Here's the problem with gold, and why we have a ton of TCs. Once we hit the cap, there's a few things we can do:
1) Buy reagents/tcs/snacks and/or gardening/fishing/monstrology spells until we're maxed out or have them all
2) Buy gear then sell it for a loss 3) train pets
How many people have "packrat" accounts doing nothing but storing TCs?? More than will ever admit I'm sure. What else can we do? A more important question, why should we be FORCED to do one of the above?? With all of the Elite drop side dungeons, we never need to buy gear ever again because those are MUCH better than anything in the bazaar (with rare exception). The problem with gold is something you guys created. I don't say this from an angry point of view; you created the game, not us, and in that respect, you created the problem. Gear on the 3rd arc has not been worth buying at all. You have created an expectation in the players that each new world will have better gear than the one before it, then you released the 3rd arc and it was all junk save for the final boss (for the most part).
Then, on top of that, you impose a gold cap. Once the above conditions are met, what else can we spend gold on? Not a thing. Sure, we can start a new wizard and have them sell off all rank 6 & 7 pet snacks, and be able to get all the best gear for that level, but we run into the same problem quickly.
The big issue is, there isnt enough things to do with GOLD. You have released some awesome things, but they're crowns only. You have EVERY right to earn a profit, but you're forgetting the GOLD purchases. Perhaps it's time to unlock the main 3 items with socketing (robe/hat./boots - yes, a HUGE recoding I know). That would be a TINY fix and probably not worth the time spent. Maybe allow us to buy items from the Ticket Shops with large amounts of gold (I havent a clue what the gold:ticket:crown formula is if there even is one). That again would be another small fix (I'd love to own the energy amulet from that shoppe as an example). Allow us to rename our wizards for 400,000 gold would be another small fix. All of these are MINOR fixes. KI has stated time and time again that we will never have player owned shoppes for fear it will ruin the economy, and while I'm not asking for that, it's already ruined and we dont have the shoppes.
There needs to be SOMETHING we can spend all this gold on. I don't know what it is, but why should I have to literally throw away millions and millions of gold just to maintain a cap that only keeps Reagent availability in check. That is the ONLY thing the cap realistically does. It doesnt restrict anything else, does it? If you garden any of the "big 5" seeds, you get all the sellable items you could ever want.
As a matter of fact, the WORST offenders are those of us (myself included) who stack our gardens because we get items by the troves. Factor in 2x gardening drops and it gets even worse (for both bank space and gold). I absolutely do NOT want you to make stacking illegal, but it DOES contribute to the problem of an overabundance of gold.
Gold is ONE OF the biggest problems in the game because you want it to be balanced and fair, but dont give us enough to spend it on. So, I say again, what can we spend our gold on? Maybe we can upgrade our existing spells for gold (allow us to have flat/more damage or after effects by leveling up those spells)? That would be nice. Perhaps we can add new things to those older spells with gold. Perhaps we can upgrade mounts to give us better speed boosts for gold (more than 40% but less than 50% so that crown mounts have the best speed boosts). Maybe make more Houses available for gold. Maybe we can change the way our houses are designed for gold (meaning the layout). We've been begging you for years now to give us something WORTHWHILE to do with all this excess gold, and now we've hit a crossroads. There are literally thousands of ideas on this forum alone (not counting any of your other websites) that you can pull from. You just have to decide which one(s), knowing full well it will be gold and NOT crowns.
Enchant TCs mean that every spell can become a Treasure Card, and because the Enchant TCs are on vendors, and because gold is so plentiful, it means you have access to as many TCs of any spell as you want.
That's not good for the game.
Players are filling their TC inventory with either a small selection of TCs that they value highly-- often because of other problems we should address directly-- or they're filled with TC clutter that they don't value at all.
The game is best served by varying supplies of different kinds of TCs-- some TCs can be in abundant supply, and some TCs should be in shorter supply, some TCs can require a high investment (gold or time), some TCs can require a lower investment; and of course, some TCs should be in high demand, and some TCs can be lower demand (but still useful).
I'm happy to answer follow up questions.
It is only common to take the backlash. I hope this doesn't make your self angry. We wouldn't be here if we didn't love the game you had a part in. That being said, I have some concerns but also an understanding of what direction you want to go in.
Understanding:
Treasure Cards have indeed lost their title meaning. In fact, they aren't even "treasures" at all, giving the overwhelming amount one can receive. It also seems more realistic if these golden cards were more difficult to acquire. Wizards are always searching for knowledge, (just like Pirates are always searching for gold) and a "Treasure Card" seems pretty rewarding - but not if they are so simple to find/earn/farm/buy/trade.
The TC issue and the Deckathalon reminds me of the five box quest with the Loremaster. It always sounded cool that the Drake brothers "turned in" their spell decks to her. I get this feeling when crafting new Deckathalon spell decks. You turn one spell deck in to earn another (Give and Take.)
The actual reason (I'm assuming) you would like to remove these cards is because it might make the game a little too easy. I'm all for a challenge, but sometimes it may be extremely frustrating when a good strategy gets taken away after using it for ten years.
Concern/Solution:
The enchantment Treasure Cards are handy, and (as said above) they have been at our disposal since 2010. (Celestia) Taking them away will very much change things in the game for many players.
This goes back to the "Give and Take." What will take their place? Maybe something called Platinum Cards?Platinum cards can be Celestial enchantment cards, and they work just like a Treasure Card, but you can only buy 20 a month (No Trade/Sell and any card it enchants makes it No PVP/Deckathalon.)
I think this may be useful, and it will not wholly take away the enchant TCs, but it will limit them. Just imagine a 30-day cool-down once you hit 20 Platinum Cards.
(Except that the analogy clearly worked like a charm-- you nailed it.)
So in keeping with the analogy
Either something needs to be done about the rain supply, ie severely curtail the amount of available gold.
Or make more items available for gold purchase.
Some thoughts:
The ability for higher level wizards to increase their accuracy on lower level spells. It makes sense for brand new wizard to fizzle spells they have just learned. But it makes no sense to fizzle (and fizzle and fizzle) spells we have had under our belt for 40 levels or more.
Stitching - I like that fact that I can make one piece of gear look like another. But the fact that it is crowns only makes it expensive. Stitching would be a GREAT place to spend gold.
Minion hiring - Whereas Hiring at level or above minions to help in battle SHOULD be crowns only. Lower level minions could be hired for gold. Or let us advance the minions in our deck for gold.
Mounts - If by some chance we get a 7 day mount in a pack or from a drop, make it an option to make the mount permanent by spending gold.
Gardening - Perhaps there could be some REALLY cool, one-use, gardening spells available for gold?
I'd like to start by saying I think identifying problems like this is already an incredible step in the right direction. But I'd like to give some feedback on specifically what I think some of the problems are.
For starters, one of the main reasons main deck enchants are balanced is because to cast an enchanted hit you now need two cards. This means you not only need to use more of your deck space, but you need to draw both cards to harness said power. TC enchants skip this step altogether. You can pre-enchant as many hits as you want and then proceed to draw these fully enchanted hits whenever you need them. Additionally, because there's literally no situation where you wouldn't want to use a damage-enchanted hit, players bring as many of them as possible. (Perhaps offer other types of enchants more comparable to damage enchants.)
As a consequence of this, many players who do pvp for instance rely almost entirely on their sideboard for hits and leave their main decks for strictly utility cards. I think this also makes the issue of shadow pip spells much worse. Players get upset when someone gets a shadow pip and wins because they can now use a 1000+ base damage spell for only 4 pips, especially if this happens on the first turn. Due to TC enchants, if you get a shadow pip on turn one, it's not too difficult to mass discard and draw a fully enchanted shadow pip hit. However, if TC enchants did not exist, you would need to get lucky enough to draw both an enchant and a shadow pip hit in your first turn, as well as get a shadow pip itself - this is much, much less likely. Or, ideally, players would be encouraged to think through their turns ahead of time: do I want to hold onto this shadow pip hit? Do I want to enchant this hit now or hold onto the enchant for later? How many of each hit do I want to include in my deck?
Another issue I believe enchants create is an issue of balancing. Enchants add a flat amount of damage to spells, so naturally this means on lower base damage spells, that's a larger percentage increase. If you add this very large percentage damage increase to a spell that has low damage because it is combined with additional utility, I think it makes the spells really difficult to balance. Look at a spell like loremaster or luminous weaver, you're losing some of your damage on the spell because it comes with the benefit of applying a weakness and/or a mantle. But, when such a large portion of the spells damage comes from being enchanted anyways, that loss is much less of a problem. Many players would be less inclined to use a spell like loremaster repeatedly if they couldn't also guarantee it was enchanted. The "trade-off" of using this spell basically does not exist with enchants being guaranteed.
In PVE, I don't think these issues are as much of a problem. If your goal is to streamline the questing experience, at least for additional wizards, making enchants more accessible is a great way to do it. I'd definitely urge you not to remove enchants from all content, or even make them more difficult to obtain, as this would only make the questing issue much worse.
As a wrap up, or closing remarks, I'd love to see the test realms actually test many of these things. That's what a test realm is for, after all. The TC enchants being removed from vendors was only briefly added to test realm, but it was reverted just as quickly and we didn't actually see the impacts of the change. I think testing lots of different ideas on test realm would be a better way to get feedback - just be clear with people that it's only a test and absolutely none of it is final. None of the players can give you accurate feedback on what would work, because we can't test it. I'd like to see a test realm where you just test various enchant changes - try removing them altogether, try removing just TC enchants, try changing how enchants work (make them % damage as opposed to flat damage maybe?) - only then can players give you true feedback as opposed to hypothetical feedback.
I have to admit, I'm very excited to see what creative measures y'all will go to to make PvP playable again. As someone who has been PvPing since it's inception, watching the decline throughout the years has been hard to watch. Judging by the newsletter, it seemed that many different options are being explored. My question is this: How will these changes be any different from past changes that retroactively fixed problems while birthing newer, more difficult ones? Additionally, if these changes are as extreme as I'm hoping they will be, what will it look like for the wizards who have plunged hundreds of hours and resources into making themselves competitive in the current system. While I have no doubt a strong majority will be happy to see the slate wiped clean and the system rebuilt from the ground up, will wizards have anything to show for their efforts over the past decade in PvP?
On a different note, regarding some of the comments I saw made by Ratbeard, I have some comments of my own about the state of enchantment treasure cards. Specifically, I saw a comment suggesting that enchantments ought to be more valued and in order for that to be done they would need to be harder to find. Speaking on behalf of enchantments specifically, NOT the rest of the entire treasure card economy, I think we already have a great balance with this. As it stands now the value falls on an adequate hierarchical distribution. We have monstrous, which is readily accessible and acts as the base of the hierarchy. I do not need to budget my Monstrous TC and I'm welcome to use them during my questing or PvP or whatever other situations I may find myself in. However, on some lower level characters I've become a Grandmaster Artisan to get access to Gargantuan treasure cards. I have to be much more careful with these because, as intended, they are more valuable and harder to earn as they are directly tied to my stock of sunstones per their recipe. Lastly I have my colossals. These bad boys are used with great care as the only place I know of to earn them is through Tournament rewards. These things considered, I think efforts to reinvent the wheel on enchantment treasure cards may be effort wasted on fixing a problem that doesn't exist.
Either something needs to be done about the rain supply, ie severely curtail the amount of available gold.
Or make more items available for gold purchase.
Some thoughts:
The ability for higher level wizards to increase their accuracy on lower level spells. It makes sense for brand new wizard to fizzle spells they have just learned. But it makes no sense to fizzle (and fizzle and fizzle) spells we have had under our belt for 40 levels or more.
Stitching - I like that fact that I can make one piece of gear look like another. But the fact that it is crowns only makes it expensive. Stitching would be a GREAT place to spend gold.
Minion hiring - Whereas Hiring at level or above minions to help in battle SHOULD be crowns only. Lower level minions could be hired for gold. Or let us advance the minions in our deck for gold.
Mounts - If by some chance we get a 7 day mount in a pack or from a drop, make it an option to make the mount permanent by spending gold.
Gardening - Perhaps there could be some REALLY cool, one-use, gardening spells available for gold?
Steven Ghoststalker 130
Either something needs to be done about the rain supply, ie severely curtail the amount of available gold.
Both, probably-- but change is difficult, as we've seen. I'm not sure I would say severely curtail it, but there are some problem spots.
The game changes, players' tastes change, and of course we make mistakes, and so we will adjust the game as necessary to keep it healthy for a long time to come.
I'm definitely open for more consumables with gold pricing (obviously-- see Deckathalon.)
The problem with gold is something you guys created. I don't say this from an angry point of view; you created the game, not us, and in that respect, you created the problem.
My desire to respond to that is proportional to your belief that we have to live with our mistakes forever.
Then, on top of that, you impose a gold cap. Once the above conditions are met, what else can we spend gold on? Not a thing. There needs to be SOMETHING we can spend all this gold on. I don't know what it is, but why should I have to literally throw away millions and millions of gold just to maintain a cap?
This is a strange bit of player psychology. You've admitted there's nothing you want to spend your gold on, but you'll jump through hoops to avoid throwing away even 1 gold. You're not unusual, by the way: You earned it; of course you want to keep it. I'm the same way.
As a matter of fact, the WORST offenders are those of us (myself included) who stack our gardens because we get items by the troves. Factor in 2x gardening drops and it gets even worse (for both bank space and gold). I absolutely do NOT want you to make stacking illegal, but it DOES contribute to the problem of an overabundance of gold.
Well, you know... You could just... stop doing that. Right?
That's just crazy talk!
I bet your garden is a marvel of efficiency; that's bound to give you a great sense of accomplishment. Feels good to 'beat' the game.
So what would you like to sink those rewards into? There should be a cycle of investment and reward. The rewards you are reaping from gardening are outstripping your investment; you're looking for somewhere else to invest the profit because you already beat gardening.
But you definitely don't want us to fix any gardening exploits or mistakes. Right?
So, I say again, what can we spend our gold on? Maybe we can upgrade our existing spells for gold (allow us to have flat/more damage or after effects by leveling up those spells)? That would be nice. Perhaps we can add new things to those older spells with gold.
I'll remind Falmea that I proposed Spell Research almost as soon as I joined the team. :)
The problem with gold is something you guys created. I don't say this from an angry point of view; you created the game, not us, and in that respect, you created the problem.
My desire to respond to that is proportional to your belief that we have to live with our mistakes forever.
Then, on top of that, you impose a gold cap. Once the above conditions are met, what else can we spend gold on? Not a thing. There needs to be SOMETHING we can spend all this gold on. I don't know what it is, but why should I have to literally throw away millions and millions of gold just to maintain a cap?
This is a strange bit of player psychology. You've admitted there's nothing you want to spend your gold on, but you'll jump through hoops to avoid throwing away even 1 gold. You're not unusual, by the way: You earned it; of course you want to keep it. I'm the same way.
As a matter of fact, the WORST offenders are those of us (myself included) who stack our gardens because we get items by the troves. Factor in 2x gardening drops and it gets even worse (for both bank space and gold). I absolutely do NOT want you to make stacking illegal, but it DOES contribute to the problem of an overabundance of gold.
Well, you know... You could just... stop doing that. Right?
That's just crazy talk!
I bet your garden is a marvel of efficiency; that's bound to give you a great sense of accomplishment. Feels good to 'beat' the game.
So what would you like to sink those rewards into? There should be a cycle of investment and reward. The rewards you are reaping from gardening are outstripping your investment; you're looking for somewhere else to invest the profit because you already beat gardening.
But you definitely don't want us to fix any gardening exploits or mistakes. Right?
So, I say again, what can we spend our gold on? Maybe we can upgrade our existing spells for gold (allow us to have flat/more damage or after effects by leveling up those spells)? That would be nice. Perhaps we can add new things to those older spells with gold.
I'll remind Falmea that I proposed Spell Research almost as soon as I joined the team. :)
I wish you luck figuring this one out!
Thank you! We appreciate it.
I do think that some sort of 'Spell Research' or 'Spell Mastery' Would be a good idea and could potentially give new life to old spells. As a professional wizard, I should be able to cast the lower level spells with great accuracy or maybe some other sort of perk. Random thought on this is have it be available at level 100 so you can start to master spells 100 levels after you have learned them? I don't know how that would work from a balancing perspective, but might sound fun. I think it could be a good gold sink too.
TC's. So I'm not sure about everyone else, but I don't think the Deckathalon has really solved my "overabundance of treasure cards issues" (if anything it's compounded it!) The MAIN reason I don't use my treasure cards is that they are one time use. I hate anything that is one time use, because my thought is "what if I need it for later/oh no then it's gone!" I had a Harry Potter potion making kit that came with various sugar powders that you were supposed to use to make the potions (basically koolaide packet), but because they were specially marked Harry Potter versions, I didn't want to use them so instead I went to Walmart and got my own koolaide and stuff. I still have the original Harry Potter packets to this day-because I didn't want to use them (I'm sure they're long since expired too). Most Games I feel like promote some form of hoarding and TCs are definitely another example of that. I never use the spells because I either have no use for them (when is my Ice Wizard going to use a Storm Lord for example), but I keep the TC because what if I need it for crafting? I think of a bunch of Orthrus TC that I've had forever because I used them to craft Housing Teleporters it needs like 7 of them and I currently only have 6 copies (thus it sits in my TC space) now copy that for each school/Teleporter color. Also think about the Spell versions from Loremaster- I have a bunch of TCs from each of those spells because I'm still trying to collect enough copies.
I kind of wish there was a way to distinguish which cards are True Treasures (only available as drops) vs which I can buy from vendors, so If I do want to go and craft more Teleporters or whatever, I know I can buy them.
On that note can we also talk about selling TC? I know that there is the a Quick TC sell button, but the issue with Quick selling is two fold: You get slightly less money and it feels wasteful, because then other players can't use the TCs. I try selling them to the Bazaar but to sell them in mass is a bit of a pain. Say I have 3 copies, you have to slide the slider or click like 6 times. I wish that could be streamlined more like the quick sell option.
The problem with gold is something you guys created. I don't say this from an angry point of view; you created the game, not us, and in that respect, you created the problem.
My desire to respond to that is proportional to your belief that we have to live with our mistakes forever.
Then, on top of that, you impose a gold cap. Once the above conditions are met, what else can we spend gold on? Not a thing. There needs to be SOMETHING we can spend all this gold on. I don't know what it is, but why should I have to literally throw away millions and millions of gold just to maintain a cap?
This is a strange bit of player psychology. You've admitted there's nothing you want to spend your gold on, but you'll jump through hoops to avoid throwing away even 1 gold. You're not unusual, by the way: You earned it; of course you want to keep it. I'm the same way.
As a matter of fact, the WORST offenders are those of us (myself included) who stack our gardens because we get items by the troves. Factor in 2x gardening drops and it gets even worse (for both bank space and gold). I absolutely do NOT want you to make stacking illegal, but it DOES contribute to the problem of an overabundance of gold.
Well, you know... You could just... stop doing that. Right?
That's just crazy talk!
I bet your garden is a marvel of efficiency; that's bound to give you a great sense of accomplishment. Feels good to 'beat' the game.
So what would you like to sink those rewards into? There should be a cycle of investment and reward. The rewards you are reaping from gardening are outstripping your investment; you're looking for somewhere else to invest the profit because you already beat gardening.
But you definitely don't want us to fix any gardening exploits or mistakes. Right?
So, I say again, what can we spend our gold on? Maybe we can upgrade our existing spells for gold (allow us to have flat/more damage or after effects by leveling up those spells)? That would be nice. Perhaps we can add new things to those older spells with gold.
I'll remind Falmea that I proposed Spell Research almost as soon as I joined the team. :)
I wish you luck figuring this one out!
Thank you! We appreciate it.
My desire to respond to that is proportional to your belief that we have to live with our mistakes forever.
I'm agreeing with you that the issue is something that needs to be looked into from a variety of avenues (as stated on this thread). I DONT want to live with mistakes, and your replies show you don't either. It's a balance.
This is a strange bit of player psychology. You've admitted there's nothing you want to spend your gold on, but you'll jump through hoops to avoid throwing away even 1 gold. You're not unusual, by the way: You earned it; of course you want to keep it. I'm the same way.
What I'm suggesting is that if there was a decent thing to spend gold on, players wouldnt hoard it. I'm at a loss of what it could be other than the various things I suggested in my post. It's the whole cost:value ratio. I'll blow billions of in game money if I feel I'm getting value out of it, and I realize the value equation is different for everybody.
The rewards you are reaping from gardening are outstripping your investment; you're looking for somewhere else to invest the profit because you already beat gardening. But you definitely don't want us to fix any gardening exploits or mistakes. Right?
I of course understand what you're getting at, and if you make stacking illegal, I will elder harvest my plots and destack them all. The issue I have is then you need to address the energy consumption. Now, I use 1 spell and cover 69 plots. If stacking becomes illegal, then I need 3 spells to cover those same 69 plots which in turn will use more energy, making our ability to tend large amounts of plants MUCH harder (even though those 3 spells would cover 75 plots instead of 69). We would need a boost in energy to compensate the increased energy requirements. OR, you need to allow us to permanently train the "tend all indoor or outdoor plant" spells. There would also be a MINIMAL item count increase that would be needed. Right now, I have 2 side by side 69 plot gardens using 1 set of likes between the 2. In this case, I would need MULTIPLE likes to cover all plots, UNLESS the area of "like effect" was increased. So, take the Red Barn Farm. Let's say I put down a Tropical Garden Gnome. If stacking is now not allowed, then the range for the Gnome should cover the whole dirt patch (but not the one on the other side of the walkway).
Keep in mind that what some see as an exploit, I don't. You (KI) have made it clear that while you wont tech problems that arise from stacking, you wont ban people for it either. This is an open statement that you will allow it and that it's legal. If the consequence of exploiting is being banned (the azteca housing item glitch is a perfect example of this), and you wont ban for doing this, then you are endorsing it. No, not everything is black or white, but in this specific case, it is; either you allow it, or don't.
When you talk about me not wanting to fix the stacking issue, and I will be plain here, KI's history is one of not fully thinking through the issue (at least from the player's POV). As I suggested above with the energy/item count problems, it's been KIs history to fix a problem, then do nothing else to address the problems that come from it. I'll give you a prime example; Critical Hit/Block. Unless you dump as much as you can into either, your criticals will always be blocked OR you will never block a critical hit. This has been stated ever since the change. I am NOT saying go back to the way it was (which KI has drawn a line in the sand and said they will never reverse). I am saying that it needs to be addressed. I LOVE that every monster has its own possibility of critting and blocking, but there needs to be a balance. The way it is NOW, I want critical removed from the game because it's still broken, just broken differently from before. If there was a balance, then I'd be fine with how often monsters critical and block. There are other issues like this that are well known. The quantity of monsters that are stun immune is another, which while fixed for polaris and above, does nothing for worlds below. If KI wants to really make the game better, they need to analyze the current problems, figure out how we got there, and how can they be fixed in a level appropriate way. The Letter has stated that you're looking over issues to try to make the game better, which is admirable and of course, takes time. I am just hoping that the solutions you guys come up with make sense and actually fix the problem instead of shifting the problem elsewhere.
I'm not sure how to quote posts on here, but these are my thoughts on spell research.
I am totally in favor of something like that. I would love a goldsink besides hatching that we can use to upgrade our spells. A lot of the lower-level spells are pretty useless now, even with enchants. On top of that, I find that the only spells I ever need to use on my storm are Glowbug Squall, Storm Lord, Scion of Storm, Tempest, and occasionally Rusalka's Wrath. I never use Leviathan, Sirens, Storm Owl, or any other spells because they are outmatched by newer, more powerful spells. I would love if we had a system in place to make these spells make a comeback. It can be tiring to have the same 3-round strategy for every single boss and mob fight.
Additionally, with the new dungeon (winter update, hopefully?), we should have a new type of stat to make gameplay more interesting. Even if we get a spell research-type system, we still need a new stat.
Right now, I can have 155 damage and 75% critical on my storm, and I haven't even optimized everything. I can get 100% critical with a whopping 132% damage, even. The point is that simply having an upgraded Darkmoor set will not be good in the long-run - eventually, storms will be able to have 200% damage with balanced stats. I remember the Waterworks days when 85% damage was considered above average.
In the past, we never had critical, block, shadow pips, armor piercing, pip conversion, or flat damage/resist. The additions of these things have made the game more fun. I would love to see the new dungeon give a brand new stat - otherwise, it might feel like a harder, longer Darkmoor.
One other suggestion I have for this farming dungeon is to create several equivalently-powerful sets of gear emphasizing different stats. In the past dungeons, there is only one gear set that we farm for. However, I think it would be good for the balance of the game if we could prioritize stats like damage, pierce, or critical by using specific gear sets. This would also make farming more interesting because players may choose to "settle" for getting something different instead of something worse.
I know I went on a bit of tangent there about the new dungeon, but I would really love to see a new kind of spell research system and new stats. And I know you can't actually confirm the existence of this dungeon, so pretend everything I said about it is purely theoretical!
1. monstrous (in bulk) when questing more wizards through the first arc.
Problem Y #1 identified: Being able to get through early content easier.
You don't need enchant TCs for this if, for example, your main wizard brings back the knowledge from Celestia to "teach" the Sun spell to your newbie. Your newbie learns "Strong" and can put it in your main deck. (Just an idea; don't run too far with it.)
2. colossal and extraordinary - these are far too precious to use and take time and resources to accumulate. They are also no trade and no auction...which limits use. I collect these (predominantly through gardening) for crafting only (eg the house games).
We like being able to reward you in exchange for time and resources, and the more time and resources you spend, the more value you place on the reward.
It feels like there is a sense of panic and impending doom because we're all picking up on how any changes could affect us without knowing what the specific imbalances are or the full extent of what solutions are being considered and how they would be implemented. It would be helpful to get some simple answers - without knowing what the perceived imbalances are, we are looking for solutions to a problem we haven't yet identified.
I'm not exactly shocked to find human beings nervous about change, but as one of our other Lead designers here is fond of saying, "We are designing for human beings." You'd be surprised how helpful that simple reminder can be.
I can't tell you everything that's going to happen because we may not even know yet ourselves. That's one of the reasons Test Realm and this forum are so useful-- we can get specific feedback to specific ideas. I do my best to be engaged and transparent. I'm good with specific questions but, "Please tell us in advance everything you plan to do so I can stop worrying!" isn't really something I can help with.
Thank you for your response!
My thing with gold wasn't so much that there isn't enough to buy with gold or that we have too much gold, it's more that when we want it we suddenly need loads - eg new spells, decorating, deckathalon now, buying houses, getting new seeds etc - hence the monsoon/drought analogy.
I can only speak for the way I play, but I doubt I'm the only one who is like this. I tend to really feel like questing and get into a weekend of questing; or feel like farming and the determination to get the treasured item/s has me farming like crazy...and other times I feel creative and want to potter about in a new home glitching pretty things together and decorating (this costs a huge amount of gold and is so enjoyable!)...there are more things we do, some gain a lot of gold, others use a lot of gold. If I were balanced in doing things to the gold limit I'd quest a bit then decorate a bit in the same day...but I get so involved in what I'm doing in Wiz that hours feel like minutes and before I know it I have to sleep lol. I'm also far too forgetful to remember my decorating ideas or even where I'm at in the story to cut between different things too frequently!
I love the idea of our older/higher level wizards teaching our newer ones things! Thank you for sharing that possibility. I always thought they must chat with each other while we're offline and they're waiting patiently in the classroom!
Don't worry, I won't get ahead with it, I know it's still an idea being considered...and I also appreciate that you can't tell us everything.
Either something needs to be done about the rain supply, ie severely curtail the amount of available gold.
Both, probably-- but change is difficult, as we've seen. I'm not sure I would say severely curtail it, but there are some problem spots.
The game changes, players' tastes change, and of course we make mistakes, and so we will adjust the game as necessary to keep it healthy for a long time to come.
I'm definitely open for more consumables with gold pricing (obviously-- see Deckathalon.)
Thank you so much for acknowledging my posts.
Oh how I wish that this week had turned out differently for me and that I could have participated in the Deckathalon. Real world health concerns take place over wizarding sadly.
Having more consumables using gold would be my preferred method of "fixing the problem".
It sounds like wizards other than myself would be VERY interested in adapting early spells.
Suggestions, these could be applied to any spell 50 levels below the Wizard's current rank
Increase Accuracy on lower rank spells (no damage increase) Increase Damage on lower rank spells (no accuracy increase) Turn lower rank spells into AOE (same damage but to all and no accuracy increase)
Allow the ability to master any single spell from an off school without using a Mastery Amulet.
So, here's another problem related to Gold and gardening. People stack gardens so they can maximize how many mega snacks they get, because pet training takes a LONG time without the 2x rewards. With the 2X rewards, it's MUCH faster, BUT, the mega snacks are best used then. If it took less time to train pet, we wouldnt need as many mega snacks and could look into not stacking gardens. Like you said, it's a many avenue issue.
I also think it was totally right to make enchants no-decathalon...
It's an acceptable temporary solution.
I'd much rather that players had a limited supply of enchants, and they could decide whether they wanted to use them for the Deckathalon, or in PvP, or to beat bosses, or to power through the early game. Then you would begin to assign value to your enchant cards.
I'm imagining how I'd adapt to them being restricted in availability and I think I'd just store them up gradually before a big questing session instead of popping to Una to buy them.
See? You understand.
Now picture your favorite attack spell-- the one you want to sideboard before that big questing session.
Would you like to have TCs of that attack spell? If you got that favorite TC as a drop, or from crafting, or gardening, wouldn't you feel like that was a cool reward?
And wouldn't it be cool if every single time you got an actual honest-to-goodness enchant spell, you recognized how valuable it was, because it represents almost any TC you can imagine, and you knew it was a limited resource?
That's value.
I'm looking forward to hearing what the 'other problems we should address directly' are and the solutions.
In the general sense, if the players say, "You can't change thing X because I need it to address problem Y!" then my response is not going to be, "Whoa! We can't change thing X!"
It's going to be, "Whoa! We should fix problem Y!"
RE: Gold is too plentiful - Here are a few suggestions:
If your roof was leaking, would you solve the problem by buying more pots and pans to collect the water?
So when you say we should value our TCs you are only speaking of a select few? And how does this fit in with balancing anything, since some would then have an unfair advantage over others, i.e. those with extensive gardens and/or crafting resources.
People who engage in the game more often and/or more deeply than others should have an advantage. There's nothing unfair about that.
Personally I think, if they are bad for the game, they are bad for the game, they should be removed, not limited so a select few get an unfair advantage over others.
TCs are good for the game. The unlimited supply of enchants, which translates to an unlimited supply of almost all TCs, is bad for the game.
Where, when, and how TCs can be an advantage for one player or another depends entirely on the game context. I wouldn't be inclined to describe it as unfair in any context, but it may or may not be undesirable in some contexts.
"People who engage in the game more often and/or more deeply than others should have an advantage. There's nothing unfair about that."
Actually there is. Your statement implies that if someone spends all of their time to "engage in the game more/deeply" then they should have an advantage. But what about those who play the game and do not have time to play hours on end because they have to attend school or work...etc? As you are aware I am sure the most traffic and realm over populations are during the weekends when more people have time to spend engaging in the game. However, these said people can spend the same amount of time engaging in the game and have far less advantages with that same amount of time someone who is also playing the game. Why is that???
The true issue is the ratio of time/money. People are wanting to make things faster i.e the popular request of AoEs to single hits to save a few seconds so it seems that the battle is going faster and thus progressing through the story line or (in most cases, PvP) battles faster. So you create a store that allows you to purchase items that can assist players in their battles or have vendors with items that are very difficult to obtain or impossible if you do not PvP.
It seems to me most of the issues and complaints/suggestiond of this game and all the "revamping" all stems from one place. And until it is fixed there will continue to be an issue and limiting TC's or taking them away from vendors is not going to help with the solution..it may be a temporary fix, granted but I am sure (as Victoria already came up with) people will find other ways around these limits or boundaries enforced. I think the entire system of PvP just needs to be re-thought. Someone had a good idea about applying the same rules of Deckathon to PvP using just TC's. Since I don't PvP, I am not too sure if that would work entirely as well but it seems like a good idea. I am just really tired of seeing so many changes to the normal game play in due to problems/issues that are stemming from PvP issues. Just some food for thought.
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