Figured it may be useful to have our own thread instead of cluttering the Dion forum with discussions around Talking Island.
Some things I personally think would be helpful to discuss:
1. Level 4 boss jewels - increasing the power gap between seasoned players and newer more casual players is not good, in my opinion.
2. Improved scroll boxes - increasing the amount of improved enchants along with the ease of obtaining top A weapons has significantly inflated power creep. I’m not sure what the rate of obtaining IEWA/IEAA is on server right now but I’m almost certain it’s higher now than when these were limited to DKs (not suggesting limiting obtaining these powerful scrolls to RB farmers is good either)
3. Removing raid drops from low raids without allowing runes to be inserted in the shadow weapons - this is a decent idea for a catch mechanic but it’s completely neutralized because you can’t insert runes. Best players don’t really care about top B weapons anymore because they have better A weapons. Realize there may be people who still farm trying to gear their boxes/mages with free weapons but they’re less incentivized to do this than to farm drops that the bosses had before.
4. Raid exp being insane compared to other forms of content. Outside of min/maxing Lilith/Anakim with boosts or abusing Chimera Captain there are not many options that compete with camping 75 raids/DKs. Not sure how to change this or if it is even fixable, just something I think is a bit harmful.
5. Making content that for all intents and purposes is essentially unobtainable for an even semi-hardcore player. Examples… original FI6, 82 buff books, high levels of Anakim/Lilith runes. The allure of Lineage 2, at least for me, is that you can continually increase your character power level by investing time in game. Most of the recent patches added content that has such a long time horizon that even the most extreme farmers can’t obtain it. When you’re adding content that takes longer to obtain than Baium 4, I think it’s problematic and a large reason for people becoming burnt out and no longer wanting to play - their characters aren’t gaining power or are gaining it so slowly it isn’t rewarding. Not to mention, if hardcore players obtain these items there is zero chance to compete with them on Olympiad/PvP (a fairly popular piece of this server from what I can tell).
6. Sailren - pretty much everything about this boss is problematic from my point of view. The reward for the level of difficulty is extreme. There’s no alternative to get 82 books - any semi hardcore players will never own this item. The drop rate for top A weapons is astronomical - part of the reason along with ease of obtaining IEWA that there are several +16+ top A weapons.
7. Lilith 6+ and Anakim 6+. Frankly think these rune levels shouldn’t exist. They’re pretty much game breaking in terms of power level. Levels 1-5 give a nice power increase and are quite difficult to farm. 6+ are giga broken.
8. S grade tuning. Outside of IC for certain niche situations and Major Arcana for PvE and certain niche PvPs, S grade sets feel lackluster compared to +8 A. Not sure they are re-tunable but from my experience players are focusing more on farming towards +8 A than S grade. Feels weird given S grade is the newer content.
9. Market for grades sub-A. Predictably, removing drops from raid bosses has essentially killed the lower grade market.
10. Level 7 bracelet. To my knowledge, it was implied that 6 was the highest level we would get and so players spent their coins. Only way to farm coins is time or FI. Perhaps add old weapon part drops to parts of Hellbound? Level 7 bracelet takes a VERY long time to farm on FI and that content is old.
Unfortunately I don’t even have actionable suggestions for “fixing” some of this. The server is relatively late in its life and a lot of this has existed in its current form for long enough that it may not be fixable.
Chimera Captain and Lilith/Anakim are forms of content that I actually think are healthy for the game, they just need to be tuned appropriately. You want to encourage players to get out in the field and hunt/interact with other players but there is a limit. If I can spawn these bosses in a day or two worth of farming it feels rewarding, if it takes a week it feels absolutely awful.
I’d be curious stats on things like…
Total FI6 talismans on server (relative to say TOI 6 on Dion, for comparison) - think the rate of farm is more acceptable now, to be fair.
Total Lilith/Anakim 6/7+ on server - how painful would it be to literally remove if people agreed they’re too strong?
Thoughts on alternatives for obtaining 82 books? Thoughts if this is even desired/necessary? Level 82 quest? Level 84 quest? Level 85 quest? Chance to drop from Baium/Anthy?
Thoughts on improvement to S grade?
Targeted spawn rate for content like Chimera Captain / Anakim / Lilith where players spawn it, not a set in game time. Once a day? Once every 48 hours? Once every 5 days? Once every 10 days?
Targeted time horizon for new content. Is my view that Baium 4s take a “long” time to farm incorrect? Are YEARS long time horizons to obtain new gear healthy for the server?
Just some stats to back up my assertion that Baium 4 takes a “long” time to farm. Let’s say you get perfect luck and kill Baium every time it spawns for a year. You’d make 6 Baium 4s. How many people are queuing Olympiad on a given active day? 40+? It will take the entire server’s lifetime to gear these people to a level where they could even think about being competitive with top players. That, to me, is a bit of a problem.
I am not advocating for making this some sort of PVP only server where everyone has the best gear, but the best gear needs to be a) obtainable in a reasonable time frame and b) not so strong it breaks the game. Realize every player will have a different view on what a “reasonable time frame” is.
