New RR Drop.

[harospex]

i know I'm just playing but seriously though I feel we should just let everybody keep the RRs and not change the drop rate either. The price won't crash that hard. It will maybe be like 40 pds for a min one, but max will still retain their value.

[Armando]

yeah out of the 7 rrs i got all were min so i doubt anybody got a high stat

[kajex]

Kom there is no conspiracy theory. An accident happened. This seemed like an easy fix that wouldn't piss off the people who farmed them. It sounds like most were given to team members who really needed them, so the change still benefits newer players. The rate won't stay at a hard drop forever. There was no solution that would make everyone happy. I mistakenly thought people would appreciate keeping their items. Next time, we'll take them back and a similar bitching topic will probably still appear.

[ALPIIINE]

This hurts. Just when I make my new character with Whittil ID, this happens. Those who did not exploit this mistaken drop are the ones that are being affected most.

[Armando]

Kom there is no conspiracy theory. An accident happened. This seemed like an easy fix that wouldn't piss off the people who farmed them. It sounds like most were given to team members who really needed them, so the change still benefits newer players. The rate won't stay at a hard drop forever. There was no solution that would make everyone happy. I mistakenly thought people would appreciate keeping their items. Next time, we'll take them back and a similar bitching topic will probably still appear.

the people who have them are not bitching what so ever trust me its mostly the people who couldnt farm them lol

Edited April 8, 2014 by Armando

[Fyrewolf5]

the people who have them are not bitching what so ever trust me its mostly the people who couldnt farm them lol

Of course the people that have them wouldn't be the ones bitching, because they actually have them. After I saw the forum saying it dropped I thought it was a nice gesture for the event to have it available somewhere, and I did a good number of runs before it dropped, but seeing the number of banners come up became increasingly disturbing, and it slowly became obvious something was seriously wrong. I got 2 from my dozen runs and I'm more than willing to give them back.

For everyone else though it will be absolutely and completely unfeasible to get them at all. I can tell from firsthand experience that I busted my ass trying to farm master sword and sonicteam armor. I had a lot of free time then and I got very obsessed with getting master sword. I was farming master sword for 8+ hours a day every single day, doing 500+ runs total and I got one, ONE!!!!!, master sword. Raising the rate to 1/300 is absolutely LUDICROUS!!!, and you know it Kajex. However temporary it may be, it means that 99% of the server won't even have the time, let alone the ability to farm it at all. The idea that at least some those that were farmed were given to teammates who need them mitigating the damage a tiny bit is poor justification for keeping them and raising the rates to "compensate", first off it's still only a handful of people benefiting compared to those who are being hurt by this, and if they are using those red rings then those aren't being sold and not really influencing the economic price. Those who did randomly happen to be on in the very short time it was on got a dump of ridiculously easy rr for huge benefit, but for the vast majority of the server raising the rate that high is an enormous "Forget. You. You. Will. Never. Get. Red. Ring. During. This. Time" to all of the Ultima Server. It's such a giant middle finger from Ultima, that I'd almost seriously consider saying that the best advice I could give a new player to the server would be to "go play another game", it's that bad.

Is the best solution really to give absolute total indemnity to the very lucky people who were on to knowingly Exploit a faulty drop for massive benefit, and punish the innocent majority of the server as compensation? This really cannot be the way to go. I'll give those two back in a heartbeat so that all of Ultima doesn't have to suffer.

Edited June 27, 2014 by kajex

[kajex]

You really think there is a simple way to track down ALL of the red rings that dropped? Min red rings are a generic hex code. Even if we identify who found them, deleting all red rings that dropped to Armando, for example, would likely remove all of his personal red rings, not the ones that he recently found. Many of the red rings people found have been distributed or traded to other users. Armando, who spent hours hunting would have no red rings and be forced to go back to his team members to recover the red rings if they have not already been traded away. I use Armando as an example only because he participated in this exploit. Many other "Armandos" would suffer the same consequence by a mass deletion of red rings.

I'm sure chuk/choko/lee could come up with a solution, but it would likely take hours of time to "solve" the problem, but it would just end up pissing off another group of people (causing an equally frustrated number of users to complain). Even if we let users keep the drops and left the old rate alone, I also have been getting hate mail from people whose trades were hurt in value by the sudden influx of red rings. Speaking of which, stop sending me PMs just to whine.

I'm not sure why everyone is freaking out. Are you really going to be hunting red ring over limited-time event drops? Like are you really going to be hunting red ring which drops year round over hundred souls (one-time drop) or proof of sonic team (limited time drop)? Saith, be constructive. You have not provided any working solutions, yet are willing to criticize. This is somewhat of a recurring pattern (complaints with proof of sonic team, psycho bridge, etc). The only simple fix would be to locate a time machine to prevent the drop screw up.

Any more pointless ranting and I'm locking this topic.

[Armando]

i actualy only did it for 30 minutes broski

[kom]

I'm sure chuk/choko/lee could come up with a solution, but it would likely take hours of time to "solve" the problem, but it would just end up pissing off another group of people (causing an equally frustrated number of users to complain). Even if we let users keep the drops and left the old rate alone, I also have been getting hate mail from people whose trades were hurt in value by the sudden influx of red rings. Speaking of which, stop sending me PMs just to whine.

I'm not sure why everyone is freaking out. Are you really going to be hunting red ring over limited-time event drops? Like are you really going to be hunting red ring which drops year round over hundred souls (one-time drop) or proof of sonic team (limited time drop)? Saith, be constructive. You have not provided any working solutions, yet are willing to criticize. This is somewhat of a recurring pattern (complaints with proof of sonic team, psycho bridge, etc). The only simple fix would be to locate a time machine to prevent the drop screw up.

Any more pointless ranting and I'm locking this topic.

I fail to see how a minor drop in price due to a small influx is worse than a major increase in price due to making them unobtainable except through donating. If you justify letting people keep them by saying they were given to people in need, then you are implying they won't be sold off, therefore no deals are ruined and the price won't change. It's also depressing that you value what some idiot is sending you in "hate mail" over what the vast majority of the communities feeling on the matter is. I fail to see how people opinions are "pointless ranting", people are posting valid arguments and "working solutions" such as suggesting to leave the drop rate so the majority of the server remains unaffected by your mistake, while the minority of people might lose 10 PD's in a trade. People are "freaking out" because they have made Whitill to specifically hunt RR, or still need a RR, they have done nothing wrong or against the rules and are being punished. Not everyone wants the Easter items and at the moment the drops are so obscure no ones going to find any until the location is revealed.

[kajex]

Putting words in bold just emphasizes that you are ranting.

[Fyrewolf5]

You really think there is a simple way to track down ALL of the red rings that dropped? Min red rings are a generic hex code. Even if we identify who found them, deleting all red rings that dropped to Armando, for example, would likely remove all of his personal red rings, not the ones that he recently found. Many of the red rings people found have been distributed or traded to other users. Armando, who spent hours hunting would have no red rings and be forced to go back to his team members to recover the red rings if they have not already been traded away. I use Armando as an example only because he participated in this exploit. Many other "Armandos" would suffer the same consequence by a mass deletion of red rings.

I'm sure chuk/choko/lee could come up with a solution, but it would likely take hours of time to "solve" the problem, but it would just end up pissing off another group of people (causing an equally frustrated number of users to complain). Even if we let users keep the drops and left the old rate alone, I also have been getting hate mail from people whose trades were hurt in value by the sudden influx of red rings. Speaking of which, stop sending me PMs just to whine.

I'm not sure why everyone is freaking out. Are you really going to be hunting red ring over limited-time event drops? Like are you really going to be hunting red ring which drops year round over hundred souls (one-time drop) or proof of sonic team (limited time drop)? Saith, be constructive. You have not provided any working solutions, yet are willing to criticize. This is somewhat of a recurring pattern (complaints with proof of sonic team, psycho bridge, etc). The only simple fix would be to locate a time machine to prevent the drop screw up.

Any more pointless ranting and I'm locking this topic.

The issue isn't to find a solution that magically makes everyone happy and doesn't piss someone off. The issue is what's best for Ultima, not what makes people happy. The proper solution would have been to immediately announce that this was a mistake of a drop and there would be a rollback (if the issue is bad enough raising the rate is warranted, then a rollback is easily justifiable) of a few hours to undo the damage, but that time has already passed and gone. But to simply raise the rate is a half-assed and downright lazy solution that is detrimental to the majority of Ultima.

Gathering up the red rings would take effort of course, just like any solution would, and certainly a handful of them were given to team members, but it's far superior alternative to raising the rate. And that is actually a point to note that it is a only a handful of people that got them, it wasn't 30 different people getting 30 red rings, but 6-7 getting 10 of them, even if some were given to teammates, and the logs are there to know at least know how many dropped to which people. Letting the price depreciate a bit is also much better solution. Red Ring was unobtainable for a good while with the anniversary and christmas events, and it is about to virtually unobtainable again for an unknown period of time if it goes up to that level of rate. Is the influx of red rings actually going to affect the price of the item in trade value that steeply, and if so will raising the rate that high actually counteract that relatively equally? Is removing them a better counteraction or is it entirely too difficult to be feasible? There is no simple solution to the problem, but perhaps price fluctuations aren't even going to be affected hugely enough to matter if most people hold on to them; Red Rings will always be a sought after and valuable item on this server regardless because of the buffed monsters in ultimate. Besides the solutions already talked about in the thread, perhaps I can add another suggestion of maybe using red rings somehow in some kind of small event as a way to counteract the inflation, if that's even needed, although I'm not entirely sure what sort of thing is worth enough to lose a red ring for without being too good a deal for those half dozen people that did hunt red rings. Perhaps they could be used up in some other way than giving to gms just to destroy (give up red ring to trade in Claire's Deal for some new item? to add %s to weapon? to add special to weapon? to get normally unobtainable weapon? to allow that character permanent access to TTF Ultima quest? to access Prestige mode / other Prestige mode extra? to allow x3 experience all the way to 200?). Again I have to ask though, Is the best solution really to just raise the rate, giving absolute total indemnity to the very lucky people who were on to knowingly exploit a faulty drop for massive benefit, and punishing the innocent majority of the server as compensation?

Sure people want to hunt Hundred Souls and Proof of Sonic Team, but some of the other items are kinda specific (godric cloak, sue's coat, some of the egg rappy drops including commander blade, marina's bag, heavenly technique). For many people hunting an essential item they will need to deal with the buffed ultimate monsters is preferable to groping blindly in the dark for an item they're not even sure will drop on their section id let alone be the item that their class might want. And as for me? I actually might also prefer hunting rr occasionally as well, plenty of people on my team still need it and i'm still going to have to spend a lot more time, I could probably be far more productive hunting rr for my team than flailing about selfishly looking for 100 souls or sue's coat. Not to say I don't want the event items, I most certainly do, but the incentive to hunt the event items early on in the event is pretty low, whereas rr is something of immense actually useful value for all of my teammates without one.

I also somewhat resent that you bring up psycho bridge and proof of sonic team. I have been critical of those things in the past, but I also have been clear that the issue with force damage lies in resistances (solution: resistance tweeks. -5 eic/eth/elt here and there, +3-5 efr here and there, maybe a few switches in weakness, possibly looking into simple tech things [ignition/tempest/congeal cloak? elemental rods? not sure about this yet]); and that if you make a combination item the only sensible way to do it is to release the item after (or at the same time) as the combination becomes active, rather than having a useless item nobody keeps because it's released before the combination, that then skyrockets in value from a worthless nothing item to most sought after item in the game because you go the other way around and release the item before you make the combination active.

Also for everyone out there, Please Don't send Kajex hate mail or nasty pms. He made an honest mistake without a simple solution, but he is a great guy who has done a ton to make Ultima as awesome of a place as it is, and I'm sure he'll continue to make it even awesomer in the future, and he doesn't deserve that kind of treatment for it.

[kajex]

Perhaps they could be used up in some other way than giving to gms just to destroy (give up red ring to trade in Claire's Deal for some new item? to add %s to weapon?

There, Kom. That's what I'm talking about. Proposed ideas. That's an interesting suggestion. The only problem is, of course, the people who exploited the situation to begin with would be rewarded with something they shouldn't have gotten in the first place. Either that, or only "rich" players could participate. Either way, people will bite my head off and create more topics like this one.

But to simply raise the rate is a half-assed and downright lazy solution that is detrimental to the majority of Ultima.

To be clear regarding the "half assed" comment, Armando was being a drama queen and saying if we rolled back the drops to remove the red rings, he would stop donating to the server. Personally, I'd rather be down a drama queen. Other users were saying if we rolled back the server, they would lose hundreds of materials. Being "half assed" was of the least consequence to users who were working hard hunting for the event. The rollback method was never a viable option, as it would punish the 70+ users who were online the day the event launched.. Way too many items dropped (besides red ring) since rare monsters and easter eggs were active, and it would have screwed over too many people. Recommending things that should have been done are irrelevant at this point.

The drop rate isn't entirely set in stone (nor do I think the rate actually has been altered at all yet). We'll discuss it further. Way too many complaints in here to be productive discussion. For future reference, I'm happy to listen to constructive and creative solutions. I'm not willing to listen to ranting.

The server is not run off of mob mentality. There weren't many solutions to read through aside from the one proposal by saith and a funny common sense lesson from king ra and cyane. Until there has been staff consensus on the matter, I'm locking this.

[Choko]

Not to stir up contention or anything, but if you use the argument of the event as a distraction of not noticing the rate increase, maybe you could release the section IDs of each of the drops for now.

[chuk]

The reason why I'm not very fond of this solution is because it's punishing the whole server like said before.

People who just had a good grab on those RR's won't even feel this as a 'punishment' as they got enough of them anyway.

If we leave the RR's where they are there will be a dip in price for those items but even without altering the droprate, the market will restore itself after a while, it's the same with event items.

At a certain moment there are a lot, then they don't drop and get rarer and rarer because of people holding on to them or quitting. The same will happen to the RR's.

The rings that dropped were being logged so we could trace back the people who had them. Taking (most of) them back would be hassle but be the most fair solution to this issue.

Either way, whichever decision we take, there will always be people who aren't satisfied with the solution. I just want to emphasis the word 'mistake' in this whole matter, yes a mistake has been made by the staff, but a Dutch saying goes like : "Wie niets doet, doet niets verkeerd" which means that he who does nothing will not make any mistakes.

Edited April 8, 2014 by chuk

[Lee]

I unlocked the topic. Not for drama but to show the extent of the issue.

[04-06-2014, 08:11] 42098133 (pan) Found 01022700,00000200,08000000
[04-06-2014, 08:33] 42103310 (LionHeart) Found 01022700,00000600,06000000
[04-06-2014, 08:47] 42113442 (under9000) Found 01022700,00002E00,18000000
[04-06-2014, 08:53] 42103310 (LionHeart) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 08:53] 42113442 (under9000) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 09:47] 42097431 (Kira v11) Found 01022700,00000E00,0C000000
[04-06-2014, 09:58] 42103310 (LionHeart) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:12] 42009203 (FaTbOy) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:17] 42095825 (Dark Curs) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:29] 42102085 (-Saith ) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:31] 42112252 (Armando ) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:39] 42097431 (Kira v11) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:41] 42009203 (FaTbOy) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:43] 42113922 (HYK4R0) Found 01022700,00004900,17000000
[04-06-2014, 10:45] 42112527 (BigBoss) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:51] 42095825 (Dark Curs) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:52] 42113402 (Armando  ) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:52] 42110221 (Cervantes) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:53] 42095825 (Dark Curs) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:54] 42110045 (MASSRICO ) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:57] 42009203 (FaTbOy) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 10:58] 42092609 (Kata) Found 01022700,00000C00,05000000
[04-06-2014, 10:59] 42110045 (MASSRICO ) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:02] 42113922 (HYK4R0) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:02] 42113922 (HYK4R0) Found 01022700,00003800,0A000000
[04-06-2014, 11:05] 42113442 (under9000) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:06] 42097431 (Kira v11) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:09] 42112527 (BigBoss) Found 01022700,00002B00,0E000000
[04-06-2014, 11:11] 42092609 (Kata) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:12] 42114057 (Baja.) Found 01022700,00000700,14000000
[04-06-2014, 11:13] 42014036 (Max.) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:15] 42011296 (dooby) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:20] 42009203 (FaTbOy) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:21] 42112252 (Armando ) Found 01022700,00001B00,19000000
[04-06-2014, 11:22] 42009203 (FaTbOy) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:23] 42091137 (Makina) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:28] 42112252 (Armando ) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:28] 42110045 (MASSRICO ) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:29] 42102085 (-Saith ) Found 01022700,00000600,0D000000
[04-06-2014, 11:30] 42110045 (MASSRICO ) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:31] 42112252 (Armando ) Found 01022700,00000000,00000000
[04-06-2014, 11:31] 42102383 (Maya) Found 01022700,00005200,15000000

43 red rings found that i could ascertain from the logs.

I'll do a deal with you, if all 43 are returned or are found then the rate can go back to normal.