I voted yes.
I can understand the direction that they took with lessening drop rates to make more populated servers a more attractive option. But if that was a concern, then instead: implementing actual bonuses for more populated servers accomplishes this without penalizing anybody. In other words, this seemingly isn't a buff to more populated servers, assuming the drop rates for those remained the same; it's only a buff in relation to less-populated servers, and is in reality a nerf.
Also, there were already other benefits to playing in a more highly populated server. There are more resources (players and items), and the number of bots does not increase linearly at the same rate as the number of players in the server (i.e. the bot:player ratio is lower for more players). Altogether, there's more room for error, leading to a much higher success rate in a more highly populated server.
About concerns for the economy: first, most on this forum use "economy" and "price of items" interchangeably when they're very different. Most of the fears about availability of items in relation to the price are unfounded and have never been supported by the evidence. If anything has an effect, it's the inflation caused by the literal printing of money that occurs by mass killing bots, completing quests, etc. Look at the first pages of the trading forums, you can see some items have increased in price by 4000-5000% (see Dreaded War Pick), and their respective availability is more now than previously.
About concerns for difficulty: if this was a real concern, you would stop introducing new weapons and armor that raise the bar on the highest tier. Players beat the game more efficiently now than before, and of course this spills into kiting, which a few capable players were already able to get decently far without. It seems like this is one of the biggest hindrances, where administration is concerned about the difficulty of the game, but then gives the player base new tools to be more efficient. At the very least, it's an obvious unintended consequence.
Not to repeat myself, but this (from here):
I can understand the direction that they took with lessening drop rates to make more populated servers a more attractive option. But if that was a concern, then instead: implementing actual bonuses for more populated servers accomplishes this without penalizing anybody. In other words, this seemingly isn't a buff to more populated servers, assuming the drop rates for those remained the same; it's only a buff in relation to less-populated servers, and is in reality a nerf.
Also, there were already other benefits to playing in a more highly populated server. There are more resources (players and items), and the number of bots does not increase linearly at the same rate as the number of players in the server (i.e. the bot:player ratio is lower for more players). Altogether, there's more room for error, leading to a much higher success rate in a more highly populated server.
About concerns for the economy: first, most on this forum use "economy" and "price of items" interchangeably when they're very different. Most of the fears about availability of items in relation to the price are unfounded and have never been supported by the evidence. If anything has an effect, it's the inflation caused by the literal printing of money that occurs by mass killing bots, completing quests, etc. Look at the first pages of the trading forums, you can see some items have increased in price by 4000-5000% (see Dreaded War Pick), and their respective availability is more now than previously.
About concerns for difficulty: if this was a real concern, you would stop introducing new weapons and armor that raise the bar on the highest tier. Players beat the game more efficiently now than before, and of course this spills into kiting, which a few capable players were already able to get decently far without. It seems like this is one of the biggest hindrances, where administration is concerned about the difficulty of the game, but then gives the player base new tools to be more efficient. At the very least, it's an obvious unintended consequence.
Not to repeat myself, but this (from here):
(11-12-2014, 04:47 PM)Malong Wrote: Quick preface: I didn't kite before the patch, and I don't kite now. The nerf was a bad and unnecessarily indirect way to discouraging kiting. For example, they could have just further decreased the strength of ranged weapons, the armor and absorption of ranged classes (if they are to be glass cannons), the speed and maneuverability of ranged classes, or any of the mix of the previous.
Beyond that, the complaint that solo players received all the rewards from their kills is and was always nonsensical. If any player does all the work and killing, they should have gotten all the rewards from their kills. But for some reason, this logic doesn't carry over to NI, and the borderline envy of the players that were able to handle bots on their own without other players somehow won out.
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"When I feel bad, I read your quote board." - Corndog
Tofu: People call Tricksters racist, yet we have the most Muslim members of any house.
PCK: If Islam is a religion of peace, and Tricksters have the most Muslims, then is House of Tricksters the house of peace?
Falankos: I always knew that we were the good guys.