definitely need to be upgraded that's a lot of players who will need to spend prize points on stuff they already own and probably had to pay others to acquire.

Eg: To upgrade from cheap to GM, I would need 150/300 points if it is rare/epic.

So,
156 cheap gear upgraded to GM, would be 156 x 150 points (if they are rare, double if epic)
137 normal gear upgraded to GM, would be 137 x 140 points (if they are rare, double if epic)
153 expert gear upgraded to GM, would be 153 x 120 points (if they are rare, double if epic)
118 master gear upgraded to GM, would be 118 x 80 points (if they are rare, double if epic)

that is a lot of spending on prize points, and would affect a lot of seekers who intend to keep their already existing bonuses.

--------

On a personal note, I did not acquire a lot of gear initially since I could not afford it. I do not have easy access to grail tokens. The acquisition of each piece of gear was with hard spent stamina and not spending it on niceties.

While this aspect of the equipment skill bonus is a bit confusing, there are many aspects of the game that are so essential but just as confusing and cannot be understood unless to talk to a experienced player.

There are some Tools whose output depend on quality.
Solving this confusing system should be a priority as tools are very important compared to equipment.

Combat system mechanics like, speed, initiative etc need to be explained by pros like Discofeist and McDuck(in camaar).

Until I myself went hunting or fishing, I still did not know the difference in mechanics of the two. Hunting is usually on a long timer and you would need to hunt 2-4 times a day. While Fishing can be done in one go with all your stamina if u so desire. Of course you need to wait for both, but there is a difference. This is not apparent in the wiki or help file. The tutorial was so long ago, I forgot how fishing worked.

Since I do not have a solution to the above problems I did not bring them up, but maybe someone else can contribute one or at least it gets discussed.


I hope this comes across as constructive feedback.

regards

Rishi

Was it really necessary to change PIE FORKS????

Also, "Equipment which have a negative skill bonus, will work reversed, meaning that the higher the quality, the smaller impact will be from a negative skill bonus."

I only see a change to the Claymore

I have yet to post the list of the affected equipment, but really want to finish another update first. However, this change will affect about 45 of the 133 pieces of equipment in the game. Most of the affected pieces have been added long time ago, before there was a script made to multiply the skill effect of the equipment.

To my knowledge, very few Seekers did "heavily invest" in equipment with a fixed skill bonus. Even if we take in mind that "heavily investing" is different for each seeker. All Grail Auction items came in Grail Quality, special prizes awarded during events came with a fixed quality based on the end ranking of the Seeker and gambling for equipment was with a random quality attached, unaffected of the cost for the gamble.


I'm open to the idea of awarding some form of compensation, but we have to be realistic. It would be unhealthy to upgrade all affected equipment to Grand Master quality. This would be unfair for those without any affected equipment.

If we try to analyze the rest of the unaffected equipment list, we might find that they were upgraded more often since it was useful. Whereas the fixed bonus equipment were sometimes just upgraded to satisfy durability limits or by collectors with spare prize points/cash.

One issue I noticed is, upgrading the affected equipment to Grand Master quality would also increase the durability of the equipment. Maybe this is a bit unfair. And event salvaging will give more prize points. We want to simplify the calculation of bonuses and standardize all equipment. Other than that the existing bonus should be maintained.

Maybe somehow alter the durability of these equipment? not sure if its practical
or change the way salvaging it will give prize points?

While the equipment bonuses are active all year, this downgrading will have a major impact in combat events in which a few players try to maximize their total dmg. I am sure a few players focus mainly on gaining personal skills that are useful in combat events.

Since we already somewhat change the way equipment works during combat events, maybe we can accommodate this proposed change as well.

The Qty of
Grail Auction items will be 1 per month. So a total qty of 38 nos.
Special prizes awarded during events will be 4 qty x no of events a year = 12 qty per year.
Gambling for equipment costing 1000 prize points each and atleast 30k dmg in the event, if not 130k. So I would estimate around maybe 40 to 60 a event. So a total of around 100 a year in recent years 2021 & 2022. (and a lot lesser in previous years)

But these are both types of equipment and not just fixed skill bonus.

Investment in fixed skill bonus equipment was the best bet for players with limited budget who still want to be competitive in combat events or just generally. Not only did it not require expensive prize points which can be used 2 times a year, you could happily accept any quality, whether it be gamble, special prize, or trade.



thanks & regards

rishi

Dear Seekers,

There's no possible solution that will leave everybody satisfied in this update, I think we all can agree on that. ^.^
So if we all adjust our expectations regarding this update a bit, we might find a compensation that won't be perfect, but ease the "pain" a bit.

Taking in consideration that;
- it is impossible to figure out how much Seekers invested in their equipment with fixed skill bonuses,
- Seekers might have invested in equipment without fixed skill bonuses and thus are unaffected by this update,
- the large majority of equipment gained comes into the realm with a random quality,
- there's a large spread on the amount of pieces of equipment Seekers possess,
- Seekers with low quality equipment suffer a disadvantage from this update,
- Seekers can have only 8 pieces of equipment equipped,

I propose the following:

- All Bandalf Staff's will be upgraded to Grand Master automatically, this to reduce the effect of this update for newbies.
- All Seekers who arrived in the Realm before 1st of April 2023 will receive 12 upgrade points which they can use to upgrade their equipment.


The upgrade points:
The upgrade points will be a temporary update which will allow Seekers to upgrade their equipment to a higher quality. One quality upgrade will require 1 point unaffected of the equipment rarity. So each Seeker will be able to upgrade 3 pieces of equipment with a fixed skill bonus of their choice from Cheap to Grand Master.
Or any possible combination, Seekers can use those points as they see fit, upgrading 12 pieces from Cheap to Normal for example. Seekers can upgrade each-other's equipment as well but at their own risk of course.
 
Restrictions:
- Upgrading the quality will not increase the actual durability of the equipment.
- Seekers will only be able to upgrade equipment with a fixed skill bonus.
- Seekers will not be able to upgrade equipment higher than Grand Master.
- The upgrade points can't be exchanged for anything else.

When preparations are made, this update will be announced in the Realm. Seekers who have equipped equipment with a fixed skill bonus will see their equipment unequipped after executing the script. A warning will be given and for the duration of this change, Seekers will be able to equip their equipment at any location in the Realm.

Nice solution! Aro

you are right, I am somewhat satisfied. I dont think everyone will be, but this is practical enough.

Aro wrote:The ability to upgrade equipment (like we have during those Realm Battle events) could be added into the Realm permanently, allowing Seekers to gather the so called "prize points" without having to wait until next event. However, this will take time to be added properly. But it's certainly something that could help "ease the pain" for Seekers affected by this update.

It would be amazing if the prize points system could be implemented in a few months, before the next combat event.


thanks & regards

rishi

I like it, but I wonder if those Quests that only give a Cheap piece of (random) equipment should be flagged in some way. The Island Treasure Hunt, for example iirc; the rewards have effectively been downgraded while the costs remain the same.

Excellent. I fully support it now. Upgrade points fixes the timing thing, restrictions make it fair for everyone. *clutches Pie Fork

Filbert wrote:I like it, but I wonder if those Quests that only give a Cheap piece of (random) equipment should be flagged in some way. The Island Treasure Hunt, for example iirc; the rewards have effectively been downgraded while the costs remain the same.

Actually, people always got Rare things. Then Entropy, Dryp etc got Epic items, so I think there was a change to allow better drops, so I think the the ITH has been already improved

Lord Arogandor wrote:I propose the following:

- All Bandalf Staff's will be upgraded to Grand Master automatically, this to reduce the effect of this update for newbies.
- All Seekers who arrived in the Realm before 1st of April 2023 will receive 12 upgrade points which they can use to upgrade their equipment.

To keep my two cents short.. I agree complete with the need to overhaul our two contrasting equipment systems. While this would affect me, and some investments I've made, I'm fairly content with these compensation actions, you'll hear no complaints here overall.

I'm just catching up on this. I do believe this would affect me negatively more than ~98% of players, and I'm actually all for just nuking it and not compensating people at all .

Much needed change, bravo Aro. I'll feel deep in my cheap Framer's Trousers, but consistency is beautiful.

I didn't win an auction for a Varidyn's Smile, but someone offered to sell me a cheap one for a little less gold than the Grail one sold for. The bonuses were the same but durability lower, still worth the gold at the time. This now turned out to be a bad idea. As a long term player I have multiple pieces that are currently fixed with their stats regardless of quality and will be taking a good hit when changes take place. Now I just need to think a bit more about which pieces of equipment are more important to my play style and focus on bringing those up I suppose.

I will lose many stats but gain an opportunity to bring some even higher, not too bad.

In all honesty, I'm just happy to see that the game is still getting worked on ( :

Dark Plate of the Moon Error?

Is the charisma stat on Dark Plate of the Moon correct, -10 per quality level? This seems to be the only piece of equipment that has tremendously changed its range and at Grail that should be -60 Charisma which is a TON. However, I think that the equation for this stat isn't working properly either way, at Grand Master quality mine is already showing -70. I'm surprised that the citizens haven't tossed me in jail just for being seen with my poor characteristic.

Aro, posted an update.

For the moment, negative skill bonuses have no effect yet.

I have a lot of equipment that is expert / master that I can not upgrade. When I go and try to upgrade it all I get is a message to the effect that I have no equipment that can be upgraded. Wat do I need beyond the upgrade points (I've used 1 and have 11 of the 12 remaining).

V