Note from Game Director: Removing Ingots

[If6was9]

... I hate repeating myself, but lead viral bot prices for example have dropped drastically since last ingot nerf.

As does every shiny, new 'must have item' drop in price over time... regardless of ingot status.

I don't like repeating myself either, but this whole 'inflation' argument was utterly blasted months ago and yet the term is still being used as if it's an uncontended fact.

Shall we look at what happened to symbiant prices WITHOUT an ingot nerf? Those plummeted over time too.

Hmmmm.

Pulling our head out of our lower colon, we may revisit the common definition of 'inflation' - the state wherein the average price of goods rises - and then consider the overall economy:

a) Just buying basic stuff from shops for lowbie toons costs a LOT of money. Always has. That's a fixed price. It has always been same (afaik).

b) The shiny new stuff plummets (lead bots, combined armor and modified AI weps for now) in value after a few months. That's a dropping price.

c) Dragon chest sold for outrageous sums (700 M to 1 B) years ago, before SL, AI, NW... any of that. It's selling for about the same now. That's a steady price.

I'm looking for the inflationary trends here... and I'm not seeing them.

VTE's - dropped
Symbiants - dropped
Perennium weapons - dropped
Icebreaker - dropped
Pepper pistol - dropped
ELLT scopes - dropped

Beware this inflation! If it were applied to real life I could buy a rolls royce for 10 bucks in a few years. The horrors!

And I'm still FOR this nerf just because the freaking farmers have so hosed one of the best parts of the game. I like to level my alts and Ely is the primary place for that.

Just don't want to hear any crap about 'fighting inflation' as a reason....

[Vlain]

Many factors contribute to price changes over time (adding player shops and removing unique flags on symbs were other such factors). How can you sit there and deny that removing a major source of income won't ultimately result in another price decline?

Even if it is as you say, and the trend is for all items to naturally go down in price over time it doens't change the fact that removing ingots will exxagerate this effect. Its basic supply and demand.

P.S. Dchests have dropped in price on rimor

[metrag]

Opitrade your views on city ownership and the raiding available to the owners is not something you should be bashing people smart enough to take the advantage of the fact that it is available and hence a "game mechanic" but you should be directing your discontent towards FC solely, the people doing this are simply playing the game with better understanding of it than you.

Besides whats to stop someone soloing raids in a org with ****loads of members except other members wanting to join in? This is the thing youre against right?

Small orgs deserving axp and loot? says who? FC doesnt so youre WRONG!

All you paid for is the POSSIBILTY f getting axp and using alien gear, NOT guaranteeing you a city spot for your org or bots for all your alts or ANYTHING besides the ability to use alien gear and gain axp. not the right to but the ability.

Im getting sick of people saying how bad the alien farmers are, how bad any person who is making more credits than you is, leveling faster than you is.

Bite me, dearly Metrag.

[Talan]

I'm half torn on this tbh, on one hand, I find it a bit problematic, I always thought it was a nice bit of a bonus to get a few ingots when leveling and making some small cash, esp. since shadowlands mobs don't give credits like RK mobs, and yes I know they drop other shop food, but the value is pretty low on most of it. It means that now more then ever I'll be forced to go out of my way to make money, rather then keeping an even steady income flow that balanced out my outgoing expenses.

However, on the other hand, I see this as a major positive step forward, esp. in reguards to ely and nesc, where you often see people 30 and 40 levels above the point of real XP/SK gain from that zone, farming ingots, it will also reduce the number of NT kiting grounds, as the ones doing it for cash will leave, with luck it will go back to 1, 2, maybe 3 major kiting spots out of the way of where teams are.

[Vlain]

Small orgs deserving axp and loot? says who?

If you buy an expansion you deserve the ability to access its content.

Kinda off topic...but I think if you pay for AI expansion and are in an org you shouldn't have to worry about not getting a city because there aren't enough spots. Personally I don't care if two people own a city and just farm gens all day, but I do have a problem with not having enough spots for every org to have a city that wants one. FC already added a couple of additional zones to allow for more cities, but they need to do more.

[Draconian]

I'd just like to ask all those people blaming the alien farmers exactly HOW they think its pushing prices up? If anything they are making the armor more common, which brings prices DOWN. Simple supply and demand.
Also exactly how are those alien farmers making money. By selling these items to others. Which means no additional cash is being brought into AO, just more items. That means money is being shifted around, not more money being pumped in via the shop terminals. Its a change for the better in my opinion that ingots are being removed.
I've seen people on free accounts better equipped than people with SL and AI. In fact it was getting to the stage where more of these people i saw had better equipment in general than the people i saw in SL, simply because the people on the brinks knowledge was limited to ToTW and hecklers.
By shifting the focus of making credits back to RK in blitzing (note i said making credits, though pearls and monster parts will still play a big part in bringing cash into the game) you are opening up several of the more "uber" items to possible purchase by people on free accounts.
*shrugs* it is 4:30am so i might not be making a lot of sense, but the upshot is, its not the alien farmers fault that stuff is expensive. THAT mistake was made a while ago, this is just one step along the road to rectifying it.

[Khalem]

I still think that the #1 problem by far is solo AI city farmers.

They make way more creds than any ingot farmer can.

But unlike credit farmers, they do not introduce new money into the game.

Infact, they are responsible for bringing the prices on bots down because they do not introduce new money, but increase supply, and in addition their city drains money permanently out of the game each month.

Less city farmers would probably mean less AI raids done, which in turn means less bots on the market, which again in turn means higher prices because its becoming harder to come by.

[metrag]

You do gain the ability to gain axp and use alien gear and do alien raids. It is NOT guaranteed by any means. Dont get me wrong I think its as ****ty as the next guy that I cant do axp without being in an org unless im 200+ (read wealthy org) and that some orgs cant even find themselves city spots, what I was pointing out was the silly statement that every small org DESERVES axp and loot considering how limited the city spots are.
What i was objecting to was the idea that people knowing how much credits are to be made in farming bots should simply give up the option of doing so because someone not having this option thinks they should.
What simply baffles me is the idea that someone playing the game better than the one complaining is somehow ruining the game. Opitrade try petitioning it, youll see its working as intended. So once again bite me.

As is might makes right in this game, might makes credits and credits get the spots. Easy as that.

I agree with what you say (If I understood you correctly, meaning more city spots are needed) hence i wont tell you to bite me Vlain. GL convincing FC about it though.

randomark : ahaha no i cant do that, i cant add more city plots, and it will not be done because of reasons im either not willing to tell you or I simply dont know about. Is there anything else i can help you with?
Translation = stfu and bite me but in a polite way. Im just a meatshield to take the flak from unhappy coustomers and actually paying to do so. Do you have any bugs to report that we/FC will ignore?

[Vlain]

I agree with what you say (If I understood you correctly, meaning more city spots are needed) hence i wont tell you to bite me Vlain. GL convincing FC about it though.

Yes you understand me correctly, and I'm happy I don't have to bite you. I am hopeful more city spots will be added since they already added spots once before. Perhaps its not likely, but a guy can dream right?

[metrag]

Im dreaming about working petpathing....stop laughing damnit!

[Pasty]

Hope this means city costs will drop too

[Jynx]

You can. Some orgs already use this to have ambassadors from other orgs at their meetings in their HQ. I know I've done it before numerous times.

*edit* or were you referring to the ability to grid there? Because that would really help AI raids...

Yes I do mean the ability to use the grid to get to that person's org's player city, would be incredibly handy

Jynx

[NPS]

After reading all 17 pages of this post ( yeah I was really bored ), I have to say this sucks from my perspective. Before anyone thinks/assumes I was one of these "farmers"; the highest lvl. char. I have is lvl.70 so I haven't even seen one of those Ely. hecks much less killed one. I agree that having people 40+ lvls. over the mob coming in to either KS you or claim the spot as theirs really sucks ( & they should be banned for life IMO ), but just taking out the main source of income for these idiots won't stop the problem. They will just start over running the other areas (dungeons, dynacamps, etc. ) where the non-farmers were earning some cash. As I believe this WILL occur, FC will NOT be fixing the problem, but simply spreading it around to more areas. And this quote from Znore:

"We will keep a very close eye on the situations and will make any further adjustments if this is deemed necessary. We may provide other means of acquiring credits in a later content upgrade."

does not inspire much ( make that none ) confidence that this will "fix" the problem or make the game more fun for everyone. I think a little more thought should have went into this, like something more specific rather than statements like " We may provide ". Seems kind of vague to me. It sounds more like to me "Lets do this & hope it fixes all the problems & lets not worry about any "potential" problems it may ( probably will ) cause." That sounds kind of short-sighted to me. If the main problem is from higher lvl. players ( the 40lvl.+ mobs lvls. ) doing this "farming" it would seem to me that a much better idea would to be to lvl. lock those areas as has been suggested rather than hurting the people that ARE at the appropiate lvl. for that area. I understand that it is probably much easier from FC's point of view to just remove an item from the loot table than to lvl. lock several areas; but it is NOT "fair" to the "legitimate" people. And on a side note: I do agree with the suggestion to open up GMS & allow Froobs to buy stuff from player shops ( not own one ). I realize I'll probably get flamed for my statements like I did when I commented on the original nerf hurting low lvl./beginning players, but I do not care! Well I think that is enough for this post, I'll stop now before I start ranting around the room .

[Draconian]

The small problem with your idea of level locking is that of the /terminate function. All one of those players has to do is terminate after every 4 or 5 kites and boom, back to 0xp and still in the lvl locked zone. For now though, believe me, if you aren't high enough to get ingots then be grateful you don't have the chance to be tainted by its effect before they are removed. Ingots never were the best way to make cash, and it might make your life when you get to those hecklers that little bit more bearable.

[keensight]

i lub it. thanks FC.

[Aulial]

FC needs to complete this nerf PROPERLY. As is it will only cripple the economy. High priced items will stay high priced and people will make less and less money as more and more creds are sunk into cities.

See, I don't ever even see a heck, but the impact of the ingot permeates the economy. THIS LATE, this decision alone is bad, and especially to lower leveles, is extremely unfair (I don't give a **** what Mastablasta or any of his silly cronies think on this matter, FC already expects even level 5 noobs to grind hardcore to even get a crappy set of implants or nanos from the store, so don't BS me). I don't want this game to be easy, this game having a huge depth and learning curve is it's appeal.. but grinding != fun or a good time.

The nerf can be supplimented, fortunately.

Significantly increase the drop rates on some rare things (MBC, JAME, some of the alien bots, etc).

This will make needed items more common while creds that were pharmed from ingots become less common (due to mandatory credit sinks like cities). This will ease the economy down instead of just dropping it on its head and leaving it in a pool of its own blood and hoping it heals. It will encourage trade at fair prices on a new economic level.

Do it FC.

[Celphi]

If they don't want to pay for the bonuses from the city, then get rid of the city

I thought thats what I did pay for when I paid $30 of real life money for AI?

[Traderjill]

Personally I think removing ingots was an AWESOME idea. I can do nothing but applaud funcom for listening to endless complaints about the farming situation in ely.

And as someone else mentioned in a post, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY THINGS. I know it may take time/effort but almost everything in the game can be obtained with a team. I was in a RK2 org, Shadow Ops, for a short time.. and one thing that sticks in my mind about that org was when 6 members teamed up and went inferno dyna hunting to obtain merlin armor for their title 4 twinks. You can team up at a reasonable level to obtain: Tier 1, Tier 2, merlin, badonis, rk dyna nanos, and more. There is no rule saying you have to be able to solo every mob that drops the item you need. There is no requirement someplace that says you have to farm credits to buy. Go get the item yourself. I can't count the number of people that are in inferno and/or pande that don't even know how to go about obtaining an ice golem pattern, inferno boots or a hhab (yep there are quests.. they weren't summoned by the person you purchased them from).

Cynaptix- I can sorta understand where you're coming from on some things you've said. I was in a clan org, spent 7hrs trying to spawn ota with another org member. Ota popped and i asked in org chat if they'd come to help us kill. People were all gung-ho until I said, "If a hnta drops it is called by me and <insert name of the other guy that camped 7hrs> because that's what we were after and why we spawned for so long." At that point no one wanted to come. I admit I thought that they'd reward our effort by showing some support but it didn't happen. In the end i gathered a team of 6 and killed. I wish i could offer you something that is better than your existing situation.. you sound worn down tbh. But if you want a 220 doc friend to help you plow through some things shoot me a /tell on omegalife. I'm pretty open about helping others so maybe some of the stuff you need can be done with some good dmg and heals. Cheer up



Kudos Again Funcom!

[RedRider]

{Edited by Bekrowe: Posting about Ebay like this is not allowed}

[Chilled]

For the love of this thread I'll just put in a little emphasis:

(1) about city upkeep, honestly I do not find it too high, with the current income you can make from loot, but, if upkeep IS lowered, I'd like to see it lowered in a creative way, that rewards orgs that are actively using their city.

(2) about buying things, really I think this should be stressed again: you CAN actually PLAY THE GAME to get things.