Midori

Sorry for the wait. The room is up now. Block 1 S>Glide 15pd My character name is Kouchan.

@Larva The reason people like me play solo is because we want items, and solo is far superior for items. But that doesn't mean that we can't also want to play multiplayer. We want to be able to play multiplayer and also get items. We want both of these at the same time. Why are you OK with an online game that heavily favors solo? How can you not see that as a major problem? Most players agree with me and want to play multiplayer and still be able to find items at a comparable rate to solo. We are upset that solo is so far and away superior to multiplayer, and would like to see this problem reduced as much as possible. This game should encourage people to play together, not discourage it! The current game does not work better for most players. Most players care about items, and once they understand how the game works, they will usually be off soloing in a locked room or maybe occasionally playing with 1 or 2 close friends in a locked room. The only people who argue against us are the ones who refuse to acknowledge that most players care about finding items or they don't understand how the math works when comparing solo to multiplayer. If multiplayer was already worth playing for items, you would be able to explain why using math. But that's impossible since the math isn't on your side. If the DAR for the new drop system was 100% or close to it, it wouldn't mean 4x more drops for the server. You are making the mistake of comparing multiplayer to multiplayer. A proper comparison would be solo to multiplayer. If 4 players solo and it takes them 60 mins to find an item, then 4 of the items drop for the server in total. If multiplayer was worth doing, these 4 players would play together in the same room, and after about 60 mins, all 4 players would find the item, so 4 of the items would drop for the server. 4 items = 4 items. If we make multiplayer worth playing, and due to many players helping others, people clearing quests faster and items end up dropping a bit too often for the game's economy, the solution would be to make the rare item drop rates harder, not to punish players from working together. If your solution for anything is to discourage people from playing together, you should probably figure out a better solution. Also, if you care about this server growing, you would do what you can to improve the game and please the players. As you should already know, there are several other PSO private servers out there, so the better Ultima can become, the better chance it will pull away players from other servers. If this server encouraged multiplayer, that would be a big deal and it would be sure to bring in many new players, along with convincing some old players to return. New players join this server every day but most of them end up quitting after a short time. If the game encouraged multiplayer, it would go a long way in helping to keep them playing. More players means more donations, which means more money for you to keep maintaining and improving the game. It's very much win/win.

Auroboro, that's right. If you go back and read my previous posts about it, I said stuff like "capable of soloing" when doing the comparisons. Of course if someone simple cannot solo a quest, they could benefit from having stronger players carry them through, and in that case multiplayer would have a benefit to them, since something is better than nothing. Basically it comes down to this: If you can solo, you should solo. If you can't solo, then you would have to settle for multiplayer. Many players who are capable of soloing would like to be able to play multiplayer without having the game punish them for it, with less items.

I know that not everyone is lv 200 with good gear. Solo is better than multiplayer in general, not just for the best players. You don't need to solo with 6 accounts for solo to be better. Just using one account and running a quest like normal is far superior to multiplayer as well. Let's take 4 average PSO players. They are fairly weak so it takes them 60 minutes to solo a quest that someone like me could solo in 20 minutes. Are these 4 average players better off soloing or working together? Let's run the numbers and see. Look at it from an individual perspective. 60 mins to solo and you get all of the items or 40 mins to play with the others, but you only get 1/4 the number of items compared to soloing. Clearing the quest 33% faster is nice but since you only get 25% of the items, if you look at the big picture, you are getting far less items overall. There is currently a massive gap between solo and multiplayer for items and it affects all players. You can make the argument that a weak player could potentially benefit if a much stronger player carries them quickly through a difficult quest, and you would be right. But there is no benefit for the strong player to do so. Maybe if multiplayer was worth doing for that strong player, they would be more willing to help out the weaker player. I don't think it's crazy to suggest that the game shouldn't punish a strong player from wanting to help a weak player.

I can sell you a Glide Divine for 15 PDs or 3 DTs.

Larva, please go back and read my posts here. Either I didn't do a good enough job explaining it or you didn't understand. If you need me to clarify something better afterward, I will do it.

You are comparing multiplayer to multiplayer. Everyone else is comparing solo to multiplayer. There is an important difference. We don't want items to drop like candy. We want to be able to find items from multiplayer at the same rate or slightly better than we can find items from solo. Again to clarify, we are comparing item drops between solo and multiplayer. If it takes us 60 minutes to find item X solo, we think it should take us around 60 minutes or less to find item X from multiplayer. If you want to contribute to this discussion, it would be helpful if you understand the topic at hand. Thanks.

@Virec Just because some of the ideas I suggested to restrict multi account abuse aren't 100% guaranteed to stop any and all multi account abuse, doesn't mean they can't make a difference in reducing the problem, or that we should give up on the idea altogether. Like I said before, currently it is far too easy to use and control 6 accounts at once. If players had to use 6 PCs and go out of their way to configure a single controller to work for all PCs at once, some people would be deterred by those hurdles and give up on the idea, myself included. Either way, let's continue to work on fixing problems and improving the game. The important thing is that we agree that one person exploiting item drops with multi accounts is a problem, and we share the desire to reduce the problem.

Food for thought. For anyone who thinks it is bad for an online game like this to favor multiplayer, or you think it is bad to have decent balance between solo and multiplayer, you need to ask yourself why it's good for an online game to heavily favor solo. And something else strange that I noticed from reading a few thoughts on this topic. If people working together and finding rare items more quickly is a bad thing for the game's economy, maybe instead of punishing those players who work together, a better solution would be to make the drop rates harder for rare items. An online multiplayer game that encourages teamwork should be viewed as a crucial goal to achieve, rather than a harmful thing that deserves punishment.

OK, so this new drop system solves the problem of calling dibs on items/item ninjas. That's nice and all but why would a capable player who understands math, play multiplayer in the first place? In order for us to take advantage of the item ninja problem being solved, multiplayer needs to be worth playing. Let's fix this! We currently have two problems when it comes to items. Problem: The item balance between solo and multiplayer is way off. Solo is far superior to multiplayer because you get more items in less time. In other words, if you want items, and you are capable of soloing, you will generally get items between 3x to 4x faster by soloing. If you have additional members in your party, regardless of which drop system you use, it means less items for you. With 4 players, on average, each player will only get 1/4 of the items, compared to solo. If you want items, and you are capable of soloing, there is basically no reason to play multiplayer. Solution: Better item balance between solo and multiplayer. We need a drop system that will give each player their own item, and at a decent enough rate. The goal should be a game that favors multiplayer, or at least a game where you can find items at roughly the same rate regardless of how many players are in your party. Ideally, the DAR would remain the same no matter how many players are in the party, which would mean that the game actually slightly favors multiplayer. But if the idea of an online game favoring multiplayer is crazy for some strange reason, assuming that each additional party member will speed up the quest clear time slightly, a slight DAR reduction could make sense. If it takes 60 minutes to get item X solo, it should take 60 minutes or less to get item X with 4 players. Adjust the numbers as needed to get the best balance. Problem: One person using multiple accounts to get items faster. This problem has always existed and will continue to exist regardless of how the new drop system works, but it could potentially be worse if we let players quad box with a multiplayer friendly drop system to get items faster. New accounts are free, you can run multiple clients on the same PC, and one controller will control every client. All of these reasons make it extremely easy to exploit the game and get items way faster than normal. I've solo'd with 6 accounts myself and I can get 90 Luck mats or 12 Glide Divines in 1 HH. Solution: Restrict one person from using multiple accounts to get items faster. One way or another, this needs to happen. Maybe it can be done through software, by reducing the number of accounts allowed to connect at once from 6 to 1 or 2, or disable support for multiple clients on the same PC. Or we can just have a written rule that says something like "One person cannot use more than one (or maybe two) accounts at the same time to get items faster", which means players could still use multiple accounts for things like item transfers or visiting a different lobby. If we allow two accounts, people could still use it for things like section ID and buffs, but more importantly, there would be room in the party for other players, so true multiplayer would still be possible. Personally speaking, until these problems are addressed, I will continue to solo with anywhere from 1 to 6 accounts, because that's the best way to play the game based on its own rules. I do this because I want to be strong/good at the game, not because I enjoy it. I actually prefer to play with other people, because multiplayer is much more fun and interesting to me. Please fix these problems so players like me can enjoy playing multiplayer and still feel like we are playing the game in an efficient way. Thank you.

OK. I'll just go Redria then, since we know it drops for that ID this year. Thanks for the hints.

I did. And that's why I thought it dropped for those 3 IDs.

What does this mean? I didn't fully understand your last post either.

Are you saying that it does not drop for Viridia? I will switch to Oran then. Thanks, Cyane.

Are the drop rates the same for Soul Booster on all the IDs (Redria, Oran, Viridia)? I've been killing Gibbles almost nonstop on Viridia for a couple of days now and Soul Booster still hasn't dropped. I've gotten 3 Photon Drops from Gibbles so far.

http://www.phantasystaronline.net/forum/index.php?/announcement/13-item-list-donations/ Not according to this. It still says they cost 10 DTs.

HH just started