Achaea and Rewarding Play

Torrent

Gotta love it!

Adrik

@Penwize I'm not asking for forays to be made less challenging.  I just want it to be more rewarding.  Farrah and I can, eventually, work towards that goal.  It's just that we have to die a shitton (with UW stuff, it's only Farrah's XP lost)... to get a 1/16th (or 1/32th) of a talisman that is limited usage.  Not only that, but certain higher end ones, instead of giving the piece they'd normally give, give the map piece.  (Though, that might have been changed to give both).  More-or-less.  Difficulty = fine.

Needs better rewards.

Devran

Riell said:

All I want is for promo talismans to either be linked to an area or denizen type and let me spend the next three months farming for a deathcape.

*edit: especially if the pieces are bound to me forever because they're for me to collect, not sell.

Nah, I think pieces should be sellable, exactly the same as dragon talismans. 

Offset them like Big P says and make bought talismans level 7 or something and found ones level one and require combines. I don't care if we have to work for it, but they SHOULD be droppable if you put in the time. This isn't even something that should be up for debate, but an immutable fact. Get with the program IRE.

Aegoth

People still baselining "challenge" to require lv 3 arties. smh

Nicola

We have been paying attention to this thread and we do agree that the state of forays is not quite where we want it to be.

We aren't interested in toning back the difficulty of many of our new additions, we don't think a trivial run of honours mobs is a good addition to Achaea and are constantly pushing to create a more engaging and challenging experience, so our alterations will always be with that in mind.

Foray accessibility is going to be altered to be more friendly for the searching group and as easy as we can make wilderness travel for our VIPs, it does unfortunately have to remain tied to wilderness.

We'll be massively increasing the XP rewarded for foray completion and looking into a solution to enable easier travel back if you die and embrace death during the foray process.

We're going to be discontinuing most of the foray talisman set, and completing a foray will instead give a complete item rather than a piece. The Map talisman will remain in pieces, with these pieces awarded for completing particular foray challenges (see below) alongside the individual item rewards.

Due to the unique challenge and mechanics that forays offer, we're going to see about the viability of implementing a "difficulty" system, so that the special mechanics can be practiced in a less punishing setting (but lesser rewards for completion), and then increasing the rewards for the top level difficulty. The term level in this context does not refer to player level, but the tier of difficulty.

It will be at least a few weeks before these changes are completed, tested, and implemented, but keep an eye on Announce news, we'll announce the final changes when they're live!

Jiraishin

I think with the Underworld the complaint is less about the difficulty of the honours mobs and more about the chasing mobs, even after the nerf.

Laodoke

The talisman shop already gives you access just you have to work for it in a different way. I could hardly see them putting a 2k Artie in a hunting spot to be collected. The hunting cap is 200k cause they don’t want people making that sort of mega loot. Not sure what the priciest thing that drops from other talisman sets via hunting but blue scale at 5 cr value is a pretty decent score. 

Mathilda

160k softcap, 250k hard (er) cap

Laodoke

I never hit the limit. But in general.

Adrik

Nicola said:

We have been paying attention to this thread and we do agree that the state of forays is not quite where we want it to be.

We aren't interested in toning back the difficulty of many of our new additions, we don't think a trivial run of honours mobs is a good addition to Achaea and are constantly pushing to create a more engaging and challenging experience, so our alterations will always be with that in mind.

Foray accessibility is going to be altered to be more friendly for the searching group and as easy as we can make wilderness travel for our VIPs, it does unfortunately have to remain tied to wilderness.

We'll be massively increasing the XP rewarded for foray completion and looking into a solution to enable easier travel back if you die and embrace death during the foray process.

We're going to be discontinuing most of the foray talisman set, and completing a foray will instead give a complete item rather than a piece. The Map talisman will remain in pieces, with these pieces awarded for completing particular foray challenges (see below) alongside the individual item rewards.

Due to the unique challenge and mechanics that forays offer, we're going to see about the viability of implementing a "difficulty" system, so that the special mechanics can be practiced in a less punishing setting (but lesser rewards for completion), and then increasing the rewards for the top level difficulty. The term level in this context does not refer to player level, but the tier of difficulty.

It will be at least a few weeks before these changes are completed, tested, and implemented, but keep an eye on Announce news, we'll announce the final changes when they're live!

This is good to hear. As a question, for people who already have quite a number of talisman pieces from the set.  Will those be trade-in to get the full talisman?

(Also, thanks for sticking with my like 8 paragraph rants about forays. Love you guys, especially Ictinus, who had to put up with me and Farrah screaming as we died and ran around.)

Aegoth

Bosses can, and should be difficult and engaging. Trash mobs? There is 0 need for them to be anything other than a mild hinderance with full lv 3 gear, and should definitely be toned down accordingly. If you want a challenge, take off your $5000000 arties specifically made to make things -less- challenging

Torrent

There is one thing I would like see developed more and that is the Elemental Factions part in the Elemental Planes. At first when the Elemental Planes it was great RP between the four factions but after people got Elemental Lord it kinda fell off from there. I kinda would like to see something like the Underwold has with contriubtion points you can do for each faction, like for example depositing cores/elemental corpses gives points for your faction, helping out scouts or something like the fire plane has on the water plane for some examples. The higher the points your faction has the easier it is to hunt on the other planes or something like that just so it feels like you have a significant impact for your faction to help in the Elemental War that resets every year, 5 years, or 10 years. I think it would bring a greater impract to a the really great areas the Elemental Planes have.

Caelan

Torrent said:

There is one thing I would like see developed more and that is the Elemental Factions part in the Elemental Planes. At first when the Elemental Planes it was great RP between the four factions but after people got Elemental Lord it kinda fell off from there. I kinda would like to see something like the Underwold has with contriubtion points you can do for each faction, like for example depositing cores/elemental corpses gives points for your faction, helping out scouts or something like the fire plane has on the water plane for some examples. The higher the points your faction has the easier it is to hunt on the other planes or something like that just so it feels like you have a significant impact for your faction to help in the Elemental War that resets every year, 5 years, or 10 years. I think it would bring a greater impract to a the really great areas the Elemental Planes have.

Maintenance tasks?  Would make sure the areas get used more..

Penwize

Regarding the elemental planes, a while back I submitted an idea for a set of talismans that would let you PREVAIL faster, similar to how elder dragon lets you DRAGONFORM faster.  The idea was for it to have four talismans, one for each element, obtained by hunting and questing on the planes - hunt planes that aren't yours, and quest in your own.  I imagined this would push people into the planes more, which would mean more opportunities to defend your own aligned planes' denizens (more conflict!), and it'd mean that content gets used more often.

The idea was approved, but that was months ago.  I wonder if it's still something they're considering.

Melodie

Would work on, 10/10.

Cooper

That would get people going up there regularly!

Keorin

From my very limited, very personal perspective, I find myself motivated more by if I'm having fun with the activities themselves, then by the rewards at the end. I enjoy challenges, and rewards of course help, but if the system itself isn't engaging then I'd rather do something else with my time.

I loved almost all of the elemental quests, for instance, even though the reward ended up being pretty lackluster (I went fire). But they were fun because I almost always knew what my objectives were, because I didn't have to play a lot of "guess the keyword" to find out what came next, and because it was generally pretty accessible (I did everything up there at level 84 or so, though I certainly had to grab friends sometimes).

But I struggle to get into most questing in this game, because most aren't like that. I've usually gotta go somewhere that's a pain to get back from, and then I'll end up running around the area trying to find the right keyword to get the right prompt just to get myself started. My issue isn't that it's difficult, my issue is that it's -boring-, and being bored and frustrated makes me very unlikely to want to engage with that system.

I feel similarly about forays. I've really liked things like the Adryn gauntlet, but I've never taken a serious stab at a foray before, because so much of it just seems boring and frustrating. The one time I did try at all, I tagged along with another group, and had to run around in the wilderness for a while before getting destroyed in the first room. As best I can tell, if I actually wanted to have a chance at one, I'd have to get a team of similarly-leveled people together, we'd have to all be fairly artifacted, and we'd have to run around the wilderness for ages just to have the opportunity to die a whole bunch in a bashing challenge. None of that is fun for me at all, and you'd have to put a -damned- nice reward at the end of it all for me to want to bother.

I don't think this will be a popular opinion, but I do wonder if the penalties could take some looking at too. Maybe it's just from my position as a Cyrenian HoN, but I know a lot of people who are slowly working on bashing goals, trying to get to dragon or logosian. And for people like that, something like a foray or an honour's hunt, where you're basically assured to die quite a few times for -very- uncertain reward, is going to be a lot less entertaining. I lost two full levels from the elemental stuff the first time around, for instance, and while I don't regret it, it's certainly tempered my enthusiasm for going and questing in more dangerous areas again, because I know that trying something that -might- be fun will mean several hours of something that I loath. In my case, pk catchup experience helps a lot, but that's not something everyone can take advantage of. Obviously, this is a lot less of an issue once you're a dragon, but that still means that there's a sizable population for whom this content might be a lot less appealing to.

Penwize

ANNOUNCE NEWS #5015                                     (03/01/2019 at 23:30) 
From   : Nicola
To     : Everyone
Subject: The Delosian Talisman Shop!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're going to be moving forward with this plan, we're big fans of the availability that it offers
to our talisman system.

The HISTORICAL talisman set will be available in the shop for the duration of this month! (March
2019) HELP HISTORICAL TALISMANS now exists too!

Talisman sets will not be placed in the talisman shop for at least eight months after their initial
release.

We will also attempt to leave at least a two month gap between the end of the month they were last
seen in a promotion and the time they enter the shop, though certain events or such may dictate some
fluidity here.
 
Certain sets will not be placed in the shop. These sets are the following (with relevant reasoning):
- Conclave: we feel there is too much crossover with other artefacts here, and while the robes of
the grand magi are a very good item, we're inclined to say this one just wouldn't work in the
talisman shop format. If there is high demand we can revisit alternative options at a later date.

- Wonders: we're more likely to recycle these items through the Shop of Wonders proper, as having
them in two shops is somewhat redundant.

- Yggdrasil: we are happy to leave these as obtainable in game via questing (and will add partial
completes for them at a later date after some discussion to facilitate this better).

- Seafaring: this set won't be featured in the talisman shop until we've had a chance to evaluate
its content and function in relation to today's seafaring.
 
We're also discussing whether we can fit certain sets into a more contextually appropriate format
for their themes, such as Black Wave and Underworld. As an example, with no basis in what may or may
not happen, Underworld pieces could become similar to Yggdrasil ones, and available via engaging
with the Underworld content. (Again, this isn't a guarantee.)

Enjoy!

Penned by My hand on the 17th of Lupar, in the year 794 AF.

Bolded part has me really excited, as it means there's a reasonable chance we might see some solid progress in this area.  I suppose what that winds up looking like remains to be seen, but that they're at least discussing it is great news.  That combined with whatever the Adventuring system winds up looking like could be the push we need!

Laodoke

would have been nice if this admin team would have decided it before they charged people for this same content that you probably will be getting for free in game now. Total BS. But go on.

Atalkez

Laodoke said:

would have been nice if this admin team would have decided it before they charged people for this same content that you probably will be getting for free in game now. Total BS. But go on.

What content will be got for free? Everything they’re doing you have to pay for. You keep saying dumb things like this despite repeatedly being refuted.

Laodoke

Literally stfu @Atalkez they just said in this post that possibly blackwave and or underworld pieces could be available just through interacting with the underworld or did you not read this time. Which means they are absolutely not paying for this if it’s available through hunting. 

[Deleted User]

                     

Laodoke

Prolly benefits your broke ass Pyori of course you are all for it 

Nicola

If you cannot keep it civil (the above 3 posts are NOT civil), go somewhere else. This was a productive thread and I do not want to close it, but I will if this continues.

Laodoke

Then please close it @nicola cause I’m tired of getting told people are prolly about to get stuff for free, the same crap that was sold to us 30x a piece. Making it able to be solely earned ic pretty much says ire does not care about the money people spent. 

Taryius

Achaea is a functioning world, and while we guarantee you will not lose any of
the credits you buy, no such guarantee can be provided for what you purchase
with the credits themselves. Naturally, we wouldn't be in business very long if
this happened frequently, but as it is a world, your actions have consequences,
and the actions of others can result in consequences for you. It's this
dynamism in the nature of the world that people enjoy about Achaea. Thus, it is
possible that the perceived or real value of the things you purchase with
credits, or your ability to use those things, may both rise and decline during
the course of play.

Minifie

Good changes, hoping the drop rate isn’t absolutely abysmal though, perhaps allow Q and B talismans to be refined as well since refined can’t be redeemed in anyway?

If they can’t be already of course.

Atalkez

Laodoke said:

Literally stfu @Atalkez they just said in this post that possibly blackwave and or underworld pieces could be available just through interacting with the underworld or did you not read this time. Which means they are absolutely not paying for this if it’s available through hunting. 

I don’t think you realize the grind it takes to complete 1 talisman, let alone a rare talisman, through the quest system.

Farrah

Also the fact that everything can literally already be acquired in game via, you know, earning gold and cfs. If you call obtaining items through any amount of effort but no rl money "free," then everything is already free. 

Obviously if they made an item you paid 1,000 credits for obtainable in an hour IG, that'd be one thing (not going to happen). Adjusting how things are obtained IG is not making them "free" though. Hell, people pay over 1,000 credits for Elder dragon sets. There is obviously value in things that require hefty amounts of bashing.

Laodoke

It’s just a frustrating concept and maybe I need a huge break from the game cause it is no longer even fun. If the same sets weren’t milked so hard on promo months over the last 3 years it would feel different.