Prime Gems!

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Prime Gems!

Postby Gorka » Thu Jul 14, 2016 4:01 am

Prime gems! These days it's common to see Mages, Necros and Clerics calling Tomb Jades and Golden Yellow Topaz and Rhodo/Jet in groups. What I think has happened is some older players have pretty much maxed out there prime abilities and are now working down the list of creating different modes for themselves such as damage, spells save etc. Nothing wrong with that, except if you are new to the game, and somebody that pretty much already has EVERYTHING in your eyes, is calling a gem that's pretty much of prime importance to your class, but only secondary or thirdly important to the person who is calling it!

Because the gem poprate has dropped, we have a situation where practically the whole mud needs 10 topaz's or 10 tomb jades or 5 rhodos/5 Jets. Why not make some new runes, with exactly the same stats, but make the runes prime restricted to ensure that newbies are going to have an increased chance of getting that thing they need that's prime in their class. Maybe prime gems could also only be t2 gems, making them slightly easier to collect for primes. This idea does not increase player power, it prioritizes it.

New players would be more likely to score a rune that's useful to there prime class, as prime gems would be slightly easier to collect and easier to trade simply because of supply and demand. It's that simple!

Warriors Prime - Weapon Dam
Monks Prime - Hand Dam
Clerics Prime - Heal Bonus
Mage Prime - Spell Bonus
Necro Prime - Undead Control
Bards Prime - Charisma
Thiefs Prime - Stab/Circle
Druid Prime - Nothing, damn druids! :x
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It's Not About The Poprate - The System Is Broken!

Postby Gorka » Sat Jul 16, 2016 8:45 am

I asked a few older players why no one was saying anything about my prime gems idea, and they said they are sick of talking about the problem and that no one was listening, and they were glad it was coming from someone else for a change. They also egged me on to say more… So here is a list of what I think are the issues, that I hope some immortal will address them... The pop rate of gems to one side… there are clearly some other flaws in the system making the problems worse.

Point 1

The gem system problems are making it nearly impossible for new players to score a rune in the key area specific to their class, as a bottleneck has been created by older players or there alts waiting to still get there’s and the queue is getting longer. Even if a newbie happens to score a gem, due to the enormous resources available to older players it’s very easily traded from them.

Solution: Implement Prime Gems, this lessens the demand on gems “everyone” wants, by prioritizing it to players who can best use it.

Point 2

Finger/Wrist/Neck gems mean most people want 10 of the same gem, however the supply is only the same as if they needed 5 gems… This means runes in these slots are effectively twice as hard to get as the demand is twice as high.

Solution: New runes for the same stat in the same slot. This also lessens the demand on one particular gem, by dividing the problem back into its original concept of needing only 5 of one particular gem.

Point 3

I popped my FIRST solo gem the other day, and I am almost 5x40. It popped on the Cobalt Wagoneer, an easy 1.5m aged mob. Today I ran 1 billion xp, 175000k honor in a 6.5hr 10 person plus epic chop group and we popped 1 gem the entire group on the LAST mob before we disbanded. Clearly there is a complete disconnect between reward and work. The same group which killed about 35 epics could have instead ran 1,000+ Cobalt Wagoneers or higher mobs and farmed way more gems … Why is the game rewarding frequency rather than work?

I believe in the past there was a problem with people farming gems, so the pop rate was lowered… but that was not the solution was it! Frequency is still a factor! In fact it’s probably made the situation WORSE, because now even epics do not load as frequently and epic groups have even MORE people in them for the chance at only 1 good gem drop, which means more are getting less! Lowering the pop rate, didn’t actually fix the problem, because the game is still rewarding frequency, not work.

Solution: The gem pop formula needs altering to accommodate the number of members in a group, and the xp of the mob killed, not the silly corpse level, and perhaps more than one gem may need to be loaded depending on the number of people in the group and mob xp factors. There is clearly a bit of a difference between the Cobalt Wagoneer and 35 epics…

Point 4

The pop rate is pretty low. Taron is still calling Tomb Jade at practically 9x40 with all his group leading. Does this sound like an acceptable pop rate? I understand the pop rate needs to be low, and some gems are worth more than others, but it does seem low. However, even if the pop rate were to remain about the same, I still believe points 1-3 need addressed as these points are flaws in the system aside from what most believe is a low pop rate.

Please don’t read this post and think it’s just another complaint at low popping gem rates. I more want to point out that the system is flawed, if that could be fixed perhaps point 4 might actually resolve it’s self.

:mrgreen:
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Re: Prime Gems!

Postby Teron » Sat Jul 16, 2016 11:57 am

1. It's not entirely clear how you propose the new prime gems to work.

Do you add them to the gem pool and keep the same gem pop rate? Then they lower the chance of getting non-prime gems everyone needs.

Do you replace a few gems? Ok, but how useful are those gems you remove? (btw, bloodstone and dark green spinel are not entirely useful, unless someone wants to enlighten me).

2. As for gem competition, I've suggested an idea and tried to uphold it for a bit - about limiting 20lev players to t1 gem calls and 20-3x40 chars to t1-t2 gem calls. This limits the competitiveness among the new players and the old players.

Also, this actually benefits the new/lower level players, because they can get t1-t2 gems much easier, than t3 gems everyone will offer to trade for. E.g., a newbie pops a salmon pink garnet. A few 9x40s can clean their vaults and sell/give/trade the remaining 4 gems for the rune.

Another reason why this is better for new players is that they don't have items to socket high-end t3 runes to. Heck, even I only have 1 sacred bracer of the order to socket a GYT rune, if I get it (have only 1 gem). I haven't had armplates (the saurian sleeves) to socket the Amethyst rune for a while and I've spent a month just killing Diplodocus - you'll know why, if you want the sleeves. This can be said about many other items for t3 runes, such as:
- Ars Magica or 9x40 light for +max wis or +max int runes
- the scarab of destruction for the Malachite
- the nekodes for the Jet rune
- the Golden Dagger of Thieves or the black kris of power for the Black Onyx rune

Of course. there are a few items that are easy to get, such as drachma robes (but then you need t1-t2s for them) and the Relic (the first item I got).

***note: adding more 6x40-9x40 forges would help reduce gem competitiveness, because you can't socket t3 gems at 20 or 3x40 if you don't have a 8x40 forge.

3. Doubling the poprate for ring/neck/wrist gems would solve the rarity issue for these gems.

4. Gem pop already depends on the number of players and mob level. I've long suggested making it depend on mob hps (to reward effort put in killing the mob), but it isn't in yet and I haven't heard feedback on this (maybe that it needs to be done and some changes were going in). I suspect this will also reduce poprate for t1 gems on 2-5mil solo mobs.

You could factor in xp, but do keep in mind that eq mobs have average exp, and some exp mobs are pretty easy to kill - so mob hps is a more reliable factor here, imho.

5. While I'm calling Tomb Jade now, and only have a few gems, I've been calling Rhodo, Amethyst, Colorless Sapphire, Malachite before - and I've got them over the course of 1-2 years.

It also helps to play a lot, join groups first and call your gems. I wouldn't really hope to pop the gems you need fast, because, like Splork said, they are a bonus, even though some are pretty powerful.

With this low gem poprate, we are lucky if we pop a few gems with 15 ppl, and those gems could be anything. It's pretty hopeless to count for the gems you need to pop.

As you solo offlyme, you should pop more gems. 41 level mobs start from about 1-1.5-2mil. If you keep killing them, instead of soloing on lyme, then you may pop a number of t1 gems solo.

To save some Splork's time, so he doesn't spend time to post the same again, I'll just quote him:
Splork wrote:And yes, we purposely raised gem pop rates to make sure that newer players were not excluded from groups. It wasn't that long ago where new players were never invited into groups. Now there is a huge reason to invite them and I think its extremely beneficial in actually maintaining a player base. All it takes is one good group and some nice people to make a lifer out of a new player...

(I don't remember upping gem poprates, I remember them being higher at the time of Shyla)

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Re: Prime Gems!

Postby Gorka » Sat Jul 16, 2016 4:24 pm

So in the sloth channel, Hung made a point... should the gem system actually reward work? It's a good question.

The rerolling system doesn't reward work. Some people get amazing stats from one token and others get slightly less rolling hundreds of tokens... it's not fair either... sure, the system indirectly rewards work for those who pop hundreds of tokens, but this is indirect... the system is essentially luck based. Should the gem system reward work? Well in my opinion, yes, it should... tokens is a personal struggle, but gems has and does effect the collective harmony amongest players, and they are popped mostly together in groups, it requires working together and trading together, and therefore work should be rewarded fairly - not based on solely on a warped sense of frequency or luck. If I get a bad roll, this does not effect directly other players... tokens is a personal issue, it's different.

Do you add them to the gem pool and keep the same gem pop rate? Then they lower the chance of getting non-prime gems everyone needs.


Yeah, I thought about this flow on effect to the gem pool of prime gems, but I figure that the main gems people need are the prime ones, therefore the source of the biggest problems. There are some runes that could be retired. You could change the formula or juggle the tiers or pop rates as compensation... the problem is solvable... There are numerous options of which you came up with a few yourself. It's not really up to me to say how this should be implemented, other than to make my point about why it should be implemented.

There is a superior way to do things... but probably a bit late now... when gems pop they could be only of 3 kinds... a t1 blank, a t2 blank or a t3 blank. 5 blanks of the same type can create a gem in a bracket of the players choosing... prime gems should be a bracket lower. Forged gems would then need to become personal. Formula would need adjusting for this. It would work a bit like scrabble - you know there is a blank letter that can be any letter. It's a Superior idea, just can't see it happening... It also solves the "need 10 gems" problem... I can't see this idea being implemented and In all honesty I can't see prime gems happening either.

I don't expect the admin to budge on gems, but there was no harm in trying to get them to see that beyond the pop rate issue, I think the system is a bit flawed. They lowered the pop rate because people were getting a lot for little work due to farming... but it didn't actually address the real work issue though did it... Even though gems pop less, it still doesn't reward work, which was actually the REAL issue that needed addressing.

As for newb's calling t3's. The group leader should handle that issue themselves, pretty hard for the mud to enforce that when the mud doesn't know what the player is calling apart from some abbreviated or misspelled gem name in gjob...
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Re: Prime Gems!

Postby *Splork* » Sat Jul 16, 2016 11:39 pm

. Gem pop already depends on the number of players and mob level. I've long suggested making it depend on mob hps (to reward effort put in killing the mob), but it isn't in yet and I haven't heard feedback on this (maybe that it needs to be done and some changes were going in). I suspect this will also reduce poprate for t1 gems on 2-5mil solo mobs.


I know we have discussed this in the past but gem pop rates are dependent on many factors and the creatures hitpoints has always been one of them...
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