Intermediate Drops

[TerrorBite]

tldr: For the non-rich, getting leg's appear unrealistic, and being reliant on mat drops can become tedious. It is hard to make current mats fill the gap from 100k-8m, as with low tier leg's without screwing up balance. Solution: Dropping set quantities of money in the form of marketplace sold goods like phoenix feathers, or new goods ones which have no crafting purpose. This would cause inflation, but does not skew anything except craftables involving phoenix feathers etc., yet it would allow semi-rare drops of any chosen value, and dropped by all kinds of nords, especially on normal and early hard/rag waves. To counteract inflation we could set one of the externally suggested gold sinks, or create a new idea.




At this stage there are extremely rare drops with a very high standard deviation, which range from ~8-60m which would take an active individual ages to acquire. Normally before somebody gets a legendary they are already quite wealthy with low-mid tier craftables and as soon as they get a drop they are on the next level of mid-upper craftables and above. 

I would argue that for most who have never reached this mid-upper craftable level, in their eyes getting a leg appears unrealistic, so the main driving force is the low standard deviation mat drops. Now these range from ~8-100k, and maybe more if sulphur doesn't drop in price. The issue is that the average rate of progression is very clear cut when the standard deviation is so low, it can make NI appear too tedious at a certain point of wealth.
This is why i'm thinking it would be good if we could get drops to fill the gap between 100k - 8m, with a respective drop rate. With sulphur going up it appears to be filling this role to an extent, but i think only upper level bots drop them anyway. Regardless, if we get mats going too high, craftables will also be more expensive, to the point where people won't bother and just buy leg's (wormbane over fire blade scenario). As a whole, if we keep craftables cheaper than leg's it'd make the progression system feel more one dimensional. 

This is where my suggestion comes in, if we have phoenix feathers and relic fragments etc dropping, or new goods which only exist to be sold to the marketplace, it can fill the gap. eg prince and ragnar can have a low chance of dropping a sun sword fragments worth let's say 1.5m. This would also make it easy for normal and early hard/rag wave troops and bosses to drop at a more realistic, yet rare rate without the 'risk' of the absurdity of a semi-new player getting too much money for their own good (cumhail dropping leg's when instead he could drop 2m).  

All items which do not derive from the use of gold would maintain the same relative costs, but inflation would occur... 

It appears that there have been many gold sink suggestions, but at the moment it seems that there is still no substantial gold sink. Maybe this is due to no worthy ideas, or maybe no need for a gold sink as of yet. However, I'm thinking that if there was to be a gold sink, either a prior idea implemented, or a clear focus for the interested part of the community to think on, it would enable the devs to have much more control over the gold flux, and make this change more viable.


This is a kind of irrelevant point, but it'd be nice if non-hero tiers had respective drop restrictions.

[DR.]

Took me to much time to loot any thing... By the time I looted I had about 100m in gear just from trading/the grind.

The only gold sinks atm are (in odder) hero, marketplace mats, having a house?

The only gold sink that end tri people use any more is having a house... Yea they may make a new hero every so often but that's ether because they only had maybe 2-4 or they just like me and want something to do. 

To add I got 16 hero's just about so I can tell you by the time I get to lvl 52 I already made maybe 250-500k in mats.

Crafting is not needed any more just about... Most things are already crafted to the point were you don't need to wait long till some one will sell cheeper than crafting. 

Shc is a very good example or any support really. Why craft it when some one will sell it? Sure it may take longer (in some cases not even) to get but it's cheeper and less work. It's less work as to craft any thing you need to start with mats\gold vs buying were it can be any thing. Ye any thing...

[Midren]

Everyone has this mindset of "Legendary items are the goal" when really it should be "House Crafted Items are the goal".

There is craft-able that take you from t4 marketplace items (roughly 50k for a full set) to a 100k, 500k, 1 mil, and 10 mil ranges, with various stuff thrown in between them (Using commando as a base point since its fairly spread out). This means that through playing and working toward a goal of craft-able items you have things that are always within your reach and that you will be building up toward that goal of something in house crafting. I.E. a commando working toward getting a half-plate.

Setting house crafted items as your goal, and working up to them will make it so you are always happy with what your doing and always reaching goals. And with this there is a chance somewhere along the way you will loot a special Legendary item that will make it so you don't have to get that style of item in house crafting, I.E you are working toward a Bidenhander and you loot a Durendal so you don't have to craft it anymore and can put those materials toward a different item.

Now i will say, seeing players like woody, or Nka, or the various other ungodly rich players that have full legendary load-outs for classes may seem a little daunting, and make it seem like there is no alternative to having legendary items; but really the house crafted items are good too, the legendary items just are a small boost that make you look a little more unique.

[Lophorius]

[...]but really the house crafted items are good too, the legendary items just are a small boost that make you look a little more unique.

The irony is you look unique if you use house-crafted items.

[Irolltwenties]

I like house crafted items.

[DR.]

more unique more stats = a better thing.

Can't blame people for looking at this game like a mountain with full red sets at the top. If house crafting was the the real goal it would have been a lot closer stats wise or even the same.

[TerrorBite]

No one has really addressed the issue directly but i guess this is how it'd affect what you're saying:

gold drops would have a higher chance of dropping than legendary's, and would give them a similar boost; they get everything they wanted to upgrade in the near future -> that epic feeling. Possibly making the game less about leg drops but leg + gold drops combined.

People see others using leg's and that becomes their new late game goal, regardless of whether they 'should' see it that way. I guess this is in part to many leg's existing in the market, and it's unlikely to change unless there is a #LegendarySink. But for those early on in the game just wanting that few extra 100k-1m, legendarys are irrelevant, given their drop rates are too low. What these guys need is something with a more intermediate drop rate that doesn't give them 30m when all they wanted/needed was 300k.
I agree that the crafting price progression is well done, but the gold gain rate is still fairly low, as it takes a long time to get that 750k for hero when you aren't already rich and getting to late waves every run, and then it only gets slower until/if they get a leg drop.

I remember a dev saying the lower waves should give less than the later ones, but maybe instead they should have the potential to provide drops of 1m or even 100k instead of the 10m+ of late waves, whereas they currently give a max of like 500g. <- Green Dragon's thread on early hard mode drops.

[Irolltwenties]

I'm going to disagree. You see a lot of this game comes down to playtime. So the people who play insane amounts are almost ALWAYS the guys who are rich. This is justice. Sometimes you get someone with not very much who has a few legendaries. Sometimes as well there are people who have played thousands of hours without a drop but they probably made millions off of mats and crafting. Which is unfortunate but that's just the way it goes. There has to be a way to even out the game very slightly without breaking it.

This is just going to basically make the rich richer I think and increase inflation. That's why I still like the token idea. NOT redeemable for gold. Inflation doesn't spike as hard.

I've played around 1500 hours and I found a Barbutte with Coif a couple years ago. I really can't complain much if at all.

[DR.]

So who gets more shit some one that makes 20m in a trade or some one that's loots it? From some one that probably done the most trades in game that's a easy one... People like to talk about how I got (X) for this price but don't look at the fact I have "over paid" for most of the gear I keep and want.

[TerrorBite]

I'm going to disagree.  You see a lot of this game comes down to playtime.  So the people who play insane amounts are almost ALWAYS the guys who are rich.  This is justice.  Sometimes you get someone with not very much who has a few legendaries.  Sometimes as well there are people who have played thousands of hours without a drop but they probably made millions off of mats and crafting.  Which is unfortunate but that's just the way it goes.  There has to be a way to even out the game very slightly without breaking it.

This is just going to basically make the rich richer I think and increase inflation.  That's why I still like the token idea.  NOT redeemable for gold.  Inflation doesn't spike as hard.

I've played around 1500 hours and I found a Barbutte with Coif a couple years ago.  I really can't complain much if at all.

This feature would not cause those who have many hours to have a similar amount of many over those who have less hours, in fact it goes the other way, by decreasing the upper end standard deviation of gold over hours. I don't see how making money through trades has anything impact on this though. 

Now this also does give more control as i said in the first post; it wouldn't make the rich get richer, but if devs wanted they could let earlier waves and easier difficulties (which the rich don't bother with grinding) dropping a greater proportion, making the rich (relatively) poorer by a set ratio of the perfect balance, over those who don't get as far.