Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Here you can make and discuss suggestions to improve the game. / Hier kannst du Vorschläge einreichen und diskutieren um das Spiel zu verbessern.

Moderator: Developers

User avatar
Jupiter
Developer
Posts: 3477
Joined: Sun May 28, 2006 11:23 am

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Jupiter »

Ragorn wrote: After reading the responses, I think a "magical gem output related rank cap" would be a good solution.
It would solve all those mentioned issues, e.g. what happens if a gm resigns, etc.
What speaks about my proposed solution? It is more work (the cap is literally just adjusting one line) but is less boring than a simple cap. And it adds a certain aspect to the game: The characters with lower ranks (= not part of the administration) may frown at those getting more because of their higher ranks.
User avatar
GolfLima
Posts: 1472
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:06 pm
Location: hier und dort

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by GolfLima »

Ragorn wrote:your rank 7 Galmair char received around 1000 latent gems in the last 106 (!!!) ig months.
:arrow:
1 ) true, but he only paid ca.300 Gold coins (in all this month) for them
2 ) i hate the idea to make hundreds of gold coins (there is an easy way to do this) only for getting more gems as reward - my char did this several times and gave the coins as a gift for the town so that all chitizen get mor gems, but in generall i dont like this idea, so my char has not many gold coins in his pockets
2a) if making tons of gold coins to get a high reward of gems is one of the goals in this game there is something wrong :!:
3 ) my char never got a lvl5 gem as reward for the taxes, if i remember right the highest lvl were lvl 3 gems (( best reward was Zas 45: tax 112 silver & 21 copper --> 32 lvl 1 gems (sorry i only noticed the calculation to lvl 1 gems not the real gems) ))
4 ) i only want to keep in mind that there should also be some tasks for "non fighters" ..... i´m aware that fighters could do these tasks too but there should be a way without help of fighters for nonfighters
User avatar
Katharina Brightrim
Cadomyr
Posts: 956
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 8:13 pm
Location: Göttingen

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Katharina Brightrim »

GolfLima wrote: 1 )he only paid ca.300 Gold coins
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
User avatar
Kugar
Posts: 595
Joined: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:07 am

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Kugar »

I really don't get how non fighter characters are disadvantaged, aside from the fact that they cannot socket gems into their tools - which will probably be remedied one day when somebody finds a good reason to put them there. The Client is not finished and no one is going to take away your gemstones. You can even sell them and make a lot of money! I would sell my characters gemstones and become rich in a heartbeat if playing a fighting character didn't rely so much on them.

Non fighter characters get more trade and have the ability to easily become the richest characters on Illarion. They are the backbone of all the towns. All characters need them and will pay for their wares if they go about it the right way. Obviously more trades make more money than others eg finesmithing, but you must ask yourself what is it you really want from the game anyway?

*To become rich? You can do that.
*To socialize? You can do that.
*To live in peace in the towns? You can do that, it's not allowed for characters to attack people in town. They either get punished or become outlawed.
*To have a high rank? You can do that. In Galmair you can even make enough money from your trade and pay for that rank. Your character could be in any of the town governments and have a huge say and huge power and never have to lay a finger on anyone or any beast.
*Do npc quests? Plenty of npc quests are non fighter orientated.
Take part in player wide quests? You can do that. If you're not happy with the quests you can get creative and propose quest ideas to the quest team. Or you can create your own player quest. What's the big deal? We are still in the start up stage of this client, practically, so be a driving force in it and use your obvious passion and do something about it.

While plenty of fighter characters can run like headless chickens around the map and kill things, they won't make much money from it. It barely scratches the surface if you want your character to be rich. Even high level monsters like acolytes and lichs don't drop that much and there aren't a whole bunch of them on the map. Playing a fighting character without a trade is inviting your character to be poor. And if you want a really good fighting character, quickly, you need to wait for a trade imo. Also, when training to become a 'rly awzum warrior' a player spends much time on his own out there. There are generally less opportunities to socialize. You can take someone with you, sure, but there are more opportunities to socialze, generally, in town.

Characters generally will not pay for fighter characters services (Unless you're totally awesome like Teptoc! A few of us are actively trying to change this ig tho. But if you want to tell me such a feat is easy, I disagree. I've seen all these mercenary groups come and go and get largely ignored. No one wants to pay for a fighter character. It's all "beatch, plz"), but fighter characters will almost always choose to purchase food, armour or anything else ware-wise from non fighting player characters. Merchants often sell not so good stuff and they are very expensive. Also, please keep in mind that when hunting a map many fighter characters need a spotter and a digger - this can easily be a non fighter character with good eyes. If you want to take part and do that, promote yourself. Nothing is stopping you. You will probably even get paid for it and or receive some treasure.

To me the 'non fighter characters are disadvantaged' is a total fallacy. Mages are disadvantaged, but that's a whole other story and will get dealt with down the line.

I had to get that off my chest. Feel free to throw it in a new topic if it becomes another point of discussion. Which is has... But I'm totally running away now. Bye.
User avatar
Kamilar
Posts: 732
Joined: Sun Jun 03, 2007 9:53 pm
Location: Running away

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Kamilar »

At the risk of joining in a tangent topic, the two major problems in playing a dedicated non-fighter are that the map is crawling with hostiles as soon as you step outside of town and resource gathering involves monsters. You have to choose between your dedicated RP and your onion seeds. *shrugs* It could be done with a weak fighter that has lots of support but every character has to fight. That was not the case in the old client.
User avatar
GolfLima
Posts: 1472
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:06 pm
Location: hier und dort

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by GolfLima »

Kugar wrote:Non fighter characters get more trade and have the ability to easily become the richest characters on Illarion.
- most of the charakters has full sets of best armor and best weapons …. so non fighters / crafters can sell things most of the time only to NPC´s
Kugar wrote:*To live in peace in the towns? You can do that, it's not allowed for characters to attack people in town.
- true, but non fighters / crafters are „nailed“ on these 3(4) towns
Kugar wrote:*Do npc quests? Plenty of npc quests are non fighter orientated.
- if you have done the NPC non fighter quests, there is only the possibility to make the daily quests
Kugar wrote:Characters generally will not pay for fighter characters services (Unless you're totally awesome like Teptoc! I've seen all these mercenary groups come and go and get largely ignored. No one wants to pay for a fighter character. It's all "beatch, plz")
- that is true too
Kugar wrote:Mages are disadvantaged, but that's a whole other story and will get dealt with down the line.
- definitly mages are the most disadvantaged group ig at the moment
User avatar
Estralis Seborian
Posts: 12308
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:14 pm
Location: Sir Postalot
Contact:

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Estralis Seborian »

We have two new Mantis tickets, derived from this thread:

http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=11208
http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=11209

I assume all is covered now?
User avatar
Achae Eanstray
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:03 am
Location: A field of dandelions
Contact:

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Achae Eanstray »

I'll lock this for now, thanks for the mantis tickets @Estralis. As usual, if someone wishes to have it open please PM me.

Unlocked per request ...
Ragorn
Posts: 154
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:33 pm

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Ragorn »

@Estralis,
main points are still not covered:
- unequal distrubution to chars in fractions with very small active players vs. fractions with many active players
- gathering (mining, etc.)
also some smaller points:
- rank cap
- increase quest rewards
- add posibility to socket tools

If wanted, I can create some mantis tickets.

Also I can do the analysis regarding first point and make a detailed proposal.
User avatar
Jupiter
Developer
Posts: 3477
Joined: Sun May 28, 2006 11:23 am

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Jupiter »

Ragorn wrote:- rank cap
Not needed, since we opt for my idea.
User avatar
Estralis Seborian
Posts: 12308
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:14 pm
Location: Sir Postalot
Contact:

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Estralis Seborian »

Thanks for the feedback! I'll give some quick answers:
Ragorn wrote:- unequal distrubution to chars in fractions with very small active players vs. fractions with many active players
Gem output will be scaled by tax income, only. The rank distribution will be taken out as scaling factor, see http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=11209. The town with most taxes gets most gems.
- gathering (mining, etc.)
Will be treated with http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=8292 and http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=11800.
- rank cap
No rank cap is planned, but rank distribution will lose its impact: http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=11209
- increase quest rewards
Gem output of GM quests is in the hands of the GMs. I am pretty sure the GMs read this thread and will consider to drop a gem or two in future. For static NPC quests, no major overhaul is planned. But I encourage everyone to hand out a gem or two by static quests as well.
- add posibility to socket tools
At this moment, this is not planned.
Ragorn
Posts: 154
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:33 pm

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Ragorn »

Thanks for the additional information, Estralis.

Still open is the first point. Let me give a hypothetical example:

Town A, taxes 1000, active chars 100, gem output 10
Town B, taxes 1000, active chars 10, gem output 100

Many gems in the hands of a few vica some gems in the hands of many.
User avatar
GolfLima
Posts: 1472
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:06 pm
Location: hier und dort

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by GolfLima »

Ragorn wrote:Town A, taxes 1000, active chars 100, gem output 10
Town B, taxes 1000, active chars 10, gem output 100
the chars in town B work much harder to spend some coins, so why they should not get more gems as reward? ((the problem is, that this could force pg to earn coins but i have no idea how to prohibit such action))
Ragorn
Posts: 154
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:33 pm

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Ragorn »

GolfLima wrote:
Ragorn wrote:Town A, taxes 1000, active chars 100, gem output 10
Town B, taxes 1000, active chars 10, gem output 100
the chars in town B work much harder to spend some coins, so why they should not get more gems as reward? ((the problem is, that this could force pg to earn coins but i have no idea how to prohibit such action))
In my example, taxes = taxes + donations.
The problem is not, that one town or a char from one town gets more gems.
The problem is the huge factor between the gem output of the chars from the different towns.
In my example a char from town B gets times 10 more gems than a char from town A. This is factor 10.
Factor 9 means, a char from town B has average 2 level higher gems than a char from town A.

If reality, in some "good" months, with high donation and small acive player count in the ig month before, the factor can be much higher.
User avatar
Estralis Seborian
Posts: 12308
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:14 pm
Location: Sir Postalot
Contact:

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Estralis Seborian »

I'm not sure I understand the problem. If players pay more taxes, they get more gems. Do you want that all characters in all towns get the same amount of gems, no matter what they do? In other words, if 10 chars pay 1000 taxes, they should get more gems than 100 characters that also just pay 1000 taxes.

So what exactly should be changed and how?
Ranwyln
Posts: 126
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:03 pm

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Ranwyln »

I think its more bout, when i donate a 1000 gold in a city with 100 ppl, i did the work and get much less gems as the one in a small populated town donating the same amount of coins. At least if i understand the thing with taxes/donations right.

Cause all payed coins are thrown together in one pool or is it calculated individually (the rank + coins i payed as taxes/donations).

If it is as i understand it, it would maybe a better idea to calculate the Gem output individually and cap it at a maximum and even maybe at a minimum to prevent powergaming/making gold like an idiot to get most gems. So someone with high rank/massive amount of taxes payed or donations would get as much gems (up to a maximum) as someone who did the same in a low populated city. And people only logging in once per ingame month to get the gems would only get the minimum of gems (depending on amount of taxes they payed). (Result would still be the same that the gems of the low populated citys would increase in value, but at least it wouldnt disadvantage the "rich, active, highranked" people in the high pop city(s) for making their city to a nice place to live or prosperous towns with lot of casual playing people)


German:
Wenn ich die Kalkulation der Edelsteine richtig verstanden habe geht es glaub eher darum, dass ich, wenn ich in einer Stadt mit hoher Bevölkerung 1000 Gold Spende wesentlich weniger davon habe, als jemand der die gleiche Menge Gold in einer Stadt mit niedriger Bevölkerung spendet. (Wird ja die gesamte über den ig Monat erwirtschaftete Goldsumme auf alle Bewohner der Stadt verteilt glaube ich)

Wenn ich das also nicht falsch verstanden habe, wäre es eventuell besser die Menge an Edelsteinen individuell zu berechnen und um Powergaming zu vermeiden halt ne Höchstmenge bzw. auch ne Niedrigstmenge einzuführen (so bekommen auch die die nicht so viel Gold haben, aus RP Gründen kein Gold machen zumindest ein paar Edelsteine). Und der individuelle Ausstoß an Edelsteinen wäre für nen Spieler mit 1000 Gold Steuern/Spende in jeder Stadt gleich. Das Ergebnis wäre zwar immernoch das gleiche, dass die Edelsteine aus den weniger bevölkerten Städten wertvoller wären, aber es wäre in meinen Augen individuell gerechter und Spieler würden nicht dafür "bestraft" werden in einer der beliebteren Städte zu leben (weil sie ja auch dazu beitragen das sie beliebter ist)
User avatar
Jupiter
Developer
Posts: 3477
Joined: Sun May 28, 2006 11:23 am

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Jupiter »

Invdidually calculated gem output is not an option. Then, we can remove the whole system and just have them being sold by an NPC. The collective approach of the tax/donation/gem system should not be changed. It's unique and works.
User avatar
Uhuru
Posts: 924
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2011 4:56 am
Location: In time out, where else?

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Uhuru »

Ranwyln wrote:I think its more bout, when i donate a 1000 gold in a city with 100 ppl, i did the work and get much less gems as the one in a small populated town donating the same amount of coins. At least if i understand the thing with taxes/donations right.
Just to support this a little:
In Eldas of 45, (10/April/2015) Fooser was in Cadomyr and posted a picture of his gem output, he received 14 gems, equivalent to 192 latents. This seems excessive for something supposed to be considered a "rare" item in the game. That same month....
Uhuru, in Galmair (highest rank possible) received 18 latents equivalent.
Cado alt (lowest rank level): 72 latents
Runewick alt (lowest rank level): 1 latent

I only bring this up because I feel we have a struggle between management and gamers. Yes, gamers should be able to influence their world and get more gems, but so many in one month? This seems excessive and we've seen much higher counts in other months in other realms. However, if it is capped, is it fair to the gamers who work so hard to sweeten the pot in the month? It would take Uhuru about 10 months to earn that many gems; 18-25 latents is a rather normal month for her.

I also have to wonder at this yo-yo affect that the gamers are causing by ignoring it for months and then suddenly dumping in piles and piles of gold. It affects the entire game, all people in it, including others living in their own realm. This, of course, is up to them and built into the game, but it is causing an odd affect.

If there is a cap put in place, say, only so many gems will ever be paid out in one month to an individual, because tbh, that is the only way these magical gems will ever stay "rare" as was the original intention, then people will have to invest into the system more regularly. Rather than one huge dump every 5 game months, they have to make 3 smaller dumps on 3 of those months. This might help smooth everything out too.
User avatar
GolfLima
Posts: 1472
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:06 pm
Location: hier und dort

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by GolfLima »

Jupiter wrote:Invdidually calculated gem output is not an option. Then, we can remove the whole system and just have them being sold by an NPC. The collective approach of the tax/donation/gem system should not be changed. It's unique and works.
:arrow: it do not work!

1 ) as a galmarian char (may be as a Runewick char. too ) you are the LOOSER of the gem distribution (( there should be a minimum of egality i cant see with Uhurus information about 2015/4/10 ))
2 ) at the beginning i was thinking my galmarian char has to much magical gems ...the number of magical gems should be reduced to make them rare .... but with the last informations this becomes obsolete
3 ) if my char were a cadomyrian he has now aproximately 20.000 latent gems and not only 1.000 as a galmarian --> there must be something wrong - this difference of gems cant be intended
User avatar
Djironnyma
Posts: 3221
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2002 4:34 pm
Location: Berlin
Contact:

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Djironnyma »

The gems/taxes/donation are counting for the whole town to support cooperative roleplay. As you recognized right it have nearly no impact if a single player in a town donates. To be effective you need to convince other players of the same town to donate too. Players who want to push their gem output have to cooperate. To cooperate is a behaviour we want to support.
User avatar
Jupiter
Developer
Posts: 3477
Joined: Sun May 28, 2006 11:23 am

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Jupiter »

GolfLima wrote:3 ) if my char were a cadomyrian he has now aproximately 20.000 latent gems and not only 1.000 as a galmarian --> there must be something wrong - this difference of gems cant be intended
What? Where do you get those numbers from?
User avatar
GolfLima
Posts: 1472
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:06 pm
Location: hier und dort

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by GolfLima »

Djironnyma wrote:The gems/taxes/donation are counting for the whole town to support cooperative roleplay. As you recognized right it have nearly no impact if a single player in a town donates. To be effective you need to convince other players of the same town to donate too. Players who want to push their gem output have to cooperate. To cooperate is a behaviour we want to support.
:arrow: i think it is much easier to push 10 players to cooperate than 100 ... but may be i´m wrong
User avatar
GolfLima
Posts: 1472
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:06 pm
Location: hier und dort

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by GolfLima »

Jupiter wrote:Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems
GolfLima hat geschrieben:
3 ) if my char were a cadomyrian he has now aproximately 20.000 latent gems and not only 1.000 as a galmarian --> there must be something wrong - this difference of gems cant be intended


What? Where do you get those numbers from?
the best output my char ever had was 32 latent gems ....so if 192 was his best output he ever had he has six times more gems output then my char ...in summary only aproximatly 6200 ... the real number is not the factor .... 6 times more gem output sounds not realy balanced to me ...
Ranwyln
Posts: 126
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:03 pm

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Ranwyln »

Hm but in the end its not increasing cooperative roleplay, its more like beeing a small more elite circle of people in a city is bringing you more profit in gems, as to be the whyever most choosen new player city (dont want to say other citys are doing so, but for Galmair having normally the most people online is attracting more new players and so its making it harder, especially when those new people increase in ranks but are only casual around or less).

Easiest would be than just to make gems only achievable by gathering/monsterdrops/treasure maps. Than they would be rare again and for the taxes we would need something else (a random package of items that are used e.g. different potions/food whatever)
User avatar
Banduk
Posts: 1288
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Exilant aus Trolls Bane

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Banduk »

Sorry, I think the basic numbers from the long term statistics are not taken into consideration. I think there is a great difference in between what a player feel and what really happened.
Please see here the long term statistic of gem output (rank 2 but for each rank the picture would look equal).
http://imgur.com/UuaMRO6

So we see there is no big imbalance in between the towns from point of view of a single player. The average tax and donation define the number of gems for everybody. That's what it should be.
It should be clear that a donation raid in a town with a few chars only has a higher output. And be aware, the last raid in Galmair was less than 10% golds in total compared to the big raid in Runewick. And you see, these raids are rare, but I read here people believe that’s the normal situation. Usually a Runewickan has tears in eyes seeing the normal output. Often enough a rank 6 char got just 2 gems!

We have other problems:
1. Imbalance in the 2 gems of a realm.
That will be solved by using a better random function. So it can be taken as solved.
2. Imbalance due to unequal influx from gathering activities.
From my point of view a random output or a removal can solve the issue only. Any assignment to any action will cause imbalance.
3. Imbalance due to unequal number of player
That is clearly an IG issue and should be handled IG.
4. Missing mechanics to rebalance any issue, whatever cause
If a town has with the same char based output 5 times more player than the other towns, there will be 5 times more gems available and prefers the unpopulated towns. That’s why I propose to have a way to change gems with loss to others anyhow.

Rank cap:
I don't think this will have any remarkable effect but it can remove the situation, player want to become chancellor in Galmair just to get more gems. Today you can calculate: How many gold I need to get elected and how many additional gems I get for.

Char based calculation of gems:
I strictly disagree. It’s egoistic. Taxes, donations and gem output are social activities. They support the community in the realms.
User avatar
GolfLima
Posts: 1472
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:06 pm
Location: hier und dort

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by GolfLima »

Banduk wrote:3. Imbalance due to unequal number of player
That is clearly an IG issue and should be handled IG.
:arrow: i think you cant manipulate new players to choose a "low populated" town and why should a "high populated" town do some action to push players to other towns - i realy dont see any ig possibility to change the imbalance of chitizen but may be there are some ways
User avatar
Q-wert
Posts: 1089
Joined: Sat May 05, 2007 10:13 am
Contact:

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Q-wert »

i realy dont see any ig possibility to change the imbalance of chitizen
There are ways to weed out the lesser obedient or unproductive members of society. 8)
Want a higher contribution per capita? Convince those not contributing to change their mind. Pressure them. Draft them. Or outright throw them out.
Oh, the ingame possibilities, the conflicts that could arise, the rp it would result in...
User avatar
Achae Eanstray
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:03 am
Location: A field of dandelions
Contact:

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Achae Eanstray »

I certainly hope we aren't discussing to discourage new players that are less "productive" from joining towns. If the gems are set up this way I think that would be an ooc issue and not for in game. Perhaps/hopefully I am mistaken in my reading. :?
User avatar
GolfLima
Posts: 1472
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:06 pm
Location: hier und dort

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by GolfLima »

Q-wert wrote:Pressure them. Draft them. Or outright throw them out.
:arrow: THIS is definitly the wrong way :!:
User avatar
Jupiter
Developer
Posts: 3477
Joined: Sun May 28, 2006 11:23 am

Re: Rebalancing of Magical Gems

Post by Jupiter »

Achae Eanstray wrote:I certainly hope we aren't discussing to discourage new players that are less "productive" from joining towns. If the gems are set up this way I think that would be an ooc issue and not for in game. Perhaps/hopefully I am mistaken in my reading. :?
Yes, you are. Q-wert said nothing about forcing new players in particular. It was a general advise how this problem could be dealt with in game.

@GolfLima
If it is proper roleplay those are all proper methods.
Locked