EQ Crown

Toz

With the rejection of report 2335, I thought I'd at least bring my personal comments up along with some math. So first, my ramble-y comment on the report itself because paragraphs are hard:

Originally I was going to reject this with a joke about how 'poor people shouldn't be allowed to pk', but looking at the math depressed me. When you get endgame, you get +7% bal or +7% eq. There is no pker since enhancements have come out that has successfully competed at even mid tier without enhancing properly. In fact, there have been fights lost because of a reincarnation and forgetting to set enhances. And in addition to THAT, the bread-and-butter skill of Templars was nerfed 5% to make the class more 'balanced'. With numbers in that range established as 'strongly meaningful to balance', we can then say that a crown is likewise strongly meaningful to balance. In the past, it was argued that classes were balanced AROUND crown, but that can't be accurate - most classes that use crown now don't rely on passives for their primary affliction output, meaning they use the crown every round for their primary output. At -7% affliction rate, unartifacted is weak. At +7% balanced affliction rate, artifacted is OP. So you can't balance to no arties, and you can't balance to artied. If you split the difference (+/-3.5%) there's still a 7% difference between the two, making artied almost significantly OP (using the measure of Templar's 5% nerf), and unartied significantly weak. Class balance for an EQ class cannot exist while the crown artifact is implemented. It requires a $270 pay-in to play an EQ class, limits multiclass options, and is in general bad for the game in every way except for IRE's cash flow. While I'm sympathetic to the need to make sales to keep the game going, I firmly believe crown is not the way to do it.

Toz

To go into more specifics, because I really like to hear myself talk, here's some math:
- Templars swing at ~2.19 for their retribution route. If there was a +bal crown, they'd swing at 2.34 (rounded down from 2.3433). (@Eliadon with the numbers save)
- If Carnifex had to buy +bal, their base attack speed (from 2.27) would be 2.43 (from 2.4289 rounding).

In the case of Carnifex, fighting without this imaginary artifact would be the equivalent of fighting the whole time with idiocy. Templar, because they're a little faster, would be swinging nearly their idiocy threshold. There is a combat affliction that is intended to meaningfully hinder offenses, that any EQ class has to fight through unless they exceed a pay gate for a single artifact. (Again @Eliadon credited for some number tweaks for Templar)

To continue driving home this point...
- Name a single neutral balance pker
- Name a single neutral EQ pker

I know I can't. Moirean did it back in the day before statpack changes, but 7% nowadays is very, very significant. So significant in fact, that every single pker I can name picks the +bal or +eq enhancement, which gives -6% to your health and mana. That is more than the 350cr defensive artifact enhancement gives back (+5%/each). Speed is so important that people will take a 350cr+ 'dip' in defense just in order to gain 7%.

Hopefully these are sufficient points to underline the vital nature of that 7% speed gain from enhancements. In the past, it was argued that EQ classes were 'balanced' both around having crown and not having crown. Mathematically, this is not possible. If +7% speed is 'fair' and 'balanced', then logically it follows being 7% slower is sub-optimal. It is far from optimal to go an entire fight swinging slower than cap, obviously, and we can further break this down into two examples.

In a mirror match, assuming mostly equal skill, a 7% speed increase will gain a full 'round' on their opponent every ~15 attacks assuming full-out offense with no hinder at all. That is not to mention that they will stick afflictions 7% faster, they will pressure health/mana 7% better, be able to cast their defensive skills 7% faster, etc. etc. - a little bit more clumsiness, a little bit more bleed/damage, a little bit more EVERYTHING. If one instance loses to another every time with mathematical certainty, one instance is either too strong, or the other is too weak. Likewise, using the mirror match, 'balanced' may lie somewhere in between the two ends (artied and unartied). Still we run into this problem: there will always be 7% difference between the two imagined equal fighters, and how they perform. One simply cannot out-match the other if their skills are reasonably close, especially not in the current AI-heavy meta where missteps are becoming more and more uncommon. As efficiency increases, that 7% will matter more and more.

We also run into a major issue outside of a mirror match in this scenario. In a world where an unartifacted fighter competes at 'balanced' level with their EQ class, anyone with crown and similar skill will be 'overpowered' - that is to say, they will have a clear mathematical edge over any balance/non-crown class, because as previously established, 7% is a Big Deal. Likewise, as efficiency in AIs increases, that 7% is going to be felt more and more. So, we re-adjust - now crown combatants are balanced towards balance classes. That means that anyone without the 850cr buy-in is at a 7% (neutral bal) disadvantage in any contest. You can likewise move the scale as you please, but it is simply impossible to find a point in which the percent difference between unartifacted and artifacted is negligible enough to not be a key factor in a fight.

In closing, because I've gone on for awhile, crown is a pay-to-win model, not a pay-for-perks model. While I'm sympathetic that corporate may not allow the deletion of it, that it may harm the income model, etc? I firmly believe that EQ classes cannot be considered 'balance' until crown is changed in some significant way. This isn't even getting into issues such as bashing (7% is nice for that as well), defenses/defensive skills it reduces time on, etc. and the inherent unfairness of balance classes NOT having an artifact that mimics this.

In the meantime, there isn't much to be done on the player side. I personally would advise anyone new away from playing Shaman/Sciomancer/Ascendril/Archivist, as the cost of 850cr is an estimated $267.75 on top of whatever else is needed to be 'combat ready' - and while those classes are interesting thematically and mechanically, I don't think they're worth a family of four's food budget for a month just to be baseline competent with.

EDIT: Probably Luminary/Praenomen should be added to the 'newbies stay away' list, as both need crown and I forgot they existed temporarily. Praenomen, at the very least.

Fezzix

Solution: Make an 850cr artifact for balance and increase all base balance times accordingly.

Tiur

My thought on joining the Pools and becoming your Benevolent Dictator was that I would be willing to make the Big Decisions like this from day one. Personally, I was solidly in the "Make a balance equivalent" camp. Heck with a needing a rebalance, let's just slow balance down by 7%, make it fair.

I did talk with the Pools-veterans there though, and that answer was considered brutish. It raises the cost of being a balance class (there's argument to be had here about runes and whatnot, but let's put that aside for a moment) and actually confuses the situation. PvP is finesse, that sledgehammer of an answer upsets everything that uses balance.... Oh well, delete the dang crowns.

@Razmael pointed out that the deletion answer spews 170,000 credits into an already wacky economy. That would be.. fun?

Aetolia has a very impressive combat balance, both compared to its own history and all other IRE. I get left with a choice to either kick over that PvP balance or throw more fuel on the economy fire. With either choice, IRE's newest producer messes up the most solid game.

So, to be more honest than those in my position should be, it is a no-win scenario to touch this. I cannot make everyone happy, and I cannot guarantee that either solution makes anyone happy at all. I feel it's better at this time to go for targets that are improvements for everyone.

Rhyot

I'm not sure how refunding the crown would be throwing off the economy. So people get back 850 credits... cool. Make them bound so that they can't be sold to 'affect' the economy. Now people will be forced to spend those credits on other artifacts, lessons, etc.

Other than that, I have EQ classes and I'd be really skeptical that they'd be able to be 'balanced' around NOT having the crown anymore with how long its been in the game.

Honestly, the easiest solution is quite simple: Don't play an EQ class.

Kyna

With a perspective entirely my own, I believe even refunding 850 bound credits still throws off the market.

If players suddenly had 850 bound credits at their disposal, they no longer have need to buy credits from other players on the credit market.

Bound or not, the economy will still be impacted negatively if the solution was just to remove the crown.

As @Rhyot touched on before me, the crown has been in the game for so long now that EQ classes benefit from it for better or for worse.

A solution is far more complicated than a simple removal or addition to the artifact pool, namely because of how in-depth our combat system really is. As @Tiur stated, right now it is best to work on targets that are improvements for everyone overall.

EDIT: I forgot to clarify that I believe removing or adding an artifact would just entail a complete redo of the combat system in that, suddenly the balance weights, EQ or BAL would need a lot of fiddling and adjusting and with whatever the end result is, there would still be a lot of disagreement about the balance of the system.

Axius

I'm not sure I have much weight in this, though I might have more than I realize by playing an Archivist more than I play as a Teradrim:

Doesn't typical refund only go up to 75% of the total purchase, unless the purchase was made in the last month or so?

And even under those circumstances: Yes that's a lot of credits if one is thinking in terms of a number of smaller artis. Even at 75% of 850 bound credits. But I also pose this information in regards to the amount of credits I've spent, and will spend, as it stands now:

Tylgaki, my custom pet: He was a deluxe package. 900 credits, I -still- have yet to make more of his reactions.
Wilderness Housing: 500 credits.
Room upgrades in housing: somewhere in the range of 40-80 credits, and will likely continuing to skyrocket as I continue to build.
Bonus upgrades to individual rooms: Credit depending, this is planned, but not done yet.
Transcendance of my skills: 300 credits per skill. Some of these were done via nobrainer lesson packs, and standard levelup, I'm still going to estimate that I've blown around 600 credits on this though.

In the grand scheme of things: Credit amounts in the area of 600-750 are NOT that large compared to some purchases. It's enough to buy your first multiclass slot, and add in two of three class skill lesson investments. I'm pretty sure that if it were not for the fact that some of my credit values come from non-retirement valuable sources, I could pretty much retire Axius and get back several -thousand- credits easy-peasy. And I started him with only maybe a thousand retirement credits anyways.

But if this is not so simple a thing as removing it because for some vague reason, six hundred to seven-hundred and fifty bound credits seems like it might crash the market, why not use this change that was suggested publicly elsewhere: Why not adjust the equilibrium bonus so that it's only valuable in PVE rather than PVP. There's clearly already code in place for this if you look at the chocolates AND the style scrolls, so why not make it only take affect when one is attacking denizens?

Now, as a final note: I do apologize if I am rambling and maybe a bit incoherent. It's 3 am, I'm tired. I've burnt out my brain streaming a game and attempting to be funny without actually paying attention to my mouth running for two and a half hours straight. So I won't excuse myself for posting while tired, I will say that it might be why it's hard to read some of this.

Trikal

Bound credits marginally affect the economy as a whole, as it is people think credits cost too much gold, and I laugh at that and continue buying them because gold is only worth the credits I can get. In the grand scheme the bound credits refunded are likely to be torpor'd people since 170,000 credits at full refund of 850 is 200 characters. I don't know about the rest of you, but there's no way I've seen 200 people playing this game lately. Torpor'd people who get a refund? Might bring 'em back, probably will do nothing at all, period, in the slightest, they'll stay torpor'd. Realisically, it's probably at best 50 characters playing that'll take advantage of a refund which is 42,500 credits. Of those, I'm sure a few will pickup a multiclass, and end up buying credits to make up the difference, resulting in a benefit overall to IRE's pocketbook, and I assume that's a good thing for the games health. The fact that EQ classes can be played without the 850 credit investment is DEFINITELY an improvement to Aetolia's general health as far as combat goes. Personally I'm what you lot would call a whale, and am going to spend it if it's there, because whatever, disposable income and all and I spend too many hours on this game so i throw $$ at it too, but it's not really reasonable to expect other people to pay that cash as a baseline if they want to play any EQ based class, or if they didn't know that investment was required to be combat viable when they rolled a character and invested a bunch of their valuable time. The Crown in general is bad for the game because it makes EQ classes feel salty about trying to combat so they don't because can't afford crown, or salty about the game because of it and leave all together. Either way because of the imbalance they don't play a part or a whole of Aetolia which is outrageous to me. I made the classlead report because of this, and proposed solutions of adding a balance artifact, mainly because if you did that, LOL. All balance classes have to be nerfed in speed to account for it, or they all suddenly get insanely OP. Both of which I'm fine with, because as stated, whale, I'll be fine. More to get everyone to realize how ridiculous it is for anyone who wishes to get into the incredibly complex and intricate PvP system we have and boast about. EQ classes are getting fucked here, and we're just like MEH fuck them, it's fine, shoulda picked a balance class when you rolled your char sucka. Sounds like bad business to me, using a sunk cost of refund (which isn't even a $$ refund, just a credit refund) is one of the lamest excuses I've in a long time, especially when you actually look at how many ACTIVE players have crown and would use the refund to 'upset the volatile economy' somehow in that they're not buying credits? I'd argue that nearly every person who has crown aren't buying credits off the credit market anyway, and the very few who are will continue to either way because they're playing the gold game and earning it. It's only good for credits anyway at that point.

The arguments for allowing an imbalance just because Aetolia is IRE's most balanced and refunding a broken artifact might upset a flimsy economy just don't seem to hold weight. If you want to maintain being the most balanced, striving to improve and keep that the case is the only reasonable course, and ignoring outliers that affect 1/3 of the classes in the game makes no sense to me, unless you're only supposed to play the 2/3 of the classes that are balanced based and the other classes are for whales like me who can afford to throw $$$ at this game, in which case it's not really that great of an incentive and you'd be better off giving me more viable people to fight against since that'll keep me around longer than some new shiny class that I get bored of relatively quickly.

Oleis

As for only making the crown apply to PvE: I'd wager that most crown owners would ask for a refund at that point. 

Context is king here. This is not "allowing an imbalance because the rest balanced." This is acknowledging that the current imbalance is much more stable than the cascade of changes we'd have to number crunch and implement to account for the crown's absence. What's more, this isn't even a no. It's a not yet. 

If there's one overarching issue we've been faced with, it's how to get more people into PvP. The need for crown at the highest end of EQ combat isn't even in the top 5, because it's dwarfed by toxic interactions with existing fighters, a fear of failure and an inability to cope with the frustration of loss, intimidation at the enormous amount of information involved, and the need for an automated or semi automated offense. 

Those are problems we can try to fix that would have greater impact on the health of the game and more benefit to average players. They're just not as easy to scapegoat as an artifact. 

Aishia

It's not even a matter of unbalance. I'd be curious to see what class literally cannot function without it. As far as I am aware it's simply an advantage/edge, as all combat artifacts are. Sometimes it can be harder to reach that level of edge when someone else has ALL the artifacts so maybe that's when not having it feels extra harsh, but I guess situations like that are probably the prime motivator for sales.

Rhyot

Praenomen LITERALLY cannot fight without crown. And even then, you NEED the eq enhance as well.

Base whisper speed is 3.75s, whisper speed with eq enhance is 3.49s, whisper speed with crown/eq enhance is 3.22s. Praenomen is, by far (and correct me if I'm wrong) the absolute -slowest- when it comes to attack speed (I think we should be able to push into the 3.0-3.1s range, but that's my own personal opinion, especially when you're on a singular pool restriction, ie 0% blood = immediate death).

Sure, you get 2 whispers, 1 venom slash, a minion proc every 6s, and a random trepidation proc every 4-5s. Granted, that's IF your minion isn't slaughtered by the person/people you're fighting (yes, minions are quick kills with only 8k hp. Few bashing combos, run out/shield/heal, and the fight is now reset.... only the Prae has lost a significant affliction buffer). And with the newest nerf to Trepidation, pushing for a lock has become that much harder for Praenomen (Then again, who the fuck fights as Insidiae when Rituos is -CLEARLY- the best path to fight in).

As @Toz pointed out. Speed is just as critical as efficiency. If you're NOT going at the fastest 3.22s speed as a Praenomen, your chances of killing your opponent decreases drastically. Even at 3.49s, your chances of successfully killing your opponent is low.

So, as far as my knowledge goes. Praenomen CANNOT fight without Crown or EQ enhance combination. Well..... I guess you CAN. You'll just never win at 3.75s, and your chance of winning is still pretty low at 3.49s.

Toz

I can respect that logic completely @Tiur. It would dump a lot of bound credits back into the market. I'd certainly use mine - get Archivist and play around with that. Even though I'd buy lessons to supplement what I needed, I get that introducing tons of credits might be a difficult thing to juggle - I'm not sure how Achaea managed it, but I know Makarios and co. deleted their Torc of Telepathy because they couldn't balance around it. Their economy is much larger than ours, for sure, and I think Torc might have been a little cheaper than the crown here, so it's definitely not a perfect analogy, but you might try talking to them when you do decide to start trying to fix the crown issue.

Tiur

I will be readdressing this, do not worry. I don't like pushing problems off into the future, but this is a special case.

As far as I know, Achaea has not dealt with their crown problems.

Toz

@Tiur still have crown, but the Torc of Telepathy there was unbalancing combat badly enough that they just deleted it/refunded everyone. So, vaguely similar case hence the suggestion.

Seir

If the concern is refunded credits indirectly affecting the economy in an adverse manner (which I can't fully grasp because they'll be bound), you can offer direct exchanges for other artifacts relevant to each class in order to alleviate that issue.

The removal of the eq crown will be tremendously beneficial to Aetolia on a whole, lowering a very large barrier for eq-based classes. Balance will be in a much better place for it as well.

Eliadon

While I am in favor of dropping a tungsten rod onto eq crown from orbit, I'm kinda with @Oleis here. In the time that I've been playing Aetolia, I've personally experienced a few people suffering from exactly the points he brought up: some fighters are jerks and not interested in a level playing field, a lot of people do not like to 'fail until you make it', even more people get really frustrated when they do repeatedly lose...

And good gods the second to last point. The enormous amount of information you need to be aware of is on par with the knowledge you need for something like League of Legends. Except instead of having 120 champions with 5 abilities each, we have 16 classes with 100 abilities (give or take) each. The burden of knowledge is -huge-, even after you have a general idea of what a class can do.

Needing some automation/tracking in your offense isn't as big of a deal to me, though. Source's tracking is good enough for getting started, assuming that you put the effort in to coming up with something you can do manually... but that mostly applies to the limb classes. Even classes that use afflictions as a supplement instead of to lock can probably get away with mostly manualing, but... several classes don't really have that option.



I personally make efforts to fix the first couple points, offering suggestions to people and whatnot, but repeatedly losing still feels bad.

Koda

Seir said:

If the concern is refunded credits indirectly affecting the economy in an adverse manner (which I can't fully grasp because they'll be bound)

I think the general line of thought is more 'this person just got 850 credits to spend on an artifact they wanted that they'd otherwise have to buy credits for to get'. Person is now getting a 'free' (using this very loosely because they're the person's credits that they already purchased once before) artifact that brings IRE no money at this immediate moment vs shelling out now for credits to buy it.

I can see that view for sure.

I can also see the idea that people will use said refund to buy a new class, which opens up the potential for further purchases to tri-trans that class, and buy other artifacts for said class. Not everybody will do this of course, but there's definitely incentive present in the event of a refund to buy more.

EDIT: This isn't a decision making process I'm at all envious of whatsoever! I can't imagine the complaining that would happen if everybody that has bal classes was told, "Hey, you know those stats you've been used to since you've had this class? You now need to pay 850 credits to have them."

Seir

Koda said:

Seir said:

If the concern is refunded credits indirectly affecting the economy in an adverse manner (which I can't fully grasp because they'll be bound)

I think the general line of thought is more 'this person just got 850 credits to spend on an artifact they wanted that they'd otherwise have to buy credits for to get'. Person is now getting a 'free' (using this very loosely because they're the person's credits that they already purchased once before) artifact that brings IRE no money at this immediate moment vs shelling out now for credits to buy it.

I can see that view for sure.

I can also see the idea that people will use said refund to buy a new class, which opens up the potential for further purchases to tri-trans that class, and buy other artifacts for said class. Not everybody will do this of course, but there's definitely incentive present in the event of a refund to buy more.

EDIT: This isn't a decision making process I'm at all envious of whatsoever! I can't imagine the complaining that would happen if everybody that has bal classes was told, "Hey, you know those stats you've been used to since you've had this class? You now need to pay 850 credits to have them."

Yes, I'd argue that by lowering the barrier to entry with PvP in regards to eq classes, this opens the door for IRE to profit specifically because there is no longer the insurmountable barrier mindset of: "I must buy 850 credits or I literally cannot use Luminary effectively at all" (which is true) . It then becomes, "I can compete now regardless, and I'd like to spend elsewhere because the barrier has been lowered." The other idea is to create more artifacts that are useful to fill in the void left behind by the crown, but are not by any means mandatory like an eq cost reduction artifact.

Kalak

Oleis said:

If there's one overarching issue we've been faced with, it's how to get more people into PvP. The need for crown at the highest end of EQ combat isn't even in the top 5, because it's dwarfed by toxic interactions with existing fighters, a fear of failure and an inability to cope with the frustration of loss, intimidation at the enormous amount of information involved, and the need for an automated or semi automated offense. 

Those are problems we can try to fix that would have greater impact on the health of the game and more benefit to average players. They're just not as easy to scapegoat as an artifact. 

As a new Aetolian player (but old Imperian and late MKO (rest in peace) player), if I may chime in about PvP barrier. I found that the issue has several facets which seems to have accumulated over time.

*Stacking the Advantages* Especially when it comes to the fact that a nice amount of PvPers are 100+ endgame people, that really dissuades a lower levelled player from participating. Low-tier, mid-tier combat gets destroyed except in groups. For example; a logic regarding Sect of Blades may be: Why become an easy kill to endgame/omnitrans fighters, when I am not on equal grounds? So as a player I would spend more time on dull bashing to equalize the ground and might lose desire when the actual time comes.

*Amount of Skillsets* This is also a part of stacking the advantages, because consider a Mage...can he fight alone with Sciomancy? In MKO a Mage could fight with Arcana only. And you did not need a skill to avoid attacks, because avoiding attacks was part of the combat style. Here to avoid an attack you have to chuck out extra lessons on Avoidance. You need resistances? Chuck out lessons to miniskills. You need better curing? Chuck out lessons to Survival. Compare it to MKO where you only needed to learn low-tier skill named Focus to cure. Of course, I am not intending to compare apples to oranges, both games had different combat styles what I try to point out is that the entry level of PvP in Aetolia is also very high skill-wise. So if I wish to PvP fairly 1 vs 1, I shall go all-in including bashing up to 100+ or simply stick to occasional group fight.

*Detached PvP from the World* I must admit, this game has draconian PK rules. Now do not get me wrong, I am not someone who looks favorably upon killing people repeatedly for no reason or without RP. And I do understand some rules are just there to encourage people to participate in PvP and do not become a target of retribution. But these heavy rules also prevent from other types of playstyles to flourish. Take Holy War rule...that means the weaker side can never employ mercenaries or sellswords. So you cannot RP a mercenary in this game easily on religious level. Consider no retribution on Ylem fights...takes away from the RP-impact of those battles. So I will think that fighting on those fights are just sport, have no impact on the world or it does not matter whether your attempt on extraction is thwarted or not. And then add Sect of Blades, a glorified league of PvPers with benefits. As I played longer, the PvP in this game appeared more a "subgame of a game" rather then "a seamless part of a fantasy world" It feels completely detached to me and ICly I started to struggle taking seriously of any battle which might occur.

*Armament Race* As you stated, this is simply cherry on the top. Personally I would be in favor of any speed artifact to be erased from the game. There are already a great deal of other artifacts which provide resistances, damage, health/mana etc bonuses...at least everyone should be on same page regarding the speed. There is nothing we can do about the Armament Race on skills/endgame/artifacts but at least equalizing speed will be a right move. And for the developers I might say, a bitter pill.

Now I am not trying to paint a grim picture here, but just wished to share my current perspective as a newcomer to the game.

Oleis

Kalak said:

Oleis said:

If there's one overarching issue we've been faced with, it's how to get more people into PvP. The need for crown at the highest end of EQ combat isn't even in the top 5, because it's dwarfed by toxic interactions with existing fighters, a fear of failure and an inability to cope with the frustration of loss, intimidation at the enormous amount of information involved, and the need for an automated or semi automated offense. 

Those are problems we can try to fix that would have greater impact on the health of the game and more benefit to average players. They're just not as easy to scapegoat as an artifact. 

*Detached PvP from the World* I must admit, this game has draconian PK rules. Now do not get me wrong, I am not someone who looks favorably upon killing people repeatedly for no reason or without RP. And I do understand some rules are just there to encourage people to participate in PvP and do not become a target of retribution. But these heavy rules also prevent from other types of playstyles to flourish. Take Holy War rule...that means the weaker side can never employ mercenaries or sellswords. So you cannot RP a mercenary in this game easily on religious level. Consider no retribution on Ylem fights...takes away from the RP-impact of those battles. So I will think that fighting on those fights are just sport, have no impact on the world or it does not matter whether your attempt on extraction is thwarted or not. And then add Sect of Blades, a glorified league of PvPers with benefits. As I played longer, the PvP in this game appeared more a "subgame of a game" rather then "a seamless part of a fantasy world" It feels completely detached to me and ICly I started to struggle taking seriously of any battle which might occur.

Now I am not trying to a grim picture here, but just wished to share my current perspective as a newcomer to the game.

I really appreciate your insights as a new player. One thing you may discover as you get more familiar with the game is that while the rules themselves are written in a cut and dry manner, there is a great deal of discretion and forethought in their execution. Holy Wars are an especially stark example given the letter of the law, but the mechanic itself simple doesn't get used. I can agree with your example of ylem in that it restricts mercenary play, but I would argue that it conversely encourages people to get involved with PvP because they know they won't be mercilessly hunted for wanting to participate.

If there's one thing we definitely agree on, it's that not enough players are generating and fostering spontaneous in-character PvP, because they've grown accustomed to relying on the conflict systems.

Emir

I have a solution that I'm pretty sure no player will be exactly happy about. 

Decrease all modifiable eq times by 7%

Delete the crown artifact. 

Offer no refund.

For those of us with the crown now, we lose nothing in the end (except retire value. I'm sure that could be worked around however). We paid for a speed increase and we still retain it. And we also collectively in a way bought it for everyone else and the world will be a better place for it. I bought 2 of these stupid things and wasted some of my retirement credits on a third and I won't even be the slightest bit upset about not getting a refund if it means no one else has to sacrifice a car payment ever again just to be able to play an eq class on equal footing as everyone else.

Give me a non decaying crown item in game that's engraved with 'I paid 850 credits and all I got was this stupid prop and helped to remove one of the dumbest things ever in Aetolia' and call it good.

Toz

I second that. I'd love to have 850cr, but if it means crown goes away forever? You don't even have to pay me back.

Tedrunai

Lemme start with the disclaimer that I have no say in the final decision and little to no experience with creating/maintaining a pay-for-perks economy.

In an ideal world yeah Crown wouldn't exist. But it does and it's ubiquitous enough that refunding it outright probably isn't a feasible solution (and monumental enough that I'd wager the IRE head honchos have to get involved/approve). I know some of you are saying you'd be fine about deletion without a refund but I'd wager the majority don't feel this way and suddenly up-and-deleting artifacts bought with RL money sets a very dangerous precedent. Now you're unsure if -any- artifact you bought could be deleted without refund because the precedent has been set, and customers lacking that assurance in purchasing decisions will likely tank Aetolia in the long run.

As far as removing Crown suddenly getting people into PK, let's be real that's frankly not true. Money investment has never really been the main barrier of entry into PK, it's the daunting prospect of learning coding coupled with some bad attitudes and toxicity. There isn't suddenly going to be a flood of new PKers because Crown got removed.

With those points established the only way to bring about fairness is the addition of a +bal artifact. In my mind the fairest solution would be tacking on +bal to the existing Crown artifact, just making the power dual speed boost. This means people who have made that purchase don't have to make an additional one, and people who haven't now have to put in the same money to get back to where they were.

The thing with this is it's still a negative except for Aetolia's bottom line. Yeah it'd make things fair, but it's still an additional cost incurred on the playerbase. It's another thing that would have been "great" if it had been there from the start but adding it now is kinda tricky.

Emir

This isn't the same as like out right deletion though. The effect is still applied to everyone who bought it. We still got what we paid for. But now everyone has it. That only devalues the crown if you bought it for arti bashing purposes or for pay to win reasons, and to be quite honest I don't care about those people's feelings. Probably why I don't run things but you know. 

Personally, I bought the crown because I had to. Before Emir it was the only 'offensive' artifact I ever purchased (well runes but that was for the same reason back in ye olden bloodborn days)

Lin

This isn't even the first time a major artifact was deleted. Anyone remember back in the day when everyone lost their arti weapons? Worked out great, and everyone got full refunds.

Illikaal

Well, when the level 3 strength arti got its price reduced, the small handful of people that made that 4k credit investment were pretty upset when they found out they weren't getting refunds. That was a total loss of 1500 credits though. If such a thing were to happen again, but with much less of a credit loss, then I'd be fine with it.

That said, perhaps they could compromise. Maybe you could cut the cost of the crown down to 400, slow balance by 7%, introduce a +bal arty for 400 cr, nobody gets a refund for their crown for the same reasoning nobody got a refund for their +str arty being that pretty much everyone that has one has gotten their fair use out of it. Or, you could just give pre-existing crown owners their free +bal arty AS the refund instead of liquid credits so you don't mess up the economy.

To make things even more fair, you could create new amulets (the ones from delve that give artifact powers) since they work like arti powers anyhow. One for +bal and the other for +eq. The 400 credit investment isn't as daunting, and buying it just adds on the quality of life of it not decaying. This way everyone has access to it and there's still incentive on buying the actual artifact.

Seir

I won't lie. I'd be one of those pretty miffed if it got deleted without a refund considering I just bought it only a few weeks ago.

Illikaal

Seir said:

I won't lie. I'd be one of those pretty miffed if it got deleted without a refund considering I just bought it only a few weeks ago.

You'd probably be one of the exceptions. Iirc when Raz did what he did with the strength arty, people who recently bought it were given full refunds.

Satomi

Hey guys, here is my suggestion:

Why not just make +bal/+eq enhance and the crown not stack? Tack on the +bal to crown. That makes it more of a perk, because you no longer have to spend your enhancements on speed buffs, which nets you +6% hp/mana, and an extra enhancement point to spend elsewhere. It makes Crown still useful, because it gives you that speed boost. It makes Crown stick around, and it removes it as a necessity for PK.

The only downside is that with crown, you'd get both +bal AND +eq, where without it, you can only pick +bal OR +eq.

Anyway, that's my input (I legit only bought crown because if I ever wanted to PK as an EQ class, I knew I'd need it to do it seriously.)

Daegon

I'd be one of those people pissed about losing out on the money for the crown. Not everyone has easy access to money or ig gold for credits. Losing it would make me not want to play anymore and tell all my friends to not come here. But if we did one of the other solutions that require the crown still being around but adding in a ball one then I'd be totally fine with that.

Aishia

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