Time to lower seraph/Baleful --> Raven upgrade cost

[898005_1452550635]

Who agrees it's about time (June 20th) to lower the Seraph/Baleful to Raven upgrade cost? Why should people be paying premium price for a weapon that has become the norm? a weapon that's required to get into SO many things . A weapon that every aunt, uncle, grandpa and grandma and cousins, heck even nephews and nieces should be rocking around with? 

What do I mean with premium price? the very well known 5 empyrean stones! A downright upgrade cost cut is needed; no shady mats replacement that will drive up the price of other stuff; just plain cost reduction.  By lowering the requirement (lets say down to 1-2 empyrean stones) you can allow lowbies, to progress faster into current content so they feel more motivated to spend <isn't that what you want ncsoft?> also allowing people to gear up their subs better so they can become independent and can hold their own. So even if the toxic higher geared people/elitists don't want to carry. The lower geared/new players/returnees can spam dungeons (esp higher level dungeons that's more relevant.not those useless old dungeons) on their own, albeit much slower (but hey guys remember mechanics--wink wink). 

 

Lastly, you need to start putting empyrean stones in f10 (more often if they are already there) or reducing the cost to make them so they become more readily available, cause lord encouraging people to upgrade but not doing something about the supplies isn't going to help the situation on the long run. AT ALL.

 

On a side note, WHEN ARE WE GETTING PTS IN F10? Need to put that in f10 once per week man! Not everyone has the God-like RNG

[Ludicium]

Tbh, I don't think that the cost for Baleful/Seraph Stage 10 to Raven Stage 1 is that expensive compared to what +Raven Stage x costs are like.

Like most normal breakthroughs, they are designed to be pricier than normal upgrades. Considering you need to drop a few hundred gold minimum for a normal Raven Stage upgrade, I'd say that the Baleful/Seraph Stage 10 to Raven Stage 1 is a nice way to make sure that the players know what meets them beyond that point. 

 

By the time you hit Raven Stage 6 and beyond it's not out of the ordinary for you to spend a few thousand gold to upgrade your equipment (ie. dropping a few thousand gold on items in VT, etc.)

 

However! With that being said, I do agree with you that Baleful/Seraph Stage 10 to Raven Stage 1 is stupid expensive for players without access to higher tier dungeons/raid where they can earn a few hundred gold per run.

 

But, in terms of your pricing, you have to realize that it's not NCsoft/west's fault that the pricing of those Empyrean Spirit Stones is so high, it's our fault as it is us who set the prices on the materials (by "us" I mean the players in general).

I personally don't think that reducing the cost of materials - ess included, will change much, I personally think that making them more easily accessible will though. The lowering of the demand won't change or make that big of an impact if the supplies are already this bad/the lowering of the cost of materials needed/wanted won't change or make that big of an impact if the lack of said materials in the game are already this bad.

[898005_1452550635]

17 minutes ago, Ludicium said:

I personally don't think that reducing the cost of materials - ess included, will change much, I personally think that making them more easily accessible will though. The lowering of the demand won't change or make that big of an impact if the supplies are already this bad/the lowering of the cost of materials needed/wanted won't change or make that big of an impact if the lack of said materials in the game are already this bad.

Agree. But why solve problems with only 1 approach? I think the best way is both lower the requirement and also making it more readily accessible, this way you don't have to do too much of one thing that might have a negative effect later on. (like the 1 empyrean I mentioned is merely wishful thinking) E.g. If they lower the cost to 3 empyrean stones and then making the crafting / mats farming cheaper and easier, which if put in terms of effort-time is the same as making 2 empyrean stones from now. 

[Lyn Thunderfox]

The reason I would agree is that Raven->Aransu actually costs 2 Empyrean to upgrade, doesn't make much sense to use 5 for Bale/Sera -> Raven.

 

 

[Ludicium]

2 hours ago, 898005_1452550635 said:

Agree. But why solve problems with only 1 approach? I think the best way is both lower the requirement and also making it more readily accessible, this way you don't have to do too much of one thing that might have a negative effect later on. (like the 1 empyrean I mentioned is merely wishful thinking) E.g. If they lower the cost to 3 empyrean stones and then making the crafting / mats farming cheaper and easier, which if put in terms of effort-time is the same as making 2 empyrean stones from now. 

Yeah...so true. There's so many choices - I guess they're just afraid if the implement a change too fast, it'll ruin the market.

1 hour ago, Lyn Thunderfox said:

The reason I would agree is that Raven->Aransu actually costs 2 Empyrean to upgrade, doesn't make much sense to use 5 for Bale/Sera -> Raven.

Makes me cry seeing the PTS XD Wish it was just the ess and some normal transformation stones XD

[JoannaRamira]

yeah, might as well reduce the Empyrian stone cost.  maybe to 1. That's the only roadblock to Raven atm.

[Cor]

It's already dirt cheap, it has already been reduced by 5 stones plus all the other reductions. If raven takes too much effort for you to get even after it already has been reduced so much in cost you should maybe play another game instead of expecting to get everything spoonfed to you.

[898005_1452550635]

3 minutes ago, Cor said:

It's already dirt cheap, it has already been reduced by 5 stones plus all the other reductions. If raven takes to much effort for you to get even after it already has been reduced so much in cost you should maybe play another game instead of getting spoonfed everything.

Whale detected  or is it secretly a ncwest staff 

[Cor]

1 minute ago, 898005_1452550635 said:

Whale detected  or is it secretly a ncwest staff 

Nope just someone who earned his stuff instead of crying to get everything for free.

[898005_1452550635]

1 minute ago, Cor said:

Nope just someone who earned his stuff instead of crying to get everything for free.

So by that definition, cause you worked your ass off you don't want others to get it for cheaper? Dude it's very old content item. Why be salty about it? you had 1 year worth of fun with it. Its value dropped by now.

[Cor]

Just now, 898005_1452550635 said:

So by that definition, cause you worked your ass off you don't want others to get it for cheaper? Dude it's very old content item. Why be salty about it? you had 1 year worth of fun with it. Its value dropped by now.

Nope, no problem with things getting cheaper but you are asking for already cheaper stuff to basically get handed to you for almost free. BT has been nerfed to the ground that it can easily be done by random groups and the materials for raven can even be bought for dirt cheap on the marketplace. It's already 20x easier to get raven weapon than when BT came out but people still cry and surely won't stop till it's handed to them for free through the story like baleful was. People want everything for no effort and that's what i find disgusting.

[898005_1452550635]

You don't understand. No one is asking for a free raven. But hell slapping 1k-1.5k price tag on the current content entry-level weapon is just absurd. 

[898005_1452550635]

Older players may have a bunch of legendary elements saved but newer players don't. so it's not as free as you think :<. So many items you have cause you're a long time player and take for granted. And keep thinking that newer players want to be spoon-fed.

[Cor]

Just now, 898005_1452550635 said:

You don't understand. No one is asking for a free raven. But hell slapping 1k-1.5k price tag on the current content entry-level weapon is just absurd. 

If stones would be reduced to 1-2 it would be almost free. Bale/Seraph is entry level weapon not raven, when they give it for free from story in 6-12months than it will be.

[898005_1452550635]

Just now, Cor said:

If stones would be reduced to 1-2 it would be almost free. Bale/Seraph is entry level weapon not raven, when they give it for free from story in 6-12months than it will be.

Baleful/Seraph is entry-level for old content, dungeons that no one even bother to run anymore if it isn't part of daily, heck even the legendary items from those dungeons are practically being given away so newer players don't have to farm it. All I see is a salty old-time player who paid lots of gold for it when it came out but refuses to accept that time has changed so has the requirements and values 

[898005_1452550635]

5 minutes ago, Cor said:

If stones would be reduced to 1-2 it would be almost free. Bale/Seraph is entry level weapon not raven, when they give it for free from story in 6-12months than it will be.

Also again, the upgrade cost isn't simply empyrean stones, they are so many other items D:<. They still have to farm from scratch for every item! So it's still not a free item. But the wall (hurdle) is lowered significantly. 

[Zordrage]

58 minutes ago, Cor said:

If stones would be reduced to 1-2 it would be almost free. Bale/Seraph is entry level weapon not raven, when they give it for free from story in 6-12months than it will be.

Free ? are you normal ?

just because your here a long time ago and DID not had walls pushed in your face by the devs in the form of Updates when trying to Upgrade your gear..

you know how HARD is to earn gold now for players that cant enter higher stuff and stuck on those stages ? of course not you already got your stuff and gear for those higer stuff BEFORE they removed majority of the income from the lower stuff.... 

you don't even know what pain most New/old returning players go through right now for those Supposed "free" weapon upgrades....

[898005_1452550635]

5 minutes ago, Zordrage said:

Free ? are you normal ?

just because your here a long time ago and DID not had walls pushed in your face by the devs in the form of Updates when trying to Upgrade your gear..

you know how HARD is to earn gold now for players that cant enter higher stuff and stuck on those stages ? of course not you already got your stuff and gear for those higer stuff BEFORE they removed majority of the income from the lower levels.... 

woah woah woah hold it. He had a even higher wall when it came out. so chill. But the upside was he could relevant dungeon back then and farm mats ( Oi oldie, remember EC-hard mode for elysian orbs?)  So even with the high wall he could manage it (not that he didn't have a wall) But, they significant lowered the rewards from the dungeons that were used to farm for mats and gold to get and upgrade raven without reducing the upgrade cost from Seraph/Baleful to Raven. (this is the point I am trying to make really) and not making the mats more easily accessible. Cause really so few people are willing to spam DT-EC-NF nowadays cause there's no good reward from there. NS-bracelet dropped yesterday. Someone got it for 1 copper. 

[Zordrage]

1 minute ago, 898005_1452550635 said:

woah woah woah hold it. He had a even higher wall when it came out. so chill.

as a player that was here back then... no.. it was waaaaay easier you needed more stuff yes.. but it was actual overal easier to steadily go up with your upgrades...

lets just say His Wall was Tall but had a Ladder attached to it...
now the wall is Shorter but the ladder got removed and got replaced with Hundreds of spikes... its fun to climb it...

[898005_1452550635]

1 minute ago, Zordrage said:

lets just say His Wall was Tall but had a Ladder attached to it...
now the wall is Shorter but the ladder got removed and got replaced with Hundreds of spikes... its fun to climb it...

nowwww that is a wonderful analogue, thanks brah . Alright people. this is the point Zordrage and I and many that came before us tried to make.

[Nomade13]

I think they need a new rebalancing patch focus on NA/EU community and not KR content timelife.

This is my opnion on other post:

Quote

 

"As long recipe for PTS/Empyrean Stones use unbound materials to transmute/craft (plus fail chance on transmute PTS) this changes are really bad, we can get more crystals (bound materials) but lot of things used to upgrades still being unbound version. (This is 2 main materials for important upgrades)

 

Suggestions:

 

-Make a Transformation Stone and Premium Transformation Stone (PTS) bound to account version recipe: crafted with bound materials (review this fail chance)

-Make Empyrean Stone bound to account version recipe: crafted with bound materials

-Bring back gold bars chance drop on daily challenge box (at least i like this)

-Take a review on this Rebalancing Gold Reward from Dungeons without forget new players/alt chars

-Make a PVE version from Sparkling Battleground Treasure Chest (Sparkling Whirlwind Key already drop from pve dungeons box from Khanda Vihar/Guwon/Solak - was removed from silverfrost so description still bugeg LOL)...Best way its make a Sparkling Celestial Basin Treasure Chest for 3000/4000 peachs and key drop on basin bosses maybe. (Until now i dont know why box come from pvp p2w battleground and keys from pve dungeons box)

 

Before patch i hear about market fix but until now market after patch become worse..."

 

 

[rangda]

On 6/5/2018 at 8:31 AM, Cor said:

It's already dirt cheap, it has already been reduced by 5 stones plus all the other reductions. If raven takes too much effort for you to get even after it already has been reduced so much in cost you should maybe play another game instead of expecting to get everything spoonfed to you.

I think you are out of touch with the experience in the game for new players.  I just started playing the game ~3.5 months ago and just did the baleful -> raven upgrade so I can tell you what I went through to do it.

 

The upgrade itself took about 1 month of saving, most of which was actually windfall luck right before the upgrade.  It took about 1 month to get the materials necessary to craft 3 empyrean stones.  That month also gave me the gold to buy the legendary elements, only because I had a bunch laying around from trove (I bought a few character slots when I started playing so I could try out several classes so I had several toons for trove rolls; but I didn't buy any additional slots or rolls or anything during the trove.)  I got the final 2 empyrean stones by luck, I hit 100 gold 2x in a week on the membership caches and got a couple of pet pods from host 1 ncoin frisky feline boxes in that same week.  Between the gold and selling the pet pods that gave me the gold for the final two stones.  Of course if I was strictly free to play I'd have had access to neither of those and been stuck with another month+ of grind.

 

On the surface you might think 1 month isn't too bad for the raven upgrade.  Except at this point it would be even longer; I was able to get at least some gold before the dungeon gold nerf.  A new player right now is looking at maybe 7-8 gold per day (assuming they are a member, FTP would be even less) from doing dungeon runs every day, assuming you can even get groups.  I'm "only" 1k ap so I still try to do those dungeons and getting pops for anything that isn't a daily below NF is pretty spotty.  Stupidly I cannot get pops for Sogun's Lament at all even though the dungeon awards more gold than NS/IF does (they nerfed the final gold reward but not the gold reward for all the quests in the dungeon).

 

Also, if you aren't 1100 ap then as far as the community is concerned you are a second class citizen.  The community demands 1000+ ap for NS groups, and 1100+ ap for anything higher.  It even demands 1100 ap and/or raven+ weapons for BT which is where you are supposed to get the raven upgrade (essentially tell you that you have to buy a carry for your raven weapon or F5 the drop which is what I did).  So while it is true that the baleful weapon is the entry level weapon for the game, the reality is that until you are raven 6 + full BT geared the community wants nothing to do with you.  I fully understand why, "endgame" is really just a loot treadmill where you endlessly grind the same things over and over and when that is the "challenge" people invariably want to trivialize it and make it as brain dead as possible.  But it also means that in order for a new player to actually participate the baseline is much, much higher than the game grants you, and with the costs vs. rewards the game is telling you buy your way up or don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.  That's not good for the long term health of the game.

 

The price of being at the pointy part of the pyramid is that everything involves endless grind.  But a loot treadmill game done right has to keep trivializing the progression as it falls off the pointy end; this is what allows new players to catch up so that as old time players burn out they can be replaced by newer players.  If it doesn't do this then 1) new players will quit once they figure out they have no hope of catching up and 2) you will eventually run out of friends to do content with as people at your gear level burn out and quit.

[Cor]

On 5.6.2018 at 3:53 PM, Zordrage said:

you know how HARD is to earn gold now for players that cant enter higher stuff and stuck on those stages ? of course not you already got your stuff and gear for those higer stuff BEFORE they removed majority of the income from the lower stuff.... 
 

If you think it's hard now you haven't seen anything hard in this game. Back then Bale 1 or even True Scorpio was way harder to get than raven is now. Was way harder to get gold/mats back then yet people didn't complain nearly as much as they do nowadays. If you want your gear the easy way without grind you have to cash, that's the kind of game this is.

[BirdSpirit]

47 minutes ago, Cor said:

If you think it's hard now you haven't seen anything hard in this game. Back then Bale 1 or even True Scorpio was way harder to get than raven is now. Was way harder to get gold/mats back then yet people didn't complain nearly as much as they do nowadays. If you want your gear the easy way without grind you have to cash, that's the kind of game this is.

Back then Bale 1 was basically the aransu of now. Neither that or true scorp were needed to do content. Players could finish the story and immediately go LFP yeti and necro and be fine. That's the issue right now. New people can't even get into parties to do the dungeons they need to do.

[Kozuki]

I believe it is time to make Seraph/Baleful Stage 10 the new Scaleburn weapon (the starter weapon before Bale/Seraph Stage 1), and players will decide themselves to either go Raven or (trap) Dawn/Rift onward.

 

Also, Dawn/Rift should have some adjustment in term of costs. Currently, they require more material value and efforts to upgrade, while being weaker than Raven.

 

Also, plz put the enraged timer of Xanos back to 8-10 minutes.