Talismans

Sarapis

Seemed too low to you and seemed too low to me might be different.

You already got X reward for bashing there. Now you get X+Y. No matter how you look at it, we buffed bashing rewards with Talismans.

Having said that, LHG didn't get downgraded much at all, while others got downgraded a lot. Underworld is another area that only got downgraded a little. Annwyn, a lot.

Silas

That's a bit disappointing, given how much of a grind it's gonna be now, but fair enough.

Santar

Not sure how talisman drops classify as "buffed bashing reward". 

It's a totally separate commodity, not an addition to what we were already receiving.

Either way, I thought it was fine as is. There were a couple of tweaks I would have made to the system, but an across the broad nerf to drops wasn't one I agree with.

Sasiya

@Sarapis: I love the new 'talisman pieces' layout! So much easier to see what I've actually got!

A shame the drop late got lowered, though. Either way, talisman really motivated me to go back to bashing, which basically means I got motivated to play Achaea again.

This was a great addition and something that really makes Achaea stand out. So, well done!

Jarrod

Santar said:

Not sure how talisman drops classify as "buffed bashing reward". 

It's a totally separate commodity, not an addition to what we were already receiving.

Either way, I thought it was fine as is. There were a couple of tweaks I would have made to the system, but an across the broad nerf to drops wasn't one I agree with.

What...you get nothing less, and only gain a new commodity. This is of course a buffed bashing reward, pretending otherwise is just being difficult :-S

Rinzai

My assumption is that the change in drop rates is to keep the rarity and the market that talismans created alive, I realize that over time the market gets more and more pieces and less and less people will want them.

That in mind, Saidie and I have been hunting pretty hardcore since talismans were released and just in combining our two drops we are still a decent distance away from completing one. Seems that purchasing and trading is really the only way to go, and trying to complete it on your own would be madness.

Sylvance

I like trees. And talismans.

Makarios

Its worth noting that it was never intended to be a quick job to complete the dragon set. The fact that we have the first five already is pretty telling. Completing one of the dragon talismans should take a fair while, the whole set should be one of those big projects you work towards over time.

Mishgul

Okay, having now been a bit more involved, I have opinions.

I respect that we are adding endgame content. However I do feel this may have been a step sideways as oppose to upwards. I realise there are more things coming in terms of hunting talismans, but from what I've seen, the rewards are still very much individual, even if it can be done in groups.

It's pretty much like pokemon, the trading card game up in here for me. I get excited easily by collectables, and I regret that I have a full time job and can't spend 24 hours a day bashing to catch them all. It's made me buy credits (into my overdraft again. I have no willpower) to buy pieces to try and finish the talismans early, but unfortunately I didn't get to finish in the top 5 despite my efforts and now I am pretty sad. I traded pieces I had multiples of for others, i tried to bum rare pieces (unsuccessfuly) off people for lots of money and pieces.

One of the things that got me hooked onto Achaea initially, when I joined the druids, and then roped me into Mhaldor originally, is the sense of involvement, and acceptance i received from people that I interacted with. It made me feel super special.

This setup with the talismans tended to take away rather than add to that, and it depressed me quite a fair bit during my hunts. Not every group of people suffered this I would  say, Ashtan and Targossas worked together quite well, but no one in Mhaldor could decide on any sort of priorities or even bothered I think, and it just ended up being a me me me fest.

I can't change the mentality of 20+ people with a log and a quarter of a news post, and everyone is restricted to what they end up with in terms of mentalities.

I did not enjoy the fact that the first five elder dragons get to choose the emote's for everyone. This would have been a perfect opportunity to have alignment based dragons introduced I think. Something where the reward would have been more group centric. Hunting for something to sustain a city wide bonus that everyone can be involved in.

This is something I noted with Icons. Houses who have Icons tend to grow better intercity dynamics because they have a common cause to work towards that is hard coded and that anyone can be involved in. It's something that has lifted Mhaldor into more activity from the midbies, because they can feel proud to have accomplished getting a shard for the city.

So yes, while I have hunted a bit more actively, and bought credits (which I won't now, that there is no urgency to complete the sets, I will still hunt I guess), overall, I think my reaction is somewhat negative for this in it's current incarnation. I do look forward to seeing what other Talismans will become available, and I will hold out my hopes for more house/city/order content.

Antonius

Honestly, Targossas was a bit of a mixed bunch. I got help from a couple of people pretty much straight away (though I think that was partly because they realised they weren't going to get to hunt much at all until I'd finished), but there were also a number of people who had no interest in helping me at all, and even competed against me for pieces and spawns. I got elder dragon because it's something I decided I wanted, I was willing to spend long hours grinding and pay credits for it, and I was fortunate to have a couple of friends who decided to help; it definitely wasn't a city-wide effort, and it didn't affect relations within the city in any way.

Not sure there's much that can be done about that in terms of bashing rewards, though, other than a complete rehaul to make the entire system more profitable in a group rather than by yourself. As it is I gain considerably more experience and gold than I would with a partner, and there isn't a huge increase in the time it takes me to clear areas.

Sylvance

From the sounds of it, and do correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that it was impossible to hit top 5 without buying credits. That's cool for an auction, not so cool for something like talismans. But I guess there's literally no way around that once they became swappable/sellable.

Arditi

The biggest issue was in making them freely tradeable. Even making it so the pieces were only tradeable for same rarity and level would have slower it down considerably.

Antonius

Sylvance said:

From the sounds of it, and do correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that it was impossible to hit top 5 without buying credits. That's cool for an auction, not so cool for something like talismans. But I guess there's literally no way around that once they became swappable/sellable.

I needed to buy credits to hit top 5 (I was third), but I didn't need to buy them using real life currency. I made enough gold bashing to complete the set to buy over 400 credits from the credit market at between 6200 and 6300 gold each. I spent, at most, 124 credits on talisman pieces.

So you're technically correct, I guess, but if we (I think correctly) assume that you meant buying credits with real life currency, then you're wrong.

Silas

@Makarios: I don't think having five Elder Dragons this early is telling at all, honestly. If there's a new grinding mechanic put into the game - especially with a unique bonus for only the first five to finish it - people are going to don their autism hats, fit their catheters and go to town. Should xp be decreased across the board for all mobs because somebody got dragon at like, age 20?

The reason I'm disappointed by this is because the rewards you get for completing the dragon talisman set aren't substantial enough to the justify grind that it's now going to require. Faster dragonform and the ability to be a blue dragon when you need to breathstorm groups is good for min-maxers, but I don't think it's particularly interesting.

Basically, I just feel that, with a significantly lower drop rate, the dragon talismans will add practically nothing to the game for people who only bash casually, since Elder Dragon isn't enough of a reward to get you excited about maybe having it in 12 months' time.

If that's the direction @Sarapis and @Tecton were going with this - just a vanilla bashing reward - then I guess people's expectations may have just been too high for the new system. In such a case, I really do hope there's more end-game content planned for the future, since this ticks almost none of the boxes that people ask for when end-game content comes up.

I guess it could be pretty fun as a trading card side game, though, and I'm sure the other talisman sets will be able to improve on this in the future.

Iocun

Bronislav said:

I'm not a dragon. I won't be a dragon for a long while - and then, I probably won't have the determination to go hunt/bribe/trade all of the pieces that I need for the dragon talismans.

I am, however, looking forward to talismans that will not require being scaly and enormous.

On one hand I want to agree, because I have no particular desire for my character to be scaly and enormous, but on the other hand: if talismans added other things I was really interested in, that would force me to bash, which I'd hate

I'd be seriously annoyed if some talismans became a quasi-requirement for doing well in too wide a variety of things. Bashing doesn't need to be more rewarding than it is.

So please keep talismans focused on areas that are of no interest to me.

Sarapis

Silas said:

@Makarios: I don't think having five Elder Dragons this early is telling at all, honestly. If there's a new grinding mechanic put into the game - especially with a unique bonus for only the first five to finish it - people are going to don their autism hats, fit their catheters and go to town. Should xp be decreased across the board for all mobs because somebody got dragon at like, age 20?

The reason I'm disappointed by this is because the rewards you get for completing the dragon talisman set aren't substantial enough to the justify grind that it's now going to require. Faster dragonform and the ability to be a blue dragon when you need to breathstorm groups is good for min-maxers, but I don't think it's particularly interesting.

Basically, I just feel that, with a significantly lower drop rate, the dragon talismans will add practically nothing to the game for people who only bash casually, since Elder Dragon isn't enough of a reward to get you excited about maybe having it in 12 months' time.

If that's the direction @Sarapis and @Tecton were going with this - just a vanilla bashing reward - then I guess people's expectations may have just been too high for the new system. In such a case, I really do hope there's more end-game content planned for the future, since this ticks almost none of the boxes that people ask for when end-game content comes up.

I'm not sure where anyone got the idea that this is about an end-game reward. I was pretty clear that Talismans are there to augment bashing rewards. That's the only stated and intended goal of the system. If it's viewed as too difficult for most people, that's cool - Dragon was viewed that way when it was put in too. Eventually, there were tons of Dragons, and frankly, that's what will happen with Elder Dragons too, though there will be a long period where it's reasonably rare. 

Wynedere

Lusternia has this problem of adding entirely too much content that raises the pk bar. We do -not- want talismans to open the door to the same thing here. As it is, Achaea's rich and complex pk system can be hard to grasp. Too much will only discourage newbies even more than they already are. 

Sarapis

You mean in the sense of there being too many Talismans that grant too many tangible combat advantages and thus put competitive PK further out of reach for a newbie?

Wynedere

Yes. I'm not saying talismans are heading in that direction, but there is always that chance. 

This is what happens when you add too much content that gives combat advantages. Players grind night and day for them. Which, in turn, makes other players (newbie or not) feel that they have to do the same in order to keep up with Johnny who bashes 23 hours per day and is now a walking powerhouse of pk tank. See curios in Lusternia. I think they're adding even more over there now:

http://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/916/ur-traps/p1

We already have artifacts that place a sizable gap in the pk bar. These alone discourage quite a few new players. Note that I have nothing against them. They cost enough that the people who are loaded down in them should enjoy the benefits of their money! 

Here are links to some of their related problems that I'd like to see Achaea avoid, if possible:

http://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/826/combat-overhaul/p1

http://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/911/quest-griefing/p1     This is a pretty big thread. Just look for the mention of curios. 

Tecton

As far as I'm concerned, we're not going to offer any massive combat advantages through the talisman system. Most (if not all) tangible rewards are going to be more cosmetic or utility.

Sarapis

Yeah, major combat advantages are not on the docket really, and even minor ones we will be very careful with as stacking is always a problem.

Penwize

Iocun said:

On one hand I want to agree, because I have no particular desire for my character to be scaly and enormous, but on the other hand: if talismans added other things I was really interested in, that would force me to bash, which I'd hate

I'd be seriously annoyed if some talismans became a quasi-requirement for doing well in too wide a variety of things. Bashing doesn't need to be more rewarding than it is.

So please keep talismans focused on areas that are of no interest to me.

I actually really disagree with this.  If talismans added other things you were really interested in, it wouldn't force you to bash.  One of the most interesting bits of this system is how open it is to trading.  What that means, I think, is that some of the more interesting talismans may become a commodity of interest in the future, which actually allows people who just bash to engage with the public more for trading.  That's a good thing really.  It means people who run a lot of shops and have masses of wealth could procure themselves talismans they're interested in without touching a single mob.  It means crafters could trade their wares for talismans, or harvesters, and so on.  That could be pretty interesting if it pans out, and I admit I've already had a lot more interactions with people I normally wouldn't have had because of this system, and it's been a great thing for me.

Tekk

I'm actually excited to see more talisman's added. There's something about hunting for that elusive, rare item that appeals to me. Almost like deep sea diving has. Although, I suspect there's nothing good left for diving.

Sena

Are talismans going to exclusively be bashing rewards? Or might there be talismans found by fishing, diving, questing, ship trading, gathering/harvesting, digging, etc.?

Dunn

Sena said:

Are talismans going to exclusively be bashing rewards? Or might there be talismans found by fishing, diving, questing, ship trading, gathering/harvesting, digging, etc.?

I think @Kinilan wouldn't be opposed to a couple of those...

Triak

Sena said:

Are talismans going to exclusively be bashing rewards? Or might there be talismans found by fishing, diving, questing, ship trading, gathering/harvesting, digging, etc.?

Talismans for digging...why do you hate us @Sena

Kinilan

Dunn said:

Sena said:

Are talismans going to exclusively be bashing rewards? Or might there be talismans found by fishing, diving, questing, ship trading, gathering/harvesting, digging, etc.?

I think @Kinilan wouldn't be opposed to a couple of those...

Anything that gives me more targets!

Sarapis

There could be Talisman pieces to be found in a number of ways, as the system is largely amenable to that. We'll see how it goes as we slowly release Talisman sets. 

Kinilan

@Sarapis just confirmed the next Talisman set is for seafaring! YOU ALL HEARD HIM SAY IT!

Santar

I think a new Seafaring feature would be in order if they were going to release seafaring talismans. Right now, Seafaring is pretty cool and all, but there's not a whole lot of depth for how you'd reward talismans.

Things that could warrant high proc of talisman drop for seafaring:

- Killing a duskfin tuna, dragon, or redfin tuna. Maybe sea spider too.(high chance?)

- Completing a ship trade(guaranteed 1 or more talismans?)

- Catching a fish - anywhere from low talisman proc to high talisman proc based on size of fish?

I can't think of much else I'd give a talisman for. Wouldn't be horrible to get something new for Seafarers sooner or later. Question is, what would the completed talismans give? Presumably Seafaring buffs, but could range from any number of things.  Two shipreturn locations, perhaps? That'd probably be a hot one.