compensating for advanced players' bias to improve faster by only running w/other advanced

[Nicolee]

I just noticed/thought of something -- party forming and items a party can get from a run.

 

If I am a more advanced player, I can get into groups doing HardMode and higher stage(DB) dungeons.

 

If I am less advanced, new, returning, or whatever, I am excluded by many advanced players running groups only for other advanced players.  This will tend to compensate advanced players with higher mode equipment, pushing them higher and higher while less advanced players remain stuck at lower-tier equipment. 

 

This is discouraging to those who aren't advanced, as there is no way to get higher tier equipment unless you are advanced enough to fit in with advanced groups.

 

I'm not sure of an ideal way to compensate for this, other than have rewards be the same for all dungeon levels, which would be fairly unpopular, or form groups either fully or partly at random upon entering a dungeon.  I say partly because friends like to run with friends, but if half the party was composed of a random char wanting that dungeon, then less-advanced players could get a chance at better equipment.  Now I say 'random', but it might be within some bracketed level, say plus or minus some number of HM-levels and/or a weight AP.

 

As it stands its very hard for those starting out at some deficit to ever catch up.  Related to this is the advantage advanced players have in being able to sell "carries" through a dungeon to allow less-advanced chars to buy equipment and such -- which I'm torn on, because, it can be a way to support a gaming "habit", but it also matches the saying of "the rich get richer, and poor get poorer", which promotes some people working hard, but also can be oppressive when the gap becomes too large.

 

Ideas?  Ways to lower the  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient) of the game (as applied to game riches)?

 

 

[thewhoracle]

Don't blame other players who don't want to play with you!!!

 

You need to do your soulboost, make a Daily Train party (Daily Train is doing all dungeons on the F8 list) and advertise on World and Faction Chat.

Then you farm Easy Mode (ANYONE CAN DO THIS) of Hall of Trials and Namdo Shrine, you will get Starcross ring earring neck and gloves from doing this. You can also do Grim and Lab stage 1 to get these accessories (it takes no time at all to farm these, stop being lazy)

 

Once you have these accessories you need to level them up to stage 6 and higher and you also need to get poharan soulshields from Chaos level 5 farm. Lots of higher Boss AP players will farm these with noobs because they are running for Pet gems and upgradable gems.

 

Once you have that gear to stage 6 you can begin doing stage 5 grim and Lab to get oculus Ring, Earring, neck and gloves and starcross bracelet/belt from the other Demons bane dungeon infinity.

Then get those to +6 and higher.

 

If people don't let you into their parties its because they are doing content you don't belong in, that is reality, no one owes you a carry. 

Make your own parties. I can do stage 5 of all the dungeons on my characters that have just soulboost gear no problem and I do this to get ranked.

 

YOU need to put in the effort to gear up as intended and you need to make parties. You can easily get starcross ring neck gloves and earring from just doing daily dungeons with randoms and most people will accept anyone for this as they are doing easy mode/lvl 1s. You can earn this gear in NO TIME AT ALL, they drop all day long. I have alts which just do 1 lvl 5 demons Bane train a month for ranking who have oculus gear and I do not upgrade any of my alts gear. I just make a world chat advertisement and wait for my party to fill. 

 

Also you can earn the best mystic badge in game just doing easy mode daily of shrouded arjanara, do it everyday if you can do 8million DPS, once you can do 35m you do Normal mode and can farm the badge and amulet by repeating runs for hours. Watch tv or a movie and PUT IN THE EFFORT.

 

Also Join a clan and be active in their discord voice chat, if you do want carries that how you can get them. 

 

If you want gear in BNS you need to farm it, it literally takes no time at all to get the best accessories in the game. Ive earned the best ring, earring, necklace and gloves on day 1 of the dungeons coming out for both Grim and Lab. All the active discord regulars in my voice chat also have them. The drop rates are GOOD. My alts which I 

 

POST a screen shot of your character and will tell you what you need to do and what you need to work on.

Edited January 2, 2023 by thewhoracle

[thewhoracle]

Also the levels of demons bane dungeons are there to give people something to do and work towards. ANYONE can make a world chat/faction chat party and do stage 1 after getting some basic soulboost gear.

You do level 1 and then upgrade that lvl 1 gear to stage +6 then you can do lvl 5 and UPGRADE that gear and eventually you get strong enough to do lvl 8 then 10 and 12+.

You also need to upgrade your accessories, PLAY THE GAME and put in the EFFORT, its SUPER EASY to gear now, you get 2k gold a day per char, go ahead and make a 2nd lvl 60 and now you get 4k a day gold. Thats 120,000 gold a month with just 2 level 60s. UPGRADE your gear and people will play with you, people will reject you if you are just +0 gear when +11 is SUPER EASY low effort to do.

[Grimoir]

To add to what thewhoracle said:

 

You also need to make sure to know mechanics for stages 6+, since a lot of them give your party more dmg output and prevent wipes / dmg taken.

[Nicolee]

On 1/2/2023 at 2:26 AM, thewhoracle said:

Don't blame other players who don't want to play with you!!!

I didn't.  I said advanced, staying with advanced, while less-than-advanced were left (usually) to stay with less advanced.  At the same time, only advance groups had access to advanced rewards.  Less-than advanced don't get access to those rewards.  Thus advanced groups tend to move forward faster than less-than advanced groups.  Your entire post was a justification for the status quo.  You seem to blame the less-advanced group for their own problems.  Let's assume this is so, that you want to keep your advanced groups available only to your similarly advanced friends.  I say, "fine".  I assume you would have no problem if NCSoft changes the rewards from 'Easy' and stage 1 dungeons to be the same as those from 'Hard' and stage 20 dungeons.  Then it isn't about forcing you to run with those you don't want to run with.  That can remain as is and you can continue to limit advanced difficulty dungeons to all-advanced players.  But making the dungeon rewards the same for the "basic" groups would eliminate the problem of advanced-only groups being the only groups that have access to upper-tiered rewards.  I.e. disassociate advanced rewards from how advanced one has to be to obtain those rewards.  This would allow you to run with who you want, but solve the problem of advanced rewards only being available to advanced-only groups.

 

That would solve your desire to only run w/other advanced groups, and address my observation of the current reward system only benefiting advanced-only groups.

 

I assume you have no problem with that solution?  This keeps "basic" or "newb" players out of dungeons they aren't qualified for, so no problem, right?

 

If you disagree, you are saying you want to keep the differential reward system the same,  with its major benefits only being reserved to advanced-only groups.  That was the problem I wanted to address, but you indicated it is imperative to keep the ability to limit advanced-difficulty dungeons only to advanced-only groups to keep less-advanced players away from dungeons that they cannot complete (because they are too difficult). 

 

Thus, it seems to keep less-advanced players away from dungeons that are too hard, but to remove the problem of them not being able to progress as well due to the reward differential, is to make the rewards the same from the different-difficult dungeons.  That way you get to keep your ability to run harder dungeons only with advanced-only groups, but the continued differences due to reward-differences would be removed.

 

This is a fine solution, I'm glad you led me to the best solution to satisfy both of us.

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by Nicolee

[Grimoir]

1 hour ago, Nicolee said:

I didn't.  I said advanced, staying with advanced, while less-than-advanced were left (usually) to stay with less advanced.  At the same time, only advance groups had access to advanced rewards.  Less-than advanced don't get access to those rewards.  Thus advanced groups tend to move forward faster than less-than advanced groups.  Your entire post was a justification for the status quo.  You seem to blame the less-advanced group for their own problems.  Let's assume this is so, that you want to keep your advanced groups available only to your similarly advanced friends.  I say, "fine".  I assume you would have no problem if NCSoft changes the rewards from 'Easy' and stage 1 dungeons to be the same as those from 'Hard' and stage 20 dungeons.  Then it isn't about forcing you to run with those you don't want to run with.  That can remain as is and you can continue to limit advanced difficulty dungeons to all-advanced players.  But making the dungeon rewards the same for the "basic" groups would eliminate the problem of advanced-only groups being the only groups that have access to upper-tiered rewards.  I.e. disassociate advanced rewards from how advanced one has to be to obtain those rewards.  This would allow you to run with who you want, but solve the problem of advanced rewards only being available to advanced-only groups.

 

That would solve your desire to only run w/other advanced groups, and address my observation of the current reward system only benefiting advanced-only groups.

 

I assume you have no problem with that solution?  This keeps "basic" or "newb" players out of dungeons they aren't qualified for, so no problem, right?

 

If you disagree, you are saying you want to keep the differential reward system the same,  with its major benefits only being reserved to advanced-only groups.  That was the problem I wanted to address, but you indicated it is imperative to keep the ability to limit advanced-difficulty dungeons only to advanced-only groups to keep less-advanced players away from dungeons that they cannot complete (because they are too difficult). 

 

Thus, it seems to keep less-advanced players away from dungeons that are too hard, but to remove the problem of them not being able to progress as well due to the reward differential, is to make the rewards the same from the different-difficult dungeons.  That way you get to keep your ability to run harder dungeons only with advanced-only groups, but the continued differences due to reward-differences would be removed.

 

This is a fine solution, I'm glad you led me to the best solution to satisfy both of us.

 

 

 

Your solution is horrible. If they were to change the rewards for stage 1 and easy to be the same as higher they might aswel delete all higher stages since there would not be any point in running them.

 

The problem here are not rewards but the "lower" players themselves. You all expect the more advanced players to take you everywhere, give you essentially free carries etc....that is not how this works.

Everyone is free top do dungeons and runs with whoever they want. If you do not meet requirements for some groups, too bad for you. There is NOTHING stopping you from creating your own group with people around the same gear level as you to clear a given content.

 

The only thing keeping less-advanced players from dungeons is their own laziness to create their own groups, with players of their own level.

You are sounding a bit entitled saying you should get better rewards without even progressing or trying.

 

[luzt]

I am not oppossing or supporting the following statement:

 

A solution could be a token-based system

A shop with all items from the loot-tables of every dungeon (every dungeon their own currency... sorry, else 1 dungeon would only be farmed)

Lower stages would give low amount of tokens, while higher stages give higher amount of tokens.

So people doing high end content would still progress faster, but low geared people have also access to the gear as long as they just keep grinding.

 

There is already a similair version that makes you get more upgrade mats as you go higher in stages.

Or update the starcross/upsurge/oculus essence store to include every possible item (true weapon/weapon psyches etc)

 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by luzt

[aeri00]

if NC was to be compensating players, the advanced players will get more of stuffs since they invest lots of time playing grinding the dungeon when they were at returning/ new player gear. Some advanced players did almost 1000 runs of demonsbane dungeons since it first release and try to upgrade their gears. The only way for new/ returning players need to do is just do what you can and try to befriend with those that has high gear and who knows they will invite you to do those "advanced content" no matter what gear you have.

[Fury Moor]

I would agree with luzt, give tokens or let us solo farm the gear in other parts than stages 5+...

[Grimoir]

6 hours ago, luzt said:

I am not oppossing or supporting the following statement:

 

A solution could be a token-based system

A shop with all items from the loot-tables of every dungeon (every dungeon their own currency... sorry, else 1 dungeon would only be farmed)

Lower stages would give low amount of tokens, while higher stages give higher amount of tokens.

So people doing high end content would still progress faster, but low geared people have also access to the gear as long as they just keep grinding.

 

There is already a similair version that makes you get more upgrade mats as you go higher in stages.

Or update the starcross/upsurge/oculus essence store to include every possible item (true weapon/weapon psyches etc)

 

 

 

 

You can get psyches from the Ranking tokens, from dungeon drops, and from soul boost which are the second BiS ones.

True weapons should definitely stay where they are as drop from stages 16+.

If any form of token acquisition would be in place, it will literally kill all stages 5+ because there would simply not be any point running them, as it would be far more efficient to just spam stage 5-8 at most which require no mechanics and are easier.

 

Stages 1-5 of demonsbane is horribly easy, stage 5 is essentially on the same level as a normal mode dungeon or even less, without wipe mechanics.

If you DO know the mechanics, it will let you clear it much faster.

So lets stop complaining content is "too hard" and maybe you just start organizing runs yourselves with a group?

 

4 hours ago, aeri00 said:

if NC was to be compensating players, the advanced players will get more of stuffs since they invest lots of time playing grinding the dungeon when they were at returning/ new player gear. Some advanced players did almost 1000 runs of demonsbane dungeons since it first release and try to upgrade their gears. The only way for new/ returning players need to do is just do what you can and try to befriend with those that has high gear and who knows they will invite you to do those "advanced content" no matter what gear you have.

 

No one will befriend / help someone who is just looking to get carried, especially in such high content where damage actually matters and mechanics.

People prefer to run with those they know have good damage and know what they are doing.

I actually tried taking a few people on stage 5 runs since I can easily solo them, and guess what, they didnt even bother to help clear out the trash mobs, not to mention messed up mechanics that would have made killing the boss faster, after which i simply stopped, since i rather not waste more of my time.

There are people offering accessory runs of stage 5, which cost essentially a few days of dailies so it is not like someone is being locked out of accessories.

Stage 5 is easily doable even duo with gear from soulboost.

Everyone was able to get their upsurge weapon on their mains with the last racing event.

 

So is the problem now really content or people crying "the geared players dont wanna take me, now i cannot get good loot and I do not want to make my own groups".

 

[lillvargen]

more like "geared players don't carry me, its unfair I can't get the gear they have"

guess what, high geared players have worked for their gear, so I suggest you do the same

[Sill Plain]

Come on... No need to cry or want to get carried, i feel bad even when i ran with same gear when i did worse than them or die a lot, feels like being a burden, which i am... worse when i run with ppls with higher gear, even tho i met min req... i still feel bad, i jst dont rly like getting carried much... cant bid to my heart desire as well coz of guilt...

 

Back to topic... I have an easy solution for this one. If you would follow me... Its nothing much, but after i did this, i go from less than 4.5k scrub to 7,5k+ scrub in less than a month thanks to wonderland event, which i think is rather fast considering i dont farm much, i'm mostly a solo player with no fixed team, i jst pug for farm group since i'm lazy to make a group of my own...  But i dont think i every cried to get carried.. if i paid to get carried,  then yes.

 

This is how to gear up easy as of right now... NC alr prepared them all, if u lazy to do this that even the lazy me did... then i dunno anymore...

 

1. become premium member,. this rly helps a lot.

2. sell nc coin stuff for gold

3. buy accs from ppls selling them, they arent ex[ensive, dont be stingy if u wanna be lazy, buy weap from AH.

4. buy wonderland pack, mybe around 10k of them (1m gold) would be enuf for all +16 starcross, which mean +12 all oculuses.

5. upgrade the hell outta ur acc, nice ap and damage boost. guaranteed. 

 

sad this is trove alr gone so that's that. jst wait for another trove.

 

there u go, easy solution, win-win for everyone, now u have no need to be carried anymore... true weap is farmable in S8... true acc not reachable, but do u rly need them anyway, if u dont plan to get top rank in game...

 

I only able to reach 7k bcoz i'm poor. i believe if u're rich u can easily reach 10k+ with current event.

 

Now, off you go, i tell u the way, NC gives the solution to everyone already, DO IT!

[Sill Plain]

Anyway, u can compensate them, with IRL money.

 

With that, u even contribute to support the game as well, as ive said, its a win-win solution for everyone.

 

Isnt this obvious... why u ask for them to remove one of their main way to get money (other than cosmetics ofc)... i dont understand...

[Nicolee]

On 1/3/2023 at 4:54 AM, Grimoir said:

 

Your solution is horrible. If they were to change the rewards for stage 1 and easy to be the same as higher they might aswel delete all higher stages since there would not be any point in running them.

Sure -- the first responder to the base note says they like the competition and want to run with high rated players -- they get that with my suggestion.  My issue was that lower rated players couldn't get higher equipment unless they ran higher level dungeons.  But if the rewards are disconnected from the higher-level dungeons -- then those who want to run with only higher-tier players can, but those who can't would still get the ability to level up with higher level equipment. 

 

What's so terrible about that?

 

On 1/3/2023 at 4:54 AM, Grimoir said:

 

 

With my suggestion, those who are perpetually behind, have the possibility of catching up.

 

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Nicolee

[Grimoir]

30 minutes ago, Nicolee said:

Sure -- the first responder to the base note says they like the competition and want to run with high rated players -- they get that with my suggestion.  My issue was that lower rated players couldn't get higher equipment unless they ran higher level dungeons.  But if the rewards are disconnected from the higher-level dungeons -- then those who want to run with only higher-tier players can, but those who can't would still get the ability to level up with higher level equipment. 

 

What's so terrible about that?

 

 

With my suggestion, those who are perpetually behind, have the possibility of catching up.

 

People do not run the higher level dungeons because its "fun", because running the same dungeons 100's of times is not fun.

So if the same rewards would come from lower levels, why would you run anything stage5+ that needs more than 1 person and takes 2-3 times as much time than running a simple stage 1 all by yourself?

People run the higher levels for the gear they give, that is the reward they are getting. If you cannot work towards being able to run the higher levels, you do not deserve the gear that comes from it. Period.

 

I got all oculus accessories from stage 5 and stage 5 is the same as a regular dungeon thats between Easy and normal level of difficulty.

You can even drop starcross accessories from running easy mode normal dungeons, and do do that you do not even need soul boost level gear.

You get the starcross accessories, then you get better gear and you move on to Oculus.

 

Better gear comes from work, and progress, you should never get the BiS gear by essentially cheating that system, because that is what you are asking for.

If a group does not want to take you to anything stage 5+ or hard modes, it means they do not want to.

If you really want to run those and clear them, they are easily doable, jsut make your own party, advertise in faction chat to get 3 other people and clear it. that is literally all it takes and you do not even want to put in that much work.

The True accessories and weapon are a prestige reward for those who work hard and progress by clearing teh hard content. That is something you should DEFINETELY never get unless you can actually farm that content.

 

[LonerInWait]

The current system already favors newcomers more than it used to be (when gear was raid-locked). In the past, unless you knew people who could help, you're either paying to get gear, or swiping on the game, or slowly trying your luck. With soul boost, it's a gradual but eventual process to get decent gear to do any content in-game. As mentioned by others, all you really need to do is Stage 5 of Demonsbane for the latest tier of accessories, which is not difficult at all. The base accessories and upsurge weapons provide a powerful boost in comparison to the mythical leveling (which is costly and the difference between a said newcomer and advanced player).

There is a reason people bother gearing in the first place - you need it to clear harder content. If you remove the difficulty of content, you remove the incentive to gear. Games like FFXIV have a party system that rewards older players for helping newer ones, which means scaling individual rewards based on a certain metric (like a gear score or level etc), even though the difficulty might be easier or the same for everyone in the run. However, FFXIV also scales players to the dungeon content level, making gear slightly trivial for most things, and making runs become longer. But frankly I doubt this will ever be implemented in BnS, as grinding is core to the game. Running a dungeon 100s of times is considered normal. You just need to get to the starting line (aka geared enough for Stage 5 DBs) and you'll be able to keep progressing. Anything above 5 is for advanced players.

[LonerInWait]

As an old player myself, the current system gives me little to no incentive to run old content, outside of dailies or helping on purpose. It's not productive of my time, as I've already done the gearing/farming prior. Unless the game design drastically changes, it's going to stay this way. The game already takes a lot of time to maintain 'top gear' - I want to do things to keep gearing, otherwise it's a waste of my time. So try and understand why geared players do not bother most times.

[ASHE ENT.]

Play with a good clan willing to carry you. Or with friends motivated to climb with you. Lots of learning, from mistakes. Ppl doing multi in world chat expect you to be either overgeared for the content they intent to grind, a support class (grab/buff) to cheese the mechanics. 

There are alot of things to do and not to do, can people take the ice buff in Koldrak so it's faster ?...

[thewhoracle]

WHAT GEAR are you unable to get? what gear is in the high stages that you think you should have but cant get because "advanced" players aren't running with you?

I told you, do soulboost, then farm easy mode/stage 1 gets you starcross ring, earring, necklace and gloves. Once you make those +6 you can then get oculus ring earring necklace and gloves from level 5 dungeons. Then work on enhancing that gear.

 

WHAT GEAR DO YOU WANT THAT YOU CANT GET? Hard Mode of dungeons gives NOTHING extra and isnt even hard to do, its like stage 6 of a dungeon.

Edited January 6, 2023 by thewhoracle

[Green Storm]

This is a complicated topic, and I wanted to drop a few notes (I have more to say but not the time to say it):

• There are, roughly speaking, two "sides" here. It's the nature of online games that it creates a divide like this. I'm simplifying because new and returning are two different things, for example, and there are some that are much more invested in the endgame among the active players.
• I want to remind both experienced/high-geared players AND those who (re)joined more recently or "less advanced" to be respectful to each other. I have not seen a post here that warrants any moderation action, but I want to promote understanding. I definitely see the more experienced/high-geared players sharing their viewpoints here as trying to be helpful while @Nicolee is trying to get somewhere with this discussion and I don't want them to be discouraged.
• At the core of this discussion, there are two important points:
  • Game knowledge. Blade & Soul is not an easy game for a new or returning players, as it has a vast amount of systems and layers. I know it's a lot of fun for the most engaged players here (and I can feel the passion), but it's not easy for the rest to catch up. There are resources and I need to work on promoting the various guides that engaged players have created (like this one).
  • Community. Like any MMO, Blade & Soul gets better with the people you play it with. But the different layers of the game have created layers in the community and I think it's naturally difficult for people to talk to each other when they're not at the same "level" (of knowledge, experience, or gear). I have a few ideas of things to try in 2023, but I'm not sure if/when I'll have the time to get to them.

I hope this message helps steer this discussion in the right direction!

[Grimoir]

@Green Storm

 

I agree with you, but the most crucial part here is the "vast amount of systems and layers", more specifically, the way upgrades are handled.

I can see why the "less advanced" or new/returning players would want to be taken with the advanced players, because it allows them to skip a lot of, in the end unnecessary upgrades and avoid a lot of material wasting and gold.

 

Granted getting to +6 is not that "difficult" on accessories, but when it comes to soul, talisman, pet,  the material costs / needs are horrendous.

The upgrades having a chance to fail is the biggest issue here, you dump so many materials only to essentially be stuck because you arent as fortunate as someone else which discourages even more.

 

Honestly, that is the biggest pain point where all sides would feel an incredible relief if it were to be adjusted / looked at and make progressing actually feel rewarding for the work put in.

that is the one key point where all sides collide on and are impacted by the most.

[MishaJ]

On 1/3/2023 at 6:42 AM, Nicolee said:

I didn't.  I said advanced, staying with advanced, while less-than-advanced were left (usually) to stay with less advanced.  At the same time, only advance groups had access to advanced rewards.  Less-than advanced don't get access to those rewards.  Thus advanced groups tend to move forward faster than less-than advanced groups.  Your entire post was a justification for the status quo.  You seem to blame the less-advanced group for their own problems.  Let's assume this is so, that you want to keep your advanced groups available only to your similarly advanced friends.  I say, "fine".  I assume you would have no problem if NCSoft changes the rewards from 'Easy' and stage 1 dungeons to be the same as those from 'Hard' and stage 20 dungeons.  Then it isn't about forcing you to run with those you don't want to run with.  That can remain as is and you can continue to limit advanced difficulty dungeons to all-advanced players.  But making the dungeon rewards the same for the "basic" groups would eliminate the problem of advanced-only groups being the only groups that have access to upper-tiered rewards.  I.e. disassociate advanced rewards from how advanced one has to be to obtain those rewards.  This would allow you to run with who you want, but solve the problem of advanced rewards only being available to advanced-only groups.

 

That would solve your desire to only run w/other advanced groups, and address my observation of the current reward system only benefiting advanced-only groups.

 

I assume you have no problem with that solution?  This keeps "basic" or "newb" players out of dungeons they aren't qualified for, so no problem, right?

 

If you disagree, you are saying you want to keep the differential reward system the same,  with its major benefits only being reserved to advanced-only groups.  That was the problem I wanted to address, but you indicated it is imperative to keep the ability to limit advanced-difficulty dungeons only to advanced-only groups to keep less-advanced players away from dungeons that they cannot complete (because they are too difficult). 

 

Thus, it seems to keep less-advanced players away from dungeons that are too hard, but to remove the problem of them not being able to progress as well due to the reward differential, is to make the rewards the same from the different-difficult dungeons.  That way you get to keep your ability to run harder dungeons only with advanced-only groups, but the continued differences due to reward-differences would be removed.

 

This is a fine solution, I'm glad you led me to the best solution to satisfy both of us.

 

 

Unfortunately those who are geared enough to run higher tier content feel they should be rewarded better for being able to do that higher tier content.... they work hard to gear they work hard to be able to run that content. if the rewards were all the same for every stage that would be unfair to those who work hard cause it would just be an advantage to lazy players who do not work as hard and they would get all their gear easy. this game is not meant to be easy you have to work your butt off to get somewhere. we all did and you will too. 

[Green Storm]

15 minutes ago, Grimoir said:

@Green Storm

 

I agree with you, but the most crucial part here is the "vast amount of systems and layers", more specifically, the way upgrades are handled.

I can see why the "less advanced" or new/returning players would want to be taken with the advanced players, because it allows them to skip a lot of, in the end unnecessary upgrades and avoid a lot of material wasting and gold.

 

Granted getting to +6 is not that "difficult" on accessories, but when it comes to soul, talisman, pet,  the material costs / needs are horrendous.

The upgrades having a chance to fail is the biggest issue here, you dump so many materials only to essentially be stuck because you arent as fortunate as someone else which discourages even more.

 

Honestly, that is the biggest pain point where all sides would feel an incredible relief if it were to be adjusted / looked at and make progressing actually feel rewarding for the work put in.

that is the one key point where all sides collide on and are impacted by the most.

 

I've relayed that feedback before and will continue to do so. But I also noticed that some of the pains of this community are "self-inflicted" to a certain extent. I've have been involved in communities that consider helping other players a cornerstone of improving the overall health and happiness of that community. And I don't mean to say here that the Blade & Soul community is not like that, we have clear examples in this forum thread of that positive behavior! I mean to say that to a certain extent the player behavior makes the problem worse (but they didn't cause the problem).

 

If we all start seeing a "collision" as an opportunity to guide each other, I think we all benefit. This is certainly the way I've read comments from the Blade & Soul community over the past 11 months! (I mention that because I know that most of you have been here for much longer than that)

[Saito Sacchi]

And thus I have to comment....

 

First off [assuming one got lucky while a free lvl 60 voucher was given, even with warlock pack (SF9 weap, max soul, basic skystealer which will happen in new soulboost too] after finishing story most content (dailies/stg 1) is basically solo content since your gear exceed any requirement. As an example I'd like to pin-point RT,EL,FoE(?) which can be farmed for bonus AP. It is 150 runs one [even with only story gear] will be able to run.

 

PRO TIP: Be smart and look for 3 other people who are farming the same archievement by advertising via worldchat /f

feel free to enable cross faction chat to reach more people, since majority is in Crimson and this might impact your experience just as well

 

Now which will bee faster? Solo or as a group? I came to realize most people [even many advanced] are afraid to lead a party. Just go from here and pick out people to run with and befriend them to grind on later 😉 I have a million reasons why this will fail and yet I have a bunch of people that are active when I am to run dungeons and get some gear done.

 

Further it might "seem" hard to catch up and most a dvanced will tell you soul boost made it easy - almost too easy. Rightfully so. At certain point dungeon knowledge is crucialy yet avoidable [by this I mean items drop too early]. Might sound counter intuitive yet we had 24man raids where we got only 1 drop which by chance would fit nobody of the alliance. And raids conclude an entry restriction.

 

By that it is easy to miss your point that gearing is slow and you cant join esteemed groups.

At the very same it's branded in an advanced players head, that gearing used to be hard.

 

Does this conflict? Will always be.

 

Skipping some parts hence the discussion has covered almost all points I could think of right now. And still we really have to blame NC Soft for this. Maybe Green Storm has some more intell when it will continue.

 

We have [had] a solution already. Unity!

 

We would need to grind all dungeons to get a fair amount of unity points. Even if it would be really any dungeon, it was rewarding to "help out". And I don't view this lightly as being one who got punished before for being too helpful (which again is a community problem - luckily not in this game). Sadly the idea of unity died with level 210. Bonus stats per level might be a little much, but this would've been a community driven archievement to head for.

Still this wouldn't help out the advanced to advance further, and by this opening the gap.

 

Anything which would endorse the advanced to help, could backfire, since the game won't know who would benefit. Another example are the repeating events (candy cloud): We can't finish this fast, because the dungeon demands to kill in a pattern. To appeal to advanced people they have more  HP (probably) and wouldn't be finished faster even with BiS gear. To oneclap one would need like whale status and these esteemed groups only run in their enviroment.

 

So which is more appealing then? Having to use all of the aggrotimer hence mechs might not be covered OR doing so but having a chance for good rewards? Kinda mean - I know.

 

Anything what would benefit every recent created character will always benefit advanced people. One could even argue soul boost sucks since gear/psyches in it are lame. And yet many people are using soulboost to create a secondary character. Try recruiting and recalling names of people who helped out alot even though they might even had worse gear than you do.

 

NOTE: I didn't get that particular impression of you, yet I feel the need to clear up one point here.

 

Advanced people don't give free carries. They do! Just not as often. Spectral Shrine for example has many helping hand, since new characters can't steel loot. And as harsh it may sound, we as a community see those people quite fairly fast enough. Imagine now runs are slowed (not because demage is low) since people unaware or deliberate to sabotago fail mechanics? It is frustrating since soul boost rarely lets you see if a person actually played their class or this game before. At the end of the day we only have had 24 hours. And waiting for a random invite might take a while. Take the iniative and recruite yourself.

 

NOT SO FUN FACT: I even always ended up getting carried weeklies [a relic of many moons ago] by whales just because I made a party. I did provide a buff and knew any mechs, so the run wasn't slowed. People just lazy and usually would rather join than create a run.

 

 

Over all: Yeah, little disheartening we have a limited set of dungeons to choose from and with demonsbane its mostly only those.

 

 

 

 

 

[luzt]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:33 AM, Grimoir said:

 

You can get psyches from the Ranking tokens, from dungeon drops, and from soul boost which are the second BiS ones.

True weapons should definitely stay where they are as drop from stages 16+.

If any form of token acquisition would be in place, it will literally kill all stages 5+ because there would simply not be any point running them, as it would be far more efficient to just spam stage 5-8 at most which require no mechanics and are easier.

 

 

You can't buy Upsurge Psyche, Dayspring Psyche, Dissension Psyche with Ranking tokens.

Also future weapon will require True upsurge to succession into it.

So if you aren't gonna get it, then upgrading Upsurge is in the end wasted resources

because upgrading the new weapon from scratch is cheaper.

 

 

And you made up some numbers in your head. I didnt provide numbers.

Thats why I want you to imagine a way that makes doing the higher stages always more beneficial.

If stage 6 gives double or triple the tokens of 5 and on top of that something like: the first 25 runs of any stage gives double the rewards.

There would already be an incentive to do them aside from just for ranking.

Tweak the numbers till running 5 over and over is not the best thing to do compared to doing higher stages, but its an option if you like braindead grinding .

Like farming s1 for accessories isnt that great vs farming s5 currently (in altar)